Would you support a program to ensure that everyone gets enough?

Yes, absolutely. The current shame-based system does not work, and is doing much more damage than good, and causing much more suffering than happiness. Even the well-off people often feel fear about losing their financial situation and being shamed and abandoned by the system.

The shame and resentment are what keep the freeloader/apathy in place.

If people had their needs secure, the attitude towards work would shift from some awful resented chore that doesn’t quite pay the bills, to something people choose to do and that improves their situation. People could do work that actually matched their talents and interests.

And they would, if they were free from the shame and resentment and depression and addictions and so on that go along with that toxic spiral.

Maybe. Depends on details but a solid maybe.

I dont like the freeloaders getting our hardearned money for surfing all day. People are lazy and there would have to be a balance.

No, I wouldnt read or write all day, I get bored easily. I’d have to think about it more.

I’ve thought a lot about this, because I’ve attended several lectures where I live about a Universal Basic Income. I was fairly against the idea initially, but I’m coming around. The idea is give $10k to every citizen. Not enough to live on, but helps substantially with basic needs. Since it’s everyone, people wouldn’t have to worry about making too much or saving too much and then not being eligible anymore.

Then, I also researched the Singapore model of providing shelter for everyone, so they don’t have that worry. That’s interesting also.

I think it’s very important young people work, so I worry about teens and 20 year olds being complacent, unhappy, even depressed, without motivation to be financially independent by working.

Capitalism is a motivator, I don’t want to remove it altogether from society, but I do want to make life a little easier for Americans. Shorter work weeks, more time with family, and less worry and stress over saving for healthcare and retirement.

I don’t want to entrust the government with providing everything, but I do want the government to help with safety, security, and education.

Where I live most people don’t work and there is a tremendous amount of volunteering and activities. It’s the most active community I’ve ever lived in. People don’t have to work, but they don’t just sit around all day. I think it works, because most of the people living here spent many years working, and appreciate the freedom now. I do t think it would work the same if you just gave 20 year olds the same set up as I have here in a retirement community. Maybe I’m wrong. Even the people who still work participate and volunteer.

That’s all nice and warm and fuzzy and stuff but the fact is that without people doing the hard work nobody else gets to relax. Those of us doing that work generally don’t want to do it either but it has to get done. Until we create a slave army of AI robots to do this somebody has to keep the lights on and the food available so the rest of you can stay warm, safe, fat and alive. Those people deserve to be compensated more. If such a system was in place there would not be enough to do this.

You immediately understand that capitalism MUST disintegrate if people can no longer be forced to work jobs they despise for wages which insult them. It’s that simple. But I favor a system where everyone has decent shelter, an adequate diet and decent healthcare. There is little question that such a goal is readily obtainable in a place with the wealth and resources of the United States. The problem is that you cannot have such a setup and billionaires simultaneously. But IF the basic necessities were assured for individuals, people would have the freedom to pursue their dreams, provided their dreams aren’t about tying up all the money.

@ARE_you_kidding_me Is it safe to summarize your thoughts as, there would be too many freeloaders for it to work?

Or maybe you’re saying the same as @stanleybmanley, that it’s imperative in our society that some people be forced to do icky jobs for not enough money?

I love the idea, except for those rare few, who “don’t want to work,” as articulated in the Details. I think most want to work, but like Stanley said, not shit jobs, that just keep you poor…

I would argue that most billionaires, don’t “work.” So there are extremes, on both sides of the spectrum…

And it is the extremes on the upper end which dictate the squalor on the bottom. If a society has the resources to provide everyone within it adequate food, shelter and healthcare, and yet those resources are distributed elsewhere, the question should be asked WHY? Where is the wealth going? Americans are trained from birth to never ask such questions. WHY?

Are you talking about sex??

what?

@kritiper I just now figured out what you’re talking about. Umm, I wasn’t speaking of anything in particular, just thinking about jobs that no one wants to do, and no one would do if we all had enough of what we need without working. Sex? I’m pretty sure people would keep doing that for free. Cheers

@SaganRitual Not so much freeloaders but currently not enough people willing to support others if there is no incentive to do so. I mean would you want to work weekends at a job you hate just so someone else you may not even know gets to kick back and relax while receiving the same financial support? You would take the not working road. I probably would too in all honesty.

