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Way too many people are absolutely appalled when I say I don’t care if some of my taxes go to keeping lazy people alive, inside, fed, and warm. I don’t care if someone is not working because they’re disabled, being educated, looking for a job, or just lazy, no one should live without basic human dignity.
I mean at this point scarcity is artificial
For a few more years, at least, til they reinvent the real thing with climate apocalypse. Even if we turn around right now; incomprehensible numbers of people are going to die to this. Every day adds more.
We have built most of the machinery necessary to create a kind of heaven, and the fuckers we allow to have control of it are using everything we give them to create hell. Every breath they draw is a shame we all must carry.
What else is labor good for if not making things better? I want to chase improvement, not profit.
FR FR, defrauding the system should be punished, not prevented, because right now preventative measures are very obviously doing jack shit in actual service to the public
I’m not even talking about fraud. I think someone should still be entitled to a basic existence even if they don’t want to work. Like sure, don’t give them an Xbox Series X, but, give them food and heat. Maybe even an Xbox 360. What are those, like $30?
My point is that the argument for not doing that derives from paranoia about the system being defrauded by the unscrupulous poor or whatever
I hear that argument a lot and the fear and paranoia about the system being defrauded is so unfounded. People are crazy susceptible to propaganda. The cases found to be actually fraudulent are under 10%. The statistics for fraud are super low and so many people who are legit disabled get denied over and over. It’s mind boggling lol
I only find my life fulfilled if I have the latest systems, games, and full online services for each.
And only then should we all collectively say, “well then get a job.”
Laziness is NOT an existential threat.
I will gladly accept if my taxes go to someone lazy if it means people that need it are getting the assistance they need. It’ll happen anyways may as well help people who need it. That said I don’t condone people scamming the system but it’s either very high administration costs or people that need it don’t get it usually. I went on assistance once, needed it short term, recall some dude talking about how it was his weekend spending money. Annoying to hear but I got the assistance I needed for that short time till I got a job. Always felt my attitude would fit better in some European or Scandinavian countries but I’m older now and don’t speak anything other than English.
I agree so much. The vast majority of people wants to work to some degree anyway because they tend to feel useless and bored and go nuts. I see this in the huge number of refugees every day, they are going insane waiting for their documents to be approved so they can finally look for a job, be it just McDonald’s. And those who don’t - well so be it. I’d rather have someone unemployed and “lazy” than half assing some job they hate.
I’d love to have a system where everything mentioned in the meme is provided and everyone pays like 90% taxes. You get an apartment in an appropriate size not more than 15 minutes from your workplace. You get basic groceries provided and if you want truffles or crazy imported fruit you still have your 10% for that. Those 10% can go to whatever you like. You have housing. You have food. You have clothing. You have infrastructure and all your basic and medium needs are met. Save up for a trip somewhere, buy weird groceries, jewelry, go to a restaurant.
And there are just natural leaders and politicians and whatnot. I am sure that people will still want to have a “career” for money unrelated reasons. Imagine a manager who actually rocks at managing a team instead of an asshole who only does this job because it pays better. Likewise, and this hurts me so much when I see this on the playground, “low end jobs” would still be done because a lot of people love the idea of doing construction, waiting, cooking, cleaning. Garbage men are being looked up to by kids. Kids naturally love these kinds of jobs but somewhere along the way to adulthood the social stigma kicks in and the realisation that these jobs pay shit keeps them from going down these roads.
Minor nitpick: if it’s snowing outside (and you can do so), then wear a fucking sweater inside! Heating a whole room by a few degrees when you could just not run around with a T-shirt is just so wasteful.
If you can’t wear one, because you’re disabled, then ignore my rant, please.
Electricity companies hate this trick!
For real I dont understand why people forget that they can just wear thicker clothes even at home. And they complain the electricity is expensive
But let’s not forget the fact that a heart pump would be great, if ran minimally and a small fireplace is not going break the bank. So don’t think heating is a complete burden, enjoy the fruits of labor we all work hard on.
heart pump?
Yeah, you know. To pump blood around your house to heat things up.
What, you don’t have a heart pump‽ /s
This is the real answer, with the efficiency of a heat pump you can have your t-shirt and wear it (guilty free) too.
