#and he comes to visit his one billion wives and their kids every evening and sometimes one or more wives leave with him to have a

[lilnasxvevo]

My favorite dumbass headcanon is that all the apparently unmarried sect leaders post-timeskip actually ARE married and it just doesn’t come up. Nie Huaisang has like 3 kids it’s just not relevant to the story

[cherr-e]

𝐃𝐄𝐀𝐑𝐄𝐒𝐓 | based in 18th century Korea - JOSEON.

❝ You were never meant to live for love, ranks and hierarchy mattered the most. Prince Lee Taeyong was at the top of the hierarchy, he was the youngest out of four brothers. He knew he was not made for the throne and lived his life away from the epicentre of Joseon, in peace with his poems and music. Yet the son of his father’s respected friend peaks his interest in what he would later on define as love. ❞

DISCLAIMER ⚠️ this is an alternate universe of the ship OLIYONG. this is a piece of fiction, and does not refer to any location or individual throughout this mini-series from start to finish. this is not a historical or documentary work and is purely made for entertainment.

[...] means a soundtrack that would sound nice in the scene, similar to a movie. 

masterlist | episode one:- we’ve become part of the past.

The petals of cherry blossoms swayed underneath the hands of the wind, it was the end of another spring which meant Prince Taeyong had to attend to his seasonal visits at the main palace. The place where he spent most of his childhood and teen years, trapped and lost. His brothers busy competing to become better than the other and that was why he had now resided to the countryside. Away from his royal duties, and only payed respect to his father. 

A few days and he’d be home again, busy humming along to his poems and music while he played to the young children of the small village he resided in. “How long will you stay here?” His right-wing man, Taeil, spoke up after throwing back a shot of rice wine from the local bar they frequented in Hanyang - the capital of Joseon. “I don’t really know, probably for two days. There’s nothing interesting about my family’s lives. Same old shit, brothers fighting over who’s the better royal. Don’t even get me started on their wives.” Taeyong rolled his eyes at the thought of those evil gossipers. They probably wondered why he wasn’t wed yet, making up rumours that he would bed men of the countryside. 

Well he did have an open opinion towards love, but at the same time believed love was for the weak. It was something his family would use against him, if he ever felt that emotion begin to wrap its fingers around his mind - he would push it to the ends of the earth and forget it in his tattered books. “You’re dozing off again.” Taeil munched on the anju served with the alcohol - “I’m already thinking of heading home.” Taeyong sighed, his eyes shining with sadness and regret. This was how it was with every seasonal visit, he was reminded of how boring his life was. A life many strived for, but he felt like his opinions did not align with society. Not anymore at least. 

An hour had passed, Taeil taking it slow with his alcohol yet his superior had downed two bottles of rice wine and soju, forgetting about the busy day ahead of him tomorrow. The royal prince looked sad whenever he was drunk, the walls he built around himself after all these years tumbled after a sip of alcohol. A lost young frail boy, with big shining eyes that yearned for a new life - his face was clean-shaven, sparse from any form of facial hair. He looked more like a young naive boy despite being in his twenties and having his fair share of problems.

[ ... lover’s first ]

“Let’s head back to the palace Taeil-ssi.” Taeyong slurred, cheeks pink and puffy. “I’ll pay for the alcohol. Wait for me at the entrance.” Moon Taeil smiled softly while his friend scurried off to where he would stand, but the sound of a loud performance had dragged his tired body towards the buzz of the street. Like a moth to a flame. He was enraptured by the sounds of Hanyang at night, lost in the midst of crowds, he was normal and he probably looked like a useless drunkard to others. It was the buzz of the night that drove Taeyong’s adrenaline, he swam in the crowd. Wind hitting his face as the cold night began to dance between the people. Soon, droplets of rain had fallen on his face - pitter patter they fell. Droplets became a light drizzle, some of the crowds ran to seek shelter and the business men sprinted to protect their stands from getting wet. 

Being lost in the crowds brought euphoria to his melancholic soul, losing concentration of reality lead to him slipping on the wet floor and bumping into a taller large build. Papers and brushes scattered across the ground, soaking in the water from the skies. Taeyong helped pick up the mess he created, apologising quickly as he repeated “sorry” a billion times. The artist grinned, finding the younger man’s drunk state slightly amusing. 

