Finland experiments with financial freedom with its citizens

[WhiteLove]

The definition of financial freedom is when you can pay off your expenses whether you work or not.

Finland is giving 2000 citizens a guaranteed income, with funds that keep flowing whether participants work or not, as part of an experiment it performs. It is in deed a very interesting idea... This could morph into a future model where the total workforce is distributed such that anyone at any time can do what he or she is truly passionate about and take a break for any amount of days, supported by a passionate collective that does things because it wants to.

http://money.cnn.com/2017/01/02/news/economy/finland-universal-basic-income/index.html

Money is kind of an old limiting idea, totally unnecessary and waste of everybody's time. It adds a layer of limitation onto society. It is used to control the masses, the people is waking up.

[AutumnW]

With automation and overproduction, it's the only humane way to proceed.

[GoingDeeperStill]

Except it's totally ignoring human nature. Anytime you give people things they'd otherwise have to work for, degeneracy follows. We've seen this with indigenous people and western civilized people... If people didn't have to work, most wouldn't. Their purpose would quite literally be subverted.

[Ewan]

Except it's totally ignoring human nature. Anytime you give people things they'd otherwise have to work for, degeneracy follows. We've seen this with indigenous people and western civilized people... If people didn't have to work, most wouldn't. Their purpose would quite literally be subverted.

You might need to expand on this to prove the correlation. Can it be positively shown that 'social welfare' directly led to degeneration or were there other factors? For example, I can think of several psychological reasons that indigenous people may have 'degenerated', and in the western world people who get caught in a poverty trap are more likely to be suffering from depression than be inherently idle.

[robinr1]

Isnt it fairly obvious. why would someone work when they can sit on their ass all day and live the exact same lifestyle as the person working 60 hours a week.Going deeper still post is 100 percent accurate.In the usa when people are forced to do some sort of work to receive their government handouts it has been proven time and time again

that they would rather not work and just lose their free handouts.





Except it's totally ignoring human nature. Anytime you give people things they'd otherwise have to work for, degeneracy follows. We've seen this with indigenous people and western civilized people... If people didn't have to work, most wouldn't. Their purpose would quite literally be subverted.

You might need to expand on this to prove the correlation. Can it be positively shown that 'social welfare' directly led to degeneration or were there other factors? For example, I can think of several psychological reasons that indigenous people may have 'degenerated', and in the western world people who get caught in a poverty trap are more likely to be suffering from depression than be inherently idle.

[Ewan]

Isnt it fairly obvious. why would someone work when they can sit on their ass all day and live the exact same lifestyle as the person working 60 hours a week.Going deeper still post is 100 percent accurate.In the usa when people are forced to do some sort of work to receive their government handouts it has been proven time and time again

that they would rather not work and just lose their free handouts.





Except it's totally ignoring human nature. Anytime you give people things they'd otherwise have to work for, degeneracy follows. We've seen this with indigenous people and western civilized people... If people didn't have to work, most wouldn't. Their purpose would quite literally be subverted.

You might need to expand on this to prove the correlation. Can it be positively shown that 'social welfare' directly led to degeneration or were there other factors? For example, I can think of several psychological reasons that indigenous people may have 'degenerated', and in the western world people who get caught in a poverty trap are more likely to be suffering from depression than be inherently idle.

I don't think being born into a system that educates the masses to take part in a corporate contolled, 'work, consume, die', world model proves it is human nature to be indolent.

[shaberon]

Isnt it fairly obvious. why would someone work when they can sit on their ass all day and live the exact same lifestyle as the person working 60 hours a week.

That's exactly what I do. Minus the fact that I can't buy stuff or go anywhere, things like that.

I can think of various reasons why I would or would not work in some industry I don't agree with to make someone else rich and keep me poor. I do actually perform labor but it is just on the land and no money is involved.

One of the biggest things that would have made a difference in my past is usury. Under a Shariah law, for example, once I paid the price of my house, it would have been done, but because of usury, paying that full amount only gave me a 20% equity. Of course, Thomas Jefferson warned us of that exact thing.

I would have to concede that in my house, people freeloaded off of me without really offering anything in return. And I am very fortunate to have this opportunity now, otherwise I may have gone completely into a feral condition because there was nothing to support my basic needs. So if you look at it the other way, would you rather have a few lazy people, or gangs of bandits plundering your neighborhood?