The truth is that here in America the poorest of the poor still have it better than most places in the world. The vast majority have enough already outside of such a system but it’s in the nature of people to want as much or more as they see others have even if it’s not real.
Twenty years from now this will be in our faces as “work” will have mostly been all automated. It’ll either be a hell on earth or a utopia depending on how we decide to arrange things.

Yes.

The human race is too stupid to handle such a set up.
Middle class is a laughable myth. The majority are simply fancy poor. They keep their money spent, years ahead of their earnings. They want every new gadget they can get.

I have known women who would shoplift to get their kids the most awesome new game system out there.

I find this not very different from maxing out credit cards. Buying on credit is irresponsible. Maxing out more than one line of credit is simple theft. Nobody can reliably predict they will be able to work the necessary years to pay off their debt.

Oh man. I need to lie down.

I’m all for it. More people will come around once they realize Excel has killed more jobs then robots in factories ever will. And it is just getting started, software is coming for your comfortable desk job.

My point is in 20 years all the people that think it is just the shit jobs being destroyed are going to applying at Arbys and they might have a very different view on this subject.

I agree with @johnpowell . There is an AI revolution going on. It will have robots in low level jobs and many middle income jobs. We need to give serious thought on how to handle this. The prospect of universal basic income may be forced upon us out of sheer necessity.

Yeah, me too. There is an intersection approaching of resources, population and technology that is going to fundamentally change how we live. I don’t know what it’ll look like but unless we prepare for it odds are it won’t end well for most people. What people are allowed to do and have will probably be resource based. I think we are probably 20–30 years out from this. I don’t know about UBI but automation should make some basics more accessible to everyone by default. Ai is not terminator scary right now but it is when you see just how brutally efficient it is. If we are smart a Star trek future is around the corner. If we are asleep at the wheel it’ll probably be brave New world or worse.

I guess you mean a Socialist program…

@kritiper: Pick one.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Types_of_socialism

Yes, because if everyone has their basic needs met that of food, clothing, shelter and add excellent health care then that will free up man’s minds to expand into new ideas,art,writing,creating new resources,new medical cures,exploration in things that one never had the time to think about that will create a more relaxed society and hopefully a more peaceful world that works together instead of fighting each other for the top position in the World.

Our society now and in the future depends on electricity and when that goes out man will have to go back to doing the work manually to survive.

I believe that AI needs electricity as a back up ( think battery power) and with out that AI is as useless as a dead battery.

Keep learning, keep fit ,and still remember how to survive with the basics, as one day in the future our livelihood will depend on that knowledge.

The simple answer is NO. Even in the most socialist society everyone needs to contribute. Who would apply to be the guy that cleans the sewage disposal tanks? I would love to sit back and write a book, unfortunately I don’t have that talent. In your world it wouldn’t matter, I could just kick back and continue to create garbage. Just because you enjoy doing something doesn’t mean you’re good at it or that the world needs or wants it. Without failure, you can’t appreciate success, anything given to you has no value. Frankly the utopian world you would have is a world I couldn’t live in.

@Jaxk “Frankly the utopian world you would have is a world I couldn’t live in.”

You don’t know this. You don’t know what kind of world I would have. I wonder how much you know about the other people, groups, political systems, and economic systems about which you have so many negative opinions.

In my world, every Tuesday would be “Taco Tuesday”. Don’t you feel bad now, jumping to conclusions and all?

@Jaxk Sagan seems to be young and optimistic, life hasn’t spanked him yet. I would call it being realistic, more than negative.

It just doesn’t work that way, even hippie communes fail and they had much the same idea, trying repeatedly to get it right.

No way. People need to work. It gives purpose and accomplishment to their lives.

I think that people need to set high goals and work hard to achieve them.

“There is no gain without struggle” -Martin Luther King Jr.

I have no real talents of skills and wasn’t a great student. My strongest assets are that I have great patience and perseverance. It took me 6 years to get a BA while working at KFC. Why did I do that? Because I felt the ugly beast of poverty breathing down my neck.

