Monthly Archives: June 2017

UBI – answer for the automation or just a false promise?

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What is UBI?

Simply said universal based income (UBI) is money paid by the government to all citizens, regardless their employment and financial status.

The first who proposed paying people free money was Thomas Paine. In 1797 he proposed paying all 21-year-olds unconditional income funded through a tax on landowners. Since that time many people tried to push similar ideas through. In 1969 Richard Nixon tried to pass guaranteed minimum income and was very close to passing it. Not so long after that, in 1972 George McGovern tried his chances with the idea of giving every American citizen $1000 of free money; also unsuccessful. But since that time many attempts to test UBI in practice were made.

The simplified map below shows the most significant of attempts to test or implement universal based income:

 

Do we actually need it?

Lately, the idea of universally distributed income returned because of growing concerns about the future of employment. Politicians, Silicon Valley leaders, and many professors believe that because of developments in automation, artificial intelligence, robotics and self-driving technology there may be no job left for many people in the future. According to the estimate of Oxford University, as much as 47% of U.S. jobs are at risk of being automated in next 20 years. 

Tesla CEO Elon Musk said that development of technology will lead to high levels of unemployment, therefore, some form of UBI is “going to be necessary.” eBay co-founder Pierre Omidyar is already testing the potential of UBI in Kenya. Lately, during his commencement speech at Harvard University Mark Zuckerberg states his positive opinion about UBI. He said that “we should explore ideas like universal basic income to give everyone a cushion to try new things,” he also added that people need some financial safety net to be free in pursuing their passions. And universal based income is this kind of a safety net.

 

But will it work?

Nobody can be sure whether universal based income will work or not but what we know for now is that UBI is much simpler to run and implement than existing benefit systems. According to Matthew Bidwell, a management professor at Wharton University: UBI is simpler to implement than other forms of welfare because it doesn’t require means testing [for eligibility]. Moreover, trials of universally distributed, unconditional benefits carried around the world through past 40 years prove that this system may have a really beneficial impact on the society. Most of the conducted experiments had surprisingly positive outcomes and there are much more projects on the way.

Today we may don’t need UBI yet but because of rapid development in technology world is changing very fast. In the near future distribution and definition of work may significantly change and the only way for society to adapt to this change is when political and economical systems will follow and change accordingly.

 

Sources:

https://www.theguardian.com/society/2017/feb/19/basic-income-finland-low-wages-fewer-jobs

http://fortune.com/2017/05/26/mark-zuckerberg-universal-basic-income/

http://knowledge.wharton.upenn.edu/article/universal-basic-income-good-idea/

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/scott-santens/why-should-we-support-the_b_7630162.html

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/universal-basic-income-is-a-proven-success_us_58e5b501e4b02c1f72345a26

http://www.basicincome.org/

Ethereum – the next Bitcoin or the new Internet?

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Ethereum is the next big thing in the blockchain world. Period.

But what the heck is blockchain? If you don’t know it yet watch the short video below:

 

As you now know blockchain is not just the Bitcoin or just a crypto currency. Blockchain is a technology that has hundreds of applications and digital currencies are just some of them. Another one is Ethereum – younger “cousin” of Bitcoin with many more capabilities than just paying for guns and drugs at the online black market.

Ethereum is a distributed and decentralized public blockchain network just like the Bitcoin but there are many technical differences between these two. First of all the purpose of Ethereum is much more than just a digital currency. Bitcoin offers just a peer-to-peer payment system when Ethereum focuses on running smart contracts using its blockchain infrastructure. This means that Ethereum platform is capable of way more than just tracking ownership of its digital currency. Ethereum is an environment for applications that run without any possibility of downtime, censorship, fraud or third party interference. These apps run thanks to a custom built blockchain system. The system that is a huge, decentralized and shared infrastructure that can transfer value, information and ownership. In the simple words: “Ethereum is an open software platform based on blockchain technology that enables developers to build and deploy decentralized applications.”

Source: https://blockgeeks.com/guides/what-is-ethereum/

 

Decentralized applications are not controlled by any individual or central entity, which exclude the possibility of any censorship, fraud or manipulation. Additionally decentralization means no central point of failure and this combined with increased protection thanks to using cryptography techniques makes decentralized apps very reliable and secure.

Decentralized applications have the potential to disrupt many of industries including finance, education, healthcare, insurance, real estate, music, public sector and many others. Potential possibilities are countless and still emerging. These are just couple examples of project build on Ethereum technology:

Virtue Poker a Peer-to-Peer decentralized poker platform built using Ethereum.

Smart ID is a platform that is changing the way both individuals and organizations manage their digital identities. It’s built by the team from Deloitte to provide a new, transparent way for individuals, organizations and devices to obtain, verify and share identity credentials with one another.

Weifund provides an open platform for crowdfunding campaigns that leverages smart contracts. It enables contributions to be turned into contractually backed digital assets that can be used, traded or sold within the Ethereum ecosystem.

Provenance is using Ethereum to make opaque supply chains more transparent. By tracing the origins and histories of products, the project aims to build an open & accessible framework of information so consumers can make informed decisions when they buy products.

Augur is an open-source prediction & forecasting market platform that allows anyone to forecast events and get rewarded for predicting them correctly. Predictions on future real world events, like who will win the next US election, are carried out by trading virtual shares. If a person buys shares in a winning prediction, they receive monetary rewards.

Source: https://blockgeeks.com/guides/what-is-ethereum/

 

Blockchain technology is changing the way we use the Internet. It enabled people to easily exchange not only information but also value and property. Thanks to Ethereum people can create their own decentralized applications and speed up the shift from the Internet of information to the Internet of value. With this in mind, we can only wonder about all the exciting future applications of blockchain.

 

 

Sources:

https://blockgeeks.com/

https://www.ethereum.org/

https://www.deloitte.co.uk/smartid/

https://virtue.poker/#home

https://www.forbes.com/sites/laurashin/2015/12/28/should-you-invest-in-bitcoin-10-arguments-against-as-of-december-2015/#6c62d9673895