Scott SantensDid you know that #basicincome experiments have shown time and time again that given the choice, people don't choose idleness? They choose education. They choose entrepreneurship. They pursue culture and care. By guaranteeing survival, universal basic income enables truly living.
Lyle Solla-Yates@scottsantens the safety and health spending strikes me as especially important. Treating preventable injuries and disease is wasteful and unnecessary vs just putting people in the position to be safe and healthy
Harold JarcheWith UBI, how will the capitalists find compliant and subservient workers?
Esslar2@harold @scottsantens Right on, that's what really scares them.
@@flyhigh @harold @scottsantens The labor "market" isn't currently a proper market because some (many) people can't choose not to participate.
Basic Income potentially changes the dynamic from "I'll do any job for any price" to "I'm not doing this horrible job for so little" and that would be a proper market.
Meeschaatser@jbqueru @flyhigh @harold @scottsantens
Exactly.
Same for housing- & healthcare 'market'
Riley S. Faelan@harold By paying competitive salaries.
It's only the incompetent among the middle managers who would be in trouble.
Darwin Woodka@harold @scottsantens lots of people like being busy and feeling useful.
And it's universal BASIC income, enough to survive on, not to get all the toys people enjoy.
justin ★ MOVED TO @@darwinwoodka @harold @scottsantens oh yeah, because poor people don't deserve entertainment in their lives?
silence, .social user
@darwinwoodka @scottsantens @harold make up your mind sweetie, so is it "ubi is for BASIC!!! (tm) stuff only" or "poor people also deserve entertainment"? those two exclude each other
Dmitry Tantsur@fm_con @darwinwoodka @scottsantens @harold you must draw the line somewhere, we cannot finance golf clubs, sport cars and yachts for literally everyone.
@creepy_owlet @darwinwoodka @scottsantens @harold not a big fan of you concern trolling, just say you are classist. bye
sef@scottsantens @harold By squeezing them on assets
climate voter/radical oldie@scottsantens I know that the protestant ethic requires that everyone work, regardless of how shitty the job is, but that should not be a requirement.
Adrian Morales@scottsantens But why do we need these experiments in the first place? Is anyone doing experiments to find out why the super-rich need a second yacht?
@adrianmorales Because framing them as experiments has been the only way we get to do these projects under the current shape of capitalism.
Wandering Star@adrianmorales Well, rich people are. "Hmm, that sports car didn't feel the gaping void in my soul. Maybe this yacht will."
Jordi (Tubal Hippy)The idea that so many people would choose to be lazy is, in and of itself, lazy. People have aspirations and goals that are untenable in their financial situation. Remove the barrier, and suddenly, you have millions of people enriching their lives.
We seem lazy because we're fucking depressed and tired from working all the time.
Joe Vinegar@Jorsh @scottsantens almost all* rich people come from rich families: their survival was never depending on their work**, and despite this they seem all* pretty busy.
Even the famous "self-made" ones (a laughably small percentage* crowned by selection bias), they long stopped to (depend on) work to survive, and still they all* boast working** a lot.
So please tell me: why the lack of "need to work to survive" is NOT a problem for upper bourgeoisie and rich people, while it should be a problem for all the rest?
*citation needed
** for a suitable and questionable definition of "work"
Lemme get this straight: the descendents of slaveholders are calling us lazy?
Air Adam@Jorsh @scottsantens Black people have been called lazy since the second they couldn't force us to work for free.
Tim M@airadam @Jorsh @scottsantens Very good point, but I very much expect ir pre-dates even that, and the accusation of "lazy" was still applied to enslaved people... it became part of the self-justification (of owning slaves) as well as othering as well as [....]
Indigo 🏳️⚧️
Not to mention the other argument:
Umm.. Even if they WERE lazy, which they arnt, so what?
Do we not want to live in a society where we can just live without 'turning the crank'? Lol. Wild.
Its wild because people intuitively believe in Keynesian economics. For some unknown reason.
I think it also posits the idea of innovation and progress over all else.
When, in fact, that (other than the medical field to prolong life), we dont need advancement. I'm okay pausing technological advancement right here for the next 100 years. Maybe even going back to the 90s.
