It’s Time to Level Up: Universal Basic Income —the Practical Hack We’ve Been Missing

We’ve Got the Tools. We’re Just Using Them Backward.

A single mom works two jobs—and still falls behind. A factory worker spots a smarter way to do things—but stays quiet. He can’t risk losing the job. You leave a generous tip—18%, then 20%, now 22%—but deep down, you know it’s not fixing the problem.

Something isn’t right.

We think it’s inevitable. It’s not.

We’ve created immense abundance. But not everyone can tap into it. We want to help, but we don’t want to make things worse. We’ve spent trillions trying to get it right. And still, the stress seeps in—from the street corner to the kitchen table.

There’s a better way. We have the tools. We have the levers.

But we’re using spoons to hammer nails and wrenches to spread butter.

Let’s step back. Let’s review the numbers. Let’s try something radically simple.

The Equation of Enough

Here’s the core idea:

time + tools + gifts = needs + wants

That’s it.

Time is your effort. Tools are the amplifiers—a plow, a computer, a robot. Gifts are the support you receive.

The right side of the equation is what we all strive for: meeting basic needs and obligations—and fulfilling human wants, like connection, play, and purpose.

We can break gifts down further:

· Gifts = tailored gifts from individuals + societal gifts

· Societal gifts = conditional products and programs + unconditional cash transfers

Conditional gifts require proof, paperwork, and eligibility. Unconditional ones just show up.

A System That Once Worked

This equation has always been with us. In early societies, time + tools + gifts were just enough to meet needs. If your fire stayed lit, if your village shared their catch, you survived.

As tools evolved and cooperation expanded, we didn’t just meet needs—we began reaching for wants. We built. We explored. We dreamed.

We hacked the system. We built markets. We scaled trust beyond tribes.

Over time, wants overtook needs as the driver of progress.

But something broke.

A System Out of Balance

For some, the equation tipped wildly in their favor: time + tools + gifts >> needs + wants. Excess became the norm. But for too many, the opposite happened: time + tools < needs, no matter how hard they worked.

This isn’t theoretical.

A teen skips dinner so her little brother can eat.
A full-time warehouse worker sleeps in their car.
A mom clocks 80 hours a week and still can’t pay rent.

Work doesn’t work like it used to. There was a time when time was really all we needed. With effort, we could plow a field, build a house, start a fire. No one can live like that now.

What happens when time + tools < needs for someone? They obviously suffer. But what about the rest of us? If it’s not addressed, we all suffer. We need to fill the gap. That’s not optional. And if we don’t do it well, we still pay—in ER visits, crime, and bureaucracy.

And that’s bad. Really bad. Take another look at the equation. What do you care most about? All that really matters is that your time goes mostly to wants, not to needs. That’s what it’s all been about. Trusting one another, the invention of money, capitalism. We’re trying to get the amount of time we spend on needs down to zero. We were getting there, but something happened. Some of our neighbors’ equations got out of balance, and suddenly we’re all heading in the wrong direction.

Let’s zoom in to make it personal.

Just the Two of Us

Strip it down to the basics.

Suppose it’s just you and me in the world. For you, time + tools > needs. For me, it’s the opposite. But my imbalance doesn’t just affect me—it affects you too. If my equation doesn’t balance, you need to step in eventually. Because the fallout—instability, crisis, chaos—will land on your doorstep. We end up here:

You: time + tools = needs + wants
Me: time + tools + gifts = needs

Now, you don’t know me well. So should your gift be conditional or unconditional?

If you make support conditional, you introduce the gift gap—the cost of tailoring, managing, and enforcing the condition. That might be worth it, but only for a rational reason. There are four:

You want more wants.
You’re asking me to spend my time working off my needs in a way that benefits you. It’s efficient—you're buying my time with the gift gap. But it edges into territory we’ve tried to leave behind. If you’re honest, you’ll spend more time justifying it than enjoying it.
You want to win me over.
Maybe faith. Maybe politics. You think the help will earn my loyalty—or at least my public thanks. But is that really worth doing inefficiently? If it’s truth, feed me first. Then let’s talk.
You want something better for me.
You mean well. But you don’t know me. You’re asking me to brush my teeth while the house is on fire. Maybe start with putting out the flames.
You think I’ll misuse the gift.
This one has legs. If I fail to meet my needs, you’ll end up paying more in the fallout—crime, ER visits, broken systems. That’s a legitimate concern.

