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Comment by hueving | Hacker News Reader

>people will spend their time working on things to improve everyone's life

Some people will. I have met many plenty of people though that don't care about other people regardless of their income.

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I never understood, why this is a problem. We live in a society of abundance. Tying coverage of living expenses to work done, just leads to people doing pointless work. This is at least the reality in Germany: There aren't enough jobs for everyone, people live under the illusion that it is wrong to just subsidize people living, thus the government rather subsidizes jobs, that are not profitable to be done by people (my mother crimped cables from home for a living, something that can be done by a machine for a fraction of the price in orders of magnitude less time).

Apart from that, it is called "basic income", not "luxurious income". Ask these people if they still wouldn't work if the alternative is not being able to afford a smartphone, Game console, plasma TV or car.

We need to get rid of the myth that everybody needs to work. Better would be to automate all the work so nobody has to work anymore.

Who owns the machines in that system? The government?

I don't care who owns them, as long as the value they produce is at least partially shared.

If you haven't read this[1] I think you might enjoy it. It covers the ideas you are talking about. I think it was featured on HN some time back.

[1] http://marshallbrain.com/manna1.htm

This is awesome. Thanks for linking it.

I've had dreams of doing this to an In-n-Out location. Every one I've been to has had all the employees doing every job like a scatterbrained beehive, and it takes 15-20 minutes to get your food.

But those people will always be a net negative for society, basic income or not. Empowering those who would make a positive difference if they had enough time/money sounds like a good idea to me.

I think those who are against a basic wage feel the current net negative portion of society would be a greater net negative because not only would they be receiving a wage, but they'd spend it on crap and society would still have to take care of them (hospital bills, food, etc).

> but they'd spend it on crap

Sounds like a good deal for the crap vendors. Also, maybe the instant-gratification app scene...

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