When Socialism is not social it can become what I consider to be more Individualized and Problematic.

I agree with some of your points and disagree with others, but I am thankful for your thoughtful response.

When it comes to managing public utilities, I would rather trust the private work force than government workers and officials. The government is already involved enough. Regulations and government constraints and renewable mandates already place enough strain on service provision. There is a case to be made that this hybrid approach can help when your power is out after a storm because the fear of public outcries and the constant Damocles sword threats of further regulations and/or outright takeovers provide incentives for profit driven companies to work swiftly. The capitalistic profit motive can also increase incentives not only for innovation but to create further efficiencies.

Unfettered monopolies—and unfettered AI—can be evil, but when you say, “Adapt or die is the name of the game for civilizations” we should be careful about turning all decisions over to one of our least adaptable entities: government.

US Socialism seems to work best when it is social. As you suggest, our view of socialism in the US is Public Services and Infrastructure; Police; the Military; Fire; roads and bridges; water; waste; garbage collection. These services are social and the resulting benefits redound to the public good. On a continuum these services are more social and less individualized. They benefit more of society as a whole rather than the individual. For example, it is more difficult to subdivide a road and give it to an individual. Therefore, such tasks seem properly placed within the purview of government—limited government.

Other forms of government social construction—interventions targeting individual concerns—are more problematic, and they are—as you point out—more susceptible to fraud.

As you state, “Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid, Unemployment, Food - all of these are good in the aggregate but can and should be improved to eliminate fraud, become sustainably funded, and become more efficient”. You can also include the Department of Education and Section 8 housing, etcetera … in your list.

I am not saying all social safety nets are bad, but when they are designed and implemented to supposedly assist individuals—rather than create dependency—they should take into account human nature.

Rather than go though each of the services you cited, I will just use one example that you happened to highlighted.

You say that you are, “not against Medicare for all”. This seems laudable, but you also call for less fraud, more efficiency, and sustainable funding. In my view, expanding Medicare will do none of those things. Medicare for all is Health Insurance for all. Health Insurance for all is not the same thing as Health Care for all. Insurance companies do not have a reputation of taking less money than you want to give them.

I believe we would be better off just paying doctors directly to do what they were trained to do and that is to take care of patients and not paperwork. If possible, I would rather give the money directly to citizens, we would probably pay more to actual health care than the fraud we are paying for now. I am not saying just give citizens the money per se, I am saying provide something like an incentivized account that they have access to. The account can only be accessed with their personal code that they provide to a licensed physician/medical professional when then has to enter their own code and upload a receipt for services rendered before funds are transferred to the physician’s account. Of course, the codes could be set up to change after each transaction and expire within a few days if unused. To further incentivize those who pay into the fund—working taxpayers—a portion of the fund should be given to citizens—or transferred to savings accounts if they so choose—for each year of continuous work if no funds were withdrawn for 3 to 5 years, and it is confirmed they paid their minimum contribution. It does not prevent those who cannot work from receiving help, but it incentivizes more people to work and pay into the system they know may be providing more benefits and funds to them in the long run. Individuals may also keep a stricter watch over their accounts to prevent fraud if they know their own balances will benefit them personally. They should also be allowed to share their funds with other to help pay medical bills. I am not saying this is a process everyone will agree with, but I believe something like this takes into account human nature.

Private nongovernment funded charities would also be an option for stricter oversight although that would be difficult to establish on a national scale, and I believe that does not have the greatest potential for oversight at the most granular individualized level.

With regards to the need for a UBI due to AI, I believe that would be a grave error and possibly the end of the human race. Humans are meant to work and produce, after the Fall this is our lot. If the Fall means nothing to you and you are completely amoral or atheistic consider the 1968 Universe 25 experiment made famous by scientist John B. Calhoun and where the end stages of utopia will lead.