“You draw well.” He handed the artist the last painting. “Thank you.” The man had a deeper voice, slightly rough with an accent hidden at the end of the two words he spoke. “You sound like you’re not from Hanyang.” Taeyong pointed out, the rain still continuing its assault on the strangers “you could say that.” He smiled again, this time it made Taeyong’s heart pick up its pace. 

The stranger was a very handsome man, who looked to be in his mid twenties, the tan skin and accent meant he was probably from a place further east but the hanbok he wore looked to be made of the finest of materials imported from China and made by well-known tailors who served the rich. It was dark purple, the sleeves and trousers black - disagreeing with the season that had just recently arrived in Joseon. Taeyong pondered, the artist looked like someone who did not conform to society as the colours he wore did not represent summer at all. Despite the smile and the kind demeanour the stranger had shown off to the Prince, sad souls recognised one another because the sleepless nights lay beneath their eyes, and the colours of summer did not break their cries.

Kim Minjae grabbed his soaked painting from the delicate hands of the drunkard in front of him. The drawings were most likely ruined, but it wasn’t like anyone was going to view his work - he was the son of one of the highest ranking war generals in the country, he was trained to battle for the worse. Not to paint foolish moments he found appealing that weakened a part of his soul, he hated being talented in the arts.

“I’ll be off then.” Minjae chuckled, and Taeyong nodded his head - he wanted to ask for the artists’ name, but he kept quite and stepped aside. “It was nice meeting you Mr Drunkard.” He spoke one last time, and Taeyong watched as the man drowned in the ambiance of the night. The rain still continued, and Taeyong was soaking wet yet he felt very high. That buzz of adrenaline, it was still swimming in his bloodstream, his heart reached to his ears, was it excitement? Curiosity because to that tall man? The rain and alcohol? 

He was hoping the reason for his body to be so awake was of something stupid and not because of that broken artist. The last thing he needed were feelings for a sorrowful stranger. 

“I heard the servants watched you come in late last night.” Minjae halted at the sound of his father’s stern lifeless voice. He cleared his throat and said, “I went out for some air and got carried away a little bit,” he remembered the table manners he had learnt a few months back. Never eat when conversing with someone older than you. 

“Did you draw anything?” General Kim picked up rice with his chopsticks and chewed on it slowly. He never looked his son in the eye ever, Minjae did not know why, He preferred looking at nature instead of his stupid useless son. “No father. I haven’t drawn in a long time.” 

His father grunted in acknowledgement: “well done.” They sat in silence, the sound of utensils hitting against the expensive bowls and plates. Breakfast always consisted of a silent father, Minjae still did not why his father had shown up a few years back in the countryside he grew up in. The expensive clothing, the sleek black horse and the small army that were behind his father - it was a different world to Minjae then, he was used to ragged clothes, playing with the country kids and singing along to their lullabies, drawing whatever he found pretty and appreciating small things. That life was over now, and he had a new future - a better one. 

“His Majesty, the King would like to meet you today, he wants to see how well you fair off on the battlefield and has invited us to sparring with his sons. All four of them. Do well.” General Kim stood up from the table, the servants bowing as he passed by them. Kim Minjae stopped chewing, and threw his chopsticks on the table - not a single goodbye, like its always been. 

The journey to the palace was slightly embarrassing, he wore the finest of clothes his father had brought him - a light blue hanbok with white trousers and white sleeves. He looked soft, happy even from the exterior which only mattered to the king. The commoners marvelled at his looks, he was slightly shy at the compliments and the fawning girls. He was not used to this, he hated being underneath the spotlight - the centre of the crowd. 

Now his father and Minjae bowed down to the King in front of them, he wore his red and golden robes and smiled at the sight of Minjae. “He looks strong Manshik-ssi.” The King had a hoarse voice, like death was just around the corner, a long grey beard that reached mid-way to his neck was adorned on his face, wrinkled skin that had aged over the years. 

Minjae lifted his head up after the King had ordered him to and he gave a smile, “it’s a pleasure to meet you, your Majesty.” The King chuckled, and turned to his sons. “These are my four sons, if I see you worthy today you may be defending Joseon with them one day.” He spoke proudly, and waited for the warrior to introduce himself.

