Essays

Pros and Cons of Universal Basic Income

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Universal Basic Income (UBI) is a concept that proposes to provide every individual with a regular and unconditional cash payment regardless of their income, employment status, or wealth. UBI has been gaining momentum in recent years, with advocates claiming that it could help eradicate poverty, reduce income inequality, and provide financial security to people. However, there are also concerns that UBI could be economically unsustainable and discourage people from working, leading to increased dependency on the state.

One of the primary advantages of UBI is that it could significantly reduce poverty and inequality. By providing a guaranteed minimum income, people who are struggling to make ends meet would have more financial stability, enabling them to meet their basic needs such as food, shelter, and healthcare. UBI could also reduce the stigma associated with traditional welfare programs, which often have complex eligibility criteria and come with social stigmatization. This includes a transfer of wealth to care takers who are currently uncompensated for their labor.

Another advantage of UBI is that it could stimulate entrepreneurship and innovation. With a guaranteed income, people would have the financial security to take risks and pursue their passions without fear of financial ruin. This could lead to a surge in small businesses and startups, leading to increased economic growth and job creation.

However, there are also several concerns with UBI. One of the main criticisms is that it would be economically unsustainable. The cost of providing a universal basic income to every individual would be enormous, and it is unclear where the funding would come from. This could lead to increased taxes, inflation, or government debt, which could have negative consequences for the economy.

Another concern is that UBI could discourage people from working, leading to increased dependency on the state. If people receive a guaranteed income regardless of their employment status, some may choose not to work, leading to decreased productivity and economic growth. Furthermore, UBI could lead to a reduction in social welfare programs, which could negatively impact vulnerable groups such as the elderly, disabled, and those with low incomes.

In conclusion, UBI has both pros and cons, and its implementation would require careful consideration and planning. While it could provide financial stability to those in need, stimulate entrepreneurship and innovation, and reduce poverty and inequality, it could also be economically unsustainable and discourage people from working. As such, any decision to implement UBI should be based on a comprehensive analysis of its potential benefits and drawbacks, as well as its economic and social impact in our future world.

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Essays

Overpopulation: Myth or Possibility?

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Ever since the Black Death in the 14th century, caused by the Bubonic plague, the growth in human population has been on a constant rise. And within the last century, these numbers have risen exponentially. Indeed, in 1927 the population on earth was estimated to be 2 billion. Less than 90 years later in 2016, we have a population of 7.4 billion and it’s continuing to grow.

There are several contributing factors that have led to this population explosion. The most significant being attributed to declining death rates. Thanks to modern medicine and technology, we’ve been able to overcome problems of widespread hunger and poverty. Fertility treatments and better medical facilities have led otherwise fatal diseases and defects to be recoverable. And today, we reap the benefits and comfort that these advances have provided us.

The question remains: Should we be concerned about overpopulation? Within the scientific community there is diverse opinion on both when and what amount the population will peak at before stabilization or decline. Scientific studies have ranges of time as early as 2050 to 2300 and beyond. Estimates for the peak of population hover between the 9-12 billion range. (1, 2)

However, many of these scientific studies don’t take into consideration the potential scientific breakthroughs that may occur over the next two centuries. What if, for instance, it becomes normal to live to be 150 or even 200 years old? Considering the existence of super-centenarians, we should remain open and optimistic to the idea of increased human longevity. This would push the figures well beyond what many of these studies conclude.

Likewise, it is also possible that science could revolutionize the resources we need to survive and flourish. We have a limitless supply of energy in the sun and it’s only a matter of time before we begin to harvest this energy efficiently. In addition, the continuous evolution of technology like 3d printers may have enormous effects in the way we manage our resources. These kinds of innovations could nearly negate overpopulation as a problem altogether.

Of course we should remain skeptical of such ideas. Regardless, it’ll be interesting to see how our population growth plays out over the next several decades and whether this growth becomes a major problem. If it does become a problem, what are the philosophical consequences? Will we need to enable policies that discourage people from having children? Would that be ethical?

The consequences of overpopulation are definitely reminiscent of those in dystopian fiction in many ways. And while this may be new territory for humans, overpopulation is nothing new for many animal species. When it does occurs to a species, it isn’t pretty. Nature has it’s own way of restoring order. One of two things tends to happen under these circumstances:

  1. There becomes an increase in their predators which naturally reduces the species.
  2. There becomes massive conflict over the remaining resources and there’s a major population crash.

