[tormeh]

I know one single person like that. Wanting this is very rare and is a symptom of mental illness. Most people want to be proud of something. Granted, MacDonald's will have problems finding workers, but is that so bad?

Living in Norway it is perfectly possible to slack off on the taxpayers' bill if you want to, but society doesn't collapse. People would rather avoid the low status associated with living on the dole than avoid work.

[mierek4ever]

Norway is extremely different than for example US. With all due respect, I'm sorry, I can't see Norwegians happily supporting social programs if they are mostly designed to help immigrants. US is immigration based. What about Norway consisting in 15-20% of Blacks, than the other 80% coming from all over the world. I believe that about 75% of all Americans are immigrants, their children, or their grandchildren. Would you not mind supporting Latinos, Blacks, Poles, Russians, Germans, Brits, Indians, Pakistanis, and whoever else is there in this pot?

I think in Norway it would end up with much worse results than in the US. I think Norwegians in this case would vote for some kind of nazi stuff. It's enough for you to have a few immigrants here and there to become extreme right.

So, please don't compare and don't think you are any better. You are not.

[rhizome31]

I don't think the point was saying that Norway is better than the US. The point was saying that in Norway, it's already possible to live with tax payers money, but most people choose to work. So based on the assumption that US people are as good as Norwegians, most US people would still choose to work even if they didn't have to.

[vidarh]

> It's enough for you to have a few immigrants here and there to become extreme right.

If you refer to the current government, consider that the junior partner in the current government that is considered "extreme right" by Norwegian standards would mostly be Democrats by US standards. E.g. a substantial proportion of them are in favour of continuing most of a welfare system that would get even many Democrats in hysterics over socialism.

By Norwegian standards, the majority of the US Congress is "extreme right" and threatening "US conditions" is a well established way of scaring people.

[just_had_tea]

...in which we learn the real reason you're against UBI—dirty immigrants.

I really fail to see how this can be anything other than an argument for more fair/equal wealth distribution in the world. If most countries had similar schemes, then why would the "good for nothing immigrants" go to supposedly scrounge in the US?

[anticon]

If we redistributed wealth around the world, everyone would be poor, unable to start companies, etc etc. Does that really solve anything useful?

You do realise that if you redistributed wealth over the world, you would be drastically worse off don't you...

[nekopa]

If all the world wealth was distributed to everyone on the planet, we'd all get about $51,000.

I'd be drastically better off.

[eli_gottlieb]

Yeah, at that rate, I'd only be very slightly worse off than I am now. Maybe I'd lose... $10k-$20k to Horrifying Socialism. But hey, I could restart my life from a capital base of $51k.

[jchrisa]

You can take all our money, we'd still have plumbing, fiber, and college degrees.

[tiatia]

Mate, "The one who speaks the truth needs a fast horse." (Chinese Proverb).

Don't "overunderstimate" the reason of the average reader here and don't be discouraged by the down vote.

"Zwei mal drei macht vier, widewidewitt und drei macht neune, ich mach mir die Welt, widewide wie sie mir gefällt."

[anon4]

If everyone is equally worse off, won't it lead to lower prices?

[s73v3r]

That's a lie and you know it. Isn't the refrain parroted here all the time something about bootstrapping your own company? Self funding and all that? While a couple people like you might throw a tantrum and decide not to participate, I imagine there would be 5x that many in poorer places in the world who would be able to more than make up for it and start amazing companies.