>This is what unconditional basic income actually is. Not a welfare program. Not a stimulus. Not a transfer. UBI is a society asking for something so uniquely valuable that payment of any sort would be impossible — and offering, in return, the smallest possible gesture of recognition. UBI is lifewealth. Not paid to settle a debt, but paid to acknowledge a debt that cannot be settled.

Original sin reinvented.

>The message of UBI, stripped of the fiscal jargon, is one sentence: “I trust you.” I trust that if I give you what you need to live, you will use it to live. I trust that you do not need a caseworker checking up on you. I trust that you do not need to prove you are looking for work. I trust that you do not need to be poor enough or sick enough or pathetic enough to deserve it. You are a human being. You exist. That is sufficient.

Altruism is a poor strategy in the 'real world'. One look at the digital domain and we conclude zero trust is a strong strategy for dealing with humans in that abstracted world. The idea of large, high trust societies is a very 1st-world concept, anyhow.

>UBI pilots have been run, with real money, in real countries, with real measurements. The consistent finding across more than a decade of evidence is that giving people unconditional cash makes them happier and healthier, and the mechanisms by which it does so map closely onto the argument I’ve just made.

UBI arguments end in cinders, no? We still argue over tiny time-limited pilots as the model for civilization at scale. This time, the avenue is moral superiority, but we haven't changed any of the facts of human nature, such as the free rider problem going unsolved.