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Comment by BSousa | Hacker News Reader

The main problem is then you have people that work and envy the ones that don't.

Let's be honest, wouldn't you prefer for someone to just pay you and you could do whatever you wanted? Go skiing, hiking, learn Ember or Haskell? Bu in this scenario, you are working on another CRUD application that will make a few more data entry people redundant which will go skiing, hiking, learn the guitar, and you will be stuck at the office in Java land cursing Hibernate (or whatever framework you hate).

We as people are quite jealous of each other, promoting a society where this would happen as standard either grind it to a halt (those that can work would refuse).

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That's a great point. Perhaps one resolution is to take turns working instead. One person goes on the grind for half a year, then the one they were supporting takes over and they get to indulge in life instead. The sense of fairness would remain that way. Only issue is that both people need to be highly skilled (since low skill jobs will be the ones to go). Another approach might be that in every family there will be at least one person who is capable of doing complex technical work - they could support their family and, in turn, their family could take care of some of their immaterial needs. In other words, the giving would be an act of love, not a transaction which is balanced on the books.

I really don't have a good solution for this, have not given it much thought. It's a complex problem. Perhaps the issue is that we are currently locked in this state, as a society, and need to reach a certain threshold before the character of it changes. I'm not quite sure what that looks like or how to get there, but I get the feeling that it is achievable. There must be better ways to live than this. What we have now just isn't good enough.

The disparity between what is paid out for "guaranteed income" (welfare) and what one would get for having any paid position should rise.

Also, if everyone under a certain earnings gets $30000 a year - having a part-time job or a job making $30000 more - makes perfect sense. They are making more than those who don't work and their employers can use them and pay them accordingly.

The real problem right now is that it's a half way system... Minimum wage positions can be a worse deal than going on disability or accepting a generous state's full benefits.

On the other side, employers are supposed to provide a form of welfare to part of their workforce.

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