The Problem

Socrates interrupted Musk.

“And how are we to finance such a technology?”

“I don’t know yet.”

“I know nothing, but one true, justified belief that I own concerns the concept of ownership as it relates to the concept of justice. Justice is the means by which we agree to divide resources on a table. Justice is the discipline through which we determine who is owed what. Injustice is a function of debt - someone owes someone else something, or someone is owed something by someone else. That idea in mind, I can speculate that this global, educational technology would be quite expensive to build, maintain, and refine. It would involve all members of all cities, states, and empires to agree upon a just method of payment. Yet, I assume that in the year 2018, our world is yet divided by different modes of speaking and different items of value.”

“That is correct,” Musk replied. “Language is not the issue so much as currency is, though. Ideally, we would have a universal world currency, as well as a global UBI...”

“What is currency, and what is a UBI?” Alexander asked.