[mayniac]

All of these comments come down to one thing: if work was purely voluntary, would you still work?

[chownie]

Yes, but the work I would do probably wouldn't resemble closely what I do now.

If I have the comfort of being able to carefully choose rather than having to find anything to pay bills then I would try hard to find something that would allow me to enrich my community.

I've always wanted to work in assisting illiterate adults in learning to read but I have no teaching degree (doesn't pay well enough to support my family) and I don't have the luxury of time to seek those kinds of positions.

[kwhitefoot]

Yes. But not as much and not necessarily the same work. Had I had a guaranteed income I probably would have studied for another degree and that would have made me more productive.

One of the political problems with UBI for some people is that it promises to change the power relations between employees and employers. A person whose basic needs are guaranteed to be met regardless of employment will be more able and presumably willing to say no to a job that is unpleasant or dangerous or merely inadequately paid. Perhaps then people who perform important but low status tasks will see their income increase at the expense of the rest.

I suspect that UBI could be introduced more easily in Europe than in the US for this reason because in Europe (in particular Scandinavia) we already to a large extent work in order to live rather than living merely to work. That doesn't mean people are unwilling to work. I know plenty of people in Norway who are well past retirement age who still do substantial amounts of work. But none of them need the money, they all have decent pensions, they do it because they have skills that they like to exercise. Of course the money they get is a welcome bonus.

[stevewodil]

This raises another point of discussion since I would say for most normal people the answer is no.

In this scenario any companies that exist would have to work really hard to make the work fun and fulfilling, which is not a requirement in most cases today. It would be interesting to see a world in which employers actively try to make work an enjoyable way to spend your time

[non-entity]

I would say, yes, but no where near the hours or even the regular schedule I do now. And of work on things that interest me

[alexgmcm]

Yeah, but I'd probably go back to Plasma Physics research or BCIs or something.

Essentially, "what I was thinking about before somebody came along and told me I had to earn a living" to quote Buckminster Fuller.