Scott Santens

Yeah, yeah.

And that's Mike Breuer too, in case you were curious.

It's B-R-O-I-H-I-E-R Breuer.

His son was part of the Yang gang and introduced him to the idea of basic income through Yang's campaign.

And Mike read Yang's book.

And after reading that, he really understood how important the idea of basic income is.

So he decided to make it a major part of his campaign.

It was actually already running on a campaign of economic and social justice.

So it really just fit.

Yeah, I came across this idea back in 2013, and this was before the Oxford report came out that many people now are familiar with as far as the report suggesting that perhaps half of all jobs would be automated in the next 20 years.

So that got people talking a lot about the future of work.

And at the time, there just was no discussion about this.

But I did actually, it was through discussion on Reddit that was oriented around the future of work and about how quickly technology is advancing.

And there was a book recommendation there called Mana by Marshall Brain.

And it was after reading that book and the author who supported a basic income got me researching the history, the evidence behind it, the philosophical reasonings behind it, and learned more about the way that our existing welfare system works.

And after all of that, I just came to realize that this is actually an extremely important idea that can improve many things all at once in a way that nothing else really can.

It goes far beyond just the automation of work and these things.

So I was reaching that conclusion that really got me studying and writing about it and doing all that I can.

Yeah, it's interesting that the popular discussion or what multiple are discussing is kind of this debate about whether sufficient automation exists and whether like automation net eliminates jobs or net creates jobs.

And it's true that technology creates new jobs, but it's also true that technology makes a lot of jobs no longer necessary.