(((nataluna)))

I love anti-theists.

Indigenous people can talk about how our stories and traditions tell us to learn from the world around us, to look at the plants and animals and the non-living beings in the world as teachers and guides, and to take the lessons they give us and apply them to our lives so that when we're gone, we've left the world a better place than it was when we were born.

We learn how to gather and prepare food from the squirrels and rabbits and other herbivores. We learn how to hunt and how to abstain from the predators. We learn how to work together and act as one from the trees.

Our traditional knowledge is built on observance and testing, using what Mother Earth teaches us because the other beings walking her with us are older and more knowledgeable about the world and we have so much to learn from them.

And yet anti-theists will still look at our traditional knowledge and practices and call them useless superstitions, refusing to hear the lessons in them and comparing them to the psuedoscience that was started by white ableists.

We're told that we're ignorant, that we refuse to listen to reason and logic, by the same people who think that any knowledge that isn't theirs is automatically wrong. Traditions that sustained both the environment and the people for thousands of years are dismissed just because they didn't come out of a lab and aren't presented in a way that's "scientific" enough.

Indigenous Knowledge Is Science.

Hear this. Take it in. Let it settle behind your teeth until you understand what it means.

Indigenous Knowledge Is Science.

"My colleagues might scoff at the notion of basket makers as scientists, but when Lena and her daughters take 50 percent of the sweetgrass, observe the result, evaluate their findings, and then create management guidelines from them, that sounds a lot like experimental science to me. Generations of data collection and validation through time builds up to well-tested theories."

— Braiding Sweetgrass by Robin Wall Kimmerer, pages 304-305

“wouldn’t you rather earn something than have it just handed to you?”

Yeah when it comes to actual awards and fancy goods, but when it comes to basic needs, basic human decency, and accomodations, those things should always be handed to people. No one should have to “earn” those things.Value people as people, not base it on how much they produce. 

yeah but that creates a severe dependency that could be exploited easily, and creates a slippery slope @musical-clarity

Actually studies show that people who live in places with universal income (who are given money with no strings attached just for being citizens) do far better work than those who don’t and are more enthusiastic to do work.

This is because they still want nice things and will work for those but the part of their energy that was devoted to worrying about if they have enough money to pay the rent and bills this month is now freed up to do other things.

Some people will always be lazy and take advantage of the system, but they are always a tiny percentage and it seems ridiculous to me to punish the majority and severly hamstring their abilities just because a handful of people will simply live of basic income rather than work.

Do you have sources? I’m trying to convince a friend

Providing Personalised Support to Rough Sleepers. An Evaluation of the City of London Pilot by Juliette Hough and Becky Rice (2010)  - This is a study on what happens when you just give homeless people money instead of setting up expensive bureaucratic programs. Spoilers: the vast majority of people get off the streets.

Policy Brief: Impacts of Unconditional Cash Transfers by Johannes Haushofery and Jeremy Shapiroz - A look at the new trend of charities just giving people in need money and letting them get on with it. (Case study is a charity called GiveDirectly)

Cash Transfers and Temptation Goods. A review of Global Evidence by the World Bank Policy Research Working Group - This study shows that poor people who are just given money do not spend any more than they usually would on luxury goods such as alcohol and tobacco and in some cases the spending on these items actually decreases.

“Cash Transfers for Children. Investing into the Future” An Editorial article in The Lancet - This is the study that out and out says giving people money makes them less lazy and less dependant on the state. Direct quote:

The Town With No Poverty by Evelyn Forget - A look at the case study of Dauphin Manitoba that introduced “mincome” to the poorest citizens to bring everyone above the poverty line.

Why Not Guarantee Everyone a Job? Why Negative Income Tax Experiments of the 1970s Were Successful by Allan Sheahen (warning this link is a download link, not a webpage) - Study of a similar “mincome” experiment in Denver that found that when people did stop working as many hours as they had done before the money it was because they were furthering their education or working hours better suited to raising their children. One woman who had dropped out of High School to get a job in order to provide for her children went back into education and ended up with a psychology degree and a job as a researcher.

“Daniel Moynihan and President-Elect Nixon: How Charity Didn’t Begin at Home” by Peter Passell and Leonard Ross for The New York Times - This is a look at how President Richard Nixon (Yes, that Richard Nixon) wanted to introduce basic income to the USA and was defeated by ignorant congressmen and senators that trusted their gut over the clear evidence. 

The Alaska Permanent Fund Dividend: An Experiment in Wealth Distribution by Scott Goldsmith - This is a look at Alaska’s policy of using the State oil revenue to give every single citizen $1000 a year.

Relationships Between poverty and Psychopathology - A study that outlines how growing up poor exposes children to a myriad of psychological problems and mental illnesses.

Assessing the Economic and Non-Economic Impacts of Harrah’s Cherokee Casino, North Carolina - The Harrah Cherokee Casino is widely studied and a resounding success as a case study for Basic Income.

An Estimate of the cost of child poverty in 2013 by Donald Hirsch - This is a British study that estimates child poverty costs £29 billion (£44 Billion-ish). Basically child poverty is massively expensive for governments and Basic Income could essentially pay for itself by removing these expenses.

When Pundits Blamed White People for a Culture of Poverty by Matt Bruenig - Article that discusses how the idea that poor people are lazy and deserve to suffer is racist, classist and morally dangerous.

Rediscovering Poverty: How We Cured ‘The Culture of Poverty’ Not Poverty Itself by Barbara Ehrenreich - An article on how trying to improve the morals of the poor so they can work harder and get themselves out of poverty is a ridiculous waste of time and money and quite frankly an insult to the people we force into these programs. My favourite waste of money that Ehrenreich points out is the $250 million dollars that President Clinton set aside for ‘Chastity Training’ for impoverished single mothers, the US government in the 90s simply assuming that poor women were too stupid to understand where babies came from and that’s why they were poor, rather than, you know, having no money, no support structures and no affordable child care and healthcare.

In the Shadow of Speenhamland: Social Policy and the Old Poor Law by Fred Block and Margaret Somers - Speenhamland was a town in the UK where a Universal Income was introduced at the end of the 18th Century. After a few years it was declared a terrible failure and proof that poor people are evil and lazy and should be punished for being poor not helped out of poverty. Speenhamland led to the creation of Workhouses and the abolition of the Poor Laws that had worked as a form of social welfare up to that point. For 150 years Speenhamland was used by politicians and academics all over the world as proof that poor people were almost pathologically incapable of being trusted with their own money. Except the whole thing was a lie. The man sent to study Speenhamland hated the project and was unable to correctly interpret the data or factor in cultural issues that were also affecting the town. Modern researchers almost unanimously agree that Speenhamland was a success but the damage that 150 years of ignorance has done is deep and long lasting.

All of these examples and hundreds more can be found in Utopia for Realists by Rutger Bregman which lays out the argument for this issue far better than I ever could and also discusses issues such as raising the minimum wage and drastically cutting working hours. 

@keep-counting-stars have fun debating your friend. 

politicians will always be against universal income, because people who are anxious and exhausted are easier to control.

don’t wait for politicians to take the initiative. they won’t. it’s not in their best interests.