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Ask YC: Any Updates on the Basic Income Project?

Last time we had an update was on May 31: https://blog.ycombinator.com/moving-forward-on-basic-income/ I was wondering if there are any updates that could be shared with the community.

runesoerensen 10y ago
"Please don't post on HN to ask or tell us something (e.g. to ask us questions about Y Combinator, or to ask or complain about moderation)" https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html
- elliotec 10y ago
  Does this count? It's just a query about updates on something YC posted on HN themselves. Seems allowed to me.
- Zombieball 10y ago
  I think in this scenario it seems fair to post a question. What's the alternative, write a blog article asking the same and post a link to that instead? I'm also interested in a status update given some recent news posted on HN about Finland experimenting with the same ideas.
  - irinai13 10y ago
    Agreed. This seems like the right way to ask for updates. Especially since other people would like to know too.
  - prawn 10y ago
    Alternative would be emailing them "Are you able to share any progress on the BI project? I'd bet more on HN would be keen to hear too." Project then writes a blog and someone submits to HN. However, I can appreciate that the slight public pressure of an Ask YC making the front page might encourage quicker movement or at least a response that didn't otherwise warrant a blog post.
- kristianc 10y ago
  This doesn't seem in the spirit of this rule, which seems designed to prevent questions of the type 'How do I get into YC?'
- saycheese 10y ago
  If YC is going to use HN to promote themselves, seems only fair to allow the community to query them via HN.
  - dimino 10y ago
    Except for the fact that YC explicitly said don't do this...
    - swrobel 10y ago
      Not exactly this...
    - pbhjpbhj 10y ago
      Which is not necessarily a reason not too. That's the double-edge of company backed fora.
  - jbpetersen 10y ago
    There needs to be an "Ask YC" weekly. It'd also make for a great way to nudge the community in the desired direction by focusing attention (and away from becoming what's effectively a standalone subreddit).
- Hydraulix989 10y ago
  Are you actually a mod though? Rule call-outs are almost always even more noisy than the original offense was.
- patrickg_zill 10y ago
  Correct me if I am wrong, but user "sama" is Sam Altman, President of YC; so if he answers instead of killing the thread, I would guess he is OK with it.
dorianm 10y ago
Maybe sending emails to the researchers and posting their answers here could be more efficient.
fouadmatin 10y ago
I don't work on YCR Basic Income, but the early steps of any experiment are pretty time consuming and not particularly interesting (e.g. logistics, experiment structure, etc...) I'd guess we can expect an update early next year with some of those details and a reflection on existing progress. In their blogpost, they provide an email for feedback: basicincome@ycr.org They're likely very consumed by all the work they need to do, so I'd reach out if you have some specific suggestions/asks. Otherwise, you can join me in eagerly waiting for more updates when they're ready to share them :)
- dllthomas 10y ago
  I expect there are quite a few people here who would find logistics, experiment structure, etc... fascinating. Which is not to say it's necessarily the best use of their time to update us on it.
  - tomcam 10y ago
    Agreed tenfold. YC has absolutely no obligations to us regarding these issues but there is not a single detail in the whole enterprise that would not be fascinating to me.
dpandey 10y ago
This is a great question. And 6 months after the last update is a good time to be asking it. It's much less efficient for both YC and individuals if every interested individual started emailing and asking for updates. Much better this way - after all that's why broadcast or pub-sub systems exist. HN is kind of a curated broadcast system. It often happens that people who're working on the project might not find 'right now' to be the ideal time to share updates. This could be either because they're immersed thinking through a particularly challenging aspect of the problem/solution, or they feel a little lost (which is a normal feeling in the middle of ambitious projects). Sharing an update at that point makes you feel vulnerable, but that's exactly what you need to do. Or it could be that they have a really promising angle and want to see more data before writing something up. The 'more data' approach is usually a mirage (promising approaches start showing potential even at early stages/small scale) and sharing progress helps the project even in that case. (For example, you might learn that a similar approach has been tried before, and here is what someone learnt).
Hydraulix989 10y ago
