Blockchains and Universal Basic Income!
UBI...
UBI (Universal Basic Income) is a system where a basic income is given to everyone, an income that enables them to survive, an income that provides them the most basic human needs, which are food, a house, water and hygiene.
UBI has long been discussed among academics, Milton Friedman in 1968 was already discussing the idea of a sort of UBI based on negative income taxation. He would do this by giving 50% of the unused tax exemption money to the family. For example, if a family of four had tax exemption until the income of $3,000 but was earning only $2,000 that means that they would have an extra $1,000 of tax exemption. The negative income tax would give 50% of those $1,000 to that family, so they would get the $2,000 plus $500.
If the same family had $0 of income that family would get 50% of the $3,000, so, they would get $1,500 at the end of the month.
UBI has been the target of many critics throughout time, some saying it would be hard to implement, others saying it would be impossible because people would stop working, other saying whole countries would stop if UBI was implemented... Most of these critics have been proven wrong and a study will be released later in 2019 about a UBI experiment done in Finland. With automation and blockchain we are very near to making this system a possibility!
Decreased production
One of the critics against the UBI economic system was that people would choose to not work if they had a fixed basic income that allowed them to survive, reducing the productivity of whole countries. This is wrong!
Humans have existed for thousands of years, and one thing has been constant since the first caveman said Bugaga, humans like to work, humans like to have a purpose even though they don't realize this! Since the beginning of mankind humans have tried to find a purpose a meaning, something to fulfill their lives, humans like to be occupied, they wouldn't stop working! With this negative tax system, they would be rewarded for working, in the example above they would be rewarded for working up to $3,000.
Humans want to live and not to survive, the UBI would only enable them to survive, but not live. Extra work with extra income would still be a priority if that person wanted to live.
Whole countries wouldn't stop because more and more automation is replacing humans in all sectors of industry. We, humans, are starting to see a decline in physical jobs, and an abundance in resources. The first economic class of people affected by this automation are the poor, that are seeing their jobs be taken more and more by automation, the UBI system would prevent the poor class from becoming poorer.
I would also add that we are moving towards becoming a space travel species, making it so the abundance in resources increases even more! One single asteroid has enough metal to make a bazillion number of phones. Some asteroids are valued in the Quadrillions of dollars!
This UBI system would also allow everyone to do what they truly loved, improving the mental health of many and maybe increasing productivity in numerous sectors...
"If you love what you do, you'll never work another day in your life." - Mark Twain
Increased Expenses
Another critic against the UBI system is that the cost of implementing such a system would be hard, it would require lots of extra expenses and would be hard to keep track of everything. Well, the interview I saw was from 1968, back then computers and internet weren't a thing, blockchain wasn't a thing!
With the way our world is evolving into a more decentralized, open source, free-market world we are seeing an improvement in the digitalization and automatization of transactions, of income, of assets, of liabilities, we are seeing more and more the digitalization of our current world. This digitalization and automatization makes the whole tracking, and increased expenses obsolete!
With the use of Smart contracts and cryptocurrency we can see a fairer, faster, less expensive automated world surfacing, a world where everything is managed by code and AI. The distribution of the UBI, the track of all expenses, the track of all incomes will soon be done by an automated computerized system. Let's hope Skynet doesn't show up and nuke us all to hell in this new digital world.
A must watch video of the difference between Welfare and negative income tax
A must watch youtube videos of Friedman explaining his negative income tax
After reading one of @meno 's posts about the the poverty trap I decided to look into UBI, especially blockchain UBIs, and that is what I'm going to do today, view some of the UBI systems being developed in the different blockchains!
Acorn
Acorns for everyone!
One of the blockchains playing around with UBI is the Telos Blockchain, a fork of the EOS blockchain that intended to spread around the Telos coin more fairly among all the accounts.
The Acorn token is a fun project that runs on the Telos Blockchain, it's a fun experiment that intends to bring blockchain awareness to the masses by using the Acorn UBI system.
