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 woul

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".