Oshan- wow. UBI as a safe word? Can we try another: Prosperity. UBI is a strategy toward prosperity, with myriad approaches. Everything you've said is a resounding yes... except UBI. Perhaps because I read this in 2021, and it was written several years ago. UBI is one of those words where, in the intractable and increasingly tense political environment in which we now find ourselves, words and strategies matter- more for purposes of how different words fall upon different ears in different contexts like utterly different languages. UBI to one = liberation to another UBI = enslaved by bureaucracy. UBI is a strategy and even now, the details are FAR from being worked out, and therefore, the conversation only goes so far as pitiful pilot projects by large funders, and underfunded, under-networked blockchain ambitions by the big-hearted and brainy. But again, it isn't solving for UBI. It is solving for peace, prosperity, regeneration, and wellbeing. The goal isn't a Universal Basic Income, it is to create prosperity, which means we can optimize our ability to access needs and wants now, and have a sense that our future ability to do so is also bright. What if UBI devalues the currency? What if it is a political decision that allows us to spend now, but that decision is revoked when we most need it in our more vulnerable years? I think you were referring to the Easterlin Paradox in the first graph: Does money buy happiness? If we refer to that research, what was found was that high consumption increased life satisfaction, that stagnate or decreasing consumption decreased life satisfaction. The many assumptions here will impact the myriad possible conclusions we may draw. Certainly we can agree that increased incomes and increased carbon footprint are not optimal measure of individual or community prosperity or wellbeing. Peace, Prosperity, Regeneration, and Wellbeing for all can all be safe-words, depending on the pain point of the person or community. These broad terms allow a community to come together in momentary "pause game" moment to listen to the person or community who is not thriving according to one of the locally pretermined measures of those words. In BDSM, the neutral and generally unrelated word "basket" can be chosen to mean "pause game", check in with the parties involved to do our best to ensure that physical and emotional love and support are primary. The strategies that go into play are both generally helpful (to all members of the human race, like ice for bruises, tender holding, eye gazing, etc.) and mutually determined by the specific parties according to agreements about what works for them (sharing a smoke, drawing a bath, etc.) As this relates to the socio-economic agreements, let's remember that the goal is bigger than the strategy. Prosperity for all is possible, and can be achieved in a number of ways, and the process of exploring how should be as diverse as our humanity and planetary ecosystems. The process of exploring is a process of getting to know ourselves, our needs and wants, and our relationship to others. A process we cannot do when we all live under the enslavement of bullshit jobs and economic trauma.
