by Guest Contributor | Apr 13, 2018 | Opinion
Written by Anca Stănescu
The saying goes that every person is the change he or she wants to see in the world; that every good action has an impact on others; that we just have to want to change something and we can do it. Is that really how the world works?
What if each human being is empowered to change himself or herself for the better, perhaps the world just improves on its own.
How many of us really have the freedom to actively think about making the world a better place? How many people can enjoy the certainty of a decent life, peace, time and a lack of worries about day to day life? The world could change itself for the better if the Earth’s nearly eight billion people all enjoyed this kind of freedom.
This state of freedom is attainable and it is called Universal Basic Income.
Universal Basic Income implies that every human being has the right to life. Many will say that the right to life is already the most natural right of the human being, guaranteed in the constitutions and conventions of the world. Is this really the way it is?
In order for us to live, we need food and water in the first place. However, as long as food and water are not free resources, but assets in the possession of someone who will only provide them to us in exchange for an amount of money, how are we still guaranteed the right to life if we do not have that amount of money? We are not. The right to life is an obsolete clause in an agreement concluded between one seller and nearly 8 billion buyers.
Next to food and water, we need walls and a roof. We also need some utilities, such as a heating system of our home, so we don’t get sick and therefore are able to exercise this so-called guaranteed right – the right to life. Now, it may be a stretch to say we have the right to maintain this with a roofing contractor, but think about it. We deserve to have our walls and roof maintained, kept safe and well for us to live under. Plus we also need to know that we are entitled to these few basic resources without conditions, that we can enjoy them for the entire duration of our life (to which, of course, we are entitled) and they will not be taken away from us, so we don’t get sick of the thought that we have to struggle to survive, and therefore we can exercise our right to life. We do not get any of these when we are born. Everything has to be bought. And everything is bought with money. All these basic resources only ensure a decent survival – not happiness, not self-esteem, just survival. These are essential to us, that is why there are companies who are trying to adapt and advance their technology and mechanics so that people who have utilities are able to use them safely and efficiently without worrying that there will be an issue that they will be left without. This includes installing new equipment such as stronger powerlines, safety wiring, disconnect switches, etc. If people want to know “what are disconnect switches?” or “how do I get safety wiring installed?” they will need to discuss this with their utility providers and see how they can keep these necessities safe within their homes.
So the right to life, written on paper, means nothing as long as survival must be bought with cash. And if life must be bought, then let’s all, unconditional, guaranteed, and continuously, have that amount of money, enough just to cover our basic needs. Let us all have a universal basic income, a sufficiently large amount of money obtained unconditionally and (perhaps) monthly, to provide every human being with the possibility to buy the floor of existence – food, water, shelter and access to utilities – in such a way that on this floor anyone can voluntarily and creatively build new levels of existence.
No, people will not stop working and productivity will not drop, because once the basic needs are fulfilled, human beings will have other needs too. We will continue to work in order to satisfy the needs on the upper levels of the pyramid, which only in the presence of a universal basic income could really become needs to make the world a better place.
In a world where no one has to worry for survival, every human being has the freedom and the power to change for the better. Maybe the saying should go that the world changes human beings for the better, and not the other way around.
Anca divides her free time between writing on a science blog and gathering basic income supporters. She is an early advocate of basic income in her country, having launched in 2016 the first Romanian website devoted to the promotion of basic income fundamentals.
References:
https://www.un.org/en/universal-declaration-human-rights/
https://medium.com/basic-income/if-we-no-longer-force-people-to-work-to-meet-their-basic-needs-won-t-they-stop-working-3996442b7585
by Karl Widerquist | Apr 11, 2018 | Opinion, The Indepentarian
This essay was originally published in the USBIG NewsFlash in February 2010.
This issue, Volume 11, Number 55, marks the tenth anniversary of the USBIG Newsletter. The USBIG Network began over breakfast at the Kiev dinner in New York City in December 1999. Five people attended the first meeting: Fred Block (a sociologist at University of California-Davis), Charles M.A. Clark (an economist at St. John’s University), Michael A. Lewis (sociologist, then at State University of New York-Stony Brook, now at Hunter College), Pam Donavan (sociologist then at City University of New York-Graduate Center, now at Bloomsburg University) and me, Karl Widerquist (then an economist at the Levy Institute of Bard College, now a philosopher at Georgetown University-Qatar).
