I think something like UBI will succeed but it won’t look to us like UBI. Like, maybe it seems stupid, but as far as political systems go, the key is persuasion in absurdity and narrative. To persuade people into UBI it has to be dressed up politically as --something else-- in the same way that all kinds of welfare (social and corporate) tends to get simultaneously denied and reinforced with conflicting narratives.

Once enough disparate and contradictory parties are convinced that “more of the good guys benefit from this than the bad guys”, it gets locked in and becomes political cannon. Until later when the political systems feint undoing it again for a different set of points.