Slashdot Mirror
Is a Lack of Data Holding Back Universal Basic Income Programs? (technologyreview.com)
An anonymous reader quotes MIT's Technology Review:
Silicon Valley loves the idea of universal basic income. Many in the tech elites tout it as the answer to job losses caused by automation, if only people would give it a chance.... Getting people on board with basic income requires data, which is what numerous tests have been trying to obtain. But this year, a number of experiments were cut short, delayed, or ended after a short time. That also means the possible data supply got cut off.
Back in June we declared, "Basic income could work -- if you do it Canada style." We talked to the people on the ground getting the checks in Ontario's 4,000-person test and saw how it was changing the community. Then, just two months later, it was announced that the program is ending in the new year rather than running for three years. The last checks will be delivered to participants in March 2019.
The article complains that in addition, Finland's test program ended this year after its initial trial period, while Y Combinator's experiment "has also faced more delays, pushing the experiment into 2019," saying these programs illustrate the three basic issues faced by basic income tests. First, there's political disagreements. ("The Ontario program was shut down by the province's newly installed Conservative government.") Then there's also concerns about funding -- "As you might imagine, giving away free money is expensive" -- and also fears about disrupting existing benefits "To avoid that, they've had to work with municipal and state agencies to get waivers for pilot recipients. But getting those waivers takes a lot of time and bureaucracy....
"The only way the idea can ever be embraced on any sort of large-scale, meaningful level is with more data and bigger tests. Without that, no matter how much support it gets from Silicon Valley, it seems unlikely that the public, at least in the US, will ever come around."
Back in June we declared, "Basic income could work -- if you do it Canada style." We talked to the people on the ground getting the checks in Ontario's 4,000-person test and saw how it was changing the community. Then, just two months later, it was announced that the program is ending in the new year rather than running for three years. The last checks will be delivered to participants in March 2019.
The article complains that in addition, Finland's test program ended this year after its initial trial period, while Y Combinator's experiment "has also faced more delays, pushing the experiment into 2019," saying these programs illustrate the three basic issues faced by basic income tests. First, there's political disagreements. ("The Ontario program was shut down by the province's newly installed Conservative government.") Then there's also concerns about funding -- "As you might imagine, giving away free money is expensive" -- and also fears about disrupting existing benefits "To avoid that, they've had to work with municipal and state agencies to get waivers for pilot recipients. But getting those waivers takes a lot of time and bureaucracy....
"The only way the idea can ever be embraced on any sort of large-scale, meaningful level is with more data and bigger tests. Without that, no matter how much support it gets from Silicon Valley, it seems unlikely that the public, at least in the US, will ever come around."
an endless supply of someone else's money.
;)
Just my 2 cents
the ruling class not wanting to pay for it is holding it back.
I mean, we have massive amounts of data that single payer healthcare would be infinitely superior. The latest studies (real ones done by Universities) show $5 trillion savings every 10 years. We could pay off the national debt in my kid's lifetime with that and all our foreign held debt in _my_ lifetime. 70% of Americans support it.. Still no go.
Meanwhile several Democratic congressmen just exited Congress while imploring their party to abandon Medicare for All (funny that they all took big money from insurance & Phrama, I'm sure that was just them buying into their agenda).
America has a ruling class, but we like to pretend we don't. Like most things in life pretending the real world doesn't exist is bad juju.
Hi! I make Firefox Plug-ins. Check 'em out @ https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/youtube-mp3-podcaster/
It is a fucking fiat currency you fucking moron. It comes from thin air. God, where did you go to school?
Some decisions are just not data driven, or should I say. The only way to really get all the data would be to actually implement the program.
All these small tests really are pretty pointless and a waste of money.
If I were to ask you how would a society work if all drugs were decriminalized? Would drug use go up and people become druggies. You wouldn't know. There's a million what ifs. Only by actually trying it for a substantial amount of time could you get a clue. When Portugal decriminalized all drugs (not legalized), they just did it and took a gamble.
