by Kate McFarland | Apr 22, 2016 | News
In his latest piece for Huffington Post, writer and basic income advocate Scott Santens takes the perspective of a Martian observing life on Earth.
Such an extraterrestrial observer, Santens hypothesizes, would be baffled by the fact that the human race has failed to take advantage of technological progress to free itself from needless labor — but, on the contrary, finds itself working longer and longer hours:
“Incredibly, human beings are waking up early in the mornings to drive to offices to perform imaginary business in imaginary markets involving imaginary customers using imaginary money to buy imaginary goods and services instead of simply enjoying their non-imaginary and most definitely real lives with each other.”
Santens’ Martian substantiates its critique of humanity’s peculiar backwardness with multiple timely examples — including Google’s sale of its robotics company Boston Dynamics (the developer of Atlas and BigDog), which was prompted in part by negative publicity surrounding automation, and Johnson & Johnson’s discontinuation of the automated sedation device SEDASYS, which would have eliminated much of the need for anesthesiologists.
Reflecting on humans’ odd insistence that “machines not do their work for them,” the insightful Martian even weighs in on Robert Reich’s recent comment that mankind is not yet ready for a basic income:
“[P]erhaps humans should ask if not having a basic income is actually part of the reason there are any jobs still left for humans. Perhaps it’s the insistence on the existence of jobs that creates jobs, whether they need to exist or not.”
This — one of the main themes of the article — is a crucial point, yet one seldom made in discussion of automation. More typically, commentators suggest that technological unemployment might eventually drive a need for a basic income (including Reich, in the interview cited above). Santens turns this more standard argument on its head: technological unemployment ought to be something that we strive for, and a basic income is necessary to enable us to fully pursue this goal.
Those who still find the idea of decoupling income from work to be what is “alien” are well-advised to read this article and take heed.
Scott Santens, 5 April 2016, “Humanity Needs Universal Basic Income to Stop Impeding Progress,” Huffington Post.
Image: Boston Dynamic’s Atlas
Source: DARPA, Public Domain
by Joe Timothy | Apr 15, 2016 | News
Due to the recent skyrocketing of basic income chatter on the internet (interest has quadrupled in the last 3 months) the prolific writer and basic income advocate Scott Santens has helpfully brought together all that is going on around basic income in one short article.
He begins by demonstrating that the increasing interest in different nations on the rise with the “the addition of Canada…This was followed soon after by Scotland’s SNP party’s decision to consider basic income in an independent Scotland, and New Zealand’s Labor Party after that. Nigeria also had some rumblings, as did Namibia. Finally, Finland completed its preliminary report for its basic income experiment plans, with the final report due in November.”
In addition to the increased interest from these countries there were also some key figures that came out in support of the idea including Yanis Varoufakis, Owen Jones, Westpac chief economist Dominick Stephens, and Silicon Valley billionaire Tim Draper. There were also some key news organisations talking about a basic income including The New York Times, The Boston Globe, Smithsonian magazine, The Guardian and Gawker.
Santens also mentions other related events such as the success of Google’s AlphaGo AI beating the 18-time world champion Go player Lee Sedol. An advancement that is demonstrating the real speed at which AI is developing which will inevitably lead to a reduction in jobs and an increase in the necessity for the basic income.
All these events, articles and shows of support are just part of an increasing trend in the idea of the basic income. It has been a big year so far in terms of the growth of interest in the idea, it will be interesting to see where it goes.
For more information, see the following source:
Scott Santens, “Basic Income on the March (a month in review)”, April 7th , 2016
by Kate McFarland | Mar 22, 2016 | News
Image Source: Wikimedia Commons
Last October, the program AlphaGo, developed by the Google division DeepMind, stunned the world by becoming the first AI agent to defeat a professional Go player — a decade ahead of experts’ predictions of such a feat. Then, in March, AlphaGo surpassed expectations yet again, winning a match against champion player Lee Sedol.
