[toomuchtodo]

Why would you target productivity over quality of life? We're already more productive than at any point in human history. The productivity is why we can optimize for quality of life, not a justification for attempting to squeeze even more productivity out of citizens.

[dahfizz]

Sorry if I was unclear, I meant is the money being used productively (paying off debts, investing, buying products in bulk, etc).

> Why would you target productivity over quality of life?

I'm not sure that I do that, but the general public absolutely will. The taxpaying public will absolutely not tolerate a UBI that just funnels money into drug cartels, etc. You need to show that the UBI is useful or helpful somehow, not just that it makes people happy.

[toomuchtodo]

Takes time to win hearts and minds, and for the electorate to shift on issues [1]. No different than when Social Security and Medicare were radical ideas. Yang wasn't wrong, he was just early. Direct cash transfers have been shown to improve quality of life and pull people out of poverty. [2]

Spain got something close [3] (but not exactly UBI) recently. I would not be surprised to see this trend continue, either voluntarily or because nation states exhaust all other options.

[1] https://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2017/03/20/a-wider-par...

[2] https://www.google.com/search?q=direct+cash+transfers+povert...

[3] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23351708 (HN: Spain approves national minimum income scheme)