Remember how the internet was supposed to bring people together, enhance the spreading and sharing of ideas, bring knowledge and information to everybody? Not many people predicted it'd end up with people going into echo chambers, spreading misinformation about one another, and helping to drive a wedge in society so extreme that an increasingly large chunk of society (myself not included) believe it will culminate in civil war [1]? Can't win 'em all I guess.
The point I'm making here is that we shouldn't play the naive game twice. Give people free money and an extra ~10 hours a day with no obligations to anybody. This isn't going to bring in some utopia of people pursuing wonderful new interests and ideas they always really wanted to, but were just held back by socioeconomic obstacles.
So let's think about realistic predictions. I mean I do agree with you people would be looking for purpose. Companies would be quick to try to provide this purpose by providing the most addictive, immersive, and life destroying games ever -- even the most hardcore WoW player would blush at what we'd have in store there. We'd also probably see people finding purpose similar to how we already do online. Imagine Twitter outrage mobs. Except now since people have no obligations and really nothing to do, there's a very good chance this would spill into the streets and likely in quite high numbers. 'Hey let's come protest against [xyz] in LA on the 17th!' 'Whoa, sounds like fun. Btw, no idea what [xyz] is, fill me in then?' 'Sure, not so clear myself tbh!'
Ooo and then the inevitable happens. There'd be another group, also looking for purpose, that now decides to counter protest. And these 'meetings' would be immense. There'd suddenly be thousands to millions of people with nothing to do and no obligations showing up to face off against each other to try to find some sort of purpose and meaning in life. No worries. I'm sure they'll just come together, spread and share ideas, and bring knowledge and information to one another.
Well at least everybody could come together in nonstop protests demanding that the basic income should be increased.
I like the dystopian outlook and dislike of UBI. However, the advent of the internet = civil war 2 is a false premise. Dividing the country was possible long before the internet existed. You can argue that being able to rapidly spread information accelerated the preponderance of these echo chambers- however- you can just as easily say that the advent of the internet has made the world a more enjoyable place and has increased most people's quality of life.
The point I'm making here is that we shouldn't play the naive game twice. Give people free money and an extra ~10 hours a day with no obligations to anybody. This isn't going to bring in some utopia of people pursuing wonderful new interests and ideas they always really wanted to, but were just held back by socioeconomic obstacles.
So let's think about realistic predictions. I mean I do agree with you people would be looking for purpose. Companies would be quick to try to provide this purpose by providing the most addictive, immersive, and life destroying games ever -- even the most hardcore WoW player would blush at what we'd have in store there. We'd also probably see people finding purpose similar to how we already do online. Imagine Twitter outrage mobs. Except now since people have no obligations and really nothing to do, there's a very good chance this would spill into the streets and likely in quite high numbers. 'Hey let's come protest against [xyz] in LA on the 17th!' 'Whoa, sounds like fun. Btw, no idea what [xyz] is, fill me in then?' 'Sure, not so clear myself tbh!'
Ooo and then the inevitable happens. There'd be another group, also looking for purpose, that now decides to counter protest. And these 'meetings' would be immense. There'd suddenly be thousands to millions of people with nothing to do and no obligations showing up to face off against each other to try to find some sort of purpose and meaning in life. No worries. I'm sure they'll just come together, spread and share ideas, and bring knowledge and information to one another.
Well at least everybody could come together in nonstop protests demanding that the basic income should be increased.
[1] - http://www.rasmussenreports.com/public_content/politics/gene...