Number one is common among several animals including snowshoe hares, deer and lemmings. If predators are not increased to keep the population low, number two becomes the inevitable result. Starvation and thirst becomes common, and eventually violent competition between their own species arises. However, some animals have learned to refrain from mating under such conditions thanks to their evolutionary pheromones. (1) Thus preventing conflict.

So how does this apply to us? Humans are apex predators, meaning we reside at the top of the food chain in which no other creatures prey. Therefore we would skip number one and go straight to number two. If humans weren’t to refrain from reproduction, we may escalate far beyond the violent skirmishes present in many animal species.

It’s important to note that many of these violent outcomes are only possible if we let overpopulation get out of hand in the first place. Nevertheless, overpopulation may still present problems including mass unemployment and a reduced quality of life for most people.

Whether or not overpopulation comes to fruition is yet to be seen, but the conversation needs to begin sooner rather than later. Someday, we may have to rethink our moral intuitions. For better or for worse.

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Adventures

An Adventure: Seattle to Maui

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Aloha from Maui, Hawaii! This last week I’ve been lounging on beaches, drinking Pina Coladas and catching up on some much needed novel reading. While I was here I also got to do a bit of sight seeing: driving the Road to Hana, a helicopter ride over Molokai, and hiking through the dense forests of Maui. And of course- doing some writing and rejuvenating my creative juices.

I brought two books along with me for the trip: Slaughterhouse-Five by Kurt Vonnegut and The Atlantis Gene by A.G. Riddle. Both novels were recommended by a long time friend and fellow science fiction nerd. Unfortunately I haven’t read much Sci-Fi lately (last one was Partials by Dan Wells) so both books were a good fix to a long time craving.

Slaughterhouse-Five is a classic novel that follows the life of Billy Pilgrim- a war veteran, optometrist, and time traveler- who gets abducted by aliens. Throughout the novel, he tackles the philosophical problems of war, death and free will. I loved this book not only for the topics it covers, but for the absurd characters and mix of tragedy and humor. I give it a 4/5. Here are some of my favorite quotes:

“Why you? Why us for that matter? Why anything? Because this moment simply is.”

“That’s one thing Earthlings might learn to do, if they tried hard enough: Ignore the awful times and concentrate on the good ones.”

And of course, the simple… “So it goes.”

The second novel I read, The Atlantis Gene, dives into the mystery of human origins and evolution. This novel really digs into accurate details for both genetics and biology which really made the otherwise crazy conspiracies come to life in a very realistic way. The pacing was a bit wild at times, but I loved the plot and action making it a thrilling page turner. I give it a 4/5 as well. Apparently this book is the first of a trilogy and is currently being made into a major Motion picture. I’ll definitely be seeing it in theaters.

Outside of reading I also did a lot of writing for the philosophy portion of my blog on the topics of boredom and overpopulation. Once I get these thoughts a little more organized and coherent I’ll upload them to my blog- most likely within the next week or two. Of course that’s assuming I can read my own handwriting (I tend to write terribly sloppy when free writing ha).

Finally I’ll leave you with some pictures. My Android camera and amateur photography doesn’t do these sights any justice, but alas I did what I could. So it goes…

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Songwriting

The Power of 4 Chords

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If you haven’t already, watch the video above. Odd isn’t it? How can 4 chords create so many different songs? What are these magical four chords and how do they work?

Before we can answer those questions, we need to have a basic understanding of music theory. In western music there are a total of 12 notes. These notes have intervals of half steps and together form the Chromatic scale. After the twelve notes the pattern repeats:

Beginning with the chromatic scale, we can then derive other scale formulas. The two most popular being the major scale and the natural minor scale. These scales are defined by a pattern of whole steps [W] and half steps [H]. Whole steps are simply two half steps. Both of these scales consist of 7 of the 12 total notes and begins with a root note [R].

Major Scale: R, W, W, H, W, W, W, H

Natural Minor Scale: R, W, H, W, W, H, W, W

Now let’s look at these scales in practice. For example, C Major Scale and A Minor Scale:

C Major Scale: C, D, E, F, G, A, B, C

A Minor Scale: A, B, C, D, E, F, G, A

For the purpose of this exercise, I’ve purposefully chosen two scales that don’t use any sharps or flats, however, you may apply major and minor scales to any of the other notes which would incorporate sharps/flats to varying degrees. Next, let’s assign Roman numerals to each of the notes. For the key of C Major, this would look like this:

C = I – D = ii – E = iii – F = IV – G = V – A = vi – B = VII (note: the upper/lowercase)

And for the Key of A Minor:

A = i – B = II – C = III – D = iv – E = v – F = VI – G = VII (note: the upper/lowercase)

Now that we’ve selected a couple of keys and have assigned roman numerals to each of their notes, let’s figure out what those four chords are! In music theory, numbers I, IV and V have a relationship called harmony. It is these numbers (1, 4 and 5) that determine 3/4 of the four chords used in the video above.

