
The Future of Not Working - WheelsAtLarge
https://www.nytimes.com/2017/02/23/magazine/universal-income-global-inequality.html
======
Razengan
With almost 8 _BILLION_ people on this planet soon, not everyone can
meaningfully contribute to something that can't be done more efficiently by
automation (which is also cheaper for everyone and easier on the environment)
or done away with entirely. See [1], [2], [3] for examples from our not-so-
distant past.

You just cannot expect everyone to "earn" money while expecting technological
progress to continue unabated.

Don't want so many people? Mandate reversible sterilization at birth.

Don't want so many disgruntled and unemployed people? Endorse some form of
guaranteed income, or incorporate basic housing, meals, healthcare and
internet into the list of undeniable human rights.

[1]
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lamplighter](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lamplighter)

[2] [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Link-
boy](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Link-boy)

[3]
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Switchboard_operator](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Switchboard_operator)

~~~
cannonpr
I do wonder about the "not everyone can contribute" perhaps they can't
contribute in building cars, but with a cultural shift and education, well
there are a lot of avenues of research and mathematics that only require
thought and basic tools like chalk. I tend to view an unemployed human as an
awful waste of computational resources. This ofcourse assumes we haven't
figured out strong AÍ or we don't want to, cause that's an entirely different
chat.

~~~
douche
> I tend to view an unemployed human as an awful waste of computational
> resources.

If we extend the metaphor, there are 4004s and there are i7s. You need a lot
of 4004s to equal the output of one i7. That many 4004s use a lot more watts
than the one i7, and at some point the value isn't there.

~~~
cannonpr
I see your point, however these humans are alive, thinking, using power you
might say anyway. There is a nearly infinite task in improving our society and
science, and we have strong evidence that humans become self destructive or
just destructive when not actively engaged in something they enjoy doing.

------
spyckie2
The article's title is misleading - it is not about not working, it's about
giving money directly to poor villages for 12 years to provide what is similar
to basic income but meeting fundamentally different needs in a very different
part of the world. That said, I think it is a fascinating anthropological
read.

We often do not realize how many layers of wealth we had to stand on to
possess our current wealth.

~~~
tedmiston
What's most fascinating to me is the dollar amount: $22/month ==> $264/year.
It's almost unfathomable from a Western perspective that this could cover
someone's basic living expenses for a year.

I wish there were a simple way to participate as an individual. You don't have
to be rich to cover one (or more) people's basic living expenses at this rate.

Edit: Here's the link to donate: [https://www.givedirectly.org/give-
now](https://www.givedirectly.org/give-now)

You can even send money via Venmo to avoid the credit card processing fee.

~~~
gwern
> I wish there were a simple way to participate as an individual.

There is? You give money to GiveDirectly. They even take Bitcoin (I've done
it).

~~~
StavrosK
Jeez, when did Bitcoin fees go to $0.3? Wow.

I've donated, thank you! Seems like a great charity.

------
hackathonguy
"One estimate, generated by Laurence Chandy and Brina Seidel of the Brookings
Institution, recently calculated that the global poverty gap — meaning how
much it would take to get everyone above the poverty line — was just $66
billion. That is roughly what Americans spend on lottery tickets every year,
and it is about half of what the world spends on foreign aid."

Love this.

~~~
harryh
I'm really curious about the math on that $66 billion number. According to the
world bank there are about 750 million people living in extreme poverty. We
only need to give them $88/year to get them out of it? And that's just the
people in "extreme poverty." It'll be even less if we move up the income scale
a bit.

The number seems low to me.

~~~
chrispeel
The doc [1] below agrees that there are about 700m in extreme poverty now,
which it defines as living below $2/day. If we gave each of those people
$2/day, we'd need $550billion/year. So yes, $66b seems low for the $2/day
threshold.

I wonder if this $66b is for those who are below $1/day. Looking at the plot
in [1], we can guess that the number at $1/day is much lower; $66b would give
181 million people a dollar a day.

[1] [https://ourworldindata.org/extreme-
poverty/](https://ourworldindata.org/extreme-poverty/)

~~~
jakewins
You need to take into account that these people are not living on absolute nil
- they have some level of income, be it $1 or $.50 - so you don't need to give
each of them $2/day.

The OP article noted the amount needed in the village in the beginning was
$22/month, so $.75 a day, give or take 10c.

