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Purpose, or keeping busy at a minimum, is a tentpole of avoiding depression... even if it were seemingly "busywork."



People tend to want to work, really. But to your point, many people can't find work that pays the money they need to survive, so they become depressed. Also, people often lose their jobs.

There have been several studies/deployments that convince me that your worries are unsubstantial in practice. Really great resource: https://www.reddit.com/r/basicincome/wiki/index#wiki_that.27...


Disclaimer: I'm stupid broke, live in a van and take a highly-effective antidepressant, so I might have a little authority on this subject. ;)

Depression is terrible (anti-social, self-destructive, painful, etc.) but useful when it's grounded in an existential crisis... it makes people reflect on themselves and think about what else they can do or change.

They're not worries, they're concerns. Also, that resource doesn't list a single successful, large-scale deployment. Finland is considering it. (The US will never, ever have such a fanciful thing because the plutocracy prevents it, even with Bernie 2016.)

And another concern: if people don't earn money themselves, the tendency is to waste, in all regards. This tends to reinforce learned helplessness, even farther away from the brutal reality of life/business/nature.


"And another concern: if people don't earn money themselves, the tendency is to waste, in all regards."

I have not observed the same.

My impression is that the trend is we, people, like to waste when we don't have to pay, but if the money come from our accounts, we start to get careful, independently how the money arrived to our account. People would not like to waste their money even it's from a basic income.


The motive for wasting is that the money-giver might want to see your bank account balance before giving. Not having savings is generally a requirement for receiving welfare after unemployment benefits have run out. It's something basic income would do away with.


Sorry, I didn't mean to trample over your experience. I tend to focus on aggregate data which leads to ignoring nuances of the human condition.

You're right about deployment size, but it's exciting to see those numbers growing with this experiment's consideration.

I am hopeful of USA's growth in the area of social security, indeed starting with Bernie 2016. ;)


That's the thing. Meaningless busywork is making people stressed and depressed.

Basic Income on the other hand would free people to pursue whatever purpose they themselves desire. You can make up your own meaningful job, cause you're already getting paid.


That's a sweeping generalization which presumes far too much. It depends on the person. Some people enjoy monotonous factory work because it removes the burden of thinking. Other people need a manager because they don't want to, or can't, plan the next logical thing. Others need constant variety or don't like being told what to do.

The other issue is that getting paid for a "meaningful job" which doesn't turn a profit is not going to scale. Millions of people suddenly wouldn't work in fast food, farm fields, industrial tanneries or meat processing plants because they're really shitty/dangerous/disgusting jobs. (But I'm sure some scary/crazy people enjoy them.)

And, when people have infinite choices and opportunities, the Paradox of Choice comes in to play and people become even more dissatisfied. See also: Zillions of wealthy housewives in perpetual existential boredom (depression) filling psychology & psychiatry offices.


I don't think that paradox of choice results in more suffering than not having the choice at all when it comes to having a job.

With basic income you have a bit more choice when it comes to picking a job. You no longer have to restrict yourself to sufficiently paid ones.


I don't think you understand the Paradox of Choice or why people love In-n-Out and 2-tiered pricing plans.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Paradox_of_Choice

Also, there are lots of people whom already do things they love. My stepsister is a special ed TA and loves it, but makes peanuts. Would this help her family, absolutely.

With wide-scale deployment, a common issue will be too many people doing all sorts of terrible# crafty work without making something people would actually want to buy like bric-à-brac kitsch shops that wealthy spouses subsidize while having zero foot traffic.

# Terrible because it's far too common for people to make the novice mistake of asking opinion of friends and family whom will say only nice things, and those people to base their perception on those lies.


> "That's a sweeping generalization which presumes far too much. It depends on the person. Some people enjoy monotonous factory work because it removes the burden of thinking. Other people need a manager because they don't want to, or can't, plan the next logical thing. Others need constant variety or don't like being told what to do."

If you like monotonous factory work, then you are free to choose to do it. There's no problem here. Again, you get to choose what you do yourself.

> "The other issue is that getting paid for a "meaningful job" which doesn't turn a profit is not going to scale. Millions of people suddenly wouldn't work in fast food, farm fields, industrial tanneries or meat processing plants because they're really shitty/dangerous/disgusting jobs. (But I'm sure some scary/crazy people enjoy them.)"

If a job isn't turn a profit and can't pay a decent wage, it means that that job is being out-competed by something else. And risky jobs should pay for the risk involved. If the pay is high enough, then someone will choose it over basic income.

> "And, when people have infinite choices and opportunities, the Paradox of Choice comes in to play and people become even more dissatisfied. See also: Zillions of wealthy housewives in perpetual existential boredom (depression) filling psychology & psychiatry offices."

You don't have infinite choices. You are only good at a few things. Only able to do meaningful work in a few ways. With Basic Income the culture would change. People would start learning about meaningful work. Wealthy housewives would learn to do meaningful work. The culture right now is not helping wealthy housewives, because it says that they should already be happy without meaningful work.


I don't think keeping busy helps people avoid depression, it's just that they at least have some human contact through the day.


It depends on quality of the human contact. Often people feel most lonely when they are in company of people who don't behave friendly towards them. That often happens at bs job.




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