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https://www.scottsantens.com/universal-basic-income-for-all-unconditional-why-ubi-is-necessary-now-evidence-experiments>
"Let’s talk about humanity...
Human civilization was not ready for COVID-19, nor is it ready for the
continuing impacts of climate change, nor the impacts we will increasingly feel
as we automate more and more employment. As a species, we were not ready. We’re
still not ready. And we will continue not being ready, until we make some
fundamental changes to the human social contract, because from the very
beginning, we’ve never been ready. The change I personally believe is of
primary importance above all other needed changes, and the one I’m about to
make the case for, is the concept of unconditional basic income, also known as
universal basic income, basic income, or just UBI.
First, what is basic income? Basic income is society investing in itself with a
form of social security that’s unconditional, universal, periodic, cash for
each and every individual member of society. What makes UBI so different than
other forms of social security is that it’s built on a foundation of trust. In
fact it is a foundation of trust. UBI doesn’t care if you’re employed or not.
UBI doesn’t care if you’re poor or not. UBI only cares that you are human, and
you are alive. Because you are alive, you need sufficient access to resources
to stay alive, no questions asked. Humans are the only species on Earth who
have to pay to live here. UBI is the recognition that if we’re going to make
everyone pay to live, we should provide everyone the money to live.
Why would we do that? That’s crazy you may say. People would stop working, you
may say. We couldn’t possibly afford it, you may say. Well, two decades ago, I
may have agreed with you for saying those things, but not anymore. Now I know
that it’s the lack of basic income that’s crazy. And the better questions to
ask are, “How much work isn’t getting done because people lack basic income?”
and “How much does it cost for society not to invest in itself with basic
income?” Doing nothing is never free. Not being able to afford to be productive
is not good for productivity. We have these things all backwards.
It’s like human civilization is a city built on sand. In such a world, it’s
normal for buildings to be full of cracks. It’s normal for buildings to fall
and for people to sink, but just because it’s normal doesn’t make it right. It
doesn’t make it sane or rational. What’s normal right now should not be normal.
Poverty should not be normal. Chronic insecurity and extreme inequality should
not be normal. Diseases and violence born from lack of food and shelter and the
unceasing fear of not having enough to survive should not be normal. We built
human civilization to be like this. We constructed this. We can build a new
normal upon a solid foundation. That foundation is UBI."
Share and enjoy,
*** Xanni ***
--
mailto:xanni@xanadu.net Andrew Pam
http://xanadu.com.au/ Chief Scientist, Xanadu
https://glasswings.com.au/ Partner, Glass Wings
https://sericyb.com.au/ Manager, Serious Cybernetics