~~~
ci5er
And the system for means-testing at that level would be expensive enough to
run, with opportunities for graft, false-positives, and false-natives, that
means-testing would be a losing proposition. Just pick a level and make sure
no one is double-dipping.

You still have the problem of regional thugs that will come round every "pay
day" for their taste. Or beat you up. A pretty simple variation a protection
racket, but I'm not sure how to protect against it.

------
Clubber
The people with the wealth pay people for one reason and one reason only: they
have to. Once they no longer have to, they will lobby the government to
continue to lower taxes and squawk about laziness, welfare queens, and all
that garbage.

This will go on for a few decades until there is an uprising of sorts, then
those with the money will return to giving everyone else crumbs, or just
enough to quell the uprisings. This will probably go on perpetually.

~~~
paulpauper
Marx predicted that...hundred forty years ago. Hasn't happened. History
suggests revolts occur when basic needs are unmet, usually after a nation
falls into debt and ruin as a consequence of war

~~~
malandrew
What amazes me is that people keeping keep increasing the definition of basic
needs and we wonder why things become unstable.

Universal healthcare is now considered a basic need. We're not even talking
about basic healthcare either. I see people arguing all the time that everyone
is entitled to a level of care that is for all intents and purposes a premium
product that commands a premium price.

If you were to tally up all the entitlements people argue should be basic
human rights, you'd have a economically unsustainable system, because you'd
eventually take so much from those working that the motive for them to
continue participating in the system would disappear. It got so bad in East
Germany, that they had to build a wall to keep those that were productive from
fleeing.

~~~
Fraterkes
You could argue that "premium" universal healthcare can't be a basic need
because it isn't sustainable, but the alternative, deciding who deserves it
based on who can afford it, seems even worse. This growing sense of
entitlement that many people complain about is mostly just normal people
wanting all the same perks that modernity brought the wealthy, and I don't
think thats unreasonable.

(As a thought experiment, imagine that premium health care was extremely
cheap. It would be completely intuitive that everyone deserved it, since we
are basically talking about ensuring that people stay alive/in good health.)

~~~
malandrew

        deciding who deserves it based on who can afford it, seems even worse. 
    

What's wrong with this? Technology improves and productivity improves. Over
time, more and more people are getting better and better healthcare. The
healthcare the cheapest insurance available today can buy is better than what
the richest had access to 100 years ago.

If premium healthcare were extremely cheap, everyone could afford it.

------
anovikov
This looks so shiny only because the experiment is low-scale. In a country
with an acute shortage of access to capital, small money explainably gives
huge returns. If it was done to every, or even every poor, household in Kenya,
it won't have resulted in anything but inflation and probably
riots/genocide/burning of Give Directly workers for witchcraft. If everyone
could buy that fishnet, fish in Lake Victoria will run out in a month, and
almost everyone who did that will have simply lost that money. Further
advancement will need a ton of capital AND education, and tradition of legal
system to sustain complex companies that depend on intangible assets... Simply
put, require a first world country to be done in. Handing out $22 a month to
every Kenyan would do absolutely nothing for him - at least many times less
than handing out $22 to 0.01% of Kenyans.

