I don’t think this is true when you can get arrested for trying to sleep outside or even just being I’m one place for too long. Vagrancy laws have been around for a very long time and have always been predatory. They used to be able to make someone a slave for not having a home. In the US our 13th amendment says you can legally be made a (prison) slave for committing “a crime”.

I didn’t write the original post, but did post it and it’s informative how much people get caught on that phrase. My take is that people are paying a gatekeeper. It’s not about “does it take effort to live” or an appeal to return to nature. It’s, “you have to work to live, plus you have to work extra so someone else doesn’t have to work.”

Not sure I’d lead with that specific phrase in the future, but it does seem to have generated a lot of interest and discussion.

Working for oneself (the way wild critters do it) is fundamentally different from paying to exist. Capitalism creates a minority of people for whom all the necessary work of staying alive is simply done by other people, and a majority of people who must do more work than would be strictly necessary to sustain themselves because they have to sustain themselves and the people whose only contribution is that they’ve been arbitrarily designated the “owners” of the things we need to live. That’s what we mean by “humans are the only species that has to pay to exist”. In order for me to live, I have to create more real, material wealth than is actually necessary for my survival because someone else is entitled to use the threat of violence in order to keep me from the wealth I create (the only real definition of ownership is the right to use violence to enforce exclusivity).

What do hippos pay with?

We also have devices to fight boredom….flushable toilets……someone takes away our garbage….doctors…someone makes our clothing, washing machines, hygiene….

There are many apex predator species

Go hang around where polar bears are and get back to us, Mr. Apex Predator.

I agree. It’s trashy as fuck.

100% with you. It’s like writing “Period” at the end of what you said, as if that makes it more true. And, ironically, it’s almost always some take that requires ignoring all nuance.

Eh, it’s for emphasis, it’s just a style that gives a visual along with the words that indicate a specific physical movement that some people interpret in a specific way and changes how they are communicating, thus changing the message in a minute way. It’s not hurting you, if it’s enough to make you want to disregard what they are saying that seems pretty petty of you. Just because people communicate differently from you isn’t enough of a reason to disrespect them or what they have up say. Now, if they’re saying something abhorrent, that’s a different story, but you’re not an idiot, just judgemental

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Really? That was your shut-it-down moment?

Not the : let’s compare ourselves to other species which have no doctors, science, hygiene, toilets, devices or ready made food as to why were such a cushy society that hoarding money really shouldn’t be a thing we do and kinda missed the point of why a society is usually formed?

If you want the benefits of other people’s work in a society, then you have to contribute something back to that society that society values.

Although you have to contribute something that someone else will pay for such as not parenting. Our society disregards parenting even though it gains greatly from its benefit (or in the twentieth and twenty-first centuries, suffers greatly when parenting is neglected) While we don’t literally toss our children out to the elements, the degree to which children are disregarded is conspicuous.

And for most of us, we are expected to contribute more than we receive, as demonstrated by the plutocrats who gain from and hoard those profits. For the rest of us, we get meager benefits from living as bonded servants in society, but we don’t get full benefits of mutuality. And for most of us, our benefits exclude healthcare, nutrition, etc. which should be communal. When we have the capacity to automate a particular duty, it is not the rest of us who gain from that benefit, but the elite who cease paying workers to do it.

We’ve yet to see a mutualistic community that assures its wealth and privileges are evenly distributed but we certainly see ones more mutualistic than the ones that have to rely on thought-terminating clichés like Living here is better than living in the wild (and yes, I suspect even all of Canada and Siberia is alloted and owned.) Living here might be better than in the wild, but it is still miserable for the most of us. It’s still feudalism and slavery only with extra obfuscating steps.

And now our civilization careens towards high existential risk, and we’re going to see if it really is easier to imagine the end of humanity or the end of capitalism.

The problem here is that you don’t have a clue about anything you’re saying

They’re also at the mercy of nature and all it entails. And nature is fucking brutal.

You act as if paying to exist is a privilege. It is a requirement of being a human in our society. A requirement that functionally requires you to be exploited by those who won the birth lottery.

Let’s plot it out: Who would be eligible for the affordable housing and food? What will we do to make sure it’s affordable? How will people get it?

Do you think that all people ought to have a place to live and enough to eat? If so, one appeal of UBI is it’s simple (compared to alternatives) to implement. Everyone gets it, and each individual can sort out the details.

While you’re not wrong, prices need to come down, a UBI is probably the easiest thing we could implement literally overnight, cut back on some of the more aggressive welfare we currently have, save money overall and improve outcomes for a very large number of people. It’s not a fix-all, never was, but it’s a huge first step.

These kind of responses are so tiring.

He contends that all the clay on Earth was claimed long ago. The competition for resources now unfolds according to rules set by individuals, groups or organizations. In some cases, this struggle is even more intense than animal behavior, particularly when it occurs at the organized state level.

I assumed he meant we shit everywhere and do away with doctors while we let parasites eat our brain. No half assing this. Quick: let’s chuck all our devices immediately and eat nits.

I mean, I’d totally fight and kill a billionaire if it was by the rule of the jungle, since that way I can’t be incarcerated.

Modern rent seeking is rooted in a feudal concept. The lord maintained an army that protected the land, and the workers paid the lord for the upkeep of the army that protected them.

Modern landlords provide absolutely nothing but exploitation of their tenants. They take rent and provide nothing anywhere near equal in value.

They are parasites on the working class. Our labor gives them profit, and they offer only what should be ours by right.

We pay to live here. It’s our home. You only rent seek, you fucking parasite.

Communists are the only people who believe that we are the only animals that can completely upend and violate the rules of nature that all other animals have to live by.

I thought young people were getting smarter.

Man you don’t know much about the Amish then. Wild people with insane secret wealth (that they don’t really touch) that get up to all kinds of shit

That’s quite a shallow take on the whole thing. Universal Income’s main impacts are indirect and affect the whole of society, for example:

• It allows people to give it a go as inventors or artists at any point of their lifes, rather than the traditional 2 points of “young adult still getting money from your parents” and “having retired (for a few by having made so much money that can retire early) and do what he or she always wanted to do”.
• It places a floor on all incomes. Specifically if Universal Income is high enough so that people can afford housing and food from it alone, nobody will ever accept any jobs paying the same or less - all jobs will have to offer something beyond it to attract any workers.
• Less crime because the sorts of crimes that desperate people commit and other “low yield” petty crimes will pretty much dissapear because they’re not worth the risk and people don’t need to do it.

As for means testing it or not, it really boils down to the complexity and cost associated with means testing: if it’s cheaper if not means tested, why do it? It suspect Jeff Bezos’ “pleasure” in getting Universal Income will be nothing next to what the losses from not to being able to pay shit salaries and treat his workers like shit anymore will make him feel.

If anything they’ll pay loads to smart people who can help them calculate the absolute minimum, taking away your freedom to choose what to eat, when to eat, where to live, how to live etc.

I get the sentiment, but they will create the absolute worst possible outcome as it benefits them the most.

How would socially corrected incomes work? You tell the government you made $500k this year and they tell you that you can keep $400k?

You’re right that UBI does not create equality, it’s just a floor for basic needs being covered. It’s probably a little more palatable politically (ha) than socially corrected incomes.

I would argue we need other systemic changes like anti-monopoly enforcement, stronger unions and massive worker cooperatives to even start to address inequality, because of the disparity in power.