Taeyong was gobsmacked, annoyed maybe, he wanted to curse the skies. Scream even but he was curious, “It’s a pleasure to meet you all your Royal Highnesses, my name is Kim Minjae and one day I wish to be your loyal consort and friend in the nearby future.” 

[ ... the artists’ lullaby ]

“Minjae. Kim Minjae was the artists’ name,” the professor turned to his students after writing up the name on the large chalkboard. “He was one of the greatest artists of the Joseon period, you could even say he was ahead of his time with the portraits and drawings of nature. Instead of following fellow artists, with inspiration from the Chinese, his work resembled European art.”

He clicked his projector remote and showed the countless pieces that Minjae hated, “historians say that he hated his art so much after becoming rich, and despised whoever viewed his art. Apart from one, the fourth prince and son of King Do-hun. Lee Taeyong. Some say they were close friends while others believed they were lovers, the poems Taeyong wrote after he had met Minjae were self-explanatory.” The class chuckled, and the professor smiled. 

Minjae and Taeyong’s love had become part of history. 

[thisdaynews]

The Hard Work of the 2020 Instagram Spouse

New Post has been published on https://thebiafrastar.com/the-hard-work-of-the-2020-instagram-spouse/

The Hard Work of the 2020 Instagram Spouse

Not long before the second presidential primary debate, a new photo popped up on Douglas Emhoff’s Instagram feed—a grinning selfie with his wife, Kamala Harris. The accompanying caption was brief, almost an afterthought: “Hello Miami! See you all at the debate on Thur!”

It was typical for Emhoff’s feed, which started in 2013 but had accumulated only about 60 posts by the time of the debate, mostly a smattering of low-key snapshots, like a private photo album that was accidentally dropped into the public sphere. Emhoff posted the day he dropped his son off at college; on his father’s birthday and Father’s Day; on a visit to his wife’s office in Washington, D.C. Things picked up in January, when Harris announced her presidential bid, but still, the feed retained its casual, DIY feel: mediocre lighting, questionable cropping, selfies galore.

Story Continued Below

This has Emelina Spinelli concerned. “It’s selfies. It’s all selfies!” she repeated, when I asked her to evaluate the feed. “I think they’re missing a huge opportunity.”

Spinelli, 31, is an Instagram consultant who makes her living helping would-be influencers master the platform. It’s also fair to say she’s an influencer herself: Nearly 75,000 people follow her feed, which is filled with artfully composed glamour shots of her life in Los Angeles. Her posts often show her grinning exuberantly while gazing at something off-camera; lately, she’s also seen holding a Labrador puppy. And to her expert eyes, Emhoff’s anemic, unedited Instagram account is a glaring but fixable miss for the Harris campaign.

Emhoff’s world was once far from Spinelli’s, but not anymore. As social media becomes a critical tool in politics, Instagram is increasingly used as a soft-focus medium to showcase a candidate’s relatability. New York Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez shared her skincare routine in one Instagram story. 2020 presidential candidate Kirsten Gillibrand has used the platform to show off her workouts. Indeed, most presidential campaigns now have Instagram presences; even Joe Biden, who is definitively not of the Instagram generation, has a carefully managed feed with 1.3 million followers. His posts, like those of most candidates, have a different voice from his campaign’s Facebook and Twitter presences: less combative, extra-polished, fully promotional. Theyadd a bit of “Here’s why you want to have a beer with me” to “Here’s another look at my pretty campaign logo” and “Here’s a professional video about my climate plan.” It’s all part of the Instagram voice that Spinelli helps her clients achieve:I’m just like you, only a bit better.

A political spouse’s Instagram feed has a different role to play. Done right, it can accomplish the traditional task of humanizing a candidate, in a place where people go to escape the push-and-pull of politics. At a time when people are envisioning new families in the White House, Instagram can present a family that’s just like yours, but better.

Spinelli points to the Instagram feed of Chasten Buttigieg—husband of Pete, card-carrying millennial, confirmed social media genius. He has 176,000 followers, who shower his posts with copious “likes” and messages of love and support.

