Scott Santens
Writer and full-time advocate of unconditional basic income (UBI); Citizen of Earth and New Orleans; Bachelor of Science in Psychology; Editor of Basic Income Today
An Engineering Argument for Basic Income
Utilizing fault-tolerant design in critical life support systems
This post is also available in Spanish.
Before studying engineering, if someone asked me what 1+1 is, I would have said "2." Now, I'd say "I'm pretty sure it's 2, but we'd better make it 3 just to be safe."
I originally went to college at the Colorado School of Mines to . . .
Posted in: analogypovertysecurityself-employmentsocial securitysystems thinkingtechnological unemploymentunderemployment
My Unconditional Basic Income Testimony for Maryland's House Ways and Means Committee
As submitted for the public record on March 1, 2019
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In mid-February I was contacted by the legislative aide for Delegate Gabriel Acevero of Maryland who has introduced a bill to create a social wealth fund intended to eventually pay out a cash dividend to every resident of Maryland. As a prominent advocate for UBI, I . . .
Posted in: activismautomationcash transferschild povertydividendspartial basic incomepovertytechnological unemploymentunderemployment
Basic Income is now a dominant discussion in India's 2019 general election
India becomes first nation to debate the details of how best to begin to implement UBI nationwide
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With the historic announcement by India's opposition party of an intention to implement basic income for the poor (not UBI), just two years after India's 2016-2017 Economic Survey called UBI "the shortest path to . . .
Posted in: cash transfersindiapoverty
"The time has come for us to civilize ourselves by the total, direct, and immediate abolition of poverty." — Martin Luther King Jr.
About MLK's advocacy for basic income
It is not as widely known as it should be, but Martin Luther King Jr. wrote and spoke about the need for an unconditional basic income before he was killed. Here is a video of him speaking about UBI at Stanford in 1967.
One of the answers it seems to me, is a guaranteed annual income, a guaranteed minimum income for . . .
The Monsters, Inc. Argument for Unconditional Basic Income
How to convert an economy based on fear to one based on joy
Every year since 2002, there is a North American Basic Income Guarantee Congress held in either the US or Canada. On the eve of this year’s NABIG in Hamilton, Ontario, I’d like to share with you my favorite presentation from 2017. It was a talk given by Ken Burak and it centered around the Pixar film “Monsters, Inc” as an argument for basic . . .
Posted in: analogybullshit jobschild povertyfearmoral argumentmotivationphilosophypovertyprivate propertyproductivityslaveryunpaid laborvoluntary labor
Don't Make People in Need Jump Through Hoops for Food
A letter-to-the-editor in opposition of imposing stricter work requirements for food stamps
The Trump administration has recently proposed adding what I consider to be some pretty counterproductive new requirements for SNAP (aka food stamp) recipients. In response to this, I immediately signed a public statement in defense of SNAP as an advocate of unconditional basic income because we should be going in the direction of . . .
Posted in: activismnew orleanspoverty
Eating food will fail to reduce malnutrition, new report warns
How to recognize when an anti-UBI title is "fake news"
The OECD recently published a report on basic income as a policy option for the future of work. It concluded that universal basic income would require large tax increases to avoid increasing poverty. Others have since picked up on the report with headlines like, "Universal basic income would fail to cut poverty, says OECD" which . . .
Posted in: costpartial basic incomepoverty
