In response to your first point, I am going to quote one of my other replies in this discussion:<p><i>One of the points you are missing is that there are two kinds of poverty: absolute and relative. Even if you could eliminate absolute poverty, there is no means to eliminate relative poverty. The minute you have a UBI, anyone who only has that is de fact poor relative to others.<p>Many years ago, I saw a study that asked people in different countries to define poverty in terms of things like how many meals per day a person ate, what kind of shelter they had, etc. The study concluded that less than 0.5 percent of Americans were poor by the standards of people in India at the time the study was conducted. Meanwhile, Americans routinely conclude that 12% to 14% of us are living below the poverty level.<p>As a homeless American, I have regular access to electricity via a public library. I have access to public toilets. I have access to cheap goods. My quality of life is likely higher than that of many people in the world who live in countries without consistent supply of electricity and other basic infrastructure that I take for granted. There are countries where women are fairly routinely raped and sometimes murdered while attempting to relieve their bowel or bladder in an open field because there is insufficient infrastructure.<p>My quality of life is likely higher than that of kings of old, who had no electricity or Internet or antibiotics etc.</i><p>As for your second point, the information being lost has to do with what choices and behaviors are problematic and which ones are of real value.<p>I agree with you that the main purpose of money is to facilitate trade. So, I find myself baffled as to why you are pro basic income. What are people trading for basic income? It makes no sense to me to create a world of consumers.<p>I worry that we are destroying the health of the system.<p>At the moment, I do not have time to discuss this further. So, I am not going to try to elaborate on that last point. Given the reception I am getting here, this is probably a waste of time anyway.<p>Take care.