UBI is the future if we are allowed peace.

WW3 in an apocalyptic scale is much more likely. Don’t need to feed the obsolete peasants if they’re all dead.

If we replaced all of our current welfare systems with a simple UBI, it would save us money. In terms of running the system, and simplifying taxes. Don’t need to take 5 different taxes out of your paycheck, just one. Earn over a certain amount? You don’t get it. The majority of people won’t, because they’ll be earning enough to pay in but not collect. This would have to be done alongside universal healthcare, as tying healthcare to employment wouldn’t work much anymore, which would also save us a massive amount of money.

The result of which, is an absolute explosion of creative genius and new businesses. People no longer hindered by the threat of starving in the street, or losing their healthcare, would finally be able to start that business they always wanted to. They’d be able to create their long-overdue masterpiece. Literature, art, new inventions. There’s a guy out there right now that, if given the space and a bit of assistance, could create the first prototype of a warp drive. There’s someone else who has a pretty good idea about how to cure dementia, and halt the aging process.

Just imagine the possibilities of actually investing in our people, and in our society, instead of handing all of our money to billionaires, and letting those evil mentally handicapped fuckwits steer the course of humanity straight into a climate change-driven mass-extinction event.

Just Imagine.

UBI to me is a leftist pipe dream of how a post-scarcity society could work. When you actually look at the financials and how greedy humanity is, it all falls apart and will either bankrupt entire nations or pay an absolute pittance.

The UK’s voluntary living wage is £13.45 an hour, which translates to £26,227.50 for someone working full time 37.5 hours a week. If we replaced our entire welfare system (state pensions, Universal Credit, child benefit, Personal Independence Payments, Disability Living Allowance, etc) and paid our approx 58.1 million population of working age people and retirees the living wage, it would cost us over £1.5 trillion, or roughly half our annual GDP. Our current welfare expenditure by comparison is at an estimated £333.7 billion.

I am using the Living Wage as a comparison since it’s an agreed metric calculated by a non-profit organisation for how much a worker would need to earn to live on their wage in the UK. To pay a living wage to every adult in the country we would need to spend nearly three times as much as what the USA spends on its military.

The question then becomes “How the fuck will we pay for it?” We can’t even get the rich to pay their fair share of tax as things stand. They are going to flat-out refuse to foot the bill once AI leads to mass unemployment.

What I think is a more likely scenario is societal collapse. People starve, leading to widespread civil unrest and then a brutal and violent crackdown, made easier than ever by armed drones and humanoid robots that have no sense of morals. This is exactly the kind of doomsday scenario that a lot of billionaires are prepping for.

The only way I can see humanity not ripping itself apart is if automation somehow makes the cost of living so cheap that UBI could viably exist.

Would be nice but the wealthy won’t allow it. You can trace back to when the wealth/power inequality ramped up and those with the power will never let it go, and worse with their propaganda on all the socials most scroll mindlessly. The same methods to keep people going along with the flow was used way back then and still today. Keep people in low-level thinking, don’t question, just obey supernatural explanations, Perry’s scheme 1-3 of 9, they use all the neurological tricks like fear, reward, belonging, etc so people comply and conform, just what the owners and those who also benefit from the high-control systems want.

I think we already have a rudimentary form of UBI in the debt system. You’re born with a certain level of creditworthiness, which you can “spend” on getting credit.

No. Total war is our future. Then maybe, but we won’t be alive by then

Yes, but not in the way we envision it.

Wealth inequality will increase. Drastically. There will be a small group of people owning basically everything. But they still need cheap labor and subjects, plus someone needs to consume their products. Because jobs will be limited UBI will be implemented: as a baseline to keep us alive, not as a tool for general prosperity.

Watch “Elysium” how this bleak world may look. It’s not a great movie, but has that “everyone but a few people is super fucked”-theme locked down.

Yes, but only because your question implies there is a future for humanity, and I believe UBI is realistically one of the few ways humanity even gets a future

It should but it won’t.

No because corps and oligarchs will campaign against it, inexplicably win, and destroy one of the country’s greatest achievements with cheers and applause

Its cynical, but its happened to many social programs thay way.

UBI will only come as a response to a new economic depression. The idea that our society will proactively fix itself has been proven wrong time after time.

Humans only learn the hard way.

Probably, unless we backslide into Dune-esque feudalism, destroy ourselves, or both.

What we have right now is “democracy and equality before the law, but also your wealth at birth determines your access to everything”. That seems more like a transition state, and less like a stable and self-perpetuating way of organising things. Plus, gen Z is eventually going to generate world leaders of it’s own, and within that group, the basic idea of abolishing class is already really popular.

A different kind of program could do the same job of keeping people from falling off the bottom of the wealth spectrum. But, UBI is simple and thorough and beloved by policy wonks everywhere. It’s not going to be whatever ill-defined USSR imitation thing Lemmy would prefer, for a number of reasons, starting with it’s just so ill-defined.

but given the layoffs happening and massive amount of unemployment

Since we’re talking about the world, it’s worth pointing out that’s mainly the US. Canada has been doing fine (obviously things are going to be rockier ahead). The rest of the world is going to be a mixed bag, but at the very least Ukraine isn’t going to have a shortage of empty positions.

UBI is 100% populist idea. It replaces targeted welfare directed at people who need it with universal one - which is a massive waste of money, and extremly unfair to the working class as it has to be financed with massive taxation.

Funny how Marxists love talking about working class being exploited just to nonchalantly drop UBI around.

IMO Universal Basic Income the second worst idea after so called “Modern Monetary Theory”

Nope it’s not.

Look, most of the taxes are paid by the people, do you think the billionaires are gonna spare a dime? Where UBI is needed, there’s most likely an entire population of working class that’s not generating any tax revenue, and is a net negative for the government. And tax money isn’t just meant to be distributed to the people, it’s for also maintaining infrastructure and building new ones. You realise how much of burden would UBI be on the government? Do you think they can still maintain roads and fund libraries/universities if most of their treasury is being spent on paying people an income?

I don’t think UBI is practical at all. Ground reality is, even governments have finite resources. We genuinely need better plans than just relying on UBI as solution.

No, not without sacrificing a welfare program or something else.

Because it’ll be a hard sell to have UBI on top of WIC, SNAP, SSI, Unemployment and other welfare. Something would have to go.