The precarization of work, the automation of jobs and the advance of artificial intelligence (IA) are factors that have alerted the societies of industrialized countries to the imminent disappearance of millions of jobs. However, in peripheral countries the political class, opinion makers and lobbyists seem to ignore what Industry 4.0 or the fourth industrial revolution actually means for our peoples.
According to the Basic Income Earth Network (BIEN) the Universal Basic Income "is an income paid by the state, as a right of citizenship, to each full member or resident of the society. Even if you don't want to work in a remunerated way, regardless of whether you are rich or poor or, in other words, regardless of what the other possible sources of income may be, and regardless of who you live with.
In the last decade, successful experiments of Universal Basic Income have been conducted in countries such as India, Namibia, the United States of America, Switzerland, Germany and Finland to name a few. These experiments have demonstrated the efficiency of the UBI and have succeeded in deconstructing the sophistries held by opponents of social evolution.
Despite this, the political class of our countries behaves as if we were in the middle of the twentieth century, the truth is that we have been in the twenty-first century for almost two decades. This makes the suffering of millions of people unacceptable and unnecessary, as agricultural technology now produces food for twice the world's population; the problem is access to money through gainful employment, that is, the distribution of wealth.
However, it is clear that the UBI must not, under any circumstances, replace social services but rather supplement them and change its vision from a "compensatory" to an "emancipatory" service.
SwiftDemand The Most Ambitious UBI Experiment
A few weeks ago I met this interesting experiment, which seeks 5 million volunteers to receive the SwifDemand token, which will become a Cryptomontage with which you can receive 100 Swift daily. The Swift Protocol is a proposal that establishes the framework for a Decentralized Autonomous Organization (DAO) for the purpose of distributing Universal Basic Income. The worldwide adoption of the Swift Protocol will enable the dream of Universal Basic Income to become a reality. The protocol has been designed with practical and proven solutions, with additional functionality to facilitate mass adoption.
Universal Basic Income is defined by the following criteria: unconditionality, universality, individuality and sufficiency to guarantee a dignified existence and participation in society.
I had the opportunity to interview Christopher Gregorio, the founder and CEO of SwiftDemand. He was a former video game developer who created indie games with more than 100 million total users. He currently works at Christopher and his team is working on the development of SwiftDemand's Blockchain, a crypto currency that implemented Universal Basic Income in a decentralized manner.
The Interview
What motivates you to perform this experiment?
Christoher: SwiftDemand actually started off more of a thought experiment rather than a project with clearly defined goals. The idea was simply to see what would happen if there was a currency that existed that was distributed evenly to people rather than by other methods. The mission has quickly evolved and we now aim to help eliminate poverty and establish a future where people are still able to thrive in a world where most jobs are replaced by automation.
How long have you planned to get the proposed 5 million participants?
Christoher: We are well on our way to 5 million participants. SwiftDemand has primarily grown so far through word of mouth utilizing the referral program that was put in place in early on. As the marketplace continues to establish itself and the value of each Swift becomes more well defined we expect growth to continue to accelerate reaching 5 million participants very quickly.
Why 5 million?
Christoher: 5 million is only the number at which referral bonuses are currently planned to be phased out. Our goal is to have nearly all of the Swifts to distributed as basic income to make the system as fair as possible. The referral system is essential for early adoption, but will not longer be required once a critical mass of users has been reached. We hope to grow SwiftDemand to billions of users in the future.
What public and political incidence do you hope to make of this experiment?
Christoher: We hope that SwiftDemand will make it very clear that basic income is not only plausible, but also essential for the future of the world. Some governments have begun doing experiments with basic income, but most experiments have been limited in size and impact. We hope take the world by storm and quickly transform the world to make UBI a top priority for all governments once the effects become clear.
Do you consider that Universal Basic Income is a Human Right and why?
Christoher: Yes! In a world where automation is slowly taking away jobs and people live in poverty despite there being more wealth in the world than ever before, it’s important that we come up with an alternative system where people can continue to thrive in a post scarcity world. Social programs are great at helping people with specific issues, but once the majority of the world suffers from a lack of jobs a solution like Universal Basic Income is essential. We have the resources in the world to provide everyone with a decent quality of life, we have a duty to make this a reality.
