Finnish basic income pilot improved wellbeing, study finds • Hacker News Board

Re: Finnish basic income pilot improved wellbeing, study finds

#131

Post by hellotomyrars » Thu, May 07, 2020, 7:22 PM UTC

radu_floricica wrote: post #125

fallingfrog wrote: post #117

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If it improved people’s lives and had no obvious drawbacks, do we really need anything else to call it a success? Why is something only a success if it makes the stock market go up, or some capitalist richer? I cannot strongly stress enough how profoundly I do not care about either of those things. Making people’s lives better is an end unto itself .

I cannot strongly stress how amused and annoyed I am by you completely ignoring that this money has to come from somewhere. Goddamn kids. Of course giving people money makes them happy. Problem is that money represents resources, there's a limited amount of those going around, and printing money doesn't do anything except devalue the value of a dollar. It's a functional problem, not a distribution problem.

I cannot strongly stress how amused and annoyed I am by you defending the interests of people with more money than you and your entire family have ever made or ever will make.

You're right. Our current system requires us to use money to represent limited resources and those resources are not infinite. Congratulations.

However the idea here that some people just have to suffer and be catastrophically disadvantaged so that an (increasingly smaller and squeezed) middle class can enjoy the fruits of their hard labor as the money continues to concentrate at the top is absurd.

Try thinking outside of the box for a moment. The current system is fundamentally broken but I guess as long as you've got yours it suits your needs.

Re: Finnish basic income pilot improved wellbeing, study finds

#132

Post by pdeuchler » Thu, May 07, 2020, 7:29 PM UTC

black_puppydog wrote: post #80

Interesting exercise in spin here. The German state media tagesschau.de [1] phrases it like this: > Finns take stock soberly > More security, fewer depressions: the Finnish UBI experiment benefited the participants. Alas, the results show: the desired effect for the work market cannot be shown. For me, the German title reads very much like "this doesn't work" while the article mentions that the results regarding the…

Yeah some pretty clear propaganda going on... from reading the released summary of the study the vast majority of dependents that did not find employment seem to live in job deserts and economically depressed areas. Obviously UBI won't increase employment if nobody is hiring.

Re: Finnish basic income pilot improved wellbeing, study finds

#133

Post by eesmith » Thu, May 07, 2020, 7:33 PM UTC

prewett wrote: post #112

nicbou wrote: post #101

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I got massively lucky. It's a personal project that grew bigger. If I could do it again, I'd already have another website up and running. I've been thinking about it, but I'm coming to terms with being a one-hit wonder. I get paid a living wage for very little work. The reasons are irrelevant. The most important aspect here is the outcome, which was quite similar to UBI. Give anyone the humble monthly income I'm give…

I'm sure most people would have fun if someone financed their vacation. The difference between your situation and basic income is that your income is because you are providing enough value to people that they pay you money, while basic income is other people paying you money (taxpayers) with no expectation of providing any value. "I really enjoyed my vacation paid for by my automated business and therefore basic inco…

The evidence from this trial is that people who received UBI did not treat it as a vacation. Indeed, "The employment rate for basic income recipients improved slightly more during this period than for the control group."

Re: Finnish basic income pilot improved wellbeing, study finds

#134

Post by ohmaigad » Thu, May 07, 2020, 7:33 PM UTC

jusssi wrote: post #123

SilasX wrote: post #84

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You have to be really careful about generalizing from "personally getting regular free money" to everyone getting it. Under a UBI, everyone , unconditionally[1], gets the free money. That has significantly different dynamics than you alone getting it. What happens to rents, for example? If everyone's income goes up, so does the rent. If everyone wanted to live in the same places, for the same reasons, and suddenly ha…

If there's tax progression, everyone's net income does not go up. That UBI money has to come from somewhere, and it comes from taxes. To fund the UBI, taxes will need to increase. So at some threshold level of income, flicking the UBI switch doesn't affect your net income. You get a same size of increase to your tax bill as you gain from the UBI benefit. Below the threshold you get a net increase, above it you get ne…

Unless this is applied only to the richest 1%, majority won't support UBI. I think that true UBI is something that is given to everyone (even the 1%) and everything else is abolished (unemployment, paid sick leave, pensions and all other social security benefits).

Re: Finnish basic income pilot improved wellbeing, study finds

#135

Post by radu_floricica » Thu, May 07, 2020, 7:36 PM UTC

lovich wrote: post #54

radu_floricica wrote: post #50

Earlier quoted context omitted.

We needed it. Truth is, we didn't know a bunch of important things before this study. In particular, we didn't know if people were going to work more or less. Quite a lot of people were hoping for "more" (or at least better), me included. It was a long shot, but if it turned out to be true it would have been a game changer. Turns out it's not.

why were you hoping that people would work more?

There's such thing as poverty trap. You need money to survive so you get a low paying job, you can't afford to quit it so you keep at it, 10 years pass and you're still there. UBI was supposed to short-circuit this. But at least in that particular study we didn't see a lot of it happening - even though 1-2 years should be enough time to change things.