It's not like i don't believe in UBI. There are few other visible solutions to
the automation problem (other may be economic incentivizing - like through tax
breaks - and cultural promotion of resurrection of personal servants as a mass
occupation) - but it can't work as good as this example simply because it
doesn't scale so well.

~~~
snarf21
This is the thing that irritates me soo much. People come up with an idea that
doing X will solve problem Y but they ignore the fact you can't just change
one simple thing in a complex system and not expect other variations. Giving
everyone in the country X dollars will just result in inflation like you said.
Plus, it will take wealth away from those people who had wealth currently make
up to a small multiple of this new income.

Adding access to clean water, plumbing and electricity is enabling and the
kind of investment that will have the most return. Returns can also be had by
starting to give access to credit/loans to enterprising people. I liken this
issue to Democracy. You can't give a country Democracy but you can help create
conditions for its citizens to build it themselves. But there is also a chance
that they don't want it.

------
chvid
As a form of foreign aid giving money directly probably works well. But idea
that developing countries need basic income because of automation is just
absurd.

If anything they need to get to work developing their country; those shacks
are not going to be built by robots.

Fully developed countries on the other hand may face the situation where their
country is so well run and have such a high level of automation and
specialisation that there is too little work left for the population to be
fully employed.

And thus they may lower their pension age, experiment with 30 hour work weeks,
sabbaticals, maternity leaves, basic income and so on.

The countries that are closest to this are probably the Scandinavian
countries. However at the moment they are all moving towards lower social
transfers and higher pension age.

------
marmot777
I got to this on my reading list finally, realizing my first impression that
this was a piece promoting an organization called GiveDirectly, wasn't a sound
impression (lesson: don't comment till you read the article). This _is_ a
higher level than that, it's testing Universal Income, frequently called
universal basic income.

Public policy whether implemented by governments or by organizations should
test, innovate, change, not just pick an approach and run with it as seems to
happen with the largest programs here in the U.S. As far as I can tell there's
not been much innovation in the implementation of the safety net since
Johnson.

Like anything else humans try to do, there will be bugs, there will be blind
alleys, there will be mistakes. Small scale testing is a necessary step so
that a working model is ready for larger-scale testing or maybe it'll be found
that the implementation will have to have configurations that vary according
to local conditions and even just preferences.

I'm a Pacific Northwest guy perhaps out of touch with what Silicon Valley is
up to, sometimes I'm critical, but for this initiative, I say thank you. I
have no clue how I'd thank anyone for this so just in case anyone involved is
reading my comment I would like to express gratitude for doing work that has a
high probability of playing a part in making the world a liveable place for my
young son and the rest of humanity in the years to come.

By the way, if you've got the chops to beta test UI any chance you could save
the Amazon Basin?! Please.

------
jayajay
If every known resource acquisition task was automated, and the discovery of
unknown non-automated tasks could be automated to be automated, we'd be post-
scarcity and the concepts of working and income wouldn't be useful metrics
anymore.

So, yeah machines are a big black hole and our jobs are doomed asteroids
spiraling into the black hole. As they spiral into the singularity, humans
will be displaced at an accelerating rate, and it will take more ingenuity and
effort for humans to maintain "work". And, for what? In the asymptotic limit,
the outcome _should be_ no more jobs and "work" in a the way we currently
define them, and humans will be truly free to creative pursuits. Never shall a
beautiful human mind be wasted on labor which a machine can do.

At some point, machines will be the dominant species pushing civilization
forward, not us.

Until then, we're forced to work, we're forced into employment because our
world does not simply give us what we want. Food and spears don't fall out of
the sky, so we will waste our time hunting and farming until we figure out how
to make those things "fall out of the sky".

------
NumberCruncher
The African people would me much better off if we would stop selling them
weapons and would pay a fair price for their work and natural resources. But
hey, that wouldn't be a great PR action making headlines!

~~~
marmot777
Acting as you suggest and programs like this aren't mutually exclusive
propositions. I doubt that the people backing this program are the same people
selling arms to Africa.

So nobody should do anything unless they can also solve all problems? I
actually upvoted your comment because I agree that those things should stop
but I don't have the slightest bit of power to stop it and those who are
conducting these sort of studies have more power than me but when put up
against giant problems, it's at the margins. That is, they can't stop the arms
trade either.

~~~
NumberCruncher
My problem is that programs like this does not change anything except making
us first world citizens feeling comfortable about not having the power to stop
exploitation of a whole continent. It is like a drug for the society making us
feel good when we should feel bad and ashamed.

And calling it "basic income" is just propaganda.

~~~
marmot777
I don't think that's the point. This program's testing the basic income and I
think the idea is there will be a number of tests under different conditions.

If this concept proves viable, then that could serve as a model to scale it
up. The problem this is trying to solve isn't that of just the developing
world, the developed world is sliding toward a catastrophic failure of the
system that depends on there being a job (aka a way to make a living) for
every adult who wants to work.

I'm not sure but we could be there now. If we aren't there now it won't be
long. The trend toward automation and the rise of AI are enough on its own but
there are other trends working against the current system. Add to that even
for people who have steady work how well has the retirement saving system been
going in the U.S.? There are millions of people who will retire completely
unprepared to support themselves for even a decade of retirement.

The need will be global. Unless you're wealthy enough to have no worries at
all about money, you might someday be grateful for these initial tests that
led to the successful deployment of this system for you. I know I worry about
how many years I can make it into retirement when that day comes and I really
worry about my son who's a small child. The system is failing yet slow enough
that perhaps it hasn't hit you yet.

