Cryptocurrency And UBI

We are entering an era where there is going to be a lot of upheaval. The existing system is breaking down for many reasons while an alternative is built. In the meantime, we see a lot of discussion about how to solve some of the problems that are being created.

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It is said one cannot solve a problem with the same mindset that created it. Along the same lines, a system that creates the problems is likely ill-equipped to solve them.

We are facing a societal paradigm shift that few are even willing to acknowledge exists, let alone working on a solution. Hence, the establishment will fail over time since it will end up in reactionary mode, like always.

Technological Unemployment

At the core is the advancement of technology. This is moving at an ever increasing pace.

There appears to be some debate, still, about whether this is going to happen. Many hang their hats on the old idea that "technology always created more jobs than it destroyed". While this is true, there are two problems with it:

  • The job replacement rate tended to take a number of decades to even out. Those who were affected found it difficult to get suitable work (ie blue collar factory workers).

  • We never dealt with technology of this magnitude or growing at a pace like we are seeing. The threat to white collar jobs cannot be overstated since that could spread like wildfire.

So what do we do as a society when people cannot earn a living? How do we deal with more people than there are jobs?

It appears our approach, thus far, is to create jobs simply so people have a place to go. Most of the new job creation over the past two decades came from the lower end of the spectrum; ones that provided little overall value to society.

This is changing. Technology is advancing to the point of making it easier to get rid of this people. Also, corporations now have cover due to COVID. They are using that as a reason to eliminate part of the workforce. Finally, as wages get pushed up, mostly due to increase in minimum wage laws, the ROI for automation becomes that much more appealing to CFOs.

Universal Basic Income (UBI)

A solution that is being bantered about, and is gaining some legs, is the idea of governments providing a Universal Basic Income (UBI). This is a concept that goes back decades yet it only really starting to be trialed.

For those unaware, UBI is a minimum amount of money that is paid out to each citizen of a nation, regardless of economic status. The amount is the same for all and is not meant to provide a life of luxury. Instead, it is a minimum stipend that is designed to cover some of the basics.

An example is the Andrew Yang proposal. During his campaign, he put forth the idea of $1,000 a month given to each adult. This could sound like a lot of money for many parts of the world but, in the United States, that is barely meeting the minimum requirements in most cities. There are certainly some less expensive areas that the money will go further yet most of the population lives within a 75 mile radius of a major city. This tends to push the cost of living higher.

The overall idea is that people have a safety net. Work is still incentivized since few are going to be living high on the hog as evidenced by those who are surviving on just their social security checks.

The Challenges For UBI

This is not meant to be an in-depth discussion of the merits of UBI. There are, however, some challenges which are worthy to cover.

The first that always pops up is how to pay for it. To me, this is not really a problem since governments are already in the business of giving money away. Corporate welfare is in every developed nation. The money is going to a small subset of the entire population, usually in amounts greater than what direct stimulus would cost.

Another issue that should not be looked at is the fact that it is the government that is putting it together. This is a challenge for a few reasons. To start, it opens things up to political winds and with the way things are polarized today, that is not a good thing.

The other issue is my theory that the life expectancy of governments in this new technological era is limited. The nation-state, as it exists now, is going to diminish over the rest of this century. As we rely more on networks, the physical side of life will continually be transitioning. We now have a government structure that was created when we were solely operating in a physical world.

UBI will actually be an appealing option to governments (politicians mostly) since that will extend its relevance. It also will by a hybrid solution, an attempt by a failing entity to handle something it is, quite frankly, ill-equipped to handle.

So what is the solution?

Cryptocurrency

Cryptocurrency is not a stop-gap measure nor is it operating within the present system. Instead, it is laying the foundation for an entirely new economic system that will provide much higher growth rates along with a distribution mechanism that is not seen today.

There is equality in cryptocurrency. Since all of us were reared in a scarcity based economy, we are conditioned to not see it. However, it is there in plain sight.

Most want to focus upon the whales and how "lucky" they are. There are also accusations about how they behave as well as being selfish. Whatever the accuracy of those views, this is clouding the situation greatly.

The reality is that anyone can become a whale. There are new cryptocurrency projects opening up daily. Many are just garbage and likely not worth the time but there are things being developed that will be enormous successes.

We know there are many Bitcoin and Ethereum whales. These people are now multi-millionaires (some billionaires). However, that is not the end of the story. We can find projects all over the place that have great potential. In many instances, even if we do not have money to invest, we can start building through out actions.

