Techno-progressives: Your President Has Arrived!

Photo courtesy of the Yang2020 campaign

Believe it or not, 2020 is right around the corner. While Democratic voters are gearing up to fight against Donald Trump, the list of potential candidates to take part in the showdown is currently slim. I’m surprised that none of the big names have come out to express their interest. Normally by this time, high ranking political leaders would be traveling the country and announcing exploratory committees to measure the viability of their candidacies. Summer is the perfect time for such musings. At the moment, some, like Bernie Sanders, have let us know they won’t be running, as he’s declared he’ll run again for the Senate in 2020, and several others are keeping their options open, yet only two have actually declared their candidacy—Representative John Delany, and businessperson Andrew Yang.

Today I want to talk about Andrew Yang.

For me, the primaries are the best part of the political process. Admittedly they're a bit long, but tremendously exciting, because this is the phase where the national dialogue is set. To get yourself, and your ideas, into the Democratic debates allows a candidate to share ideas with the American people in a way that publishing books and giving speeches does not. This is why I’m very excited about Andrew Yang’s bid for the presidency. Not only is he a part of Generation X, whose time has come to lead this nation, but he’s a proponent for Universal Basic Income, something that I, as both a woman and a software engineer, am very interested in. Technological unemployment is a real thing already, and Andrew Yang has taken the time to explain why in his book, The War on Normal People. In preparation for a meeting with him, I read his book and I highly recommend it for every Democrat who is interested in living in a truly progressive society. In addition to sharing the raw data on the unemployment and underemployment situation at the present moment, Andrew describes the path we’re headed down, and how to take advantage of the increase in productivity due to technological advancement and invest it in humanity.

The cornerstones of the future that Mr. Yang envisions are what I would call the Triangle of a Technically Advanced Society. At the heart of his plan is Universal Basic Income, where he proposes an automatic $1000 per month per person over the age of 18. If you’re interested in the details of UBI, you can read Andrew’s book. If you’re just curious and don’t have much time, I’ve written about it here, here and here. Mr. Yang calls this the Freedom Dividend, and he’s not the only futurist who believes that this is absolutely necessary if we wish to avoid a catastrophic mess twenty years from now. In his book he writes, “In a future without jobs, people will need to be able to provide for themselves and their basic needs. Eventually the government will need to intervene in order to prevent widespread squalor, despair and violence. The sooner the government acts, the more high-functioning our society will be.”

Folks who live in the upper-income “bubble,” as Andrew puts it, may not be aware that living conditions are already eroding in many places. We can argue back forth about who is to blame—business or lazy people—but at it’s heart this is a security issue. A nation cannot have too many of it’s men unemployed or underemployed. There must be a balance. Inequality will always exist, but our technology is ready to make sure that we all have food, shelter and healthcare. Stephen Hawking said this in 2015, “Everyone can enjoy a life of luxurious leisure if the machine produced wealth is shared, or most people can end up miserably poor if the machine-owners successfully lobby against wealth redistribution. So far, the trend seems to be toward the second option, with technology driving ever-increasing inequality.”

Yet as Andrew points out, this is our decision. We’re the ones allowing our technological advancement to help the few. In an instant we could vote for a different world, one where the machine-wealth is shared. This then is the reason why Mr. Yang’s candidacy is so wonderful—he will be the first candidate to discuss Universal Basic Income on the public stage. To have this come up in the debates is reason enough to get him there, because as Bernie Sanders showed us, once the discussion begins, there’s finally a chance to move forward.

The second pillar of Andrew’s plan is universal health care, for all the reasons any decent progressive has been debating for decades. Health care costs are a huge drain on American families, and second only to housing in out-of-control expenditures. Thus Andrew has this going for him as well.

The last pillar mentioned in The War Against Normal People is the concept of timesharing and Social Credits. To me, this is the glue that has been missing between UBI and single payer health care. In his chapter, “Time As the New Money,” Andrew writes, “Even with the Freedom Dividend attending to people’s ability to feed themselves, the thing that still freaks everyone out about replacing jobs is this: What will people do all day?”

As a householder, I must admit that the idea that paid work is the only work of life is naive at best. If you have a body, you have work to do. If you have shelter, you have work to do. Ask any woman who has chosen to stay home and raise her children—the work of life doesn’t stop when you lose your paid employment. However, it isn’t a bad idea to encourage our citizens to use their time to help others, and to reward them in some way for their actions. Building community is work that is also overlooked in today’s market, yet this is the very labor that forces us to meet our neighbors and care about one another, as well as keeping our communities clean and safe.

Just what is timesharing? Essentially, it’s an easy-to-use application (think Tinder for help wanted) that enables those who have a need, for example the elderly woman who needs her lawn mowed, to connect to those who have time, say a middle-aged truck driver who lost his job to self-driving vehicles. The truck driver sees that his neighbor needs help, accepts the job via the app, and then shows up to mow her lawn. Rather than a monetary exchange between them, the app awards the truck driver a certain number of Social Credits. He can collect these credits and with time use them for various rewards, such as sports tickets, or gift certificate for Cabela’s, or even a family vacation. It’s just like the rewards you get right now for using your credit card, only in this scenario, you’re improving the world directly around you—your own neighborhood.

This might seem too cheesy for you. Or maybe you think humans shouldn’t have to be rewarded for helping others, but by combining social work with the UBI, many unemployed folks, as well as those choosing to stay home to care for children or the elderly, can find both economic stability as well meaning and connection with others in their community. Moreover, helping others out builds a network that just might land you a job. I can’t tell you how many people have come to me with work offers as a result of the network I've built while volunteering in the community.

