4 ms·

So in other words, a long enough time to make people think they can draw reasonable conclusions about the viability of BI, when in actuality it's not long enoug

by xienze 10y ago

So in other words, a long enough time to make people think they can draw reasonable conclusions about the viability of BI, when in actuality it's not long enough. You have to study the generational effects of this sort of thing. People are going to behave very differently when they know this will be around for a very short time versus the rest of their lives, nevermind how people behave when they're second or third generation BIers.

jannotti 10y ago
That's certainly an issue, but your demand stifles any effort to learn more by saying that you have to study "generational effects" (what, maybe a 50 year study before you can learn anything). Which will just be followed up by the equally valid criticism that you can only study this if everyone has BI (to see if it's the relative effect that matters). Reasonable seeming concerns, but you have to start somewhere to learn anything.
- xienze 10y ago
  > That's certainly an issue, but your demand stifles any effort to learn more by saying that you have to study "generational effects" (what, maybe a 50 year study before you can learn anything). It's less costly than rushing into BI. It's one of those social programs that once introduced can NEVER be taken away.
  - marlag 10y ago
    "NEVER" You might think that, because no country has implemented BI, then considered it a failed project, then scraped that system for something better, yet. But one of the countries on this planet might be the first to try that. It's one of those "nobody done it yet thus it can't be done by anyone" ideas that reality so often find is false.
alaskanloops 10y ago
Yes but it's a starting point. Conducting a generational study will take, well, generations, and that's too long. Unfortunately the longer term, multi generation study will have to be "done in production" so to speak. It may work, it may not. But what we're (the US) doing now isn't working.
- tomp 10y ago
  You don't need a generation to study basic income. The effect of a life-long basic income should be visible pretty much immediately.
  - rtkwe 10y ago
    True but there's a lot of benefits that BI proponents (and I personally) believe will happen that will show up in subsequent generations like closing the educational attainment gap between the poor and everyone else. Also there's the question of if it's sustainable in case the fears of it just making everyone drop out of the work force are true. [1] [1] Though from the same people you'll hear that work provides so much meaning to life that if people aren't working because they can live without it that they'll just be miserable. Which seems to contradict itself, either work is so meaningful that without we're miserable so we'll work even if we don't have to. Or it's not that meaningful and we'll be fine without it.
  - librvf 10y ago
    > You don't need a generation to study basic income. Yes, you do. BI will change mating patterns and child-rearing patterns and the consequences of those changes will not show up for a generation or two.
siphor 10y ago
There's only one way to study something like this.. and that's to do it. 5 years is a pretty amazing amount of time and I'm sure some great data will come out of it. Some smart people will probably treat it as a short-term thing and treat it as such, but the majority of the population are probably short sighted and will treat it as if it will be there forever. You can do a lot in 5 years.
- Alupis 10y ago
  > There's only one way to study something like this.. and that's to do it This is a dangerous thing to experiment with when you have a huge nation of 318+ Million population. It's far safer to let smaller nations, like Finland (whose entire population is less than New York City), test this idea out for a few generations. It's far easier to "bail out" a city's worth of people than it is a large nation, if things don't go as planned.
  - clavalle 10y ago
    Or maybe a some folks in Oakland?
    - Alupis 10y ago
      > Or maybe a some folks in Oakland? I don't think a city in the US is a good sample, since people are more likely to move in and out of the city during a generational (or multi-generational) test case. In addition, city lines/boundaries are "fuzzy" a lot of the time, often with one side of a street being incorporated and the other side not, etc. City boundary lines may also shift over time, etc. In addition, if it's known anyone with an Oakland address gets BI, some (or many) people will attempt to move there, which will cause other unintended economic consequences for the city, skewing the test results. A [small] nation is a better sample, since it tends to have fewer of these issues over a long time span.
      - clavalle 10y ago
        But you are just guessing at what the problems might be. I think that is the point of this pilot -- find the problems that crop up. Your own argument is that it should not be done wholesale until we know what the effects are at a smaller level: that's what's being done here. Start small. Fix smaller problems. Ratchet up. Rinse and repeat.
aerovistae 10y ago
But did you read what they said? That's not the point of this. It's a pilot study to get their feet under them and get some idea of how the real, long-term study would go. The point of this isn't to draw conclusions about BI, it's to draw conclusions about how to study BI so as to help them set up the long-term version more effectively.
fiatjaf 10y ago
Of course we will never reach any conclusions, because after 100 generations of BI there must be some unpredicted effect.
SolarNet 10y ago
The Nairobi study is working on that thankfully.
Obi_Juan_Kenobi 10y ago
Did you miss the part about this being a small pilot? I sounds like they want to figure out the administration and reporting issues more than anything.

