Greetings most excellent and happy listeners and welcome to the random world of the Prekarian Poet Nicholas Jakari. And welcome also, to his tale about Saving… UBI: through a poetic interrogation of how we are kolonizing our own minds… And how can use this understanding to help us on our journey: to that Sci fi world where we all live on credits…
In this podcast I am going to introduce you to an old Utopian idea; now often called UBI, or Universal Basic Income.
This is an idea that the poet Jakari borrowed; and developed, as a fictional solution, to a fictional need: … for a series of stories, he was writing: called, kolektively: the Azanian Quartet…
That was nearly 30 years ago when he started writing “The Jonker Memorandum’, [Now part three of that Quartet. He completed the Jonker in 2010: and started podcasting it in serial form that year…
The Podcast was completed in 84 episodes in 2014… After which he abandoned it
and got on with part 4 of his planned Azanian Quartet. Part two btw is the Ashanti Raider… Available as a serialised tale also on Amazon.
These poetically allegoric tales start against the background of a real revolution, in what was at that time a deeply; offensively unpleasant, fascist part of the world.
The local revolution is [in his fiction]; was also interrupted by a cataclysmic disaster: a real one where we live and an essentially fictitious disastrous, Apocalyptic event… derived in part from a series of exceptional noises.
So he promoted the Jonker Memorandum with the statement … A story about how the world ended: and what happened afterwards…
Now a dozen years later, he been somewhat bemused to discover that a particular feature of his fiction, became, for a time, during the Covid lockdown period: … fact. In his country in the form of a grant; In the Firmian Federal Republic… what came to be called “Biden Bucks”…
Specifically, He refers here to that part of his fiction called: “Basic Pay…” Now being referred to as UBI remember aka Universal Basic Income… and one of the backstories in the Jonker Memorandum… A few footnote episodes in fact.
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This phrase, Basic Pay, was the slogan of his fictional Presidential contender in an equally fictional, forthcoming election… in that cyber serial Jonker Memorandum.
She, the story’s shero, Korinth Starr, asserted, as her base line election slogan: Basic Pay was “not a Grant…” i.e.: some form of public largesse… Rather: It was “Ours by Right.” … I.E “Basic pay is not a Grant it is ours by right”
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This btw was a phrase, with which the poet returned from what he considers to have been, a most bizarre, and inexplicable journey. It was a journey of hallucinogenic quality, on an occasion, while undergoing surgery for multiple gunshot wounds… An experience he turned into Part one of his Quartet… That was The Buffalo Hunters… First published in ’96 now available on Amazon.
For reasons he won’t bore you with and probably can’t remember anyway, he chose to set part of his work in an evolving future: in his part of the world: in a time after a fictional global catastrophe.
And to do that he found he had to deal with one question that had been neatly sidestepped, by the many of his favourite, iconic sci fi authors. This was the idea that people in the future simply lived on credits …
Where they came from was never part of any of the stories.
But: Where these credits came from, tormented him while he was otherwise procrastinating, with Isaac Asimov, Frank Herbert, Robert Heinlein, Robert Bester, Ray Bradbury and the whole Hugo awards lists of the 60s.
Doing that: to put off completing his Economics’, term papers…
He never found an explanation back then; and confesses that the best he’s yet heard, is Paul Krugman’s observation that debt is: “Simply money that we owe to ourselves.”
Albeit Spengler of course put it more poetically… “Money is simply a state of mind…”
All Technically true but obviously way more complicated than that.
So why would a rational society choose to create a social network based on Basic Pay and where would the money come from…? Friend David … A serious mathematician, said Asimov was the king of sci fi; and he could invent credits if he wanted to… Stick with the science…
That was just a snazzy way of avoiding the question… I said …
There would have to have been a need… we all agreed.