Because electricity is used for more than just heating: running computer, charging phone, lighting living space, keeping food eadible and making food.
Ok, last one is heating too, but for another purpose.
Significantly lowering indoors temperatures can have detrimental effects on health, particularly for elderly people. Also, electricity should be sufficiently accessible and cheap that I don’t need to freeze my butt off in my home in order to pay the bills.
You’re reading waay too much into my comment. I specifically said that there were exceptions and only said that you shouldn’t heat up to t-shirt temperatures.
I suppose it’s not you I’m annoyed with actually. It just rubbed me the wrong way. We’ve had 13-15C indoors this winter in order to afford the power bill, and that’s with geothermal and a decently isolated house. Combined increases in grid fees and electricity price have multiplied our power bill five-fold the past years (and that’s with everything else inflating also).
Next winter we’ll hopefully have cleared the chimney and start burning wood again during the most expensive parts of winter.
Yeah, that’s obviously a shitty thing to endure. Good luck for the next winter!
Ah, to be young again and not have your hands and feed start freezing indoors when it starts getting chilly outside…
Yes dress for winter even indoors, but once my nose and extremities and phalanges get cold, I’m turning on the heater.
Fine. So long you don’t heat it up to 28°C
Fair comment, just wanted to add that it depends on the humidity and shelter condition. Dry cold is perfectly comfortable with extra layers - I’ve heard many stories of relatives sleeping outside in snow caves or under layers of snow over animal skins - but depending on how badly insulated your house is and how close to the ground (the answers for which, for most people in the situation of the comic, are: badly and low) you may not have much of a choice.
And honestly it’s so cozy to be in a chilly room in a toasty wool wrap.
We seem to love building thin-walled wooden boxes entirely above-ground and living in them.
Is “fat” a suitable disability for sweater forgiveness? Asking for a friend … whom I accidentally ate.
I do that, but I also have fish tanks without a heater which can’t go below a certain temperature, so there is a fine balance that must be maintained.
If everyone has a home how can I look down on the homeless and drug addicted while I drink cheap bourbon?
Humanity runs on
Gesundheit.
If only we could codify these ‘rights’ into some kind of a ‘bill’…
Everyone is talking about the politics, but there’s that symbol in the bottom right that drew my attention. Is it some encoded data?
Wondering the same
It’s my logo :)
UBI, single payer, and free college for all. Yes we can, and absolutely should!
I dont think UBI is needed. The super rich/elites would still find ways around it. What is needed is for Politicians to stop being such cunts and start to protect their people from greedy arseholes, bring in higher rates of tax, bring in employment laws… etc etc
Completely agree, but right now they don’t work for us, they work for their donors. In order to change this dynamic we have to stop the legalized bribery, and ideally get rid of FPTP in favor of ranked choice voting while we’re at it. Just these two things would vastly change our system of representation for the better.
Is the verdict really in on UBI? Hasn’t the concern been it would be equivalent to the school voucher coupons and justified to gut a wide variety of social services in the end resulting in less net-benefit to the working class?
I honestly don’t know, but that kinda/sorta makes sense on the face of it. UBI would throw everyone at the mercy of the “free market” for social services, and yes, could have the unintended consequence of obsolescing the state funded ones. Without adequate controls for services (regulations) it could get ugly. Especially if you consider that for-profit “healthcare”, as we enjoy it in the US today, covers most of these services we’re talking about.
UBI is a bandaid, and not a very good one.
Sure, having more money absolutely makes life easier. I’m not disputing that and no one with any sense would. But it doesn’t address the numerous problems it seeks to.
But you touched on the problem, adequate controls are needed. We can do adequate controls without UBI.
The problem with UBI is that when you do big payouts like that, they just become a target for price gouging. Everyone knows there’s extra money to be had and they’re going to want their cut. Your landlord is going to know exactly how much extra you’re making and without rent control there’s nothing stopping him from taking it. The best way to prevent that is to force him to compete for tenants.
So wait, why isn’t he competing for tenants now?
Additional housing fixes the rent problem. UBI puts a temporary bandaid on it.
Universal healthcare fixes the medical expenses problem, strong unionization fixes the wages problem.
