What would YOU do differently with a guaranteed floor under you?

by Rhys Adebayo

Not the policy debate — the personal one. If a modest monthly floor were guaranteed, what changes on Monday? Studies say most people keep working but switch to work they mean. I suspect this community skews toward "start the thing I keep postponing". Curious about honest answers, not aspirational ones.

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Comments

Milan Gruber 1 month ago

Inflation objections always assume supply is fixed. If demand shifts to essentials, production of essentials follows. Markets do adapt.

Aoife Nguyen 1 month ago

Honest, not aspirational: I wouldn't start a thing. I'd drop from four night shifts to three. That's it. The fourth one is where I make the mistake I spend the next week replaying - and I only take it for the money. A floor doesn't turn me into a founder, it turns hour 13 into hour 12. Everyone here imagines the floor unlocks some dormant startup. On my ward it would just let tired people be slightly less tired, and honestly that's the version I believe. Prevention beats a miracle cure with working hours as much as with health.

Liam O'Connor 1 month ago

Mine's boring and specific: I'd fire my two worst clients. They're ~40% of my income and 90% of my dread, and I keep them purely because rent doesn't care that the SaaS is "almost" ramen-profitable. A floor doesn't make me start something - I already started three somethings. It buys me the nerve to stop doing the thing slowly funding them into the ground. Ship the embarrassing product full-time instead of at 11pm. That's the honest Monday change.

Yuki Tanaka 1 month ago

Contrarian answer: for me, nothing. I'd have started the company either way - that's just my defect. The floor was never aimed at people like me, and I think this thread slightly flatters itself pretending it was. Where it actually bites is the person with the idea AND a kid AND no runway, who currently never gets to find out if they're any good. That's the unlock - not more founders like me, but the first-timers the current system quietly filters out before they ever ship. It changes their Monday, not mine.

Rhys Engel 1 month ago

Not a founder answer, from the warehouse side: I wouldn't quit and I wouldn't launch anything. I'd finally say no to the overtime I take because the number is there, not because the work is worth it. Peak season I'll do six-day weeks I know are a bad trade - I'm slower and I make the mistakes that cost more than the shift paid. A floor doesn't turn me into an entrepreneur, it lets me price my own time honestly for the first time. Same thing I keep telling founders about their robots: the ROI was never the raw speed, it's how cheap it is to stop doing the thing that isn't working. Aoife's "hour 13 into hour 12" is exactly it. The floor buys sober decisions, not startups.

Paula Umarov 1 month ago

The honest-answer version of this thread is so much better than the aspirational one. Mine's a one-liner: I'd stop saying yes to work I already know on day one is a mistake. Ops brain - the tell is always there early, I just override it for the money. A floor is permission to trust the tell.

Sana Lindqvist 1 month ago

What the sceptics get right: a UBI that replaces everything else could hurt people with high needs. What they miss: nobody serious proposes that version. Floor, not ceiling; foundation, not replacement.

Rhys Adebayo 1 month ago

Didn't expect the honest version to be this unanimous, or this small. Aoife turning hour 13 into hour 12. Rhys refusing the overtime he knows is a bad trade. Liam firing his two worst clients. Paula trusting the tell she currently overrides. I asked what people would START and got a thread about what they'd STOP. Not one launch in the lot. Yuki's right that I flattered us, and the flattery was in the question - I built it expecting founders. Designer's version of what you've all actually said: the floor isn't a launchpad. It's a delete key.

Rosa Engel 1 month ago

honestly better debate than my old subreddit

Noah Williams 1 month ago

The Alaska dividend is the boring proof nobody talks about. Forty years, wildly popular, survived every political swing.

Camille Petrov 1 month ago

Rhys, "not a launchpad, a delete key" is the most useful sentence written on this thread, and it has a design consequence most schemes get wrong. A delete key only works if saying no is cheap. Under means-testing with a steep withdrawal cliff, the fourth night shift Aoife wants to drop can cost her more in lost support than the shift paid - so the honest answer collapses back to "I'd change nothing, I can't afford to." The taper IS the policy. Get it wrong and you have funded a floor people are structurally unable to stand on. Least-bad design, as usual not the cleverest: flat, universal, low withdrawal rate, dull to administer. The test isn't whether it unlocks founders. It's whether someone can still say no in year four.

Will Kowalski 1 month ago

Funding mechanics matter more than the amount. A dividend from shared assets scales with the economy and survives elections; a line item in a budget gets cut in the first recession. Structure beats generosity.

Sofia Rossi 1 month ago

The strongest UBI argument is not compassion, it is throughput: means-testing burns money deciding who deserves money. Every pilot rediscovers that the admin savings fund a surprising share of the payout. Simplicity is the feature.