@lebronjames75 @theorytoe @lain this came out pretty long but if you want the short version just know that i agree or don't disagree with most of what you said, and then i guess just read the last paragraph? i dunno, i'm not gonna make a proper tldr lol
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>the brain of a human is built to need suffering to a significant extent to thrive.
I'm not sure if this is empirically true, but this is something I also believe, yes. Maybe not suffering specifically, but challenges that must be surmounted, that are in the way of a need or desire, which can sometimes express as suffering.
But it doesn't necessarily have to be suffering related to bare minimum survival
>an endgame reset to wider spread depressions, more suicides, longer and more sufferings statistically than just not doing that.
I'm not sure I follow exactly - are you saying that UBI would lead to more depression suicide etc?
>to remove what is the last great basic motivator to action from humans, is a great gamble
Would humans not be motivated to improve their situations regardless? in this utopia i envision, ubi is not anything more than ensuring one can afford a roof and basic food. one would still need to work to ensure their wants are met, or that their children get a good education, or to travel and see the world, and so on. there are still challenges, but they are not existential.
I'm in a mood now, that I wasn't in when I was writing initially, so I feel the need to add some exaggeration to vent frustration: if one would not be motivated to improve one's situation in those conditions, then one should be turned into fucking paste and fed to pigs.
Of course, that is also part of what I mean when I say much work needs to be done before something like UBI could even begin to look viable - attitude & culture need to change.
>a gamble that has so far in a 100+ small scale tests failed time and time again.
Yes, I touched on this too. But I believe it has failed because it is being forced by small-minded populist freaks trying to win elections or some other popularity contest. to my knowledge, no implementation of UBI has been anything more than "pick an insignificant number of people and give them money with very few strings attached for a random period of time until we run out of funding." Obviously this accomplishes nothing, because as I mentioned, an entire system reset, bottom-up, including cultural, is needed first. Something which would take decades if not centuries.
>the government ensures the safety and continuation of a people by increasing large scale stability against other states
I agree that this is how the world functions at present, yes, and that this is one of the roles of a government
>it is the people's job to force the government to remain on course towards not becoming draconian mafia-like in its methods.
Yes. there is and probably always will be an eternal war between the government and the people it governs.
>[paragraph about consistent work and tangent about cashiers]
lol, yeah that's probably a spot-on observation about cashiers. i agree with literally everything else in this paragraph except:
>Every man MUST commit to SOME work directly tied to the survival of himself and his surroundings.
must he?
i mean, again, in the present world, in the present culture of humanity as a whole, he must. yes.
though i am absolutely one of the people who can and will flee any country i occupy rather than fight for it - i recognize that this mindset is generally harmful to the survival of nations, and for whatever reason i do feel trepidation about that (i'm sure you've seen those euro street interviews where Da Youts say they'd lay down and die if their country was invaded rather than fight, yeah?). i'm unsure I actually care about that at this point, though.
i'm slowly realizing that the part of me that would care, only cares because Change Bad and Stability Good. However, what the fuck does it matter where the pedophile oligarchs ruling my nation come from, if they're all pedophile oligarchs who hate me and will not actually even try to fulfill any of the duties of a government to its people? tangent, sorry.
>governments are not to ensure happiness but rather stability (minimize wars, maximize safety)
I agree - it was a mistake for me to mention happiness as the role of the gov't. it's not and i misspoke
>average joes should be the counter to authority (maximize happiness, minimize state intervention)
based, no notes, fully endorse.
death to authoritarians
>i enjoy humans thriving but all UBI(-styled) thoughts i view as a downgrade, a removal of motivators towards success
this is definitely the core of our disagreement, i think. the motivator part.
well, as i've said, i agree that that is the case /now/. this is why i expressed distate for ubi systems implemented /now/ without any prerequisite work.
i just don't think that it necessarily must be this way. i don't think it necessarily was always this way.
it just is this way /now/.
>the free market is a infinite balancing act fight between avoiding and breaking up natural monopolies (...) and personal and entrepeneurlike freedoms to succeed solely on one's own terms
i don't disagree
>timed (a year or so) jobless benefits based on paid jobless tax (state-wide insurance, so total failure isnt punished while extreme laziness isnt rewarded) are the best functioning UBI-adjacent feature there is and honestly can ever be.
yes, currently, i agree. this is very generous.
i work in a social-work adjacent field in a US state with pretty damn good social support systems.
it's still ass. it's a mess. people who need help are left by the wayside due to arbitrary reasons, yet somehow drug-addled do-nothings are continuously rewarded with more attention and resources. i've had a motherfucker get a job that earned more god damn money than i do, and throw a fit when i told him that he now no longer qualifies for free health insurance. instead of letting me help him find an affordable paid plan (which he could afford because i can afford it and his rent was 4x less than mine while his pay was a couple hundred dollars more), he threw a fit and said he'd quit his job.
i don't know if he actually did, i convinced management to discharge him from our program before he had the chance, since he no longer qualified due to the income anyway.
all this to say is i get it. just because i have an ideal in mind, does not mean i don't recognize the reality we live in today, or that i am blind to how people are today. it just means that it is something that i believe would be an overall good thing if the work is done to get there, and its not something i would likely see in my lifetime even if suddenly some country somewhere decided to get its shit together and started actively working toward this goal.
hope i'm making sense.
p.s. don't call me a commie again those people r gey