Don’t get me wrong I’d love the paycheck, but it isn’t the solution people think it is.
The problem with UBI is that when you do big payouts like that, they just become a target for price gouging.
If you have robust laws preventing price gouging, that is not a problem. No one serious is suggesting implementing UBI with no framework around it.
Incidentally, Alaska has a universal basic income in the form of oil dividends every year and there’s no evidence it’s led to price gouging as far as I know.
A few thousand dollars a year is an order of magnitude different than a few thousand dollars a month. Shits already expensive in Alaska because it’s remote.
Incidentally a handful of studies are several orders of magnitude different than actual UBI, and would similarly fail to showcase the problem.
Again- if you have robust laws against price gouging, there is no price gouging problem.
Robust laws also prevent the need for UBI in the first place. If we can’t figure out how to run a society without it, slapping UBI on top of that isn’t actually going to fix anything.
Universal Basic Income reduced child poverty by 30%.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Child_tax_credit#United_States
By making the child tax credit non-refundable it is effectively a Negative Income Tax which is a form of UBI.
‘Additional housing fixes the rent problem. UBI puts a temporary bandaid on it. Universal healthcare fixes the medical expenses problem, strong unionization fixes the wages problem. Don’t get me wrong I’d love the paycheck, but it isn’t the solution people think it is.’
All of your points misunderstand what the goal of UBI is. By guaranteeing that everyone earns a certain amount of income, the government is garaunteeing a basic standard of living. So a CTC of $3600 means that everyone is guaranteeed an income of at least $3600.
At first, there will be an inital raise in prices as a UBI will likely increases aggregate demand which will increase prices, but eventually prices would stabilize.
Of course, this only helps people with children right now, and there are barriers to filing a tax return in the United States. But the laws could be change to expand the credit, and it’s completely possible for the United States to implement return free filing.
Only when Republicans are in power. At least historically.
I can’t speak to certain politicians’ propensity to find any excuse to remove social safety nets, but I think that would be a huge mistake and misses the point of UBI. UBI studies I’ve followed have shown the money does get spent on necessities as opposed to frivolous things, and is indicated as a potential stepping stone for meaningful upward economic mobility.
I think UBI is justified considering we have had stagnant wages since the 1970s, while continuing to increase productivity. Workers are being stolen from due to this rift, and I see UBI as a way to claw some of that back. However, I also think there should be 0 means testing involved. That kind of overhead would render it ineffective, just give it to everyone. This would be more in the spirit of the OP, as a way to guarantee basic needs are met for everybody.
Lastly, as a response to the “how you gonna pay for that?!” crowd you mentioned - we pay for it the same way we paid for Trump’s $2T tax cut for the rich and corporations, or the same way we are paying for the billions of bombs, weaponry, and funding we are sending to our supposed allies overseas fighting wars right now. To suggest we need to sacrifice social programs to compensate for this is pretty laughable, I think those claiming this would want to sacrifice these things regardless and are just looking for an excuse. An excuse to further marginalize the working class. They can attempt to do so at their own political peril, as things like social security and Medicare are some of the most popular government programs in the country.
That’s largely the same for all social programs under Capitalism, tbf
Issue with UBI that it can be distorted so much it could mean almost anything at this point. AI corpos think UBI is when you buy their stocks early on, before the big AI boom (FOMO).
My only thing on UBI is who will disperse it? Our own government can’t because it would be used as a tool of leverage against us and they would always threaten to take it away.
Yes, exactly as they constantly threaten to take away our Social Security, roads and military protection! /s
I don’t understand. They do take away our social security and roads. DoD is strong though but it doesn’t really function in service of us.
Yeah this sentiment was expressed by some others in this thread as well. We see the same thing with social security now. Don’t have a great answer, but I am confident if we wanted to we could devise a system that’s resilient against such tactics.
I’m a simple man. I see Eddie Izzard, I upvote
What happens when you see a monkey in a tree, while you’re wearing a beret?
Le singe a disparu
Heck, if we could have all that for free, what’s the point of working?
I’d continue working if it meant I could afford more luxury in life.
I go to work and still can’t afford the bare minimum of what’s listed up there.
