A universal income is not such a silly idea

True, but it's a higher standard than what we have now.

"assumption that poor people are lazy". Not only poor people are lazy, all people are lazy. People can overcome the laziness only when there are incentives for them to do so: food, housing, sex, fame, vanity. When you take out the basic incentives by providing them for free, laziness will prevail for most people.

It is easy to see that the redistribution of wealth throughout all of society is a noble goal. This becomes clear as we approach a point in our evolution where we start to automate the collection and processing of resources.

We're all part of this giant machine of modernity. If everyone can feel the benefits of it, and I mean everyone on the whole planet, then we can start to really feel good about what we're building and how we're gonna compromise all of our own individual pursuits and dreams with all of those people around us.

The truth of the matter is that we've all been in this big global machine the whole time. Cultural interchange on a global scale is nothing new, only the speed at which it happens is changing. Pretending that the resources gathered through the skills of just one man somehow doesn't affect the rest of humanity is very short sighted, especially in our modern world.

The ability to extract and accumulate resources is amplified loudly by the existing machinery. Facebook is just an aberrate growth on the top of a very large system that is fueled by the blood, sweat and tears of billions of people living now and extending back in time to the dawn of recorded history.

This has been known to the modern world for some time. We've built systems that we call social democracy, liberalism, communism and fascism with a lot of these tenants in mind. And we argue about the merits of each, and the merits of other systems, and we pontificate about the expected outcomes of imaginary systems or invent new versions of incomplete readings of the past, and we get lost in an endless maze of rhetoric.

There is danger merely in the act of having faith in manmade systems like politics, economics and technotronics. There isn't a point to nor a way to quantify and classify everything under the sun. We can't ever know how these things will work out.

We need to make sure that our faith is actually in the people around us. We need to have faith that the vast majority of people have a good heart and able hands, and they also have just as big of an itch to create, discover, and explore the world. We need to carry that understanding with us everyday and in all walks of our lives and stop pretending like "playing the game" is in any way nobel or worthy of anything other than meaningless excess.

And yeah, Silicon Valley and the cracker jack crew of Hacker News users, I'm talking right to you.

What if goods are produced by automation and where we cannot automate we have people that want to work. What kind of task would you give to all the other people?

Edit: I am alluding to the fact that we are way past full employment.

Ok, what if:

1. The person is already at normal BMI

2. Not smoking, no drugs, and no drinking

3. Doesn't drive

4. Not fit to adopt kids (not everybody is fit and we should never make this an incentive to get money. We had many horror stories of froster parents gaming the system to earn more money while neglecting kids). The best way to do this is to limit to 2-3 kids and pay based on the grades, not just because they have a kid.

5. Already took college classes or even graduated but there's not enough jobs in the field. This is one of the biggest problems we have in USA, a lot of high-class graduates but many of them just end up doing jobs that are not related to their majors because there's not enough jobs or the wages aren't enough.

By your logic, this person would be earning far less than the person who is fat, an alcoholic, adopted several kids, and just taking some boring classes that usually might not lead them to anything.

In fact, the main reason I'd support basic income is that it'd lead to people doing more for society than LogicialBorg's idea.

Why?

1. Mothers don't have to work two jobs to support their kids, they can actually spend more time home with their kids. Which would actually benefits our future, led by kids in stable homes. (over-simplication but this is one of the potential benefits).

2. Folks who can't do art projects, read or anything that'd improve their artistic side because they don't have the time or money to do so, would actually be able to do this with the basic income. They're not so stressed about making ends meet.

3. There are many folks where staying idle just upset them more, so they'd go out and do something useful and not have to worry about money to do it. They might be more motivated to do some menial jobs like taking care of elders, cleaning up the streets near them, and so on.

The reality is that the smarter we make our robotics, the less jobs there'll be for anybody, even those who did everything right to get a job, they just won't be able to find a job.