Request For Research: Basic Income • Hacker News Board

Re: Request For Research: Basic Income

#911

Post by hluska » Thu, Jan 28, 2016, 3:28 PM UTC

GFischer wrote: post #890

derefr wrote: post #764

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Instead of Universal Basic Income, how about Universal Basic Food Stamps? It feels like, rather than a basic income, we need two orthogonal currencies: one for necessities (food, rent, utilities) and one for niceities. Everyone would just have two numbers in their bank account, for each of the country's two official currencies. Basic income would be paid in one, while all income from trade in the economy would be in…

I get paid 20% of my salary in "food stamps"/"food vouchers" (they're more lightly taxed both for employees and employers so companies try to foist as much as possible upon employees). And they suck, a lot. They're called "Ticket Alimentación", and they're provided by Edenred. They're electronic these days to prevent the easiest ways to convert them into real money. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Edenred Among the pro…

I had never heard of Edenred before. That is very interesting and it might actually solve a problem that I ran into about eight years ago.

Thank you very much for posting this. I owe you.

Re: Request For Research: Basic Income

#912

Post by pc86 » Thu, Jan 28, 2016, 3:30 PM UTC

astrange wrote: post #678

throwawaytime wrote: post #632

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"When the cost of [a car] repair was increased to $3,000, the cognitive performance of those at the upper end of the income distribution was unaffected by the increase. But those at the lower end suffered a 40% decline! The authors interpreted this to mean that scarcity impaired people’s ability to think clearly. The threat—even an imagined threat—of a large bill made it difficult for poor people to focus on the cogn…

Was your employer covered by the ADA? If they have more than 15 employees, you have a great EEOC case to get un-fired.

Allowing someone to come into work more than half way through the day (presumably with no way to get a concrete time from them in advance) may not be considered a "reasonable accommodation" depending on what the job is.

Even for software development it's not always reasonable.

Re: Request For Research: Basic Income

#913

Post by pc86 » Thu, Jan 28, 2016, 3:32 PM UTC

abawany wrote: post #697

throwawaytime wrote: post #632

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"When the cost of [a car] repair was increased to $3,000, the cognitive performance of those at the upper end of the income distribution was unaffected by the increase. But those at the lower end suffered a 40% decline! The authors interpreted this to mean that scarcity impaired people’s ability to think clearly. The threat—even an imagined threat—of a large bill made it difficult for poor people to focus on the cogn…

I am not sure of your location (US, etc.) but I would imagine that you might be able to get unemployment benefits, which I hope would help tide you over financially at a minimal level while you focus on the next steps. Again, assuming US location: you might be able to use COBRA or a plan from healthcare.gov to help you continue the medications that you need. Regardless, I hope you are able to recover from this setbac…

Depending on the actual terms of the termination he may not be eligible for unemployment. Chronic lateness might be considered being fired for cause, which typically means you cannot claim UB.

Re: Request For Research: Basic Income

#914

Post by nathan_f77 » Thu, Jan 28, 2016, 3:32 PM UTC

jacalata wrote: post #303

grb423 wrote: post #242

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Would we still need child-care if we were playing video games all day while the some elite did all the productivity?

Joke answer: totally, if you're going to play seriously! Serious answer: besides the ongoing need of the 'elite' for childcare, most proponents of basic income argue that people would not just play video games all day. If you think about everything you or other people might want to do in your free time today, even - how many of those would you prefer to do without simultaneously minding children?

I understand the stigma against people "wasting their time" by playing video games all day. I don't play many games myself, and spend most of time on creative hobbies like music and photography. Actually that's a lie, I spend a lot of time reading Reddit. But apart from Reddit, I do creative things.

When I was a kid, I used to ask why poor people don't just start a business, or go out and get a better job? That was before I understood the way that poverty traps people in a cycle. And the fact that we don't all possess the capacity to become entrepreneurs and creative thinkers.

I think a basic income is most important for the uncreative people. The people who don't really have any talents, and never had any big aspirations. The 50% of all people who have a below-average IQ. Maybe they can't think of something productive to do, but in a post-scarcity economy, why should they need to? When the whole farm-to-table pipeline is completely run by autonomous machinery, then I think there's nothing wrong with just relaxing and enjoying life.

I'm worried that this YC research program might end up making the wrong conclusions, if the results are only analyzed by startup people who are hell-bent on "changing the world" and being ultra-productive all the time. So what if a recipient just chills out all day, goes for walks, swims at the beach, takes some photos, and plays some video games. I hope they wouldn't call that a failed experiment.

Re: Request For Research: Basic Income

#915

Post by pc86 » Thu, Jan 28, 2016, 3:36 PM UTC

tptacek wrote: post #513

fijal wrote: post #498

Earlier quoted context omitted.