Many communities in America already practice something like this, called Time Banking. Communities involved in Time Banking have reported many benefits, yet Andrew’s plan takes it one step further. He writes, “Now imagine a supercharged version of time banking backed by the US Government where in addition to providing social value, there’s real monetary value underlying it. This new currency—Digital Social Credits (DSCs)—would reward people for doing things that serve the community. The government would seed each market with an initial investment, but administrators would be local.”

Upon further thought, I can’t help but wonder if there would be a way to tie DSCs to a cryptocurrency model, where the blockchain is the heart of the technical application and the new DSC currency becomes the money of the future. That would take the concepts I proposed in my blog Blockchains Instead of Beggars to a whole new level.

As a techno-progressive, I’m totally in for Andrew Yang and look forward to working with him. I hope to join him in shaping the conversation going forward and encourage anyone who desires to live in a technologically advanced society to help get him to the debates. Inequality stands in the way of the future, but it doesn’t need to be that way. Supporting a candidate like Andrew Yang in the presidential primaries is key to opening up a dialogue about the future with the nation. It’s time for these ideas to become mainstream. If you’re interested in discovering more about Andrew Yang and his mission, visit his website https://www.yang2020.com/. 

Share his book with other progressives, donate to his campaign, and attend local events. If we can get him into the debates, we will have done something quite remarkable. I haven’t been this excited about a presidential primary in a long time. May 2020 be the year that America wakes up to the possibilities of Universal Basic Income.

Everyone deserves a Freedom Dividend. What will you do with yours?

Rebel Parenting—Raising Scientists and Artists in Our Homes

Let’s face it, science and the arts are under attack in America right now. Many have begun to portray science as a liberal conspiracy and view the arts as a liberal social experiment hell bent on ruining society with its loose morals. Recently, the Trump Administration released recommendations for major cuts to scientific research as well as the National Endowment of the Arts.

In a world where most blue collar jobs, and soon many white collar jobs, will never return due to automation and advancements in artificial intelligence, careers in science and the arts are some of the few that will be left for humans to do. Why then is America so determined to shoot itself in the foot and encourage both fields to perish?

For the most part it’s an ideology not unlike the one that ruled the Dark Ages. Art allows freedom of the mind and expression of one’s divinity, without the need of a church or organization. When participating in the arts, a person can find great spiritual fulfillment. Thus, the mind that creates is one that can’t be controlled with fear of the afterlife, because they live so fully in this life.

The same goes for science, which is the investigation of, “Why?” Scientists, like artists, see the world through curiosity and awe, and seek to use objective methods to explain why things work the way they do. Innovation begins in the realm of ideas. It’s said that Nikola Tesla would design and test every machine he ever invented in his mind first, before building it. Like a story or a painting, cures for disease or new machines are born within the imagination, and then through human will, become manifest.

And like art, those who study science are also hard to control. They question everything, and seek answers beyond yes or no. Thinkers are the neutralizers of the binaries, and thus a challenge to any system that seeks power through control.

Thus in these times of alternative facts and fake news, we need artists and scientists more than ever, and it’s no coincidence that funding for their programs is on the chopping block. This doesn’t bode well for our country, and I for one will not sit by and watch it happen.

There is one group of people who can combat this desire to squelch curiosity and awe: Parents. Yes, teachers play a crucial role, but many of them are beholden to the budget cuts that are coming down the line. Parents are still free to create homes where exploration, curiosity and the burning desire to ask why still exist. In our homes we can create spaces to encourage our children to become artists and scientists. This is not only a civic duty, but it is also to protect them, for this generation will need the ability to adapt and be creative in a world where robots perform most of the work humans are now paid to do. Art and scientific discovery will be the last bastions of human domain, and what parent wouldn’t want to prepare their child for such a future?

While the world around us seems to be in chaos, now is the time to dedicate ourselves to homes that create the thinkers of the future. I’ve raised two scientist/artists myself and while we’re not done, both are well on their way to entering careers in science and technology, while also acting and playing music. There are many things we can do as parents to encourage this, but here are some suggestions to get your own inspiration going.

1. Read your children fairy tales

Albert Einstein once said, “If you want your children to be intelligent, read them fairy tales. If you want them to be more intelligent, read them more fairy tales.” Since I’m a voracious reader, I wanted to share stories with my kids early on. We started in-utero, with my husband reading to me, “The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy” by Douglas Adams, while I was pregnant. While that’s not really a fairy tale in the purest sense, it did give both my boys the sense of humor they now carry, as well as their love of science fiction, I’m sure of it. When the eldest was born, I continued the habit by reading him “The Little Prince” while nursing. This solidified the ritual of reading to our children and soon after we got our hands on every fairy tale we could. And not the watered down Disney stuff, my kids were raised on the Brothers Grimm and know the true story of the Little Mermaid (spoiler, she’s not that nice). Essentially, reading fairy tales to children opens up their imaginations and allows them to think the unthinkable, which is the beginning of all innovation.

2. Throw out the TV and computer

Children need to be encouraged to have their own thoughts, and today this is harder than ever. TV, YouTube, the smartphone, all these things seek to program our minds. The more you let your child participate in being fed information rather than creating it, the more you dumb them down. This is fairly intuitive, but if you need facts to convince you that screens are not a child’s friend, then simply Google the effects of screen time on your child’s brain. Don’t worry if your kid gets bored because that’s number three!

3. Let your kid be bored

Don’t entertain them. Limit their after school activities. I know that seems counter-intuitive, don’t you need to have them in coding camp, art lessons and dance class by age 6 to be successful? No. Studies actually now show that the busier the childhood, the less motivated they are as students in high school and college. Better to let them be as children and give them space for unsupervised play. Fill the house with quality toys that encourage imagination: blocks, costumes, puppets, balls, jump ropes, items they can make obstacles courses with, dolls and craft/science supplies. Let them experiment. Let them take apart the broken toaster. Let them get dirty. Let them eat bugs. Let them be kids and let them be bored. When my sons asked me to entertain them I’d say, “That’s why there are two of you, now go play with each other.”

