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Comment by tic_tac | Hacker News Reader

The point of UBI is not to fund people's vanity adventures in education. It's to support people who would otherwise be starving or homeless without a job.

Regarding "sickness", the severity is important to know. If UBI enables people with slight depression issues to just give up working entirely, UBI could be entirely counterproductive by accelerating depression's spirals of inactivity.

And this completely ignored the issue of inflation that comes with society wide UBI.

The whole notion of UBI is nonsense. Rather than throwing money at people to spend on broken institutions like Education and Healthcare, let's reform these institutions in the first place to make them more affordable and effective.

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> The point of UBI is not to fund people's vanity adventures in education. It's to support people who would otherwise be starving or homeless without a job.

Who gave this strict definition. In my opinion, the point of UBI is to benefit society. I do think people being more educated benefits society as a whole, and thus I think people using their UBI on this is beneficial.

So, education is a "vanity adventure"?

Perhaps if you're a person who looks at your cleaners or servers or cashiers as people with no potential for self-betterment; as people who are unable to expand their horizons.

Ugh.

> The point of UBI is not to fund people's vanity adventures in education.

That is YOUR OPINION of what UBI should be. It happens to be wrong.

What people do with the money isn't the point of UBI at all. The point is to improve their lives, and boost the economy. Who cares what specific the money is spent on if it is making people healthier, less stressed, and happier?

>Who cares what specific the money is spent on if it is making people healthier, less stressed, and happier?

And here, in one sentence, is why we will NEVER see UBI in the United States of America. There is no ability to be the moral whip and maintain control over someone else's choices to make sure they don't 'waste my money'. Therefore, it will never happen.

In the US, at least, it's not about doing what's right. It's not about making sure people are healthier, less stressed, and happier. It's about making sure they live the 'best' life they can, as defined by groups like the "moral majority".

> And here, in one sentence, is why we will NEVER see UBI.

OK sure pal. UBI will happen without question in the USA. Probably in 2024.

Do you have any supporting arguments or reasons for that?

https://movehumanityforward.com/ site just launched yesterday, received 3M in donations within 24hours.

> The point of UBI is not to fund people's vanity adventures in education

What a twisted way to phrase "train for their next career step, which will make them earn more money, so the state gets more tax money than before"

But for you, it's always "vanity adventures" when it's other people's education, right?

> If UBI enables people with slight depression issues to just give up working entirely, UBI could be entirely counterproductive by accelerating depression's spirals of inactivity.

What if it enables those same people to take the time off work they need to treat their depression? Getting help takes enormous energy that a depressed person likely doesn't have if they're spending all their energy just trying to survive.

Of course the UBI is for personal growth and development even if it isn’t a guaranteed success. People have a fallback and would be more likely to take risks.

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