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Results: Finland’s Basic Income Experiment Help Us Build the Post-Pandemic World

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Re: Results: Finland’s Basic Income Experiment Help Us Build the Post-Pandemic World

#81

Post by swebs »

KittenInABox wrote: post #69
swebs wrote: post #53

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There are certainly plenty of fields that have a these problems and are vulnerable to be politically driven. I'd say the further toward the "soft" sciences you go, the more you're able to manipulate results to fit certain viewpoints. 538 has a nice little demo showing off the problem. https://projects.fivethirtyeight.com/p-hacking/

Is CS a soft science? There’s a ton of massaging in machine learning IME.

Yes, some branches definitely. Especially human-computer interaction. Other branches like discrete math or algorithm analysis are impossible to fudge. Machine learning is somewhere in the middle.

Re: Results: Finland’s Basic Income Experiment Help Us Build the Post-Pandemic World

#82

Post by mercer »

ajsnigrutin wrote: post #51
diekdnk wrote: post #2

The experiment was terribly flawed in that it only addressed the unemployed, and it didn't affect the existing unemployment system for them, making incentives perverse for all taking part. The UBI was offered tax-free on top. It represents nothing like real life UBI and needs to be redesigned as a test.

The biggest problems with such UBI experiments is the limited time of the experiment. If I had a shitty, dead-end job, and someone offered me (eg.) 80% of an average paycheck in my country, FOR 2 YEARS, i'd be happier than before, and use that money to pay off loans, buy a new car, go for a vacation, etc., and keep my curent job. If I had a shitty, dead-end job, and someone offered me (eg.) 80% of an average paycheck…

> If I had a shitty, dead-end job, and someone offered me (eg.) 80% of an average paycheck in my country, FOREVER(!), i'd probably quit, and live off UBI, and do other stuff (fun for me, but litle of value to to wider society, and with probably zero tax money to feed the UBI system). ...or, probably move somewhere, where I can get more for that amount of money.

While I do think this might be what some people will do, I think that over time, as we get used to such a thing, this is not at all what most people will do.

I've had periods of years in my life where I didn't have to think about money. After a short period of faffing off, I started doing all sorts of stuff. Some of it of direct value to society (volunteering) and some of it perhaps indirectly so (teaching myself new skills, working on 'products' that could be useful). I mean, even just spending time with others who themselves had it in short supply and valued my company could be considered 'useful to society'.

What I do know is that all of this time spent was generally more useful than a number of years of inane bullshit I worked on for various companies (getting paid well, but not really feeling satisfied with the result). So many projects that just stopped because of some decision higher up. So much work poured into websites that offer no value to society either. And the stress and depressions that goes with it leading to me being a 'burden' on society by using my health care bux on mental health care. I'm not a rare case.

Of course, this is anecdotal. But the assumption that people will just be lazy and offer nothing to society if they can is equally anecdotal, and honestly goes against everything I see in about 99% of the people around me.

People want to be useful. People want to be valued and needed. People want to be creative.

I consider it quite possible, or at least worth properly exploring, a society that provides in the basic needs regardless of whether you do pointless work for pointless company to allow you to spend your downtime on pointless consumption and entertainment (because no energy for anything else).

Re: Results: Finland’s Basic Income Experiment Help Us Build the Post-Pandemic World

#83

Post by machinehermit »

We should just give everyone $100k a month so we can all be rich.

If you think that is a stupid idea then what is the threshold with a lower amount that this becomes a smart idea?

What evidence is there that whatever threshold you come up with is less stupid than my $100k a month?

Re: Results: Finland’s Basic Income Experiment Help Us Build the Post-Pandemic World

#84

Post by goatinaboat »

notahacker wrote: post #52
goatinaboat wrote: post #36

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It doesn't go to everybody It has to, because one of the selling point of it is the minimal administrative overhead. In the U.K. we have armies of civil servants to administer our hideously complex welfare system. All of them and the costs of employing them have to go to make it affordable. The good news is that they too will get UBI...

Administering the welfare system costs orders of magnitude less than paying unconditional living wage to the UK's 8 million economically inactive working age people.

unconditional living wage

Living wage is shifting the goalposts, anyway it’s a simple calculation, total welfare budget including benefits of all kinds divided by number of adult citizens.

Re: Results: Finland’s Basic Income Experiment Help Us Build the Post-Pandemic World

#85

Post by SuoDuanDao »

machinehermit wrote: post #83

We should just give everyone $100k a month so we can all be rich. If you think that is a stupid idea then what is the threshold with a lower amount that this becomes a smart idea? What evidence is there that whatever threshold you come up with is less stupid than my $100k a month?

When basic survival needs can be met by the lower amount, but any discretionary spending requires participating in the economy.

We already meet people's basic survival needs because it's cheaper to feed your neighbor than make it impossible for him to raid your fridge. Not taking that basic gift away if your neighbor becomes self-reliant is just removing a disincentive to becoming self-reliant.