So back then we agreed we needed a disaster…
Especially when we heard the leading politician, of one of the big finance countries, announcing loudly: back in the 90’s, that such a thing as Basic Pay, would need a global catastrophe for it to happen…
So… in the interests of literary endeavour we went in search of a catastrophe, in 1998…
We found something terribly tasty: and between the Prekarian poet, a shoemaker, a door to door salesman, a mathematician, a chemist, a nuclear physicist, a few geologists; and, ironically, one of the world’s most notorious, wanted hitmen, at that time. He was hiding out in Jozi:, and drinking in one of my then, preferred local pubs [a few years later on, we read in the Citizen newspaper that the fellow was arrested on an International arrest warrant: by Interpol].
That was when we kind of, all figured out, that he was in fact, a genuine: bad guy… and not just some guy who told cool stories in exchange for booze.
Nonetheless between us all we cobbled together a fictional global disaster of such epic proportions, that we could introduce basic pay as a backstory to the main plot…
What one has to do to come up with a few lines of fiction hmmm… You cannot simply make it up it has to be real… even if it is fiction.
Of course for a long time with Basic Pay, it was still financed out of the liabilities side of a balance sheet… which is where it remains to this day… Maybe.
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As a writer of fiction, he believes he somehow, serendipitously, slid into a magnificent satori moment back in 2018: when he abruptly figured out: where the solution could perhaps be…
That is:
How to move Basic pay from the liabilities side to the Asset side of a balance sheet.
And the secret he believes, as a writer of fiction, lies somehow, with how we presently value, this wonderful golden mountain that we have somehow created from a pile of detritus: and Accountants aside, haven’t specifically noted…
By this he suggests we are experiencing what some would call “a wonderful piece of collective delusion…”or What a Chinese delegate to the Davos thing a few years back called: “A Grey Rhino”: And hence as a line from the poem at the time goes…: …
“A grey rhino that so completely fills the screen: that nothing else can be seen…”
We are talking about that mysterious word: DATA
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The two pieces of poetry that follow result from this a satori type insight. An epiphany if you like… And the poem, “The Kolonization of the Mind” was first used in a blog by me in 2018… and also forms part of the introduction to part 4.2 of my Azanian Quartet fiction series. 4.2 is set in a time after a [fictional] global catastrophe…
So you are reminded that poetry is an allusional art… and metaphors run rampant perhaps… Our first piece is called “The invisible friend that must
Be shown to exist”
For offshore listeners the word Povo in the opening stanza, is a local word, for what Marx called the proletariat: A Roman word for people who have nothing to give but their offspring, and Firmian’s, who are also mentioned, is the poet’s word for a well-known, allegedly declining, superpower…
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Hear ye
Hear Ye
Some will strive
To
Achieve
Nietzschean validation – the
Povo*
Will become automatonotik [sic]
Fiddling witheir [sic]
Mobiles
Seeking to affirm their intrin
Sic irrele
Vance.
Nonetheless
Machines don’t buy things!!
They dispense.
So… On what basis should we
Perceive
Value?
Given the thrust of
A digital economy:
In our search for value
That
Konektive
Konstrukt kalled
DATA:
Is the land that must be
Mined for
GOLD.
Peepil have become
Products
To be exploited for their
DATA value.
Should they not
Receive their
Rightful
Fee?
In Gold?
Yeah gold
You say data is
The new gold.
No… I said it was the new land
Waiting to be mined:
For what is in it.
Korektion it is already
prodigiously mined…
Does it pay rent?
Not yet.
Jakari [‘18]
SFX Simply signalling the end… ?
So what does this mean
For the future
Of everything…?
Logically:
The Monetisation of
Humanity
Through data derived
Micropayments.
Mmmm, there’s a scary thought….
Jakari[‘17]
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The Kolonization of the Mind
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In that place to which we
Are
Evolving [in my fictional world,
Anyway] at
Breakneck speed, a majority of
Ordinary people do not
[Apparently] have the com
Petence to do any
Thing more complex than
Shop: and mutter
OMG.
