In this April 19, 2014 file photo, partygoers dance to live music and smoke pot on the first of two days at the annual 4/20 marijuana festival in Denver. A panel of Colorado doctors studying the health effects of marijuana use is getting ready to report its findings after a year of legal recreational pot sales. The panel meets Monday, Jan. 12, 2015 for a final time before making a report to state lawmakers. (AP Photo/Brennan Linsley, file) Brennan Linsley/AP The chief complaint people lodge at universal basic income — a form of income distribution that gives people money to cover basic needs regardless of whether they work — is that it'll make them lazy.

Sam Altman doesn't buy it.

On a recent episode of the "Freakonomics" podcast, entitled "Is the World Ready for a Guaranteed Basic Income?" Altman argued basic income could support huge amounts of productivity loss and still carry the economy on its shoulders.

"Maybe 90% of people will go smoke pot and play video games, but if 10% of the people go create incredible new products and services and new wealth, that's still a huge net-win," Altman says. "And the American puritanical ideal that hard work for its own sake is valuable — period — and that you can't question that, I think that's just wrong."

Maybe the American ideal of work is wrong. Maybe a system like basic income could allow people to focus on their true passions (even if that's playing video games) and the country would still function just as well because people are healthier and more fulfilled overall — and the brilliant people who don't have time to focus on their passions now would suddenly find themselves with the means to pursue their dreams.

Basic income is a radical form of income distribution. It involves giving people a regular check regardless of their working status that covers basic expenses like food, clothing, and shelter.

The idea of basic income saw brief flashes of interest in the late 20th century, but stayed mostly dormant until the last year or so. Switzerland announced a plan to hold a basic-income referendum in June 2016, and other basic-income experiments are set to start in the Netherlands, Finland, and Canada sometime in 2017. New Zealand and the US might not be far behind.

The US push is being led by Altman and his cohorts at Y Combinator, Silicon Valley's largest startup accelerator. Its past success stories include Airbnb, Reddit, and Zenefits.

In January, Altman wrote a blog post describing a plan for a basic-income experiment in fairly vague terms. It'll last for five years and involve a select group of Americans, although the exact start date, the amount of money given out, and the name of the researcher leading the project have yet to be announced.

The complaint Altman addressed on the "Freakonomics" podcast is a common one. Study after study, however, has shown that giving people extra money makes them feel financially secure. That security ends up leading to empowerment, not less motivation.

That's why Altman is so confident that 90% of people could sit around all day and do nothing and the US would still keep chugging along: Basic income is such an effective motivator that enough people will use their newfound free time to produce extraordinary innovations that make up for the laggards.

But the beauty in that, which Altman hints at, is that there really won't be any laggards. Nine-tenths of the population won't suddenly sit around and get high, because the best evidence suggests a financial safety net actually encourages people to work harder.

Even in the worst-case scenario basic income still wins.