In order to go from notes to chords, we simply apply each note to it’s corresponding key. So for the C major scale, the chords I, IV, and V would be C Major, F Major, and G Major. For the A Minor scale, the chords i, iv and v would be A Minor, D Minor, and E Minor. You should think of numbers I, IV and V like x, y and z variables in math- they change based on the key they are in.

The process of changing these variables to different keys is known as transposing. This is often done to accompany the singers voice- and is exactly what the Axis of Awesome do in the video.

Below is the key of C Major transposed to a number of other keys:

[IMG]

So what about the last chord? The last chord is the number VI (major) or vi (minor). Number VI is unique from the other chords in that it uses the opposite chord type. So for example in C Major, the vi (notice this is lowercase) would be an A minor chord rather than an A major chord. In contrast, in A Minor, the VI (uppercase) would be C major.

The VI distinguishes itself by giving contrast to the other three chords and ultimately helps create an emotional appeal. And that’s exactly why these chords are used so much in popular music. Something else to note is that in the video these chords are played in the same progression throughout (I – V – vi – IV). You can change the order of these chords, switch between them multiple times, or even add some new chords to the mix to create an almost endless number of possibilities.

Another important thing to note, which I don’t think many beginning songwriters realize, is that chord progressions are not protected by copyright. Melody and some other music elements are (I will discuss this more in depth in a future post).

Understanding how these four chords interact can substantially improve your songwriting abilities and how to compose with other musicians. Happy writing!

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Songwriting

Songwriting 101: Curiosity

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Curiosity is a medium to fast tempo song rocking at 140 BPM. For this song I wanted to incorporate a variety of different elements: ambient pads, natural sounding piano, pizzicato synth, organic percussion loops and soft vocals. The collaboration of these elements resulted in a mellow electropop song which was something I’ve been interested in writing for a while.

To begin, I started by creating an ambient pad progression which can be heard from the beginning of the song and played throughout in entirety. The ambient pitches I use are (B, E, F#, G#) which I retrieved from the major scale of B using the infamous I, IV, V, and VI chords. These chords (The Power of 4 Chords) lay the foundation for the song and create an uplifting and emotive feeling.

Next, I incorporated a simple piano lick to go over the ambient progression for both the verse and chorus parts. The piano is ultimately what gives the song the mid to fast range tempo and further provides a strong backbone for the melodic parts yet to be added. With the backbone completed, I went on to create the song structure.

When first listening to this song one might guess I’m using the song structure ABABCB, but it’s actually a bit more complex than that. I would classify this song as ABAABBCBBD. The reason for this is because both the verse and chorus are double in length after (0:54). The greatest advantage of this song structure is that it gives a glimpse of the entire song early on (AB) and then it expands in more detail as it goes on (AABB). Finally there’s (C) which is just the ambient pad and vocals, the chorus once again, and (D) the outro of the song. You can hear the outro of the song with the change of percussion at (3:12) and the zoning out of multiple instruments.

With the song structure in place, I could focus on defining the main parts of the song: the verse (A) and chorus (B). For the beginning two verses, I wanted to define them by three things: the ambient progression, the piano lick and the vocal melody. The final verse includes these three traits as well, but adds percussion into the mix which you can hear at (1:22).

To define the chorus, in addition to the three elements and percussion, I added a second percussion element and two sampled melodic synth parts. Check out SamplePhonics for some great sample packs to add some flavor into your music. In addition, in order to focus purely on the instrumentation and let it shine, I removed all vocals from the chorus.

As per my usual songwriting habits, I finished with writing the lyrics:

Let’s lose our normality
And get a taste of insanity
Why do I flee from this feeling?
That world is calling

Everyone’s the same
Can’t seem to escape from their old ways
Free will’s to blame
But we weren’t born to regret anything

Forever and ever we live our lives on fire
Facetious desire we hold our dreams up high
One more step until I’m free
One last breath to breathe

Funny how the truth works out
When you open your mind and see
You can’t believe the simple things
If you have a bit of curiosity

This was an incredibly personal song to write. It’s a song about failure, passion, love and understanding. It’s a song about evolving as a person and reflecting on that growth. My goal as always, however, is to leave the interpretation up to the listener. To be perfectly honest, this has been one of my favorite songs to write lyrically in a while. I think my words reveal exactly what I wanted to say. That wraps up this songwriting 101 for the day. Until next time!

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