Universal Basic Income Quotes

“In a world of true abundance you shouldn't have to work to justify your life.”
― Sam Harris

“Imagine being a poor person and you find out that the Queen who literally does nothing is making 100 million dollars in a year.”
― Joe Rogan

“Interventionism inevitably leads to socialism, central banking inevitably leads to hyperinflation, total cashlessness inevitably leads to total surveillance, and "guaranteed income" inevitably leads to guaranteed enslavement. A deadly poison remains a deadly poison even when ingested in a gradual manner.”
― Jakub Bożydar Wiśniewski

“If you imagine a world of real abundance. Like a world where we built the right AI that's just pulling wealth out of the atmosphere and no one really has to work anymore, because we literally have machines that can build machines that can build machines, that are all powered by sunlight, that do everything better than we can. Now why wouldn't that be some kind of utopia? Well it wouldn't be a utopia because we have these very weird emotions, or many of us do, that make it seem like it would be wrong to spread the wealth around. Most people are living as though they want to live in a world where there's a few trillionaires living in compounds ringed by razor wire, and everyone else is sort of starving to death. It's like a winner take all scenario. And so, we have to find a new ethic whereby people are no longer—their purchase on existence is no longer justified by doing profitable work that other people will pay them for. In a world of true abundance you shouldn't have to work to justify your life. You should be free to enjoy the wealth of the world. If we are going to get to that place, we have to change our ethics around that.”
― Sam Harris

“The solution to poverty is to abolish it directly by a now widely discussed measure: the guaranteed income.”
― Martin Luther King Jr.

“...a UBI is not a salve for a world of technological unemployment, or a powerful antipoverty measure, or a form of social dividend, or a way to boost the earnings of the working poor. Rather, it is all those things and more: a paradigmatic shift that would free people from having to do more work that they did not want to do at all. A UBI would, in essence, lop off the bottom of the psychologist Abraham Maslow's 'hierarchy of needs', where air, food, water, and shelter reside, with self-transcendence up at the other end. A UBI would give people the economic bandwidth to do what they wanted with their lives... Let the robots do the dirty work. Let the people do what they want.”
― Annie Lowrey, Give People Money: The Simple Idea to Solve Inequality and Revolutionise Our Lives

“The coronavirus pandemic is exactly the kind of cataclysmic event that brings about drastic changes. I think Medicare For All and UBI are now inevitable. It's either that, or complete chaos.”
― Oliver Markus Malloy, American Fascism: A German Writer's Urgent Warning To America

“I don't hear it much anymore... but... I guess people do sometimes ask... well why don't you go back to Russia.... Well I'm sorry I can't help it I guess Im stuck in this shithole for a while. My aunt married some Jew and then we won a "lottery" and my daddy (pussy little bitch) decided to come to this shithole and make me go to school with fucked up Jews and learn english and shit. Then I became an alcoholic in college. Then I worked for the government a bit and that REALLY fucked me up. Now I'm just waiting for them to catch up, make some amends and pass the Universal Basic Income so I can go back to drinking. Rigorous honesty, every single day.”
― Dmitry Dyatlov

“The fee to cover the average cost of incarceration for Federal inmates was $34,704.12 ($94.82 per day) in FY 2016.”
― Federal Bureau of Prisons

“John Lanchester discusses right-wing and left-wing versions of Universal Basic Income, and concludes that it is currently the only progressive big idea on the table. This may be the case in Europe, but in India, it is very much an idea of the right. The proposal for UBI in the government's economic survey of 2017, for example, viewed cash transfers as replacing a host of existing schemes and benefits for the poor, and explicitly rejected the idea of UBI as a transfer from the rich to the poor. There was no mention, by any of the political parties proposing UBI, of any form of progressive taxation for resource mobilisation. Cash transfers are likely to be the beginning of a slippery slope towards a minimal state. In India, where millions of people are malnourished, illiterate or poorly educated, and liable to die of avoidable diseases, UBI is not a progressive alternative.”
― Madhura Swaminathan