Actually, even if you ARE wealthy, if the system becomes too unstable
ultimately we all eat it. Instability is everyone's adversary.

~~~
NumberCruncher
>> This program's testing the basic income and I think the idea is there will
be a number of tests under different conditions.

IMHO there have been enough test for basic income where the basic income was
decoupled from the free job market. It is called socialism / communism. All of
these tests failed badly and ruined whole generations. No sane person have
lived behind the iron curtain would consider it as a sustainable economic
solution.

~~~
marmot777
No, you've got this wrong. First off, let's distinguish our terms to prevent
completely muddled thinking. There are different flavors of socialism:
national socialism, communist flavor socialism, democratic socialism. You seem
to lump democratic (aka European style socialism) with the heavy handed-
killed-20-million-of-his-own-people Stalin-style central planning socialism.
You can be opposed to democratic socialism just fine without, perhaps
unintentionally, confused thinking. If you would take the time to define your
terms you can avoid crying wolf.

Basic income does not presume any of the flavors of socialism, though if your
particular ideology is libertarianism or conservativism then you've likely
been taught to throw any sort of government program into the same category in
order to attempt to discredit it.

This is basic income with no strings attached. You can take that money to buy
ramen so that you can be a half starving artist or you can take a chance on
that job or start the business that you've been hesitant to take a chance on
because you estimated the odds of falling hard and broke were too high.

If you retire and didn't save enough in your 401k and Roth IRA's to make it to
the finish line without working when you're old and tired then this might make
the difference. If you fall on hard times as many human beings do at some
point in their lives sooner or later, the UI would be the floor with a little
padding.

There's not a single thing about this that has anything to do with the "iron
curtain." Nobody thinking this through themselves using reason would arrive at
your conclusions and you're probably pretty damn smart. So I suspect the
problem that it is not _your_ thinking, you are instead parroting some quasi-
talking-points from some ideology or other that you subscribe to.

Please try to get beyond seeing everything that you encounter through the lens
of your ideology or any ideology at all for that matter, but if you need your
ideology for whatever reason, at least review and define your terms again to
make sure you at least have that part right or what follows doesn't have a
prayer of coming together as a cogent argument.

~~~
NumberCruncher
How long have you been living in a country where everything is basic? Your
job, your income, your home, your education, your healthcare? What do you know
about how humans living under sutch conditions act and how sutch systems end
up? You call it ideology, I call it experience.

[Edit:] I appreciate your intent to build up a working socialism and not to
fvck it up this time. But some systems simply does not work with humans, only
with ants and robots.

~~~
sobani
I live in a country with a guaranteed level of education and healthcare (I
guess that's what you mean) and I love it. No need to worry when I go to a
doctor or whether I can afford university.

As far as I know what has never been tried on a large scale is to give
everyone a no-strings-attached 'salary' and let them do whatever they want,
without consequences for that income.

Communism definitely didn't let you do whatever you want, while still paying
you for it. And in all socialist countries I know of unemployment benefits are
decreased as soon as you start working, sometimes even at a net-negative rate
(yes, I consider that stupid as well).

I don't know what you mean with a basic home. I guess you could call where I
live right now 'basic', but only because I don't care enough to spend more for
it.

------
paulpauper
It would seem like 'going to work' is becoming a thing of the past, at least
for increasingly many people. Labor force participation at multi-decade lows.
Gig jobs, welfare, disability, prolonged education, social
security/retirement, and the 'underground economy' is replacing a significant
chunk of the traditional job market.

~~~
tim333
Not in the UK. "The employment rate in the UK has hit another record high of
74.2%, and there are more people in work than ever before."
[https://www.gov.uk/government/news/employment-rate-hits-
reco...](https://www.gov.uk/government/news/employment-rate-hits-record-742)

------
rubicon33
> "The research wing of Sam Altman’s start-up incubator, Y Combinator, is
> planning to pass out money to 1,000 families in California and another yet-
> to-be-determined state."

Oh, really? Where do we sign up? I'd love to be able to build my business(es)
without taking investor funds.

