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0 pointsthemaninthedark1y ago0 comments

I think that there are definitely people who have been on welfare and used it to better themselves and there are people who thrive in the face of adversity, overcoming the worst situations.

I also think that there are a large number of people who ended up lost without direction or purpose.

People are weird and different.

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RealityVoid1y ago

Fully agree. But I do believe that cultural norms and societal expectations and what people push you to do with your life play a big role, so these are all levers to be pulled if you want to make a more self-driven population.

netsharc1y ago

> I also think that there are a large number of people who ended up lost without direction or purpose.

People on welfare? I can imagine a lot of these people "accept" that the goal is to get themselves out of welfare, ASAP (especially if there's a deadline), but they can't see a way to that goal - e.g. applying for jobs but getting rejected left and right, and feeling dejected.

With utopian UBI, one would be free to do what they want.. even if it's just jagging off the whole day.

themaninthedarkOP1y ago

No, there a lot of people who have no idea what to do when they have free time.

There are lots of older people who go back to work, not because they need the money but because the need the structure. In fact, there is an increased risk of death due to retirement.

>Available evidence suggests it is unlikely that changes in health insurance and income can account for the increase in mortality at age 62. So, to further examine the plausibility of retirement leading to higher mortality, Moore examines which causes of death increase when men turn 62, and considers the connection between those and decreased labor force participation.

https://business.purdue.edu/news/features/2022/retirement.ph...

>With utopian UBI, one would be free to do what they want.. even if it's just jagging off the whole day.

People have need to feel like they are doing something. Usually something positive but they will settle for something negative, generally that ends poorly for society.

Also UBI would only, as my understanding is, take care of the basics. Food, shelter, medical care. So you would end up with a population that has enough to survive, hungry for more and no way to achieve it.....

consteval1y ago

You can achieve the need to do something by forming human connections. Mutual necessity between people, a form of fulfillment that long predates any economy.

We have the unfortunate combination of being uniquely individualistic and with too much time. Community-based societies, which we will have to transition to in a post-scarcity world, don’t have that problem.

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