4. Let them play an instrument

You don’t have to start young, but don’t wait too long either. It’s worth the investment. Even if it only happens for a few years, it will encourage them to be more than just good at math and taking tests. And at the same time, it will make them better at math and taking tests.

5. Don’t give them the answer when they ask why

This is so hard, but very effective. When our kids ask why and then we tell them word for word all the details long before they’re intellectually capable, we break their imagination. Again, we fill it with facts, which are rare these days, I know, but young children need to be in awe. Let them figure it out. Instead of telling them, ask, why do you think it is? A young child will have all sorts of crazy answers, let them be. As they get older, they will ask again, and this time have more to say about it. Eventually, they come to find out the answer themselves, either through school, or through reading about it in a book, or hearing the answer in a conversation. Then when they ask why, the time has come to correct them if they have the wrong information, and discuss it further to encourage scientific dialogue. “Why?” is the most important question, especially now, so encourage it by asking them and teaching them to use their minds to create hypotheses, and then discussing those together until the correct answer is found.

Being a parent isn’t easy, but we are our children’s first teachers. Our homes shape society more than any vote we cast or organization we belong to. Within our homes we fashion the minds of the citizens that will inherit the earth. Lao Tzu wrote, “In family life, be present.” 

This then is the great work — raising philosopher scientists — which isn’t only important, it’s also a lot of fun.

Is Hacking an Act of War?

See that picture? It's me, eight years ago, holding a sign that reads, "Dear Barack, Thank you for all your hard work. You had me at Hello."

I’d been in love with Barack Obama, for years, since his election as an Illinois State Senator. His book, “Dreams from My Father,” spoke of a man who represented all the progressive values living within my then thirty-five year old heart. Yes, I know that to be a liberal is a dirty thing these days, but my progressive values are really very simple: that all humans have the right to live a meaningful life. This means they can find work that provides their most basic needs, healthcare to stay fit and well in the body, roads, heat, clean water and air, upon which to rest their dreams. The freedom for all, regardless of race, gender or creed, to pursue an education of the mind, spirit and soul. Bodily autonomy for women and the planet. And most of all, and end to war.

I don’t think this makes me insane, crazy or dirty, and in 2008, when I voted for Barack Obama to be our president, I thought that finally, for the first time in my adult life, there was a man who would carry those progressive dreams to the White House, and beyond.

Today, as he says goodbye and our first Twitter Troll president-elect gears up to take his place, I am heartbroken, for I was so wrong, so very wrong, about President Obama, and the world in which we live. There are so many ways in which a president can fail us, and he’s certainly not the first, but in my mind, the greatest failure is the increase in what I will call, “quiet” military engagement, namely in the form of drones and cyber warfare.

To be fair, neither of these things were invented by this administration, but the man ran on an anti-war platform. He was against the Iraq war and promised to end our military engagements overseas. Actually, he may have just said he’d bring our troops home, which he did for the most part, replacing them instead with drones and airstrikes that define any male over the age of eighteen a combatant, whether he’s carrying a gun or not. The war may have been started by Bush, but Obama took it to a whole new level. Last year alone, we dropped 26,171 bombs on the world!!!

Why? In our country, those on the right have mandated that NOT A SINGLE TAX DOLLAR go to funding abortions for the poor, because that’s killing God’s most vulnerable. 

Is that brown man-child, on the brink of his adulthood, running for his life as the drone crosses his village not vulnerable? Is it because he loves Allah instead of Jesus that he’s not human? Why is his death important to our national security? How does it make anyone safer? Why in the world should I have to fund that, if the ACA doesn’t have to fund birth control pills? Are we still fighting the crusades?

I do not pledge myself to such dogmas and will not surrender my intellect to a religion. I am a human, in awe of this mystery of life that I share with every living thing on the planet, from the creeks, to the oceans, to the majestic trees in my yard, to the birds of the air, to the neighbor across the street and her brand new baby, to my own family and my sons, and their friends, lovers, and colleagues, and yes, each and every person, regardless of skin color, gender, or faith. That we can create life in so many various ways, just like the nature around us, astounds me. There is science to explain a lot of it, and yet there are great questions unanswered, perhaps unanswerable. Why then, in the middle of this great miracle, do we feel the need to slaughter one another, and the living world around us?

We kill and maim in the name of our Gods, our country, our belief that the West is so damn special, we’re willing to wipe out a planet, most of our animal species and any other human who doesn’t live the way we think they should. To me, this is suicide, and as President Obama leaves office, I wonder, if he couldn’t end this, perhaps no one can. Perhaps, this is the way the story ends, we continue to commit suicide by bombing our brothers and sisters in the name of something most of us don’t even believe in and then, one day, the crazy one hits the button and it’s over.

It’s no coincidence then that at the end of our Nobel Peace Prize winning president’s reign, we see that he has been at war longer than any other president, he has dropped more bombs, and under his watch has increased our own cyber weapon arsenal while also launching the first cyber weapon on Iran, Stuxnet.

Okay, technically this was also started by Bush as a way to avoid engaging in combat with yet another nation state. Rather than bomb Iran’s nuclear facilities in Natanz, he opted to fund a project to figure out how to destroy the facility via computer networks. In 2007, Stuxnet officially launched and in 2010, was discovered and outed as its creators got fairly careless, or maybe desperate, with the propagation of the virus. If you want to read the whole story, I suggest picking up a copy of “Countdown to Zero Day,” by Kim Zetter.

