Aaron Swartz, How to Promote Startups (9 June 2008)
“

Imagine if the government provided a basic minimum income, like Richard Nixon once proposed. ... Suddenly having to quit your job would no longer be such a huge leap — there’d be a real social safety net to catch you. ... If governments really want to promote startups and the economic innovation they bring, ... they need to start rebuilding the social safety net, so that their citizens know that if they go out on a limb and try something risky, someone will be there to catch them if things don’t work out.

— Aaron Swartz on Basic income

What It Means

This is a placeholder explanation generated by the low-overhead model. It interprets "Imagine if the government provided a basic minimum income, like Richard Nixon once proposed. ... Suddenly having to quit your job would no longer be such a huge leap — there’d be a real social safety net to catch you. ... If governments really want to promote startups and the economic innovation they bring, ... they need to start rebuilding the social safety net, so that their citizens know that if they go out on a limb and try something risky, someone will be there to catch them if things don’t work out." in the context of "Aaron Swartz, How to Promote Startups (9 June 2008)" to mean that wisdom is timeless.

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Source: Wikiquote: "Basic income" (S) The 'What it means' explanation text was generated by Google Gemini Flash (accessed January 18, 2026). https://gemini.google.com/app
Aaron Swartz

About Aaron Swartz

Aaron H. Swartz (8 November 1986 – 11 January 2013) was an American computer programmer, writer, political organizer and Internet activist.