College in Poland is free and there are options for very limited stipends which can sustain you (albeit on a poverty level). That did lift me from a poor, but educated, family into the world of computer software and a relatively successful career it seems. As it did for countless of my peers. Please don't discount free education as "not changing much", in the US I would be probably working at Mc Donalds or dealing cr…

I'm not opposed to free education. I'm certain free education is better than $150k education. But gating stable employment on 4-year degrees is problematic for reasons other than tuition costs, and, equally important to this thread, startups probably can't make college free, but they might be able to replace college for a pretty big set of white collar jobs.

> I'm certain free education is better than $150k education.

Is this really the case? Sure for identical education free is better than non-free, but I know even in software development if you're applying for jobs in the US and your degree is from Poland there are places that won't interview you, let alone hire you.

Re: Request For Research: Basic Income

#916

Post by JoeAltmaier » Thu, Jan 28, 2016, 3:36 PM UTC

rorykoehler wrote: post #806

JoeAltmaier wrote: post #592

This already happens in lots of setups: social security, pensions, allowances, annuities. So there's lots to look at without setting up some stilted experiments?

None of those are basic income or even offer remotely the same benefits as a basic income.

Now you're just being stubborn. Regular incomes that happen whether you work or now, are almost identical to the BI. How are those example different? Constructive arguments are more interesting than "No they aren't, neener neener".

Re: Request For Research: Basic Income

#917

Post by hellodevnull » Thu, Jan 28, 2016, 3:40 PM UTC

wtvanhest wrote: post #373

This research is an awesome thing that YC could give to the world. I do have a few very specific, big concern though: >We're open to doing this in either one geographic area, or nationally distributed. In order for this research to having meaning, we would need to see how the costs of things, especially real estate prices are impacted. One argument against basic income is that it would inflate the prices of basic goo…

>I love this statement, but the need to eat has been driving human beings for a very long time. It would be a truly profound statement if we could prove this.

You could look to many European countries for an answer. The unemployed receive welfare, now tell me how many of those are still motivated enough to do anything when there's no fear of hunger. Are these people happy receiving enough welfare to live a modest life, or do they strive to do more?

Re: Request For Research: Basic Income

#918

Post by prirun » Thu, Jan 28, 2016, 3:42 PM UTC

Instead of giving everyone free money, we should work on stopping currency devaluation. It's a bigger problem that affects us all, but the poor much more than the rich.

Re: Request For Research: Basic Income

#919

Post by nathan_f77 » Thu, Jan 28, 2016, 3:53 PM UTC

nickff wrote: post #200

criddell wrote: post #109

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There's not going to be an answer, of course. I think a good source of data could be the population of retired people. I'm pretty sure if I could afford to be retired, I could easily keep busy the rest of my life.

People who retire earlier die sooner; for each year earlier that one retires, life expectancy is shortened by two months (and the results are robust against different assumptions).[1] This would lead one to believe that working is good for your health. [1] http://freakonomics.com/2012/05/17/retirement-kills-a-new-ma...

Damn, this is not good news, but thanks for sharing that.

I would hope that this is not relevant to people who just want to be financially independent at an early age, and never really "retire". Maybe a lot of people just don't know what to do with their time, so they turn to unhealthy activities like drinking and sitting on the couch all day watching TV.

Re: Request For Research: Basic Income

#920

Post by logfromblammo » Thu, Jan 28, 2016, 4:19 PM UTC

silverlake wrote: post #529

logfromblammo wrote: post #485

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 doo…

I looked into this for a weekend home in the country. It's just not cost effective, nor is it faster to build right now. I was in South Africa recently where they are building mass housing for those in townships (aka slums). They are building in the traditional on-site way. If it's faster and cheaper to do modular, than there might be an opening there.

In the US, according to HUD and other sources, the existing methods for constructing and installing factory-produced homes or partially prefabricated homes cost 45% to 90% as much as on-site stick-built homes per square foot, depending on the type of construction.

A home that can be moved post-construction can also enable arrangements where the home itself is owned, but the installation site is rented, which can make housing more affordable in places where property area is very expensive.

We also have a problem in the US where all the good quality and low cost lumber has already been harvested. The 2x4 studs typical of stick-built construction are now cut from fast-growing trees of relatively small diameter, such that you can see the curvature in the grain at the end of the stud, the grain is mostly parallel to the longer dimension, it's full of knots, and it changes shape whenever the humidity level changes. You just can't squeeze a good 2x4 out of an 8" diameter log, no matter how you try to cut it.

And yet the overwhelming majority of new single-family homes are still built with wooden 2x4 studs. This is one reason why doors start sticking in their frames after only a few years since a new house was built.

A lot of this is driven by local building codes that will not adapt to newer building methods. There are better, more cost-efficient ways to build houses, and people are literally forbidden from using them. Manufactured homes are instead ruled by the HUD building codes and inspectors, so building something off-site and trucking it in may be the only way to get a home with a particular construction method in a given place.