Re: Results: Finland’s Basic Income Experiment Help Us Build the Post-Pandemic World

#86

Post by notahacker »

nabla9 wrote: post #61
notahacker wrote: post #54

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You can insert the word 'effective' into my sentence above, and it remains true. It is entirely possible to design tapered benefit withdrawals without resorting to unconditional basic incomes. (It's also theoretically possible to design tax brackets for a UBI/NIT system which imply effective marginal rates at 80%+, though I'm not sure why anyone would actually want to do that)

> design tapered benefit withdrawals Tapered benefit withdrawals are the exact reason for high effective marginal tax rate. You can't use them. You can design welfare system effective marginal tax rate decreases smoothly, but you can't make it linear. (unless you make the taxation incredibly complex and effectively same as UBI/NTI)

The question then becomes whether a perfectly linear marginal tax rate is actually optimal in real world conditions [and if so, whether it's sufficiently optimal to warrant subsidising 8 million economically inactive people in order to encourage some of the 250k Jobseekers Allowance claimants out of their welfare trap]

In the real world [i] the effective marginal tax rate in for a UBI imposed in contemporary society is still going to be very steep (UK subsistence UBI ~£10k per year, median UK taxpayer under current system has a taxable income of ~£22k per year and many people on sub-median incomes are net taxpayers) and [ii] the conditionality of a benefit is a pretty strong reason to take a job, high effective marginal tax rate or not

Re: Results: Finland’s Basic Income Experiment Help Us Build the Post-Pandemic World

#87

Post by andarleen »

ajsnigrutin wrote: post #51
diekdnk wrote: post #2

The experiment was terribly flawed in that it only addressed the unemployed, and it didn't affect the existing unemployment system for them, making incentives perverse for all taking part. The UBI was offered tax-free on top. It represents nothing like real life UBI and needs to be redesigned as a test.

The biggest problems with such UBI experiments is the limited time of the experiment. If I had a shitty, dead-end job, and someone offered me (eg.) 80% of an average paycheck in my country, FOR 2 YEARS, i'd be happier than before, and use that money to pay off loans, buy a new car, go for a vacation, etc., and keep my curent job. If I had a shitty, dead-end job, and someone offered me (eg.) 80% of an average paycheck…

You will probably want to spend your time doing fun things, but the moment you need to upgrade your car, your tv or buy that sweet new tool for your hobby you will need to take a job.

But the biggest benefit of ubi imo is that if you want to spend your time, say, building a new product or clearing your mind in order to be more productive in the future, you will have that option. Tho I do see a lot of people just sitting around doing nothing, and ubi leading to inflation.

Imo the best way to implement ubi is by automating as much as possible, to increase productivity, and to use the extra time and money to reduce the amount of work people need to put in for a living. Thus far automation disproportionately benefited employers and not the society and the workers, money wise. If a robot makes 10 times more shoes, then taxing that bot the equivalent of 5 full time workers is fair.

Re: Results: Finland’s Basic Income Experiment Help Us Build the Post-Pandemic World

#88

Post by notahacker »

Ensorceled wrote: post #75
notahacker wrote: post #68

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Sure, and my argument is that proving that welfare recipients who temporarily received a greater subsidy than other welfare recipients self-reported greater levels of happiness than welfare recipients on less money does absolutely nothing to undermine arguments about welfare dependency. The arguments - with varying degreees of plausibility - are all of the form 'long term welfare dependency is unhealthy for society'…

Ok. Why are you making that argument to me? I never asserted the opposite? Why are disagreeing with a point I never made?

You disagreed with someone up the chain that the experiment's conclusions were "obvious". Since all the experiment appears to have found is that recipients of temporarily more generous benefit entitlements self report less stress and greater confidence than those who receive less generous entitlement, even most hardened opponents of the welfare state would agree that such conclusions were obvious.

Re: Results: Finland’s Basic Income Experiment Help Us Build the Post-Pandemic World

#89

Post by mbar84 »

ornornor wrote: post #6
diekdnk wrote: post #2

The experiment was terribly flawed in that it only addressed the unemployed, and it didn't affect the existing unemployment system for them, making incentives perverse for all taking part. The UBI was offered tax-free on top. It represents nothing like real life UBI and needs to be redesigned as a test.

Why can’t we ever design one such experiment right? It’s as if we were giving ammunition to those opposed to it by conducting trials that have flaws! Would it really be so hard to run a proper test that follows all the best practices and isn’t biased/flawed so that we could once and for all point at it and say “we can conclusively say UBI is/isn’t viable based on this experiment”? I mean if a country goes all the way…

A real test would have to

- pick participants at random (regardless of employment status) - give money to all the participants - make all participants pay higher taxes to finance

For this to be realistic, the participants would not have a choice whether or not to participate. So yeah, I can't for the life of me think why we "can't ever design such experiment right".

Re: Results: Finland’s Basic Income Experiment Help Us Build the Post-Pandemic World

#90

Post by dexterdog »

ornornor wrote: post #6
diekdnk wrote: post #2

The experiment was terribly flawed in that it only addressed the unemployed, and it didn't affect the existing unemployment system for them, making incentives perverse for all taking part. The UBI was offered tax-free on top. It represents nothing like real life UBI and needs to be redesigned as a test.

Why can’t we ever design one such experiment right? It’s as if we were giving ammunition to those opposed to it by conducting trials that have flaws! Would it really be so hard to run a proper test that follows all the best practices and isn’t biased/flawed so that we could once and for all point at it and say “we can conclusively say UBI is/isn’t viable based on this experiment”? I mean if a country goes all the way…

A real world would have to include everybody in the economy or you will not disprove the objection that it will just create inflation on necessities. It's the problem with economic experimentation. There is only one actual economy and there is no real way to A-B.
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