A couple of years ago I was very much in favor of a universal basic income (UBI). But as support in the tech community grew, I became more skeptical of the idea. The election of Donald Trump has really solidified my opinion that it's a non-starter.

Lots of engineers, including myself, love the idea of a UBI. Many of us spend much of our free time tinkering and learning. And that time spent often directly translates into the improved marketability of our labor skills. For people out of work, what could be better than having enough income coming to support yourself while you learn new skills, pursue new business opportunities, or volunteer?

The thing is, software engineers are a self-selected group of individuals, generally much more self-motivated than most any other group in the country. This is especially true of American engineers, and of many of those who find themselves in America.

But most Americans are not that self-motivated. Worse, most middle-aged Americans are downright hostile to the idea of continuing education. (Even many software engineers are still hostile to formal education.) The echoes of the well-paying company job from the 1950s still reverberate today, and it's fubar'd most Americans' expectations. They expect to be able to find a well-paying job around the corner; without having to change their interests; without having to challenge themselves intellectually; and without having their self-esteem challenged by the inevitable failures encountered when you don't have the crutch of taking orders from someone else.

I don't think this is going to change anytime. Things are slowly changing, but not in the way we expected. I think there was a paper that came out recently that said younger people are less anxious about finding work than previous generations at their age, but mostly because they're more content playing video games. So, at best, a UBI will simply enable a more passive labor pool less reactionary and prone to voting for a Donald Trump. At worse we continue down the road of intensely bitter political warfare, with each party jockeying to capture the elusive "give me the same job my grandpa had" voter.

Also, engineers (including myself) probably have some pretty rose-colored glasses in how we view ourselves. We're probably not as self-motivated as we think we are. The differences are probably marginal at best, amplified by the tremendous growth of the past 20 years which, historically speaking, we shouldn't expect to continue indefinitely.