Congrats to the ycr team on the progress and accomplishments to date.
I must say after reading through to the full proposal, I was a little disappointed it doesn't include much that stood out as different or "disruptive" or "new" as I would have hoped given that it has grown out of YC. YCR has definitely done some cool things and is moving very quickly and again congrats on the successes so far.
Maybe other things are going on behind the scenes that were not included in the proposal and are not on the website? I couldn't help but get the impression while reading the proposal that this sounds like a proposal that any ol' well-funded private foundation could have come up with, and unfortunately I fear the study will run into the same problems those other private foundation type studies run into while in progress and once completed. What a waste and shame if that happens.
I fully understand there are limitations to these studies, and rules to play by, and there are many working components as these studies grow bigger in scale and touch more people and must interact more with the government and press then research teams kind of need to become more risk averse and CYA a lot more. But couldn't there be a secondary smaller research studies going that actually try new and interesting UBI research and try to answer some of the harder questions UBI faces as well as look harder at some of the multi-sigma rare events (pros and cons) of UBI that could happen.
Also I want to commend YCR for what looks to be a legit "people first" research approach. I wish more policy type researchers follow your lead and think about how people might be affected or not affected as a result of policy instead of just making assumptions based on big macro numbers changing and then trying to change those numbers.
Again no offense, but this study feels like similar studies: Get some smart brand name Phd's, spend a lot of money and spend a lot of time to get data needed to calculate some "results" numbers to support a policy idea or two. Great, these "results" will end up in some random think tank type policy articles and papers that government representatives have thrown their way every day by various lobbying and advocacy groups. These results will probably make a few good buzzworthy headlines on various news and "pseudo" news sites from NYtimes down to buzzfeed. Great.
Headline: "A new large UBI study just showed xyz positives happen under UBI but there's a couple exceptions...".
This is a lot of money and time to run a study you know no matter how successful it is what UBI naysayers will still have tons of ammunition to complain why policy shouldn't be changed yet or at least not dramatically. What then? Another 5 year study?
Cool story bro. Good studies that lead to good policies do 2 things: 1. They show evidence of doing the good thing they are suppose to do. 2. They shutdown most or all of the things the other side is using to prevent the policy from passing. This study is not doing enough of either, especially #2.
Are you guys studying things like: The psychology of people once UBI is more common and less stigmatized not just the psychology of getting unconditional money? How to pay for it? Seriously here. What will the uptake rate be? Will the first years pull down tax payers into UBI before re-adjusting and they return to work. What are you really shooting for here? 20% 33% 50% feeding back into the payer loop? What tactics might groups or business use to reverse or combat the psychology on UBI, what will be used to take advantage of people who suddenly have money and no restrictions on it? Hello more MLM schemes? Look at Norway news this week and their SWF, don't make that mistake.
I realize you have aggregation problems and methodological individualism stuff and what not. But start a moonshots division in YCR please. Good luck.