I'm not sure what there is to update. I'm guessing they chose some "interesting" people (as in whose outcomes will most likely to advance their agenda), and doled out a monthly "income" for them -- as in, they literally handed them cash for 6 months (personally, I would've just kept on working full-time). Nothing magical to report back on there, right? This doesn't really show the economic effects of "basic income" on a macro scale though (I claim that they are so drastic that they are actually worth understanding first, but can't personally think of a better "experimentation platform"). Also, I doubt the project will really do much to actually influence public policy in a way that would favor UBI. It's also probably shocking to a lot of people that Uber's self-driving cars really weren't as good as they were supposed to be, so now it makes YC look like they _really_ just jumped the gun. Call it "Basic Income," but really, it's "giving money to people" on a small scale.
sama 10y ago
We've started giving money to a small pilot group. We're still working out the kinks but expanding it slowly. The plan is still to run the pilot until we're confident everything is working well (especially with issues like making sure no one loses eligibility for income-based benefits) and then start the full-scale study.
- anondon 10y ago
  What is the status of the MOOC? When can we expect additional details? YC should consider writing the occasional blog post about the projects it's working, it would be interesting to follow and the feedback from HN might be useful.
  - jbpetersen 10y ago
    Perhaps something like status.ycombinator.com for the briefly summarized current states of various things?
  - sama 10y ago
    We'll announce details on structure and timing in January. Good idea; I may try something like a "State of YC" update once every 3-6 months.
    - tomcam 10y ago
      Thanks, would love that if you can find the time.
  - cookiecaper 10y ago
    Would YC really be upfront about the success or failure of this experiment? Most people are shy enough about failures in professional contexts where impacts are isolated to the company itself. The outcome of this pilot has real potential political ramifications, further disincentivizing those who're committed to basic income (as YC obviously is) from revealing any serious flaws or difficulties experienced, beyond the typical already-pretty-strong impulse to keep failed experiments under wraps (and when they are discussed, to generalize and gloss over the more painful/sticky parts). I know we all admire YC here, but let's be practical about it. They're not going to drum up any more bad press for themselves than necessary.
home_boi 10y ago
There would need to be at least ~50-60 years before evaluation of the results There needs to be at least 2 generations that have had UBI for their entire life. UBI affects the motivation to work on skills, so the subject would need UBI for their entire life. The parents of the subject also needs to have UBI for their entire life because the parents could transmit the scarcity, pre-UBI mindset onto the subject. There is a still chance that the pre-UBI mindset of the grandparents could be transmitted to the subject. Ideally the subject would be at least 3-4 generations removed from the start of UBI
- robertelder 10y ago
  I came to the same conclusion when thinking about this too. It might even make sense to counsel people too about what they can do with the extra time/money. There are a lot of amazing things to do in the world, but most people will always try to emulate their immediate environment. For some people, I would expect they would end up getting hooked on something unwholesome (drugs for example) with their newfound free time. You could probably make a huge difference in this just by suggesting the right things at the right times.
  - SomeCallMeTim 10y ago
    > hooked on something unwholesome (drugs for example) with their newfound free time Based on what the "Rat Park" studies show about the natures of addiction, that seems very unlikely: People get addicted when their lives suck, not when they have free time. Having money enough to eat is going to go a long way to making peoples' lives suck less. Not to say that helping people direct their energies wouldn't be useful. It may take a few months of vacation or longer before people can recover enough drive to do anything with their time that they can make themselves do anything other than relax. When you've spent your life being told what to do and driving yourself with fear of losing your job, it may take months or even years of recovery before you can be self-motivated effectively. Telling them that too might be useful. I think the government should offer "jobs" that don't add a huge amount of money over the basic income, but that provide some public good, to help people who are just terminally uncreative direct their time, but should also offer free education in how to start their own businesses for those who do want to create something, build something, or provide a service. Or alternately they could learn new professions in their now-free time and get higher paying jobs. So yes, I agree with your conclusion (education and guidance is important). Just not the reasoning that got you there. :)
edblarney 10y ago
I think the limitation of UBI experiments is that they are inherently microeconomic, they might measure the individual effects of the program, but not measure the resulting macro issues of what 'Universal' would really imply across broad strata of society.
- kwhitefoot 10y ago
  One must start somewhere.
questionr 10y ago
anyone know how to sign up for participation in the pilot and/or the eventual wider rollout?
deleted 10y ago
[deleted]
deleted 10y ago
[deleted]