In my case, at least, it has nothing to do with refusing to work, and my self-employed mother worked full time last year for nothing.

[Sunny-side-up]

I think if people who want to be of service and work they will, especially if not forced. They will be doing a far better job at it as well.

A 2 level system might work best:

Level 1) Yes you get all you need to live a safe basic life style. A basic home, car, TV etc.
Level 2) if you want extra you can add yourself to the work force.

[lucidity]

If you removed the 'financial' necessity for work, people would work for other reasons.
Reasons like... they enjoy working with other people, that working gives them something
to focus on; that they love building websites, or counselling, or creating art, or designing
gardens ... etc. However, lots of people would spend all day watching TV and cultivating
laziness and weight gain.


Someone should give that Peter Joseph character a few million dollars to get
something started.... or maybe a few billion. Or maybe everyone that joins
the (self-sustaining) community has to invest X thousand dollars.

[animovado]

related:

This lively RSA Animate, adapted from Dan Pink's talk at the RSA, illustrates the hidden truths behind what really motivates us at home and in the workplace.


http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=u6XAPnuFjJc

[GoingDeeperStill]

That's what we've been doing for 200,000 years. We've evolved to be accustomed to working to stay alive.

[Joe Akulis]

The world should be like Minecraft.

If you want a new car, you head out to some quarries and mine the iron and whatever metals you need, or you head for a recycling plant and recycle up the materials. Then you bring it all to one of those new-fangled factories with robots that make everything and dump the proper metals and used tires or unrefined petroleum (yeah, I know, I'm reaching) into the proper bins and hit a button. Out comes an engine. Hit another button, out comes all the window glass. You get the idea.

Need to build a new house? Learn how to do it then head out into the woods with a skidder and start getting the materials.

Want a new yacht, but there isn't a factory that has the production of yachts completely automated yet? Then join a team in working to get such a factory up and running.

You get the idea.

Fun to think about, not sure if it's possible tho.

[Ahnung-quay]

The old question, if you won the lottery, would you still work?

My answer, Are you crazy?

I have enough to do at home to keep busy and satisfied.

[Positive Vibe Merchant]

I can say that without a shadow of a doubt that if this was available to me. I would take it.

Maybe I have a different view, but I believe that the majority of people without the overbearing weight of financial 'responsibilities' would actually expand on their passions and be able to enter the communities in which they are comfortable, confident, and looking to get better and help others with.

This would reduce mental illness, prevent or at least cut down suicide rates, and generally have a beneficially effect on a population living in this way.

Indigenous community has degenerated because of the situations that they have been put in by external forces. Much the way refugees are being put in now. Being displaced, and not because they are lazy or cant have anything 'good' in their lives. they have lived off the land for 10s of thousands of years.

[shaberon]

So from the article, it looks like Finland expects that, by simply giving handouts, they can eliminate the costly bureaucratic apparatus of the welfare department. That is: to put numerous government scribes out of work.

From woolgathering a few thousand opinions on this subject months ago, it seemed to me that people like Finns and Poles were neither insecure (i. e., they were confident that without a job they would still be allright), nor did they express animosity towards persons in need. But in my country, there appeared to be a significant tranche (30% at least) of people who rigorously defend the notion that without a job, you deserve to starve.

Eventually we will moot the point by the cycle of less jobs = more people with nothing = less demand for goods and services.

[robinr1]

who will be providing the goods and services which level 1 encompasses? And if it is the government who will be providing the government with the money to purchase such goods and services? tia.




I think if people who want to be of service and work they will, especially if not forced. They will be doing a far better job at it as well.

A 2 level system might work best:

Level 1) Yes you get all you need to live a safe basic life style. A basic home, car, TV etc.
Level 2) if you want extra you can add yourself to the work force.

[Sunny-side-up]

who will be providing the goods and services which level 1 encompasses? And if it is the government who will be providing the government with the money to purchase such goods and services? tia.




I think if people who want to be of service and work they will, especially if not forced. They will be doing a far better job at it as well.

A 2 level system might work best:

Level 1) Yes you get all you need to live a safe basic life style. A basic home, car, TV etc.
Level 2) if you want extra you can add yourself to the work force.

we will, the people who do it now and or people stepping up to do it. Think of it like a Massive game where in said game if you need something above the basic you go do something for it.

people would love to be of service in such a game err sorry life.
People with higher sense of duties would help it all keep running.

we could all be 'servants' of our futures.

