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Think of it: The government prints more money or perhaps — god forbid — it taxes some corporate profits, then it showers the cash down on the people so they can continue to spend. As a result, more and more capital accumulates at the top. And with that capital comes more power to dictate the terms governing human existence.
UBI really just turns us from stakeholders or even citizens to mere consumers.
Meanwhile, UBI also obviates the need for people to consider true alternatives to living lives as passive consumers. Solutions like platform cooperatives, alternative currencies, favor banks, or employee-owned businesses, which actually threaten the status quo under which extractive monopolies have thrived, will seem unnecessary. Why bother signing up for the revolution if our bellies are full? Or just full enough?
Under the guise of compassion, UBI really just turns us from stakeholders or even citizens to mere consumers. Once the ability to create or exchange value is stripped from us, all we can do with every consumptive act is deliver more power to people who can finally, without any exaggeration, be called our corporate overlords.
No, income is nothing but a booby prize. If we're going to get a handout, we should demand not an allowance but assets. That's right: an ownership stake.
https://medium.com/s/powertrip/universal-basic-income-is-silicon-valleys-latest-scam-fd3e130b69a0
(Score: 4, Informative) by khallow on Monday October 15 2018, @01:53PM (1 child)
I think you're off by a couple orders of magnitude. Among other things there would be a much larger abandoned pet problem than there actually is, and yes, I have an inkling of how many feral animals there are out there. For example, in the US there are thought to be around 90 million [statista.com] pet dogs in the US. We would notice if there were 9 billion feral dogs (which would be a pack of 25 dogs for every person in the US). They'd be eating people in the streets.
(Score: 2) by Unixnut on Monday October 15 2018, @06:00PM
The thing is, I am not talking about there being 100 feral animals per pet out there roaming, just that 100 of a type of animal are killed for every one that is made a pet.
This number includes feral ones captured and killed, feral ones killed due to neglect or accidents, pets that are killed by owners because they are too much of a burden to take care of, pets that are abused and left to die chained up somewhere, pets that are donated to pet sanctuaries (where most end up dead. The rate of rehousing pets is pretty poor), etc...
Admittedly I don't have the numbers, so I cannot say exactly how many are killed per single pet cared for, so thanks for giving some insight into the question.