This year’s Managing the Disruption, an annual conference organized by the billionaire real estate entrepreneur Jeff Greene, will include a talk by basic income advocate and writer Scott Santens. The two-day conference will focus on themes related to ways in which our social institutions can and should adapt to technological and cultural change — including, in particular, the threat of technological unemployment. Santens will speak on the question “Universal Basic Income: Possibility or a Dream?”
The conference will take place April 2-3, 2017, in Palm Beach, Florida, with Santens’s 10-minute talk to be held at 11:35am on April 3.
Other speakers include former UK Prime Minister David Cameron, futurist and inventor Ray Kurzweil, New Jersey Governor Chris Christie, and, immediately following Santens, former US Secretary of the Treasury Lawrence Summers, among many others. The event is registration only, with ticket prices beginning at $1,750 for general admission.
Reviewed by Russell Ingram and Robert Gordon
Photo CC BY-NC 2.0 Richard Tanton
Interesting that you leave no specific criticism of Scott Santens, just the insinuation that something is wrong with this arrangement. I would be interested in reading your specific problem with Scott reaching out to establishment figures — what could be called “movers and shakers”. GPI has picked up momentum across the spectrum and is receiving discussion in “conservative” circles. Is there something wrong with that?
I don’t understand this comment at all, as this is not a critical piece. It is (was) just an announcement of an event.
I can see how one might interpret the mention of the ticket price as an “insinuation that something is wrong with this arrangement” (and I can’t think what else you might have in mind). However, one might also interpret it as emphasizing the high-profile, distinguished nature of the event–as betokening a good thing, an exciting thing. Or one might think of it simply as a interesting fact.
I myself was more in the “interesting fact” camp when I decided to make explicit mention of the fact, as I had never heard of anything like it in my life, and just though “Holy $—!” when I saw the figure–not in a morally offended way, nor in an elated way, but merely in a shocked way. I see no reason why we shouldn’t occasionally mention facts that readers might also find interesting, even if they are not essential to the main point of the story. (In an article about another conference, for example, I mentioned that the basic income talk was a happening after a skinny dipping session–not as any sort of commentary, but merely because it was true, and had the potential to add a touch of amusement to the normally very dry style of these pieces.)