In his recent article “Robots Will Take Your Job” (Boston Globe), basic income advocate Scott Santens explores the implications of advanced AI — machines like AlphaGo — for employment and the economy. Thanks to advances in the branch of machine learning known as deep learning, artificial agents are now able to replicate increasingly complex cognitive tasks. A consequence is that automation now threatens not only routine, manual jobs but many highly-skilled, cognitively-demanding ones as well.
Backing his claims with quotes from leading AI researchers, such as Chris Eliasmith and Andrew Ng, Santens makes the case that this tide of ever-more-sophisticated automation demands that we “seriously start talking about decoupling income from work” and explore a universal basic income.
Read the article here:
Scott Santens, “Robots Will Take Your Job,” Boston Globe, February 25th, 2016.
Update:
Following AlphaGo’s victorious match against Lee Sedol, Santens updated and extended this article, publishing the new version in Medium. The new piece is available here:
Scott Santens, “Deep Learning Is Going to Teach Us All the Lesson of Our Lives: Jobs Are for Machines,” Medium, March 16th, 2016.
by Scott Santens | Feb 5, 2016 | Opinion
If you’re new to my writing, you may not yet know that I have a crowdfunded basic income through Patreon. Beginning my campaign for $1,000 per month in late 2014, I reached that goal at the end of 2015, and so this year, at the beginning of every month, I will start the month with $1,000 per month, guaranteed, through the patronage of around 150 supporters on Patreon who incredibly make it possible.
So, what’s it like to have a basic income? How are things different? What is there to learn? I intend to publish an ongoing series of these observations, made through the eyes of a life being lived with basic income. This is the first entry in my “Basic Income Observations Log,” and it’s about the first thing I learned so far, which was last year, when I was actually only a few months into my campaign: security.
Security is one of those words that we all know, but I think few of us fully understand, because I for one didn’t understand it the way I do now until I actually experienced it in a new way. Here’s the thing. We all have a minimum basic income guarantee right now. It is a guarantee of $0. No one is guaranteed anything more than nothing. So we all know what insecurity feels like. We can get a job and reduce that feeling of insecurity, but even when we get a job, that feeling of insecurity is still there. At any moment, we could get fired. At any moment, our employer could go out of business, or downsize, or outsource. Any number of things could happen that could result in our incomes falling back down to a minimum of $0. That possibility is omnipresent.
Oh sure, we’ve developed some things we like to call “safety nets” here in the US, where if you have a job and something happens, maybe you’ll get disability money if you’re able to fill out the forms and pass the tests, of which many who are disabled don’t, so don’t count on that. Maybe you can get unemployment money, if you fill out the right forms and pass the tests, of which many who are unemployed don’t. And if you do get it, that is temporary, so don’t count on that for too long. Maybe you can get Temporary Assistance for Needy Families (welfare), or Supplementary Nutrition Assistance (food stamps), if you fill out the right forms and pass the tests, of which many who are in need don’t. And if you do get it, these both too are temporary and also insufficient, so don’t count on them for too long either, or at all for that matter given how small they are, and who’s making the decisions.
So yeah, basically, don’t count on our safety nets for a feeling of security, because that’s not what they are there for. There is one program intended for actual security, and it’s called Social Security. The way it’s calculated is a little messed up, where what you get for the rest of your life all depends not only on how much you earned up till qualifying, but on how long you can wait to start receiving it. But once you’re on it, it is a source of income you can count on as an American, until the day you die. And unlike the way other programs work, you are allowed to earn anything you want on top of it, without losing your monthly Social Security checks. Essentially, we already have basic income in the US, it’s just means-tested based on age, and the amount varies based on lifetime earnings. But for a significant number of Americans, seniors, they actually do know what it’s like to be able to count on a monthly minimum income guarantee that is greater than $0. In fact, for many it is close to $1,000 per month.
So what have I learned so far as a non-senior with basic income security?