Similarly with this. How will the unemployed behave? Will those with jobs keep working? How will this change 1,2,3... generations down. No one has any damn clue. Any small experiment is not going to answer the big questions at all.
If only we could all just know the results of decisions before trying, our decisions would just be easy. But life is not that simple.
Trump is the President of the United States, voted in by the will of the People of the United States. By saying that Trump is not your President you are saying one of two things.
1.) You are not a citizen of the United States and thus has no rights or a voice.
2.) You have now renounced your citizenship of the United States and are now a traitor and a deserter.
Which are you?
Support your local school shooter, give them your firearms.
Is a Lack of Data Holding Back Universal Basic Income Programs?
No, common sense is.
Circle the wagons and fire inward. Entropy increases without bounds.
You could take all the billionaires and millionaires and hand all their money to the rest of the population and still not even come close to funding universal basic income. You're going to also have to take about 75% of the wealth from the middle class.
UBI is just a buzzword for what used to be called communism or socialism, where everyone hands all their wealth to the government who them splits it up equally among the population.
Indeed. The problem is that the billionaires hate the idea of anyone getting "something for nothing" when they could put further millions in their own bank accounts.
Of course, it is not just the billionaires that hate it.
Common working people with affiliations political on the right and the left hate it because the poor give them something to feel better than, and that, is better than nothing for the still majority working class.
A working UBI may take depression-era hardship to ultimately take off.
Happiness in intelligent people is the rarest thing I know.
Ernest Hemingway
Two things:
1. You clearly and objectively did not understand your U.S. History classes. Dissent is an essential part of the American DNA; without it, we'd be Just Another Dictatorship. Since your understanding appears to be deficient, I'll give you the essential, relevant understanding for the context of this discussion: Unlike some country like Thailand, where criticizing or insulting the King is an offense that will get you jailed at best, exiled or executed at worst, or a country like China, where criticizing the god-emperor will get your family and friends threatened, and you thrown in jail and/or a mental institution and pumped full of drugs, here in the United States we have this little thing called 'Freedom of Speech'; not only are you allowed to criticize the POTUS (or any other elected official), you are more or less encouraged to do it, as part of the Democratic process.
2. You clearly and objectively are a Trump supporter; as such it's no big surprise to me that you not only don't understand that the POTUS is not a god-emperor-dictator-king, or that you don't seem to understand that the 1st Amendment and Freedom of Speech we have in this country is not a privilege, it is a RIGHT, and neither YOU nor Trump nor anyone ELSE can deny someone that right.
YOU seem to be the one verging on treason; get correct, Old Son. The Constitution ain't just a 'piece of paper' you can wipe your ass with.
A working UBI will cause depression-era hardship.
Contribute to civilization: ari.aynrand.org/donate
Honest people don't want it. Self-respecting people don't want it. Responsible people don't want it. Democrats do.
Contribute to civilization: ari.aynrand.org/donate
No.
It's simply that the numbers do NOT add up! Where does the funding come from?
It simply isn't possible with our current economic model, to do UBI. Now, it MAY be possible with another model -- but what is that model? And how to get from the current model, without destroying the current economy and/or bankrupting the nation, to that supposed new model?
Every explanation of UBI? Every single one I've seen, comes no where close to showing the math, or how it will work, or where the money will come from. Virtually every Western nation is already in debt, with yearly deficits, and then to add this on top of it?
And no, the money isn't clawed back via taxes or what not. No. The money essentially disappears, with the lion's share of it going to pay for "things", which are bought from large corps, which have much of the product the sell shipped from a 3rd world nation. Meaning loads of that UBI heads out-of-country, and doesn't circulate in the local economy.
But whatever your rebuttal to this comment of mine, SHOW ME, show ALL of us.. where does the money come from? That can be:
- how the money is raised (don't say things like "Tax the rich!". That's not showing the math, and certainly the rich can't even begin to pay for this.)
- if not above, then what alternative economic system will be used to pay for this.
And DETAIL. Please show an accurate, well thought out, two or three THOUSAND PAGE report, full of economic models, facts and figures to prove the point.