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The Mind as the New World
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We are witness now to what will
In decades to come, be seen as
A most momentous butterfly effect
Moment: in
The brief history of Modern
Homo
Sapiens.
The moment we realised that
We were witness to
And participants in: the kolo
Nization of the mind.
When we [some humans] colonized
[Allegedly empty] land
Back in the 15/16th centuries
Assuming everyone already
Living there
To be irrelevant to
Purpose
Mainly because they were
Undocumented, unlettered and
Innumerate
Primitives. Who could be overrun
with the whiff of
gunpowder
We
[The invaders] simply
Appropriated the land and
Its bounty:
As humans had done to
Other humans for many
Thousands of years. This bounty
Became a cost
Free
Windfall
[Almost: unearned].
For instance, plundering
Entire mountains of silver in the
Southern Outer lands
South of Firmia, brought
bounty; from which
Inordinate profits could
Be generated: with little
Or no regard for
The source.
The most fascinating aspect of the recent in
Terrogation of Mr. Z
By the Congress of the
Firmian elites… Senators and
Representatives
Alike
Was the latter persons’ complete incomp
Rehension at the scale of what had
Happened: while they had been busy
Ruminating…. On perennial
Peccadillo’s.
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There was a disconcerting sense of
The time machine. Here was
Cortez meeting the
Aztec royalty, who were
Baffled
At this predicted, even
Anticipated, yet
Unexpected
Arrival.
Mysterious people, with
Serious intentions: and powerful,
Inkomprehensible machinery. Then… whoops
Before they could say SH*T!! … They were in
History’s garbage bag.
In effect, the worthy Congresspersons became as
One with the beguiled
“Natives”, of many kolonized lands: faced
With the inkomprehensible.
Therefore, they trotted
Out their
Memes and
Things; and each, thinking ‘stomach’
First, asked all the
Questions regarding the inhe
Rent trivia of Mr.
Z’s offence?
Not one
However, of that
Kolektion of [apparently] f
Undamentally out of touch
Human’s e
Ven got to grips with the
Kore of the
Dilemma: facing their konstituents.
A Chinese participant in a Davos debate
Earlier this year, spoke
Of a Grey Rhino effect, which
He explained represented
“Something so huge it completely
Obscured
The screen”.
The Grey Rhino here is
The word
DATA
And the
Kolonisation of the mind
That it represents.
Naturally the more cynical
Amongst us
May argue that ignoring
The grey rhino is essential to
The continuation
Of their pleasure: which
At heart concerns the Kolonisation
Of the mind.
Of course that would assume they un
Derstood what was happening.
What does this mean?
Simply this.
Using the language of
Mr. Adam Smith…. He,
Famously, of The Wealth
Of Nations… We could say that
Mr. Z
[and
His illustrious peers] are the most
Successful kolonizers of all
Time…well at the moment anyway…
According to
The hype surrounding the man’s
Recent forage around the
Firmian Capitol’ he gains some 25
Billion dollars of
[Profit] annually from
Some 40 Billion $US[Firmian]
Revenue. In a competitive
World of
Razor thin margins that is beyond
HUGE.
The revenue comes from companies
That use the data given
So f
Reely by the b
Illions of
Users of Mr Z’s
‘Machine’.
They use the
Insights the data presents, to target
Prospects for product
Purchases, more efficiently
Than ever previously known.
Inherently, this means that, like
The Konquista
Dors, who found mountains
Of silver back in the 16th
Century; appropriated it from naïve
Possessors: like those
Who purchased Manhattan: for bags of
Beads; and
Achieved great
WEALTH.
Mr. Z [et al] have achieved a similar,
Inherently
‘Unearned income’. They are
The
El Supremo
Rentiers.
When Messrs.’ Smith and
Ricardo talked of ‘Economic
Rent’, they were referring
To this windfall effect
Resulting from control over the product
Of a natural resource.
