Launching the Rural Guaranteed Minimum Income Initiative
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Launching the Rural Guaranteed Minimum Income Initiative
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Re: Launching the Rural Guaranteed Minimum Income Initiative
#2Why rural Americans? The same amount of cash will go a lot further and likely be more effective in rural areas of other countries. The source of Atwood's wealth (Stack Overflow etc) is global, not American.
Re: Launching the Rural Guaranteed Minimum Income Initiative
#3Why rural Americans? The same amount of cash will go a lot further and likely be more effective in rural areas of other countries. The source of Atwood's wealth (Stack Overflow etc) is global, not American.
Deindustrialization has hollowed out most American cities outside of major cities, and the corresponding anti globalism tantrum contributed to the current political situation. Because of the apportionment of House and Senate seats, these people hold most Americans hostage with their disproportionate voting power, and paying a ransom seems better than the alternative we are living through.
Re: Launching the Rural Guaranteed Minimum Income Initiative
#4Why rural Americans? The same amount of cash will go a lot further and likely be more effective in rural areas of other countries. The source of Atwood's wealth (Stack Overflow etc) is global, not American.
Why not rural Americans? When helping someone in my community, I don't first stop and analyze whether my time/money could be better allocated to maximize some sort of utilitarian loss function, I help them because they're there, need my help, and I'm able to help.
Re: Launching the Rural Guaranteed Minimum Income Initiative
#5If AI and robotics reach their logical goals then projects like this are about to become more and more important. I don't mind machines taking all of the jobs, as long as all of those displaced workers don't starve.
Re: Launching the Rural Guaranteed Minimum Income Initiative
#6Why rural Americans? The same amount of cash will go a lot further and likely be more effective in rural areas of other countries. The source of Atwood's wealth (Stack Overflow etc) is global, not American.
Why not rural Americans? When helping someone in my community, I don't first stop and analyze whether my time/money could be better allocated to maximize some sort of utilitarian loss function, I help them because they're there, need my help, and I'm able to help.
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Re: Launching the Rural Guaranteed Minimum Income Initiative
#7[flagged]
Re: Launching the Rural Guaranteed Minimum Income Initiative
#8Why rural Americans? The same amount of cash will go a lot further and likely be more effective in rural areas of other countries. The source of Atwood's wealth (Stack Overflow etc) is global, not American.
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Re: Launching the Rural Guaranteed Minimum Income Initiative
#9[flagged]
Your point with regards to criteria has merit, but this is unlikely to move the needle as Rural America continues to hollow out, so it's their funds to run the experiment. West Virginia has one of the oldest populations in the country (3rd [1]) while having the lowest birth rate (~16k/year and falling), for example (one of their pilots was in Mercer County, WV). Similar for Mississippi (highest out migration in the US [2] [3]).
There is simply no political appetite for the spending required in this regard without broad system changes to enable remote work to support rural communities as employers leave and agriculture dies. As you mention, this population cohort is what SNAP and Medicaid was stripped from. If some people have better lives through direct cash transfers while the outcome isn't going to change, that's fine I suppose. There are worse hobbies someone with resources could have.
TLDR Rural America will remain in decline [4] [5], urbanization will continue (because that's where the economic potential and jobs are).
[1] https://www.wboy.com/news/west-virginia/west-virginia-has-th...
[2] https://www.wapt.com/article/mississippi-ranks-among-top-sta...
[3] https://mississippitoday.org/2025/07/15/faq-mississippi-brai...
[4] ‘Too many old people’: A rural Pa. town reckons with population loss - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=44583495 - June 2024 (81% of rural counties recording more deaths than births between 2019 and 2023)
[5] Map Shows 21 States Where Deaths Now Outnumber Births - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46889024 - February 2026
(I track the decline of Rural America broadly to reach out to institutions to ingest their data and collections for long term archival before they evaporate)
Re: Launching the Rural Guaranteed Minimum Income Initiative
#10Why rural Americans? The same amount of cash will go a lot further and likely be more effective in rural areas of other countries. The source of Atwood's wealth (Stack Overflow etc) is global, not American.
Why not rural Americans? When helping someone in my community, I don't first stop and analyze whether my time/money could be better allocated to maximize some sort of utilitarian loss function, I help them because they're there, need my help, and I'm able to help.
I don't disagree with you, but there is value in considering how money could be best put to use for the common good.
One perspective overlooked here is the purchasing power of non-Americans (i.e., not U.S. citizens). Dollars in developing countries can be worth multiple times what they are in the United States. For example, you could help 5000 rural Vietnamese for every 1000 rural Americans. There is also a higher potential for rural Americans to obtain dollars vs. non-Americans. In utilitarian terms you have the potential to do more good by sending money to rural communities overseas.
I'm saying this as someone who loves Appalachia.