"Do you force birth control on people who do not meet a certain level of financial independence? Do you take kids away from parents who lose that financial independence? Do you let people starve and freeze to death?""

I usually refuse to have discussions with people that use straw-man arguments and try to guilt me into siding with their opinion, but I will make this exception today.

If we had a basic income, how would you handle a growing amount of dependence on the system? In the beginning, we would still have people that were used to working..and they would be able to support everyone. But, as more and more people were born into the system (and used to the free money), there would be less and less money to pull from as a whole..and either the system would collapse completely or the government would pretty much have to take over private industry.

"I don't know that it's a good idea; it should be tested first, and, if it fails, we throw it out (unlike so many "big" ideas where, if and when it fails, the reason is always that "we didn't do it big enough, so we have to throw more at it"). The success criteria need to be well defined, but not politically motivated like so many ideas for providing for the poor. Like I said, I don't know how to get there from here."

Government programs don't really work this way. I don't think we could just "try it out" without wasting lots of taxpayer dollars.

"Is it better to move towards a new economic model that accounts for it or just deal with the revolution when 75% of people are unemployed?"

Again, you keep making these outlandish claims. How can I take you seriously?

JIT manufacturing isn't even close to taking out 75% of the jobs and it might not be close in our lifetimes. We might as well be discussing the potential of quantum teleportation technology putting the automotive industry out of business.

"No, the single worst thing you can do is let them starve or freeze to death, because then their one and only life is over."

Our poor are better than most countries in the world. Want to see real poverty? Go to India, Vietnam, Cambodia, or many countries in Africa.

"I consider this argument the "the poor are only poor because they are lazy, so anything that makes them more lazy will only make them worse" argument. And I believe it is a lazy argument in itself."

It's not laziness, it's just human nature. Any system needs to take into account human nature or it won't last..with painful results.

"I've scrounged through cupboards hoping there was anything in them while my parents drank away whatever money they got."

With freedom comes the freedom to destroy you or your kids lives. A basic income won't put a stop to this. What makes you think those same people won't take the money and continue to squander it?

One of my family members has always been poor. He finally got a job last year and makes 6 figures. We all thought that this would be a life-changing event. The result? He declared bankruptcy this year and can barely afford his mortgage.

Education is the key. Throwing more money at the problem without some sort of education won't solve the issue.

"Should I have been told to piss off because my parents couldn't pay for me to go to college? I had a high school diploma, so I had "enough", right?"

No, but if the tax payer does pay for your school (and you don't need to pay it back), you should be required to pick a major that has some chance of actually making you enough money to pay for the major.

"Where do you draw the line? How do you determine who is good enough and who isn't?"

We have many systems that already help the disadvantaged, but it never seems to be good enough. My taxes right now are close to 50% of my pay check, but it's never enough.

With great freedom comes great responsibility. If you are going to blame parenting and the way you are brought up on the inability to find a good job and succeed in life, maybe we should have less freedoms in regards to how a child is raised?

It just seems silly to not want to put any responsibility on the person having the children or the person that is poor yet continue to demand more and more money from society when it obviously isn't working.

On top of all this, we now have lots of free information available to us online. There are entire college courses, video tutorials, blogs, and other forms of free education available to all. You can even go to pretty much any library in any city and get high-speed Internet for free (many homeless people go to the public libraries in my city). Yet, we still have a problem with a lack of education and many people not able to get jobs.

I also don't like this notion that because a person is poor..that must be the reason why they aren't succeeding. We need to put more responsibility on the individual if you really want anything to change. Your place in life many times has to do with your poor decision making and planning.