Last time we had an update was on May 31: https://blog.ycombinator.com/moving-forward-on-basic-income/ I was wondering if there are any updates that could be shared with the community.

runesoerensen 10y ago

"Please don't post on HN to ask or tell us something (e.g. to ask us questions about Y Combinator, or to ask or complain about moderation)" https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html

elliotec 10y ago
Does this count? It's just a query about updates on something YC posted on HN themselves. Seems allowed to me.
Zombieball 10y ago
I think in this scenario it seems fair to post a question. What's the alternative, write a blog article asking the same and post a link to that instead? I'm also interested in a status update given some recent news posted on HN about Finland experimenting with the same ideas.
- irinai13 10y ago
  Agreed. This seems like the right way to ask for updates. Especially since other people would like to know too.
- prawn 10y ago
  Alternative would be emailing them "Are you able to share any progress on the BI project? I'd bet more on HN would be keen to hear too." Project then writes a blog and someone submits to HN. However, I can appreciate that the slight public pressure of an Ask YC making the front page might encourage quicker movement or at least a response that didn't otherwise warrant a blog post.
kristianc 10y ago
This doesn't seem in the spirit of this rule, which seems designed to prevent questions of the type 'How do I get into YC?'
saycheese 10y ago
If YC is going to use HN to promote themselves, seems only fair to allow the community to query them via HN.
- dimino 10y ago
  Except for the fact that YC explicitly said don't do this...
  - swrobel 10y ago
    Not exactly this...
  - pbhjpbhj 10y ago
    Which is not necessarily a reason not too. That's the double-edge of company backed fora.
- jbpetersen 10y ago
  There needs to be an "Ask YC" weekly. It'd also make for a great way to nudge the community in the desired direction by focusing attention (and away from becoming what's effectively a standalone subreddit).
Hydraulix989 10y ago
Are you actually a mod though? Rule call-outs are almost always even more noisy than the original offense was.
patrickg_zill 10y ago
Correct me if I am wrong, but user "sama" is Sam Altman, President of YC; so if he answers instead of killing the thread, I would guess he is OK with it.

dorianm 10y ago

Maybe sending emails to the researchers and posting their answers here could be more efficient.

fouadmatin 10y ago

I don't work on YCR Basic Income, but the early steps of any experiment are pretty time consuming and not particularly interesting (e.g. logistics, experiment structure, etc...) I'd guess we can expect an update early next year with some of those details and a reflection on existing progress. In their blogpost, they provide an email for feedback: basicincome@ycr.org They're likely very consumed by all the work they need to do, so I'd reach out if you have some specific suggestions/asks. Otherwise, you can join me in eagerly waiting for more updates when they're ready to share them :)

dllthomas 10y ago
I expect there are quite a few people here who would find logistics, experiment structure, etc... fascinating. Which is not to say it's necessarily the best use of their time to update us on it.
- tomcam 10y ago
  Agreed tenfold. YC has absolutely no obligations to us regarding these issues but there is not a single detail in the whole enterprise that would not be fascinating to me.

dpandey 10y ago

This is a great question. And 6 months after the last update is a good time to be asking it. It's much less efficient for both YC and individuals if every interested individual started emailing and asking for updates. Much better this way - after all that's why broadcast or pub-sub systems exist. HN is kind of a curated broadcast system. It often happens that people who're working on the project might not find 'right now' to be the ideal time to share updates. This could be either because they're immersed thinking through a particularly challenging aspect of the problem/solution, or they feel a little lost (which is a normal feeling in the middle of ambitious projects). Sharing an update at that point makes you feel vulnerable, but that's exactly what you need to do. Or it could be that they have a really promising angle and want to see more data before writing something up. The 'more data' approach is usually a mirage (promising approaches start showing potential even at early stages/small scale) and sharing progress helps the project even in that case. (For example, you might learn that a similar approach has been tried before, and here is what someone learnt).

