>I'd rather see unproductive humans digging and re-filling holes in the ground than getting paid to do nothing. Or something like the biking experiment in Black Mirror.
I'd rather people get paid to do nothing than people getting paid to do pointless tasks. I've seen some amazing things people made in their spare time, but I can't imagine anyone making something worthwhile digging and re-filling holes.
Again, the people building "amazing things in their spare time" are not the people to be concerned about!!
The usefulness we'd get out of the creative top 1-5% of the population is far outweighed by the chaos that'd be caused by the bottom/criminal 10% of the population.
If I have to choose between a society where 11% of the population does some pointless work (and anything that doesn't pay at least what could be consider a 'basic income' is pretty much pointless) or one where 1% does amazing stuff in their spare time, and 10% does nothing. I'd prefer the latter.
Don't see how criminality would increase with basic income, if anything I'd expect a decrease (fewer people in hopeless situations = less crime).
Part of the benefit of a UBI is that it permits us to give harsher penalties to criminals because they can no longer use poverty as an excuse. I'm all in favor of cutting off UBI for criminals (temporarily or permanently depending on the severity of the crime).
I'd rather people get paid to do nothing than people getting paid to do pointless tasks. I've seen some amazing things people made in their spare time, but I can't imagine anyone making something worthwhile digging and re-filling holes.