The GBI can solve more than that, I believe. A nice property of a system that has both that and a high level of socio-cultural development (i.e., lots of art, m

The GBI can solve more than that, I believe. A nice property of a system that has both that and a high level of socio-cultural development (i.e., lots of art, music, sports, etc.) is that it can free people to participate in an "arts, sports, and leisure" society. People will play games - cheap ones, and lots of them. We do this now, and has Cowen has pointed us, the western world is excellent at developing an endless supply of cheap entertainment. We'll likely do a whole lot more of that. How many people would play WoW or such 12+ hours a day at 15/month if they didn't have to work, and had all the basics taken care of? A lot, most likely. Other things we'll probably be looking at will be extremely powerful, long-lasting, side-effect-free (or tolerable-side effect-having) drugs. That road of course leads to wireheading, but I think that collectively denying that as a possibility now is extremely naive. Another nice property (especially if you throw in things like a real universal health care system) is that the "sharing economy " jobs go from looking borderline exploitative to perfectly acceptable, along with all other kinds of freelance and part time work. With the GBI obviating the need for a minimum wage, people who are marginal in the current system wage-wise would simply be able to opt out, which would likely bring the wages of those jobs up as it would be much harder to find people to do them. This would also apply to jobs up the wage chain; all the econo-dreams about "perfect labor fluidity" (sans perfect mobility) would be possible. Job sucks? Quit. Go elsewhere. Can't find another? Sit around and study new things, then go get a new job. Or don't. All possible with a (properly indexed and region-specific/cost-of-living-adjusted) GBI. It'd be a different kind of freedom than we're used to in the US, but one that would be much more appropriate given the way things are going.