And here’s where the math gets clear: If the goal is to minimize your needs, it’s in your best interest to trust that I’ll spend the cash on the basics. The data says I will. That makes unconditional giving—not moral filtering—the smartest, lowest-cost path.

You need to dig into this like your life depends on it. Because it does. You have the opportunity to trim some significant needs from your equation. Convince yourself that people will at least prioritize their basic needs if they’ve been given enough to do so. Look into the trials. Get to know some people living on the edge. This is not hard work, but it takes time. Do it now, and you’ll free so much more later. If this is true, then a simple hack, replacing conditional products and programs with unconditional cash, balances the equations. Not only lifting the poor out of poverty, but reducing your needs as well.

The cleanest, lowest-cost move—the one that protects your equation and respects mine—is simple: you give me cash.

No strings. No red tape. No dignity loss. No need to prove I’m broken before I’m trusted to heal.

And then you’re done. The rest is up to me.

Let’s Scale This Up

But it’s not just you and me. There are lots of us, and that complicates the equations. You can’t balance them all. You try—tip extra, drop coins in a cup, donate to charity—but what are you solving? You know it’s not enough, but you do it anyway. You worry sometimes that you’re doing more harm than good, but it’s better than doing nothing.

Let’s lean into that concern. People game generosity all the time. And honestly, if I’m trying to get some wants met, and there are a lot of people like you out there trying to help— it’s only rational that someone in my shoes would try to tap into that. That’s what forces you to think about going down the conditional path. And that is what we scale up. You’ll live with getting taken advantage of yourself by the guy on the corner, but you’d never put that into law.

So society fills the gap with a litany of programs: welfare, housing vouchers, food stamps. And these come with strings. Rules. Red tape. We force people to prove they’re struggling—because we’re afraid of being gamed.

We have reason to be. When generosity scales, so does suspicion. We worry about freeloaders. So we make the help harder to get.

There’s another reason for it. We’ve never really known any other way to give than tailored. We’ve avoided some gaming this way. But even more so, we long for the good parts of tailored gifts. We know from experience that the best gifts are the ones picked by someone who knows us deeply: a parent, a partner, a friend. The value goes well beyond the price tag. Unfortunately, this good part just doesn’t scale. And you know that from experience. When someone who barely knows us tries to do the same—a coworker giving a half-thoughtful housewarming gift, say—the result often feels awkward, mismatched, even wasteful.

That’s what society tries to do at scale: tailor gifts for strangers. But it can’t. So instead, we strap on strings. We pile on conditions. We ask people to prove they’re struggling. We try to manage outcomes from afar.

The result is what we’d expect from conditional, strings-attached gifts from a stranger: high cost, low value, and missed targets.

Pulling Trust Out of the Equation

Too bad “just the two of us” doesn’t scale. Or does it? The problem was gaming. In an uncoordinated attempt to help balance equations, it pays for people to try to game the system. But by mandating the unconditional transfer of cash through a Universal Basic Income, we eliminate a lot of the gaming. If you know the beggar on the street is getting a monthly check to balance his equation, you won’t feel obligated to give. Sure, they don’t have all their wants met, but you’ll naturally put conditions on trading your wants with theirs. You’re not getting gamed anymore.

And think about gaming from society’s perspective. The scaling of conditional transfers invites it as well. If people can get good at proving they’re worthy, at proving they just can’t work and need a little more help, they will profit as well. Again, it’s only rational. So our attempts to avoid the gaming of our charitable efforts scaled to a different sort of gaming at the societal level.

That’s the trap. Tailoring fails at scale. It creates waste, mistrust, and misfires. So what’s the cleanest fix? Universality. Give to everyone. No tests, no hoops, no second-guessing. That’s what eliminates gaming—because there’s nothing to game.

