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I think this article misrepresents "skeptics". "Disincentive to work" is really only one reason to be skeptical, and I'd argue not a good one. I'm more concern

I think this article misrepresents "skeptics". "Disincentive to work" is really only one reason to be skeptical, and I'd argue not a good one. I'm more concerned about potential unintended consequences that wouldn't manifest in small scale studies such as this one. For example, suppose UBI leads to inflation after 5 years but only once it is truly national-scale. Small-scale studies may not even look at this metric, or be able find correlation if they did. By the time it was apparent, choice would be to roll it back and cause social upheaval, or continue inflation, both of which could hurt the people UBI is designed to help most. Obviously I don't have any data to know if UBI leads to inflation or not, but that's sort of the point. Ideally we'd have data on this and other effects beyond just "does it help individuals?", but those effects may be difficult to test.

ksk 8y ago
But your objection would apply to all economic policies. Why is this any different?
- shireboy 8y ago
  Well, I do tend to hold that objection for lots of economic policies ;) Governments can be really bad at foreseeing things like this and slow at changing direction once they are detected. Obviously one can take that too far and do _nothing_ out of fear of unintended consequences. But to the degree we can think through those potential outcomes and devise ways to test for them, we should.
  - ksk 8y ago
    >But to the degree we can think through those potential outcomes and devise ways to test for them, we should. What are some of those ways to test it that you suggest? This study isn't focused on your particular concern of inflation.
    - shireboy 8y ago
      Right, it'd be really hard in this case. Only being armchair-level interested in UBI I'd have to be content hoping that real economists and UBI researchers would come up with ways to test or at least address the risk. Maybe there are ways to do computer models around that, or ways to structure a roll-out so that it is very clearly a "trial" until various macro impacts can be measured. Another way to test, at least in the US and similarly organized governments, is to rely on states to implement. 50 different parallel experiments measuring UBI vs no-UBI impact. The trick would be to measure fairly and transparently, and react without political spin and bias, which I don't really see happening soon. My other motivation for posting is hoping that reporters and other HN readers would see there is skepticism besides just "it'd make people lazy".

ksk 8y ago

But your objection would apply to all economic policies. Why is this any different?

shireboy 8y ago
Well, I do tend to hold that objection for lots of economic policies ;) Governments can be really bad at foreseeing things like this and slow at changing direction once they are detected. Obviously one can take that too far and do _nothing_ out of fear of unintended consequences. But to the degree we can think through those potential outcomes and devise ways to test for them, we should.
- ksk 8y ago
  >But to the degree we can think through those potential outcomes and devise ways to test for them, we should. What are some of those ways to test it that you suggest? This study isn't focused on your particular concern of inflation.
  - shireboy 8y ago
    Right, it'd be really hard in this case. Only being armchair-level interested in UBI I'd have to be content hoping that real economists and UBI researchers would come up with ways to test or at least address the risk. Maybe there are ways to do computer models around that, or ways to structure a roll-out so that it is very clearly a "trial" until various macro impacts can be measured. Another way to test, at least in the US and similarly organized governments, is to rely on states to implement. 50 different parallel experiments measuring UBI vs no-UBI impact. The trick would be to measure fairly and transparently, and react without political spin and bias, which I don't really see happening soon. My other motivation for posting is hoping that reporters and other HN readers would see there is skepticism besides just "it'd make people lazy".