Hey forceOfHabit, thanks for reading. I agree, UBI certainly isn’t a solution to the broad question of life’s meaning. What I do tend to think, though, is that when comparing society today without UBI to a hypothetical reality in which society adopts UBI, those “broader problems of the meaning of life” become more accessible to everyone involved. This is what I mean when writing:

“UBI could provide everyone a sturdy platform from which to explore the human condition.”

The pivotal word is “explore”; I imagine that UBI would enable “exploring”, though certainly not “solving”, existential questions.

I’m not sure I understand your point about being in favor of UBI, though not philosophically. UBI is surely a human-specific policy, though I don’t think this precludes it from having philosophical reasoning behind it. I wonder if this goes back to our disagreement on anthropocentrism, in which case I wonder if you’re saying that anything human-specific cannot be considered philosophical?

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As an aside, your comment about mosquitoes, etc., sparked an odd thought for me. In a sense, what we do when owning pets is provide them with Basic Income, right? For example, I provide my dog with ample food, water, shelter to survive, simply for being a part of my society. He can then spend the rest of his day doing what he pleases, rather than spending most of his day securing food as many similar animals do in the wild. I suppose a better analogy would be that we’re like their socialist overlords who provide what we deem is adequate for their needs, since we don’t give them cash and therefore don’t give them the liberty to choose, but an interesting thought nonetheless.