Pam Donovan, Michael A. Lewis, and I had been graduate students together at the City University of New York. We used to meet weekly to discuss our work. Usually, we ended up arguing about politics. One day we discovered that the one policy we could all agree on was the basic income, and so Michael Lewis and I decided to write a paper about it. We gradually got involved with the Basic Income European Network (BIEN), which had been providing a forum for dialogue on basic income in Europe. There were several natural networks in Europe at the time, but there was no equivalent in the United States. Through BIEN we got in touch with Fred Block and Charles M.A. Clark, who had both been doing research on basic income in the United States.
When Fred Block was in town for a conference, we all decided to meet for breakfast. There was no agenda or anything, but the next thing I knew we had decided to create a network, and I had volunteered to write its newsletter. Ten years later, I’m still writing that newsletter. It began with a circulation of about 30 people, including the five of us from the meeting. Since then it has grown to nearly a thousand people.
We called the new organization “the U.S. Basic Income Guarantee Network,” (The USBIG Network or just USBIG for short). We chose that name partly because “basic income guarantee” (BIG) as a generic term that includes various specific versions, such as “basic income,” “negative income tax,” and “guaranteed income.” Also, it makes a nice acronym and the domain name www.usbig.net was available. We took on only one goal: to increase discussion of the basic income guarantee in the United States.
We started the network with a small seminar series in New York City in 2000, and in 2002 we began holding yearly conferences. We are now preparing for our ninth conference, which will be our first joint conference with the new Canadian basic income network, known as BIEN Canada.
Over the last ten years, interest in the basic income guarantee has grown steadily around the world. The Basic Income European Network expanded to become the Basic Income Earth Network, and USBIG became one of its first non-European affiliates. More books and articles on BIG are published each year. Basic Income Studies has become the first academic journal focusing entirely on basic income. Palgrave-MacMillan is now preparing an entire book series on BIG. The first books in the series are expected to be released in 2011 or 2012.
The USBIG Network has chosen to remain a nonpartisan discussion group, but there are political action groups in the United States that are pushing for basic income as part of their agenda.
BIG occasionally springs up as a live political issue in surprising places. The only existing BIG in the world, the Alaska Permanent Fund Dividend, continues to be an enormously popular policy. Two members of the U.S. House of representatives signed on to the idea in 2006; several other members of Congress have endorsed it in roundabout ways—by endorsing a cap-and-dividend or an oil dividend for Iraq. There are senators pushing for it in Canada and Brazil. More than two-dozen members of the German Bundestag are committed to the idea. A Namibian organization has just completed a two-year pilot project on BIG. And so on. And so on.
Writing the USBIG Newsletter has been an interesting experiment. At first I didn’t think there could possibly be enough news about BIG to report in regular issues, but instead I quickly became overwhelmed by how much activity is going on in the world. Somehow, I’ve managed to condense a significant portion of it into the Newsletter. Thanks to the miracle of the internet I’ve been able to work on the USBIG newsletter in New York; New Orleans; England; the far north of Sweden; Hong Kong; Brazil; Qatar; and I can’t even remember where else.
On the whole I think I’ve kept my reporting accurate, but I can recall a few embarrassing errors—such as the time I identified a British MP as being from Australia. I’ve enjoyed reporting on the progress of BIG movements around the world. I’ve enjoyed meeting all the interesting who work on this issue. I’ve suffered through writing obituaries for friends I’ve gotten to know in the movement.
I hope when I look back ten years from now, I’ll remember reporting on the introduction of the world’s second basic income guarantee, somewhere in the world.
-Karl Widerquist, in flight over the Atlantic, February 24, 2010 (revised, March 15, 2010, Doha, Qatar)
by Karl Widerquist | Apr 4, 2018 | Opinion, The Indepentarian
This essay was originally published in the USBIG NewsFlash in November 2009.
The political barriers to the current situation in the United States and the implementation of a full basic income are daunting. On an international basis, the outlook is much brighter. As far as I can tell, there are more basic income projects underway or under discussion worldwide now than ever before. There are small, privately funded pilot projects going on in Namibia and Brazil. Thirty basic income supporters were elected to the German Bundestag in recent elections. The Nigerian government is considering a regional basic income in the Niger Delta area. The Mongolian government has recently pledged to introduce the world’s first national basic income. (See stories below.)