[Scribe]

If it was available to me I'd most likely take it. I'd use it to start a business and I'd probably club together with my family to do that too and get them involved since they all work really soul sucking jobs. Or maybe I'd start a greenhouse and smallholding for my village to provide people with fresh fruit and vegetables. I could do these now but it's a question of saving what merge amounts of money I can from the garbage, zero hour, slave labour jobs I drift in and out of.

I think a lot if not most people who are used to working wouldn't suddenly quit and live a life of indolence and the real lazy people, well they'll always be that way in whatever system is implemented. In other words, nothing would change regarding lazy people. The only thing I can think of that concerns me is the economy. I understand it's meant to cut red tape and be a substitute for all welfare, but how would it impact the economy in the long term? Also immigration is already an issue. People travel thousands of miles to the West because they thinks it's a land of milk and honey. If anyone is allowed to claim it the whole scheme becomes ultimately unsustainable.

[Carmody]

That's what we've been doing for 200,000 years. We've evolved to be accustomed to working to stay alive.

We may be evolved that way, but adding money and money related pressures is a corruption of those basics. Money could be put to use to enable humanity's natural tendencies toward working together, but instead it has been put to use to corrupt and manipulate those natural tendencies.

The problem is systemic and deep, that most people fail to see it for what it is. the body and mind are not designed to deal with the truth of what money does to human integration and function.

Through the blind spot, humanity is manipulated.

Some people understand it for what it is, insofar as the resultant position they occupy. They don't understand the depth of the issue, only what they face when money is in place as a fundamental. Money is like forcing people into a cage of predatory animals, and them on a treadmill where there is no end. Those who enable money as a parasite, make it so.

[Carmody]

If it was available to me I'd most likely take it. I'd use it to start a business and I'd probably club together with my family to do that too and get them involved since they all work really soul sucking jobs. Or maybe I'd start a greenhouse and smallholding for my village to provide people with fresh fruit and vegetables. I could do these now but it's a question of saving what merge amounts of money I can from the garbage, zero hour, slave labour jobs I drift in and out of.

I think a lot if not most people who are used to working wouldn't suddenly quit and live a life of indolence and the real lazy people, well they'll always be that way in whatever system is implemented. In other words, nothing would change regarding lazy people. The only thing I can think of that concerns me is the economy. I understand it's meant to cut red tape and be a substitute for all welfare, but how would it impact the economy in the long term? Also immigration is already an issue. People travel thousands of miles to the West because they thinks it's a land of milk and honey. If anyone is allowed to claim it the whole scheme becomes ultimately unsustainable.

Unequal pressure will seek balancing. Such experiments tend to fail as it has to be the same everywhere. everywhere so there is no energy barrier to climb, or slide down. No potential to shift or move for personal advantage in the basics.

[Ernie Nemeth]

We used to work to survive. We used to have all the skills necessary to do so. We used to build our own homes. We used to farm or hunt our own food. We used to spend most of our days in the work of survival. Real, honest work - for a very good reason.

Now we define ourselves by the job we have, calling ourselves lawyers and human resource managers and bankers. We are completely dependant on a parasitical society that takes all value out of its products and services, to the point that a full 30% of the population cannot afford the basics month to month, often having to choose between rent and food.

We are so hopelessly inured in this society that we cannot even consider a world where resources are shared fairly. We immediately wonder who would work, if all basics are freely given to all. Yet what are these self-same people doing right now, when they aren't working? Don't they have their own agendas, their own projects, their own hobbies? Is job the only word that evokes devotion, perseverance, sacrifice? Is job the sole motivator to get them up in the morning? Is there nothing else than job?

We could go into the actual truth of this society, and how we have been duped. We could bring up the fact that due to the old money magic system alone we have had the majority of our collective wealth stolen from us - no need to go into the corrupt practices of our corporations, large companies and institutions. They have all colluded together to leverage their positions and capital and mold a system favorable to them and essentially guarantee their oligarchy in perpetuity.

This society has squandered the potential of countless good men and women, who never realized their greatest potential because job was given priority out of pure necessity.

I have so much to do that I barely have time for job, and resent it immensely, always have.