Because if there isn't such detail? If there isn't such unyielding logic employed? You will FUCK US ALL OVER.
Money created without limit benefits 2 groups: the source of the money (who gets to buy with it without significant cost)
This. This is why the Big Finance fights so hard to have fractional reserve lending not only legal but even preferred. Money that's produced from thin air still works same as any other money.
and net debtors (who see their debt inflated into less real value.)
This has a significant effect only on long-term debt.
Whether money that comes from the government is printed or acquired by theft, makes very little difference in the amount of damage it causes.
Printing money works exactly same as a tax on holding any assets denominated as money -- only paperwork differs. If inflation is 5%, you just got taxed 5% on the whole value of all your savings.
The creatures outside looked from Alt-Right to Antifa; but already it was impossible to say which was which.
Agreed, friend. There are many, many wasteful government programs. I would love to see those removed and the money spent on them released back to the public in the form of lower taxes. However, wasteful government programs today don't justify, pay for, or make possible a basic work-free income for everyone. Someone has to pay for that. Someone has to do the work to get us there.
We are, I suspect, at least two generations away from having the level of automation that will make what you want actually possible. We can not only foresee the possibility (like we could in the 1950's) of automation at that level, we are now at the point where we can say, yes, you know what, it just might actually be possible. And now that we've come to that stage, there are people who want it now. Like a teenager, our reach is exceeding our grasp. We have the understanding to see it's possible, but some of us don't have the understanding to realize it can't be possible today. Unfortunately, we will, without major medical breakthroughs, likely never ourselves be the beneficiaries of the type of technology that will make possible the kind of leisure that you want. However, stopping now won't get us there. Leisure now will not get us there. And I'm not willing to just pay off those that don't want to work while those of us who realize we still need to shoulder the burden for them too.
To be honest, even when that technology has arrived, it will bring a new set of issues. I don't think we ever will get "there", where no one has to work. In fact, I hope we never do. That will be a troubling society. I hope we have to work less, I hope we get to work more intelligently, and I hope we all get the time we want with our families and loved ones. I hope we develop into a society where families work together, where schooling and working is integrated into a holistic entity where there is no fine line between the two. And I hope we, as a society, have a firm grasp on the need for working and striving and have good leisure addiction awareness and counseling.
That all being said, this is where we live, and today, we all need to work.
Many entitlements were sold to the public as something that "the rich" would pay for, but it never works out that way.
Remember when Obama said the ACA would benefit "98% of all Americans and 99% of all plumbers"?
It didn't work out that way. About 40% benefited, and about 60% paid more. That may be reasonable, and there was likely no other way to make it work, but nonetheless, that was not the way it was sold.
Most proposals for UBI would fund it by dramatically reducing current entitlements. So someone getting a $1500 social security check, would see it reduced to the "universal" $500 or so. That chance of this being politically feasible: 0%.
If you take existing entitlements off the table, then there is no way to make UBI work.
Pretty clearly the idea of the UBI is hated on the right. I don't think conservatives hate the idea because it's not conservative, or because someone else will get something for nothing. I think they hate it because they seriously believe that they will be the ones to pay for it, one way or another. Looking at the question financially, it is hard to say they are wrong. They may be, but that has never been demonstrated.
Conservatives always bitch about us liberals "running out of other people's money." Often it makes me shake my head in dismay. In this case, though, I think they're right to be cautious. When you think about the scale of a functional UBI program in the US, holy crap, that's a lot of money. This is why some of us would be very interested in seeing the data from a long term experiment.
A further problem is based in the ownership of the production increases supposedly requiring a UBI. All this extra production (you know, the production that kills all of the jobs) is due to the implementation of automation - think 'lots of robots'. Problematically, we have this extra production because of the money invested by business owners, and they deserve (I think) to reap the rewards of that investment. They took a risk to make it happen.
Additionally, what happens to small businesses during the transition to automation? It is not clear to me that the majority of them will survive once the unpleasant jobs have a better, free alternative. The scale of the potential economic dislocation is astonishing.