Just last week, October 29, 2009, I had the honor to be present when the city council of Santo Antonio do Pinhal, Brazil (a city of about 7,000 people in the State of Sao Paulo) voted unanimously to create a small basic income from local tourist revenue. What will come of this small, locally based income remains to be seen. But remember that the Alaska oil dividend was inspired by a local basic income introduced in a small town. And the Alaska dividend may prove to be an inspiration for similar programs in places as far away as Mongolia and Nigeria.
So, progress is happening worldwide. In America, however, it is important to focus on small victories. Politics is full of opportunities to change minds toward the ways of thinking that support basic income.
Two of the most compelling reasons to support basic income are the belief that people have an equal right to the world’s resources and the belief that everyone should have the right to meet their needs. Any policy that helps establish these norms moves us (however gradually) in the direction of basic income.
People don’t discover oil every day, but some kind of new government giveaway of natural resources does happen just about every day. Every new mine, well, or beach front hotel is an opportunity to establish the norm that people have a shared right to natural resources, and that they should be compensated if private firms want to privatize it.
Two years ago we missed an opportunity when the U.S. government gave away a substantial portion of the broadcast spectrum to a few corporations at no charge; and then allowed those companies to sell it back to us. But the issue isn’t settled. A recent study by the Consumer Electronics Association found that reallocating broadcast spectrum could yield cost savings of more than 1 trillion dollars. If and when that reallocation happens, we have the opportunity to press for auctioning off that spectrum and sharing the proceeds.
Several BIG-related campaigns are under way right now. The refundable child tax credit was won a few years ago. It is essentially a very small basic income for children, but only a portion of the federal government’s child tax credits are refundable. Several groups are pushing for a larger refundable credit. The cap-and-dividend approach to greenhouse gas reduction would establish a small basic income out of taxes designed to discourage the behavior that causes global warming (www.capanddividend.org). Cap-and-Dividend is a live issue on Capitol Hill, and several Members of Congress have signed on.
Probably the biggest issue in U.S. politics right now is healthcare reform. The current debate is largely a debate over whether there should be a universal right of access to healthcare. Almost every other country has established that right in law, and the United States might finally join them this year. The versions of healthcare reform on the table right now are not as close to true universality as the healthcare systems exist in most other countries, but they clearly help to establish the norm that healthcare ought to be universal.
Once norms like this are established in law, they tend to become more popular. Although the creation of national health was controversial in many countries, I don’t believe that there is any country in the world that has the universal right to healthcare in which a majority of people would like to go back to a system in which some have health insurance and some don’t. Public education is far from equal, but few people today want to deny a basic education to the children of the poor as most countries did a hundred years ago.
Establishing a universal right to healthcare is not the same as establishing the norm that all people should have an unconditional right to other necessities, but it certainly brings us closer to that objective. The fight for universal healthcare is our fight.
-Karl Widerquist,
Begun in Santo Antonio do Pinhal, Brazil, October 29, 2009
Completed in Doha, Qatar, November 4, 2009
by Tyler Prochazka | Apr 4, 2018 | Opinion
The Basic Income Asia Pacific 2018 conference signaled a feeling of growing momentum of the basic income movement in Asia Pacific, particularly in Taiwan.
Over 100 attendees filled the two day conference in Taipei, along with thousands of viewers of the online livestream and simultaneous translations. The speaker roster this year featured an extensive list of international and Taiwanese scholars and personalities.
Enno Schmidt, the 2016 Swiss referendum leader, and Sarath Davala, the leader researcher for UNICEF’s Indian basic income trial, led the keynote speeches for day one and day two respectively.
Davala said he felt “electricity” during the conference.
“The UBI Asia Pacific Conference is an important milestone in the basic income movement. It is a high voltage moment that we in Asia will talk to our children about. The energy in the conference was amazing, and I was inspired to see young women and men from different universities in Taiwan all fired up about the idea of basic income,” Davala said.
Schmidt said it was clear the Taiwanese group had put in a lot of effort since last year’s conference.
“At this year’s UBI Asia Pacific Conference, it was noticeable that the UBI team had already been working for a full year. Sarath Davala from India gave a rousing speech, and Patrick Havermann from the United Nations Development Program in Asia would like to make the entire UN network available to spread the idea of the Basic Income,” Schmidt said.
Taiwanese media emphasized the conference’s focus on Taiwan’s recent changes to the referendum law, which has opened up the possibility for a basic income referendum in Taiwan.
