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.
Yep. That’s literally what a minimum wage job is
Except some minimum wage jobs involve making the world worse.
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.
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
I left it open ended specifically so they could target their time how they wish. I know several disabled people who all contribute to my communities in various impactful ways, some without ever leaving the home. Having said that, my question could have been phrased better.
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.
I would work as Chef in a communal restaurant where we cook the rich. Freshly served and hunted by ourselves.
Edgy
I would do my current job for free with people who need it but couldn’t afford it (massage) think seniors, sick, disabled ect. Also, spend time working with animal rescue/shelters in some way
My union has me working 37 hours a week. Its not basic income if you have to work for it especially if you have to work more than a full time employment!
It’s just a job at that point, though.
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 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.
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.
Animal shelter work, or do litter pick up in the woods or the beach.
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.
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.
