I was once talking with one of my classmates and he said that in the future, there will be universal basic income implemented by entire world. I was not convinced at that time and thought he is just being stupid but given the layoffs happening and massive amount of unemployment, I am thinking about this possibility. What do you say?
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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.
No. Total war is our future. Then maybe, but we won’t be alive by then
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.
You’re forgetting to factor in all the people that won’t receive it because they already earn enough. A majority of people won’t get anything at all. Replacing all of our current welfare systems with a simple UBI would save us money. It’s just that the billionaires are under the impression that it would stop people from working harder for a better life, which is also something they think about our current welfare system, and has never been true.
I’m talking about a scenario where entire industries of workers end up getting displaced by AI and robotics, and I don’t think we’re far off from this becoming a reality. If Tesla’s Optimus 3 robots are anywhere near as advanced as they are rumoured to be, they could easily replace warehouse and logistics workers.
We already have Waymo disrupting the taxi industry further by removing the driver from the equation, and Miso Robotics automating kitchens in restaurant chains like Jersey Mike’s Subs and White Castle.
Also, doesn’t means-testing UBI kinda defeat its intended purpose?
New tools used to replace workers happens throughout the course of human history, I don’t think we will ever see robots replace humans successfully enough to really dent the workforce, they’ll just go to other industries.
Though the one industry whose collapse could spur the entire UBI system, is long-haul truckers. That may happen, but again, I think they’ll just go into other off-shoot industries, and the change in workforce won’t be so dramatic that it’s one day they’re all on the road with jobs, and the next day they’re all out of work. You’ll need truckers with experience to actually park the things for loading/un-loading, and nobody is going to trust an AI or robot with piloting that much freight all by itself. they’ll want a human behind the wheel, ready to take over.
The industry we should be driving people towards is computer chip manufacturing.
Each technological advancement has created new jobs in some capacity. What new jobs has AI created? And don’t tell me “prompt engineer” like every AI bro likes to hype up. That is not an actual position and the fact that I cannot find any jobs advertised where typing out very specific and accurate prompts are one of the skills required is proof of this.
AI isn’t perfect. It hallucinates and sometimes gives bad answers. But I think that we are one incredibly good model away from being able to reliably automate white collar work.
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.
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.
It should but it won’t.
Not without some “encouragement”
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
The rich have done everything they can to increase wealth inequality and brainwash the public into acceptance. That will not be reversed. If they allow UBI it will be below poverty levels and highly conditional.
The wealthy want slaves. Its a mental illness with them. Black people. Underage sex trafficking. Working poor. Robots. Last thing they want is a utopia where everyone is healthy, happy and financially independent.
One of the wealthiest countries in the world doesn’t even have proper healthcare system in 2026. No way are those dumb fucks getting a UBI. Its a lie.
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.
It should be. Also the NIT (Negative Income Tax) so the taxing scheme becomes progressive, rather than regressive. Though I know I’m asking too much because capitalism…
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.
No. Once the people have the time and leisure to think and mingle they might find out who the real source of the problem is. So it’s better to keep your slaves busy and struggling to keep the roof over their head and their belly not empty.
that’s not really how people are, though. if people are happy, they generally see little reason to change something about their situation. everything else is delusional
One must imagine Sisyphus happy
When UBI starts being seriously considered on a large scale, you’ll likely see a massive influence campaign against it. Something along the lines of “If you give people free money, they’ll never get a job.” It will likely have racial undertones that range from subtle and implicit to wildly explicit, depending on the forum.
If low information working class people, those who would benefit the most from such a program, fall for that campaign, as they often do, you’ll see a backlash against it that could prevent it from becoming law.
I talked with my mother about this years ago. She confidently said, if you give people free money, nobody will do any work. I argued but she wouldn’t budge.
She is now comfortably retired, and makes hats with her time, and sells them. But that’s different.
You know, everyone who I personally know who passionately argues that if you give people free money they won’t do any work has been a stay at home mom.
Stay at home moms get “free” money from the spouse who goes to work and supports them.
I would also argue that stay at home moms work harder than a lot of us who have full time jobs. I get to leave work and mentally check out, they’re “at work” all the time.
Someone should point this out to the people who make this argument.
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I’d vote for ubi but i personally know plenty of moochers. Like never worked a day in their lives at 30 would laugh while their grandma died instead of helping their own family while being offered money for it.
Funny enough every mooch i know is a white man.
What if UBI was locked behind biometrics and voting republican?
Man, the whole of europe left out
I don’t feel like UBI is a that great of an idea. Prices of products change toward what people earn. So when there is a standard amount of money for everyone, company’s will increase prices to any amount that’s still payable. That will quickly drive inflation up. I feel like it will just going to siphon money into the pockets of the super rich.
But if you do UBI + NIT it would theoretically be sufficient… Although I still think that a strong price regulation and anti-monopoly/anti-oligopoly law should be done for it to work. So yeah, we’re cooked.
I heard some evangelicals in US saying that it is unbiblical to give UBI, so I can guess that some people really want to demonize this concept.
You just described the campaigns against welfare in general that have been going on for decades, which is also what I see happening with UBI. It will absolutely be sunk the same way any other social benefit is sunk through misinformation and outright lies.
Do you think it would help if you told them 40% of adults already don’t have jobs and that making that number higher isn’t as big of a leap as they think?
Don’t forget racism. “Look at those people, existing with that color skin. On your dime!?!?”
They called that out specifically
