"Free money!" I love it. It reminds me of my trip to Vegas back in 2011 with my pal Kenny. Yes there was some free money to be had, although I'm not sure it really happened on the craps table. Our relatively fancy hotel room in the Pyramid was definitely free, our drinks were free, as long as we were playing and I did get 10 USD for free for registering myself with the casinos. I even somewhat believe that Kenny is smart enough to be able to make money in Vegas. But it's high risk and it's not a good idea if you're actually in need of money.
With free money I'm also reminded about the pile of coins I found next to the glass recycling this month. Somehow someone was too lazy to take all those 1 and 2 eurocent coins and put them in a machine that accepts them. Well, that's what I did and I got about 78 cents of free money. (Note I didn't actually count while mindlessly putting those coins in there.)
Instead I think most of the free money I got is about not spending. Hitchhiking, walking (or blackriding) instead of paying for public transport, dumpster diving or table diving instead of paying for food, staying out in a tent or with local people (or in a free hotel in Vegas) instead of paying for accommodation. I do think all that free money enabled me to think and do stuff that most people don't get the chance to: travel the world, meet and spend time with amazing people on 6 continents and learn a lot of languages.
There is a growing movement of people who want to give free money to everyone. This is mostly called universal basic income (UBI). With UBI every citizen or resident of a town, region or country, and ideally the entire world, will receive a fixed income every week or month. It might sound very communist to some but even the not so Lefty president Nixon was considering setting up such a system at some point. There have been successful experiments in Canada, Namibia, Brazil among other places. The future of automization will make jobs disappear and thus basic income will almost be a necessity for widespread happiness.
