Yes, it was an unusual article in that the author was doing a lot of work to strawman-out conservatives and then make the UBI pitch. It wasn't a bad pitch, but

Yes, it was an unusual article in that the author was doing a lot of work to strawman-out conservatives and then make the UBI pitch. It wasn't a bad pitch, but it felt really loose and meandering, like it could have ran a third of its length and been much more cogent and direct. Instead of direct and succinct, I got the feeling of an author standing out in a field, waving their arms around, while breathlessly making all sorts of tangentially-related generalizations and responses. And I think that's the problem here: folks on both sides of the UBI issue would rather deal in generalities and grandstanding instead of just trying the dang thing out a bunch of times and seeing what works and what doesn't. Twenty years ago, the U.S. was obviously in need of some kind of revamping of its healthcare system. Instead of trying hundreds of things out and quickly iterating a learning over time, what happened was that the issue was argued at the highest level of abstraction and in generic terms: what kind of modern country doesn't provide healthcare for it's people? It took decades of argument, and in the end we got a one-size-fits-all solution that is now going to take decades to modify and adjust. If you want responsive government, this way of discussion and change is a dysfunctional way to improve the quality of people's lives. So with UBI, I'm quite interested in the various experiments and the low-level details of what was tried and what kind of results are produced, much more so than some nebulous arguing and strawmanning around the concept in general. I support the concept in general -- if we're going to spend a lot of money on the poorer folks in society (I believe that isn't changing), then we should be constantly looking for ways to make the outcomes better. Big, animated discussions around what socialism is or isn't? Not part of an effective national dialog. Also, Alaska is not a conservative state. It's a libertarian one. Many, many people seem to want to conflate libertarianism with conservatism. They are entirely separate (Insert long discussion here about the differences between libertarianism in the states and conservatism. Also another discussin about just what the heck conservatism is after the election of the recent president. Neither of these discussions are probably useful or germane to the topic of the essay)