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Comment by AdamHede | Hacker News Reader

I especially buy into your third concern.

Where I live, if the introduction of a UBI was followed by a drastic reduction (or complete elimination) of the means-tested system we know today, hunger would potentially become a problem for people blowing their money early in the month (or getting robbed?).

This tells me the utopian ideas of replacing the entire complex system with a simple UBI isn't feasible. You'll end up in dreadful ethical choices and moral hazard. This is indeed already happening, but the bureaucracy of it makes abuse less attractive.

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> if the introduction of a UBI was followed by a drastic reduction (or complete elimination) of the means-tested system we know today,

As I understand it, that elimination is part of the point of UBI. The MTBs are no longer needed.

Why do you think hunger would be caused by UBI? At worst, I would expects those who already depend on MTBs would be in the same position they are in today.

I suspect I know what my society will do to people who repeatable demonstrate the inability to take care of themselves and manage basic living aspects of food and rent. They loose the right to do it themselves and get appointed a guardian.

If that happened regularly the charities would be started up again, except next time far more people would have a little extra money to give so they could be much better funded.

>hunger would potentially become a problem for people blowing their money early in the month (or getting robbed?)

How is the likelihood of this connected to the source of their money? Is hunger not a problem for people who work for a living and blow their money early in the month (or get robbed?)

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