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Comment by eropple | Hacker News Reader

And so they would...continue...to work...for things that cost more than food and shelter do?

Very often, yes. But if their boss harassed them (or say tried to force RTO), they could quit and not worry about ending up on the street.

That was what I was getting at, yeah. ;)

This is the real reason I like the idea of UBI. It’s not because I want to do nothing all day, it’s because I want to shift the power dynamic. For example, imagine a worker living paycheck-to-paycheck who needs their employer-provided health insurance, with an asshole boss who refuses to let them take a day off to attend a family member’s funeral: the UBI improves their ability to tell that boss to get fucked without ending up broke and homeless.

Basically I’m for any system that allows people to tell bad bosses to get fucked.

Also a good argument for universal health care.

Most likely.

But many would not need to live with the existential dread of perhaps ending up living under a bridge some day. Or skipping meals just to make rent.

Perhaps some would not need to give up on their lives and education by getting some minimum-wage job to help out their family or because of some early accident instead of going to college.

I am quite certain it could end up a net positive for society as a whole.

Reminds me of that quote:

“I am, somehow, less interested in the weight and convolutions of Einstein’s brain than in the near certainty that people of equal talent have lived and died in cotton fields and sweatshops.”

And yes, it would shift the power dynamic in the workplace.

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