BASIC INCOME: A new universal right? As a brief intro and due to the first responses on the original Spanish post on my blog I want to clarify that I do think the Universal Basic Income (UBI) is a good idea; however, I think that if we emphasize one single approach, I would not choose this one, and what follows is why. Nevertheless the intention here is to start a dialog on the proposals and how we can expand on them. A few days ago, Peter Joseph, founder of the Zeitgeist Movement, posted on his Facebook page: "Here is a practical (transition) idea worth knowing about/helping out" And right after we can find a link about Universal Basic Income -- in Ecuador, we could translate that as "Universal Minimum Wage". Well, why does Peter Joseph wish that everyone has money whether they work or not? Whether connected or not to this phenomenon, something else has become increasingly obvious: the inequality of incomes. I strongly believe that Universal Basic Income won't work. Friends of the world, support copyleft!
European Initiative for Basic Income On January 14th 2013, the European Commission accepted our European Citizens’ Initiative hence triggering a one-year campaign involving all countries in the European Union. Before January 14, 2014, we have to reach 500 million citizens within the European Union and collect one million statements of support with minimum numbers reached for at least 7 member states. 20 member states are already participating in this initiative. If we collect one million statements of support for Basic Income from the 500 million inhabitants of the European Union, the European Commission will have to examine our initiative carefully and arrange for a public hearing in the European Parliament. This post is also available in: Danish, Dutch, French, German, Italian, Spanish, Bulgarian, Croatian, Czech, Estonian, Finnish, Greek, Hungarian, Luxemburgish, Polish, Portuguese (Portugal), Romanian, Slovak, Slovenian, Swedish
Universal Basic Income: The trojan horse I should have written this article about 6 months ago, when I finished my thesis on a Resource Based Economy, but this could not be a better occasion. Due to various circumstances, we find a key to the expansion of an idea whose time has come now. Unlink employment, in the minds of people, from the right to exist. Most of the Zeitgeist Movement's activists will have encountered countless critics to the RBE model we propose, and there is a simple reason: To a mind that has been prepared to take a job for life, the separation between job and right-to-life is inconceivable. It's hard to lose this identity of self - one's profession. This is the main purpose of the basic income. Why should we be concerned with this idea as TZM activists? Because most people are willing to discuss when you speak their own language, money. - Who will do the unpleasant jobs? But this is not important. Personally, I leave you with a question, what would you do with your life if you had a basic income?
Seasteading Seasteading is the concept of creating permanent dwellings at sea, called seasteads, outside the territory claimed by the government of any standing nation. Most proposed seasteads have been modified cruising vessels. Other proposed structures have included a refitted oil platform, a decommissioned anti-aircraft platform, and custom-built floating islands.[1] No one has created a state on the high seas that has been recognized as a sovereign nation, although the Principality of Sealand is a disputed micronation formed on a discarded sea fort near Suffolk, England.[2] The closest things to a seastead that have been built so far are large ocean-going ships sometimes called "floating cities", and smaller floating islands. The term combines the words sea and homesteading. At least two people independently began using it: Ken Neumeyer in his book Sailing the Farm (1981) and Wayne Gramlich in his article "Seasteading – Homesteading on the High Seas" (1998).[3] Legal issues[edit] Designs[edit]
Biomimetics Velcro tape mimics biological examples of multiple hooked structures such as burs. Biomimetics or biomimicry is the imitation of the models, systems, and elements of nature for the purpose of solving complex human problems.[1] The terms biomimetics and biomimicry come from Ancient Greek: βίος (bios), life, and μίμησις (mīmēsis), imitation, from μιμεῖσθαι (mīmeisthai), to imitate, from μῖμος (mimos), actor. A closely related field is bionics.[2] Possible applications[edit] Biomimetics could in principle be applied in many fields. Aircraft wing design[4] and flight techniques[5] inspired by birds and bats History[edit] One of the early examples of biomimicry was the study of birds to enable human flight. Biophysics is not so much a subject matter as it is a point of view. A similar term, Bionics was coined by Jack Steele in 1960 at Wright-Patterson Air Force Base in Dayton, Ohio where Otto Schmitt also worked. Nanobiomimetics or Nanobiomimicry[edit] Fabrication[edit] Biomedicine[edit]
Capitalism simply isn't working and here are the reasons why | Will Hutton | Comment is free | The Observer Suddenly, there is a new economist making waves – and he is not on the right. At the conference of the Institute of New Economic Thinking in Toronto last week, Thomas Piketty's book Capital in the Twenty-First Century got at least one mention at every session I attended. You have to go back to the 1970s and Milton Friedman for a single economist to have had such an impact. Like Friedman, Piketty is a man for the times. For 1970s anxieties about inflation substitute today's concerns about the emergence of the plutocratic rich and their impact on economy and society. Piketty is in no doubt, as he indicates in an interview in today's Observer New Review, that the current level of rising wealth inequality, set to grow still further, now imperils the very future of capitalism. It is a startling thesis and one extraordinarily unwelcome to those who think capitalism and inequality need each other. Piketty deploys 200 years of data to prove them wrong.