This is relevant right now because as President Obama leaves office, the scandal of the president-elect and Russian hacking looms in every corner. Perhaps Trump won’t be sworn in? Perhaps we’ll be saved from the national embarrassment of such a man running our country? Perhaps those Russians have been convincing America to buy the Trump brand for five years? Perhaps they hacked our election?

The FBI claims they have proof that Russia did indeed work with Trump and hack the DNC servers. If this is true, Trump shouldn’t be president if he worked with them. If he didn't directly work with them, then he's one lucky dude and we all get to suffer him. 

But is hacking a political party server hacking an election? We need to ask this because it matters. Did Russia infect our election machines and change votes or voter registration? Or did they merely collect embarrassing data and share it with the media? There is a difference between the two, for the former is a direct tampering with the will of the people and the latter is merely giving the people information with which to make their choices. It's no different than what Super PACs do all the time. The citizens have the will to choose regardless of what they hear on TV. 

More important, is the hacking of the DNC server an act of war?

Before we go jumping to conclusions that our government would never tamper in an election, everyone needs to take a step back and investigate further. The USA has been hacking foreign nationals for almost a decade, and they hack us back. Any defect in Microsoft Windows is a defect for anyone to exploit. A backdoor in a Programmable Logic Circuit (PLC) that we can use, they can use better. Take Stuxnet, when all was said and done, actual centrifuges were destroyed. It was real physical destruction.

We now have troops mounting in Poland. This is because Russia supposedly hacked the DNC server and released the information, all of which was truthful, to the public and the public thought that the DNC was corrupt and didn’t vote for Hillary. Oh, and the annexation of Crimea by Russia (things are always more complicated than they first appear).

So we stand on the brink of yet another war. Again I ask, why?

“The Russians messed with our election.” Okay, but the USA physically destroyed Iran’s nuclear power plant. “But Iran shouldn’t have a nuclear bomb.” Okay, but was our attempt to take out their facility an act of war? The attack destroyed actual infrastructure.

When is a cyberattack an act of war? Isn’t hacking into a foreign national computer to spy considered espionage? Do we go to war over acts of espionage?

Most people don’t think about these sorts of things, but I do. Yes, cyberattacks can be an act of war. They can also be acts of surveillance, spying and yes a means to influence an election. But when do we consider it a first strike?

If we go to war with Russia over this, we set a new precedence. We agree that hacking into a computer is an act of war and worthy of death and retaliation on a nation’s citizens. Putin certainly won’t get hurt in the battle, but those on the border with Poland will. And if this is an act of war, then Stuxnet was certainly war against Iran, and they didn’t retaliate against us, nor Israel, who also worked on the project.

But then again, Iran doesn’t have a nuclear bomb, so I guess that makes them safe to bully via cyberattack all we want--until they finally enrich that uranium.

Russia has more than one nuclear bomb, and a military industrial complex that still rivals ours. And yes, they also stockpile cyberwarfare bombs, called malware. Just like us.

So here we are, and I feel a sense of disbelief. Eight years ago I thought the world had changed, that we were going to start a new era. Instead we’re fighting internally about whether or not a foreign nation affected our election by hacking our computers and lining up troops along their border, all the while dropping tens of thousands of bombs on their Middle Eastern neighbors and hacking the shit out of their systems on a daily basis.

It hurts, because I can see the possibilities of alternative narratives all around me. Technologies that will never come to pass, stories never told. Ways of life and cures beyond our wildest imaginations. But we can’t get there if we continue to kill and kill and kill. That future belongs to humans who have figured out the most basic thing…how to value the miracle of all life over the things we create.

Until then, we will remain here, in the space between.

Moving Past the 2016 Election and into the FUTURE...

I voted today and in spite of all the cynicism of my fellow citizens, I enjoyed it. I love going to my local polling place. I live in the mountains and have the luxury of knowing the people who work there, bumping into neighbors and never, ever having to wait in line. We may be the middle of nowhere, but our polling place rocks. Every vote of mine felt good, even the presidency. Those of you who follow my blog know I’m pro third party, so yes, I voted my conscience today, but more over I also got to vote for a US Senator, US Congressperson, State Assembly and TONS of ballot measures (I live in Cali—we had over 17 propositions!)

Voting is always enjoyable. It’s only my attachment to what others choose to do with their votes that cause any pain. So today I’m doing something different—rather than stress about who YOU voted for, I’m celebrating my votes, because they’re mine and I have that freedom.

Truth is, this has been a horrible election not only because our politics are broken, but so is our press. The anxiety that has been drummed up by the media is in my opinion, reaching a critical mass. It’s also incredibly dangerous. What are they thinking? In a world of Twitter and FB, it has never been easier to get people angry and afraid. This makes us incredibly vulnerable as a group. It also makes it very clear that our democracy is in danger. We no longer have a free press, instead we have a fake press, where every FB article needs to be verified and checked. I’ve been blogging now for three years and I use FB to gather articles both for research and to share with my followers. This used to be easier, but during this past election cycle something crucial has become very clear—the amount of fake news websites has grown dramatically. So have the fake memes. Anyone can Photoshop a quote over a picture and most people don’t cross reference. Finding the truth in a pile of lies is only getting harder, and to me this is a huge threat to our democracy.

We can’t get around this without censorship and that’s not going to solve the problem. There are however some deeper changes that we can begin to demand in order to protect ourselves from the predatory media and the politicians whom it serves.

1)      Overturn Citizen’s United.

Get the money out of politics and half these fake news websites that have popped up this cycle will be unfunded. They’re mouthpieces for SuperPACs and they need to go.

2)      Build the Third Party movement.

