https://geohot.github.io/blog/jekyll/update/2026/02/27/the-i...

from the same author

Not necessarily UBI; one just needs an adequate day job. Then the hobby could be creating value with no expectation of any direct return: writing a blog, writing and giving away music, writing open-source software, doing any volunteer work, etc.

I guess then you disagree with the previous blog post, The Insane Stupidity of UBI, which says free money for all just makes prices go up.

> when you have enough money to not worry. Unfortunately for most people ... paycheck to paycheck

This is some truth to this argument, but the frequency with which it's brought out as an excuse to just dismiss any argument one doesn't like is too high in North America.

Simply bashing every argument with, "but some people are in a bad situation" doesn't really further discussion all that much.

Did you RTA? The author is predicting that those employees (at least in software dev) will get laid off; so they should get out and find some way to create real value (or make some other change) for their own sake, because they’re about to lose even “paycheck to paycheck”. You should debate this instead, because if true, it makes your point irrelevant.

As long as the global population is still rising, they will be carnage between competitions. The author and many others might be foresee the (near) future where the global population start declining, maybe then, we can do things just because we can.

Indeed, what is worse is expectation created by rich people that whatever little value you did create should be given away for free! I see it frequently on HN with product launches where people are demanding product to be opensource with liberal license which effectively means it should be free.

I see your post as a pretty strong refutation of OP's premise.

Unless for those who can afford not worrying about money, of course.

While I think you are not wrong, these are excuses to continue doing useless things

money is a judgement of value to society and a motivator to only allocate work in a useful way.. wouldn't UBI, even if coupled to actually producing _something_ will lead to a lot of useless stuff being made?

Not just if you already have enough money, but it's easy to say if you're as smart as Geohot. For those who aren't, (I'm not), creating that kind of value isn't just hard, it's impossible!

"Don't worry about money" is something a lot of companies do. They can just try to create value first, then look for profits later (albeit often though "enshitification").

This bias towards creating value makes them more moral than mere mortals, creating huge amounts of innovation and surplus value.

I think there’s a strong bias towards hacking and cool side projects from the hackernews crowd. But I’m not so sure much of the general population would use their free time afforded by UBI for productive and useful endeavors. At least from my observations there’s a significant portion of the population that uses their free time to be idle and veg in front of the TV and/or get wasted. My concern with UBI, even if it was financially tenable as it would underwrite a whole lot of that - including the more criminal, antisocial sub-population.