Many people don't like the idea of a universal basic income and for a long time it has been rgarded to be little more than a joke. Some people find it offensive, ludicrous or even dangerous. To those people a unviversal basic income has a hint of communism to it and many belief that handing out free money will result in less productivity and basically is an incentive not to contribute to society.
Right now, however, we are living in a transitional period and the combination of increasing debts, Covid-19 and the first steps that are taken in robotization, leads to a renewed interest in a universal basic income,
I have a firm belief that our current labor, oil and debt driven economic system is in it's final phase. Global debt is a a record high, negative interest is becoming the norm and central banks are printing new money faster and in bigger quantities than ever before. At the same time, we are seeing a shift towards renewable energy and every development in this regard decreases the addiction to oil that's driven global economies for the past decades.
And then there is robotization:
Meet Doctor Bot:
In the course of human history, we have always developed new tools and methods to make labor more efficient, genreally allowing us to do more work with less people. This is a positive thing, since it brings specialization and innovation and these in turn have given us new products and with that new types of jobs.
Of course with every new development there were job losses at first, but history has shown that in the end new technology always wins.
Right now we are on the verge of implementing technology that has the potential to replace such a large part of the work force however, that it is unlikely that there will be enough new job types created. More than 75% of the existing jobs can already be done better and cheaper by machines. Some are obvious like jobs in transport, construction and warehousing. But also lawyers and doctors can be replaced to some extent by new technology in the not so far future.
Optimist say that this will free us to become creative and that we are in for an era were new Mozart’s and Picasso’s will pop up left and right. And this is partially true, we will have the time and tools that allow us to express ourselves. The problem is that most people simply are not made of Mozart material and that all that alleged creativity will yield mediocre results for the most part.
So we will have to come up with a way to reward the masses for their time and activities. The tools to do this are already here. It's what we do on Hive.
With the shift to a crypto based economy, i believe an increasing part of our lives will be on blockchain and a basic income in crypto allows everybody to participate in a way suited for them. Developers will surely rule the world, but selfies and likes are efforts that will create value just the same.
I expect we will see the rise of globally embraced crypo's where every person receives a daily amount of, just for being alive as a human being on planet Earth.
With Hive we are front runners in this development and as long as we as the community keep building and focus on value in product instead of price, we are going to see amazing results.
We are living in exciting times and i for one am enjoying the ride.