New article published for the Imagining the Digital Future survey of experts report
To read the article I wrote, click here.
The Next Moonshot: Universal Basic Income
What Artemis II and the Return to the Moon Should Remind Us About Ending Poverty
As I write this, four astronauts are hurtling toward the Moon aboard the Orion spacecraft, named Integrity by its crew. On April 1, 2026, NASA’s Artemis II launched from Kennedy Space Center — the first crewed mission beyond low Earth orbit in more than fifty years. For the first time since Apollo 17 returned to Earth in December 1972, human beings are returning to the Moon.
Watching that launch, I felt something I haven’t felt in years. I grew up on Star Trek and The Right Stuff. I grew up believing I might one day work on the Moon, or fly a spaceship, or at the very least live in a world that took its cues from the Federation rather than centibillionaires. That feeling where your chest tightens and your eyes sting because you’re watching your species do something extraordinary — that’s what programs like Apollo and Artemis II give me. And it’s that same feeling that drives my work on universal basic income.
The connection between these two things is not merely a metaphor. It is historical.
In August 1969, three days before announcing his Family Assistance Plan — a guaranteed income floor for American families with children — Richard Nixon asked himself why he was doing it. He had doubts. There was no airtight evidence it would work. There was no overwhelming political mandate. There was only the momentum of a decision-making process that had reached the point where it would actually be proposed. He’d already decided. But why?
As Daniel Patrick Moynihan recounted in The Politics of a Guaranteed Income, Nixon’s reasoning came down to three propositions. First, the existing welfare system was destroying the poor, especially the Black poor, and this was becoming the most serious social problem of the time. Second, it was time to bring the South back into the mainstream of American life, and what fundamentally kept the South apart was poverty. Third, it was necessary to prove that government could work — that there was an answer to what Nixon called the “crisis of confidence in the capacity of government to do its job.”
And then Moynihan recorded the crucial line: “The moonshot had been one kind of success; a guaranteed income would be another, at least as important, surely more difficult. America needed some successes.”
Nixon understood something we seem to have forgotten. The Moon landing wasn’t just a technical achievement. It was proof that a democratic government could marshal collective resources, set an audacious goal, and deliver. It restored faith in what we could accomplish together. A guaranteed income, Nixon believed, would do the same — but for the ground beneath our feet rather than the sky above our heads.
He was right. And over half a century later, we still haven’t done it.
Why UBI Is the Answer to AI Stealing Your Job – Interview with Scott Santens
| Julius Moorman recorded this interview with Scott Santens on March 17, 2026. To see the full interview on You Tube, click here. Here are the chapters via YouTube to get an idea of what we discussed and when: 0:00 How Scott Got Into UBI 3:22 Did AI and COVID Reignite the UBI Debate? 6:40 What UBI Actually Means 8:08 UBI Is a Floor, Not a Ceiling 13:41 Why UBI Creates Better Work Incentives 17:36 How the Current Welfare System Punishes Work 19:29 What Would UBI Actually Cost? 26:08 Do We Need to Raise Taxes? 31:12 Immigration and UBI 42:32 Alaska Has Had UBI Since 1982 43:08 Elon Musk’s “Universal High Income” Is Just Marketing 52:06 What Alaska Tells Us About Inflation 53:58 Do People Choose Better Jobs Under UBI? 57:51 Will People Lose Their Purpose Without Work? 1:01:33 What Happens to Jobs That Can’t Be Automated? 1:02:26 Is UBI a Left or Right Issue? 1:06:53 Where to Find Scott |
Top 10 Universal Basic Income Articles of 2025
As host of The Basic Income Show and moderator for the Basic Income subreddit, I read hundreds of article every year about UBI. Below, I’ve compiled a list of the top ten articles I consider my favorites out of everything published in 2025.
To read the list of articles with links, click here.
This post is not meant to change anyone’s mind about the need for Universal Basic Income. If you don’t support it, I’m not here today to convince you otherwise. This post is meant for all those who already know they, and everybody else, absolutely need UBI and who talk about it with others. That’s great, we need that, and thank you, but this post is about doing more than talking the talk.
To view the full article, click here.
BIEN Congresses
The next annual BIEN Congress will occur August 19th-22th at the Toronto Metropolitan University. The BIEN Congress will not be occurring in USA this year.
Theme: Basic Income and the Polycrisis: The Key to Unlocking the Puzzle 🔑
See pictures from the 24th BIEN CONGRESS in Maricá & Niterói here.