I'm an eternal optimist.
I look at a world that offered free time to literally anyone who wanted it and I see children that are being cared for and nurtured (with unimaginable on flow benefit to future society), I see people pursuing niche areas of education they were previously denied entry to, I see untapped artists of any ilk with a chance to shape the entire world.
How many Michelangelo's or Pablo Picasso's have burned themselves out working a thankless job that barely keeps their heads above water, too time poor to even care for their children let alone pick up a paintbrush and change all of humanity?
“But you shouldn't be able to do literally nothing and still scrape by
You’re a degenerate drain on society in that case”
If I was benefitted a UBI, I wouldn't stop doing things, I would get busier if anything. Would you? The vast majority of my friends would too. In, fact, I look at my pool of friends now and imagine the things they would achieve if they were free to choose where to invest their time.
What is the value of a person? Why shit on a tiny little person who is happy to sit on the lounge all day and do nothing, yet laud a Big Business suit, who has harnessed the concept of cheap foreign labour, or has maliciously and deliberately mishandled the system to breaking point?
What if a person sat on the lounge for 43 years, and then created the Mona Lisa? Are they valuable then? What about a person was born into a family that couldn't afford a passable education, yet they were motivated enough to spend 50 hours a work being whipped at a packaging warehouse, to provide for their kids they barely get to see. Society will pat them on the back for having a good work ethic, yet realistically they’ve been forced into a situation where they have almost no choice. Are we trying to create a world were being forced into voluntary slavery is more appealing than pursuing your wildest dreams and furthering humanity over some shareholder value? Why would anyone pick this? If people work this hard when the reward is to juuuust keep your head above the water then imagine how hard they would work pursuing what they wanted? Imagine if half of your energy you’d put into sewing zips onto a designer jacket for someone else to make 7000% percent on had gone into caring for your children, into practising new instruments, into gardening, into renovating your home, into community work, into exercising, into spending the short time you have with the people you care about.
While I’m an optimistic guy, I’m a blue collar realist. I’m not as outwardly idealistic as my pieces here may imply. I build houses for a living. I’ve been born into a hard working middle class family who built what they have from nothing, who are all very charitable with their work and time and love, they are creative and musical and inquisitive. Every week is by no means a struggle compared to the blights of others but I’ve seen it first hand and lived it to an extent at times and I’m extremely empathetic to people and their myriad personal struggles. I realise that there’s tough jobs out there that people don’t want to do and they have to be done, I’ve slowly worn my body down doing them. It also means that I see the value in working smarter, not harder.
We as a species are by nature, oddly compelled to create. Everything there has ever been and will ever be is a ripple outwards, catalysed by our creativity. How many of us today are being denied the chance to spread our wings and foster this primal need within ourselves? Instead we’re on timed toilet breaks and quotas and deadlines.
While I do truly think the UBI is the answer to a lot of our modern day woes, I also think that realistically it’s a long way off. There are so many potentials to consider, mechanisms to flesh out, bumps in the road to navigate. But very few things are perfect straight out of the gate. The key is to start small, start off seemingly inconsequential. Build and evolve organically.
PoWH could very well be those humble beginnings. (I’ve touched on the basics of PoWH here) It’s a UBI model, and one that’s designed to be transparent and autonomous. The mechanisms are embedded into an immutable contract that cannot be altered by anyone.
When I try to explain smart contracts to my friends, I compare the technology to a vending machine. The machine is created, the rules of the vending machine are programmed in ($2.00 = 1 Can of coke) and it is set free to exist and interact within the boundaries of its contract. I arrive with my money, I read the rules of the vending machine (i.e. $2.00 in to the machine and it will give you 1 can of coke) and the obligations of the contract are enforced automatically. Our transaction is done.
Such is the structure of PoWH coin. The rules of the smart contract are stated, released and cannot be changed. There is no entity that can change the rules on a whim. They can’t increase or decrease any tax or leave with your money, because there simply is no centralised authority in charge of the contract. The contract just …is. You can audit it yourself right here if you wish.
I’m not going to proclaim PoWH to be some sort of world cure all potion for the masses but if there’s one thing I’ve always admired, it’s conceptualisation and creation, pursuit of change and betterment. The logic of a system that fairly benefits all of those that participate, rewards those that contribute, yet is permanently hardwired to nurture the smallest of fishes, is undeniably appealing.
I have no idea where all this will ultimately lead, but I don’t want to risk turning out to be the dinosaur shaking my fist at the clouds while PoWH is inside carving the statue of David 2.0.
In the interest of transparency, I own just over 100 P3D tokens, a meagre sum, but I like putting my limited money where my mouth is. The PoWH link I have used in this article is my own masternode (you can have one too!)
Everything you need to know is laid out for all to see on the website: https://tinyurl.com/powh-io
If you want to know more, or would like to contribute anything at all to the community, or if you just want to watch before you dip your toes in, join the Discord community at: https://discordapp.com/invite/wfG97Kt