[nshepperd]

> Communism (Which is what this is), has failed. Why this generation seems determined to try it again is beyond me.

Isn't communism about central economic planning? Basic income is explicitly capitalist. No-one decides who ought to do what. We just distribute money, and let the market determine what to fund with it.

[TeMPOraL]

Exactly.

Though because you bring up central planning - I think that we should reconsider this idea. In a technological society, central planning run by supercomputers executing global optimization algorithms doesn't sound like that bad of an idea. Historically, central planning failed mostly because there was no way for flesh and blood humans to react fast enough and to optimize well enough (that and usual human corruption). Not to mention we didn't have properly developed optimization theory before the 60s.

[anticon]

It's extremely funny how every argument for Basic Income completely ignores the fact you will have to centrally plan how you're going to get all this endless money to give people. You're going to decide where to raise taxes.

The other problem is that if implemented, any future elections would boil down to which party is going to raise basic income the most (Bribing the electorate).