~~~
marmot777
That's a pretty cynical attitude. It's obvious the intent of this is to test a
program that has the potential to keep people from drowning. I doubt you're
now gasping for air as you sink below the waves.

~~~
reddytowns
That's the exact opposite of a cynical attitude. It's the attitude I hope all
the participants will have. If everyone receiving BI are not trying to make
something better out of their lives, then UBI is no better at helping the poor
then any other charity -- the old give a man a fish thing.

No US citizen in California really has to worry about starving to death. They
do have to worry about losing their benefits, and in some cases having to
retroactively pay them back.

I have my doubts about UBI, though. I lived in a poor neighborhood in Las
Vegas. About a quarter of the residents were drug addicts, and living among
them were the drug dealers. They all were on public assistance, and spent most
of their time trying to steal anything they could from the people and shops
around them.

Ever wonder why so many poor people vote Republican? This is it. People there
were afraid to leave their homes at night and the hope was a Republican
government would clean up their neighborhood for them. But I digress...

~~~
skybrian
Consider that if basic income isn't tied to a job, it makes it that much
easier to move away from such places. (For example, look at all the retirees
living in Florida.)

------
temp-ora
we do not use money because it makes sense. money exists in the form it takes
today because of human nature. we think someone has to earn their food. we
think a homeless person deserves a handout because they look like they are at
least trying to get on their feet (or not when they dont). machine
intelligence is not the only problem that our wealth distribution system is
facing. we have faced massive inequality before, and are facing it right now,
and no solutions have been implemented. and like all the trials of equality
before it, the automation of jobs will result in the smartest and fasted
humans owning the vast majority of wealth and influence while the rest of us
sit in mud.

~~~
chillwaves
> the automation of jobs will result in the smartest and fasted humans owning
> the vast majority of wealth and influence while the rest of us sit in mud.

So you are arguing the rich are rich because they are the smartest? I would
tweak your assessment. The rich are rich because wealth perpetuates the
capture of wealth at a rate greater than the expansion of the economy.

~~~
temp-ora
having wealth is one half of the equation when it comes to self perpetuation
of wealth. being very smart is the other half. look at people who win the
lottery. they spend it all away, often becoming broke. and the people who get
wealth in the first place are more likely to be smart. smart people end up
getting a lot of money because they are smart. and they use it to stay wealthy
because they are smart.

------
praetorian84
Interesting comment below the article regarding a government-run programme in
Brazil trying something similar: "However, there is a trend of the part of
these persons become dependent of this benefit and do not strive to change
this situation..."

That was my immediate reaction after reading this. What about after the twelve
years, when the donors ride off into the sunset? There are some encouraging
stories there of participants using the money wisely, but not all will do so.
You could argue that nobody is forcing them to participate, but it does seem
at least a little ethically questionable. Particularly given the targeted
demographic of a rural Kenyan community with (presumably - I could be wrong)
low education levels.

~~~
PeterStuer
If this solves their basic needs, housing, food, medical, education, ..., then
why would they need to 'strive for change"? Seems to me the world would be a
far better place if people could get more content with just living. We have no
shortage of produce already, and that is before the automation revolutions
coming in the next decades. Just living without exponential 'wealth'
accumulation plans that invariably seem to include some form of over-
exploiting natural resources while externalizing the effects, or rent-seeking
schemes that create lopsided distributions, seems to be a far more 'civil'
future.

------
Dagwoodie
Here's how I think the only possible way this will ever be realized: A non-
profit organization will have one of the highest (top 10 to pick an arbitrary
number) net-worths of any company on earth.

~~~
marmot777
like a government but with a single mission to administer this program. It
could be a good idea. I don't know.

~~~
laser
Like a department or agency of government? In the US the SSA may be a good
contender.

------
jimmywanger
I think that fundamentally, the thing we're going to run up against is
population growth.

I think history has proven that we can live in extremely wretched conditions.
By giving money to people, are we going to be increasing their living
standards or just creating more mouths to feed?

Note that the basic income only applies to whoever registers at the beginning
of the program. Would that amount of basic income cause the population to
explode, so that the per-capita amount of goods/money remains constant?