Re: Finnish basic income pilot improved wellbeing, study finds

#136

Post by fma » Thu, May 07, 2020, 7:38 PM UTC

BitwiseFool wrote: post #4

The problem I have with studies like this one is that they only measure the effects of getting a stipend during a limited amount of time with a limited amount of people. It's not universal and it's not basic. From a non-scientific view point, of course giving people free money makes them feel better. But from an experimental perspective, they aren't getting the 'full package' of UBI. The participants aren't seeing in…

20 year study of an entire region

https://www.wired.com/story/free-money-the-surprising-effect...

Re: Finnish basic income pilot improved wellbeing, study finds

#137

Post by fredsir » Thu, May 07, 2020, 7:39 PM UTC

luckylion wrote: post #100

hnarn wrote: post #73

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Some people may not agree with me but I've always felt that there's an interesting take on our history: Throughout most of civilization, most types of progress has been the result of the intellectual work of an elite. Most progress in science, art, and pretty much anything comes from a "noble" or some kind of free man either doing it themselves, or directly financing someone who did. Most people today probably wouldn…

> Quite the opposite, you want to make sure that all goods and services are being provided, but only enough so that the primary goal can be achieved: to give people as much stress-free spare time as possible without breaking the economy. That's solved. 10 square meters, 18°C during winter, 2500 calories a day, and basic health insurance. It's cheap enough that we can supply that to everyone. It's just that people wan…

> It's the majority of people that prioritize that which you do not like, it's not some hidden force that makes them.

Sure they are. People today grow up being told and shown how to be materialistic, how to value short term economical gain, and so on, and then you get people that are like that. It's not surprising, is it?

Humans are very much affected by the culture they grow up in. Our culture rewards greed, values gadgets ... our culture is a culture of bread and circus. So that's what you get, people who want that, because that's what they're taught to like. It's not surprising, is it. To "escape the matrix", you have to seek to do so, it doesn't just happen by itself. And by forcing people to work till they are tired, and sleep till they must work, you don't give them much chance of ever discovering such things, nor any thing that furthers humanity, as hnarn talks about, except in very rare cases where the stars align, and against all odds, it happens, but only rarely, because our society doesn't foster an environment that optimises for such things.

Re: Finnish basic income pilot improved wellbeing, study finds

#138

Post by AsyncAwait » Thu, May 07, 2020, 7:39 PM UTC

hellotomyrars wrote: post #116

drdeadringer wrote: post #88

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> the long term mental state of someone on UBI What is? Some form or variation of learned helplessness? Something else?

Had the same thought. Too bad we can't ask all the UBI recipients their long term mental state(Because there are none) so instead we'll have to go with this persons gut instinct.

On the other hand, we do know that many working 9-5 or longer hours suffer from burnout and depression, so a fair comparison should account for that.

Re: Finnish basic income pilot improved wellbeing, study finds

#139

Post by fredsir » Thu, May 07, 2020, 7:39 PM UTC

hnarn wrote: post #73

nicbou wrote: post #51

Last year, I had something that was very close to basic income (income-generating website that doesn't require active babysitting). I knew a life without work would be amazing, but I never expected it to be this great. I had much more time and energy to enjoy life. There was never a rush to do anything. I woke up when I wasn't tired. I could read in bed for an hour if it felt right. Sometimes I'd just walk 3-5 kilome…

Some people may not agree with me but I've always felt that there's an interesting take on our history: Throughout most of civilization, most types of progress has been the result of the intellectual work of an elite. Most progress in science, art, and pretty much anything comes from a "noble" or some kind of free man either doing it themselves, or directly financing someone who did. Most people today probably wouldn…

Great comment, just gotta say!

Re: Finnish basic income pilot improved wellbeing, study finds

#140

Post by radu_floricica » Thu, May 07, 2020, 7:41 PM UTC

hellotomyrars wrote: post #131

radu_floricica wrote: post #125

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I cannot strongly stress how amused and annoyed I am by you completely ignoring that this money has to come from somewhere. Goddamn kids. Of course giving people money makes them happy. Problem is that money represents resources, there's a limited amount of those going around, and printing money doesn't do anything except devalue the value of a dollar. It's a functional problem, not a distribution problem.

I cannot strongly stress how amused and annoyed I am by you defending the interests of people with more money than you and your entire family have ever made or ever will make. You're right. Our current system requires us to use money to represent limited resources and those resources are not infinite. Congratulations. However the idea here that some people just have to suffer and be catastrophically disadvantaged so…

I was born in communist Romania. Thank you very much, but I had one socialist system in my life, I really don't want another. Every single one that humanity tried was either suboptimal, dystopian or straight up humanitarian catastrophe. But sure, I guess they weren't "real" socialism, so let's try and try and try again. sigh.

Somebody in my country once said something like: "If you're not communist at 20, you have no heart. If you're still communist at 30, you have no brain". So I guess I should be more patient. But well... I am a bit irritated by people saying things with conviction while not knowing enough history to cross the road.