You can’t cheat a system that already trusts you. And when trust lives in the system—not in each of us—we’re freed from constantly measuring each other’s worth. That’s what pulling trust out of the equation really means: A system that’s lighter, faster, and fairer for everyone.

Think about it like this: that coworker you invited to your housewarming? They’d probably rather just give you cash—and honestly, you’d be better off if they did. But they’re trying to build a relationship, so they waste time picking something out, and you waste time pretending to love it. Now scale that to society: millions of strangers trying to tailor gifts for millions more they barely know. It doesn't work. But cash? That works. Now you’ve done your part. You’ve satisfied the need to balance their equation. The rest is up to them. You’ve already convinced yourself that they’ll take care of the basics, and you no longer need to worry about them gaming you. Trust isn’t required.

Here’s what happens when we plug unconditional cash into the equation:

Individuals receive the full value of support. No tailoring errors. No dignity loss.
People use their energy wisely. No bandwidth drained proving they’re worthy.
Markets respond to actual needs, like food, childcare, and housing—not only luxury condos and dopamine apps.
Waste shrinks. No more spending billions on unwanted, mistargeted aid.
Charities refocus on thriving, not surviving. They become amplifiers of joy, not stopgaps for pain.
Work becomes freer and more engaging. You can leave the bad job. You can pour your energy into what’s important or what’s interesting.

Redirecting even part of our spending into direct cash is smarter, cheaper, and far more human. Conditional cash is expensive for the giver and not as useful for the receiver. Unconditional cash, targeting needs, is less expensive and the full value accrues to the receiver.

We already live in a system where luck trumps merit—where a flat tire or a sick kid can sink a life. Universality is cleaner, cheaper, and fairer than trying to play moral referee at scale.

Some problems require coordinated cash and time (think curing cancer)—that’s where conditions might make sense. But when a simple transfer of cash could meet a basic need like food or shelter, we need to fight the strings. Making it unconditional, whether or not someone “deserves” it, balances their equation and optimizes our own.

"What Happens Next?"

We get a floor to stand on.

A musician tries teaching. A grandma starts a daycare. A teenager studies instead of hustling for rent.

And you? You stop tipping from guilt. You know your server is free to walk away if the job doesn’t work. That’s not just dignity for them. That’s freedom for all of us.

A System-Level Hack

Capitalism still works. Democracy still works. We’re just giving them the wrong input.

We get to choose which tools to use and which levers to pull. We’ve forced people to spend their time proving their worth just to survive. Meanwhile, we’ve asked democracy to micromanage food, housing, and healthcare—slowly and inefficiently—while markets chase luxury and likes.

UBI fixes this. Give everyone cash, and markets hear what democracy demands: real needs, not silly games. No mandates, just a signal—then watch competition solve what we’ve agreed to prioritize. It’s the best of both: our vote sets the stage, their ingenuity steals the show.

When unconditional gifts = needs, we finally get the math right. People, all people, can use time + tools to chase wants again—the wants that drive innovation, purpose, and joy.

Then we’re paid to do the important stuff; we’re free to do the fun stuff. The boring, unpleasant, and dangerous stuff? It will still get done. Sure, it’ll cost a little more, until the innovators learn to do it better. But that’s exactly what the market is for. It would have done it long ago except that it lost the signal.

In Sum

Stop policing poverty. Start empowering possibility.
Stop moralizing about worthiness. Build a baseline of dignity.
Stop fearing laziness. Understand that desperation, not security, often traps us.

Capitalism doesn’t have to end; it just needs a better input signal. Let’s fix the wiring. Let’s try the upgrade. Universal Basic Income is that fix—a simple, elegant hack.

It’s time to level up.

Bonus Level

So you don’t have to trust me. I’m on my own. My equation is balanced, your needs are considerably smaller with this obligation settled. You’re done! You’ve leveled up.

Of course, if you meet me—you don’t need to be done. We can be friends, and we’ll have more time to do so. We can collaborate. We can build.

