<Basic Income> With the basic income, will people stop working?

The article of the netizen@Renee made me feel that everyone has a strong subconscious desire not to work! So the projection projected to the outside world is that "with a basic income, most people don't work anymore". I think this is also a big psychological factor in the opposition to basic income. This part really needs to be discussed more.

It is intuitive to imagine that all life on earth struggles to survive, and even has to take risks to obtain food to survive. Darwin's "natural selection" has been deeply rooted in the hearts of the people, and competition brings evolutionary changes, and "eliminating the weak and retaining the strong" seems to be a matter of course. So the idea of working hard to survive is deeply embedded in our hearts, even in our genes. Therefore, concepts such as "born in sorrow, die in peace" and "heaven and earth reward hard work" are widely accepted by everyone.

Of course these concepts are true, but there are some areas that need to be explored in depth.

First, is "natural selection" fully applicable to human society? From a macro point of view, this theory is not wrong; but human beings can win by natural selection, not simply because of better physical strength or higher intelligence. Rahal, an Israeli historian who has been very popular recently, put forward a point in his book "The Great Destiny of Humanity": The reason why human beings can win is mainly because of their ability to "cooperate". There are genes of mutual assistance and cooperation in human nature. This is not simply reduced to "human nature is good", but because it is a need for survival. Of course, there is no shortage of mutual attacks and killings in human history, but in the end, a group that can unite can always win the final victory.

You can also say that these wars and killings have brought advances in knowledge, such as the invention of gunpowder, the use of nuclear energy, etc.; but I don’t think these are the biggest driving forces for the development of human knowledge, and secondly, it is the development of human beings. In the 21st century, do we still need such wars to make human progress?

Even from the biological point of view of "natural selection", the earth is in constant environmental changes, and life is constantly appearing and going extinct; the originally strong life disappears after the environmental change, and it seems that the weak life survives instead. It is precisely because of the diversity of life on earth that some life can always survive and continue to develop, so that life on earth can continue; if human society is regarded as an ecological system, similarly, the diversity of human life is equally important. Survive the possible upheaval of the future. When human society has progressed to its current state, we should try to get rid of the concept of "natural selection", but the spirit of "mutual aid and cooperation". What's more, with the current trend of globalization, the turmoil in a region is often global in scope; conflicts and oppression brought about by competition are, on the contrary, a potential crisis for human existence.

The spirit of basic income is precisely to reduce the conflict caused by competition in society.

Next, let's discuss, why do people work?

Biologically speaking, work is for survival and reproduction; the former is an unavoidable basic need, and the latter has been gradually abandoned in modern times. The need for reproduction is abandoned, and many are threatened because of the need for survival. The basic income is actually to protect these two levels.

Only when survival is ensured will there be a need for reproduction.

In addition to living, human beings are also different from ordinary creatures, and have more desires to be satisfied. It is these desires that allow human beings to develop into what they are, how can these desires disappear after only basic survival? In fact, from another level, the mentality of not wanting to work may also reflect that the current work brings people a lot of pressure. Many people work to survive, not to be happy. This is also the problem that basic income wants to solve.

In my opinion, even if people leave work for various reasons, they will not leave life.

Modern people cannot think about life and life because their lives are too busy and compact. Everyone should have an experience, and often after a short period of time, new motivation or ideas can appear. A gap like this is most likely not a bad thing. Many of the great discoveries or inventions in history are often conceived by people who have no financial burden; even those ideas are possible because there is no need to work to survive.

Leaving from oppression and letting go, the mind can often have a more open imagination.

Another common misconception about basic income is that basic income seems to meet people's needs and therefore no longer need to work. But basic income just keeps you alive and doesn't satisfy your other desires. Imagine a prison with free entry and exit, although you can live in it to get food and clothing, wouldn't you want to leave and have a look outside?

And please don't misunderstand any more, basic income is not "communism". It does not require people to pay all of what they get, but part of what they get; the economic principle it follows is basically a free economy, a modified capitalism. Also, it does not represent the so-called true "justice", although it has hidden elements of justice; many socialists believe that basic income is not true justice, and therefore do not support it. Justice has many facets, the main goal of basic income is to reduce the oppression of work and the group conflicts that follow, and should not be interpreted in terms of pure justice.

Human society is faced with a large number of jobs being replaced by machines (or no longer need so much work), if you still think about the old concept that everyone must have a job, it will inevitably fail to adapt to future development; we should try to reinvent the wheel Defining the matter of "work", human civilization has the possibility of renewal.