Most studies I've seen about basic income show that the people on it go out and do shit. "Watch TV and become depressed" is what you do when you can't go out (say, because there's a pandemic going on) and also what you do when you come home exhausted from working long hours at a shitty job you hate.
People have said this but I really don’t think that’s true. That doesn’t seem to be what happens to wealthy people who have all of their material needs met. People love to do things. I think most people would “work” even if it was volunteer work. But if they got injured or had a life change, they wouldn’t be screwed.
People will find meaning. It’s part of the human condition.
It’s only when you take someone who has been working day in and day out for years and you give them a week off, and they’ll collapse on the couch and watch TV and feel bad. Because they are exhausted and haven’t developed any healthy hobbies. But if it was their whole life, they wouldn’t stay on the couch forever. Also when you give a worker a bit of time off, their friends are still working. If everyone can take time off, people would meet with each other. And that’s the oldest human pastime. The company of others. And it’s free!
> That doesn’t seem to be what happens to wealthy people who have all of their material needs met.
Exactly! Do people not realise that the whole reason we have any science in the first place is because of these people? Before there was any kind of middle class, these were the only guys with the freedom to pursue knowledge for the sake of knowledge, thanks to living comfortably in other respects, and they did it.
Agreed. I actually found a less than full time engineering job so I could spend more time working on personal educational work. I’m building a self driving off road vehicle from scratch in my spare time and learning all kind of stuff about machine learning in the process. I work so hard on it (for free, with no intention of commercializing it) that I’m constantly reminding myself to slow down and try to “do nothing”. I work 20-30 hours a week at my paid job and then spend another 10-20 hours a week working on what I call research (intensive educational hobby) by my own free will. I would never just sit around on the couch and get depressed lol. That’s such a silly idea.
There are plenty of people who are born into means such that they realistically don't need to worry about being hungry or homeless, and they still get up and go to work each day.
Nobody needs the threat of hunger or homelessness to motivate them to live normal lives.
I don’t think that applies here. Furlough happens in a world where everyone must work, and then they are prevented from working at their chosen job.
In a world where food is free, no one would be prevented from working. They would choose whatever job they liked, only they would have the freedom to say no if they wanted. But that would be their choice. Furlough is forced upon them, and there’s no free food down the street they can pick up for lunch or dinner.
Have you managed to isolate the mental impact of furlough from the mental impact of the pandemic and possibly killing granny if you go out to meet people?
I think I've mostly stuck to the rules and was never furloughed. Problem with he granny argument is that they are their worse enemies for carrying on as usual in spite of risks
Instead we should pay people to study things they are interested in, and then pay them to go apply those studies to the real world!
Give peoples lives meaning and purpose with valuable work!