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Many Kenyans refusing basic income experiment

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Re: Many Kenyans refusing basic income experiment

#61

Post by internaut »

SturgeonsLaw wrote: post #36
massysett wrote: post #29

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's exactly the point. The satellite TV is cost-effective, high-value entertainment. The iPhone is a supercomputer that offers information and vastly improved communication with family and friends. Yet outsiders who think they know better somehow believe that people are dumb to prefer an iPhone rather than moving out of the shanty. Maybe the iPhone is a better marginal buy than a better house.

That's right, and it reminds me of the people who scorn the homeless for owning a laptop or smartphone. The opportunities that are unlocked by being connected to the world's digital backbone are far more significant than the benefits one would get from moving into slightly nicer accommodation.

Going from the specific to the general.

Are you denying that particular people or even groups of them could have failure modes?

It seems like a reasonable proposition to me that humans have developed strengths and weaknesses.

Re: Many Kenyans refusing basic income experiment

#62

Post by zdkl »

phessler wrote: post #48
zdkl wrote: post #44

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'd love to hear from negative consequences directly attributable to homeopathy and not caused by the state of mind of those seeking it exclusively.

Steve Jobs and Jim Henson

...neither of which had access to 'common'/appropriately researched medicine of course

Re: Many Kenyans refusing basic income experiment

#63

Post by PieterH »

MarkMc wrote: post #51
PieterH wrote: post #23

Given the "gift in one hand, gun in the other" history of western actions in Kenya and other African countries over the last centuries, it's hardly surprising there's going to be the random pocket of paranoid skepticism, no matter how good the UBI marketing/education. I'm personally confused as to why anyone would think it's a good idea to trial UBI in Kenya, as a sort of private charity initiative, given the sordid…

Some people say giving money directly to poor people is best. Some people say paying poor families to keep their children in school is best. It seems to me that in this case a randomised controlled trial (RCT) would be an ideal way to determine who is right: A third of people get free money, a third of people get stay-in-school money, and a third of people get nothing. Then see which treatment, if any, is more effect…

No single local action can increase the standard of living in any measurable way. To even think in those terms is to utterly misunderstand the scale and depth of the problems that face Africans as they work to construct a functioning economy and its institutions.

Do you even understand what creates a "standard of living"?

It is things like, "if I start a business, and people don't pay their bills, can I take them to court?"

If the answer is "no" then you are stuck with a cash economy, no credit, no trust. Everything becomes more expensive.

How do you create functioning courts? You need honest politicians. How do you get honest politicians? You build coalitions of power that boot out the thieves. How do you build such coalitions? You spend decades slowly growing your economy so the commercial middle classes get wealthy enough to become politically relevant and interested. How do you grow your economy? You cut the cost of transport and communications. How do you do that?

Etc. etc. I'm not giving a recipe, I'm giving examples of how complex this is.

The scale is such that you'd need absolutely staggering amounts of money and political will to run studies that would show useful data. I'm talking entire regions, even countries, changing policies. Cases like Rwanda focussing on the Internet. Give it a decade, then compare to Burundi, which focusses on (e.g.) child health and political stability.

Anyhow, there are no easy answers for this and forgive me if it sounds like I think there are.

Re: Many Kenyans refusing basic income experiment

#64

Post by internaut »

jomamaxx wrote: post #9
hacksonx wrote: post #7

Perhaps 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 de…

I support this position, it is just not a very popular one with today's political thinking.

It is evident that different societies have different rates of things like social cohesion, trust, violence and about a million other variables.

There are some societies that have managed to emulate the success of Europeans, such as the Japanese and Chinese, so we know it is possible, that is the good news.

The bad news is that there is no evidence Africa is attempting a similar feat. That is the fact and it is as plain as day.

Think of the enormity of it. The richest people (Euros) trade with the East Asians across a terrific distance by land or sea. All those ships bypass Africa. It is incredible.

Re: Many Kenyans refusing basic income experiment

#65

Post by calibraxis »

fsiefken wrote: post #19
rusanu wrote: post #4

I'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.

