[bbctol]

Clean litter out of forests... for free? Visit the sick... for free? People don't like being truck drivers because they like driving trucks, they like being truck drivers because they like eating, sleeping, and raising their families. The unemployment rate is currently above 0, despite their being no "shortage of work to be done," because plenty of work that could be done doesn't have anyone paying in exchange for that work.

Who's going to pay people to do the things that are more useful, but don't fit in to the standard capitalist system? You? Some benevolent billionaire? The government, if we raise taxes and increase social spending to an extent that makes plenty of Americans recoil in instinctive horror? Yeah, I do think of the poor truck drivers, because I don't want them to starve.

[ooqr]

You're missing the point. There's room for social programs to get these things done, but UBI for nothing isn't a good idea.

[gnaritas]

No, he's not, you are. The social programs required to get those things done aren't going to come soon enough due to the cultural rejection of this kind of socialism in America. You're glossing over the hard part, as if "just pass a social program" was an easy thing to do.

UBI has to be worked out "before" these become big problems, not after; now is the time.

[ooqr]

More money for UBI is necessarily less potentially available money for the forest service.

[mLuby]

Don't assume you know why truck drivers do what they do…

[gaius]

Indeed. https://www.nytimes.com/2017/05/28/opinion/truck-driving-is-...