The Age of Abundance is upon us. Through tokenization, we have the ability to take advantage of the radical technological progress that is being unleashed upon the world. Also, since we are facing a new reward mechanism, distribution is going to be radically different. Here is where people are free to determine where they invest their time (and attention), which has value. Tokenization allows for that to be compensated.

Cryptocurrency is inclusive whereas our present system is exclusive. The ability generate streams of revenue in all we do is going to provide an entirely new economic system. Couple with technological advancement, we are going to see radical steps forward in the economic output globally. This is something we witnessed in the past yet the distribution was awful. Now, we see the potential to operate in a different manner.

Of course, those who are benefitting from the way things are will do all they can to ensure they remain in power. This is going to be a battle waged over the rest of this decade and perhaps into the next.

Nevertheless, few can stop progress and it seems that cryptocurrency is moving forward. We are going to see radical changes in society, ones that end up providing billions with what they need. The road to arrive at that point is going to be bumpy. Many do not want to see things change.


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Bang, I did it again... I just rehived your post!
Week 66 of my contest just started...you can now check the winners of the previous week!
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While I was reading, it occurred to me that we could have UBI in a deflationary economy. Anybody with savings would find that the value of their deposit would be worth more tomorrow than it is today. Thus, there is a built-in UBI in deflation.

Governments could fund accounts for people, in which the capital growth could be paid out to individuals. Once the person dies, the government takes back the money. The citizen never touches the principal, only the excess value. We could have governments fund this to a minimum level, and individuals can add to it to increase their UBI.

Actually, this works a lot like Hive. We have a basic "income" from inflation and interest on HBD. We can increase this by capitalizing our accounts. Of course, this is inflation income. But, the principle of having the same starting point and having the option to fund our own UBI is the same.

Obviously, one would not want to superfund a UBI because the government would keep all of it after we pass on. They would need to do this to be able to fund new people entering the system. In this way, a UBI doesn't necessarily have to cost a great deal. Of course, we can't exactly rely on governments to not spend money on the books. Social Security was supposed to be an annuity. But, that ox has been butchered.

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We are going to see the pace of deflation increase to the point where it actually is a problem. In fact, that is what the Fed is already fighting. Technology* has become such a large part of the economy that it is offsetting the decades old theoretical approach the Fed is using.

Wait until construction, education, and healthcare see the technological penetration that is going to take place over the next decade.

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I think its kind of unavoidable given the advances in technology. They need a way to generate money for people outside the current system. I don't see the current system as sustainable right now and I do think crypto is a possible solution.

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The current system is sustainable in that they need to keep printing money to keep it afloat. The advances in technology means that we are seeing a great deal of deflation spreading as it takes over a larger part of the economy.

In reality, we are going to see collapses over this decade in many industries that people will be baffled how they could ever believe in the opposite.

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I've been following the mannabase project for a while now and I really like some of the stuff they have been doing with the idea of UBI in mind. I think if people would look past their preconceived notions of fairness it could really work. It is going to be interesting to see how crypto continues to break the mold as we move forward.

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I liked that one also. In the end, I think the move to automation means that we can see a great push into a cryptocurrency based UBI in effect. People receive money for their activity, data, or whatever.

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Realistically, just by being on Hive we are already more than half way there!

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As much as UBI is needed the Govt/money relationship must change. Imagine the SS fund but on steroids. Politicians would hypothecate the UBI fund into the stratosphere.

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The problem with any UBI proposal is that governments are involved. That is never a good thing in my opinion. Will end up politicized and raided just like they do with everything.

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if it works and they see money, it will end up politicized either way. polititians dont want progress, only control

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I think this highlights many things and one which stands out is that most jobs will be gone within the next decade. Time is now to get organised and get ahead by investing in various crypto projects as these will generate income replacing salaries for many. UBI will vary so much around the world and whatever you receive will depend on what the Government can afford. We saw the shit in South Africa and many only receive $20 per month for unemployment so relying on that amount would be crazy.

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Funny how these 'new' ideas keep coming up from a long time ago.

Distributing the work and the rewards more equally is not a new idea.

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Nope not a new idea at all.

However, at no time has we dealt with technology like we are seeing today.

What RPAs can do in a year in terms of job destruction would have taken 20 years a century ago.

And these are being written for most industries today.

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Bring on the robots, that book outlines a pretty good world.
It's no wonder nobody suggested I read it.
I found it on a library shelf.

