9 Search Results for: Andrew Yang

A New Kind of Economy—An Interview with Andrew Yang

Published by Peter Clarke

Andrew Yang is a 43-year-old American entrepreneur who is seeking the Democratic Party’s nomination for president in 2020. His campaign focuses on solving the problem of job losses to automation—an issue many politicians seem happy to ignore. Starting right now, Yang wants to create a whole new kind of economy from the ground up, in which automation is transformed from a threat into the foundation for widespread human flourishing. Briefly, his policy proposals include implementing a form of Universal Basic Income (also known as UBI, or what he calls the “Freedom Dividend”), universal healthcare, a “digital social currency,” and a redefinition of GDP that more accurately reflect the health of the nation. If this sounds like socialism then, according to Yang, your thinking about the economy might be antiquated. He contends that the capitalism/socialism spectrum is no longer relevant or useful if we take an honest look at the modern world. The following is a transcription of my phone conversation with Andrew Yang, lightly edited for length and clarity. * * * Peter …

In Defense of Andrew Yang’s Freedom Dividend

Published by Samuel Kronen

We should replace the ragbag of specific welfare programs with a single comprehensive program of income supplements in cash — a negative income tax. It would provide an assured minimum to all persons in need, regardless of the reasons for their need…A negative income tax provides comprehensive reform which would do more efficiently and humanely what our present welfare system does so inefficiently and inhumanely. ~Milton Friedman I get emotional about facts. ~Andrew Yang Although we are still a long way from the 2020 presidential campaigns, whispers of who the Democratic candidates will be and what policy platforms will be adopted is steadily droning into an orchestra. We can already predict some of the names that are likely to appear on the ballot sheet and the talking points that will be heard on the campaign trail, and it would not be imprudent to suspect the upcoming election will be even uglier and more contentious than the last. While the overwhelming majority of political pundits seem to be pouring their energies into slamming the current president—criticizing old models …

The Feminist Case for Andrew Yang’s Freedom Dividend

Published by Louise Perry

Andrew Yang may well be the most feminist candidate running for the 2020 Democratic presidential nomination, although it might not be obvious at first glance. He looks, to all intents and purposes, like a Silicon Valley bro. He’s smart, he’s from the East Coast, he went to an Ivy League school, and he likes to use statistics—lots of them. Before he began his campaign, he worked as (to use his term) a “serial entrepreneur” and he promises that, if elected, he will be the first President to use PowerPoint in his State of the Union address. In short, he is a nerd, and proud of it. His supporters—the “Yang Gang”—wear baseball hats emblazoned with the acronym “MATH: Make America Think Harder.” Yang is an underdog in the Democratic primaries, having only just scraped through to the third debate on September 12. He knows it, too. “If you’re here today,” he said in a New Hampshire stump speech, “it’s because you’ve heard something like this: there’s an Asian man running for President who wants to give …

The War on Normal People—A Review

Published by Uri Harris

A review of The War on Normal People: The Truth About America’s Disappearing Jobs and Why Universal Basic Income is Our Future by Andrew Yang. Hachette Books (April 2018) 305 pages. “I am writing from inside the tech bubble to let you know that we are coming for your jobs.” So begins Andrew Yang’s book, The War on Normal People: The Truth About America’s Disappearing Jobs and Why Universal Basic Income is Our Future. Despite the tagline, this isn’t fundamentally a book about Universal Basic Income (UBI). It’s about the market, and our attitude towards it. American society has been reorganising over the past few decades. Some business sectors have faded, while others have surged. Importantly, many of the surging sectors are concentrated in a few key regions. This has led to what Yang refers to as “six paths to six places,” meaning that the most qualified college graduates generally choose a career in one of six sectors and in one of six places: finance, consulting, law, technology, medicine, or academia in New York, San Francisco, Boston, Chicago, …

