"I'm just praying that introducing a basic income doesn't lead to a lot of disenfranchised young people playing video games."

Why is that a problem?

People's motivations and mentality change throughout their life. Understanding that there may be a lull of 3 years where someone is "just playing video games", and being OK with that is just being an empathetic human.

They'll get tired of the game. They'll get tired of the same grind every day. They get tired of eating the same thing. They get tired of not having any goals. Things change. Our mentality goes through phases throughout our life, and we grow/evolve despite ourselves.

Would you rather that person be a surly server at a restaurant, who doesn't want to be there, who only wants to be home playing games, and provides you with a terrible experience? And a manager with a terrible employee. And other employees being affected by the one person's bad attitude?

Why NOT let them take advantage of the social safety net? To pursue their own personal development, or go to a professional that can help them get beyond their current malaise? AND be able to seek the help they need without the anxiety of having to hold down their job at the same time, find therapist appointments outside of their (variable) work schedule and traffic jam times, etc.?

The customer at the fast food restaurant has a better experience, because the employee they interact with is there by choice.

The manager and other employees at the restaurant have a better work environment and crew, and actually enjoy their work, rather than HAVING to do it just to survive.

The game company makes money.

The therapist makes money.

The food delivery company makes money.

And, in the end, the individual gets to be the architect of their own rise from the ashes. They get to feel a sense of accomplishment at overcoming their personal demon, rather than doing all the work just to get to neutral/zero/level again.

Any demonization of people for USING their UBI is seriously stick-in-the-mud thinking... if I had UBI today, I'd cut my hours to 20 hours per week (because that's all the work I honestly have) and spend the rest of the time working on a sliding scale doing marketing projects for small businesses I love, but who can't afford to give me $100k/year.

The idea of UBI is so mind-bending to Americans... we just can't even wrap our heads around what life would be like if we had ANY flexibility in our work at all...