I think it's even rational to not keep emotion completely out of something like this, since UBI is not meant to maximize economic output, it's meant to improve the quality of life for most people.

In order to asses how that quality of life can be improved, it's necessary to treat humans as humans, and not as some automatons for which a specific KPI needs to be maximized. Any proper assessment of quality of life has to have some instinctive component that models the human element, even if it's only used to picking what weighted set of metrics should measure quality of life.

> There is really one ultimate question here: "Is this the best use of our tax dollars?". Not: "Does this feel like the best use of our tax dollars?".

There have been numerous pilot studies, e.g. those listed on https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Universal_basic_income . The problem is that opponents of UBI invariably point out that as only some people received it, and only for a limited time, that it wasn't universal, or that it took place in in some other country, or decades ago, so it doesn't apply in their country, or today.

> Show me how much UBI saves police departments, social welfare services, the health-care system,etc.

Its purpose is to ensure that everyone has their basic financial needs met, not to provide those particular government services.

The emotional valence of a policy does actually matter, since you have to sell it to voters (or whoever is in charge in a society). Technocratic governance is not a stable way to run society, as the last 30 years have shown. Any political agenda with a hope of being enacted needs to stir the heart in order to have any hope competing against others. The fact that a policy is provably a good idea and would make everyone better off in a theoretical world where everyone went along with it, is not even necessary let alone sufficient for it to become a real policy.

> Show me how much UBI saves police departments, social welfare services, the health-care system, etc

Sure, people can do that, but remember that it's impossible to measure wealth without distributional concerns. Whenever you ask "will this make us richer", there's an implied wealth distribution in the question, since what's valuable depends on who has money.

> I really wish people would learn to keep emotion out of this topic. There is really one ultimate question here: "Is this the best use of our tax dollars?".

That's what you feel. You've already introduced emotion, by using the highly subjective word "best", and the loaded phrase "our tax dollars."

> Show me how much UBI saves police departments, social welfare services,

And yet, there is more to UBI than savings. It's also proposed as a means to give people more freedom. Your choice to look at savings betrays an emotional attachment to economic value over all else. But that's not the same for everyone.

That said, I do not believe UBI can ever live up to its goals, and can actually create a worse society, even after initial success. That alone makes it subject to speculation and emotion. The effect of UBI simply isn't predictable. Economists can't even predict a moderate crisis when it's about to unfold, let alone the long term consequences of a radical system change.

UBI is hence a political choice, and one that's tied to personal expectations and hope.

The biggest set of data points comes from the most obvious and widespread UBI - the state pension. Available to a certain section of the population

That's how all UBIs thus far appear to work. You need a fixed exchange rate area where some people don't get the UBI so that the physical output that actually funds it can be extracted from the people who don't receive it. That separation can be physical area, or age.

We can see from the state pension that the majority of people in receipt of it don't work. Instead they live off the output of others.

If UBI was a realistic possibility then the age at which people receive the state pension would be heading down towards 18 (since a UBI is just a state pension where the qualification age is the age of majority). The data tells us that the qualification age for retirement pensions is heading upwards, due to a lack of productivity gains to support it.

We also see complaints about its existence, which demonstrate that the capital inheritance maintained by the older generation and handed over to the young is not seen as sufficient to justify the state pension payment given to the old. Capital hasn't been maintained well enough and doesn't give enough to younger people. To the extent that younger people are agitating to have the state pension reduced or removed.

Switch 'old' and 'young' for 'in area' and 'out of area' and you see why UBI 'experiments' always end or are ended. Those who end up working to create the material output that actually funds the transfer get fed up getting nothing material in return and have the transfer stopped.

Somebody has to do the work to grow the carrots. If you aren't doing anything meaningful in return, (which means what the carrot grower wants you to do, not what you want to do) why won't they stop growing carrots when they have enough for themselves, and have Fridays off?

Is politics supposed to be about maximizing the government's money? We saw where that lead with businesses. I thought the government was there to do things that weren't good profit maximizers but made the world better.

> There is really one ultimate question here: "Is this the best use of our tax dollars?"

This attitude right here is why UBI will never exist without being a farce, a trap, and those that go on UBI regulated to institutionalized misery.

Plain fact: humans do not give gifts without expecting returns. UBI violates this basic tenant. No, the economic activity generated by UBI is not enough, that's a flat wash, the returns need to be just like investments.

A labor pool would add bureaucratic costs and also UBI is a bonus for many, not their sole source of income.

> I really wish people would learn to keep emotion out of this topic.

Emotions are the fuzzy result of billions of years of experience. We are capable of great things if the mind set is right. The mind set is almost entirely emotional. You are curious, you learn, you interact with others, you set goals, you accomplish things. If others do the same we can be proud together. It takes very little to disrupt this process and create people who don't give a fuck anymore.

I get that you want things to be analytically sound as anything else would be worthy of paranoia. Just read the article and see it is exactly what you've asked for.

Politics are lately more and more about emotion (we're under attack!) and speculation (it will be a catastrophe!) so as much as I agree with you, I don't see it happening. Or rather, I don't see this particular argument getting much attention - as real as it might be.

> There is really one ultimate question here: "Is this the best use of our tax dollars?".

The government has far more ways of financing things than taxes. I’m not sure why we refer to money this way—it’s fundamentally disingenuous. A federal budget is not the same thing as a household budget in any way.

[flagged]