[ExI] My review of Eliezer Yudkowsky's new book

[Adrian Tymes]

On Sat, Oct 4, 2025 at 7:04 AM John Clark via extropy-chat
<extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org> wrote:
> On that note I'd like to ask the people around here a question, what is your opinion of Universal Basic Income (UBI),  a government-provided, unconditional, and periodic cash payment to all residents, regardless of their work status or income?

A few concerns off the top of my head - not that they can't be dealt
with, but any realistic proposal might want to address these quickly.

1) Inflation effects.  If everyone gets, say, $3,000/month, will even
the cheapest apartment in the most remote town have rent less than
that?  (Leaving aside those who are homeless because they don't want
to be housed, or are incapable of not trashing their living place like
a feral animal.)

2) Fraud.  Prove that someone is a resident, and not a fictitious
entity.  This will probably be less of an issue than proving that a
person's UBI does go to them, or at least to their sustainment (foor,
rent, et al via autopay), regardless of other peoples' attempts to
repurpose their income away from their survival.

3) Special cases for children.  Does this UBI apply the same from the
moment one is born?  Since minors can't normally have their own bank
accounts (or at least, newborns can't), does the money go to their
parents?  $3,000/month would approximate or exceed today's average
cost of raising someone from 0 to 18 years.  This by itself would
heavily encourage having more babies (which many in the industrialized
societies that might have UBI would see as a good thing, possibly
enough to sell them on the idea).