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Of all the things which are never going to happen, I put universal basic income at the top of the list. Faster than light travel seems vastly more likely than universal basic income.

I don’t believe we can pay for it, nor do I believe that it’s remotely politically feasible.

Studies like this are perfectly nice but I can’t imagine they are actually designed to confidently predict the general equilibrium effects of rolling out UBI on an entire society. (The studies may not be designed with that in mind but it’s crucial.)



Elsewhere in this thread, someone saying this already exists in Alaska.


The oil dividend (likely what they are talking about though I didn’t look) is something like $1,300/year. That’s not universal basic income in the pie-in-the-sky way the phrase is usually used. No one is interested in whether the Alaska dividend makes people not work.

If UBI is limited to a low amount that you couldn’t possibly live on then sure, it’s perfectly possible.




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