Sure. Technology is nice. But if I grew up in the 17th century, I can be just as happy. Its not like people were unable to find happybess until a certain level of technological advancement was hit. But people sure seem yo make that be the case. Like we must always have progress! (its really capital they want. Not progress but im being cheeky 😝)
Eagle Globe & Flanker
Chirayu 
@scottsantens and it's by far more "capitalist" than people think.
If I have x amount, it's how I spend it. How I invest. This is how everyone becomes more prosperous monetarily.
If I was given a product like in communism then everyone goes poor.
MikeE
PigeonPancake@scottsantens I'm afraid thats the point. On top of losing out on desperately cheap labor, that's also potential competition to incumbent businesses who spend millions lobbying to make sure that doesn't happen for that very reason.
rēd ⭐@scottsantens ...maybe, governments against it knows this and, by design, don't want it...
the Amygdalai Lama@scottsantens @mekki
if you love them, people are GOOD FOR YOU. ❤️
You’re fighting the bad attitude they call Original Sin, they will not hear that people are good for you 😀
if you love them, people are GOOD FOR YOU. ❤️
You’re fighting the bad attitude they call Original Sin, they will not hear that people are good for you 😀
Glenn@scottsantens This is silly. If we guaranteed a minimum survival income for everyone, the rich people would not be able to afford another jet ski.
Tammy Garrison, MLIS@scottsantens The people in charge don't want that. They want a desperate population willing to work for pittance wages out of fear of destitution and homelessness. If people had security and comfort, those employers would have to pay better to attract employees and have a better work environment and work life balance. Desperation is a feature, not a bug.
Graydon@scottsantens None of that matters.
We live in a system under selection, meaning that we get a present populated by whatever in the past replicated itself.
"Basic income" will function as a transfer of public funds to private wealth if it's possible to copy private wealth into the future. (E.g., "the yard-sale model" for a simple explanation of how this works.)
If we actually want to improve anything, the problem isn't obtaining basic income; it's abolishing persistent wealth.
Jamie Mason
Dark Phoenix 🇺🇦🇨🇦🇬🇱🇵🇦🇵🇸🏳️🌈@scottsantens
And just surviving isn't living.
And just surviving isn't living.
Selena@scottsantens
Most right-wingers (deliberately?) confuse UBI with welfare: in many countries you will lose money if you take on a lowpaid job if you are on welfare. Your gross income is roughly the same, but working costs money (childcare, transport, etc).
Those people are stuck in the poverty-trap and make the very rational decision to avoid paid work.
UBI massively cuts down on poverty-trap issues: working a few hours doesn't get you kicked out of welfare.
Malleus@scottsantens Even rhe totalitarian Hegel thought the State needed to provide for the welfare of its citizens. In the US we choose to live in a filthy police state with zero safety net except prisons. Very stable geniuses, right?
cmtinkerton 🇺🇸 🌊 🌎@scottsantens It does seem like an idea who's time has come!
https://www.businessinsider.com/universal-basic-income-simple-solution-homelessness-researcher-study-2023-12
https://www.businessinsider.com/universal-basic-income-simple-solution-homelessness-researcher-study-2023-12
OS/1337@scottsantens same with #HousingFirst which basically eradicaded #Homelessness and helped people to get things done, find help and thus perspective.
James Brooke@scottsantens My economic conservative self is a fan of universal basic income because the reasons for poverty are endlessly complex but the bottom line cost for food-housing-medical is rather trivial amounts of money compared to administering "worthiness programs". I mean even "just plain lazy" is mental illness, right? Why not spend a fraction for the most helpless we pity compared to costly jails for criminals we fear and distrust.
Twee Jack@scottsantens Which is why the current system will never allow it.
Doug Delamatter@scottsantens UBI is also very good for small business. If a small shop employee cannot earn more than the minimum wage per hour for the shop, it is a drain on the business and they may have to lay off staff. With UBI and no minimum wage, a small shop can pay what it can afford and will raise wages when able, to attract staff (you know... "market behavior").
AnomnomnomalyDid you know that time and time again... conservatives react with fear and anger at the thought that somewhere, someone they think is inferior to them could be treated as an equal.
All conservatives are enemies of equality.
Seán Fenian@anomnomnomaly @scottsantens A lot of conservatism seems to be fundamentally based on the idea that as many as possible other people are inherently inferior to them and deserve to be discriminated against. They see discrimination as a moral virtue, not as a moral failing.
Martin Dougiamas@scottsantens Can you link me to a good reference where these studies are collected?