As long as society handles the transaction—the basic cash transfer—you and I don’t have to think about it. That frees us up to do something more interesting. Maybe you have some tools that let you chase more wants than me right now? Maybe you like, maybe you want, to share those tools? Maybe we find a way to chase those wants together? Figuring that out is our next chance to level up.

Do the Math Like It Matters

We’ve made the case for UBI, but funding still needs to be sorted out. It’s worth pouring more energy into the Equation of Enough. Can we quantify how much the current system is costing us? And how much we’d save with a simple cash transfer. Here is the formula, as already introduced:

· Time + tools + gifts = needs + wants

· Where: gifts = tailored gifts from individuals + societal gifts

· And: societal gifts = conditional products and programs + unconditional cash transfers

· Gift gap (tailored or conditional product) = Cost to giver – value for receiver

· Gift gap (tailored gift from individual) likely less than 0

· Gift gap (conditional societal gift) likely greater than 0

We don’t distinguish between conditional and unconditional gifts in the case of individuals. While there may be a conditional nature to some of those tailored gifts, we assume all related strings accrue to the benefit of the recipient due to the relationship between the parties (think parent and child). As the distance between the giver and the recipient increases, the value of tailoring (the “gift gap”) increases, and a difference emerges based on conditions. Conversion to unconditional cash keeps the gift gap from climbing above 0.

Now, if we’re lucky enough that time + tools > needs, one of our needs becomes solving the system for those who have time + tools < needs. And as argued earlier, we will balance this equation. We must supply gifts so that their equation balances. Furthermore, the fear that time + tools could slip below our needs means that we are likely to also want/need a buffer as insurance. It’s helpful to make those terms explicit:

· Time + tools + gifts = basic needs + societal obligations + buffer + wants

We would love to live in a world where only wants sit on the right side of the equation. In the beginning it was only needs. We introduced wants first, and then the others crept in. In many ways we are clearly better off today, but these additional burdens quietly steal the joy we’ve earned.

This is where the value of the hack comes in. UBI is a gift that targets all three of those undesirable terms. Basic needs are covered by the gift. Societal obligations are our contribution to pay for UBI. And the buffer only needs to cover the extent to which we are worried about losing wants, not needs.

The goal, then, is to make sure our societal obligation, the cost to fund UBI, is as small as possible. Every conditional system creates friction—financial, emotional, and social. UBI removes that friction, unlocking hidden efficiency gains in every corner of society:

Eliminate the gift gap.
Eliminate costs associated with creating these “gifts” via central planning instead of the markets.
We get the markets reengaged to drive down the cost of basic needs.
Eliminate opportunity costs and inflationary impact of misallocated raw resources used to make tailored gifts.
Eliminate wasted time due to hoops required to receive gifts and to avoid losing those gifts.
Eliminate tools developed in favor of gaming the system instead of more productive alternatives.
Eliminate the costs of not having effectively balanced the equation in the form of crime, health issues, missed work.
Productivity benefits from a workforce solving engaging important or interesting problems instead of boring ones.
A potential reverse gift gap: Unconditional support sends a powerful message that affirms worth and invites trust.
Potential productivity associated with voluntary “packaging”: resources that may be leveraged but not made a conditional requirement, such as the hotlines, handshakes, and hugs which may very well align with the “want” category of the givers.

Further study could help quantify each component of the gift gap in real-world programs—such as SNAP, TANF, or housing vouchers—and model comparative cost efficiencies under unconditional cash alternatives.

All of these benefits are realized in the future. The slower we scale it, the more we can rely on savings to reinvest. But given the payoff, we should invest more upfront to go faster. We don’t want to punish innovation, but we want capital back in the game and we want to share the fruits of our hard-earned progress. It will cost $100’s of billions. But the returns are worth it. And there is an abundance to draw from. Decide to do it, then get it done:

Get creative. Set up a bipartisan commission to tax the activities that don’t make our lives richer, like high frequency stock trading and carbon emissions. Let the market work for the things we do want: more free time, healthy bodies, clean air.
Spread corporate dividends more broadly by limiting tax breaks.
Close loopholes like offshore shelters.