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One of the things that has interested me for a long time is the idea of many private initiative "UBI-like" initiatives that allow people to receive limited amounts in payment for belonging to an assortment of "cooperatives" of various kinds.

I don't see governments or the legacy system being able to fund UBI anytime soon — if at all — but I like some of the various attempts that have been made *(Manna, Grantcoin, GoodDollar... there are many) on a very small scale.

If we imagine a system in which large corporations were to receive tax breaks for investing retained earnings in these (likely crypto/blockchain based) programs from which they would earn a yield, while they would also earn "corporate citizen goodwill" in exchange for which some number of qualifying individuals might receive $50 or $100 a month. Now, multiply by hundreds or even thousands of distinct structures people might "opt into" and you could end up with something "UBI-like" without it necessarily involving governments.

I was thinking about a couple of things... I get a very small amount of CUB for having tokens staked (+/- 10 CUB a month), and people also can earn from having HBD in savings. These are tiny, of course... my point here being that rather than a single solution, perhaps what we need to look to is an aggregate of many sources to provide the solution.

Just thinking out loud here!

=^..^=

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There are many ideas out there. Who knows how things will end up unfolding.

We are seeing a lot of innovation. The basic concept with cryptocurrency could end up truly changing how wealth is distributed.

We have to keep expanding and branching things out. The more people who get involved in this, the better for all of humanity.

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I think the key thing to take away from this is that this is not an option of choices lol. It's not like i want it to happen or many want it to happen. it's more like we have no choice. This not even negotiable. It's more like the probability is outperforming the possibility.

The other statement you made about anyone in crypto can be a whale. I think that statement is utter ridiculous. If you look at the crypto economy it almost follows the standard economy hand in hand in fact it's severely worse always has been.

The probability is that a whale in the standard economy is going to be a whale in the crypto economy. That's the probability. I deal with probability not possibility. Anyone can look at this economy as well as, most economist can agree the future looks horrible.

I don't know how people feel we will continue to outpace these super machines. That's just a suspension of logic. The crypto space are morons because whilst they running around trying to build more businesses on the chain that don't even need to be on the chain. They could be putting their resources and brainstorming together to make ubi programs work on the chain so they don't have to work on the government level.

However they so busy trying to speculate with no use cases lol. That's why bitcoin is falling down now because it as well isn't really used by anybody significantly. Sure there is a few examples of collapsing economies but thats not going to be enough bitcoin as manipulated as every other currency.

So instead of focusing on an important useful topic a power to the people system that's designed specifically to combat this problem. We still are trying to use an old 20th century model that doesn't work anymore. Machines will perform all the labor task .. they will fix and repair themselves.. according to experts not me but experts. It is said there won't be a job robots and ai can't do that a human can.

So who are all these folks getting upset.. these far right folks about what is fair. if the machines don't all the work do they still have to own the entire world? They still don't have logical brains to figure this out yet. As i said earlier all the breadcrumbs are there. This is'nt even an if situation but a when. It's just going to happen anyway no matter what we do.

Some form of ubi is going to be administered they trying their best to do it now. We gotta change with the times. All this thinking back to what we use to be has gone now. We gotta live under the circumstances of where we at with the most efficient way to address it.

The reality is the way the future shaping up its just not going to be any good reasons for whales to exist anymore. I know people link the idea of freedom and prosperity with this tremendous sense of individuality. The problem though is that system is imploding. It's not even working on a ratio that makes sense. That's just the data. This is just unavoidable so we can soften the impact by creating collections of ubi systems and maybe somewhere in the midst we find the better ones people prefer to use.

However the government will have to do this. Simply because in crypto now you all showing me you don't have the understanding to do this. So that means like with many things the government is going to lead the way. Hopefully communities will find a way to do it better.

You all can't even prioritize the bigger issues from the smaller ones. So how can we expect you all to handle this. You all so far aren't showing you can.

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the problem with any UBI solution is that there is two end of the table.

  1. people who want some income. this one is guaranteed
  2. people who fund it somehow. this is the hard nut

there are already great solutions to ubi and there will be more soon. its not a technology question. we need people to fund it and since government involvement is not necessarily the greatest idea, the private sector have to do it.

we need motivation for private corporations and even individuals.
imagine a defi contract where anybody can stake their tokens (like cub kingdoms). they receive reawards for doing it, BUT a small portion would go to a pool which is distributed as ubi.

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