We need new parties focused on the environment, workers and technology. I’ve begged Libertarians and Progressives to step up and take the lead here (See this blog and this one) and it’s still up to us. We can no longer afford to spend another election cycle arguing about abortion, gays and guns. Religion must be removed from politics and only the Libertarians can force the GOP’s hand. We can’t waste our time anymore focusing on private sexual choices. Let women own their bodies, let people sleep with whomever they want and let families organize themselves on their own beliefs. The time has come to instead address advanced technology and how it affects the economy, environment, infrastructure and our educational system. We must also reduce the military presence overseas. Democrats, you’re not off the hook here. I see little or nothing in the Democratic Party Platform that solves the climate crisis, technological unemployment, genetic advancements, or reducing the military. Both Red and Blue have made it clear they can only focus on guns, abortion and gays in order to manipulate our fears to get us to the ballot box, thus the time has come for new parties to step up and be the adults at this very important time in history.

3)      Streamline the Primaries

We’d take the power from the media if only our election cycle were shortened. Other first world countries can manage this, why can’t we? All parties should follow the same rules and cut the cycle down to 8 weeks for the primaries and 8 weeks for the general election. Here’s an example proposal: No one can declare or promote themselves as a candidate until March of the election year. Every party takes 8 weeks to hold debates, media events, etc and then all voting must take place at the end of May and all on the same day. Conventions can be held in June, each party can have their own week and spotlight in the media. And then the General Election cycle can begin. Why not? Only the media wins in the current situation, where the process often starts 2 years in advance. In an age of social media and the internet, all the current primary system does is sow the seeds of hate, distrust and partisanship. It’s time to stop the nonsense.

4)      Allow Third Party candidates at the General Debates

If we can handle 13+ people on the stage during the GOP Primary season, we can have four candidates, or more, in the general election debates. I realize we don’t want to crowd the national stage with untested candidates at this point in the election, but that’s what the primaries are for. Any candidate who has gone through an official primary and come out the nominee for their party should be allowed to debate. If we do number 3 above, then the process is even easier.

5)      Remove the Electoral College and institute run-off voting.

This would allow your second choice to matter and remove the issue of the “wasted third party vote.” Again, many other first world countries can handle this, and so can we. For a great tutorial on run-off voting and how it works, see here.

It’s obvious that our system for electing officials needs an overhaul. The time is now, as we’re developing new technologies in communications that are disrupting the media. Our electoral system needs to meet us in this new world of instant news and information sharing.

After today let’s not argue about who is president. It’s already old news. Instead, let’s join forces and get involved in changing the system. Together, we can do it.

Learning From Nature to Shape the Future

At a Transhumanist conference in the Bay Area, one of the attendees stopped by to chat with me. During the conversation, he noted that my biography was very strange.

          “Spinning, raising goats and chickens, homesteading, these things don’t sound very Transhumanist or futuristic to me," he said.

          “Understanding nature and the way it works is the most powerful way a Transhumanist can shape the future,” I replied.

I then went on to explain that while we can learn a lot from our technology, in reality, most technology directly interacts with nature and by understanding the way the world works, we can become better designers and inventors. We humans are known to try and force our hand upon nature in an attempt to bring order to what appears to be chaos in our minds, but this impulse isn’t logical. This way of thinking is what leads a scientist to invent plastic bags without ever understanding the environmental impact they would eventually have on our marine life. Thinking that we’re above nature and don’t need to understand it, gives us the false sense that we know better, yet when the hurricanes come and destroy the levees, we’re left wondering why.

I took up my homesteading hobbies as a direct compliment to my technical education. I knew how a radio system worked, but I didn’t fully understand how life itself worked. Learning how to knit a sweater from animal to end product taught me so much—how goats behave, what they need to eat, how to shear them, card the fiber, spin it using a rather elegant, yet ancient technology, and finally knit it. By the end I truly understood why we invented the machines we did to make this process so much easier. Spending time with nature in this case gave me a fuller appreciation of our technology.

By spending time in nature and learning to do things for ourselves, we learn the necessity behind the invention and we grasp and appreciate our technology in entirely new ways.

Yet there’s another reason to become intimate with nature—it can show us solutions to the problems we’re trying to solve. Nature has certain cycles and systems within it that we as humans can mimic. After all, we are a part of nature ourselves.

Some people believe nature is chaos. Others believe its order. I’m of the camp that nature fluctuates between the two. There is chaos and then it tends to order. Then back to chaos. Then back to order. Take a bee hive. When it swarms, the bees go flying out of the hive in a messy bunch, loudly buzzing and scaring most humans away. They flood the sky in complete chaos. And then, something amazing happens as they begin to swirl around one another and what was once frantic becomes an organized funnel, similar to a tornado, as they follow their queen to a tree and form a perfect ball around her. Then they wait, as quiet as can be, until their scouts find a home and they fly off once more.

Chaos to order. Order to chaos.

We fear change and this is often what holds us back technologically. Our imaginations are capable of seeing what needs to be done, what new technology or process could be developed, and how we can bring solutions to the world’s biggest problems. But we fear change and chaos so much, we often march at a snail’s pace when it comes to implementing our big changes. Yet we managed the agricultural revolution and then the industrial revolution.  We can navigate change as a group.

We’re now entering the technological revolution. At the beginning of each of these stages, we live in chaos. Roles, work, family structure, governments, everything is in play. The type of leaders needed to bring about the true information age are very different than the leaders we’ve had. Yet we keep electing people with a 19^th century mindset because we fear the change that’s happening around us. Why the 19^th century? Because that’s when the industrial revolution truly hit its high point. Society had fully integrated the factory based economy and life was good. But guess what, like nature, we’ve moved past that stage.