I worked 38 years in a thankless profession that few people can handle. All the while investing in the stock market. Why? So I will have the power to live out the rest of my life as I see fit. Yes, now I can buy a big pile of gold plated accordions. I have no debt (house paid off) and have reached what money managers call “critical mass”. In other words I have more money than I’ll ever use.

Why? So I can be in charge. Not the government. I can travel anywhere I want any time, see any doctor, have the very best healthcare, pay cash for new vehicles, etc, etc.

@KNOWITALL Fair enough, let’s change my statement:

I wonder how much you know about the other people, groups, political systems, and economic systems about which you have so many realistic opinions.

I don’t see any difference. The point stands, I wonder how many of these realistic opinions fluthering around on this site are based on knowledge, as opposed to spankings and naysaying and ruling out possibilities simply because some troop of empty-headed stoners couldn’t make it work in the 1960s (or empty-headed crystal-gazers in the 80s, or whatever).

Anyway, I’m still expecting more from you on this question; you said you would have to think about it more. This had better not be the entire result of all your thinking, or I will demand a refund.

I can’t think of a single place this sort of thing was tried that did not turn into a dystopian nightmare.

@SaganRitual You are funny sometimes, I’ll give you that…lol.

I’m curious about your knowledge statement. Do I have to live in a commune or just hear about thousands that failed in a world similar to what you describe?

Not all communes even allowed alcohol or dope, some were all natural, and still failed, so that’s not really a fair statement. Learning from history is really important, that’s part of how we evolve.

I’m sorry, I’m simply not really interested in conjecture about your world, at least not until someone does the math/ balance required for it to be feasible and sustainable.

At the end of the day, you are solely responsible for your success and your failure. And the sooner you realize that, you accept that, and integrate that into your work ethic, you will start being successful. As long as you blame others for the reason you aren’t where you want to be, you will always be a failure. Erin Cummings
Read more at: https://www.brainyquote.com/topics/work

Look! All of us agree that the day is approaching when there won’t be jobs for most of us. Another way of expressing this is to say that rising productivity is expressed through falling man hours of production. The question here is WHO will benefit from that rising efficiency? WHO is benefitting NOW? And WHY? WHO SHOULD benefit?

@KNOWITALL Come into the light with me. You’re not curious about my knowledge statement. It wasn’t a statement. It was a wondering. Your rhetorical about communes is a deflection, as though you can’t think in terms of metaphor. As I’ve said elsewhere, I presume that you and I are roughly peers. I was wondering about the level of knowledge informing the realism you referred to, and neither you nor @kritiper have given me any reason to ascribe supporting knowledge to any of your assertions. I am asking you to give me said reason.

“My world”? As I told @kritiper, you have no idea what “my world” is. If nothing else, you obviously don’t see the happy and fulfilled @KNOWITALL I envision.

Being provided the necessities does not mean people won’t work. How many of us would be satisfied with dull basic food a modest house and NOTHING else?

@SaganRitual (sigh) okay then.

@SaganRitual Happy and fulfilled? We will soon put a stop to that!

@KNOWITALL I don’t know what you mean. If you mean you’re working on a detailed answer to my original question, then, cool, awesome, thanks.

I’m a little worried that you mean something like, “you win”. I really hope you don’t. That’s absolutely not anything like an outcome I would have hoped for, ever. Do tell me what you mean. If you think I’ve been trying to “win”, ugh. No.

@SaganRitual I am not working on anything for you, sorry.

Is English your second language? I don’t understand some of your word usage, so perhaps something is getting lost in translation.

@KNOWITALL All-American, although I don’t leave the house much. I just didn’t know what you meant by “ok then”. You’re not going to talk to me any more? You promise henceforth always to provide citations for every assertion you make? You’re ready to accept me as your lord and savior?

@SaganRitual I don’t think we have much in common, so no need to waste our time.

Yeah. I fail to see a comparison.

