Transitional Basic Income

Projects
1

–=:[ Transitional Basic Income ]:=–
[draft v0.1]

Comment & Contribute here: https://docs.google.com/document/d/1UUuY-fEAgvO6VLCzEi6Kh37WnktDqStldQXyn_tLMSM/edit?usp=sharing

Main contributors: Roberto Valenti, Josh Fairhead, Sam Butler, [be the next!]

Purpose

This document outlines the concept of a Transvestment into peer production. For more detailed information, see Liminal Transvestment Terms & Conditions.

Status Quo

The profit motive incentivizes short term extraction for immediate personal gain. Goods and services are roughly accounted for at base price + margin. Unchecked, this motive is pathological: wider forms of value are left unconsidered by enclosable communication channel known as fiat currency, or money. This is our problem statement.

Where we want to be

An idealised world might recognise more diverse forms of value and consider many of them as integral towards the restoration of our humanity through affirmation of a symbiotic relationship we have with each other and the planet. Such a system might be driven by access to resources rather than ownership.

The stage “in between”

To bridge the gap we are proposing a bare-bones transvestment vehicle,

Transvestors provide resources and/or money to the network. These are assigned to participants in the form of a Transitional Basic Income (TBI).

A TBI gives participants access to every resource they need (in the categories of food, utilities, transportation, infrastructure, accommodation, education etc…).

In exchange, participants commit their time and skills towards any projects they believe important in the world. The obtained solutions fall under peer production license and are shared, free of charge, within the entire network. This means that the solution will be targeted at minimizing the expenditure outside the network, so that more participants will be allowed to join. Outside the network, the solutions can be purchased at the condition that all monetary flows will pass through a predefined smart contract. The smart contract splits the received value of the transaction into three outputs: personal return (contribution rewards), local returns (for the service co-op), and global returns (protocol/new services).

Ultimately, the aim of this vehicle is to enable as many brilliant minds to truly commit and focus on what they wish to contribute to the world, empowering them to co-create by directly following their intrinsic motivations, rather than being directed by the extrinsic profit motive.

Type of contributions

Transvestment considers two categories of contributions:

  • Resource Contribution
  • Monetary Contribution

Each contribution can be either named ( if the contribution is to be assigned to a specific participant), or unnamed ( if the contributions are to be assigned by the network). These have different terms and conditions, and different reward scheme.

Resource Contributions: providers who give access to resources and assets, which will be valued at market value. These providers invest in the network by giving access to:

  • Idle/Unused Assets - Individuals or organizations share their unused assets or tools to be used within the network [Onboarding Template]
  • Products or Services - Organization that want to make their product or service available to participants (Eg: rides, train tickets, access to events, food delivery)[Onboarding Template]
  • Waste streams - A way to cheaply source of resource and materials required to build solutions. Eg: pallets, plastic etc… [Onboarding Template]
  • Time - an accountant, lawyer, doctor, programmer, space engineer etc… that wishes to provide his time as a service to the network. [Onboarding Template]

Monetary Contributions:

Named monetary contributions are generally coming from the following::

  • Personal - A wealthy/successful individual who can sponsor himself to be part of the network and synergize/learn from others.
  • Families & Friends - same as above, but the funds are provided by families and friends invest in the vision of the named participant. [Onboarding Template]
  • Companies - organizations who sponsors one or more employees (eg: as a perk for outstanding performance) to perform innovation and impact for their company. [Onboarding Template]
  • State Welfare - people using state support and universal basic income to kickstart their vision.
  • [add]

As invested in the entire network rather than an individual, unnamed contributions tend to be more attractive for:

What happens to the funds?

Funds and assets donated to our cause are collected and redistributed to network participants as a TRANSITIONAL BASIC INCOME (TBI).

Participants do not have direct access to the funds. The TBI agreement is set out in advance and automatically executed by a “smart contract”.

A new TBI allocation is created whenever the smart contract receives enough funds (as set by the community), allowing one more participant to be liberated and join the network.

