speeches
Sowing Seeds of Security: How Basic Income Is Taking Root in the U.S. through Local Pilots and Programs
Note: The following is a speech I gave at the 2023 Basic Income Earth Network (BIEN) Congress that was held in Seoul, South Korea. You can find more of the presentations there online at this link. Thank you for inviting me from my home in Washington, D.C. to be
My Closing Keynote Speech at England's Basic Income North 2023 Conference
(The following is the text of my speech which you can also watch or listen to) A few of you already know me, but for those who don’t, I’m just a guy who happened to get really into the concept of unconditional basic income ten years ago. I
The BIG Picture of Money, Economics, and Humanity
The following is the speech I gave at the 2022 BIG Conference on the day Roe vs Wade was overturned. If you prefer, you can also listen to the recorded audio. I apologize in advance for kind of running in the red today. Like in Pulp Fiction, I'm a race
An Introduction to Unconditional Basic Income For All
Let’s talk about humanity... Human civilization was not ready for COVID-19, nor is it ready for the continuing impacts of climate change, nor the impacts we will increasingly feel as we automate more and more employment. As a species, we were not ready. We’re still not ready. And
My Speech at the People's Convention
On August 30, 2020, the Movement for a People's Party [https://peoplesparty.org/] held their first People's Convention [https://peoplesconvention.org/]. I was asked to give a speech alongside other invited speakers like Nina Turner, Cornel West, Marianne Williamson, and many others. The purpose of the People’s Convention was
My #TestifyForUBI Testimony for Congress
The following is the testimony I wrote and recorded on video for Congress on May 18 as part of the #TestifyForUBI campaign. If you would like to take part too, please visit TestifyForUBI.com [http://testifyforubi.com/index.php/testify/] and fill out the application form. Please also follow @TestifyForUBI
Introducing Andrew Yang
I wrote this short speech on January 30 to introduce Andrew Yang at his town hall in Dubuque, Iowa. Photo by Marc Klockow [http://klocko.co] of my delivering it. -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- If you're Yang Gang, there's a good chance you know who I am, and if you're Yang Curious, you're
Think Like a Martian About Money and Universal Basic Income (UBI)
My Keynote Speech at Imagine Belfast Festival of Ideas & Politics Also available in Italian, Spanish, and Korean Think like a Martian… That’s a lesson I learned years ago from a theoretical physicist named Richard Feynman. I never met him, but he was one of my teachers as a fellow
My Unconditional Basic Income Testimony for Maryland's House Ways and Means Committee
Click here to optionally listen instead of read this post [https://anchor.fm/scottsantens/episodes/My-Unconditional-Basic-Income-Testimony-for-Marylands-House-Ways-and-Means-Committee-e3c9ff] . In mid-February I was contacted by the legislative aide for Delegate Gabriel Acevero of Maryland [https://twitter.com/gacevero] who has introduced a bill [http://mgaleg.maryland.gov/2019RS/bills/hb/hb1089F.pdf] to
Standing on Shoulders
On November 17, 2018, a true human being named Gerald Huff died of pancreatic cancer [https://www.legacy.com/obituaries/sfgate/obituary.aspx?pid=190826268]. He was a fellow basic income advocate and a friend. Like me, he was passionate about UBI, so much so that he had been working