The reason we support ideas says something about those ideas, and ourselves. People who support UBI, by and large, want UBI so they and others can do what's important to them. People who support FJG, by and large, don't want to do FJG work, but want other people doing that work.
That's something that I find inherently problematic about FJG supporters, that so many of them have no desire to ever do FJG work themselves. They simply believe that there is work that needs to be done that would be beneficial to them for someone to do, so someone should do it.
UBI recognizes all the work already being done, both unpaid and underpaid, and makes that work more possible by more people. It recognizes that we oftentimes are terrible at determining what's valuable and what isn't, and that we should instead quit stopping people from doing it.
Here's something I think of as the Tarantino argument for UBI: what if we had looked at young Quentin watching movie after movie and determined he was wasting his time being lazy? We could not know that what he was really doing was studying and in the act of BECOMING a filmmaker.
The value of work carries a time element. Even the things we ourselves can consider frivolous for ourselves to do, can turn out to have been important years later to great accomplishments. Gaming is popularly seen as frivolous, but it's possible to become a pro esports player.
Then there's also Bertrand Russell's argument of the value of leisure. What's the value of creating anything at all beyond basic survival stuff if we don't have the time or ability to enjoy it? Saying otherwise is like saying locks are great but not keys.

http://www.zpub.com/notes/idle.html 
Basically we have an ancient problem in overvaluing the importance of keeping each other jobbing, when we should be doing more questioning of what's the entire point of all of this, and is there a better way to enable society to live better lives full of more meaning and purpose?
You can follow @scottsantens.
Tip: mention @twtextapp on a Twitter thread with the keyword “unroll” to get a link to it.

Latest Threads Unrolled: