Universal basic income in the future

[Neo-Scholastic]

So I've been spending a ton of time researching what the future will be like. It's fascinating as fuck.

I strongly suggest reading "Debt: the First 5000 Years". If we as a society are to make good decisions about the future we need to understand the past. I started to see the economic world completely differently after reading it.

I think that western countries, US included, should be experimenting with the implementation of a universal basic income within the next 10 to 15 years because within 50 years we're going to see an unemployment rate so high it's going to fundamentally transform our economics and society as a whole.

Personally, I cannot imagine 50 years into the future, and I don't think anyone can project that far. Look back over all the predictions made in just the last 50 years - the only projection that has held is the doubling of computer processing power. Other than that we seem to have averted nuclear holocaust, the world wide famine from population bomb, an ice age, the complete depletion of fossil fuels...and that's just a start. My guess is that the world will be just as shitty as it's always been, just in different ways, and just as beautiful as it has always been for the same reasons it's always been.

It's easy to call the unemployed lazy and entitled now, but how will people live when they won't be qualified for ANY of the jobs that exist?

Point taken. There are more than one category of poor: those incapable of doing work, those who could but lack opportunity, and the able who choose not to. But the larger question is why we judge people in terms of their ability and willingness to work, i.e the Protestant work ethic. What qualifies as a contribution to society and from where do we get a moral imperative to do so?

I know UBI has been experimented with around the world (usually with sample sizes below 10,000) and have been successful.

Not familiar with any of those experiments. I would be curious to know what is being used as the success criteria.

if we implemented a guaranteed income while eliminating several other entitlement programs, I think it could get bipartisan support.

The purpose of entitlement programs extends beyond taking care of the unfortunate. They are also used to benefit powerful interest groups. Every benefit received by the poor involves purchasing it from some provider. There is a reason food stamps is run by the Dept of Agriculture. All the public housing gets built by union construction companies with political clout. Entitlement programs are also designed to "encourage" people to act in government approved ways and direct consumer behavior. Just giving people money won't do any of that and states that have those powers to direct resources towards their benefactors will not easily relinquish that kind of power.