Three year. Would you quit your job, and move somewhere cheaper if you knew the money will run out after three years, and you'll have a three year gap in your CV?
Are there really no lottery winners winning lifetime monthly payouts to study?
Because, if you gave me 5x average earnings for three years, I wouldn't quit my job. But if you guaranteed the money for the rest of my life, i'd pursue different activities (fun, good for me, but non-productive for society).
> Are there really no lottery winners winning lifetime monthly payouts to study?
There are a bunch, but that’s complicated and notoriously politicized because people with agendas spin the results. For example, there’s a famous and widely cited study of 35,000 lottery winners in Florida where the headlines say almost everyone spent all their winnings after 5 years, and that bankruptcy rates went up after 2 years. It’s misleading because the winners were $150k or less, you’d expect that to be gone after 5 years, and because backruptcy rates went down for the first two years, and then returned to normal.
Googling it right now, I’m actually seeing a lot of headlines like “85% of lottery winners kept their jobs” and “study finds lottery winners are happier”.
> if you gave me 5x average earnings for three years, I wouldn’t quit my job. But if you guaranteed the money for the rest of my life, I’d pursue different activities
I’m not sure why... 5x for me would be life-changing. That’s 15 years’ salary, or 12 years’ savings, without making lifestyle changes. I would absolutely use that money to re-evaluate and try some new things.
I'd use 3 years to unapologetically recover from the daily grind that is working daily, and figure out what I really wanted to do. It would make for a great opportunity to figure out and build skills for what I want to do in the next phase of my life.
A 3 year gap (call it a sabbatical and get all kinds of kudos for being so brave) isn't that hard to overcome, if you have the required skills.
Well Paid Salary: No, I probably wouldn't do much different and would still be concerned about my CV.
At or near Poverty: Yes, I would use this opportunity to focus on education/training that I might not have had the chance/maturity to focus on earlier in life.
Your income level will play a significant role. Being able to escape a violent neighborhood would be more than worth it for some people.
Why? I feel like a lot of people want to do things that are productive for society, that we have too little of right now. Things like producing art of all forms, building things, increasing their level of communication with those around them, participating in community events and activities, etc. Sure, these things aren't economically productive, but they're still productive for society, which is the gap that I'd like to see filled, whether by UBI or other forms of providing more security for the general population.
>Why? I feel like a lot of people want to do things that are productive for society
Most of the things that are productive for society require study and practice of skills that aren't particularly interesting to the vast majority of people.
>Sure, these things aren't economically productive
The vast majority of things that are productive for society are economically productive. That's why people pay for things.
We don't need UBI to go toward funding artists and musicians. That's a waste of resources. Particularly considering that far too many people are likely to choose the easy way out, pursuing "what they love", i.e. soft skills like art and music. You also drastically underestimate the number people who are perfectly content with doing drugs and watching TV/playing video games all day.
Unfortunately while resources are scarce, human nature is such that people require incentives to do the things that need to be done.
IMO, UBI can actually encourage innovation and productive work, on "hard problems" that are not economically viable in a short-enough time-frame or lucrative enough for VCs, but for which society would certainly benefit from.
What about guaranteed 1/4 average earnings for life? Would you still quit your job then? It's a rhetorical question the answer is obviously no, most people would still keep working just now have better negotiating power and flexibility.
Assuming if you made more money, you would then spend that money, there would be someone who would create opportunities for people like you to spend your money. And that just sounds like business to me.
> Three year. Would you quit your job, and move somewhere cheaper if you knew the money will run out after three years, and you'll have a three year gap in your CV?
Three year. Would you quit your job, and move somewhere cheaper if you knew the money will run out after three years, and you'll have a three year gap in your CV?
Are there really no lottery winners winning lifetime monthly payouts to study?
Because, if you gave me 5x average earnings for three years, I wouldn't quit my job. But if you guaranteed the money for the rest of my life, i'd pursue different activities (fun, good for me, but non-productive for society).