June 2024: Laziness, Passion and Friends

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Laziness, Passion and Friends

written by Aurélie

Lazy millionaires

Have friends who claim that giving “free money” makes people lazy? Spoiler alert: it doesn’t. Ask them if they’re also against inheritance, or if they want it taxed at 100%. After all, we don’t want lazy millionaires, do we? Speaking of money, here’s how Warren Buffet performs a mic test.

Ikagai effect

Ikigai is a Japanese concept that entails finding a passion that gives your life value and joy. I might be late to the party, but this nifty illustration by Jun Han Chin helped make sense of what I'm doing. Volunteering for Social Income is definitely core to my ikigai.

Silver linings

The opposite of ikigai is probably social media—a black hole draining life's meaning. The silver lining is that good things can still emerge, like our successful campaign with ismatu, which generated $30,000 for Ebola survivors. Our friends at GiveDirectly also teamed up with the influencer MrBeast, the most-followed YouTuber. The message of empowering direct cash transfers resonates deeply. Did you spot Riccardo and Kabelo in ismatu’s reel?

Lovely BFF

What can we learn about friendship from South Korea? Save money together for a common goal to keep bonds strong. There, friends often form saving groups, called gyemoim, to save for vacations, meals, and other social activities. Save together, stay together.

Charming UBI

My friend asked me how I would persuade her notoriously suspicious mother about the benefits of UBI. I initially started to tick off the effects, efficiency and research, but then remembered that Rutger Bregman explains this super eloquently in his TED Talk. Mothers like him anyway.

Human triumph

We all know that AI regularly gets called out for cheating. The photographer Miles Astray entered a real image of a flamingo to an AI-generated image contest and won. Of course he was disqualified, but the point was made regardless: Human made things are still good.

Frozen funds

It feels like choosing a Netflix movie—endless debates, and in the end, everyone is mad. The Loss and Damage Fund of the United Nations is similarly at a loss, with no clear plan how to distribute money. Many believe cash transfers are the best way to help those impacted by climate change by ensuring aid reaches those in need. This is why we support people in Freetown, the third most impacted city in the world. Keep waiting for the United Nations, or take action now.

My World in Data

1.9 billion

You heard ismatu talk about the gravity of the Ebola virus that hit Sierra Leone in 2014. The country was also most affected by the pandemic, incurring a loss of US $1.9 billion. It can still be felt in many ways. This is also why we support Ebola survivors.

My World in News

• The US is considering the replacement of rent vouchers with cash (Vox)
• Universal banking access is near with widespread mobile phone availability (Vox)
• Free money wouldn’t make people lazy (Guardian)
• Reflective roofs try to combat extreme heat in Freetown (EHN)
• Sierra Leone outlaws child marriage in new legislation (africanews)

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