[refurb]

This is a bit of an idealist view of criminality. Plenty of criminals are criminals because "real work is for suckers". Look at the theft rings in San Francisco (catalytic converters, shoplifting), it's not some poor destitute victim, but rather a part of a criminal organization that rakes in millions of dollars.

They could certainly get a regular job like most of America, but they'd rather make easy money.

More social services ain't gonna fix that.

[danaris]

I'm not talking about "more social services"; I'm talking about UBI, which would absolutely remove most of the incentive to participate in such things.

I realize I forgot to actually put that in the GP, though. Sorry about the lack of clarity.

[onlycoffee]

What happens if 100% of people decide they don't want to be the chump paying for UBI and we all go on UBI? With no one left making money, there's no way for the country to make pay UBI payments.

Using UBI as an argument to eliminate theft crime is like paying terrorists, it doesn't work in the long run; you only end up funding a future, more effective terrorist or criminal who will demand more and more.

[bnjms]

I assume it would be much like it currently is where we have a lower class subsisting on a low barely livable wage because that’s how they prefer to exist while the rest of us work and the payment for our extra work to them is that we don’t have to deal with them in day to day society. This sounds a lot like SSI for some of the people on it. Unfortunately I don’t think people actually work like that and instead you get shiftless youth.

[buck4roo]

> we have a lower class subsisting on a low barely livable wage >> because that's how they prefer to exist << while the rest of us work...

Citation required.

Show evidence a population exists, anything close to as large as you're intimating ("lower class" as you called it), that actually wants a "low barely livable wage"?