5 ms·

>Unfortunately you'll find a good portion being spent on 20th century drugs, which suck immensely. There's the hardest part about UBI. Its the same thing that

>Unfortunately you'll find a good portion being spent on 20th century drugs, which suck immensely. There's the hardest part about UBI. Its the same thing that makes our welfare systems so awful right now as well. The terrible fear that if we give people money... they might spend it on stuff we don't think they should.

Jach 10y ago
It's not even a fear: https://www.commentarymagazine.com/articles/our-miserable-21st-century/ https://www.commentarymagazine.com/articles/our-miserable-21... (and https://www.bostonfed.org/-/media/Documents/economic/conf/great-recovery-2016/Alan-B-Krueger.pdf https://www.bostonfed.org/-/media/Documents/economic/conf/gr...) The overwhelming majority of prime-age men on welfare spend most of their time on consuming multimedia, doped up on pain medication like Oxycontin. As beautiful as I personally find the ideal of letting people be free from economic concern beyond their basics (if they want more they can get a job) and free to pursue inexpensive but time-consuming creative passions and work on bettering themselves (it's my own dream I aim to achieve by becoming effectively retired in my early 30s), it's not a realistic outcome for most and can't be used as the basis of argument for why the working class should thus support people whose first complaint against work is simply lack of desire.
- ergothus 10y ago
  ...and yet when there was mandatory drug testing it showed a drug use rate lower than the general population. How do you reconcile those contrasting data points? (honest question, not a troll)
  - toast0 10y ago
    Devils advocate: If you're getting paid to do drugs and watch movies, don't you think you can find someone's clean pee?
    - ergothus 10y ago
      I used to work in Social Services. There are, without a doubt, people that abuse the system. But you have a lot more confidence in their ability to be sneaky than I do. The average person is not very good at lying without getting caught. The average person that lacks any initiative or follow through is worse.
  - Mz 10y ago
    Someone I was once friends with had been a drug addict while in the military, where they do random drug tests and throw you out if you fail, basically. I asked how to beat the drug test if I needed to, as I had been unwillingly exposed to secondhand marijuana smoke while job hunting. He assured me it would not matter, as secondhand smoke would not show up on the test, then gave me detailed instructions on how to beat the test "even if you are so high you have trouble peeing in the cup." So, maybe don't believe all test results.

Jach 10y ago

It's not even a fear: https://www.commentarymagazine.com/articles/our-miserable-21st-century/ https://www.commentarymagazine.com/articles/our-miserable-21... (and https://www.bostonfed.org/-/media/Documents/economic/conf/great-recovery-2016/Alan-B-Krueger.pdf https://www.bostonfed.org/-/media/Documents/economic/conf/gr...) The overwhelming majority of prime-age men on welfare spend most of their time on consuming multimedia, doped up on pain medication like Oxycontin. As beautiful as I personally find the ideal of letting people be free from economic concern beyond their basics (if they want more they can get a job) and free to pursue inexpensive but time-consuming creative passions and work on bettering themselves (it's my own dream I aim to achieve by becoming effectively retired in my early 30s), it's not a realistic outcome for most and can't be used as the basis of argument for why the working class should thus support people whose first complaint against work is simply lack of desire.

ergothus 10y ago
...and yet when there was mandatory drug testing it showed a drug use rate lower than the general population. How do you reconcile those contrasting data points? (honest question, not a troll)
- toast0 10y ago
  Devils advocate: If you're getting paid to do drugs and watch movies, don't you think you can find someone's clean pee?
  - ergothus 10y ago
    I used to work in Social Services. There are, without a doubt, people that abuse the system. But you have a lot more confidence in their ability to be sneaky than I do. The average person is not very good at lying without getting caught. The average person that lacks any initiative or follow through is worse.
- Mz 10y ago
  Someone I was once friends with had been a drug addict while in the military, where they do random drug tests and throw you out if you fail, basically. I asked how to beat the drug test if I needed to, as I had been unwillingly exposed to secondhand marijuana smoke while job hunting. He assured me it would not matter, as secondhand smoke would not show up on the test, then gave me detailed instructions on how to beat the test "even if you are so high you have trouble peeing in the cup." So, maybe don't believe all test results.