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Comment by canjobear | Hacker News Reader

A huge part of what makes basic income appealing is that it is unconditional and guaranteed. Otherwise it seems like it would create unsafe levels of government control.

For many people, BI would end up being a large portion of their income, such that losing it would be catastrophic. Now those people would become beholden to any government demand made on penalty of revoking BI.

If a government enacts unconditional BI in the year 2020, who's to say they won't change their minds in 2028 and make it conditional on good behavior?

Are there any mechanisms that could make basic income a true unconditional guarantee?

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This is already an issue with Medicaid. 65 million people depend on the government for free healthcare and cannot afford to lose it.

Agree, but no need to only point down.

Social security income is indispensable for the majority of pensioners now. It used to be only for day laborers who it was understood never had an opportunity to save. Things have changed for sure.

Similarly, most old people wouldn't be able to afford their healthcare if it wasn't for Medicare, even it they never even filled out a Medicaid application.

Definitely a big concern.

>Are there any mechanisms that could make basic income a true unconditional guarantee?

Maybe a government backed cryptocurrency? One that distributes the BI through some sort of immutable smart contract? Lots of problems with the approach, but maybe we can solve enough of them.

Now, whether our current governmental or political realities would ever give up control in that manner is another story :(

Nothing under control of a government is immutable. This is because governments have a power withheld from civilians: that of legal lethal force.

They could make it a constitutional amendment or whatever your countries mechanism for codifying founding documents is that requires more than a simple majority to make law.

You could e.g. require a national poll for any change to the BI. Or it would not be introduced nationwide but per state or even communal so individuals have more control over what happens.

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