“There are two completely oppositional ideas that many people seem to hold simultaneously: First, work is vital and the core of human existence. Second no one will work if they don't have to. These two ideas are at complete odds with each other. Either work is a core of the human experience and we'll do it even if we don't necessarily have to, or work is something we have no interest in doing and we do it only to survive.”
― Andrew Yang

“The conditional programs inherently use poverty as a threat. That's Cruel. Shouldn't we be ashamed of ourselves?”
― Karl Widerquist

“Pelosi won't send direct payments during your foreclosure because Pelosi is getting direct payments from those foreclosing on you.”
― Jimmy Dore

“well I did get one good line out of Joe Biden... "undermine the dignity of work" = Unless you pay me a shitton of money so I can finally buy a goddamn Yacht, YOU're fucking undermining the dignity of MY work. There. Fixed it.”
― Dmitry Dyatlov

“de oppresso liber”
― Dmitry Dyatlov

“Annoying neighbor woman keeps telling me to get a job. You can't just sit around and do nothing. You'd be out on the street if you were MY child... she keeps saying. So what do you want me to do, exactly? Study Elephants in Norway, like YOUR kids? No... she says... you need a PHD for that job. Well I rest my case. Fuck work.”
― Dmitry Dyatlov

“Limited period basic income (provided to those in need) can strengthen the preexisting welfare system in its efforts to empower the people and invoke equality, whereas universal basic income will only weaken the fabric of society and create deeper disparities.”
― Abhijit Naskar, No Foreigner Only Family

“Let us not underestimate the ingenuity of the poor people in converting what they get from the relief worker to what they want. And that’s just wasteful. They would be far better off if we just gave them the money and let them spend it.”
― Milton Friedman

“Once you get people addicted to alcohol in college, you make it almost impossible for them to stop drinking - Milton Friedman. Just kidding. I said it. But inspired by Milton. hehe.”
― Dmitry Dyatlov

“People tell ya to grow up… be a man… But what does that mean exactly? Doesn’t it mean to do the right thing… act forthrightly. Well… I think we need to give people money… UBI… Negative tax… whatever the hell you call it. And then parents say, hey, stay out of Politics, WE’RE NOT FROM AROUND HERE… Fine. Where are we from? Belarus? Okay. Well we’re from Belarus, why couldn’t we get UBI in Belarus? Parents say shut up, the President’s a dictator. Oh? Well, call me an idealist, but seems to me like you’re just looking for shit to complain about and run from your problems. A word of advice to potential immigrants. Stay away from this shit hole. These American schools tend to pump out sluts, alcoholics, and non-binary homeless philosophers.”
― Dmitry Dyatlov

“We had an interesting conversation with one of my Accenture managers toward the end of my tenure there. Something about sandcastles. Well, thank God, he got my point. It’s not a REAL job. You don’t NEED to update your stupid Oracle every 3 years. It shouldn’t be so fucking hard. It’s just debits and credits, isn’t it? What we need to do is find out which jobs in the economy are ACTUALLY essential (bartenders, for instance), pay those people a good wage, and give UBI to everyone else so they can go to the fucking bar. Simple.”
― Dmitry Dyatlov

“Die Zeit ist reif für das bedingungslose Grundeinkommen.”
― Rutger Bregman, Utopia for Realists: How We Can Build the Ideal World

“Schließlich verdanken wir nur einen Bruchteil unseres Wohlstands unseren eigenen Anstrengungen. Wir, die wir im Land des Überflusses leben, sind reich dank der Institutionen, des Wissens und des sozialen Kapitals, das unsere Vorfahren angehäuft haben. Dieser Reichtum gehört uns allen. Und ein Grundeinkommen wird uns allen erlauben, daran teilzuhaben.”
― Rutger Bregman, Utopia for Realists: How We Can Build the Ideal World

“Many of my proposals are aimed at freeing humans so they can discover and pursue their personal interests and purpose, while existing education and job loop systems stand in opposition to this freedom.”
― Albert Wenger

“With universal basic income for everyone, there was an endless supply of money for basic level simulations and there were plenty of jobs for those who wanted to work to upgrade their simulation. For a while, the only problem was decreasing populations as fewer people had the money, time or patience to raise children.”
― Peter Clifford Nichols, The Word of Bob: an AI Minecraft Villager