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Comment by Shivetya | Hacker News Reader

Basic income of all the failed attempts at communism, whats the end difference? Everyone can be happy in poverty except for those who run the industries and government?

Seen it, fails every time. Basic Income is nothing more than some people hoping to pay some groups enough so they don't steal their stuff. The issue becomes, how much is that pay off going to be?

NPR has lots of stories about people living off of SSI/SSID and similar, very close the requirements of BI, guess what, they seem to lose the will to improve their lives.

BI will just result in more people not trying to improve themselves

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If you think the majority of people would just lay their lives to waste because they don't need to doing the bidding of others just to survive, then you are wrong. 99% of able-bodied and able-minded adults would not succumb to idlery.

Applying for SSI/SSID is an incredibly dehumanizing process. It takes over a year if you are lucky. You will be denied for any reason they can possibly find. It is guaranteed you will be denied for your first application. You have to prove you are disabled to them (disgusting really). You must have documentation. It goes on and on, but they honestly hope most applicators either die in the interim or just give up on 'improving themselves'.

Really, if there is a miniscule amount of people who will abuse the system it does not at all outweigh the good it provides. If your qualm is with said abusers, profile, detect, and prosecute them. Society is not going to collapse.

>If you think the majority of people would just lay their lives to waste because they don't need to doing the bidding of others just to survive, then you are wrong. 99% of able-bodied and able-minded adults would not succumb to idlery.

I would like to be the first to welcome you to planet Earth and introduce you human beings, as it is clear you have just arrived here.

The people who make more than enough money to survive (many tech people), what keeps them pushing for more? The drive to prove oneself, the drive to rise above the rest, the drive to obtain what others do not have, the drive to fame. Those forces will always exist, and will always push people.

It's clear that you have a very limited view of humanity. Go out and meet some people, and learn their motivations and what drives them.

I can play that condescension game too! Mason, you seem to have really taken the don't-question-things-fall-in-line schooling to heart all the way to where you think you are actually an independent thinker, but you just parrot completely baseless folk wisdom!

See? Isn't this productive and enjoyable? Hmm, if not, maybe you could try to have respectful and productive things to say in the future. You might learn something.

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