Much discussion has been had around basic income as a policy response to automation and as a result, over 150 pilot experiments have been launched in cities across the US to study it. Now in response to the successful results beginning to come out from those pilots, some states are beginning to ban the experiments from happening. One lobbying group in particular is behind these efforts to stop UBI, and its biggest funder is a billionaire most people have never even heard of. Read my article: https://www.scottsantens.com/billionaire-fueled-lobbying-group-behind-the-state-bills-to-ban-universal ..read more

This discussion took place in a Twitter (X) Space on September 6, 2023. I was joined by the co-founders of Comingle - Conrad Shaw and Josh Worth - to discuss the project and universal basic income in general. Comingle is an app being developed to create a small basic income floor for all members. All members will pledge an equal percentage of their income and in return all receive an equal basic income floor of around $50 a week. Help crowdfund Comingle's development: https://www.indiegogo.com/projects/comingle Visit Comingle's website: https://www.comingle.us/ Comingle on Reddit: https://www ..read more

This is the audio of a speech I gave in July 2023 as the closing keynote for England's Basic Income North 2023 Conference. Video available too: ⁠⁠https://youtu.be/U2XbrVQZLnI For more info about UBI, please refer to my UBI FAQ: ⁠⁠http://scottsantens.com/basic-income-faq⁠⁠ You can support these podcasts through Anchor or Patreon: ⁠⁠https://patreon.com/scottsantens⁠⁠ Thank you to all my Podcast Executive Producer supporters: Gisele Huff, Haroon Mokhtarzada, Steven Grimm, Matthew Cheney, Camilo Riviere, Katie Moussouris, Tricia Garrett, Zack Sargent, David Ruark, Larry Cohen, Liya Brook, Frederic ..read more

I originally published this article in 2015, and to this day it remains an article I frequently link to in order to help people understand how expensive poverty is, and how much we would save by directly abolishing it with unconditional basic income. Whenever someone makes the claim that UBI is simply too expensive, use what I talk about here and ask in return, "What is the cost of not implementing UBI?" Understand that poverty isn't free, and you will understand the return on investment in abolishing poverty, just like the ROI we experience every day in a world now free of smallpox. Read the ..read more

The horror show that is our conditional welfare system remains unknown to most everyone. In 1993, Theresa Funiciello wrote a Pulitzer-nominated book to try to help change that by laying bare the details she learned as a welfare mother herself, and as someone who worked at an organization devoted to helping people in the welfare system. Her book is considered to be one of the most important books on welfare and poverty in America to ever be published, and it concludes with a call for unconditional basic income as the only solution to fix what's broken. In this episode I read the final part of ..read more

This episode is a reading of my article published on November 11, 2016 about the importance of UBI to attaining freedom for all. Freedom for all would be an achievement only spoken about in rhetoric and hypotheticals.  There will never be true freedom from sexual and corporate exploitation and all forms of  slavery until freedom is actually granted unconditionally to all, with unconditional basic income. Until UBI, the decisions we make will remain compulsory and without our full consent instead of freely chosen. Read this article: https://medium.com/basic-income/true-freedom-comes ..read more

This episode is a reading of my article published on April 8, 2020 that goes into what a terrible idea it is to dump everyone onto the unemployment rolls in response to the coronavirus crisis, how automation means many of those jobs are now permanently gone, and just how many lives are likely to be lost as a result. I consider what Congress is doing as political malpractice. The amount of suffering already happening and that will happen in the weeks, months, and years ahead, is entirely avoidable, but it requires Universal Basic Income. Listen to this episode, and you will understand why. Rea ..read more

On June 24 I took part in a panel about the macroeconomics of basic income at the 2022 BIG Conference in Portland, Oregon. Here is an audio recording of the talk I gave that day where I attempted to zoom out and look at the big picture of money, economics, and humanity. For more info about UBI, please refer to my UBI FAQ: http://scottsantens.com/basic-income-faq You can support these podcasts through Anchor or Patreon: https://patreon.com/scottsantens Thank you to all my Podcast Executive Producer supporters: Gisele Huff, Haroon Mokhtarzada, Steven Grimm, Katie Moussouris, Tricia Garrett, Zack ..read more

On July 26 I took part in a conversation on Twitter Spaces where we talked about UBI for over two hours. A segment of about 21 minutes in length was then edited from the discussion and aired on WPKN radio. Here is that episode as heard on the radio. For more info about UBI, please refer to my UBI FAQ: http://scottsantens.com/basic-income-faq You can support these podcasts through Anchor or Patreon: https://patreon.com/scottsantens Thank you to all my Podcast Executive Producer supporters: Gisele Huff, Haroon Mokhtarzada, Steven Grimm, Floyd Marinescu, Katie  Moussouris, Zack Sargent, Jeff ..read more

From 2019 to 2021, I took part in a convening on automation, opportunity, and belonging to visualize the future and how to get to a better future among the infinitely possible versions of it. Together we crafted over many iterations a vision document of the kind of society we could be in 2040, and the foundations we would need to build together as a society to achieve it and the updated social contract it will require. At the end of our convening, we all signed on to the vision document we had together created. What I am about to read is the text of that document. You can also read it yourself ..read more