by xienze 10y ago

jannotti 10y ago

That's certainly an issue, but your demand stifles any effort to learn more by saying that you have to study "generational effects" (what, maybe a 50 year study before you can learn anything). Which will just be followed up by the equally valid criticism that you can only study this if everyone has BI (to see if it's the relative effect that matters). Reasonable seeming concerns, but you have to start somewhere to learn anything.

xienze 10y ago
> That's certainly an issue, but your demand stifles any effort to learn more by saying that you have to study "generational effects" (what, maybe a 50 year study before you can learn anything). It's less costly than rushing into BI. It's one of those social programs that once introduced can NEVER be taken away.
- marlag 10y ago
  "NEVER" You might think that, because no country has implemented BI, then considered it a failed project, then scraped that system for something better, yet. But one of the countries on this planet might be the first to try that. It's one of those "nobody done it yet thus it can't be done by anyone" ideas that reality so often find is false.

alaskanloops 10y ago

Yes but it's a starting point. Conducting a generational study will take, well, generations, and that's too long. Unfortunately the longer term, multi generation study will have to be "done in production" so to speak. It may work, it may not. But what we're (the US) doing now isn't working.

tomp 10y ago
You don't need a generation to study basic income. The effect of a life-long basic income should be visible pretty much immediately.
- rtkwe 10y ago
  True but there's a lot of benefits that BI proponents (and I personally) believe will happen that will show up in subsequent generations like closing the educational attainment gap between the poor and everyone else. Also there's the question of if it's sustainable in case the fears of it just making everyone drop out of the work force are true. [1] [1] Though from the same people you'll hear that work provides so much meaning to life that if people aren't working because they can live without it that they'll just be miserable. Which seems to contradict itself, either work is so meaningful that without we're miserable so we'll work even if we don't have to. Or it's not that meaningful and we'll be fine without it.
- librvf 10y ago
  > You don't need a generation to study basic income. Yes, you do. BI will change mating patterns and child-rearing patterns and the consequences of those changes will not show up for a generation or two.

siphor 10y ago

There's only one way to study something like this.. and that's to do it. 5 years is a pretty amazing amount of time and I'm sure some great data will come out of it. Some smart people will probably treat it as a short-term thing and treat it as such, but the majority of the population are probably short sighted and will treat it as if it will be there forever. You can do a lot in 5 years.

Alupis 10y ago
> There's only one way to study something like this.. and that's to do it This is a dangerous thing to experiment with when you have a huge nation of 318+ Million population. It's far safer to let smaller nations, like Finland (whose entire population is less than New York City), test this idea out for a few generations. It's far easier to "bail out" a city's worth of people than it is a large nation, if things don't go as planned.
- clavalle 10y ago
  Or maybe a some folks in Oakland?
  - Alupis 10y ago
    > Or maybe a some folks in Oakland? I don't think a city in the US is a good sample, since people are more likely to move in and out of the city during a generational (or multi-generational) test case. In addition, city lines/boundaries are "fuzzy" a lot of the time, often with one side of a street being incorporated and the other side not, etc. City boundary lines may also shift over time, etc. In addition, if it's known anyone with an Oakland address gets BI, some (or many) people will attempt to move there, which will cause other unintended economic consequences for the city, skewing the test results. A [small] nation is a better sample, since it tends to have fewer of these issues over a long time span.
    - clavalle 10y ago
      But you are just guessing at what the problems might be. I think that is the point of this pilot -- find the problems that crop up. Your own argument is that it should not be done wholesale until we know what the effects are at a smaller level: that's what's being done here. Start small. Fix smaller problems. Ratchet up. Rinse and repeat.

aerovistae 10y ago

But did you read what they said? That's not the point of this. It's a pilot study to get their feet under them and get some idea of how the real, long-term study would go. The point of this isn't to draw conclusions about BI, it's to draw conclusions about how to study BI so as to help them set up the long-term version more effectively.

fiatjaf 10y ago

Of course we will never reach any conclusions, because after 100 generations of BI there must be some unpredicted effect.

SolarNet 10y ago

The Nairobi study is working on that thankfully.

Obi_Juan_Kenobi 10y ago

Did you miss the part about this being a small pilot? I sounds like they want to figure out the administration and reporting issues more than anything.