Author. Advocating for a positive action hybrid UBI. vertical farms, desalination plants, maglev transit and renewable energy are the future.
Planet Earth
Joined March 2016
- Tweets1.1K
- Following374
- Followers15.6K
- Likes1.9K
Creating Utopia retweeted
What Einstein got wrong about his own theory | Sean M. Carroll @seanmcarroll
Creating Utopia retweeted
After 19 seasons of The Agenda and more than 4000 shows, Steve Paikin has a brand new gig – with a very original name. Launching soon: The Paikin Podcast.
“I hope you’ll give it a chance.”
Subscribe at Apple: podcasts.apple.com/ca/podcas…
Spotify: open.spotify.com/show/1Ohwzn…
Creating Utopia retweeted
Germany's largest UBI study funded by 200K donors found that
- Everyone kept working, no change in hours
- More enrolled in university
- More job changes (for better work)
- More satisfied with work
This is the data critics love to ignore. Let's dive in.🧵
Creating Utopia retweeted
Please!
Vote like it’s 1971: the year before party names were added to the ballot and you had to know the people running to represent you in your riding.
Don’t be a blind partisan! Contribute to community - support the person who would do the best job for your area!
#cdnpoli
Creating Utopia retweeted
Mark Carney's office opened 90% of emails our supporters sent about basic income, from liberals and non-liberals alike.
Many brought up an important idea: UBI should be a dividend from things we own in common, like natural resources and the rent of land.
1/🧵
Creating Utopia retweeted
This looks like science fiction, but it's real.
A 16-year-old builds a robot that eats trash to save the oceans…
and it actually starts working.
No experience. No connections. Just pure obsession.
This is a true story:🧵
Creating Utopia retweeted
A Canada dividend going to all citizens - this is how we turn our resources and economic growth, into shared prosperity for everyone while reducing poverty.
Canada is one of the most resource-rich countries in the world. But natural resources are finite –you can't keep extracting them forever.
Other nations have been proactive about saving some of the funds generated through natural resources in sovereign wealth funds. These are large pools of money owned by a country, invested in stocks, bonds or other assets, with the goal of saving and growing wealth for the future.
Norway's SWF holds $2.5 trillion CAD. In Canada, we have the Alberta Heritage Fund, but its modest in comparison.
This also exposes Canada to the volatility of markets, with boom-bust cycles that impact families, businesses and investors.
With the accelerating global shift away from fossil fuels, Canada must establish a unified strategy now to capture the value of oil, gas and other non-renewable resources.
How this could work:
1. Foster Partnership Through Shared Benefits – Provinces can choose to join the Fund by putting in their own money. When they do, the federal government matches it—giving provinces more value for every dollar and access to bigger investment opportunities.
2. Legislate the Canadian Sovereign Wealth Fund Act – Create federal legislation that establishes this as an arms-length agency.
3. Implement Diverse Funding Sources – The Fund can be financed through federal revenues (like carbon pricing, royalties, and windfall taxes), provincial matching contributions, and a temporary 1% consumption levy. All funding will be time-limited, transparent, and guided by a clear sunset clause.
4. Return Value to Citizens Through the Canada Dividend – Starting in year 6, 20% of the Fund’s earnings will be paid out annually to all Canadians. The more a province contributes, the more its residents receive—ensuring fairness and public support.
5. Reduce Public Debt for Future Generations – Another 20% of earnings will go toward paying down federal and provincial debt. This eases long-term burdens on taxpayers and builds lasting fiscal strength.
6. Leverage Canada’s world-class investment capabilities – The Fund can use Canada’s top institutional managers (like CPPIB) to invest in global infrastructure and real estate. Strict cost caps, passive index investing, and competitive performance reviews will keep it efficient and effective.
7. Ensure Rigorous Oversight and Transparency – Regular audits, clear reporting, and legal firewalls will protect the Fund from political misuse. Canadian investments will be limited to 10% of the portfolio, with strict repayment rules if returns fall short.
This is our chance to turn Canada's natural wealth into a permanent economic engine. Just as past generations built the roads, bridges, and institutions we depend on today, we now have the opportunity—and responsibility—to build the financial foundation for a stronger, more secure future for all.
Read the full memo below:
Creating Utopia retweeted
People are saying that now AI is getting good, going forward culture will be no more than previous culture recycled
There's an argument that this has been going on ever since the birth of the internet, after which, they say, "everything became a remix"
Jaron Lanier wrote about it at length decades ago
Part of the argument goes, that after the pre-mass-internet mid 90s there was
No discernible change in fashion
No truly new music genres (hip-hop could be the last one in this argument)
No new TV styles (reality being the final one)
Etc
After the internet what we had was recontextualization of the previous forms, made to fit the new Medium
(The content of the new medium is always that of the previous medium, as Marshall McLuhan notes.)
Prior to mass internet, culture was visibly, and rapidly changing at all times - just think of the stylistic difference between the mid to late 70s and the early 80s, going from glam to punk to new wave and so on
Now, the culture feels static, while it's technology that zooms ahead so fast that one human mind can't keep track of it
When he was a young lad, my dad would go to the pub with his new David Bowie LP under his arm
Perhaps the modern equivalent would be showing off a new AI capability with a memeified version of your avi or something
I made a song a few decades ago sampling Alan Moore, talking about Steam Theory
The idea that human invitation keeps doubling, and the time for it to occur keeps plummeting.
There's 50,000 years between the invention of the stone axe and the baths of Rome. The next doubling takes around 1500 years, roughly by the Renaissance. Faster it goes - by the 18th or 19th century, it takes just a couple hundred years, and between 1960 and 1970, human information doubles in a mere decade.
Extrapolating this forward, Moore predicted that by around 2015AD information doubles every thousandth of a second.
At any moment something could pop into being that changes everything forever
It's like water heating up.
We go from a fluid, observable flow of invention, to steam
The odds that everything going forward will be no more than a remix is only true in that everything we have ever done was, in it's own way, a remix of what went before
But as for what's coming, we can't even imagine
THIS IS THE STEAM AGE
Creating Utopia retweeted
Many people including CEOs have come to me asking about Sam Altman's UBI pilot.
Unlike most critics, we actually read the research.
Basic income ended poverty with minimal impact on work beyond single parents. People took risks to find better jobs, retrain & escape abuse.
1/🧵
Creating Utopia retweeted
BNN Bloomberg has called basic income 'trickle-up economics' that grows the economy and helps people train and find better work.
PBO found that it can slash poverty by 40% at 5% of the cost of poverty, saving taxpayers money.
Creating Utopia retweeted
From 2016: “if Ontario were to replace the Top 10 imported fruits and vegetables by growing them here instead, $250 million could be created for the economy producing 3,400 jobs.” - McMaster economics professor Atif Kubursi
cbc.ca/news/canada/hamilton/…
Creating Utopia retweeted
Excited to announce that @TheOceanCleanup is deploying Interceptors across all of Panama City’s rivers, with the goal of restoring Panama Bay to its pristine, original state! 🇵🇦