Taiwan’s Digital Minister Audrey Tang opened the first day of the conference, noting that while she believes more research should be done on basic income in Taiwan, she supported the spirit of discussion at the conference.
“Indeed, to build a sound re-distribution mechanism to improve human welfare and equality — this is a timeless subject that needs continuous review and revisit,” Tang said.
The UN Development Program (UNDP) Asia Pacific Advisor Patrick Haverman, who has been leading an effort to work with regional governments to research basic income, opened the second day of the conference.
Haverman held a series of round-table discussions with Chinese scholars and officials on the possibility for a pilot program in China.
“In my work with UNDP, I have helped establish round-table meetings on basic income across the Asia Pacific with other UN agencies, academics, and government officials to start a discussion about UBI and explore the possibility of piloting an basic income project,” Haverman said. “The Basic Income Asia Pacific conference is good way to exchange information and to discuss how potentially UBI can address some of the most pressing challenges of our time, like inequality and automatization potentially taking over some of the current jobs.”
UBI Taiwan also presented the current state of their research on both days. The research group said their main focus is creating a framework for a universal Partial Basic Income (PBI) that would gradually phase into a full basic income over a decade. The English overview of their research can be found here.
The proposal would increase taxes by five percent of Taiwan’s GDP and could provide 3,000 NTD ($102 USD) to every Taiwanese citizen.
Jiaguan Su, UBI Taiwan’s Research Director, said the scholars who had met with the research team to discuss the national proposal were “impressed,” and that their main takeaway is that the proposal must emphasize the values of UBI.
“The most important lesson we took from the conference is we must promote the core values of UBI Taiwan through the national proposal. Namely, UBI is for everyone, not just a specific group of people. Our research should focus on this value in order to demonstrate UBI’s ability to promote democracy and human rights in Taiwan,” Su said.
Jason Hsu, a KMT (Nationalist Party) legislator in Taiwan’s Legislative Yuan, spoke at the first day of the conference. Taiwan media reported that Hsu is considering raising the subject of basic income with large Taiwanese companies.
James Davis, a Columbia University student and UBI Taiwan Field Research Director, interviewed Andrew Yang, the 2020 US presidential candidate running on a basic income platform for the conference. Yang is ethnically Taiwanese and said he was excited by the discussion of basic income in Taiwan.
“UBI Taiwan is fighting the good fight. I was honored to contribute to the BIAP conference because job automation has the potential to seriously hurt Taiwanese workers – and American workers – if universal basic income doesn’t become a reality soon,” Yang said.
Davis also interviewed Qin Gao for the conference, the Columbia University professor who has written a book on China’s cash transfer program, dibao. Gao is the director of China Center for Social Policy at Columbia. Gao noted the problems and stigmatization that arise from some of the means-testing conditions on China’s cash program.
Andy Stern, the former President of the Service Employees International Union (SEIU) and former advisor to President Barack Obama, has been a consistent advocate of basic income in the United States and has provided advice and support to UBI Taiwan over the last several months.
“The clarity of UBI Taiwan’s vision and the tremendous work of its fellows is astounding. The time for universal basic income policies is now, not later. And the world is lucky to have UBI Taiwan on the vanguard of the global debate, designing UBI policy in practical, politically feasible ways,” Stern said.
National Chengchi University (NCCU) and National Taiwan University were the locations for the event this year. NCCU’s International Master’s Program in Asia Pacific Studies (IMAS) was the main organizer for the event. UBI Taiwan provided the volunteer team.
The U.S. State Department’s Critical Language Scholarship program provided a grant through its Alumni Development Fund to support the event to Prochazka, Elyse Mark, and Davis.
Tyler Prochazka, UBI Taiwan’s co-founder, was the director for the conference along with Dongyan Wu, UBI Taiwan’s Public Relations Director. Prochazka and Wu will appear on Taiwan television in April and May.
Ping Xu, UBI Taiwan’s co-founder, said she was excited by the results of the conference, particularly the connections made between different opinion leaders from around the region and within Taiwan.
“It was great success to have many influential opinion leaders from political, medical and social fields participate in the conference. This was a brand new milestone to help build the UBI movement in Taiwan,” Xu said.
Davala said the conference was a positive sign for the future of Taiwan’s UBI movement.
“UBI Taiwan, within a short period has been able to inspire and mobilize hundreds of students to stand up for an idea that is often dismissed as Utopian and impractical. Taiwan could very well be the first Asian country to go for a referendum on Unconditional Basic Income,” Davala siad.
