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RE: The Water Room Analogy - Understanding the Logic of Full Universality
I think you're reasoning is pretty sound. It takes a lot of the corruption out because if everyone gets it then you don't get to pick and choose who gets help.
Ideally I think that if we could do it in a decentralized way without the government it could be even better. Here is one idea I have if you want to take a look. https://steemit.com/cryptocurrency/@littlejoeward/universal-basic-income-through-cryptocurrency-mining
I see crypto-UBI and govt-UBI as being complementary to each other. Steemit is actually it's own good example. We know it's possible to earn $1,000 per month on Steemit, but how many people here are actually achieving that? How many people aren't even on the platform? How many people don't even have computers or smartphones to join the platform?
However, now imagine the country has UBI. Everyone starts each month with $1,000 instead of $0. Now how many people are part of the Steemit community? How many more people get computers and smartphones to make that possible? How many people have more ability to spend time on Steemit to build their Steemit incomes on top of their basic incomes?
I think Alaska shows that a UBI done by government can be extremely successful. And I also think that cryptocurrency solutions are brilliant for providing people with even more income on top of their basic income. ;)
I think you are right. I think it could be a much better system than the one we currently have. My only concern is that I'm a voluntarist so I have a moral problem with the government forcing other people to give me $1000 every month. But I think that is beside the point of this discussion. :) Plus the government is already doing that so if it is going to happen anyway, I think ubi might be a better solution. (as your article points out)
Have you seen the Grantcoin Manna concept (short post with a couple of links - https://steemit.com/basicincome/@revo/grantcoin-universal-basic-income)? They are implementing a UBI via cryptocoin. I'm keen to follow along with this one and see how it goes (i'll eventually sign up to it myself, I guess). I can't help thinking that the consensus/popular view of economics and monetary systems is arse-about. This idea that money flows from economic activity, when it is actually money in the first place that defines economic activity. It's actually a self-perpetuating system, as far as I can see. Yet this is one of the criticisms people make of cryptocurrencies. It seems to me that what Grantcoin is doing (literally creating money to meet a need) is no different to how regular fiat money systems work. And a Grantcoin-like system seems to me to be less potentially ponzi-ish than the regular monetary system, because it doesn't generate ever growing debt in its production. The regular monetary system we run now can never repay world debt (without governments either cancelling it, or just printing an amount of money equal to that debt and then repaying it), as the interest charges on debt mean that more money needs to be created to meet the debt obligations.
(edit: sorry, I see now your post mentions Grantcoin)
Hey, when you're ready to sign up you are welcome to use my referral link! :)
Cheers, I'll do that. I just want to look into it a bit more. I'm new to steemit and cryptocurrency, so I'm still trying to get my head around it all. I'm traditionally a strong privacy advocate and don't like spreading my details all over the internet. So this idea of a permanent blockchain record of everything I do and post sits a bit uneasy with me. It's going to be a matter of whether I value what Grantcoin potentially provides (to me, and society) vs having to post my phone number and picture and whatnot for the whole world to see. Having said that, my picture is already on my profile here (but I don't know enough about how all this works to know if that means it's on the blockchain or just within steemit.com).
Yeah, there is a lot to learn. I just started getting into it all about a year ago. But I just started steemit this week. I would recommend the cryptoverse podcast for learning more about cryptocurrency. It has been really helpful. https://www.cryptoversity.com/podcast/