“Looking at Chasten’s account and just how well he’s rallying people and how vocal people are,” Spinelli told me by phone, puts Emhoff’s sweet, inconsequential posts into stark contrast. Harris, she notes, has 1.9 million followers on her own Instagram account. “Her husband Douglas, I would say, is under-indexing”—marketing-speak for the fact that he should be embarrassed to have a paltry 4,700 followers at this writing. Indeed, she thinks most candidate spouses are, at this stage, underused—good luck finding Elizabeth Warren’s husband on the platform—or, like Emhoff’s, unfiltered through professional advice, left to the spouse’s own whims, selfies and all.

Spinelli is channeling every influencer, marketing executive and 20-something corporate social-media associate who has cottoned to the sales potential of Instagram, the current go-to-medium for young consumers. Instagram, which was purchased by Facebook for $1 billion in 2012, had 1 billion users worldwide as of 2018. A study that year by the Pew Research Center found that 71 percent of 18-to-24-year-old Americans use the platform, and that six out of 10 Instagram users look at the site daily, for roughly an hour each day. Corporations, aware of the need to go where your buyers are, were projected to spend $5.5 billion that year to reach them.

That’s in part due to a particular quality of Instagram: It gives you a hall pass to show off. On Facebook, bragging too much can get you unfriended. On Twitter, bragging is on some level discouraged. On Instagram, promoting yourself—or, rather, promoting an aspirational version of yourself—isn’t just acceptable. It’s what the whole ecosystem isfor.Just ask the many “Instagram husbands” who came before Emhoff, following their wives (or husbands) across the globe, lugging camera equipment, capturing perfect images and editing them to make them more perfect. (What is a U.S. president, after all, if not the ultimate global influencer?)

The trick, though, is nailing down the voice. There’s a way to do Instagram right, and it’s staking out the middle ground somewhere between authentic and aspirational. Too much authentic, and you’re in Doug Emhoff territory. Too much aspirational and you might become the political equivalent of an infamous influencer who was caught eating folded tortillas when she said she was eating pancakes, sparking outrage for presenting a false reality. If the medium has changed, the fraught, precise work of the humanizing spouse has not. If anything, Instagram has made the age-old rules for political spouses only more transparent—and a bit more ridiculous.

***

Confession: I am a Gen Xer,closer in age to the 54-year-old Emhoff than to the 29-year-old Chasten Buttigieg. My own Instagram feed is so embarrassingly scant, my follower count so minuscule that I don’t even want to type the numbers. And based on Spinelli’s descriptions, I make a lot of Emhoff-level rookie mistakes.

Let’s start with the selfies. They are a no-go, or at least, should be used sparingly, she said. Photos of you should be taken by a third party, composed with care: Images with ample white space around the humans draw more engagement than the ones where people fill the entire frame. Spinelli advises would-be influencers to use filters—though not the Instagram stock filters, which, she says, are woefully inadequate—and to consider a theme of colors or patterns for visual consistency. (Her own feed has a blue motif.) She tells her clients to pose deliberately, heads tilted, toes pointed, no matter now uncomfortable that is. “A lot of photographers will say stick your head past your neck a little bit, which feels very awkward, but it does tend to look better in photos,” she told me. “The more awkward a photo it is, typically the better it looks.” (The rules are more relaxed for “Instagram stories,” which are meant to capture real life as it happens, and expire after 24 hours.)

Not all of this applies, of course, to Emhoff, a 50-something male entertainment lawyer who isn’t looking to sell beauty products or get luxury resorts to comp his rooms. But the broader point remains: To get people to follow your feed and drive up the all-important metrics of engagement—how many people like or comment on your photos—you have to serve up what the audience wants to see.

And what Instagrammers want, Spinelli says, is some strange alchemy of authenticity and very-inauthentic perfection—the conceit is that your unreal photos, by virtue of being unreal, are the ideal window to your actual inner self. “Instagram really comes down to creating, generally speaking, a highly polished brand narrative,” she explained, in marketing-speak. People turn to the platform to escape their mundane lives or petty troubles. “It’s almost like, if you don’t edit your photos, people are like, ‘Ugh, it’s normal.’”

