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Comment by jcims | Hacker News Reader

Most will. Obviously not all will. Presumably the loss of the extremely strong counter-incentives to work that are built into the welfare system will give better results there. You’ll never eliminate freeloaders entirely and I think it’s important to acknowledge and address that for UBI to gain broader adoption.

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Does a rich kid living off an inheritance and not working count as a freeloader?

Yes. He may not be living at the expense of social security but he's consuming resources without producing anything back.

Yes of course, and sending them UBI checks isn’t a good look for the program either.

Or a retiree living off a state pension.

State pensions are the most obvious comparison to UBI with respect to being a fixed livable income paid to people for the rest of their life. The system is sustainable because people have to work before they start receiving their pension, not because pensioners [with intact cognitive facilities] are extremely creative and productive when freed from the need to work to pay the bills.

If affluenza is real and silver spoons create unproductive people, shouldn't we be wary of spreading a version of it to a much larger chunk of the population?

I'd assume there is a pretty big difference between never have to work in your life rich and $1000 a month.

Plus the risk of screw-ups in implementation - although in theory UBI is an improvement in practice who knows what stupidity might creep in during the political process.

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