What Would You Do If You Didn't Have To Work?

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I've been following Scott Santens on Twitter for a while now and he's a great educator in the why's and how's of Basic Income. Basic Income has been one of my key political interests ever since I heard of the Mincome project in Alberta, and I've just read an article on Scott that starts of with, “If you give a man a fish, he eats for a day. If you teach a man to fish, he eats for life.” What Santens wants to know is this: “If you build a robot to fish, do all men starve, or do all men eat?”

That's a really important question isn't it. These days more and more things are getting automated. We're even going to have self-driving big rigs soon. Not only does this mean cheaper goods, it also means less taxes to pay highway patrol and less fuel burned as the trucks will not need to find a parking lot for the night. All this is awesome and the only reason it isn't getting funded stronger and therefore produced faster is because people are scared. 

Sure they might say they're scared of dying when the trucks crash, but the data shows the trucks are safer than human drivers. I think the naysayers are scared of death, but at the much slower and more painful hand of homelessness and starvation.

Our current system doesn't do enough to support those who cannot support themselves. And even those who can manage, shouldn't have to die early from over work and over stress. There is a better way.

Check out this article on why we should support basic income. It is U.S. focused but it answers most if not all of the common questions and concerns.

What would you do if you didn't have to work for food and shelter? What could you accomplish with a guaranteed, no strings attached, $1000 every month?