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> provided they have enough to live on.

That's what UBI does.

> running out with the winnings and buying expensive sports cars, drinks etc.

I'm not entirely sure if you know what UBI is. It is not giving everybody enough money to buy a sports car. By a long shot.

> Less smart people might spend their money on lottery tickets, junk food, booze etc.

That's an incredibly narrow minded view. It is also irrelevant, unless your intent is that your 'less smart people' have so little money, they are homeless. The general idea behind UBI is that 'subsistence level' workforce at its base isn't going to change a whole lot in buying power. They can elect to stop working entirely and still live decently enough (but certainly not if they spend it all on lottery tickets. Junk food tends to be cheap; if anything, UBI will help there) – this is good, as it pressures business that can automate, to do so, vs. making someone spend their life doing an easily automated job.

> I'm not entirely sure if you know what UBI is. It is not giving everybody enough money to buy a sports car. By a long shot.

Really? Because according to this[0] I can make loan payments on a Tesla for $1000 per month. If I started getting an extra $1000/month, why not drive a Model S?

[0] https://www.tesla.com/support/tesla-leasing

So... you're jealous that the winner of a lottery got the money without merit and therefore oppose providing subsistence income to poor people?

Intelligence and wealth are correlated, but not nearly as cleanly as you think. More importantly, taste for the various vices of life are not at all correlated with intelligence. Except maybe positively.

Desperation is the key ingredient to participation in lotteries. I realized this when an entire cohort of mathematics phd candidates at a top program bought lottery tickets. They understood the odds. They also made 20K/yr and faced the worst job market in a century. Desperation with basically zero meaningful opportunity cost. What are they going to do, invest it? They aren't even invested in fucking social security after 6 years of 80 hour weeks.

> “provided they have enough to live on”

That is the entire point of a UBI.

I want compassionate people to have more money. I want less compassionate people to have less money. A compassionate person will invest their fellow humans. A person lacking compassion will buy themselves trinkets and hoard wealth. I came to this conclusion when reading this borderline hateful comment.

Interesting way to put it

"I want smart people to have more money"

Why? Shouldn't it be "people who have a more positive impact on society should have more money"?

Being smart isn't anything, it's like being tall. You got it because you were born with it.

Also, what about those who weren't born "smart"? Should society just tell them "tough luck"? Shouldn't we think about everyone and how they will all do in our future, more perfect country/world?

Are you really suggesting that it’s not possible to cultivate intelligence in an age where even the lowest classes have instant access to the sum of human knowledge? You either agree that all men(humans) are born equal or you agree that some men(humans) have a right to rule. You can’t assert that everyone deserves equal rights while also asserting that some people are simply smarter by nature, obviously smarter people need to be making the decisions right? Or are we already at the point that we’re calling intelligence subjective

We aren't talking about "right to rule" here - we're talking about "right to have the basic necessities needed to not die from starvation or exposure"

I think what're you're saying is built on top of many faulty, and frankly, pretty classist assumptions.

You want "smart" people to have more wealth and income than "less smart" people, making an argument for a intellectual based meritocracy or something - I think ignoring all the other factors that determine success in a our economy like luck, family wealth, and business smarts. There are plenty of smart people that aren't rewarded for their skills by markets (researchers anyone?) and plenty of "less smart" people who are successful simply because of the prior success of their family.

Meritocracy may be ideal, but having it as the foundations of your economy thinking seems pretty ignorant.

And then I think a silly correlation between higher wealth & income, and spending habits are made. More successful people don't invest their money to improve their future financial prospects. There are plenty of rich people who piss away all of their fortune or still manage to live paycheck to paycheck, and there are plenty of lower income people who vigorously penny pitch for a retirement account they won't see until they are 70.

Furthermore, frivolous items of consumption like alcohol, gambling, and fast food is present across all classes. Wanting to have a good time doesn't depend on your income. Higher rates of consumption may be seen in lower classes, but I would chalk that up to lack of opportunities and lack of information than inherent stupidity or something.

You seem to be assuming that there's a simple, one directional causal relationship between "is smart" and "has money" (and also that people who are more intelligent somehow deserve more comfortable lives). Consider that things other than inherent intelligence might be making poor people spend money on junk food and lottery tickets.

So someone born into an environment not conducive to academic development, or with mental challenges etc does not deserve enough to live off? That's exactly the problem UBI would aim to solve, but you seem against it.

No SWE makes as much as top sports players, even though the first group would be, on average, smarter than the latter. Is that unfair?

UBI gets rid of a lot of such gatekeeping, and aims to give people enough to live off. What you do with your time is then up to you, and who knows what the net effect would be. Maybe your local janitor finally gets some spare time and money to reduce work hours, and start a hit podcast. Maybe they spend it all merely supporting their extended family. Maybe they blow it all on drugs. Are we really in a position to dictate how people live their life? I'd rather everyone gets a base level of opportunity in life, and then they can further lift themselves upwards, should they choose to.

The entire point of the UBI is to provide enough to live on.

Assertion: capitalism 1.0 as implemented in the US today, rewards sociopathy more than intelligence or work ethic ( or any other sort of ethic for that matter).

Sociopathy I use loosely in both its narrow technical, and lay, uses.

Lemma: many of the current "unicorns" lionize sociopathy under the pithy cover of "breaking things," such as laws, not least through exploitation of societal and legal zero-days. Their fully disclosed business model has been to exploit the slow response time of legal and societal remedies long enough to burn VC buying customers and building a defensible monopoly.

The point of the UBI is to provide a defense of last resort for citizens of one of the wealthiest, and rapidly stratifying and polarizing, cultures on the planet.

We are likely agreed that it shouldn't be the only and first source of income,

but it should absolutely be the last.

That it would also help prevent the absolute devastation looming from this pandemic, not least by allowing businesses to remain solvent during black swan events,

makes it more pressing, and obviously beneficial, than ever before.

For my next rant, I'll address why single-payer healthcare is in the same situation.

The point of UBI is not to reduce the economic output of smart people. In fact, in some sense it could improve since bright minds could reasonably deal with loss of income while pursuing entrepreneurial endeavors. Think of all the smart people wasting their life in a do-nothing job for security that we could liberate to follow through on their best ideas.

At the same time not smart people or disadvantaged won't be ignored or fall through the cracks. Over time as productivity rises through automation we can ramp up the UBI and make sure all human life is valued and give people real opportunity. Even with a UBI that doesn't require you to work to live doesn't preclude a capitalist persuit of resources to make your most grand ideas come true. Let's just make sure we tax externalized cost appropriately.

Will some smart people choose to not work eventually? Sure, but if our automation can support them, who cares?

I think Yang came up with an eloquent phrase for this - UBI is capitalism that doesn't start at 0.

You are basing your opinion on your "visions" of what may have resulted from some state lottery? What does this even have to do with a UBI?

UBI isn't (necessarily or even generally) isn't generally communist (in the strict sense). I'd argue it's a bit of practical captitaliasm, game theory style --- rising tides lift all boats?

You can keep your big boat - let's make sure everyone's got some way to stay afloat?

And not because it's "good" - though maybe it is - but because the ecosystem is healthier/better for it...