> What the in the absolute fuck are you talking about. For whom?

https://stats.oecd.org/index.aspx?DataSetCode=BLI

> I live in the US. I have lived in the UK. I have lived in France. The best quality of life for most people is definitely in the US, especially for those with a decent job.

That's false. The data proves your wrong. Your lived experience doesn't refute measurable metrics of the wellbeing of a society.

> Holy shit dude. Ever lived there? I moved to the US, and I prefer the healthcare here. Yes it's expensive, but at least I actually get some. Unlike on the NHS.

Again, the data proves otherwise.

> How the fuck do you get there? Land and homes are cheaper, median wages are 20% or more high, taxes are lower. Healthcare expenditure is about the ONLY metric by which the US is worse for most people.

Nah, check the OECD rankings.

You clearly didn't live in the UK or France for very long. Military?

People using their UBI aren't 'leeching off' of anyone.

Because everyone gets UBI.

The parents who received the CTC would disagree with you wholeheartedly. It was a nice feeling being able to feed and clothe their kids with a bit more security.

> No we don't. We need a world where machines don't make people obsolete in their own societies

At least 100 years too late for that.

> Some pathetic UBI is no alternative to having a job and actually making your own living.

A UBI that meets basic survival needs actually empowers people to find or create jobs that are meaningful, and thrive while doing so.

> It's only a way to make a permanent slave class that relies on government handouts to survive, while the upper echelons of society live in even higher abundance and afford to buy more assets to make even more profit

What you're describing is what we have now. Most Americans live paycheck to paycheck. They are wage slaves and members of the precariat. Meanwhile, the rich continue to grow richer.

Just look at the past 30 years of data. The bottom 50% have been working hard to survive, but that's all they've managed to do.

https://www.cbo.gov/publication/57598

> It's those guys who will buy the homes which they will rent to the slave class, instead of you.

They already own the homes and they're currently renting to wage slaves. Are you unaware of the reality in which we live?

> UBI will just mean another costly wealth transfer scheme from public funds to the consumer, while the corporations and banks can cut their losses even further by not having to pay wages.

Please explain to me how companies could attract, much less retain workers - if they offer insufficient wages and can no longer leverage survival because everyone has UBI.

Already, companies are failing to attract & retain workers due to insufficient wages, and people don't even have the UBI to cover their survival.

If everyone had the means to survive without selling their time and labor, that takes the coercion out of all employer/employee relations because it makes work a choice.

Companies that don't pay high enough wages will not be able to attract or retain employees in a world where everyone receives UBI.

> This is not a good trajectory. This is an outright dystopian trajectory.

News flash, we're already on the dystopian trajectory. Eliminating poverty is the only thing that gives us a chance to change course.

> people have no independence and have to live on handouts,

The CTC gave parents more freedom. It didn't make them less independent. It didn't make them more dependent on the government. Giving money to parents gave them more independence because it gave them a little bit more economic power and choice.

> and the ones having all the wealth will continue buying the world bit by bit, manipulating the people and lobbying the government to further their own goals.

UBI changes it so everyone has wealth. If you understand that one of our main problems is the concentration of wealth, I'm not sure why you're opposing the most efficient method of redistributing wealth to all.

> yeah, just like when all that other automation resulted in mass unemployment

https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/CIVPART

https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/LNS15000000

Displacement is rarely rapid. But to say humans haven't been displaced even in our lifetimes is patently illogical.

We can compare them.

But they are not comparable in the sense that all have more or less equal standards of living. The standard of living in the US is unequivocally the worst of the three.

The US has no universal healthcare, no free public college, and no strong labor movement. In fact, the US is in the grips of a destructive duopoly that's been weakening the economic stability & mobility of ordinary Americans for over half a century.

The UK, on the other hand, has the NHS. Nobody in the UK is going bankrupt or losing their homes because of medical bills, or forgoing food to afford their prescriptions.

In France, things are even more stable. They've got both universal healthcare and free college. Not to mention an incredibly robust labor movement that isn't afraid to strike and do so with gusto.

Comparing these nations reveals the stark reality that citizens in America have it tangibly worse, and are commoditized in many more ways. Americans have to pay for things that Brits and French people receive as services.

> Poverty is not an emergency.

Of course it is. Homelessness is on the rise in America

https://www.nytimes.com/2022/07/15/briefing/homelessness-america-housing-crisis.html

> It's always been around, it always will be around.

We've been slashing poverty for 200 years. We can eliminate it altogether and suggesting otherwise is mindlessly defeatist.

> What constitutes poverty changes over time.

No, basic physiological & safety needs have remained the same.

> Someone in poverty in the UK today has far more goods, diverse foods, communications, a better home, access to better services and better healthcare and better education than someone who was well above the poverty line a couple of generations ago.

Not the case in America. I can't speak on the UK, but there's an awful lot of people there complaining about cost of living. So...can you explain that?

> I'm not sure who "our" is in your sentence, but "we" in the countries I've lived in (the UK and the US and France) seem to have some pretty insane quality of life for people undergoing a socioeconomic collapse!

If you think that the UK and France are comparable to the US, you're proving how little you know about these nations.

By countless measurable metrics, America is undergoing socioeconomic collapse.

Look at our labor force participation rate.

https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/CIVPART

Look at our total capacity utilization

https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/TCU

Look at our life expectancy, our suicide rates, our homelessness rates, etc.

Ignoring the problems doesn't mean they aren't there.

Poverty is an emergency and we're in it.

We should be alarmed. People are having trouble keeping a roof over their head and food in their stomachs.

Invoking automation is simply one argument for UBI. But the biggest argument for UBI is our current socioeconomic collapse.

The technology is here. Trucks can drive themselves. Companies like IKEA are already doing trials, and when they have the data that proves how much money/liability/time they're saving, it won't be long before they are adopted as the norm company-wide.

On the robotics side, companies like Kodiak who make the self-driving trucks will have their IKEA data to help them sell directly to other companies, without any need for 'trial periods.'

Then once other businesses start to get the Fear of Missing Out, adoption will skyrocket. We so desperately need UBI before this massive transition happens.