Tech billionaires proceed with socialist dystopia
Silicon Valley billionaires are continuing to build a worldwide network that uses biometric data to create digital IDs that are used to distribute universal basic income (UBI).
Universal basic income (UBI) is a social welfare system in which the government provides every citizen with a standard minimum income. These payments are unconditional and transferred to citizens on a regular basis without any pre-qualification. The concept is in keeping with the Marxist ideal of wealth redistribution and is seen as a way for the government to exert direct control over citizens.
Last year, a group of tech billionaires launched Worldcoin, a company that scans people’s irises and uses the data to create digital IDs. Worldcoin’s founders, including OpenAI CEO Sam Altman and LinkedIn founder Reid Hoffman, plan to make Worldcoin the world’s “largest trusted network” and use it to distribute UBI.
“Worldcoin is building a directory of every human by scanning their irises with a baseball-sized orb,” Business Insider reported last week. “From that scan, it creates a unique code users can use to log into other platforms. Eventually, it might also be how humans collect universal basic income.”
Over six million people worldwide reportedly use Worldcoin, which social media platforms like Reddit, Telegram, and Discord are beginning to integrate as an alternative login method. The company calls its digital ID “World ID 2.0: A human passport for the internet.”
Altman has been open about his intention to use Worldcoin as a platform for UBI. He has already begun the process by distributing WLD, Worldcoin’s digital currency, to users who sign up. People who have scanned their irises for Worldcoin have received as many as 20 WLD, worth about $40.80.
Study on UBI shows predictable results
Altman even raised $60 million for an experimental study on UBI, including $14 million from his own pocket.
The study, which was published in July, paid monthly stipends of $1,000 to low-income individuals for three years. A control group of 2,000 participants received only $50 a month.
The researchers found that those who received the $1,000 payment worked less and lost money. Their annual income dropped $1,500. Their participation in the labor market dropped by 2%. They worked on average up to 1.4 hours less per week. The partners of the participants reduced their workloads “by a considerable amount,” according to the study.
Although they worked less, the UBI recipients were not very productive with their newfound free time. They enjoyed more leisure time, with smaller increases in transportation and attention to finances.
“Our analysis demonstrates that even a fully unconditional cash transfer results in moderate labor supply reductions for recipients,” the researchers concluded. “Virtually all existing large-scale cash transfer programs in the U.S. are means-tested, which provides additional disincentives to work. Rather than being driven by such program features, participants in our study reduced their labor supply because they placed a high value, at the margin, on additional leisure.”
These results may encourage efforts by Big Government advocates to implement UBI, which places citizens completely at the mercy of the government when they are dependent on its support.
Worldcoin may ‘do other things’
But UBI is only one of the uses Worldcoin’s masters are mulling.
“Our goal is to build the largest trusted network,” said Tools for Humanity Chief Privacy Officer Damien Kieran. Tools for Humanity is the company that built the technology behind Worldcoin. “When you have a very large trusted network for online digital transactions — and again, I have to stress when I think about digital transactions — it's not just money; it's all the things — you'll be able to do other things with that large network.
“One of those things could eventually be UBI. Right now, what that looks like, I think, is too premature to tell.”
According to its website, Worldcoin may also one day “enable global democratic processes and novel forms of governance” — like online voting.
