Would UBI be a government program?
What other alternatives are there?
I was taking your overbroad and incorrect claim--that no one in Western countries starves
Nothing like adding a bit of straw to, erm, fill out the opponent's argument :-P I, of course, did not say "no one". I said "there is no starvation" which, given that we're discussing social programs in the context of society-wide policy proposals like the UBI, means that there is no starvation as a social issue in the West, in particular one which the UBI might fix.
In the same sense I feel justified in saying that there is no slavery in the West, even though I'm sure some individuals are effectively slaves. The social-policy context and the nit-picking context are different.
So, I'll stick with my claim and continue to consider it narrow enough to be correct. Constructing straw extensions to make it incorrect is, of course, always possible.
What other alternatives are there?
Certain altcoins, like uCoin, purport to be a kind of currency with built in nongovernmental UBI.
This thread is for asking any questions that might seem obvious, tangential, silly or what-have-you. Don't be shy, everyone has holes in their knowledge, though the fewer and the smaller we can make them, the better.
Please be respectful of other people's admitting ignorance and don't mock them for it, as they're doing a noble thing.
To any future monthly posters of SQ threads, please remember to add the "stupid_questions" tag.