The livestreams and simultaneous translation broadcasts can be found on UBI Taiwan’s Facebook. For the conference’s Twitter stream, go here.
by Karl Widerquist | Mar 28, 2018 | Opinion, The Indepentarian
This essay was originally published in the USBIG NewsFlash in September 2009.
Many people believe that the Alaska Permanent Fund Dividend is an idea ready to export—a model that should be copied around the world. Two U.S. Senators have gotten the idea that the Alaska model is ready to be copied, not by the country over which the U.S. Senate has jurisdiction but by Iraq instead.
Last January, John Ensign (Republican-Nevada) introduced the “Support for Iraq Oil Trust Act” of 2009. According to the official summary of the bill, it would force the U.S. State Department to present a plan for an oil trust fund (based on the Alaska model) to the Iraqi government, and it threatens to reduce U.S. aid to Iraq if the U.S. Secretary of State fails to do so.
The bill picked up one cosponsor, Senator Evan Bayh (Democrat-Indiana). No further action has been taken on the bill since it was referred to committee in January, and probably the bill will die in committee.
But the bill has received negative attention from press in the Persian Gulf region. Saadallah Fathi, writing for GulfNews.com (based in Dubai) sees the bill as an effort to pressure the Iraqi government to adopt a policy that is not well-suited for Iraq’s situation.
Whatever the value the Alaska model might have for Iraq, this bill is probably the wrong way to export the idea. The U.S. government could make a greater effort to lead by example. If the Alaska Permanent Fund is a model to be copied, the Senate might consider copying the model itself by creating a Federal U.S. Permanent Fund. Copying the model yourself seems much more reasonable than trying to influence someone else (a sovereign foreign government) to copy the model.
The United States is resource-rich. It has the potential to create a very large Alaska-style fund using taxes on resource exploitation, such as mining, drilling, forestry, carbon emissions, and real estate. If the senators are right that the Alaska-model is ready to be copied, they might consider implementing it first in their own jurisdiction.
-Karl Widerquist, Doha, Qatar, August 2009
For Saadallah Fathi’s article in the Gulf News, go to:
https://www.gulfnews.com/business/Comment_and_Analysis/10322760.html
by Guest Contributor | Mar 28, 2018 | Opinion
Written by Michael Laitman
Michael Laitman
Sadly, 33,000 Toys ‘R’ Us employees are about to be let go. They’ll pack that family vacation picture from their office wall in a brown cardboard box, take a toy or two for keepsakes, and, begrudgingly, go home. They will be joining a growing list of hundreds of thousands of people who are losing their jobs, not because they need to improve their performance or their work ethic, but simply because they are no longer needed.
More and more products are being manufactured using robots, which is more cost-effective for companies, as well as cheaper for consumers, who can order online with a swipe of a finger. Toys ‘R’ Us is only one example of the virtual-technological tsunami that is washing over the business world. It appears in the form giant corporations such as Amazon, Alibaba, Google and their trade partners, trampling every area of commerce possible: retail, banking, clothing, food, advertising and more. This wave doesn’t stop at the private sector; it’s washing away the public sector as well. For instance, Warren Buffet, Jeff Bezos and Jamie Dimon are already on a joint venture to reinvent healthcare.
While it may seem like a silent revolution, these changes promise a socio-economic earthquake the likes of which humanity has never seen before. The virtual-technological future is gradually taking over the very foundations of the global economy and businesses are having to adjust to the change. From small things like providing virtual collaboration training for their employees to implementing more efficient computing operations, technology is changing every industry.
It is becoming normal to talk about robots replacing human labor, but we still have not yet acknowledged the magnitude of this change. Many politicians, economists, and analysts are seeing this as another industrial revolution that comes with labor pains, giving birth to a whole slew of new professions, and are predicting that a newly booming economy will emerge as a result. The use of machinery is always needed in manufacturing circles, that is why universal mills, CNC machines, lathe machines, etc. are constantly evolving to assist in as many areas as possible, hopefully not to entirely take over jobs just yet. Machines play a huge part in this industry, no matter how they are used, so it is important for them to function as a unit and provide what is needed of them. When they have to be moved, fixed, or changed, the use of equipment like Custom Skates as well as other supplies, are needed to keep everything efficiently moving along.
Surely, this is an encouraging view, but it is based on a limited understanding of new technologies being developed at an exponential speed. Even today, we could automate 45% of the activities people are paid to perform in the U.S. with existing technologies.