Sagan – The U.S. Census Bureau estimates that there are 247,813,910 adults living in the United States. The cost of providing $10,000 or equivalent expense, to each of them is approximately $2.5 trillion annually. Where would you get it? We already pay more than half our earnings in taxes so even if you did work you wouldn’t get much after taxes. So why would anyone work? Hobbies, sleep, and video games (assuming anyone was available to make them) would be all that is left in life. Sounds like fun. You want to make this some utopian paradise but all you actually accomplish is turning life into some boring, sedentary life just waiting to die. You can say it would be wonderful all you like but count me out.

@Jaxk The top 400 pay on average 17% taxes to the fed. Top 400 make over $200 million a year. Remember that’s just earnings, not their wealth. I’ve seen information on how much each person could be given with how much money is produced, but I couldn’t quote any of it.

^^^ That sounds great if you take all of it, every penny, that’s $80 billion. Who’s going to cough up the almost 2 trillion to cover the rest.

^^That’s just 400 people. There are way more people than that who are mega multimillionaires. Not that I’m for taking all their money away, I’m not. I’m only saying there are calculations for if there is enough wealth for everyone to have some money.

People don’t seem to want a Socialist society. Every time the subject comes up people hit the roof! So it seems odd to me when the question or statement implies that everybody should get some of whatever someone thinks they should get some of.

This is ALREADY a socialist society. People aren’t aware of it, and that ignorance is rigidly enforced. But it is the socialist safety net engendered by Roosevelt thru Johnson that prevents this country from blowing up in our faces.

It works for Canada and the other developed countries. It’s been proven that it works. Why are so many Americans so sure it won’t work here?

@Jaxk “You want to make this some utopian paradise”

You know nothing about me, nothing about my hopes for the future. Where did you get this idea that you can read minds? Where did you get this idea that ad-hom is appropriate on a Q&A website?

Ok. Imploding.

To clarify $200million each, not combined.

I think a lot of people are blindly idealizing socialism though, and I find it ironic considering the same people hate and don’t trust Trump and don’t trust many people in our congress.

The thing about the countries that are very socialized and it seems to work is they trust their government. The countries where it goes to shit are the countries where the leadership is very corrupt.

Sagan – I know quite a bit about you. You’ve been on this site for a while now and voicing your positions. You have an idealistic style to you writing. You seldom back up your arguments with facts but demand that others do. So yeah, I’ve made some assumptions of who you are. You can’t write as much as you do and then pretend you’re a mystery. You’re not.

@Jaxk No, you know nothing about me, and it’s clearer every time you say something. I haven’t been voicing any positions or advancing any arguments, so there’s nothing to be backed up with facts. I challenge you to find a few examples. Don’t try to claim that my questions are agenda-heavy—you don’t know that either.

Further, your (incorrect) guess about me pretending to be a mystery. No, that’s simply not the case. If someone wanted to ask me about my desires for the future, I’d be glad to talk about it. (Ask—that’s a thing we have on Earth.) You should visit some time.

(Aren’t you the one who claimed I had made an illegal and immoral decision before? How is it that you still think you have any kind of ability to guess at what’s going on in my mind?)

(Funny how you start off with “I know” and then later admit that you’re assuming. I’m not sure what to make of that.)

That’s another thing. Those on the right, would call it “triggered.” Meanwhile. Back in reality, we call it sticking up for yourself….

Cowards hate people who stick up for themselves, and try to bark, even when running tale tucked…

@SaganRitual – I knew enough before your post. It’s fairly easy from your questions to determine the answers you’re looking for. Take a walk back up this thread to where I answered your question. Then look at your response. You attacked without even mentioning any of my arguments. You could have said “i’m not looking for utopia, etc. etc. but you didn’t, you became combative. I believe that is the definition of ad hominem. Now you want to support Grim who seems to believe that insults and attacks are a good substitute for facts. All this says a lot about who you are. I don’t know if you think you are clever or simply won’t hear anything you don’t like but it makes no difference to me. You asked a question, I gave you an answer. If you don’t like the answers don’t ask the questions.

If you don’t like the thread, you don’t have to contribute. Quite more simple, than your BS…

@Jaxk “Combative” is a subjective term, as is “attack”. I perceive the conversation entirely differently. I didn’t attack, I pointed out that you were making unfounded statements. I think that’s a perfectly reasonable thing to do in a conversation when someone starts making unfounded statements.

