[merijnv]

Who says it has to be a company? How about that guy that wants make music but doesn't have the time to practice due to work. The girl that wants to paint, but is to tired after work.

Why does everything have to be about companies and money? Can't you really imagine any useful social, artistic, or other things these "dumb, lazy" people might want to invest their time into? How about just being a stay at home parent and investing more time in their kids? Do you really think society would not improve from any of these things?

[TeMPOraL]

How about science or engineering? Imagine how it would be if scientists actually had time to read papers in their field, perform experiments and pursue some research goals, instead of cranking paper after paper in order to stay employed?

What about all those social projects that people want to do, but don't have time to really support?

[knodi123]

> Imagine how it would be if scientists actually had time to read papers in their field, perform experiments and pursue some research goals

That's part of the reason why most scientists before the 1900s were wealthy men from the upper class.

[anticon]

So you want to spend £240 billion pounds, twice the NHS budget in the UK, on helping struggling artists?

[merijnv]

Struggling everyone. Why the hell is some bank CEO making several hundred million a year and we have people that can't even reliably be home in the evening to tuck their kids in because they're working 5 jobs. I'm all for taxing high-end income (coporate and private) even more to pay for this.

Why would everyone need to work anyway? It's not tenable. A few more years/decades and we'll have automated so much it'll be impossible to actually employ everyone. So unless you suggest we let everyone who is in a now obsolete field starve, I suggest we start thinking of how we're going to manage a society where it's just impossible for everyone to work.

EDIT: Also, where's this 240 billion figure coming from?

[anticon]

The level of koolaid here is just too large a mountain to attempt to scale.

Automation will just move a few jobs around, like it always has done. And yes - we don't need jobs. But no - that doesn't mean the state should give everyone free money.

[merijnv]

> But no - that doesn't mean the state should give everyone free money.

Why not?

[anticon]

Because there is no free money. We would all have to pay for it. We would be subsidising laziness.

[merijnv]

> Because there is no free money.

Ok, sure.

> We would all have to pay for it.

Well, yes.

> We would be subsidising laziness.

Why is it laziness? As I pointed out, repeatedly, above. There's two ways we can go with this discussion. You can state "There is nothing worth of value, except economic value". If that's what you believe, fine. But I think that is a very shallow and hollow belief and then there is not much sense in further discussion.

Alternatively, you can agree that there are pursuits that, while not producing any economic value, are very valuable to society. Such as arts, social projects, research, etc. and that those of us who are good at maximising economic value (but, most likely not spending as much time/effort in other areas) should subsidise those of us who ARE taking care of our elderly, raising kids, or otherwise fulfilling socially and artistically important roles. In which case we can discuss whether basic income is a good way to accomplish this or whether there are better ways.

And what is so terrible about subsiding laziness? Why do you care? If you have more than enough money to do whatever you want, what does it hurt you that someone manages to "not starve" even though they don't "do anything"? Is that really so bad? You would honestly prefer thousands, if not millions, starving to avoid "subsidising laziness"?