All TBI participants receive a “humanity card” containing a digital currency. The funds in the card are to be used to request goods and services in the following categories:

Food - Eg: Meals, Fruits, Vegetables, Meat, Fish, Mushrooms, Beverages etc …

Utilities - Eg: Energy, Gas, Water, Internet, Telephone, Toilet paper, etc…

Transportation - Eg: Bikes, Car, Train tickets, airplane tickets, Ride-Sharing etc…

Infrastructure - Eg: Tools, Computers, Computing Power, Machines, 3D printers, materials, etc…

Location - Eg: Land, Apartments, Villas, Monasteries, Churches, Villages, Factories, Congress Centers etc…

Education - Eg: Courses, Conferences, Books, Workshops, etc…

If the network is unable to satisfy the request, monetary funds are released so that they can be used to fulfill them from the established economy (eg: renting an apartment on Airbnb, hop on an uber, buy some general groceries)

Note that a TBI differs from a universal basic income in the following aspects:

  1. Unconditional Inside, Conditional Outside: the validation of the project contribution by other peers in the global community.
  2. Restricted: TBI can only be used within the network, thus preserving the value within it…
  3. Transitional: TBI becomes obsolete after the network can provide all needs for a cost-free life for every participant. As the network expands and increasingly provides goods and services, the need for funds is reduced so that ongoing contributions can be used to liberate more participants.

F.A.Q.

How can I contribute?

Contributing is easy: Specify the amount, the name of who you would like to sponsor (optional) and if it is a one off or a recurrent donation. You have the full control of the amounts, who receives it, and when to stop it.

Contribute: [amount of xdai], [named participant], recurrent [x]

[Send Contribution] *

  • if you are unfamiliar with metamask and ethereum, you can follow these instructions to get started in less than 5 minutes.

What’s in it for me?

In exchange for monetary contributions, the smart contract mints a digital token representing the contributed value, which can be redeemed within our growing network.

For instance, if you supported a participant with free meals for the entire month (equivalent to a maximum of 1000/6 = 166 euros), you will be able to redeem the same amount in any of the categories for yourself, whenever you need them. Besides the direct advantage of exchanging idle assets for a future need, we aim to incentivize initial network growth in the first [three] years, by assigning earlier participants an additional bonus, according to a predefined curve (see token bonding curve):

Rewards are calculated and assigned on a monthly basis, according to this formula:

Actual Contribution = Contribution + (Contribution * Bonus)

Note that this bonus reward is not to be intended as a direct monetary advantage, but as value that can be accessed through the network free of charge, and it is bound to what the network can provide (from local food, to beautiful locations, all the way to a round trip to Mars)

If you have any questions or need more info, please consult our F.A.Q., or write us with your specific question.

How do participants access the funds?

TBI participants receive a “humanity card” containing their current F.U.T.I.L.E. balance, which can be spent directly on the whitelisted providers.

Participants do not get direct access to the funds, rather they use them to request a particular need in one of the F.U.T.I.L.E. categories. If a nearby provider can satisfy that need, the network credits will be assigned to them, while the money will reenter the common funding pot under the name of the provider.

Unused credits at the end of the cycle (eg: the participant did not need to travel or did not need infrastructure) are directly reinvested into new TBI’s, effectively turning the participant who did not use all the credits into an investor within the network.

This functionality rewards the participants that do not incur unnecessary expenses, by guaranteeing future access to the network and investment in the result produced by the network.

Use of this money can only be done on the network locations that signed up to have the ethos that their contribution is accounted for in a different way.

Who are the providers?

Providers are integral nodes of the value network, i.e. they choose to (recurrently) donate their product, service, space etc… to the network.

Anyone can apply to be a provider, whitelisting his own product, service, or unused assets. Whitelisting implies signing of an agreement, where the provider agrees with the terms and conditions of the network, agrees in getting rewarded with a digital currency instead of real money…

Signup as a provider: [address] [asset] (sign agreement before transaction, store agreement in provider info)

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