On Universal Basic Income

How to Solve Human Poverty

This Sunday morning, I wasn’t planning to write about this topic, but it keeps popping up in my feed, and with all our nations facing massive economic challenges, now is the best time to do so.

A few days ago, Elon Musk posted this tweet. Since then, the debate has been raging.

If you’re not up to date on the concept of basic income:

Every month, you receive an allowance that covers your basic and essential needs for housing, food, energy, and more. You’re freed from Maslow’s hierarchy of needs.

This isn’t a new idea. Serious economists and philosophers have been theorizing about it for decades. Trials have even been conducted in certain cities around the world to see whether these microcosms could benefit everyone or not.

Elon Musk’s twist is that he isn’t proposing a Universal Basic Income, but a Universal High Income. Not a basic income, but a high income, which will arise from the wealth created by the army of robots and the AI wave that our modern societies are about to face.

According to him, everyone will be able to be rich and free. Thanks to human progress. And to the tech giants and the government, who, hand in hand, in their great magnanimity, will share with you the resources generated by this vast automated industry.

His tweet generated hundreds of thousands of reactions; for, against, mixed, and extreme; and it has at least one merit: opening the debate. But the vast majority of the criticism or praise misses crucial points, one of which is major and is never mentioned.

My main criticisms boil down to a few points

• A universal basic income provided by the state is a Trojan horse.
  It could be conditional on many things. It would be the best way to buy submission. There would be a risk that your income could be cut off and/or reduced if you do not comply with the rules in force. Submission would become the norm. If there is ever a universal basic income, it must come from a human-led, decentralized initiative, not controlled by the state, that succeeds in distributing wealth without distinction or prejudice.

• Capitalism has never redistributed wealth.
  It is a vertical extraction system that will continue to extract. We are living in the wealthiest era in history, yet with the most extreme inequalities in history. Throughout its short history, capitalism has driven efforts to cut and reduce human costs. Technological progress is the final step. Human needs, reduced almost to nothing, become de facto useless. Tech companies, heirs to this predatory system, will not redistribute wealth within the paradigm in which we live.

Universal basic income is not a bad idea. But under state control, it is a tool for hard-core totalitarianism with no way out.

One of the recurring criticisms of UBI was that humans would lose their “meaning.” Capitalism has ravaged minds by associating work with the meaning of life. As if serving coffee or filling out Excel spreadsheets, glued to a screen, were a way to fulfill one’s soul.

And the argument: “Yes, but we can choose whatever job we want,” is now obsolete.

Many professions that require 5 to 10 years of study will be completely wiped out in record time. Passionate people have spent years of their lives learning a skill that will become obsolete.

Capitalism isn’t designed to help you find meaning in your life. It’s designed to extract the life force from a trade, where one side will always try to milk the other as much as possible. And if you have found meaning in your life within this system, it’s purely by chance that your search for meaning aligns with the economic interests of a predatory market.

We can’t afford it.
Final criticism often leveled at UBI. Many economists have pulled out their calculators to prove, through simple math, that funding all of this would lead to massive inflation and that we can’t redistribute wealth. I won’t bother refuting them. Treating humans as statistics and engaging in nitpicky calculations is fundamentally against the human race.

We can afford it.
We can finance a UNIVERSAL HIGH INCOME. And not in the way Elon Musk does. The solution to this problem lies not in economics, mathematics, or progress, but in philosophy. A choice that humanity must make to give itself a chance to build a bright future, not just for some, but for all of us. And yes, it will require an investment. But it’s an investment that will pay off in countless ways.

We’re sitting on infinite wealth.

Unused. Endless diamond mines that are right there, at our disposal.

I’ve studied human genius over the past decade. One question haunts me: how do geniuses become geniuses? And the common factor is simple: infinite iterations in a field that fascinates them and fulfills their purpose.

The perfect blend of passion, obsession, and a lifelong quest. It opens the door to realms of genius unique in human history. Our biggest problem is that, in our modern societies, human beings have no chance to tap into their genius. We are crushed by Maslow’s hierarchy of needs.

They must find shelter, feed themselves, plan for an uncertain future, and trade their precious time and human energy in a daily grind. Modern humans live in a paradigm of fear, whereas human genius is attained in a paradigm of security.

Human genius is literally being stolen from billions of people for the profit of corporations. Yet if these people were cared for and their basic needs met, they could devote themselves to tasks that inspire them and fulfill their souls. Genius that they would put to work for the benefit of humanity.

There are billions of untapped areas of genius at our disposal. These areas of genius could propel humanity forward like never before across every field. But they are sacrificed on the altar of capitalism. The greatest waste in the history of humanity. We are sacrificing what could benefit everyone for the economic gain of a few.

The missing link in the equation is here: the untapped potential of a humanity that could work as it pleases on what it is passionate about without fear of starving the following month. This would create an unprecedented amount of wealth. And new knowledge in every field of human history.

We can create our utopia, but it is not AI or robotics that can do it. The answer lies within ourselves. But it would require us to collectively shift our paradigm. To love one another, to value one another, to rely on one another.

To realize just how much genius there is in each of us, and to trust one another as a whole, supporting one another so that everyone can go find their own hidden gem which will benefit us all. To prioritize humanity by collectively deciding that it is time for every human to have the right to live decently, under a roof, and to be fed.

Idiots will think this is communism or socialism. And yet, it’s an investment. Which would have infinite returns. You’d be taking care of people, who could finally work on the tasks that humanity truly needs. And who would no longer be forced to trade their genius just to survive.

We would collectively benefit, at breakneck speed, from a wealth of new knowledge and wealth created by the advancements of hundreds of billions of geniuses who can finally put it to use.

It is a myth that humans, once they have climbed Maslow’s hierarchy, want only to be entertained. Many are immensely wealthy and continue to become so precisely because they keep working on what they want to do, not what they have to do.

And countless geniuses have brought innovation to humanity, even though they still had to spend part of their time just to survive. Imagine how much of their genius was wasted simply because they were afraid of not being able to pay their rent? Their legacy to humanity could have been far greater.

The solution is already right before our eyes. Of course, some will use this free time for entertainment, but who cares? Because the millions of others who can now use their genius will be a large net positive.

These paradigm shifts can only take place when we collectively decide that it is a philosophical crime against humanity to force a soul to trade their lifetime in an exploitative system that benefits only a few. That it is a crime against humanity to deny a person the opportunity to safely explore their purpose by thrusting them into the midst of a situation of immense economic violence.

The paradigm shift will only occur when we care enough about humanity to ensure that everyone, regardless of race or political affiliation, has access to quality food, decent housing, healthcare, and education. Humanity cares for its own so that humans can care for humanity.

We can build our utopia. We are not on this earth to suffer. To wage war. To starve. And to live in fear. We can build our utopia. But that can only happen when we are brave enough to collectively put our faith in one another. Once we have enough trust and love for all of humanity. And for ourselves.

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Your words must always align with your philosophy. So, no, I can’t offer a basic income, because I don’t have trillions of dollars. But what I can offer is my genius to others, in the hope that they will use it to improve the world in which I live.

My publications are now free. All paywalls have been removed. I have hundreds of posts on innovative philosophies to help you in your lives. I have hundreds of posts that can help you become better writers in my other publication.

I truly believe that we can all win by freely sharing our genius. And if you’d like to support this publication, feel free to do it.