Hey Dan here and this video is going to be a little different than normal
because we're going to talk about politics. Now if you're a fan of the
channel you know my mission here is to help you become the best version of
yourself all while creating the most awesome life possible for you and those
you love it's a bit of a mouthful, right? So usually I'm not talking about
politics in fact I avoid it at all costs but I did want to talk about universal
basic income because I think it's a really interesting concept. I was
listening to a podcast the other day with an American presidential candidate
Andrew Yang and he really is focused on universal basic income and this concept
if it's new to you is essentially that within a country - or I suppose one day it
could be the world - everybody gets a certain amount of money every month the
proposed amount I think he was talking about is a thousand dollars a month
some countries have already been experimenting with this including I
think a city in my home country of Canada was experimenting with it so
different places give different amounts but the whole concept is you get that
money no matter what so if you were on social benefits before you'd get the
money instead of that but if you're working you still get that money and one
of the reasons this is coming up more and more now is because of automation
there's going to be less jobs at least that's what we keep hearing right
originally when computers came out everyone said people will work less
because the computers will do everything and now people work longer hours than
ever so well I am a little resistant to that just looking at the trends
throughout history there's definitely a strong likelihood that with automation a
lot of jobs are going to go away and I'm actually going to film another video on
that in terms of the sorts of businesses and jobs that I think are safest in
terms of automation and outsourcing to lower-cost countries and the sorts of
jobs and careers that you should probably avoid at this point in history
so back to universal basic income the concept is that if people don't have
jobs there's going to be an issue and in theory with robots we shouldn't all need
to work nearly as much right sort of like some countries where they have a
lot of oil the citizens just get free things because they're like we all own
this land I mean that's kind of the concept of a government is collectively
you some way you benefit from the country
you're in it kind of belongs to everyone and so that's part of the concept of
universal basic income is like this country is doing really well you're all
getting something for it and do with it what you will right so what are the
first things that comes up with the universal basic income is the concept of
motivation is if you just give people money are they gonna sit around and play
xbox until they die of starvation because they forget to eat or like what
would happen with people's motivation this is where I'm really interested in
it is thinking about the motivation concept and I want you in the comments
below to let me know what you think about this you might even want to pause
it now and let me know what you think before you hear what I think about it.
The way I've heard people talk about this is if someone is getting their
basic needs met so in the case of the United States they were saying a
thousand dollars right that will vary by country it's a fairly low income for the
United States but your basic rent could be paid depending on where you're living
and your basic expenses are covered so the way a lot of people were making this
out is if that's paid people will have less motivation to work why would you go
I heard someone say why would you go and work for $800 a month when you're
already getting $1,000 free it just you'd lose your motivation that didn't
make sense to me because I think of when I was a kid right I had my basic bills
covered basically being a kid is like universal basic income you don't have to
pay rent your basic food is covered like your living expenses would be covered
and I had a paper route from the age of 10 like the mid the day I could get a
paper route I got one then I got a second one then I did babysitting then I
did all these little businesses and what did I do with that money I bought a Sega
Genesis I bought Warhammer if anyone knows what Warhammer is - shut out - and I
spend it on all sorts of things now probably I should have saved it but I
bought fun things and in a way if everyone had universal basic income all
the extra money people would earn on sort of the lower income level would be
disposable income I think that's a lot more motivating if I had to go to work
40 hours a week just to pay my bills just to pay for my food I probably be
more likely to just say I'm not gonna work at all I'm just gonna go like live
on a beach or in a forest somewhere or something but if
every dollar you're earning is going towards like trips or buying stuff you
like or going out with your friends if anything wouldn't you have more
motivation to get a job or to work harder or do something else now I know
that for some people and in some stages of life if your basic needs are met you
lose a lot of motivation I've definitely been this way before where I got used at
a certain point in my life where I was so broke I got used to just needing
money to survive and then when my income got past that point sort of lost some
motivation temporarily of like well why do I need to keep you know do work my
bills are paid why would I do more so I definitely get that in the short term
that can happen where if your basic needs are met you lose the motivation to
keep working but I think after a few months of that most people would get
their motivation back where they'd say all right well I like doing things so
I'm gonna go do things maybe that's to start a business maybe it's to become a
freelancer or do something more creative for extra money but also something you
really enjoy I think most people in the right environment - I'm going to discuss
what I think the right environment is - would end up wanting to be productive I
think for most of us we are wired to be productive we want to do things and
given our basic bills being paid maybe for the first few months we'd sit around
but that would get uncomfortable like I think a lot of us we have a couple days
of like lazing around if we've been working hard and then you're like I want
to do stuff I want like the world has so many things to see so much to do so many
things I want to make I want to go and do that and I know that's not everyone
but I do think most human beings want to be productive and it's a small group
that are sort of leeches that would rather just sit around and do nothing
now I mentioned the right environment I think this is so so important if we're
going to look at a concept like universal basic income a lot of
companies now their entire business is based on the attention economy meaning
steal your attention they get money companies like Facebook that's it that's
what they care about keep your eyes on the site they don't care if they're
manipulating you if being on the newsfeed and looking at everyone else is
hurting your self-esteem or killing your motivation
they don't care in fact they engineer it so that it can be addicting to check
whether you get a message or not I've heard that they have a slight delay
before it lights up like new friend new message because then you land on the
site anyway so I have a new friend and it becomes more addicting that way this
can be a problem because if you're at home and you don't have anything to do
because you have universal basic income and it's the 1930s you're gonna walk
around you're gonna go think you're gonna read some books you're gonna talk
to friends and eventually you're gonna be like yeah I know what I want to do
now I know what I want to create but in 2019 it is extremely difficult to keep
that freedom of thought so someone who does have a universal basic income is
gonna be like I think I'm gonna start a business ooh new castle guard five years
later right and I don't know if castle guards a game but you know these stupid
games that are just highly addictive and they're constantly advertised to just
steal your money - I don't feel very good about them if you might have gathered if
that is the circumstance I think it could be very dangerous to have people's
basic bills paid so if that is the environment for people I do think
Universal basic income could be very dangerous
because there is not going to be that boredom that leads people to want to be
productive and creative that boredom will be filled in with very low level
very unsatisfying activities but that ultimately do fill in the time I want to
know below in the comments what do you think about universal basic income as a
concept and do you think that people naturally want to be productive and to
create things or do people naturally want to be lazy and what I think is best
here answer for yourself don't answer for other people because we have a
tendency and this has actually been proven to assume sort of we're different
and may be better so for the sake of this little research experiment just
tell me about yourself if you were receiving universal basic income what do
you think would change in your life in terms of your motivation and what you'd
actually get done leave that below in the comments. If you're not yet a
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new videos every Sunday Tuesday and Thursday and I'd love to have you as
part of our community see you in the next video! Thanks for watching and have
an awesome day!