I could have said, “I’m not looking for utopia,” it’s true. It’s also true that you could have refrained from derailing the conversation by talking about me, and taking wild guesses about my intentions. So, I don’t know what point you’re making.

You “believe” that’s the definition of ad-hom? Well, you’re incorrect. I’m not attacking, I’m correcting.

”... without even mentioning any of my arguments”—you have misunderstood (again) my reasons for not mentioning your arguments.

“Now you want to support Grim”—another wild guess. “Support”? Where did you get that idea? Not from me, nor from anything I’ve ever said or implied. You’re still mind-reading, very badly.

“All this says a lot about who you are”—no, it says a lot about who you are, how you interpret other people’s behavior. All the grotesque assumptions you’ve made about me, that’s not at all because of who I am. It’s all about you.

You did in fact give me an answer. With ad-hom in it.

“If you don’t like the answers don’t ask the questions.”—More mind-reading. Who says I don’t like the answers? I never complained about your answers. I complained about your mind-reading and your ad-hom.

This is why I’m throwing a tantrum. You are responding the same way as almost all the other right-leaning people have responded. Mind-reading, ad-hom, deflection, scolding, judgment, etc, etc. I should have thought that someone here would represent the right, rather than justifying all the stereotypes and exaggerations from the left.

I was wrong.

@Yellowdog, to your credit, you have been receptive to new facts. I don’t want to leave that unsaid. I was very impressed.

You said, “Ask”. You said if someone straight asks, you will straight answer.
I’m asking.
Will you describe yourself on the bio space available on your profile page? Will you represent yourself, especially you views, and your ideas for a better future?
I asked. The ball is in your court.
This is handball, by the way. I play hard.

@Patty_Melt True, I did say that if someone asks, I’ll tell. But perhaps you and I have different ideas about what it means to ask. For me, ask is about curiosity, a desire for knowledge, a way to understand each other and have a useful conversation.

I think you’re “asking” according to an entirely different mental model. I didn’t say I would “play” your game. I’m not interested in competitions. I won’t join you on your handball court. I’m interested in conversation. I’m definitely not interested in your opinions of my views or how they came to be in my head—I mention this because it does seem to be a common theme among the rightward-leaning people I’ve spoken to.

If “play hard” means you’re going to talk about me, then let’s not bother. I’m not interested in that conversation.

My views (no, I’m not going to put them in my profile; it feels too much like I’m stepping onto the handball court with you).

1. Human beings are good.
2. When humans behave badly, we don’t address the real problem.
3. Punishment is overused, possibly even detrimental (see #4).
4. We need to start using all the science that has been going on for the last couple of centuries; we could apply it to just about every aspect of modern society: governance, justice, law, education, tax policy, etc, etc..
5. The Founding Fathers were not as wise as we give them credit for.
6. The Constitution is at least 150 years out of date.

Well, there’s lots more, but let’s see how this much goes. I’m bothered that you’ve approached me with this stance. I rather hoped that you’d be an exception to my disappointment. But who knows, if we can get past this handball game, maybe we can actually talk.

Peace and luck

Some would rather slide sideways than gain traction and be true to their journey.

Denmark is quite socialized. Here is an old Oprah report about Denmark. https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=eKa-3lbLeyA

The man at the end has written about how Americans probably wouldn’t be happy enough with this set up. That culturally we are too different. I’m not sure if I completely agree, but I agree at least a portion of our country would go stir crazy.

I think the size of our nation is what makes such changes impossible, at least the largest inhibitive factor.

If it ever did happen, I think it would have to be a few states, initially. I think it could never be the whole country, because of heavy opposition. I think it would divide the country, like slavery did, individual states choosing whether they would participate or not.
I think people in favor of such a change underestimate the huge task it would be to organize and implement. It would be much more difficult to get it right than Obamacare, and look how that went; the delays, the unforeseen, the confusion. Even Mike Huckabee’s idea for eliminating income tax would be simpler, and that is what shot him down hard when he was opposing Obama for his first run at the presidency.

@Patty_Melt I think it is mostly about culture. America is very diverse, which is one complication, but even so we do have an American culture. A large portion of Americans like big symbols, bright lights, and big fun, not just calm contentment.