One or two years ago we had a public vote here in Switzerland about if a comitee should think about how the UBI could be funded and how it could work in practice. The vote wasn‘t about if we want to implement it or not. People got scared about „lots of people won‘t work anymore“ and „this will hurt the economy“ so quite a big mayority voted no. Pretty sad in my opinion.
Also like two or three years back we had a public vote about a minimum wage. Also here people voted no, because they got scared that there might be buisnesses what would need to close and therefore people could loose their job. When I remember correctly there were some studies that showed that not even 1% of swiss people would have profited of the minimum wage.
You see: we are one of the richest countries and we could easily aford to pay a little more for people at the bottom. I mean, we are spending 5billion per year on an army we never use. But we don‘t because we get scared easily and the human learned of the centuries to gather and not to give away his hard earned money.
Very interesting, thanks for sharing. I wish more people were open to the idea, or at least discussing it. If Switzerland's population is worried, I can't imagine what the average American would say.. lol.
Much like Stockholm syndrome, people fear the unknown. The question becomes how long does it take for people to understand most of the system(s) in place only benefit the top 1-5%. I am hopeful decentralized platforms, like this one Steemit, will help the people take back forms the centralized forms of authority.
Yes humans are afraid of change. Why risk what you have now?
Well you have to see that Switzerland is always slow with change. In some areas women were not allowed to vote until 1990. o.O
I also think decentralized platforms are a good step but even here we have huge inequalities. If I invest 1’000‘00USD in steem power my vote is so much more worth then the mayorities and so I can influence the platform in a big way.
UBI seems to me like another tool for bringing about a New World Order and centralizing power and authority for the global elite. UBI is completely contradictory to decentralizing forms of authority so I'm not sure why you'd be in favor of it.
It's by no means perfect. But it could be used as a tool to help each other, help ourselves. If doled out in a non-threatening or controlling way - using AI and blockchain technologies to help work out the authority kinks.