Do you think that Universal Basic Income will be a fact in the next two decades?
Christoher: Yes, we believe that Universal Basic Income will quickly become one of the hot topics debated around with world within the next 2-5 years. After that we expect there to be a slow transition of everyone realizing the importance of UBI and using a solution like SwiftDemand or implementing it in their own right.
Do you have a strategy for Swiftdemand to be taken into account in the UN's 2030 sustainable development agenda process?
Christoher: We have not currently made any plans regarding this.
Are you involved with BIEN (Basic Income Earth Network)?
Christoher: We are not directly connected to BIEN, but we have had discussions with people from their organization such as Karl Widerquist. We support what they are doing and hope to collaborate more in the future.
Have you had contact with intergovernmental institutions or are they planning to do it?
Christoher: We have not yet had any direct contact with government institutions. We expect that as we grow we will start to have more direct contact. The great thing about SwiftDemand is that it doesn’t require any direct government involvement and can function efficiently as an independent entity.
What inspires you to work on this fabulous project?
Christoher: We believe that SwiftDemand is one of the few projects that actually has the potential to change the world in a huge way which is something that very few can actually say. The amount of good that we can bring to the world through UBI is unparalleled by anything that has come before. This excites us and inspires us to do everything wi
thin our power to make SwiftDemand successful.
Many people are waiting for the release of Swiftdemand Blockchain, could you tell us a little bit about this work?
Christoher: The majority of our users are currently waiting for the release of the Swift Blockchain. It’s important to have the decentralized aspect in our system to ensure full trust can be had by those choosing to participate in SwiftDemand. The SwiftDemand blockchain will start by being a modified version of the NEO blockchain and slowly over time implement all the elements outlined in the White Paper.
We currently are working on setting up the separate chain and building the tools needed to integrate it into the SwiftDemand website.
What response do you see from the community?
Christoher: The response from the community has been overwhelming so far. We have been truly blown away by the amount of people who have signed up and continue to use the platform. We have already reached over 160,000 users and have had over 1600 products submitted to the store. We have received a large amount of praise from the community so far and we are doing our best to live up to the expectations.
What message they would give to decision makers and opinion makers regarding Universal Basic Income and your project.
Christoher: I would request that they look at the idea behind SwiftDemand and Universal Basic Income with an open mind and consider the benefits that it can have on the world.
Conclusions
Some experts and academics believe that it is very likely that we are about 20 years away from poverty eradication, as the UBI is a proposal that would make it possible to guarantee the material existence of the entire population. In the words of Noam Chomsky, it would be a "short-term way to eradicate poverty and redistribute wealth, of course freedom is something that can never be enjoyed by a person whose basic needs are not guaranteed.
Stephen Hawking said in a publication that artificial intelligence and increasing automation will reduce the number of middle-class jobs:"Factory automation has already swept away jobs in traditional manufacturing, and the proliferation of artificial intelligence may extend this destruction of labor to the middle classes, where only creative and supervisory roles will survive.
Sisters and brothers, let us not lose sight of the fact that robots and artificial intelligence are creations created by our imagination and our gifts, machines invented by humans. However, the owners of these machines (mostly corporations run by greedy people) do not share socially the extra productivity gains from production automation. The challenge is great and it is among humans, not to resist the conquest of the working world by robots, but to resist the domination of capital over people. It is to revert what happens in the Northern Triangle, that the "thing", the object, is not worth more than life.
Now is the time to separate paid work from a decent life for all people. This will allow for greater equality between people, which will lead to great social progress such as less crime, violence, improvements in physical and mental health and more education.
Undoubtedly the push that is gaining the UBI, cryptomoney and projects such as SwiftDemand indicate a clear effort by civil society to regain control of its own time, finances and life choices beyond the imperatives of the market. Universal Basic Income will have a fundamental role to play in strengthening public health and justice, it will play a crucial role in compensating unemployment caused by the increasing robotization of the world of work and slavery.
Click here if you would like to participate and receive your SwiftDemand UBI
BTC:
1AtozT4zvNQMytWaNXGWkrdzbq6o72w4BX
ETH:
0x51ba5939c4e12ccd36184dfc7c15d7e43b8b45b9
ZEC:
t1cgxfV5AEwSY3KcrhMcXBFAD44Y5zoeHJ9
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