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It might not actually be okay. Quantity has a quality all its own. Whatever learnings produced from a small scale study may not actually apply to a large scale

It might not actually be okay. Quantity has a quality all its own. Whatever learnings produced from a small scale study may not actually apply to a large scale implementation. It’s possible you could “learn” the wrong lessons. A couple problems with these basic income experiments are that the participants know they are receiving their money for a limited time, which does not allow them to change their economic participation in meaningful ways. There is also the network effects to be considered. When only a tiny subset of the population is receiving basic income, the effects that you would like to study can’t be observed. I don’t know how those two issues can be controlled for. Basic Income seems like a system where you just have to dive in a cross your fingers.

justaguyhere 8y ago
Fair enough. It is then a tough balancing act between the amount of resources (money especially) available for such experiments and the desired size of them to be actually useful. Finland is very small and very homogeneous, so it reduces the number of variables they need to think about. And they are rich enough to afford such experiments. Must be fun for those working on the such problems :)
mbfg 8y ago
Fantastic point. These people were focused on getting a job, any job, so that when the 2 year period was over, they could survive. Which of course is a good thing, but really won't produce what the idealistic goals of basic income are. I doubt (m)any of the participants sat down and thought, now that i can survive forever, what can i do to change my life, build a company, chase a great idea, do something special.
daenz 8y ago
>Basic Income seems like a system where you just have to dive in a cross your fingers. You do understand why people want to start small right? Because if the experiment fails on a large scale, the results are catastrophic to society. In my opinion, proponents of UBI had better find a way to conduct the experiment in a meaningful way on a smaller scale first if they expect to convince any rational person that it's worth pursuing on a larger scale. This idea of "well let's fundamentally change society in an irreversible way and hope it all works out" is absolutely a non-starter for me.
- zanny 8y ago
  Its not irreversible. Just like you can start UBI whenever you want you can technically stop it too. Yea, people would modify their behavior to account for it and thus just eliminating it outright would cause a lot of transitional pains, but thats no different than if western governments tried eliminating retirement income, subsidized / free medicine, public infrastructure upkeep, etc.
  - deleted 8y ago
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- function_seven 8y ago
  Yeah, I do realize that and I agree with you. It may be the best idea ever, or an economic disaster. I don’t see how micro studies can figure out which.

justaguyhere 8y ago

Fair enough. It is then a tough balancing act between the amount of resources (money especially) available for such experiments and the desired size of them to be actually useful. Finland is very small and very homogeneous, so it reduces the number of variables they need to think about. And they are rich enough to afford such experiments. Must be fun for those working on the such problems :)

mbfg 8y ago

Fantastic point. These people were focused on getting a job, any job, so that when the 2 year period was over, they could survive. Which of course is a good thing, but really won't produce what the idealistic goals of basic income are. I doubt (m)any of the participants sat down and thought, now that i can survive forever, what can i do to change my life, build a company, chase a great idea, do something special.

daenz 8y ago

>Basic Income seems like a system where you just have to dive in a cross your fingers. You do understand why people want to start small right? Because if the experiment fails on a large scale, the results are catastrophic to society. In my opinion, proponents of UBI had better find a way to conduct the experiment in a meaningful way on a smaller scale first if they expect to convince any rational person that it's worth pursuing on a larger scale. This idea of "well let's fundamentally change society in an irreversible way and hope it all works out" is absolutely a non-starter for me.

zanny 8y ago
Its not irreversible. Just like you can start UBI whenever you want you can technically stop it too. Yea, people would modify their behavior to account for it and thus just eliminating it outright would cause a lot of transitional pains, but thats no different than if western governments tried eliminating retirement income, subsidized / free medicine, public infrastructure upkeep, etc.
- deleted 8y ago
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function_seven 8y ago
Yeah, I do realize that and I agree with you. It may be the best idea ever, or an economic disaster. I don’t see how micro studies can figure out which.