It is perhaps worth thinking about how universal basic income (UBI) could intersect with psychiatry and psychology. According to psychiatrist Thomas Szasz, psychiatry is not medicine, it is economics and politics. UBI is the idea of giving all humans a certain amount of money each month, just for existing (and without means testing).
Universal basic income could be a non-coercive way to help alleviate some economic stress from the lives of humans. In the field of positive psychology there is research that money can “buy happiness” to a certain extent.
It will be good if we can reduce suicides to zero using persuasion, reason, and kindness. Basic income could be a way to persuade people that as a society, we want all humans to prosper and experience abundance.
Promote and advocate for universal basic income perhaps. Think about the economics of UBI perhaps. Perhaps a cryptocurrency universal basic income (crypto UBI) could be implemented without the help of governments. Perhaps a crypto UBI will happen, and also governmental fiat basic incomes will be implemented too. Hopefully more humans (including politicians) will advocate for implementing universal basic income.
Alaska has a sort of universal basic income in the form of Alaskan oil payments. UBI is not an unrealistic idea. Hopefully more individuals will see how economic problems impact life stressors. I note mostly satirically that perhaps in the future, psychiatrists will prescribe money instead of only psychiatric drugs. Medicalizing money is probably actually a bad idea.
Since both mental health and mental illness are metaphors; that does not mean that misery and problems in living do not exist. The National Institute of Mental Health (NiMH) should maybe have its name changed to The National Institute of Emotional Well-Being. If implemented intelligently and strategically, universal basic income seems like it could increase the emotional well-being of many humans on Earth – mostly through helping to reduce economic problems and stress.
Hopefully more individuals will encourage politicians to implement universal basic income. Hopefully more individuals will research and help to develop cryptocurrency universal basic income. If implemented in an ideal way, universal basic income can help to eliminate poverty and also help to the emotional well-being of possibly billions of humans on Earth.
