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Comment by abhishekkr | Hacker News Reader

No, I do think there's value in giving people a reason to work. As a by-product of work you are forced to socialize with a different group of people; the chores you do get you out of the house, and give you something to look forward to. There's a notion of growth mindset that sets in, even if the work that you do is banal - you see it as a stepping stone to something else. Without work a large fraction of people would just sit at home and get addicted to TV, games and possibly drugs. Self motivation is not a strength of most people, sadly that is the truth.

Instead of UBI, I would much prefer creation of state sponsored jobs, even if the jobs were mundane like painting roads. It's effectively the same as giving everyone money, but with all the benefits of "work".

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I agree that people need something meaningful to do, and don't always find it for themselves. I'm afraid that forcing people to a job might feel more like a kind of slavery than a stepping stone.

It could work if the jobless are "socially placed" into existing workplaces. Creating gangs of unemployed people to paint roads, however, would only enforce the low status of the jobs and the people doing them. There is no motivation and strength to be found there.

If basic income is low enough, then people could choose themselves to either scrape by (which is nigh impossible in Finland for 560 euros) or find additional sources of income for themselves. It's always better if your job is by choice rather than forced on you.

I know a good number of rich people who inherited all their money. They don't work. They've never worked. Should we take away all their money to "give them a reason to work?"

I often hear some variation of "the government needs to incentivize people to strive for more so they aren't so lazy", but somehow it only applies to the poor.

There's a difference. With inheritance, the previous owner of the money is willingly giving up their possessions to the inheritor. Free will, willingly done. With UBI, it's basically everyone's tax money forcibly taken from EVERYONE, sponsoring these people. Think of it as forced inheritance. Force is unfair, unjust and wrong.

I'm all for donation-driven-universal-basic-income. Please do that instead.

People will find things to do, because we are human. But pointless work that goes nowhere is demotivating. http://evonomics.com/why-capitalism-creates-pointless-jobs-d...

The question is, what's inspirational work? I think it's easy to come up with examples of inspiring work.

True - my example of painting roads was just incidental. More creative variety of state sponsored jobs would probably make it a better option. A lot of countries already do forced military service and people are fine with it, not demotivated. So serving in the police or other places shouldn't be that different.

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