Society now is falling apart precisely because it must in order to integrate the information age economy. Until we get there, we’ll experience pain. But when we’ve made the change, things will settle into order and a whole new way of living will become natural to us.

This is what living in nature has taught me—that it’s useless to turn away from chaos. It’s going to happen, structures must break down. Yet there’s the promise of order right around the corner. Everything in nature works this way. The redwood was once a little seed that underwent extreme chaos to form a root and eventually become a tree. Yet for two thousand years after that chaotic event, the redwood is still standing in an orderly, peaceful manner.

We will transition to the information age and with it will come many new opportunities. The changes on the way won’t be easy, and many will go kicking and screaming. However there’s a more logical approach—accept the change that is part of evolution, imagine solutions, technologies and opportunities, and turn to nature to show the way to order once more.

Universal Basic Income—The Foundation of a Technically Advanced Society, PART TWO

My post last week about UBI had over 1,000 hits in just a few days! In addition, it was shared across the internet, including the Basic Income Reddit thread. Several readers reached out to me, both for and (a few) against the concept. These interactions led me to write about the idea once more, this time focusing on some key items that came up: demographics, feasibility and housing.

On the demographics front, I found that most of the big supporters of UBI are millennials and younger. This isn’t surprising, as they have the most to lose if we do nothing about the rising costs of being alive in the US, and the least to lose if we do change our economic policies from scarcity to abundance.  Millennials have come of age in a terrible job market combined with huge student debt. Many of them live at home, because they lack the basic income needed to launch an adult life.  Their earnings-to-debt ratios define them as a group. They will also be the ones to watch the job market automate completely—more than 40% of them will be replaced by robots before the age of retirement. Our future depends on this group of individuals, yet they need more than a lucky break if they’re going to enter their mid-life as secure adults. It’s no wonder that they support UBI, regardless of political background. From conservatives to liberals, our twenty-somethings are searching for new ways to build the world they’ll inherit. Universal Basic Income, combined with technology, is not simply appealing, but necessary.

Yet how feasible is UBI? Readers on Reddit pointed out that my suggested $30K per US adult would be twice our current budget! Yes, you’re correct. I purposefully did NOT look at the current economic system when coming up with that number. Instead, I looked at how much a person would need to afford shelter, food and health care, in the majority of market spaces in the US. Why would I do this? Because we can never evolve out of our situation if we remain focused on CAN’T. We must use our imaginations and find a way to overcome it. So I started with what we need, and from there we shall create a world where our needs are met.

The US Government poverty guideline for a single household for 2015 is $11,770. This guideline is used for determining whether or not you qualify for SNAP, welfare, Head Start and a host of other programs. The point of UBI is to rid ourselves of having to qualify or prove that we lack our basic needs. Instead, our needs are covered and we can turn our efforts towards bettering our lives beyond that, if we so choose.

Some recommended a UBI of $12K, with an increase of $4K a year per child, but that means you still need government help to get that roof over your head and see the doctor, and eat, as well as leaving us in the strange situation where having a ton of kids in order to increase your income is desirable. Yes, $30K is twice that, but actually it turns out I wasn’t far off. Numbeo.com puts the minimum monthly income to survive in the US at $2,642.30, or $31704, after taxes. **note this actually includes clothing, utilities, transportation, etc.**

Thus, if this is what’s needed, then the next step is to see how to implement it. It’s obvious that currently we don’t collect enough money to redistribute it in this way.  In order for us to truly take care of one another, we need a new story about money. The entire economic system may need an overhaul, and this is what scares most people.

It’s not just the 1% who fear the overhaul. It’s anyone who owns a home, pension plan or 401K. If we’re going to make UBI possible, it will require rethinking housing, land ownership, and money.

Approximately 30% of our income each month goes towards paying for housing. Land ownership has made this the most volatile of costs, for as the housing market rises and falls, so do rents and the cost of living, making it very difficult for wages to keep up. While health care and food costs do vary from state to state, it’s housing that really drives the cost of living in any area. For example, the minimum hourly wage needed to afford a two-bedroom apartment in California is $26.02, but in Illinois the amount is $16.78. The reasons for the inflation are many, however most people find that they can’t make enough, even in Illinois, to afford shelter. UBI would help close this gap and make housing a given, rather than the most stressful part of paying the bills.

In lieu of UBI, there are movements to create affordable housing in the US. Tiny Home projects, like the Emerald Village, aim to help get low income folks into a home. This idea really isn’t new, the housing projects of the 70’s and 80’s attempted to do just this. Yet many low income housing projects turned into high-crime high-rises, rather than clean, safe housing. There are many reasons for this, but at its heart is the land ownership issue—how can the government create affordable housing for the struggling yet still guarantee that the housing market doesn’t tank? UBI helps in that the government stays out of the housing market and supply and demand take over. Tiny, affordable houses can be purchased by those who desire them, and McMansions can still spring up right next door.

The Venus Project also tries to overcome these issues by combining technology with the idea of inexpensive, affordable, sustainable communities in order to grant shelter, food and health care to all.  Once again, the story of money must change in order for these ideas to be liberated.

Liberation from the story of money is what we really seek. Since land ownership began, humanity has fallen into to classes--land lords and serfs. We’ve used our brilliant minds to create a system where some thrive while most barely get by. It surprises me that we haven’t moved on yet, that still so many suffer. What is the point of consciousness, if not to figure out the puzzle of abundance? Why chain ourselves to scarcity, when it just isn’t necessary?