Observation One
As a 38-year-old American who is experiencing a minimum income guarantee of $1,000 per month decades before I’m “supposed to”, I can tell you that income security is a big deal. It’s a bigger deal than I think anyone without it fully realizes. And the thing is, it doesn’t even need to be above the poverty level to feel. It just needs to be greater than $0, and basically enough to afford not to starve. I felt more secure earning only $250 per month, because that amount is enough to afford groceries, or pay half my rent. Believe me, it’s a load off your mind to know there is a smaller gap you need to cover through paid labor to meet your most basic needs. Starting every month with a minimum of $250 is definitely better than starting every month with $0. It is not nothing. It is a small amount, and not what I’d call a basic income, but it provides a feeling of increased security, and that feeling is not small at all.
Since having achieved my $1,000 per month new minimum income floor, I have to say, there is definitely a difference between $1,000 and $500 and $250, but learning that something as seemingly insufficient as $250 still made a difference in my feeling greater security, I consider a notable lesson I’ve learned thus far. And I think it’s something people discount when they worry that $1,000 per month may be too low of an amount, or that anything lower than that amount would be pointless.
Observation Two
There’s another lesson I’ve learned as well in regards to security, that was an entirely unexpected lesson in how what I have is both like and unlike basic income.
What I have is like a basic income, in that I can count on it at the beginning of every month regardless of paid work, and its size is sufficient to lift me above the federal poverty line, but it is unlike a basic income in that it relies on about 150 people as I write this, whereas a basic income would be a legal right backed by the full faith and credit of the United States. Say what you want about that, but it doesn’t change that such backing is considered the most secure in the world. So unlike a government-backed basic income, it is possible for me to lose my crowdfunded basic income, if everyone stops being a patron. However, that same reason is why I feel more security than anyone with a normal paycheck, and I consider this a very interesting observation.
For anyone with a normal job, they can be fired by one person. As a result, their income can fall from $1,000/mo to $0/mo. For me, I would have to be “fired” by 150 people to fall from $1,000/mo to $0/mo. If “fired” by one person, I can fall from $1,000/mo to $990/mo. It is this decentralization of income that creates for me a greater sense of security that is far greater than a standard full-time job situation, but still less than the security a US government provided basic income would provide.
It is this observation that prompted me to create a new milestone on Patreon, where my new goal is not to gain a larger income, (anything over $1,000 will still be pledged to others making the same pledge) but to instead create a more widely distributed income floor. If I were to reach the point of being supported by 1,000 patrons, then I think that would provide a sense of security much closer to that of a true basic income. For if I have 1,000 people all pledging $1/mo, then the loss of 1 person is $1, not like now, where the loss of one person could immediately drop me back down to $900/mo. I now think creating a greater sense of security is key to better duplicating the effects of a basic income, so that’s my new goal on Patreon – greater security.
Observation Three
One other observation I’ve made in regards to security is the effect it has on family. When you are part of a household, increased security of one spills over onto other members of the household. Because I have a basic income, my girlfriend even feels greater security. She has a great job, and she loves it, but again, a job can always be lost, so she worries about what can happen if that were to happen. That’s natural. We all worry about what can happen, however unlikely. But now because I have a basic income, even though she doesn’t, the worst case scenario isn’t as scary. It’s a notable reduction of stress. And therefore, the security of a basic income has household-spanning effects. I would argue there’s even evidence for this, thanks to $4,000 per year casino dividends in North Carolina that resulted in incredible outcomes for the kids.
They know, based on the interviews with parents, that the relationship between spouses tended to improve as a result. They also know that the relationship between the parents and their children tended to improve. And they know that parents tended to drink less alcohol. “There is a lot of literature that shows in order to change outcomes among children you are best off treating the parents first,” said Simeonova. “And these are really clear changes in the parents.” There’s also the question of stress, which the extra money helps relieve—even if only a little. While the added income wasn’t enough to allow parents to quit their jobs, it’s a base level that helped with rent and food and other basic expenses. That, Akee said, is powerful enough itself. “We know that the thing poor couples fight about the most is money,” he said. “Off the bat, this means a more harmonious family environment.”
