> I've had periods of years in my life where I didn't have to think about money. After a short period of faffing off, I started doing all sorts of stuff. Some of it of direct value to society (volunteering) and some of it perhaps indirectly so (teaching myself new skills, working on 'products' that could be useful). I mean, even just spending time with others who themselves had it in short supply and valued my company could be considered 'useful to society'.
Do those activities generate enough money, so that government collects enough taxes from you, to cover your UBI + all the other costs (roads, schools,...)? If not, you're still a net burden on society.
> People want to be useful. People want to be valued and needed. People want to be creative.
Of course people want to be useful and creative. But peoples usefullness and creativeness has to create atlest 2xUBI of taxes (one that goes back to the worker and one that goes to someone who get UBI but doesnt work) + all the other costs.
If you're capable of doing stuff you like, being creative, liking that work, and creating that much income, why are you not doing it now?
> I consider it quite possible, or at least worth properly exploring, a society that provides in the basic needs regardless of whether you do pointless work for pointless company to allow you to spend your downtime on pointless consumption and entertainment (because no energy for anything else).
Problem with this society is, that it also requires people who are working, to cover the cost of the poeple who are not working. Curretnly most countries do that for a very small percentage of unemployed (welfare), and most people in those countries are already complaining about the high taxes. If you raise the taxes on the people left working, and let others live relatively normal lives without working, you'll get less and less of the former and more of the later. Yes, non-workers will create music, art, will travel, write blogs, etc., but none of that generates enough income to cover even their own cost.