There’s even a term for this, she informs me: “narp,” which stands for “nonathletic regular person.” The word is alternately used as a slur—like being “basic”—or as a self-deprecating point of pride, say, for someone trying to brand herself as a fitness guru for wimps. But for marketing purposes, Spinelli insists, being a narp is no good. If you’re a narp, your photos don’t encourage people to stare endlessly at every corner of the frame, or to wish, on some level, that they were you. I am a narp. Emhoff, in his current state, is a narp. And Spinelli thinks his unrepentant narpiness could be holding back his wife’s campaign.

Her verdict was echoed by two other Instagram marketers I spoke to, who also specialize in helping people improve their social presence. “If you’re looking to gain a following, you should either be inspiring, educating, or entertaining. It is something that I think of for every story, I think of for every post,” said Lacey Faeh, who runs the travel and lifestyle blog A Lacey Perspective and is schooled in the language of Washington promotion: She once created digital ads for Democratic campaigns and now does social media consulting for “people of influence in D.C.”

Faeh, too, was critical of Emhoff’s account. “Two selfies with kids [posted] on the same day,” she noted, is “not good strategically.” She noted that Jill Biden’s Instagram feed, with 167,000 followers, adheres to the rules of Instagram more effectively: It’s noticeably short on selfies and high on professional photos and motivational messages. And Chasten Buttigieg, she said, has a savvy, winning voice from the get-go. His Instagram bio reads: “Teacher. Theater Ed advocate. First Gent of South Bend. My husband is running for President and my dogs don’t seem to care.”

Emhoff’s, by comparison, reads like an amateur’s, Faeh said: “Dad. @kamalaharris Hubby. Lawyer.”

Still, it’s hard to deny that Emhoff’s Instagram feed, a gallery of warm hugs and dad grins, is as relatable as it gets, with the easy appeal of someone who isn’t trying too hard. Indeed, some 20 minutes into my conversation with Faeh, she thought about his bio again and reconsidered her critique. “The way he described dad first, then husband,thenlawyer—that seems intentional,” she said. “Wouldn’t every woman love to have a man who thinks in that order? Now it makes me wonder if he’s doing this correctly.”

Even if Emhoff is accidentally doing Instagram right, his voice is likely to shift if Harris’ popularity grows, says Shane Barker, a Los Angeles-based digital marketing consultant who teaches a UCLA class on branding and how to be an influencer. “There is something nice about the guy that’s not being advised,” Barker says. “But I can tell you: As this thing goes on, his profile and what he puts up there will change.”

Indeed, Spinelli has loads of professional advice. If she were on Harris’ campaign team, she says, she’d pour resources into Emhoff’s feed, hiring a photographer to shoot a series of charming behind-the-scenes shots, along with polished family portraits and “lifestyle” shots that show him exercising or running errands. She’d strive to get him verified, with one of those blue check marks, and the goal of aggressively growing his following into the 100,000 range.

In the past couple of weeks, Emhoff’s profile has already gotten more attention—a result, in part, of his wife’s strong debate performance. The day after the debate, the millennial-aimed website Refinery 29 declared him “Kamala Harris’ ultimate Instagram husband,” based on his obvious affection. Before long, there was a noticeable uptick in engagement in his posts, along with the inevitable critiques. One reader who came across Emhoff’s pre-debate selfie griped about the caption, with its shorthand use of “Thur”: “You should probably just say Thursday. This is like if Bernie Sanders starts ending his statements with ‘Okurrrr.’ Don’t be afraid to be yourself.”

You can sense that Emhoff is trying to do just that—aiming, in his charmingly narpy way, to project some more Instagram-friendly version of himself, stumbling a bit as he goes. In late June, he posted an inartful snapshot of a bunch of men in a room, apparently at a rally before a San Francisco Pride event. The caption read, “I always want her to go out there with a smile,” though Harris herself was nowhere in the frame.

About an hour later, Emhoff posted again, this time with a photo that miraculously seemed to follow Spinelli’s rules. Taken by someone else, it showed him and Harris behind the scenes at the Pride event, surrounded by ample white space, with a caption that attested to his effort. “Here’s the smile one … still working on my IG skills!” he wrote.

The next day, he posted another selfie.

Read More

[ramialkarmi]

Thousands of people in Kenya are getting free money for 12 years in an experiment that could redefine social welfare around the world

Across dozens of Kenyan villages, thousands of people are enrolled in an experiment that gives them nearly double their normal income for up to 12 years.