Hi Rusanu, some people or subcultures have a higher propensity to magical thinking. In Kenya for example all kinds of conspiracy theories exist about the origin of AIDS. There doesn't need to be an extra agency that intentionally spreads disinformation to explain this phenomenon. That there are agencies involved in this type of manipulations in general is a fact though, not sure who the parties would be that are thre…

While magicial thinking is pretty universal, it's true that the US (where GiveDirectly comes from) has ridiculous amounts of it. For example, 42% believe "God created humans in their present form 10,000 years ago." (http://www.gallup.com/poll/170822/believe-creationist-view-h...)

Even those who aren't climate change deniers still seem committed to running us off the cliff with climate change. Perhaps because they believe in an "invisible hand" of Providence.

The posted article is an example. They could've simply quoted what at least one Kenyan thought about it. Anyone operating within a culture which values rationality would've done so. But not these people.

Re: Many Kenyans refusing basic income experiment

#66

Post by dilemma »

TazeTSchnitzel wrote: post #59
dilemma wrote: post #47

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How their local representative responds is troubling: >They find it "hard to believe that a new organization like GiveDirectly would give roughly a year's salary in cash, unconditionally," Le writes. "As a result, many people have created their own narratives to explain the cash, including rumors that the money is associated with cults or devil worship." Le creates his own narrative about the locals as less educated…

What makes you think Le is imagining this?

Where's the substance? What do you know that makes you think it's fact?

Re: Many Kenyans refusing basic income experiment

#67

Post by elementalest »

labster wrote: post #12

When I first read the headline, I saw "Many Keynesians refusing basic income experiment", which confused me because I thought Keynes fans would totally go for UBI. But yeah, free money looks a lot like colonialism if you squint. I can see people avoiding it. You get $500 a month now, and then 3 months later, they come asking for a "favor" in return, and it would be a shame if something happened to your kneecaps. This…

That is something I had never considered. If many people become dependent on UBI, they are entirely dependent on the state - to the point they can be taken advantage of if power is abused. UBI in some ways does take an element of freedom from people, granted it may provide other forms of freedom.

What is to stop the government from changing the laws to require everyone only on UBI (no job) to perform some form of community service for a set number of hours per year. What i to stop the government from increasing it further? So whilst you may gain security for the basic living needs, you may trade it for a less freedom.

Re: Many Kenyans refusing basic income experiment

#68

Post by lagadu »

dilemma wrote: post #45
rusanu wrote: post #4

I'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.

What makes you think there's no strings attached in this case? For one, these Kenyans are being experimented on .

I believe he means that there's no expectation of them doing something in return for that money at a later point in time.

Re: Many Kenyans refusing basic income experiment

#69

Post by wcummings »

Noseshine wrote: post #39
bsbechtel wrote: post #13

Maybe people really do have an innate sense of ethics that tell them if they're receiving free money, it means it's being taken from somewhere else.

The world is not a zero sum game and handing out free money is a proven concept - as long as the recipients are big firms and banks... you already forgot the "financial crisis" and the entire last decade? Money does not work in such simplistic ways except for on a tiny scale, for example within the circle of family and friends. Already when you take out a credit your sentence becomes untrue: Debt is created by commer…

>The world is not a zero sum game

This is only true as long as there is economic growth.

Re: Many Kenyans refusing basic income experiment

#70

Post by gbin »

zdkl wrote: post #44
sangnoir wrote: post #30

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Surely you understand the difference between middle class people taking some sugar and people believing unwaveringly that herbs will protect them from that shotgun. I don't understand it; please spell it out for me because all I see is magical thinking. If you think homeopathy isn't a matter of life and death, you might have not considered the people whose lives could have been saved had they turned to real medicin…

I'd love to hear from negative consequences directly attributable to homeopathy and not caused by the state of mind of those seeking it exclusively.

I think that you don't realize the gap.

So let's take South Africa. This country is often so successful in so many dimensions compared to other African countries that they are commonly excluded from statistics related to its continent...

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Manto_Tshabalala-Msimang

This is the Health minister recommending AIDS patient to stop retroviral drugs and take her magical garlic instead (!)

300000 victims.

It is not only in the government... I lived there few years, loved it but I really can't say that common sense is their forte.

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