This Acorn UBI system allows one to earn Acorn through transacting Acorn, if you earn 1 Acorn you can send it to another account and earn more Acorn for 7 days. So, you have to use Acorn to make Acorn.
Is it worth Investing?
No! I wouldn't invest in it... It's an almost worthless token without any demand systems or scarcity systems in place... You earn Acorns through transacting, so the supply is always increasing, there are almost no use-cases for the token, so it has 0 demand for it...
Is it worth looking at?
It depends... are you a total noob regarding transactions and blockchain? If the answer is yes, then go ahead and give the token a try. It seems like an awesome project to teach noobs the basics of blockchain tech. If you aren't a noob regarding transactions and blockchain tech then there is no need to give the token a try. The token is more like a teaching tool to smooth new crypto adopters into the tech. And may provide the bases for an actual UBI system to be developed on a blockchain.
Medium Article Explaining Acorn
URI/UBI on EOS
Dan Larimer the creator of DPoS, Bitshares, Steem, and EOS already mentioned in many posts and in many conversations on Telegram that he intends to do a UBI on the EOS blockchain. There are virtually no news or information about this. The only known information is that he first intends to solve the Sybil attack problem, an attack that results from creating multiple accounts, this attacks happens in most blockchains. He intends to do this through the use of a sort of KYC system called Proof-of-life.
There aren't many details about this Proof-of-life system that Dan Larimer intends to create, and all the information around might be misinformation, so take my next words with a grain of salt, but from what I read this Proof-of-life system might be based on uploading a picture and a name unto the blockchain. I don't like KYC on blockchains but maybe it's something that needs to happen to prevent these Sybil Attacks.
Medium article with Dan's Telegram messages
STEEM Basic Income!
Graphic design by @ecoinstante
SBI is a sort of UBI system that runs on the STEEM blockchain. It's a system where one Steem user sponsors another STEEM user SBI shares, each SBI share costs 1 STEEM and both the sponsor and the sponsee receive 1 share when the sponsorship happens. These SBI shares are worth daily upvotes from one of the SBI accounts for as longs as the STEEM blockchain exists. The more shares one has the bigger the upvote from the SBI accounts.
With the aim of increasing quality over quantity @sbi designed a system where if one doesn't post daily the upvotes stack for the next time the user posts. This system increases quality over quantity on the STEEM blockchain, increasing the Proof-of-Brain of the blockchain. Also, it has systems in place to prevent spam and plagiarism. The main developer of @steembasicincome, @josephsavage is a member of @steemflagrewards that prevents reward pool rape, spam, plagiarism on the STEEM blockchain, which makes me trust him even more with the long-term support of the @steembasicincome project.
I only have a few SBI shares but I intend to get more for the next bull run, especially since I want to be a long term content creator of the STEEM ecosystem.
Swift Demand
I just found out about this one through @abh12345. It's an attempt at a basic income system where 100 swift are dropped to all accounts, no matter how much swift they have, everyone gets the same. The only way to increase these 100 swift is through referrals which will be disabled at a later stage in the project.
The website already has an online store where small products are sold for Swift. The Swift token doesn't run on any blockchains at the moment, so it isn't a cryptocurrency yet...
It has a thorough user ID system called BrightID where users have to provide their pictures, names, addresses, etc... this supposedly prevents Sybil Attacks. I was midway through the registration when they asked me for a selfie, it was too much information to put in a website that I don't know enough about. I might revisit this decision at a later date.
@abh12345 referral code for Swift Demand: Referral
@abh12345 explaining SwiftDemand more in depth 2 years ago
GoodDollar
Created and sponsored by the CEO of Etoro, Yoni Assia, is a project trying to bring UBI to the whole world. The project is still being worked on but intends to use face to face recognition, users vouching for new users, detecting Sybil algorithms and input from social networks to prevent Sybil Attacks. It doesn't have a blockchain yet, but supposedly the project wants to fork ETH and add some new features.
