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Comment by indrax | Hacker News Reader

I'm trying to find the pattern in your bad examples. It's not morality, they're all luxuries? Would a gaming computer be bad?

UBI should incentivise other income and would still be available even to the wealthy. Some of the extra will go to industriousness, some will go to frivolousness, but would we expect anything different from general economic prosperity? I guess we need to find a control group that gets more money on their own?

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"Prostitution: a luxury you can now afford!"

You have to understand that you need to sell UBI to America. It will never be implemented unless you can convince the tax paying populous that it will be "good", for some definition of "good". With taglines like that, you are making ubi less and less desirable for most people.

Many if those things have negative externalities. More guns, more violence. More prostitution, more human trafficking and other abuse (same for pornography). more illicit drugs, more trips to the emergency room and more deaths, etc.

It seems to me that all your examples involve people with less chances in life. However, the primary drive for criminality and prostitution is poverty. Less poverty means the supply of dealers, prostitutes shrinks, with rising demand prices will shoot up.

More guns, more violence by a smaller group, thus easier to the police. More prostitution by a smaller group, thus driving prices up which allows an easier escape. More human trafficking, why? This is hardly a side-job. Do you mean an increased immigration?

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