[elmo2you]

I think you are touching upon an important point there. Because from the little I know, it appears that experiments with UBI have been largely more successful in places where people appeared to me smarter. Smarter, as in capable to make less ignorant/unwise decisions. Which indeed is largely proportional to education (although not grade or level), but can also in part come through culture and unwritten social habits and norms.

However, this is also why I believe that there is nothing that could still save the USA. For starters, the changes it would need to prevent it from cannibalizing itself (as most crumbling empires), would require dismantling existing power structures and interests that will not hesitate to destroy everything (civil peace, country, world, everything) to "defend" themselves. Those powers are almost nowhere as powerful as the are in the USA, and I am everything but positive about reining those in. As long as those run the show, good luck with anything else.

[devonkim]

UBI experiments in countries like Kenya and India in poor rural areas with little education show few problems.

Non-mainstream ideas like UBI and RCV are simply suggestions exasperated that things aren't working to avoid a complete disaster and dissolution of the US. Should we keep trying to yell and scream for the same solutions tried for decades and ultimately lost as the GOP has stomped on the fragmented left in the US? To me, the worst of all solutions is to KEEP doing the same damn things and continuing to lose like what Dems did with Russiagate. We might get gay marriage rights, perhaps some civil rights 2.0, and some semblance of Roe v Wade but to me that won't matter if we're in a full blown Civil War a few years from now. Pulling conservatives / regressives back to the middle and into something resembling good faith dialogue again is possible with UBI discussions at least that I haven't found with almost any other political topic in... decades. Granted, that'll be until Fox News gets their hands on it, but beating mainstream media narratives (both left and right) to the punch has been productive.

[elmo2you]

I do get those points, and I can agree with all of them. Just with the exception that I no longer believe that there is anything that can save the USA from itself (as in: literally nothing).

It's not that there aren't initiatives/option that will obviously improve the current situation. It's that all the decision making paths towards any such progress are thoroughly corrupted and rigged, with the effects of such improvements being diametrically opposed to the personal interests of those who (both overtly and covertly) run the USA.

These are people with a proven track record of "always winning". Meaning, they will sacrifice anything and everything, before having their own interests harmed. Good luck with that. It could prove far worse than civil war. The current political divide that everyone knows the USA so well for (but is mostly a crafted false dichotomy either way), might "evaporate" surprisingly quickly, once shit really hits the fan. The government might quickly turn to "protect the country at all costs", against any form of "chaos" and disturbance of "order" (and no, it won't matter which party will be in power).

On the other hand, even in hopeless situations, people should never give up hope. However, I certainly expect no improvements as long as those who currently consider themselves untouchable, remain convinced that they are indeed that.