How do you know that they would have thrived if the world gave them a push? What kind of push? Do we not have plenty of examples of people with such pushes doing not so well already?

I haven't interacted with NEETs specifically, but I have interacted with a few people in a similar bucket. Including people who actually exhibit some similar signs but are not NEETs because they technically are in work or education or something (in fact, I think that part of the definition is not really relevant and is just an easy shorthand - which is why I'm not buying the "need a push" thing - often these people can adapt to a push just fine). The issue I often found is that they lost life purpose, and often they're rather hard to argue with. The more intelligent people can't convince themselves with nice sounding falsehoods. But there's little else offered them. God, of course, is dead. And, after a while, there may not be anyone for them to talk to whether they go out there or not. Let's say that I'm not too surprised at their existence, and no weird explanations about how man moved too far from nature or something have anything to do with it.

A person being brilliant doesn't deal with unpleasant people or environments, it doesn't solve all the nasty hoops that one often has to jump through to do certain things, it's really not something that gives you all that much power. If anything, a more brilliant person may realize how powerless they are while a less brilliant one will keep pushing. If we have groups of intelligent people repeatedly refusing to participate in society that may mean something's wrong with the society. Something's driving them away, making them give up. I can see many such forces.

We should stop trying to create a surrogate purpose, whether it's through the worship of nature's hardships or deities that probably don't exist. We should, you know, maybe actually look at the problem, and figure out what we want to do. I think people want to do plenty of things but are usually not invited.

I'll agree that some people may not find a purpose on basic income, but they already don't have one. Someone in 3 jobs on min-wage drinking themselves to death in a bar is hardly better off than a NEET. Or what of people in gangs or cartels, what of drug addicts. There are many groups like this, NEETs are pointed out because it's a fun target people like to pick at. There was always a sizable percentage of people who had issues. Those people do not magically disappear in the natural world. This is a more advanced issue that basic income neither causes nor will it fix. But it should at least help make their lives a little less miserable, just like many other movements made the lives of certain groups less miserable.

> The artists lose the joy of painting and the programmers never begin their projects.

You appear to be referring to something that happened in the past? What?

A harsh and cruel world, is, by definition, not a utopia. At most you can argue that a utopia is not possible. But let's not call a bad thing good. Most beings do not enjoy suffering by its very definition. We've moved away from the natural state of things for a reason. Nature is not the way it is to make anyone happy, quite the opposite, really, so do not expect it to be the one to accomplish that task. That one is on you. There are far worse situations than being a NEET and nature offers so many of those. If that's all the world can offer, I'll keep
looking for more.

A simulation of strife, if such is so required, is already far superior to true strife. Strangely enough, simulated strife hasn't really been all that popular so far - people seem to ultimately prefer their games to be a bit more forgiving and fair.

And let's be suspicious of claims and theories that just say: "Let's go back to how it used to be". This is an expected rollback. You venture into the unknown, you don't know what to do, so you want to run back to how it was, because it's familiar. But consider how big the unknown is, how much possibility there is there. Why settle, why not make sure there is nothing higher? When we fail to fly, do we stop trying? When we can't find a solution to a problem, do we stop looking? Why do you expect the design of a world in which all humans are happy some easy task you so flippantly dismiss the moment there's a roadblock? It's only logical that there will be many, many errors and setbacks and failures along the way. This IS, perhaps, the true purpose of humanity.

Can you really not imagine a world better than this?