Definitely read the full article in the Washington Post, but the takeaway is that the stress in households, that exists largely due to a lack of income security, has profoundly negative effects, and when that stress is reduced through greater income security, it has profoundly positive effects, especially on young children.
Basically, a feeling of security is hugely important, and most of us are so used to not having any, that we entirely underestimate the transformative effects that basic income will have on any society that adopts it as policy.
Guaranteeing a minimum amount of income security for every member of a society, through a universal basic income sufficient to meet basic needs, will create the conditions for a society to truly flourish. Of that, I have no doubt. And it will be in large part, due to the mass achievement of one word – security.
by Vito Laterza | Dec 15, 2015 | News
New Orleans-based writer and basic income advocate Scott Santens has become the first person to successfully crowdfund a perpetual monthly basic income. Starting his campaign on October 13, 2014 on the crowdfunding platform Patreon, Santens achieved his goal of $1,000 per month fourteen months later on December 11 with the help of 143 funders ranging from venture capitalists and Facebook engineers to women’s rights advocates and artists who all believe everyone needs a basic income.
Basic income is quickly gaining prominence in think tanks and policy circles worldwide due to growing concerns brought on by advancing technologies like self-driving vehicles and artificial intelligence, and also growing inequality. It is the idea that everyone should receive, individually and without conditions, an income floor sufficient to cover the most basic needs of life like food and shelter. All income earned through the labor market would then be earned on top of one’s basic income as additional income, and many existing government programs would no longer be required as a direct result. This idea is not new, having at one time been advocated by both Milton Friedman and Martin Luther King Jr., but today’s advocates from both the right and left think its day may have come.
“Basic Income has been taking off with incredible speed in the last few years,” says BIEN co-chair and author Karl Widerquist of SFS-Qatar, Georgetown University. “Activist movements for basic income are growing, and it’s already getting serious attention from governments in Finland, the Netherlands, Switzerland, and other places. The success of Scott’s campaign for the first crowdfunded basic income in the United States is both a reflection of the growth in the basic income movement and a catalyst for further growth as Scott’s life now demonstrates how basic income can work.”
Such a real-life demonstration is possible through Patreon. As a Kickstarter-like crowdfunding platform, but for creators instead of products, Patreon supports ongoing campaigns for content creators like musicians, artists, 
bloggers, vloggers, podcasters, and photographers that are funded by fans of their work with small pledges of monthly support.
“Patreon is supporting the emerging creative class. We see a future where creators like Scott can earn a living doing what they are passionate about,” says Graham Hunter, Patreon Director of Marketing. “A recent grad from Art or Music school right now doesn’t necessarily feel confident that the value that they provide will be valued by the world; Patreon is changing that.”
Having reached his goal, Scott plans to continue his advocacy for universal basic income and has also promised to give any and all future pledges of support to others on Patreon who have pledged to do the same. This is what he calls “The BIG Patreon Creator Pledge” to assist others on Patreon in attaining their own basic incomes. “Creators want to create. Creators don’t need to be paid to create. However, creators also need to eat. Creators need to have homes. Creators can’t create so long as they aren’t free to create,” wrote Santens earlier this year on his blog in an open thank you letter to Patreon. “People need to be free to create and until universal basic income exists, Patreon can make that possible.”
Scott’s track record as writer and basic income advocate is impressive. His pieces about universal basic income have appeared on The Huffington Post, the Institute for Ethics and Emerging Technologies (IEET), The Daily Dot, and Quartz. He has presented at the first World Summit on Technological Unemployment and participated as a panelist at the Brookings Institute. As an organizer, he helped plan the first Basic Income Create-A-Thon. He is an advisor to the Universal Income Project, a founding committee member of the nonprofit D.C.-based organization Basic Income Action, a coordinating committee member of the U.S. Basic Income Guarantee Network, and founder of the BIG Patreon Creator Pledge.
You can follow Scott’s writings on his personal blog and also on The Huffington Post. On social media, you can find him on Twitter, Facebook, and Reddit where he moderates the/r/BasicIncome community.
