Attila, when pharmaceutical companies test medications, they don’t test everybody in the population. In fact, comparative to the size of the population, the sample testing number of people is very small. Yet they still take the results as presentative of the many. This methodology hasn’t been disproved in all the years it has been used, so why would you question the same method for UBI.
That said, I’d like you to read about some really large experiments with UBI. They are neither limited in scope, nor are they making people lazy.
QUOTE: Jacklin is part of a massive study by GiveDirectly, which will provide a universal basic income set at the Kenyan poverty line to dozens of impoverished villages, totaling more than 6,000 people, for 12 whole years. Thousands more will receive short-term aid, bringing the total helped to more than 26,000. It’s the biggest study of cash to date. If it succeeds, the results should put myths about the profligate poor to rest.
The above project has been going for some years now, and nobody has become lazy or is wasting money.
This article is from Business Insider.
QUOTE: In the 13 months since GiveDirectly began its experiment, Owiti and his fellow villagers have slowly and quietly been disproving the biggest misconception about basic income — that people who receive free money will stop working and waste the cash on vices like gambling, drugs, or alcohol. Anecdotal evidence and nearly all empirical research has shown that unconditional cash transfers help people help themselves. Recipients often use the income to pay for their kids' school fees, buy medicine, repair their homes, and invest in their small businesses to further grow their wealth. While some use the money for so-called "temptation goods," as economists call them, the majority of recipients defy the stereotype that people in poverty somehow lack moral character or responsibility.
Now let me draw you an analogy. Let’s pretend that there is a village of some 1000 people. Only 30% of those people work, i.e. 300. The rest don’t work. However, because the 300 people who are working produce more than enough goods (through mechanization, computerization, and AI), there are more than sufficient goods here to feed, clothe and provide for everybody in every way.
Now, here’s the problem. The 300 who are working deeply resent the 700 who aren’t working. They see themselves as producers while the people who aren’t working are lazy and don’t want to work. The problem is NOT a lack of goods. The economic system (a system of production and distribution) is doing just fine.
Now let me quote you. “Even worse, they generally harm the very people you want to help. I think it is very dangerous to claim that many humans have no productive future and need to get government handouts.”
Really? So let me get this straight. How are people harmed when they I cadon’t work? It is good for their mental health, their physical healthy, and for being able to actually get things done in their own lives. Communities are built as people actually have time to care for each other. If you don’t think of caring for others, fixing up one’s homes, caring for family, etc. as productive, then you have an issue with brainwashing. You have been brainwashed to such an extent that you think the only thing that qualifies as productive work is that employed by business.
I think you need to take a long hard look at what work actually is for the human species. It has always been simply the gathering of food, the provision of shelter, and no human being worked more than a 20 hour work week before the advent of the Industrial Revolution. In fact, mammals all only work a 20 hour week.
People are NOT getting a ‘government hand-out.” They are contributing human beings, even if it just means that they are baby-sitting for their next door neighbor as a favor or helping a senior cross the street. People are not worth less because their definition of what it means to be human is closer to home than yours is.
The economic system (a system of production and distribution) needs to change on earth if we are to survive as a species. We can no longer endure the 1% or the top 10% of people who are the ownership class. We need to eradicate that concept and ensure that everybody on the planet gets a share. Where do you get the idea that it’s okay for 30% of the population to have 99% of the goods because ‘they do the work’ and the other 70% are only entitled to share the remaining 1% because they aren’t ‘doing the work?”
In Tanzania, there are tribes where if there is a rich man in the village, and there are some poor people, and the rich man has not provided for the poor people, the rich man is shamed in the eyes of all. In the Christian bible, the rich members of the early church divided what they had amongst the poor. There is no ethical school of thought on this planet that justifies the wealth of a few at the expense of the many.
Humanity as always been a social species, one that cooperates with others in the tribe so that all survive.
You say, “Such talk will crush people's self-confidence and decrease their motivation to learn.” WTF? Actually, 20% of all CEOs are full blown psychopaths (and you can google the research on that – it is well known). And let me assure that the 75% to 95% of people who hate their jobs, hate them because of the awful people that are at the top of the food chain. If anybody is guilty of crushing self-confidence, it is the psychopaths (businessmen and politicians) who run this world. I can assure you that once people stop being exposed to those horrific excuses for human beings, their confidence begins to return.
People love to learn. It’s something that they do naturally. When people have free time and discretionary income, they tend to enroll on courses in order to learn how to do new things.
Your real objection to UBI is that you deeply resent people not working because you, yourself work, and you want to at the top of the pecking order.
Sorry, there is no more time left for the class and caste system. And that is what it is.
