Dr. Martin Hash Podcast

Imagine for a moment that science fiction became reality, and that Star Trek-style replicators existed: food, clothing, housing, entertainment was all 100% provided at no cost to anyone else; how would that affect life? Why would anyone do anything if they didn't want to? There's only science and art remaining for people to engage in since the drudgeries of life would be taken care of. Science is knowledge for knowledge sake, and seems unlikely to attract more than the small fraction of folks motivated by esotericism; so presumably, everyone would be creating art, but it's not hard to imagine where that leads?

Taken to the extreme like this identifies the fundamental flaw in the whole concept of a Universal Basic Income, or UBI: people work to achieve something but if nothing has any value because everything is free, why achieve anything? Let alone the burden to pay for UBI placed on a society without a free replicator, and since no one would care about work ethic, it wouldn't take long before consumption was greater than production, leading to subsequent collapse; but even assuming there is a replicator, society would simply eat itself to death while playing videogames, watching football & masturbating.