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The woman seems to become dependent on the program. I thought it was interesting that she leveraged the income to take a lower paying job. Sort of the exact op

The woman seems to become dependent on the program. I thought it was interesting that she leveraged the income to take a lower paying job. Sort of the exact opposite of the intention I would imagine. The idea would be to give people a leg to stand on so they can take risks, not hide in their confort zone...

fromthestart 8y ago
>The idea would be to give people a leg to stand on so they can take risks, not hide in their confort zone I think many proponents of UBI overestimate the ambitiousness of the average person.
- cm2187 8y ago
  And I suspect that it will like result in even more ressentment from people who chose to stay at home on a meagre UBI against people who chose to work and earn a lot more. In other words it could have a politically explosive outcome (populist, socialist parties getting elected, etc).
- justaguyhere 8y ago
  I think many proponents of UBI overestimate the ambitiousness of the average person. Nobody in my family has ever taken even minor risks like say, traveling abroad (for work or fun), starting a small business etc. I'm the first and I am only taking baby steps now. Point being, we can't expect to give UBI for a few months and suddenly expect people to take big risks or become ambitious or attack huge problems. These things take time. Imagine a person who has seen his parents, aunts, uncles, grandparents etc being only salaried workers all their life, rarely moving out of their comfort zone. It wouldn't be easy for such a person to suddenly change (climb Everest, start a biz, spend a year writing a novel etc), even if their food and lodging is taken care of. I don't know whether UBI is a good thing or bad. But I think both the for camp and against camp are too quick to jump to conclusions - these are social experiments not Math problems. They will take time and we can only learn by trial and error. And what works in one community might not work in another, even within the same state/country.
- sascha_sl 8y ago
  I think you underestimate how little this experiment gave people. This did not eliminate risk at all.
Applejinx 8y ago
Why? Without a consumer class it's impossible for everyone to be entrepreneurial. I think it makes very good sense to leverage the income and take a lower paying job. Maybe in so doing, she's able to consume stuff made by someone entrepreneurial, something she would absolutely not be able to do if pushing it to the limit to maximize her own income.
- zeroname 8y ago
  There's no "consumer class". Every person is a consumer, including those who are entrepreneurial. Being entrepreneurial simply means you are in charge of what gets produced. The market then decides whether what you are producing is actually needed. If it isn't, you go out of business. Resources get re-allocated. The efficiency of this process is the whole argument on why capitalism is superior to other systems. Subsidies and other special favors distort this process, to the point of overproducing things that are not needed and underproducing things that are. The danger I see is that UBI is exactly such a subsidy.
  - rskar 8y ago
    https://financial-dictionary.thefreedictionary.com/Consumer+Class https://financial-dictionary.thefreedictionary.com/Consumer+... "The class of persons able to buy goods and services other than those that satisfy their basic needs. ..."
    - zeroname 8y ago
      That doesn't seem like a common term and I'm not sure that's what the parent was referring to. Either way, my argument stands.
uasm 8y ago
> "The idea would be to give people a leg to stand on so they can take risks, not hide in their confort zone..." 560€ per month, in Finland, is not enough take people out of their "comfort zone". Check out the rental prices in some of the larger cities: https://www.vuokraovi.com https://www.vuokraovi.com
- londt8 8y ago
  The participants received other benefits too, the total was higher than 560 per month.
- zeroname 8y ago
  No, the comfort zone is staying with your low-paying job that couldn't even sustain you if it wasn't for that extra paycheck. It's not really clear from the video, but neither of these people could possibly be living off of 560€ alone. The man even said that his financial situation didn't change significantly, so there has to be some other source of income.

fromthestart 8y ago

>The idea would be to give people a leg to stand on so they can take risks, not hide in their confort zone I think many proponents of UBI overestimate the ambitiousness of the average person.

cm2187 8y ago
And I suspect that it will like result in even more ressentment from people who chose to stay at home on a meagre UBI against people who chose to work and earn a lot more. In other words it could have a politically explosive outcome (populist, socialist parties getting elected, etc).
justaguyhere 8y ago
I think many proponents of UBI overestimate the ambitiousness of the average person. Nobody in my family has ever taken even minor risks like say, traveling abroad (for work or fun), starting a small business etc. I'm the first and I am only taking baby steps now. Point being, we can't expect to give UBI for a few months and suddenly expect people to take big risks or become ambitious or attack huge problems. These things take time. Imagine a person who has seen his parents, aunts, uncles, grandparents etc being only salaried workers all their life, rarely moving out of their comfort zone. It wouldn't be easy for such a person to suddenly change (climb Everest, start a biz, spend a year writing a novel etc), even if their food and lodging is taken care of. I don't know whether UBI is a good thing or bad. But I think both the for camp and against camp are too quick to jump to conclusions - these are social experiments not Math problems. They will take time and we can only learn by trial and error. And what works in one community might not work in another, even within the same state/country.
sascha_sl 8y ago
I think you underestimate how little this experiment gave people. This did not eliminate risk at all.

Applejinx 8y ago

Why? Without a consumer class it's impossible for everyone to be entrepreneurial. I think it makes very good sense to leverage the income and take a lower paying job. Maybe in so doing, she's able to consume stuff made by someone entrepreneurial, something she would absolutely not be able to do if pushing it to the limit to maximize her own income.

zeroname 8y ago
There's no "consumer class". Every person is a consumer, including those who are entrepreneurial. Being entrepreneurial simply means you are in charge of what gets produced. The market then decides whether what you are producing is actually needed. If it isn't, you go out of business. Resources get re-allocated. The efficiency of this process is the whole argument on why capitalism is superior to other systems. Subsidies and other special favors distort this process, to the point of overproducing things that are not needed and underproducing things that are. The danger I see is that UBI is exactly such a subsidy.
- rskar 8y ago
  https://financial-dictionary.thefreedictionary.com/Consumer+Class https://financial-dictionary.thefreedictionary.com/Consumer+... "The class of persons able to buy goods and services other than those that satisfy their basic needs. ..."
  - zeroname 8y ago
    That doesn't seem like a common term and I'm not sure that's what the parent was referring to. Either way, my argument stands.

uasm 8y ago

> "The idea would be to give people a leg to stand on so they can take risks, not hide in their confort zone..." 560€ per month, in Finland, is not enough take people out of their "comfort zone". Check out the rental prices in some of the larger cities: https://www.vuokraovi.com https://www.vuokraovi.com

londt8 8y ago
The participants received other benefits too, the total was higher than 560 per month.
zeroname 8y ago
No, the comfort zone is staying with your low-paying job that couldn't even sustain you if it wasn't for that extra paycheck. It's not really clear from the video, but neither of these people could possibly be living off of 560€ alone. The man even said that his financial situation didn't change significantly, so there has to be some other source of income.