The experiment is testing "universal basic income," an idea for reducing poverty that establishes an income floor.

GiveDirectly, the charity running the experiment, will analyze spending data to learn how basic income affects factors like quality of life and gender equality.

Basic income advocates think the study could transform how governments around the world think about social welfare. 

In a Kenyan village, cows with visible ribs saunter in the fields, here and there bowing their heads to graze. The countryside is sprawling, dry, and, above all, poor.

Gathered at a community meeting in October 2016, villagers listened as a representative from the charity GiveDirectly announced its plans to give everyone a standard salary just for being alive. The payments were part of a system known as universal basic income, or UBI. GiveDirectly's was about to become the largest such experiment ever conducted.

Fourteen months since the study launched, GiveDirectly says it has anecdotal evidence that UBI is reducing poverty and that some of the biggest concerns about giving people free money are unfounded.

And while critics contend that basic income encourages people to form bad habits, people in GiveDirectly's village more often rebuild their roofs and pay for their kids' education than quit work and let their lives waste away.

A once radical idea, UBI is taking hold in nearly a dozen countries and cities worldwide.

If recipients in GiveDirectly's Kenyan village demonstrate that the UBI model can work, governments watching the experiment may start rethinking their social-welfare policies and, with the right supplemental research, enact basic-income programs that could lift billions of people out of poverty.

Basic income transformed a village

Within weeks after GiveDirectly visited its pilot village, every resident who had lived there for at least one year — 95 people — began receiving an extra $22 monthly, effectively doubling most people's income. They'll continue getting the money for the next 12 years, no strings attached.

In November 2017, the charity expanded the pilot into a much larger study involving 16,000 people across 120 villages. Of those 120, 40 will receive the same $22 monthly for 12 years. The remaining 80 will get it for just two years. Another 100 villages will receive no money and serve as the control.

Recipients in the pilot village have enjoyed small lifestyle changes, which appear to have produced significant gains in psychological well-being. Interviews with nearly a dozen recipients revealed the extra money gives people a peace of mind they previously never knew.

Edwin Odongo Anyango used to struggle to buy milk before money started coming in. Now the 30-year-old laborer and his family take comfort in knowing they can drink milk when they please. Maurice Owiti, a 47-year-old caregiver, said he feels he has "a lot of freedom" and there's far less tension between him and his wife. Peres Riako Onywero Obambo, 75, no longer has to beg her daughter in Nairobi for money.

"I can tell you, this village has changed," Obambo told me. "People's lives have changed. We don't have conflict anymore. There is peace in this village because people look at themselves as if they are equal."

GiveDirectly's experiments are still complicated

Scattered throughout GiveDirectly's trial village are mud huts with iron roofs. Inside one of these houses live Margaret Abagi and Mary Adhiambo, two women you might mistake for mother and daughter.

Abagi is 70, with kind eyes and a big, toothy grin. Adhiambo is 40 and a more imposing presence. Adhiambo is Abagi's caretaker and the wife of Abagi's late nephew. She moved to the village a little over a year ago, around the time GiveDirectly announced its 12-year pilot.

The trial enrolled people based on residency, not need, which meant a handful of people were left out. Abagi, a longtime resident, was enrolled; Adhiambo, a newcomer, was not. Fourteen months later, Abagi has spent her payments on labor for her farm, materials to fix her home, and medication to settle her stomach, which she suspects is riddled with ulcers. Adhiambo continues to work for $35 a month. Her salary is her only income.

The setup seems reasonable. An elderly recipient benefits from a welfare program while a younger resident earns an honest living. But Abagi's son is a professor, making him the wealthiest person in the village. Abagi can afford labor, home repairs, and medication.

Meanwhile, Adhiambo's house burned down three years ago. She was forced to sell a prized bull to rebuild her life. New chairs and clothes are what she now classifies as "big dreams."

The two women's relationship is a reminder that as long as basic income is still in the experimental stage, with some people left out, there will always be seemingly unfair imbalances.

Destructive spending is rare, but it does happen

Agrippa Agida Onywero Krispo, 40, pulled out his cellphone and quickly tapped a few buttons. We were sitting outside Krispo's mother's house in late November, under the merciful shade of a tree. He wore a yellow soccer jersey, one desiccated sneaker, and no socks.

