UBI, Universal Basic Income or just Basic Income is something I talk to people openly about, but I had not written anything on the subject on steemit yet. And I don't think I'll do often here because there are far better and more knowledgeable people writing about it already. I am just a curious guy, and regularly read articles about the subject, mostly on medium.com, The Guardian and futurology subreddit.
I only recently discovered there is a hashtag on steemit (of course there is, I know! 🤦) for this: #ubi.
Before talking about SBI (Steem basic income), what's exactly basic income? Wikipedia has a very long and detailed entry about it, but here is the basic definition:
A basic income ... is typically described as a new kind of welfare program in which all citizens (or permanent residents) of a country receive a regular, livable and unconditional sum of money, from the government. From that follows, among other things, that there is no state requirement to work or to look for work in such a society. The payment is also, in such a pure basic income, totally independent of any other income.
So, basic income was mentioned in an exchange between @jessicaoutside and me this week, and it reminded me of the donation (not sure if it's the right term) from @slobberchops to @steembasicincome a few weeks ago, in my name. Back then, I told myself I would try to do the same and sponsor other people whenever I have enough STEEM available.
But I am going too fast... Sponsoring? Donations? How does it work?
Everything is explained in a detailed post on steembasicincome, but the main idea is pretty simple in fact.
You cannot ask to be enrolled in the steem basic income program. You have to sponsor somebody to enroll that person and you at the same time. How do you do that? By transfering 1 STEEM to @steembasicincome, and mentioning in the memo the user you want to sponsor. It's that simple.
Now, by enrolling one person, that person and you get 1 share of SBI each. From there on, whenever you post an article (not comments) on the steem platform, you will get up-voted (typically, within a few hours) and as such, earn a small income for the post.
So, after @slobberchops sponsored me, I wanted to continue this sponsoring chain. I cannot sponsor everybody of course, as I am still a plankton here, but I managed to be lucky with up-votes recently so I felt it was a good time. Here they are:
@best-trip-eva: she's consistently posting nice stories and vlogs of her travels around the world. I had a few exchanges with her and maybe convinced her of reading one of The Culture books even though she's not into SF. Fingers crossed she finds it good!
@buzz.lightyear: a very passionate guy who always delivers interesting posts about the blockchain and solar power, and how both could be combined. Check out his posts and feel the passion!
@jessicaoutside: an Australian girl posting cool stories and breathtaking pictures, currently of Canada, but USA should be next. We had great conversations about various topics ; she's cool :-)
@yo-yo: last but not least! She lives in "Japan, Berlin or somehere" (from her bio ☺️) and is very active in the Japanese steemit community. Some of here posts are written in English and she also posts funny stories and cool pictures of Japan. We also had interesting conversations.
I really hope the SBI experiment proves to be successful in the long run. If it makes more people aware of UBI and talk about it, that's already great. If it goes further, maybe serve as a foundation for how UBI could be implemented for everybody in the future... we can all dream, right?
Because... Did you ever ask yourselves what you would do if you had your basic needs covered? Would you try something else than your job to get bonus income? Maybe something you had wanted to do for a long time?