Hydraulix989 10y ago

I'm not sure what there is to update. I'm guessing they chose some "interesting" people (as in whose outcomes will most likely to advance their agenda), and doled out a monthly "income" for them -- as in, they literally handed them cash for 6 months (personally, I would've just kept on working full-time). Nothing magical to report back on there, right? This doesn't really show the economic effects of "basic income" on a macro scale though (I claim that they are so drastic that they are actually worth understanding first, but can't personally think of a better "experimentation platform"). Also, I doubt the project will really do much to actually influence public policy in a way that would favor UBI. It's also probably shocking to a lot of people that Uber's self-driving cars really weren't as good as they were supposed to be, so now it makes YC look like they _really_ just jumped the gun. Call it "Basic Income," but really, it's "giving money to people" on a small scale.

sama 10y ago

We've started giving money to a small pilot group. We're still working out the kinks but expanding it slowly. The plan is still to run the pilot until we're confident everything is working well (especially with issues like making sure no one loses eligibility for income-based benefits) and then start the full-scale study.

anondon 10y ago
What is the status of the MOOC? When can we expect additional details? YC should consider writing the occasional blog post about the projects it's working, it would be interesting to follow and the feedback from HN might be useful.
- jbpetersen 10y ago
  Perhaps something like status.ycombinator.com for the briefly summarized current states of various things?
- sama 10y ago
  We'll announce details on structure and timing in January. Good idea; I may try something like a "State of YC" update once every 3-6 months.
  - tomcam 10y ago
    Thanks, would love that if you can find the time.
- cookiecaper 10y ago
  Would YC really be upfront about the success or failure of this experiment? Most people are shy enough about failures in professional contexts where impacts are isolated to the company itself. The outcome of this pilot has real potential political ramifications, further disincentivizing those who're committed to basic income (as YC obviously is) from revealing any serious flaws or difficulties experienced, beyond the typical already-pretty-strong impulse to keep failed experiments under wraps (and when they are discussed, to generalize and gloss over the more painful/sticky parts). I know we all admire YC here, but let's be practical about it. They're not going to drum up any more bad press for themselves than necessary.

home_boi 10y ago

There would need to be at least ~50-60 years before evaluation of the results There needs to be at least 2 generations that have had UBI for their entire life. UBI affects the motivation to work on skills, so the subject would need UBI for their entire life. The parents of the subject also needs to have UBI for their entire life because the parents could transmit the scarcity, pre-UBI mindset onto the subject. There is a still chance that the pre-UBI mindset of the grandparents could be transmitted to the subject. Ideally the subject would be at least 3-4 generations removed from the start of UBI

robertelder 10y ago
I came to the same conclusion when thinking about this too. It might even make sense to counsel people too about what they can do with the extra time/money. There are a lot of amazing things to do in the world, but most people will always try to emulate their immediate environment. For some people, I would expect they would end up getting hooked on something unwholesome (drugs for example) with their newfound free time. You could probably make a huge difference in this just by suggesting the right things at the right times.
- SomeCallMeTim 10y ago
  > hooked on something unwholesome (drugs for example) with their newfound free time Based on what the "Rat Park" studies show about the natures of addiction, that seems very unlikely: People get addicted when their lives suck, not when they have free time. Having money enough to eat is going to go a long way to making peoples' lives suck less. Not to say that helping people direct their energies wouldn't be useful. It may take a few months of vacation or longer before people can recover enough drive to do anything with their time that they can make themselves do anything other than relax. When you've spent your life being told what to do and driving yourself with fear of losing your job, it may take months or even years of recovery before you can be self-motivated effectively. Telling them that too might be useful. I think the government should offer "jobs" that don't add a huge amount of money over the basic income, but that provide some public good, to help people who are just terminally uncreative direct their time, but should also offer free education in how to start their own businesses for those who do want to create something, build something, or provide a service. Or alternately they could learn new professions in their now-free time and get higher paying jobs. So yes, I agree with your conclusion (education and guidance is important). Just not the reasoning that got you there. :)

edblarney 10y ago

I think the limitation of UBI experiments is that they are inherently microeconomic, they might measure the individual effects of the program, but not measure the resulting macro issues of what 'Universal' would really imply across broad strata of society.

kwhitefoot 10y ago
One must start somewhere.

questionr 10y ago

anyone know how to sign up for participation in the pilot and/or the eventual wider rollout?

deleted 10y ago

[deleted]

deleted 10y ago

[deleted]