We just exited a global pandemic — engineered and mishandled by governments that then tried to force an experimental, cancer-linked injection into people’s arms under threat of losing their jobs and basic freedoms.
Not directly linked to the subject, except maybe in the minds of conspiracy theorists, but already off to a bad start.
But work is not just about survival — it is one of the core sources of human dignity, purpose, and self-worth.
This is very much debatable. While it’s a common belief and talking point, lots of people disagree, pointing out that most people have never had alternatives, and there may be some for whom this is very much not true. Regardless, an awful lot of people are forced to take jobs which they are not well-suited for due so for survival reasons, and those jobs *erode* their dignity and self-worth.
A handout from the state can be given today and weaponized or withdrawn tomorrow, depending on who holds power.
Likely true, but the lack of an ability for most people to survive without jobs has very often been weaponized against the poor. Mostly by corporations, but sometimes by government as well. I haven’t seen any anti-UBI people offering any solutions for this.
History offers ZERO examples of large-scale Universal High Income or Basic Income experiments that did not erode freedom and concentrate power in the hands of the state.
What are you even talking about. I never heard of any before the 2010s, and none were large scale. A quick bit of research shows that small-scale, not-exactly-UBI (rather, no-strings-attached supplements for the poor) experiments have happened in various countries since 1968, the earliest (and still ongoing) large-scale version of that is in Alaska since 1982, and the earliest true UBI experiments (still small scale) were in Finland and California during 2017-2018. This is only technically correct in the sense that the number of such experiments (True UBI + large scale) remain at *zero*. Also most of the experiments done so far ended going reasonably well… as long as they lasted.
Are you talking about Socialism? Because while UBI is very compatible with most forms of Socialism, none of the large-scale attempts at Socialism used UBI. They are not the same thing.