I would advise anyone that likes UBI to read their sort of whitepaper where the history of UBI is explained in depth since the early 16th century.
There are other UBI projects currently being developed. But between all the UBI projects being developed, I'm waiting for the EOS UBI system with proof-of-life... at least that UBI would have the giant EOS ecosystem around it and Dan Larimer. In the meanwhile, I want to increase my @steembasicincome shares because STEEM also has a huge community and ecosystem around it that I'm almost certain will have a future in this new decentralized world we are building. If anyone wants to send me some SBI I'm more than glad to welcome them.
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Question of the day: Do you know of any other good UBI systems being developed on blockchains? Are you trying to increase your SBI shares like I am?
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Very interesting projects and ideas on the blockchain for UBI/URI !
Thank you for sharing this :)
Yup, they are indeed interesting, UBI/URI will make for a better tomorrow!
Thank you for reading :)
I'll share you some SBI ;) It's a fantastic program for helping peoples and communities !
Thank you so much for the SBI, I promise I'll put them to good use and I'll keep creating good content deserving of being called proof-of-brain content!!
It really is a fantastic program, I would say that it is one of the top programs around this blockchain!
Thanks for the mentions. It's interesting that outside of Steem, SteemBasicIncome almost never gets mentioned as a basic income initiative, even though some of these others that are much more experimental are commonly mentioned.
In my opinion, for blockchain to be a viable source of basic income there needs to be some value proposition external to the UBI token giveaway. What happens to these other tokens when people realize that the interest in giving them away is their only source of value?
While being a crowdfunded basic income creates some inequality in the upvotes delivered by Steem Basic Income (more value goes to the accounts that have been the most generous), 25% of the enrolled units are for accounts that have only been sponsored by others. To me it's amazing that creating the right incentives has allowed for so many active Steemians to receive consistent upvotes without ever having to pay anything out of pocket.
So true, and I was really impressed by that UBI list I provided at the end of the post where they mentioned SBI has a UBI system that runs on STEEM, finally, STEEM getting the acknowledgment it deserves!
Most of the UBI token projects that I saw had 0 value, 0 demand mechanism in place and 0 scarcity mechanisms in place. People don't often understand that the price and value of a token are based on the token's use-cases. Steem and SBI have the whole STEEM ecosystem full of use-cases and dapps around it that provides sbi and steem value, same goes for EOS, but if you go to the SwiftDemand project the only thing I saw was a really small store that sold useless items.
I'm one of those accounts, all my sbi shares have been given by other users, mainly because my account is still small which means I don't have the spare STEEM to sponsor someone, in the future I'm hoping to increase my number of shares though, the project is really cool, congrats for the idea!
Thanks for reading and dropping by, I don't normally tag people I always feel like I'm bothering them, I hope I didn't bother you xD
Excellent overview @teutonic ! I like the idea of UBI, but i wonder about its effect on price dynamics in a free market.
URI as described by Dan could be a game changer, given that tokenization becomes more widespread
URI is the next big thing, I'm waiting to see what will happen but I'm putting my money on Dan Larimer's vision, that guy is a revolutionary!
Care to explain further? Maybe do a post about it :) Content is content
In fact i have, it was a critical discussion of Dan's URI proposal (although as so often i grasped a few aspects of his - unmentioned - preconditions only later, and since have adapted my position, well that's actually a reason to do a new post... maybe in June ;-) )
Anyhow, what i meant is expressed like this (in relation to URI):
Here is the full article: https://trybe.one/uri-why-universal-resource-income-wont-come/
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Great, in-depth post - I follow UBI initiatives but still learned a lot from this. UBI and crypto are natural bedfellows - UBI needed crypto and perhaps the other way around too. Anyway, top tier work - and clear evidence of why you are a 'Verified Crypto Pilot' content creator!
Thanks so much! Blockchain and smart contracts will make adopting UBI so easy that I can already taste it and smell it in the air. The future looks so promising.
It was hard doing all this research, but also fun and life should be about fun :) Thanks for reading!
