Look, I’ll be straight with you. “Universal Basic Income” is in substance the same thing as “handouts.” The only difference is in the tone and connotations of the phrase you choose to use. “Handouts” has overwhelmingly negative connotations of “free stuff for lazy people,” while “Universal Basic Income” has connotations of a futuristic economic policy that will solve a lot of societal problems.

You can use many words to describe something like this. Stipend. Dividend. Stimulus. Welfare. The dole. They all walk the same but each carries different baggage.

So I think the person above you was a little silly to say it’s NOT a handout. Sure it is. But it’s a humane and well planned handout designed to reduce suffering and stimulate the economy -not the unwashed masses robbing the country blind.

Let’s all just say what we think of such policies instead of letting connotations do the work for us.

Personally, I’m excited to see any program like this of such a size, and especially in a country I have been to and know a little about. Let’s see how it plays out. UBI could be awesome and it could be a blind alley where the funds just cause inflation and the benefits are short lived. We have to see.

Right, like if you just rephrase OP’s question as what’s the point of a sports bra, it becomes more obvious. Everyone knows what a sports bra is for, right? Well with significant enough breasts, virtually all movement benefits from some support.

The weird thing to me is how women with very small breasts can still sometimes adhere to a strict bra regime. Some of it is cultural programming, including the terror that your nipples might show through a shirt. This IMO is not worth the cost and maintenance and restriction of a bra.

When people poop on Muslims for covering their women or wonder how some women could ever want to wear a veil, I like to remind them that we do exactly the same thing in the West. It’s just that our bar is set at a different level. No we don’t lose our shit if women show their faces but we still lose our shit if their nipples show.

Anyone supposedly independent or undecided at this point is and idgit voter who will either stay home or vote for Trump.

Since literally anyone will be Not Trump then can we have someone actually good? That way we’d have “not Trump” and “actually good” both working for us! Win win!

While some of this is cultural, it’s also about accessibility. Old people want to use their voice because their sight is often less reliable and they aren’t as good at pushing the right buttons. My father for example is functionally blind and voice is all he has. So before we get mad at boomers calling all the shots, let’s consider that they’re not just old fashioned. They’re old. and so will you be one day.

The other day I was able to take care of what I thought was a reasonably complicated customer service issue through an automated assistant.

I take a daily prescription medication and it’s on automatic refill. However now and then I forget to take my pill and then I have an extra. After years of this I found myself with 20-30 pills left when my next bottle was ready.

So I tried to call the pharmacy and say hey that bottle of pills you have waiting for me? I still need it, but not for about 3 weeks. Can you push my entire schedule back that much but otherwise keep the pace the same?

Turned out I was able to do this just by listening to menus, selecting from multiple choice, and entering numbers for dates.

I was so satisfied! I don’t want to talk to a human if I can possibly help it. I’d much rather deal with an automated system as long as it can do what’s needed. The problem is that most of them can’t. But then again most customer service humans are useless too, so…

I believe we have it in us but this Democratic Party is a finely oiled machine designed to blunt our progress, not lead it. Goddamn Biden said in the beginning that he wouldn’t seek reelection and he should have stuck to that. Now he’s in danger of actually losing to Shitstain L’Orange.

What you said is true and in addition to that we should consider that the responsible thing to do in the face of fascism is raise the alarm. Not crying panic over far right politicians and their nightmare policy fantasies would just normalize them and help bring those nightmares about.

So while there is a fairly typical “follow the money” argument to be made here, alarmism over fascist ideologies is also just good activism and responsible citizenry.

No, you’re reaching for that word to try to categorically dismiss an argument you have no response to.

Good point. This is often true. I was thinking of early computers with the big tape reels, which definitely didn’t look interesting, but there are other examples like the one you showed.