I'm in San Francisco California with a large group of people here
who are really into the idea of basic income
which the concept that everybody should be given enough money every month to provide for basic human necessities
And my project is to interrupt them and ask them about it.
Can I get you for a minute?
One of the main reasons for basic income is that our economic system is messed up.
It sucks wealth to the very top so that as the economy grows
the rich get richer but everybody else doesn't.
The campaign for basic income is not a strategy for dealing with poverty,
It is the abolition of poverty.
All people in the world have value and they should be recognized for the value that they provide. Not go hungry.
Shouldn't everybody have to work to earn money though?
Does your mom work if she stayed home and took care of you?
Your life will be drastically different your mom wasn't giving away that free work.
There's a lot of creative potential in the world and a lot of it is spent on things that people don't really care about.
Things that bring them money in order to subsist.
And so with the basic income people can work on creative endeavors that are less monetizeable.
Like being an artist or a musician.
When kids are little we tell them all that they can be anything they want to be when they grow up
But that's actually a lie.
Because you can only be what you want to be if you have the money to support yourself
Basic Income turns that lie into a truth because it gives people a way to support themselves until they can be what it is that they want to be.
To me basic income is about empowering everybody to be in control of their destiny.
The notion of freedom.
It's something that's especially valued in America. And people get really riled up about it.
But when you look at most people's lives, there actually isn't freedom in their work.
I think you need the freedom to say no.
And you don't have this freedom of saying no today because everyone needs to work to make a living.
And I think everybody should be able to make a living because they're human beings.
That's why we need a basic income.
Because it creates the freedom, the real freedom, that enables you to say no.
Having a job is important but really at the foundation of having a job is having a role in society.
What we should do is work of course and contribute to society. But in a way we find meaningful.
I support Basic Income to ensure a basic level of economic stability to all people.
People make better decisions about how to use their money somebody who doesn't even know them like some government entities.
Studies have shown now the most effective way to get people out of poverty is just give people money.
Some people might not get food stamps.
Some people might need to pay for their education. Maybe a new start up or a business.
We need to figure out solutions to climate change
take a really hard look at racism, police brutality, violence in our society
I think in order to solve these problems we need the energy of all the people
who are currently trapped in jobs where they're not producing anything except for profit.
Basic income can liberate us from the obsession that activity is a good in and of itself as long as it generates money.
I don't think that's true. And I think it's obvious to everybody that it's not true.
Why basic income?
Because I wanna world that works for everybody.
I support the basic income because it would be the first step towards system change.
So people would not leave in a state of constant fearing losing their jobs, losing their security
There's this constant fear and really evident throughout the workplace
that if I don't send an email to my boss at three in the morning
they're going to think that I'm slacking off
it uses so much energy to hold on to that amount of fear
that when it comes to trying to do something positive there's no time.
People say oh I don't have the time. I have to earn my money.
I have to deal with my daily problems.
But when they have their basic needs covered with basic income, this argument doesn't count anymore.
Because now they have the time if they want.
Basic income enables democracy.
In a democracy you need to be able to participate.
In governance, discussion, just getting involved.
And you can only do that to the extent that you have the time in the resources to do so.
Technology is changing our world faster than ever.
On one hand it's making our processes more efficient.
On the other hand its resulting in unemployment and instability in people's lives.
As we use technology to automate work that humans are doing, every human should feel some of that benefit.
Some of that economic freedom.
Maybe having a future where people don't have to work 40 hours a week.
We need to change our mentality.
It's not all about constantly working a job.
It's about sharing prosperity that we're creating.
And shifting towards a society that really supports an automated future.
So we need some system that's built into our economy.
So that automatically, as the tide rises, all boats, not just the yachts---all boats, rise with it.
The future of work with the automation will come.
And it will not support the people by itself.
If the people that own the automation just receive all the rewards of it,
there's no way that society could never keep up with that.
Computerization is going to hollow out the middle income of America.
This means that all jobs that are routine will be computerized or robots will be deployed to do these jobs.
It's interesting being here with all the talk about robots.
But I think we should be doing this with or without robots.
We have an abundance and it's just morally unacceptable
that we now have enough stuff but are not distributing it to everyone and their basic needs are met
I live in San Francisco where there are 6,500 homeless people
and that should not be happening in a city of such immense incredible wealth.
And one of the ways to end that is to provide some amount of power to people have no power at this moment
People who are squeezed. And can be taken advantage of because they are squeezed.
A lot of people will reject basic income because they think no one should get something for nothing right?
I would just say why not.
If we're going to increase happiness. If we're going to increase social stability.
I love the concept of basic income because they make sure that everybody has a place to start.
We live in a time here in the US where we are so politically and ideologically divided
that we can't get anything done. We can't agree on anything.
well I believe a universal basic income is not left or right. It's forward.
This is something that we can all agree upon.
Everyone from Milton Friedman to MLK agrees it's the right thing to do i.
In Milton Friedman's case it's the just thing to do in that it decreases the complexity of government.
Can cut bureaucracy.
And from MLK's perspective, it's the way to end the cycle of poverty and economic injustice.
This is a simple and in terms of administration...quite cheap cost effective way to dramatically reduce poverty.
The benefits from that would be enormous.
Basic income allows us to stop competing with each other and start co-operating with each other.
With a diminished sense of competition and a greater sense of like we're all in this together and we're all looking out for each other
people would be able to contribute a lot more in terms of community.
It just would I think create more compassion and less inequality.
We have decided that people have a right not to be property.
And we can decide that people have a right not to live in poverty.
The last person to be asked. This is big.
So what's one thing about basic income that probably hasn't been touched on yet?
I think that it's achievable.
It's not like a feature of futurism.
It's a very real world achievable goal.
I'd like to thank everybody who helped me out on this video and everybody who organized the basic income createathon event.
I had a great time. And at the event I was asked why do I support a basic income.
And I'll give you ten reasons over there.
Some work reasons up there.
And those robots scare me too. I talk about it over here.
And I'll include a link below that has links to all the other projects that were created just in that weekend. 24 hour films style.
Please like and share in it he like Patreon, please check me out there too.
Thanks for watching.