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

fX Tatara

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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