Many Kenyans refusing basic income experiment
businessinsider.com
Many Kenyans refusing basic income experiment
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Re: Many Kenyans refusing basic income experiment
#2This seems like the kind of surprising result that the scientific method begs for. Instead of trying to understand it, or profit from its prevalence, the organization is attempting to reduce it.
It doesn't seem likely that this type of thing will be a long term concern, but perhaps something can be learned about how society adapts if a significant subset decline the payment.
Re: Many Kenyans refusing basic income experiment
#3This seems like the kind of surprising result that the scientific method begs for. Instead of trying to understand it, or profit from its prevalence, the organization is attempting to reduce it. It doesn't seem likely that this type of thing will be a long term concern, but perhaps something can be learned about how society adapts if a significant subset decline the payment.
To be blunt it shows how out of touch those involved are. Firstly they obviously had very little understanding of African / 3rd world culture, secondly they haven't considered what we do when people offer us free stuff.
Consider if somebody walked up to you and offered to pay you 6k/mo, you would be insane not to question it. And in a country where "free stuff" doesn't happen, where corruption and entrapment are common, you would also be insane to accept it.
Several of my friends have spent time in 3rd world countries. Most had the modern, egotistical, charity tour and I would suspect that their particular brand of experience is what the experiment used.
There are many well run charities and organisations operating in these countries which fully understand the problems of interacting with people there and would have seen this situation a mile off. Those that have spent time with these charities have rightly laughed at my naivety and false superiority when talking about problems those countries face.
The upshot is - this is not a surprising result, this could have been expected and appears not to have been due to the poor practice of the organisation running the experiment. They are jeopardising their own experiment and have dealt a blow to both its credibility and the credibility of other BI experiments which already suffer from accusations of low quality science and superiority complexes. This is the long term concern.
Re: Many Kenyans refusing basic income experiment
#4I'm speculating and have no evidence, but my thinking is that offering money with no strings attached is a threat to those that offer money (or other help) with strings attached. Spreading rumors would be a defense strategy to protect those interests.
Re: Many Kenyans refusing basic income experiment
#5"Too good to be true" is a valid concern. When someone gives you something for free, this person could have further objectives that you don't see now, but will become evident later.
It is well know the drug dealer strategy of "The first dose is free, until you become hooked. This equally applies to a lot of products we use today.
For example when Facebook started giving a very good service for free it was a bargain. Basically a useful service for free with no strings attachment, no advertising, all paid with investor's money.
Then they started gradually monetizing the people to levels that a new participant in Facebook would consider obnoxious, but being gradual people has gotten used to it and consider totally normal. In some ways now you are forced to be in Facebook because your social circle is in Facebook, you are hooked now.
For a service like Facebook I certainly prefer to pay and my data or personal-social information be mine.
In the same way, making your income dependent on some external entity makes yourself lose your independence and your freedom from this entity.
Never forget that an entity powerful enough to give you most of your income has to be equally useful to take, steal, or seize the income of someone else, those who create the wealth.
This has been done and it is called "socialism". It is nothing new. Part of my family had to ask for a car or a house or a TV to the Government because "everybody had equal rights to it". Of course some were "more equal than others" and my family will wait for years for his totally shit car or house, but the people near power will get it instantly, and their houses, cars or TVs will be great because whatever excuse(like because you are in the Party's dome you need the best TV or car for your job).
For my family to have this "right" meant giving away most of their income in taxes and earn a misery compared to other West societies for equal jobs like being engineer or University teacher.
As an example today you can't earn more than 30 dollars or so in Cuba, that is the limit you have, you can be a doctor or engineer. The only rich people in Cuba are the Communist, but not officially of course, officially they earn 30 dollars like everybody else.
I consider this movement to "basic income" neosocialism. There are powerful entities like Central Banks that want to go back to a centralized economy, they being in charge of the new system, of course.
In my opinion, the way to face the "robots taking our jobs" is to share the ownership of the means of productions(the robots and computers), locally, but never globally.
Re: Many Kenyans refusing basic income experiment
#6This seems like the kind of surprising result that the scientific method begs for. Instead of trying to understand it, or profit from its prevalence, the organization is attempting to reduce it. It doesn't seem likely that this type of thing will be a long term concern, but perhaps something can be learned about how society adapts if a significant subset decline the payment.
or profit from its prevalence,
How on earth do you profit from people who won't take money because they think you are a cult/devil?
Re: Many Kenyans refusing basic income experiment
#7Perhaps not the biggest reason behind the refusal but the fact that it is mentioned warrants discussion. Che Guevara is said to have travelled to the Congo to train Guerrilla militia there and stopped when instead of focussing on training, the people focused on voodoo magic to protect them. A similar phenomena was witnessed in South Africa with the Marikina massacre of 2012, where miners believed that herbs provided by a witchdoctor would make them invisible.
The best approach to such situations is, as the organisation is following, to educate the people. It might be hard with low literacy levels but it's possible, especially for a cash studded organisation such as theirs.
edit: Fixed Gorilla to Guerrilla
Re: Many Kenyans refusing basic income experiment
#8"Too good to be true" is a valid concern. When someone gives you something for free, this person could have further objectives that you don't see now, but will become evident later. It is well know the drug dealer strategy of "The first dose is free, until you become hooked. This equally applies to a lot of products we use today. For example when Facebook started giving a very good service for free it was a bargain.…
You lost me at the last paragraph. Could you elaborate on what you mean by local means of production?
Re: Many Kenyans refusing basic income experiment
#9Perhaps not the biggest reason behind the refusal but the fact that it is mentioned warrants discussion. Che Guevara is said to have travelled to the Congo to train Guerrilla militia there and stopped when instead of focussing on training, the people focused on voodoo magic to protect them. A similar phenomena was witnessed in South Africa with the Marikina massacre of 2012, where miners believed that herbs provided…
"to educate the people"
It's not 'reading and arithmetic' that's the problem.
It's a basic lack of intelligent social organization across the board.
It's the thousand little bits of behaviour that make you 'civilized' vis-a-vis other cultures. I'm weary of the using the word 'civilized' because it sounds a little colonialist, but when people turn to 'magic spells' for many things ... you know there really are some deep issues. And it goes far, far beyond magic spells.
People totally lack an understanding of human nature when they address these issues.
'Inequality' is not the problem in Africa.
Africa has ample natural resources, if they acted in an intelligent and organized manner, there's no reason they couldn't be as rich as anywhere else.
It's a million little things summarized in a very clumsy way by the word 'ethnicity' or 'culture'.
Again - trying to avoid a completely condescending perspective, but the only measuring stick we have for our degree of civilization is ourselves.
Re: Many Kenyans refusing basic income experiment
#10This seems like the kind of surprising result that the scientific method begs for. Instead of trying to understand it, or profit from its prevalence, the organization is attempting to reduce it. It doesn't seem likely that this type of thing will be a long term concern, but perhaps something can be learned about how society adapts if a significant subset decline the payment.
or profit from its prevalence, How on earth do you profit from people who won't take money because they think you are a cult/devil?
You sell them devil repellent or a countercult. It's an ancient and well-established business model.