EOS Providing A Basic Income?

I will admit i have not read the proposal by @dan. In fact, i have not been able to find it. What I did come across is a number of YouTube videos by people commenting about what @dan proposed.

Evidently, the proposal believes that 4% of EOS should be set aside to pay out to individuals as a basic (or Resource) income. This stems from the belief that automation is going to replace hundreds of millions of jobs over the next decade without an adequate way to replace them.

A large part of this is the conclusion that the third world nations are most at risk. Even though they made some tremendous gains over the last couple decades, a great deal of that was due to the outsourcing of labor from the more expensive countries. As labor rates rose in areas like China, suddenly third world nations became attractive.

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With the technological age in full force, we could see a reversal of the trend. One technology I wrote about is 3D printing. With the ability to create products without labor directly from a 3D file, this will suddenly make manufacturing more economical, especially when shipping costs are factored in.

There is still some debate about this. Many feel that this is no different than the past and that technology always created more jobs than it destroyed. That was true. The challenge that many see is that we never dealt with a technology such as machine learning before. In the past, manual labor was replaced with machinery. This time, if all goes according to how many project, brain power is going to be replaced by machines. To me, this is an entirely different can of worms opened up.

Many believe that a basic income of some sort is the solution. Of course, this creates a million of questions even among the supporters. Nevertheless, providing people with the basic needs is something that a conscious populous should look at. This goes counter to the beliefs that many carry, especially in the west.

Will something like this work?

In theory, yes it could. The challenge is, like all blockchains are experiencing, how do you prove that a person is who he or she claims? And how do you prevent someone from creating multiple accounts to tap into more of the resource base. @actifit is already dealing with this, having to ban about 20 accounts for trying to game the system.

Sadly, it seems this is the place many people are at in their evolution. It is not surprising since we are all reared in the scarcity model that the bankers created. Hence, people are afraid of not having enough since, most do not.

The advantage that this proposal has is that it does not involve government. That is one of the features that I like about @mannacurrency. Any basic income initiative that involves the government is making people open to the change in political winds. What is given today can be taken away. Plus, my personal belief is the government has one goal, to create an unhealthy dependence with as many people as possible. This is what gives them more power.

Being a follower of technology for more than a decade, I can attest that the pace of change is increasing. There were projects that were originally slated to come out in 2023 or 2025 and are appearing now. For example, a couple years ago it was believed that 5G would start to be implemented in 2023 yet, in the US, there are going to be a number of cities who have it by the end of 2018.

The same was true with autonomous cars. I remember reading in 2013 or 2014 how there was hope to have a working prototype ready for full level 5 by 2025. They will hit this level in either 2019 or 2020.

The basic income topic became a political one which is a shame because it shuts down conversation, people espouse ideas that they know little about because they parrot what their political stance says, and ends up with a stalemate meaning the status quo goes forward.

That is okay. I can tell you, after watching what took place the last 5 years, a lot of these stances will be in for a rude awakening. When you see 40% of the banking industry in terms of employment gone by 2025, that will be an eye opener. At about the same time, we will see most retail jobs eliminated. Not only are you going to see stores like Amazon Go as the norm, there will probably be VR stores popping up at that point (watch the delivery breakthroughs, they solve that and this is most likely on the path to being commonplace).

I can do this for a ton of industries. Do you think people will be selling real estate in 10 years? Actually, do you think they will be using people to sell much of anything? What are the chances that accountants are still around? Hedge fund managers will be AI. The same will be true for a vast portion of the legal industry.

Without seeing anything written by him, I am going to guess that @dan sees something similar. I do know he focuses more on the third world nations and the plight of the people who are in the unlucky sperm club. Most of the planet is screwed when they pop out of the womb simply because of geography.

Will this EOS initiative go through? It is going to be a tough sell. There are already a number of problems to work through with governance that I am not sure this will be readily embraced. It is an interesting idea. I am glad people are starting to discuss this matter because it is going to be something that many will feel.

My personal view is that if you thought the last recession resulted in a jobless recovery, just wait until the next one. If you do not understand what I mean, read up on the West Texas oil industry after the collapse of oil prices in 2014. This is something that is going to be replicated throughout most industries.

Hopefully ideas like this one with EOS gain some attention. The fact that we have the opportunity to discuss it is very valuable. Society, at least, seems to be oblivious to all of this. At least some in the crypto world are beginning the discussion.

We will see where this all leads.

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