the problem here was the USSR not the UBI. you need to disconnect the two. the USSR and the associated political repression came first and it's no surprise that any handouts thereafter were in service of that political system.

we are discussing UBI in a democratic system, and i feel it is rather unlikely that implementation of UBI would turn a country into something like the USSR.

I agree. It was OP up the thread who brought up USSR artists funding as an example.

USSR and UBI is an interesting combination though. Being unemployed was illegal. And for common man it was very hard to get laid off. Just show up, even if intoxicated (and continue drinking at work), sleep at work (e.g. drive your tractor to the field and just park there) and you'll still get paid crappy salary as anybody else and roof over your head. I guess it was closest it was to real UBI. Yes, it was not exactly UBI, but it was still universal income where you get food & shelter regardless of your work performance.

Regarding UBI turning countries into USSR, I don't think UBI would turn countries into totalitarian regimes. But it may turn countries into similar inefficient slacking-off culture where vast majority of people do as little as possible in least involving way.

Sure, some of them may claim they're super productive and creative in their hobby adventures. But if thousands of programmers create awesome ToDo apps in their free time... Is that really productive from society perspective? Society needs a lot of bring stuff, not thousands of great ToDo apps...

i accept that the risk of turning into a slacking-off culture is there. the problem is the exploitation and the lack of perspective for a better future. this can be addressed with better education. we need to teach people to motivate them to do something meaningful to the benefit of humanity. see my other comments here for more thoughts on this.

Better education or propaganda to brainwash people to keep producing? :) Funnily enough, USSR loved all sort of propaganda of the worker of the month, stachanovists and all that jazz :) Yet it didn't work. Maybe the real better education would be to teach people to enjoy peaceful idleness and live with less?

Ultimately people don't need that much to live. Once you remove consumerist desire to keep up with the jones, the only motivation is to get roof, food and some supplies to have fun with. Currently passing this threshold requires quite a bit of effort. Then there's relatively little extra effort to get somewhat nicer toys. Yes, some people will work extra hard and make €€€€, but vast majority of people ain't workaholics. If that base threshold was removed with UBI, then it'd be a massively different effort to get somewhat nicer toys. This would change the equation a lot. I've a feeling the jones might be in trouble then.