Request For Research: Basic Income

> What can startups do to increase prosperity for everyone?

One thing I've been kicking around, though I am not sure yet how it would work, is measuring potential demand for a traditional good or service -- a type of sentiment analysis to find gaps in the market.

When I'm thinking about this problem I tend to imagine market gaps in physical space -- where could people use a sandwich shop or game cafe or a heavy equipment rental, for example.

The traditional route, which seems needlessly wasteful in a world driven by data, is for someone who happens to have capital to come along and start a business either because they /feel/ there is a need, or because a similar business has been started in similar situations, or a similar business is raking in profits -- basically they guess (educated or not) at demand and spend a lot of time and money vetting that guess. Or, even more error prone, because they have a passion and decide to roll the dice. Then it either succeeds or fails to make a profit for a variety of reasons and their test is validated or not.

With kickstarter proving demand for potential goods that can be ordered and delivered, there should be a way to measure spacial demand for a good or service and move the capital required to willing and able people in that area to get it started. Perhaps even collecting information on what particular business practices might have a high likelihood of working...distributed and generalized franchising based on latent demand.

The idea seems particularly relevant in a discussion of basic income. If someone hates their job and are working only to stave off homelessness and starvation or to maintain some basic level of comfort and they are given the means to not worry about that anymore -- well, then they will likely try to figure out how best to improve their situation. What better way than starting a business with a high likelyhood of creating value for your neighbors? It answers the question: what can I do to to have the most impact in my community?

I think you're right it doesn't help those who don't have a culture of education. I.e. people who "are first in the family to attend college/uni" of which many are minorities but also a great many are poor whites.

But.... It does help a lot of kids who find it hard to afford college/uni while also having other responsibilities.

Those people who sell a pint here and there to afford gas to get to class, etc. It's not an insignificant amount of people.

So chip at this first, then chip away at the abjectly poor or who simply don't think they have a chance at college/uni.

Of course there is always the danger of human nature wanting to claim, I went to uni as told but still can't get a job. That is it's not just a rite of passage, you have to show personal progress.

Factory-produce modular housing units that fit inside a 40' high cube shipping container. Factory-produce the 88"L x 40"W X 30"H modules and the 4"L x 80"W x 90"H bulkheads that separate them. Each unit would have four internal bulkheads and up to 18 room modules that aren't a 40" wide pass-through space. Each "room" would consist of three or six stacked modules, and each module is small enough to fit through the doors when disassembled. Side doors can be opened on each side of rooms 2 and 4.

On-site construction consists of a concrete foundation pad, steel racks, and an outer weather shell appropriate for the region. Utility hookups are provided for each berth.

When a new housing unit is needed, it arrives in an intermodal shipping container, rolls into an open berth in the rack, is anchored in place, and the utilities are connected. If anyone needs more space, the internal doors and modules can be reconfigured to join multiple units internally.

Current manufactured housing in the US is premised upon hauling the pieces to the site by truck. If housing could also be moved by container ship and stacktrain, it is more easily importable and exportable.

A size standard for home modules opens up a huge aftermarket. Don't like the factory-installed kitchenette or don't cook? Swap it out for an exercise room or workbench or hydroponics garden or nursery or whatever else you may want in its place. It fits. The utility connectors are in the same place.

The number of berths in a rack and the size of the outer weather shell can be different for different housing markets. One near a city might have multiple levels, cramming dozens of units into a single shell with a fashionable brick facade. One far out in the country could have space for as little as just one unit--and it might not even be filled all the time--but it might also have a tornado-resistant outer concrete shell.

If you change jobs, rather than pack up your possessions, you could just secure all your loose items inside and ship your owned housing units to an empty berth in a new rack, across town or in a different city.

The major problem is lack of elbow room. You just can't cram very much living space inside a shipping container, so even if you connect many units, your home still consists of a maze of doors joining a bunch of 48 sq.ft. rooms.

> The problem with basic income is that people need purpose, not charity.

This is based entirely on the assumption that work=purpose, which I think is bogus.

> Look at the success of programs in Africa that give people the ability to make a living...

For many, perhaps most of the poor, simply BEING poor inhibits them from being able to make a decent living. Jobs may not be available, the means to get to a job reliably may not be available, the physical/mental health to sustain a job may not be present and the resources to be treated and rehabilitated are obviously not there.

In effect, the hypothesis is that in a highly developed economy, handing out cash might be the equivalent of "teach to fish" for, say, rural Africa. And even then, at least one study showed that basic income guarantee did amazing things for an african village, increasing education and entrepreneurship (sorry - don't have the link handy, maybe someone else can point to it).

> suffer mostly from hopelessness

On a final note, be careful here... if I have cancer, and I can't do anything, do I suffer mostly from hopelessness or do I suffer from cancer? Hopelessness is a symptom of people suffering from poverty.

The "Great Society" was Lyndon Johnson's domestic legislative program.

It created the framework for how social services are delivered.