Sunday, May 3, 2026

Fascinating article that makes a creative case for Universal Basic Income, of which I am a proponent. The author’s argument uses a three-pointed, triangular series of points that are incredibly distinct, but still come together as a coherent whole.

The first argument pertains to Albert Einstein, who famously worked as a patent clerk when he rewrote physics in the span of a single year. He was afforded time to think thanks to the job having very few demands.

if universal basic income enables even one more Einstein to become Einstein over the course of the next century, it will have paid for itself a thousand times over.

The second argument comes from a series of UBI trials in Ireland and New York, which confirmed the (in my view) obvious.

When you give everyone in a community a floor of income, entrepreneurship skyrockets. New businesses get started. People take risks they wouldn’t have otherwise taken. This isn’t surprising. Starting a business is terrifying when the downside is losing your house. It’s a lot less terrifying when the downside is falling back on a basic income.

The final argument involves a “microtonal math rock band” from Quebec, and I’ll save the beautiful crescendo for the linked post. It’s worth a read!

via Jason Kottke