After a few moments, Krispo opened up M-Pesa, the app that he, every villager, and millions of people in about a dozen countries use for mobile banking. Once a month, GiveDirectly wires the equivalent of about $22 into recipients' M-Pesa accounts. Recipients then walk seven minutes down a highway to a local M-Pesa stand, where a teller takes a small fee and gives out the remaining payment as cash.

Krispo has used his recent payments to rebuild parts of his home, record a CD, and gamble on sporting events. He said he treats the gambling as a kind of investment strategy — a way to quickly turn $10 into $50, which he can then use on more sensible purchases like food and clothes.

Gambling also helps Krispo recoup losses he recently incurred from recording his CD, he said. After Krispo completed the album, his recording partner disappeared with the money that was supposed to go toward making copies to sell.

"For my next project I am going to be more careful," Krispo said. "I'm not going to make the same mistake because I think about that money that I put into the production, that I can't now get back, and I feel very angry."

When an organization or governing body doles out free cash, it does so with the understanding that some percentage of people will spend the money on risky pursuits like gambling and recording music instead of basic needs. Advocates often claim this is an upside to basic income, since people can pursue creative projects instead of toiling away at a day job.

But destructive spending is rare, according to Caroline Teti, GiveDirectly's field director in Kenya.

"People have needs," Teti said. "Especially in poor communities such as this, if they get a basic income, it goes directly into those needs."

Benefits backed by data

GiveDirectly's anecdotal evidence has some data behind it. In 2016, World Bank researchers David Evans and Anna Popova published a study that found the consumption of alcohol and cigarettes — "temptation goods," in economist-speak — stayed flat and, in some cases, it actually decreased when people in underdeveloped nations received free cash in a model akin to basic income.

As Evans told Business Insider recently, this was not an expected outcome. In many economic models, alcohol is an indulgence people tend to consume more of as their income grows.

He and Popova discovered two key mechanisms at play. The first was that money was often distributed to the women of the household, which led to greater spending on food or school fees than if men received it. When men received the money, they were more likely to spend it on temptation goods.

In addition, the team discovered a positive "labeling effect." Each transfer came with the verbal "label" that the money was intended for household needs. There was no threat of punishment. Recipients were merely told "This money is to improve the lives of your children" or "This money is to help your business."

"If you tell people money is for a certain thing," Evans said, "then they're much more likely to spend that money on that thing."

'I don't need to sit here and wait for my husband'

Villagers in GiveDirectly's pilot study have been trialing basic income for over a year, and so far people have reported to both GiveDirectly and Business Insider a raft of tangible benefits. People say they can better provide for their children, and women report feeling more equal to their husbands since they no longer rely on a man's income to survive.

"This money has really changed my life," Monica Atieno Aswan, 28, said. Even if she doesn't have money, she can borrow from others knowing she'll get the money eventually to pay back the debt. "If there is a funeral and I want to go attend and I need bus fare, I don't need to sit here and wait for my husband."

This money has helped women. It is true that they have gotten a voice.

Aswan's husband is the village elder, Kenya's lowest-ranking government position. Their relationship is uncommon, she said, because their household was a stable one even before basic income.

In the past, Aswan heard numerous stories in the village of husbands coming home after a long, unsuccessful day of selling fish or fruit and venting their frustration through violence. But since the basic-income experiment began, she's heard these cases have declined. Husbands and wives pool their incomes to live more comfortably and can even start their own business.

"This money has helped women. It is true that they have gotten a voice," Aswan said. Where some women used to rely mostly on burning charcoal to make money, now they can cultivate savings and work on personal projects. "They can also help in the decisions of the house and their husbands respect them better."

Theories behind basic income have been around for centuries

GiveDirectly is carrying out the biggest basic-income experiment in history, but it didn't invent the idea. Free money as a social-welfare policy dates from the 16th century, when the Spanish-born humanist Juan Luis Vives wrote in praise of unconditional welfare.

"Even those who have dissipated their fortunes in dissolute living — through gaming, harlots, excessive luxury, gluttony, and gambling — should be given food, for no one should die of hunger," he wrote in 1526.

Over the next few centuries, economists and activists began theorizing more formally about a "minimum income" or "guaranteed income."

