Why you should want Universal Basic Income

Hey friends. How many of you guys are working either in Boston, Silicon Valley, or Seattle? I don’t know about you but it kinda felt prescribed from the very moment we entered engineering school. Graduate college and then get a high paying tech job in one of 5 cities.

Part of the reason why we move there is that our friends are there. A big part of the reason is that the money is there. No one’s making $100k+ fresh out of college if they’re not working for either a tech behemoth or well funded startup.

And there’s nothing wrong with getting dat money. Maybe you racked up a bunch of student loans going to $$$ college and you need to pay that back. Maybe your parents paid for your college and you need to show them that their investment was worth it, prove to them that you’re not a loser. Maybe you have expensive hobbies. Or maybe you just wanna live a nice life with nice things. There’s absolutely nothing wrong with wanting to make a lot of money.

But realistically speaking, not all of us get that high paying job, I sure didn’t. And not all of us even want that high paying job, I still kinda do. We have passions outside of engineering, but you would be insane to say that you didn’t feel any pressure to get dat money.

Our education has put us on the path for relative success. Software, AI, robots, XR, etc. Cutting edge, cool ass stuff. Technology is making things so much more efficient and convenient. Press a button and you can get toilet paper delivered to you within the hour. But also, technology is replacing human jobs in every sector from retail, to trucks, to backroom clerical. It’s no longer just outsourcing, we have robots taking human jobs in manufacturing, warehouses, driving, and more. We have software that helps us be more efficient in our jobs, reducing the need for as many people.

As people who have graduated with an engineering degree, we are the economic winners of this movement, safe for the next 20~30 years. But, there are many more people who aren’t as lucky.

If you made it this far, let me pitch you Andrew Yang’s Freedom Dividend. A universal basic income that will provide every American over eighteen $1000 a month, no strings attached. We live in the richest country in the world, and every American should share in the prosperity that is currently concentrated in big tech, oil, pharma, etc.

That money can help people with all different types of needs.

• Pay for rent, groceries, basic necessities or pay off loans
• Move to places with more job opportunities or go back to school
• Pay for childcare or give people the option to stay at home

Rather than waiting for government to invest in some program, we individually know best where we want to spend our money.

So without further ado, this is how $1000 a month would change my life.

• Stop worrying so much about what salary comes with the job
• Use the time savings to go surfing more
• Donate more money to causes I care about (the environment, Olin, Andrew Yang lol)
• Try starting something from my “Jiaying’s business ideas” list
• Take that international flight to visit my family more frequently

What would you do with $1000 a month?

Extras for the Yang curious:
Yang on Nigahiga’s Off the Pill (Podcast) - This is what originally Yang’ed me
Yang on the Joe Rogan Experience (Podcast) - Though this podcast goes into much more detail

Ringing in 2020 from Hong Kong

Protest slogan found near Victoria park. They had a massive demonstration nearby on New Years day.

It’s January 1, 2020 and I just dropped off my friend Xiao Yi at her bus that’ll take her back home to ShenZhen. It feels a little lonely sitting by my hotel window above Tsim Sha Tsui in Hong Kong. I thought it would be weird to write a New Years blog post without mentioning the circumstances of this particular New Years in this particular place. Despite the fact that Hong Kong has been embroiled in pro-democracy anti-government protests for the past couple of months, it’s been an oddly normal vacation.

Hong Kong night lights near Central, I think I was honestly expecting more neon lights, but many of them seem to have been replaced by LED lights.

For those of you wondering, I booked my plane tickets in the summer when most people (including Hong Kong natives) thought that the peaceful protests would blow over in a few weeks and everything would go back to normal.

Walking along the beach near Stanley. Chill area with lots of tourists.

And for the most part, everything seems pretty normal from the point of view of a tourist. People are on the streets going to work, tourists are going shopping, everyone is going about their lives without much disruption from what I’ve seen these past few days. There are however, if you look past the busy streets and bright lights, signs that reveal how things aren’t fine, from the spray paint that graces the street with words like “fuck the popo,” to cardboard panels that cover what used to be glass store fronts, to the strategic closure of certain subway entrances, and the riot police that lined the streets on New Years Eve.

Almost all of the stations along Nathan Road were tagged with anti-police sentiments.

Which when I go and list it out, it sounds pretty extreme, but unless you’re at the site of the actual demonstrations (which aren’t widespread enough to just stumble upon) I’m not sure visitors would notice that anything was too off.

2020 marks the 25 year that I’ll have had the pleasure to live on our planet Earth. In the past decade I’ve graduated high school and college, got my first job. Moved to Kansas, Boston, and Yokohama. Traveled to Canada, California, China, Germany, and all over Japan.

As a 15 year old I had just moved from Long Island, New York to Leawood, Kansas. I was awkward and bad at making friends, so I spent most of my time hanging out with my brother and my online game friends.

Throughout most of my time in high school, lunchtime was an anxiety inducing event. Whether that was trying to find people to sit with, or trying to find a place where people would leave me alone. In class, teachers knew me as the quiet kid. I remember skipping out on model UN because it was easier to pretend like I didn’t want to do it than it was to find a group to join.

10 years later and I’m not sure exactly how much better at making friends I’ve gotten, but I definitely think that I’ve become much braver. Brave enough to move to Japan. Brave enough to put my ideas out there in Japanese. Brave enough to travel on my own, in Okinawa and now here in Hong Kong. Brave enough to live my life in the way that I want to live it.

Present day, I still often find myself beating me up for making mistakes and being awkward. But as I’m writing this and reflecting back on the past 10 years, I hope that in the next 10 I’ll find the compassion to be kinder to myself. Here’s to another decade of being brave. Happy 2020.

Trying one of the many bubble tea places in the area.