This is a nice overview of UBI issues and I like the look at blockchain applications of same at the end - good work mate!
Thanks! I tried to provide the best UBI overview content, I could have gone even deeper into everything and provide some added info about how 5G and SpaceX's Starlink might make this go even faster, but I thought it was enough, didn't want to make the post too long that it would scare the readers' xD
No I think you struck the right balance here.
A good effort on UBI this. I've not seen much talk on the subject for a while, and even then it was mostly negative to be honest.
I suspect the next bull run will spark interest. And yeah, Swiftdemand are not going to win people over with the ID/lack of chain before having something solid in place. But i'll keep collecting nonetheless.
Cheers.
Yeah, Swift demand lost soo many points once I read that it had no blockchain, the project makes no sense to me, we can only hope that in the future they will go harder on their development. Wishing you good luck on collecting it, I didn't sign up, I froze once they asked me for a selfie... I'm no 14 year old teen girl to be taking selfies xD JK, I might do it in the future.
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In the most of the cases, any argument against the UBI forgot a really important thing.
The basic idea came from the taxation, and governemt's income redistribution, but very soon has arrived another thing: the economic system using our lifespace, everyone's lifespace, and they have to pay for it, for us.
And next to all of popular or ridiculous concern, this is the ultimate reason, why need the UBI:
The economy using our lifespace. This planet owned by each single human being, and the resources also owned by each of them. And the companies are coming, and using our soil, our water, our air, and they pay for it for governements, not for the people. In a good country its not a big deal, because the government spend this money for the people, but we know, there are not so much good country on the planet.
I have to breath the polluted air, i have to drink the contaminated and cleaned water, i have to eat the food, what growing in a contaminated soil, i have to hear the noise of traffic and producing. Who will pay for me, for it?
For me it doesnt seems to great deal, destroy our and my childrens planet for a "growing economy", what means actually a new iphone or a new car, what booth are a really, really basic needs, as we see lately in any media...
We are in 2019. Its definitely the time, to reconsiderating the price of things, and redistribute the assets.
This right here is so true! Just look at India and most African countries, big companies build their factories there and pollute their rivers and air 24/7, and who gets most of the money? The government, which keeps it and doesn't help the country's population.
I say so many bad things about Portugal (my country) but at least I feel safe, I feel happy, I have everything that I need, I have running clear water, sometimes they desinfect the water to much though and I get some minor rashes, but I get it, it's to prevent diseases and mosquitos. My country does both, my governors keep some of the money but also help the population... (they still need to fix the summer fires issue though).
I wonder if in the future with space exploration and colonization we will just stop having money and live in a galaxy of abundance... With higher education humans would stop wasting so much, at least I hope so...
"in the future with space exploration and colonization we will just stop having money and live in a galaxy of abundance... With higher education humans would stop wasting so much"
Actually right now we are living in the galaxy of abundance, but we sell our resources for a little money, and a second level life-quality, because this is convenient, and doesnt need responsibility.
And the wasting... what education do you mean? Every men know, wasting things is a bad behavior, and wasting things equal the wasting money. All of them know this.
They just making other decisions, and follow other behavior, because most of the people are stupid.
Education is nothing, if the people doesnt choose the right acting.
A large portion of the older people don't care about that, but if you go look at the younger generation we are more and more aware of the problem and choose to waste as little as possible, recycling, etc...
Older people require not only the education to know of the huge consequences of bad waste disposal but also require the willpower to do something against that bad waste disposal.
Knowing that throwing garbage to the floor and polluting the rivers is bad is one thing, but knowing why is bad is another whole thing... Kids nowadays have knowledge about this, I have family members who are MDs that had no idea that plastics can cause cancer, had no idea of what microplastics were, had no idea about many facts regarding pollution and waste disposal, and we are talking about MDs from a developed country... and they aren't alone, I see a lot of older people without any knowledge or willpower to do good enviromental decisions.
The world belongs to the younger generation!