There's a bit of talk about, let's call it "wasted Einsteins" and UBI. I want to take a very different tack to the meaning of UBI. One of the key aspects of UBI is that there's no maintenance effort. You don't have to prove you deserve the money, you just get it. The government just says "you're worth it". The point is: you don't have to be Einstein, you're still worth it. Are you disabled? You're still worth it. Are you struggling physically or mentally? Take a breather, you're worth it.
The government is telling you, whatever you're doing, they trust you.
Something that happens constantly with capitalism is that it makes people hard, calloused. Having to constantly justify yourself to be worthy of money. It valorises those who have the most, and makes losers of those who have less. At the same time, we can see how vile the bourgeois is. We can see how the load bearing pillars of society, the teachers and essential workers and nurses, are wrung out and left as husks. Everyone has to simultaneously deal with the idea that to be a good person you have to do good deeds, but also that you need to take advantage of others.
Now here's the problem with that: Some people neglect half of that idea. Some people neglect being a good person and end up wealthy. Maybe they're too stupid to make money, and they end up broke and awful. But then there are people who neglect the capital. Those people die.
They might physically die, spiritually die, or emotionally die. You can only take so much.
I don't want the Einsteins. I want good people to know that society values them, that there's a bare minimum of money that will cover them. I want them to know they are worth it. I want them to be strong and to fill their own cup as they fill the cups of others around them, enriching everyone else's lives. I want them to thrive.
