If a universal basic income started today with the stipulation…
Let me stop you right there. If there are any “stipulations,” it ceases to be “universal” by definition.
The point of UBI is that it has no stipulations. It’s guaranteed no matter what.
Exactly. Its value becomes evident when a version gets to the stage where they can’t work. Very different from those that choose not to work.
And even more evident when you need to decide how to set up a bureaucracy, paperwork, and verification to judge whether someone else could be working more, or just not
It’s a hypothetical question, read the room 🙄. He’s just asking what you would do if you were tasked with making the world a better place.
Volunteer at a school/daycare for poor kids. My (retired, formerly college professor) mother already does. I’m sure I could teach them some stuff. Maths or history or how to work computers. And failing that, I can always go to the baby room and help contain the chaos and fluids.
Universal basic income means no requirement to do anything.
However as a worker in healthcare, I’d probably continue as I am.
disabled people (or others who cannot work) would be more fucked than they already are, raising the income floor for everyone except them, - this is why universal basic income is supposed to be universal
It’s just a job at that point, though.
How the hell would one define "making the world a better place?’ 😂
I think that’s the entire point of this exercise. Thinking about what making the world better would actually mean and entail.
Spreading awareness and availability of birth control and family planning. We’ve been above global carrying capacity for a long time now, and it will end badly. I’d try to soften the blow.
Honestly I make well above what the UBI would pay, so I’d keep doing what I do. But I have dreams of investing in garbage-burning power plants in the US, and having some of you able to help with this makes it much more obtainable.
I would create “smart home” things for disabled people.
I had enough time then, to go, ask them and find out what is really helpful - without the need to make a profit.
For example, one has asked me why there isn’t a washing machine for a wheelchair’s wheels. A real problem. The wheels get dirty when he is outside, and then he enters the home and they are still dirty. The machine would have to work without him leaving the chair and it needs to be installed inside the home - not in a garage or so.
I would not do anything, claiming that I’m preventing myself from making the world a worst place.
Haha joking. I’ll start auditing open source project for free and improve the overall security of our whole infrastructure.
Honestly, I would go back to being a park ranger. I loved the job and helping people in nature, I just couldn’t survive on the pay. If that wasn’t an issue, I would go back in an instant
I would start a community space with a dance hall, coffee shop, bike shop, maker space, brewery, and library centered on an urban trail to show people you can go places and do worthwhile things without an automobile. I’d include parking for cargo bikes, trikes and hand bikes, along with upright bikes and chargers for electric bikes. My hope being that the model would spread to other cities and higher density residential developments would spring up around it. Obviously my UBI wouldn’t cover that no matter how generous it was, so step one would be to use my extra time to get buy in from like minded neighbors.
Teach. I already teach and I would continue to do so even if I had enough money to retire. I just love seeing young people discover the joy of programming and 3D modeling.
Are we counting raising kids? Because I feel like that would be the answer for the supermajority of people. It’s super necessary work that society is utterly dependent on, yet we insist on not compensating.
Shit, we could just do UBI for parents and we’d be 80% there.