Yeah, that’s the point, it shouldn’t be like that
video game
That might fall under the categories of “free internet” and “living a fulfilled life.” So I’m pretty sure your video games would be provided complementary by the government too!
having video games doesnt fall within free internet and living a fulfilled life
I don’t play video games but those who do seem pretty addicted to them therefore they’re doing something they enjoy and their life is fulfilled.
While real video game addiction is not a thing to trivialize, not all gamers are addicts. It’s a hobby. Same as reading, watching TV, working on a car, woodworking, stamp collecting.
Generalizations suck dude.
And people who engage in their hobbies have a fulfilled life. That’s a point made in the OP meme.
Given the bad faith nature of your answers and your at best confused message of “addiction = fulfillment”, I’m going to chalk this “BuT i’M aGrEeInG” answer to more bad faith.
Free Internet doesn’t mean gaming pc
These are the basic needs. You’ll need a job if you want internet, or a cell phone
free internet was on their list. look at the meme again.
Yes he did, but I’d too say internet isn’t a necessity to live, you can live without internet, internet is mostly for leisure. And where it is useful, it can be replaced easily by the other above, especially if you have free public transport.
“Yeah but you needed internet to work” Work belongs to the workplace, not your home. Can’t take work to your home. (And in that case you would have mommy to buy internet)
And you’d be wrong. All over the place. I work exclusively from home as a data engineer. When the pandemic hit, my job was wholly unaffected. In fact, without the burden of a commute and dealing with existing in an office, my productivity soared. Your life experience is not everyone else’s.
Also, when’s the last time you applied to… anything? Credit card, bank account, job? All of these require internet now. You can’t meaningfully exist in our society without it on some level anymore. You can’t go somewhere and hand someone a resume, you have to submit it online. Those days are long gone.
civlized countries are starting to realize it’s cheaper to help people than keep them in poverty
You are promising a lot from an institution that is corrupt to its core and has a vested interest in denying you these things in order to extract the most out of you and hoping you die before society has to support you
No! We can’t do this! That’s communism!
What does owning adequate clothing even mean?
Here in California, I can go to a local shelter right now and get all of these things. Except adequate clothing because I don’t know what that even means.
I’d assume adequate clothing means clothing that fits properly, and is appropriate for the climate and weather.
Sometimes I see homeless people wearing shoes that look way to big for them and I’m guessing it’s because that was the closest they could find that fit on their feet so they just had to go with that. It’s really not adequate though because it could be a tripping hazard.
Additionally, facilities to wash clothing. This was one of the biggest struggles when I was homeless.
Homeless people pick their own clothing. They are often too zonked to even care
Source: your anus
Not everyone is so lucky that standard sized clothing and shoes will fit them, or are even manufactured.
Umm, please use a more appropriate term, like consciously-divergent.
Regressivist scum keeps attacking strawmen. More non-news at 11.
So what if now hear me out we do none of that, and do number go up instead - you know - for the shareholders?
The fact that this is political is maddening.
We COULD do this, if every lobbyist were disposed of and we similarly handled the billionaires. Otherwise there’s no hope here.
The EFF and ACLU employ lobbyists.
The fact that a terrible system is being used by both good and bad actors does not mean the system should be protected.
Corruption isn’t only on one side.
Hmm, my point is more that lobbying the government is essentially the same as petitioning the government, which is a protected right for good reason. While we could certainly be doing more to clamp down on kickbacks (e.g. Clarence Thomas), to ban lobbying wholesale would be to throw out the baby with the bathwater.
Killing the people using the system and not the system itself just treats the symptoms, but not the disease.
I’m not advocating violence, but don’t the symptoms need handled to treat the disease at some point?
Kind of? If the disease (Capitalism) goes away, so too will the symptoms. It isn’t necessary to kill the Bourgeousie, just make them irrelevant and whither away.
If the state does not uphold their rights to property, they have no power.
Right. ‘Handle’ was not necessarily code for ‘murder’. But something’s gotta give and the aforementioned bourgeoisie are unlikely to take whatever that ends up being lying down.
Revolution is generally what will be required, yes, just not mass extermination of Capitalists or anything. Capitalists only have power via the state, after all.