Maybe it could work, or maybe it would just cause inflation until people's buying power reached an equilibrium at or below their previous one. No way to know without data.
Disclaimer - Socially, I am radically liberal (I should be able to buy heroin and a hooker at the corner drug store. Legally, I mean. I already could get that, realistically.) Fiscally, I am more of a moderate conservative. I think UBI is a fascinating idea, but I'm not convinced the math works out right.
The debate isn't about whether UBI would be a good idea or not. I think it would be, in that it would give people the freedom to do what they want to do, rather than they have to do. I also think that it would give families more time to spend together, leading to stronger relationships, better mental outcomes, and so on.
The debate really is about how to fund such a scheme... I doubt that the funds are available for this, and even they were, I believe that the political resistance to re-appropriating money from other sources would be so intense in many countries that the scheme would be a non-starter.
I think that the problem will really only be solved when technology enables things that people need (food, water, electricity, clothing, shelter) to be made so cheaply that the cost of funding such a program will be relatively trivial.
Till then, it's just a good subject for frequent Slashdot debates...
Deal with reality - the world as it is - rather than ideality - the world as you would like it to be.
I could see it as an artist, being free to pursue your art and contribute it back to society. ... but then you shouldn't be able to OWN rights to your art afterward. It should be public domain.
The funny thing is, in one area of the USA, we already do that. It's called NASA (and other government programs). Go download some public domain space captures right now and use them for free in your YouTube channel, or video game.
There's a lot of this "feel good" progressive mentality now. I get you want to reduce people's suffering. But simply DOING something doesn't magically make the world (or people) better off. There's a reason "the road to hell is paved with good intentions" is a phrase dating back CENTURIES and still. repeated. today. Because every year there are new examples that reinforce it.
The way slashdotter's and Redditors talk, it's like UBI is some magic cure all for poverty and society's financial suffering. I have no problem with people testing / experiments and gathering data for UBI. But to imply that it's a done deal and only politics is in the way of a utopia, is disingenuous. The goal is to help people, not pass more legislation for the sake of legislation. So we should actually have damn good science to back it up before we apply it to large populations.
A cult of people trying to "help people" is still a cult--subject to the same kind of blindspots as people drinking kool aid and waiting for the alien mothership to bring them to Heaven. Use data. Get educated. And don't assume detractors are just stupid.
It's the billionaires who are advocating for stealing from the working class so they can get money out of the poor. The working class, however, realizes it's they, not the 1%, who will be paying for freeloaders on UBI.
It was tried in Dauphin, Manitoba with pretty good results. Most everyone kept working, the exceptions were young mothers spending more time raising their children and young people staying in school to get a better education rather then quitting to help support their family.
Funny enough, this seems like results that right wingers would like, more family friendly and people trying to lift themselves up.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/...
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Inverted_totalitarianism
So you mean to say that, knowing the plan was temporary, participants didn't decide to ditch their money-rewarding incomes which would lead to unemployment the day after the program was closed? Count me surprised.
Write boring code, not shiny code!
“When the people find that they can vote themselves money that will herald the end of the republic.”
- Benjamin Franklin
It's hard to take your comment seriously when your signature is begging for monthly donations to the Ayn Rand Institute.
const int one = 65536; (Silvermoon, Texture.cs)
SJW, n: "Someone I don't like, and by the way I'm a fuckwit" - AC
There's no NEW money.
Almost all the existing benefits are cancelled.
The ordinary worker and the rich will have the UBI taxed away again.
Some savings will be made in not having to employ lots of people to decide who deserves what benefits.
The people that it's intended to help are already receiving a bunch of benefits in one form or another with various strings attached. This just removes the strings and paperwork and just gives them a weekly amount to spend however they like.
People seem to be imagining that UBI will be enough to support a middle class lifestyle without working. It's not. It's enough to have a bed for the night, food and clothing. Enough that people aren't sleeping on the streets, starving or freezing to death, which is what any decent society would be trying to prevent in any case.