• intensely_human@lemm.ee
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    7 months ago

    The entire concept of a scientific study to determine whether people spend this money wisely is bunk, because it’s nobody else’s business how a person’s money gets spent and whether it’s categorized as “wise”.

    If we assume that there is an objective, ie scientifically valid, definition of “wise spending”, then we should just go centrally planned communism because the whole point of free markets is allowing people to enact their own value structure in their spending.

    The whole idea of basic income, as opposed to all these other services, is based on the same idea: that people’s money is their own.

    This study seems nice, but it frames this whole question the wrong way. The whole concept of money is that people have a right to make their own economic choices, regardless of what some centralized authority thinks is “wise”.

    • szczuroarturo@programming.dev
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      7 months ago

      That’s not true. There is a wise spending. Or to be more correct there is a foolish spending. Gambling your money away for example is f* stupid.

      • ItsMeSpez@lemmy.world
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        7 months ago

        The point is that the government really shouldn’t have any say in which is which. I agree with you that gambling all your money away is a poor financial choice, but that doesn’t mean that I think we should ban gambling, because many people enjoy it responsibly. Teaching people financial literacy, and treating addictions is the solution, not policing how people use their UBI.

        • intensely_human@lemm.ee
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          7 months ago

          but that doesn’t mean that I think we should ban gambling, because many people enjoy it responsibly

          More like because it’s an adult human’s right to be free. That is the point. Responsibly, irresponsibly, these are secondary concepts.

      • KillingTimeItself@lemmy.dbzer0.com
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        7 months ago

        now let’s say you heavily tax gambling at a state level. Suddenly you get more tax kickback from that UBI even though nothing particularly effective was done with it.

        I mean, theoretically, gambling itself, as a tax revenue source is actually pretty good. It’s money going to a good cause, even though technically wasted.

    • KillingTimeItself@lemmy.dbzer0.com
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      7 months ago

      i actually think in the concept of distributing tax money as UBI, that this is actually a very valid point.

      It doesn’t matter how it’s spent, you can spend it on a fucking 5 thousand dollar bottle of wine, or you could spend it on food because you are broke as fuck. It makes no difference to either party, that money is still spent and utilized in the economy.

      Where that money goes after however? Now that’s a different story, go ask bezos.

    • PresidentCamacho@lemm.ee
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      7 months ago

      The entire concept of a scientific study to determine whether people spend this money wisely is bunk

      For anything like this to actually happen people will have to vote for it.

      1st you are incorrect because this wont happen if the people arnt educated on what happens when this system is introduced.

      2nd Your correct because you can do all the studies in the world and gen pop would still be too easily manipulated to ever try something out of the box like this.

    • Voran@lemmy.world
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      7 months ago

      Unsure I agree with this. I agree it’s not black and white but for example if someone spent it on drinking binges or gambling is that really just their business? The money could have gone to something else.

      • CileTheSane@lemmy.ca
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        7 months ago

        The cost of the adminstration to make sure no one spends it driving and gambling is more expensive than the money that would be lost drinking and gambling.

        If you do away with the adminstration you can spend that money helping more people who need it. If someone wants to waste that money not helping themselves that is their choice, more people still get helped with the same amount of cost.