4 ms·

An experiment is always more limited than the thing it is being used to study. If you are experimenting with a limited budget you really cannot afford to give

An experiment is always more limited than the thing it is being used to study. If you are experimenting with a limited budget you really cannot afford to give it to absolutely everyone; just as in an experiment in physics or chemistry you try to simplify the environment so as to both make the signal clearer and to get it done with the resources available. It's a balancing act. If you insist that the only valid experiment regarding UBI is to give it to everyone then no experiments can ever be done.

kybernetikos 6y ago
> If you are experimenting with a limited budget you really cannot afford to give it to absolutely everyone; A real UBI program would also be experimenting with a limited budget. The universal part is a big part of what makes UBI unusual in comparison to the common means tested approaches, and is therefore the part that needs some of the most careful research.
notahacker 6y ago
If you experiment properly, you take people who were in a region on $startdate and give them UBI indefinitely, also levying enough additional tax or welfare cuts on that region to pay for it. That's geographically more limited, and it might be temporally more limited if it turns out to be a massive failure forcing the curtailment of the whole thing, but it's very different from testing to draw the amazing conclusion that penniless people given $7.5k are on average more financially secure a year later, which actually tells you less about a hypothetical UBI than the existing welfare state. (There might be other public policy reasons to test giving cash handouts to homeless people, like "is this more efficient use of funds than spending the equivalent on homeless hostels and counselling?" but likewise, you have to construct the experiment to actually look at that side of things)

4 ms·

An experiment is always more limited than the thing it is being used to study. If you are experimenting with a limited budget you really cannot afford to give

by kwhitefoot 6y ago

kybernetikos 6y ago
> If you are experimenting with a limited budget you really cannot afford to give it to absolutely everyone; A real UBI program would also be experimenting with a limited budget. The universal part is a big part of what makes UBI unusual in comparison to the common means tested approaches, and is therefore the part that needs some of the most careful research.
notahacker 6y ago
If you experiment properly, you take people who were in a region on $startdate and give them UBI indefinitely, also levying enough additional tax or welfare cuts on that region to pay for it. That's geographically more limited, and it might be temporally more limited if it turns out to be a massive failure forcing the curtailment of the whole thing, but it's very different from testing to draw the amazing conclusion that penniless people given $7.5k are on average more financially secure a year later, which actually tells you less about a hypothetical UBI than the existing welfare state. (There might be other public policy reasons to test giving cash handouts to homeless people, like "is this more efficient use of funds than spending the equivalent on homeless hostels and counselling?" but likewise, you have to construct the experiment to actually look at that side of things)