In 1967, Martin Luther King Jr. declared his support in a speech given at Stanford University. "It seems to me," King said, "the Civil Rights Movement must now begin to organize for the guaranteed annual income and mobilize forces" to resolve "the economic problem many … poor people confront in our nation."

In the past couple of years, basic income has tiptoed into the mainstream. Around the time Teti was enrolling Kenyan villagers, in October 2016, the startup incubator Y Combinator was launching its own pilot study in Oakland, California. That trial involved a handful of residents who received between $1,000 and $2,000 a month. In September 2017, YC announced it would eventually expand the trial to include 3,000 people across two states.

One of the key measures will be how people's relationship to work changes once they start getting something for nothing.

"What's unclear to me is, will people be net happier, or are we just so dependent on our jobs for meaning and fulfillment?" Sam Altman, the president of YC, told Business Insider. "People do form bonds with their community and their society through work. And I think it does contribute to our national cohesion."

Recent experiments take a different approach to basic income. In 2017, 2,000 unemployed Finnish citizens began receiving an extra $600 a month. In Ontario, Canada, about 4,000 people with low incomes began receiving basic-income payments of up to $17,000 annually.

Smaller experiments have also been discussed in India, Italy, Scotland, Uganda, and the Netherlands, and a basic-income advocacy group called the Economic Security Project said it would soon begin funding a trial in Stockton, California, spearheaded by Mayor Michael Tubbs.

Even in GiveDirectly's remote Kenyan villages, people sense that basic income is becoming a more mainstream idea.

"When this program started, we were told that it is going to be a big thing in the whole world, and the whole world is going to come here," Edwin Odongo Anyango said. Some people were skeptical enough to opt out of the experiment. Now, Anyango said, those who declined or moved to the village too late are cursing themselves.

In the year since Anyango began receiving money from GiveDirectly, he's been able to build on the meager savings from his manual-labor jobs, cover preschool fees for one of his children, and buy a new mattress, cupboard, and better-quality cushions for his couch. His wife, also a recipient, has been able to grow her business selling secondhand clothes.

"If this money were to be given to everybody, this would be a very good thing," Anyango said. "What this money does is it creates hope. And when people have hope, they are happy."

A cash influx changes the way people handle finances

The influx of money has spurred local trends in personal finance. Each month, villagers put a portion of their money into a communal pot, which rotates between recipients. They call it "table banking." The amount may vary slightly from month to month, but it is always much larger than the individual monthly payment. Anyango said it allows people to buy higher-priced goods or to invest in small businesses when it is their turn.

"They know that on a certain date money is coming," he said. "When you know that money is coming, you can always plan your life around that money."

Some basic-income experts have doubts that GiveDirectly's early success will translate around the world. They worry in part that people in higher-income countries won't use the money as productively because their financial troubles may seem insurmountable.

Teti acknowledged there isn't enough data to know whether basic income will work everywhere, since Kenyan villagers more often use the money for survival, not comfort. But from her perspective the future is promising.

"Over this past year, what I've realized is there's an improvement in the way people focus their life," Teti told Business Insider. "They'd never thought about thinking two years, five years, 12 years out. And now after one year, you can hear even from old women, 'I can start thinking about planning my life that many years out.'"

Is basic income the fiscal policy of the future?

Outside of a handful of trials, these debates are thought experiments. But they may not always be. Some economists have predicted that artificial intelligence will replace up to half the American workforce in the coming decades, either through machine-learning software or robotics. Unemployment will be rampant, these forecasts suggest.

A number of advocates in the tech community — including Mark Zuckerberg, Richard Branson, Elon Musk, and YC's Sam Altman — hope that basic income could help alleviate the problem by distributing the robot-produced wealth to the masses.

"I'm still not sure if basic income is the right policy," Altman told Business Insider, "but I think something in this general direction will eventually get adopted in the US."

GiveDirectly will start releasing its findings in late 2020, Teti said. In the meantime, individual recipients will serve as the authority on what happens when ordinary people get money for nothing.

"I have been observing this village," Agrippa Agida Onywero Krispo said. "And I have not seen people using money to take alcohol or use it on lavish things. People have to use their brains, and I can see people are using their brains here in different ways. They are using it on things that help them."

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