In this case, data
Emanating from a human
Source: the ultimate in a natural
Resource… of course…
It also took about a hundred and
Fifty years back then: for the penny
To drop too.
We hope the penny will drop
Sooner, for humans
Today or the rest
Of the century could get seriously
Rough: especially for those
Absently
Left behind.
Jerome Powell [chair
Person of the Firmian Federal
Reserve,] admitted
Something in his opening
Salvo with the same group of
Kongresspersons, earlier
This year; [2018].
He dealt with a
Word that had raised some
Kurious questions
Amongst more heterodox
Thinkers.
He said that “The Slack”,
To which he made constant
Reference
When justifying
The kontinuing, no inflation
Trend of the past decade: was the
Availability of, equally kompetent,
labour
Forces:
In a globalized inter
Konekted world: People who would
Work for relatively less money
In spite of allegedly: full employment
Konditions in Firmia.
“The Elliot curve is kracked.” *…
They call…
The mob in here, are all
In thrall to
The slack,” he said: beyond the wall
The
Fifty million people across the
Planet
Living daily off a cyber-planet…
And who
Are an almost infinite
Resource at wage levels below
Those of the Firmian
Norms.
No one
Had ever admitted: that: before:..
Publically… anyway
So in building Fb Mr. Z’s true
genius lay in solving
one of humanity’s greatest
Needs… To be in kontakt
With one’s fellows; and
Through the power of
digitalization he [and all
the rest of the merry
band of tech’ dudes] ‘invented’
The things called
DATA… Symbolically
Packaging James Surowieki’s: “Wisdom
of Crowds”.
The DATA then… has become the new
‘Goldfields’ now; and the
Klondike rush is being relived: as he
Kapitalizes on a window of
Oppor
Tunity by ‘mone
Tizing’ his ‘free” source
Of ‘data’.
And as with the Silver
Exchanges of past time glory
No mention in the exchange pays rent
To the source.
No wonder the planet is all
Messed
Up. And getting
Hotter
By the day
As the greatest beneficiary of “unearned
Income” in history, the
Question the Kongresspersons should
Have been asking, related to that share of
Unearned income [i.e. Economic
Rent] that should be returning
To source, rewarding
Loyalty work
Presently
Given freely: in order
To sustain the virtuous
Circle of e
Xchange
That maintains
Their:
Ability to keep
Feeding
The
Machine
with.
DATA
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You have been listening to poetic pieces regarding the deeply undervalued and unexplored role of data in the future of human financial matters… These pieces were written by the prekarian poet Nicholas Jakari.
And they all dealt with an issue that is growing more problematic daily, as the Bear’s war in central Groland demonstrates… How does humanity futureproof itself against the coming chills of radical climate adjustments… a mtter rapidly gaining in urgency
And with a fragment of insight with which to tease your mind…
Jakari’s work can not only be found on Spotify but parts 1, 2 and 4.1 of his Azanian Quartet are all available on Amazon Kindle Publishing… As are a range of historically relevant poetry kolektions… compiled over the past half century of living in a brutal place… A dictatorship of the irrational, through two revolutionary insurrectional konflikts… Plus a devastating period of state capture, by Marx’s classic “Dangerous Klass” … Those he warned against in Part 1 of his Manifesto: published in 1848.
Part 3, of his Azanian Quartet, the Jonker Memorandum, will be moving from its present home for the past twelve years to address new listeners at Spotify and Anchor.fm.
And for those curious about this fictional idea, parts 4.2 & 4.3 of his Azanian Quartet are on the production line, for publication by October. They will indicate in their backstories what this revelation, still fictional remember, produced, as an outcome: to satisfy Asimov’s and Co’s positions on reflexive Credits…
We hope that you have enjoyed your time with the Prekarian poet and we look forward to sharing more prekarian economic tales with you…. Next time you drop by….
NJ signing off …
Cheers
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