In their book, Abundance: The Future is Better Than You Think, authors Peter Diamandis and Steven Kotler focus the bottom billion people—our brothers and sisters in the Third World who live on less than $2 a day. Ironically, with advances is technology, these bottom billion are now considered the rising billion. They aren’t mired in the world of Wall Street finance, minimum wage wars and debt, like the working poor of America. Instead, they barely get by at all. Yet in this huge poverty vacuum, there is space for 3D printed houses, solar powered electricity, waterless toilets, Lab-On-A-Chip medical technology and cheap smartphones. Combined with microfinance and technophilanthropy, the bottom billion might just have a fighting chance.

Thus it seems that the technical advancement of the Third World will eventually grant them a guaranteed basic income. The two really do go hand-in-hand.

Wouldn’t it be ironic if America becomes the nation left behind?

Universal Basic Income—The Foundation of a Technically Advanced Society

With the announcements that Hillary Clinton, Ted Cruz and Mark Rubio are running in the 2016 Presidential Primaries, it appears election season is well underway. As usual, many topics will be discussed, but there are many other important policies that will be left untouched. The scripted, binary world of American Politics leaves out much of importance during its process, preferring instead to emphasize fear tactics as a means of garnering votes.

One of the more important issues on the table for me is Universal Basic Income. This is not welfare, or assistance, or social security. This is a guarantee that every single human being in our society has shelter, food and health care. UBI is a call to finally use our technology to provide the most basic needs to all our citizens.

It isn’t altruism that drives me to the viewpoint that human life is important enough to protect. It’s pragmatism, and I believe that futurists need to consider UBI as an important step to achieving a more prosperous and technologically advanced society.

Welfare Isn’t Only For the Poor

The system of welfare, social security and other social support systems that we currently employ are based on the desire for those who have, to lord over those who don’t. Layers upon layers of administration exists for the sole purpose of deciding who is worthy of support, who is actually needy enough, and who can be given help. Each year we heap on more requirements, the most recent being restrictions on buying steak and salmon with food stamps. This behavior is inherently childish. It supposes that some of us are better than others. 

Here’s a very simple suggestion: what if we got rid of EVERY safety net, from SNAP to Social Security to Unemployment, and pooled that money together to create a guaranteed minimum income of $30,000 to be paid to every living American, eighteen and older. In addition, we cut our military spending and add that money to the pool as well.

Now many will say, $30K!!! That’s outrageous. But remember, one war in Iraq has cost us TRILLIONS, so please don’t say we don’t have enough money. In addition, all the administrative costs of lording over the current assistance programs, i.e. deciding who is worthy of help, go away. Now there are only two qualifications for receiving assistance: Are you alive? Are you over 18? Done.

This is for everyone. Hillary’s grandchildren will get $30K a year as well as the immigrant’s child. ALL are worthy of welfare, not just the poor or elderly. All of us are worthy of food, shelter and health care. And this $30K will cover that, if you’re frugal.

Look up the word, welfare, in the thesaurus and see the many synonyms: well-being, abundance, euphoria, contentment, thriving. Who doesn’t deserve this?

Universal Basic Income Allows Freedom

So now, at 18, you get $30K a year, for the rest of your life. The government has no say in how you spend it, or what you do with it. However, $30K will not get you a Tesla, or an apartment in Silicon Valley, or NYC. Here’s where the freedom lies; Capitalism still exists. You want to live a more opulent life, then use the money to go to college and become a software engineer, or doctor, or financial wizard. There’s no stopping you. Earn as much as you want, continue with business as usual. This isn’t socialism, this isn’t a mandatory maximum wage, rather it’s a guarantee. The sky’s the limit. Go be Elon Musk if you want. Or drop out of college and invent the next big thing. More power to you. With everyone now fed and sheltered, the market place demand for your product has grown.

UBI would also open the door to tax reform and simplification. The first $30K earned each year is NOT taxed, regardless of your total income or net worth. Anything you make above that, whether in wages or investments, is taxed at a simple rate across the board. Consumption taxes on luxury goods can also be considered.

Most importantly for futurists: UBI will allow technological advancement. When a farmer is guaranteed a basic income to pay her bills, she might be more willing to try a new sort of crop and take the economic hit a few years. Or when fast-food workers are replaced by robots, they can still thrive while figuring out their next step. Experts suggest that within 20 years, robots will replace 40% of our jobs. (Yes, each of the highlighted words in that sentence link to an article about the robot revolution that’s coming.) This is great for efficiency and technology, but not for humans if we don’t have any way of making an income. This means that many industries will AVOID technical advancement, rather than embrace it, because of the fear of losing their jobs and their livelihood. Take that risk away and watch the world change from one where many go hungry to one of abundance and health.

What Would You Do?

Many people fear that giving money away to others will support those “bad” people, like stoners, unwed mothers, and immigrants (Their words, not mine.) I hear this argument all the time. To me, UBI is about supporting humanity, plain and simple. We’ve been on this abundant planet long enough, the time has come to make it a good, safe and clean home for everyone. A guaranteed minimum income frees us from the fear of failure, and gives all of us a chance to start again, over and over, throughout our lives. Our tit-for-tat way of dealing with one another is only getting in our way and slowing us down.

Rather than fear what others would do with the money, let me ask you this, what would YOU do with a guaranteed minimum income of $30K a year?  Would you:

-          Raise a child?

-          Care for an elderly relative?

-          Start a new business?

-          Go to college?

-          Get your PhD?

-          Volunteer?

-          Paint beautiful scenes on hospital walls?

-          Write that screenplay?

-          Direct that documentary?

-          Leave your abusive spouse?

-          Tutor children in math?

-          Retire and raise goats?

-          Live simply in a tiny home?

-          Form a band?

-          Invent new technologies?

-          Work in the Open Source Movement?

-          Run for political office?

There are approximately 244,673,000 adults in the US, which means that this question really over two million answers, for each of us has our own desires, needs and wants.