Post-Liberal Politics—Left, Right, and Center

Published by M.T. Steiner

Say the words “post-liberal,” and you are bound to get a host of responses. Some may mention post-liberal theology, others may reference post-liberal peace-building, and many will discuss the prospect of organizing a genuinely post-liberal politics. Isolating a precise definition of post-liberal politics is difficult. Post-liberalism is a vague term that only denotes politics after liberalism—and after the “End of History“—without specifying what the content of this politics will be or clarifying how far this post-liberal withdrawal from liberal principles will go. According to the political philosopher John Gray, these liberal principles assume that humans on a universal basis are individualistic creatures that are destined to experience progress along meliorist lines and create better, more egalitarian societies that value the equal worth of each person. As writers and thinkers from across the political spectrum start to look beyond these axioms, a number of commentators have attempted to identify and explain the core tenets of an emerging post-liberal politics. This new brand of post-liberal politics can be divided into three strands—one on the Left, one on the Right, and one in the Center—which are …

The Human Skills AI Can’t Replace

Published by William J. Littlefield II

Ever since the release of James Cameron’s 1984 blockbuster, The Terminator, Schwarzenegger and Skynet have served as cultural touchstones—symbols of an economic and existential threat. Now, the long-awaited proliferation of Artificial Intelligence (AI) seems finally to have arrived. And, along with the breakthroughs, there has been a parallel resurgence in AI alarmism. Renowned historian Yuval Noah Harari is speculating about algorithmic gods. Andrew Yang has predicated an entire presidential campaign on an AI-fueled economic catastrophe. Elon Musk appears earnestly concerned about the dystopian future of The Terminator being realized. Whenever a technology achieves enough momentum to be hailed as “disruptive,” someone, somewhere, will argue or be interviewed about how that technology will affect their industry, their future. Given enough hype, the applications are always said to be endless. One of the long-acknowledged faculties of the human mind is an ability to project things into infinity—Edmund Burke and Immanuel Kant contended that this was fundamental to our sense of the sublime.1 (They also asserted that this same faculty for the sublime could be a source of …

Video Games and the (Male) Meaning of Life

Published by Andrew Yang

Virtual worlds give back what has been scooped out of modern life . . . it gives us back community, a feeling of competence, and a sense of being an important person whom people depend on. —Jonathan Gottschall When I was seven, my parents bought me and my brother an Atari 2600, the first mass game console. The game it came with was “Asteroids.” We played that game an awful lot. One night, we snuck down in the middle of the night only to discover my Dad already playing. My brother and I loved going to local arcades and try to make a few quarters last as long as possible. It was the perfect set of incentives—you win, you keep playing. You lose, you’re forced to stand there and watch others play, hoping that someone is forced to leave their game in the middle so you can jump in. We became very good at video games. My favorite was “Street Fighter II.” I memorized the Mortal Kombat fatalities to inflict graphic harm on defeated enemies. …

Walking the Tightrope Between Chaos and Order—An Interview with Jordan B Peterson

Published by Andrew Kelman

In January, Jordan B Peterson was in London to launch his new book, 12 Rules for Life: An Antidote to Chaos. His lecture tour sold out and was extended twice, filling the auditorium of the Emmanuel Centre, a church-come-conference venue with a capacity of 1,000 souls, to bursting. Peterson, who only eighteen months earlier was a relatively obscure psychology professor at the University of Toronto, was now being introduced as “one of the world’s foremost intellectuals.” As Peterson appeared on stage under a ten-foot high image of himself, with halo projected behind his head, the audience leaped to its feet in a spontaneous standing ovation full of affection and admiration. This centrist dad was now filling venues like he was JK Rowling, Jeremy Corbyn, or Bono. The location for our interview after the event was, of course, suitably private. We met at a tiny flat provided by his publishers, Penguin, in Bloomsbury. Tammy Peterson (Jordan’s wife) was also present, and I began the interview by asking Dr. Peterson about political polarisation. Q: With voters rejecting …

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