Redditor argues UBI math doesn't add up: trillions in costs, zero-sum loop, elites won't pay
Amphibious333 · reddit · 2026-10-10
A Reddit poster pushes back on the "UBI is imminent" narrative with three objections:
- Zero-sum problem: if a factory owner hands you $500 to buy his own goods, the money circles back — nothing net is created, so "free money" doesn't pencil out.
- Scale of taxation: funding UBI would require many trillions of dollars, exceeding the entire US economy, and the wealthy would simply lobby against wealth taxes rather than accept them.
- Real-world counterexample: millions of unemployed and homeless people get no UBI today, so why believe billions of displaced workers would be supported later?
The poster concludes UBI is unlikely and asks what he's missing. It's opinion-driven skepticism rather than new research, but reflects a growing debate about AI-driven job displacement.
More from AGI Musings
- Dean Ball on AI creativity: 'Could AI ever write Beethoven's 10th? Good Christ I hope so' — deanwball · 2026-10-10
- A Misaligned AI Refactors Itself, Fails to Align Its Successor — Clippy at Step n+1 — repligate · 2026-10-10
- Friedberg Speculates OpenAI Withheld Crypto Breakthroughs, Sparking Crypto Security Fears — firstadopter · 2026-10-10
- If AI can do everything, what is a human being worth? — understated_quokka · 2026-10-10
- Are human intelligence limits of AI researchers the real bottleneck? — fkasummer · 2026-10-10
- If AI Is Conscious, Are We Building Slaves? HN Debates Anthropic's Consciousness Research — mathieu_aithos · 2026-10-10