It’s not about the advanced machinery that replaces our hands and feet at work. It’s about the artificial intelligence being developed to gradually replace human intelligence. AI will think creatively, produce, analyze, develop, program, and work many times more efficiently than the most gifted employee, all the while being many times cheaper and easy to operate.
Artificial intelligence can learn and self-upgrade much faster than a person’s ability to retrain, and will eventually replace human labor everywhere: scientists, doctors, programmers, designers, financial experts, human resource managers. Only a fraction of the workforce will be required to operate and calibrate the various smart machines and advanced software.
Let’s Revolutionize Society – Without the Pitchforks
If you can fathom the future of technology, you can immediately spot the upcoming social crisis. Masses will go into indefinite unemployment, and modern economics will have no answers for them. Current economic models can hardly deal with a 15% unemployment rate. What’s going to happen when we hit 30%, 40% and 50% unemployment? That is unaccounted for in current economics.
If we settle for positive thinking, hoping this upheaval will somehow result in a new booming economy, we run the risk of a mass unemployment crisis. If masses of people have no hope of providing for their basic necessities, they will not sit calmly at home. Without hope, people could default to violence, extremism and support of radical leaders who will offer economic safety in order to come to power, as we have seen in the past.
Alternatively, if we plan in advance, we can revolutionize society – without a revolution. The sooner we acknowledge the inevitable redesign of our socio-economic infrastructure, in a way that jobs will no longer exist in the same sense as before, we will come to grips with the necessity to provide for the basic needs of all members of society.
Whether we do it through some form of Universal Basic Income, or any other technical mechanism, we must understand that a change of social values is the core issue at hand: Every country’s leadership must acknowledge that looking out for the basic needs of every citizen-food, shelter, clothing, education and health-is their top priority.
But what will people give back to society? If only few man-hours will be necessary to maintain the machines, what will human beings do? They will be busy “being human,” which means developing themselves, their families, their societies and all that makes us human rather than robots.
The Real Driver of Technology Is Human Evolution
The so-called “technological revolution” is not accidental, and it’s not actually technological. It’s an evolutionary revolution. Its purpose is the evolution of human society. It will help us step out of the endless rat race, fueled by a material obsession that doesn’t actually make us happy; a chase around the clock that has created a society of little cogs in giant corporations, accumulating stress and rust, while losing touch with one another and ourselves.
Instead of investing our collective energy into working like machines, we could be engaging in the only work that makes humans different from machines. In a society freed from the cyclical chase for material acquisition, we would invest a large portion of our time on a daily basis, investigating, exercising, and developing the sense of the natural human connection that binds us together. One method to realize our potential as human beings at the workplace is to engage in a variety of activities that are not directly related to work. Let’s say you’re at an event hosted by Uniqueworld destination management companies or something similar, and you get a glimpse of how employers function outside of the office. This could give you an outlook on what all you can do as an employer that might benefit your company.
When masses of people are doing this regularly-as their new job-a new society will undoubtedly emerge. Its product will be the positive social energy required to preserve societal balance. It will be a society whose members’ daily work is to maintain the sense of unity and solidarity that prevent violence and extremism, allowing human beings to live together in productive peace.
This work can be done in unlimited creative ways, where people can apply their passion and desire, as long as they contribute to a warm social climate. But it has to start from fundamental training and education on the science of human connection, learning how positive social connections make us healthier, happier and better at everything we do.
Surely, all of the above sounds foreign in a world where we have been trained by advertisers to chase things we don’t need in order to impress people we can’t connect with. But when material needs are taken care of, human nature demands a deeper, more meaningful type of satisfaction. It’s no coincidence that happiness studies show time after time that healthy social relations are the number one predictor of human flourishing.
Our evolutionary social development pushes us to utilize our wiring for human connection, to distill it through constant work on our relationships, and evolve to a new social reality. Rather than competing with robots for an old school job, let’s make our job the only function that no robot will ever replace, and find the kind of happiness that money will never buy.
Michael Laitman is a Professor of Ontology, a PhD in Philosophy and Kabbalah, an MSc in Medical Bio-Cybernetics, and was the prime disciple of Kabbalist, Rav Baruch Shalom Ashlag (the RABASH). He has written over 40 books, which have been translated into dozens of languages.
Featured image from Wikipedia.
Editing by Dawn Howard
