I'm not a "BI fan" and I'm curious what they think too, but I think it could be done. I think it depends on the kind of emergency. For not-really-critical ones

I'm not a "BI fan" and I'm curious what they think too, but I think it could be done. I think it depends on the kind of emergency. For not-really-critical ones (eg Joe's car broke down), you could just do nothing - if Joe wants to he can wait and use his next BI check to fix his car. For life-threatening emergencies like can't afford food or rent, that's trickier. I would say that if we can afford to give a BI, we should also have soup kitchens and homeless shelters that don't have means testing, so while that does create a kind of social safety net "below BI", it should be much cheaper to run and harder to abuse. The biggest source of financial emergency for most people is unexpected health problems, and I'm not sure what a solution is. Maybe free insurance for everyone? What would insurance fraud look like in such a world?