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Comment by rossenberg79 | Hacker News Reader

> I believe people know and should have control of how they spend a basic income.

Why? If it’s not being spent on those things anyway isn’t the person just making a financial mistake?

Because I believe in a free people. I believe in market solutions. I believe people should be allowed to take risks. I believe people often know what they need more than someone who lives far away.

And when they make a mistake, do we just give them new money because they've put all the old money into the lottery?

Yes, next month we do.

I personally have a few extra calories that can last me through a few weeks if need be. What about those that can't? Let them starve? Create a welfare service to save them? Hope for charities?

Sounds a lot like we'd just push the problem a few meters away and then run into it again.

Lottery takings should go to help paying for welfare

Believe away Dorothy, reality is a small % of the population, i.e. millions of people, are pretty much screw-ups. Welfare is the blanket solution for how we deal with it. Giving everyone BI and taking away peoples welfare is going to fail in all these cases, so will fail generally. Even here in Australia where we have good welfare we still have government housing, soup kitchens and tonmes of other real-assistance programs.

Having lived poor, known a lot of poor people, and having lived on welfare as I got my PhD. (first gen college student), I can say that you are wrong about most poor people. They generally make good decisions, given their situation and means. Those that don't are usually addicted to drugs, and they already trade their food benefits away for those drugs.

Welfare (at least in America) has all the wrong incentives that make it difficult to improve your situation (e.g. lose benefits and all your time if you get a minimum wage job, and who is going to watch the kids now).

Yes there are poor people who work hard. There are also rich people who become crackheads. I never actually mentioned poor people I just said some people are screw-ups, which is true.

They're not free people if they live on UBI handouts.

Its not a handout in my American Centric opinion. It is a dividend or inheritance from our forefathers building a kick-ass country the likes of which earth has never before seen.

IMO it's handout if it's government deciding how much someone gets. And when it's not based on the person's contribution.

You can't be a free man if your wellbeing 100% depends on someone else's decisions regardless of your actions.

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