While the Democrats and Republicans are sure to leave UBI out of their discussions, there are many third-party initiatives that include it as important. The Green Party is one. In his recent article, Transhumanist Party founder and first presidential candidate, Zoltan Istvan, mentions many futurist parties that include some form of UBI in their platform. They have to, for their futuristic goals are held hostage until we can change our economic policies from scarcity to abundance thinking. This is the thinking that made Silicon Valley. UBI completes the promise. Futurists looking to learn more about UBI should read Marshall Brain’s write up in IEET.

Lastly, dear Libertarians, you too can find UBI as part of the freedom you desire. Matt Zwolinski’s article on Cato Unbound is an excellent source for actual numbers and the effectiveness of a guaranteed basic income. Check it out and start thinking about what you would do with $30K a year.

I Voted Today: Big Fucking Deal

It’s Election Day in good ol’ America. Yippee. Hooray. And yes, I voted, but not because I felt strongly about any one candidate or proposition on the ballot. It was my friend Greg Zerkis’ Facebook status that got me to drag my ass into the polling station.

He wrote, “If you fail to vote then you are failing democracy. If you don't like the options, run for office.”

Well, thanks a lot Greg. Way to guilt trip me. Obviously there are a million reasons why I can’t run for office—I’ve smoked marijuana and enjoyed it, I have no religious affiliation, I have two children so I can be easily threatened by dark operatives if necessary, I’m not afraid to drop the F-Bomb, I don't think sex is dirty and support alternative lifestyles to traditional marriage, I have no political connections, I can’t abide red tape, partisan nonsense, or illogical ideologies even the slightest bit without wanting to strangle someone and most of all, NONE of the parties on the ballot represent my views.

That’s right, NONE of them. I went into the booth today and was disappointed to see only two choices for each office—Democrat or Republican. Really? That’s the best we can do? Vanilla or chocolate? Not a single Independent, Green or Libertarian. Hell, not even a Peace and Unity party candidate. It was bland and dismal. The same names, the same faces. To make matters worse, I’ve watched enough Abby Martin, Jon Stewart, Bill Moyers and even Fox News to know that Democrats and Republicans aren’t really different. Sure, their sound bytes during elections are crafted by their handlers in order to make us believe we have a choice, but in the issues that really matter at this juncture in time, like the military industrial complex, citizen rights, the environment, education and campaign finance, they’re pretty much on the same page.

So I went into the voting booth, which was really just a shaky table with blinders on either side, and cast my votes almost randomly. Well not entirely, I’d investigated the propositions before hand. I left the polling place, holding my “I Voted!” sticker wondering, “If none of the parties really represent my truest values as a human being, what party platform would?”

Dare I ask myself such a question? Yes, I dare, and as I drove home surrounded by redwoods and Santa Cruz Mountain beauty, what I need from my leaders became crystal clear. In an attempt to both celebrate this glorious day that represents all that’s beautiful in democracy, I’ve taken the time to write them down. So Greg, not only did you get me to vote, you also inspired this week’s blog.

A political party that I could get behind with all my heart and mind would have the following platform:

1.    Human and planetary health and wellness are the cornerstones of our strength as a nation.

2.    Investments in technology, engineering and science will create the tools necessary to implement a nation of engaged, vital human beings.

3.    Investments in the arts support our quest for a technically advanced society, for we recognize that art is the vehicle for true innovation and creativity.

4.    The education of every person is guaranteed and educators are supported and rewarded for their work.

5.    Money is a story we have all agreed upon, and we’re willing to change that story for the good of all, regardless of profit margins or long dead economic theories.

6.    Local governments are trusted and empowered to carry out 1-5 to the best of their abilities, for they will have intimate knowledge and understanding of what the people of any given region need to thrive.

Each of these ideas can be worked into more details, but I think this covers what I want from my government. If human and planetary health were the most important goals of our society, we could begin to tackle homelessness, hunger, poverty, environmental destruction, pollution, agriculture, animal husbandry, illness, health care, child care and elder care, to name a few. With the health of every person and the planet guiding our policies, rather than profit or money, the nation would be different. I put it first because then we’d know how to invest in technologies that enable free and clean energy, affordable health care for all, and a chance at a meaningful life. Joblessness and debt would eventually be addressed as well, because we’d be willing to invest in the arts, teachers and education, creating an extraordinary workforce capable of inventing and seeing the solutions of the future.

And most importantly, if we had the courage to rethink the story of our money, and trust to let it go and rewrite a new, more egalitarian and modern version of currency, we’d see local and crypto currencies flourish, and even de-growth policies would be allowed because the stock market and quarterly profits would be declared nonsense, illogical and even dangerous on a finite planet with a growing population.

Lastly, why emphasize local governments? Because I believe that within the community of neighbors, we know how best to use technology, education and currencies to take advantage of our specific location on the planet. The internet has made us global, and that’s a good thing—by combining open sourced technology at a global level with educational, environmental, and humanitarian policies at the local level, we can move towards a place where the terroir of humanity is kept alive and thriving, rather than a complete standardization of what it means to be human. Thus the dance of technology and individualism can be kept alive, rather than one forcing it’s hand against the other.

If these are my values, then what political party choices do I have? I think a blend of The Venus Project, the Green Party, the Libertarian Party and the Transhumanist Party, recently formed by Bay Area local, Zoltan Istvan. I know, I should just pick one, but each individually seems lacking. If I ever ran for office, I'd need a platform founded on the six basic sentiments I’ve listed above. What would I call it? I have no idea.

What I do know is that all of the Third Parties deserve our time and attention, for the bi-partisanship of Washington DC has failed us miserably. Perhaps as some of these independent movements gain steam, I’ll be drawn to support one of them whole-heartedly. Until then, I’ll just keep dreaming.