~~~
throwaway2048
wealth is strongly inversely coorolated with population growth. Keeping people
in poverty means they have more children, not the reverse.

~~~
aianus
Only because wealth is positively correlated with education and impulse
control.

There's no reason to believe handing a poor, uneducated person with no impulse
control a big wad of cash will have the same effect.

------
karmakaze
Sounds like a great programme with little reported short-term negative
effects. By no way is this a _beta test_ to anything other than reproducing
this in other similar cultural conditions, which may also require having seen
previous aid attempts fail.

The worst-case scenario I fear is that UBI given without also providing
outlets for activities that actually get used will result in an adult version
of problem of otherwise well-off of suburban youth.

------
agumonkey
Work will have to be redefined. It's a psychological need to form teams and
solve your needs or some others. That is the underlying basis.

------
prestonpesek
In order for this to work, you have to define "universal" in the context of
how automation affects the global economy, not just the US or any national
economy. Example: are we going to send a stipend to Bengali citizens who are
displaced from textile manufacturing jobs by robot factories in the U.S.?

------
temp-ora
the title does not reflect the article and the article does not reflect the
subject. like everyone else here, i did not read it because after dangling a
few hard facts and conclusions in front of your face, the article goes off on
tangents about the personal stories of people who are involved but not
instrumental. this toxic mix of novel-style story telling and actual reporting
has made these articles unreadable for me. people dont give a shit about the
narrative of the stupid author or even people involved in setting up this
whole thing -- people want to know how the experiment went! did it work? did
the people end up being lazy and unproductive like all the ubi detractors say
they will? but no, i cannot know these things without fishing through pages of
garbage. and when i know someone else has already done it here in the comments
to reap the karma, why on earth would i even click the link?

------
Sir_Substance
This is a nice article, but I'd like to remind everyone that it's probably
also native advertising.

~~~
exolymph
The New York Times discloses their native advertising. Also, I doubt that
GiveDirectly has the budget for a $100k+ media campaign.

------
fiatjaf
Can someone summarize the results?

------
nrdwavexe
Why is "defining a problem called 'not working'" not called "massively
manipulating the economy"? From the point of view of the people who work hard
to make Kenya's economy work, this can't possibly be helpful. It sounds like
an evil, abusive psychological experiment.

Forget about "fake news", the New York Times is literally evil news. It is
literally promoting views that proliferate evil. Injecting this level of
disorder into an economy and lying about it is a level of deception that goes
into moral perversion.

Let me make this clear: I am directly accusing Annie Lowrey of promoting
excessively morally corrupt views. She is responsible for promoting evil. This
is a person who wakes up in the morning and works hard to promote evil.

Think about that.

Edit: I was down-voted without explanation or rebuttal. If you disagree with
what I have written, don't attack my anonymously. I want my karma to be a
healthy score, and I don't appreciate people (or bots) decreasing my karma
score, and I consider it a personal attack against my reputation.

~~~
grzm
This is all speculation, but from what I've observed on HN there could be a
number of reasons you were downvoted.

\- HN isn't primarily for political or ideological debate. Creating a new
account and starting with a contentious comment probably looked like someone
creating an account purely for ideological battle, which is an abuse of HN.

\- The HN community strongly values civil discourse, which usually requires
keeping strong, passionate, strident language at a lower level, particularly
on contentious issues. Phrases like "literally evil news", "literally
promoting views that proliferate evil", and "moral perversion" don't meet the
expectation of civil discourse, regardless of how strongly you believe them to
be true. (Yes, this is "it's not what you say, it's how you say it".)

\- You've made a direct, harsh attack on someone without providing any
support.

\- After receiving downvotes, you complained about it. This is explicitly
against HN guidelines.

[https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html](https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html)

As I stated from the outset, this is speculation. For what people would
consider obvious disregard for community standards, they may downvote and not
think it's necessary to comment why.

As you express concern about your karma, as you're new to commenting on HN, I
suggest refraining from commenting on contentious topics for a while until you
become more accustomed to the HN community. There are plenty of other
interesting submissions that you may find to contribute to and not find
yourself as open to downvotes. I'm sorry you've found your first brush with
the HN community to be negative. I hope you find what I've written useful and
that you have a more positive experience in the future!

------
ImTalking
Anything that reduces the oppression of women is a good thing. Freedom is the
ability to make choices.

------
woodandsteel
It's interesting how this runs counter to the two dominant political
ideologies in the US.

Liberals believe that the poor are too dumb and helpless to figure out what
they want, so the government should do it, both domestically and in foreign
aid.

Conservatives believe that the poor are poor because they are unintelligent
and lack good values (or they are acting rationally in response to liberal
welfare programs), and domestic and foreign programs should be eliminated in
favor of religious missions.

What programs like this are finding is the the poor are intelligent and well-
motivated, and they just need an opportunity to get out of the hole they are
stuck in.

Let me add that, from what I understand, foreign aid programs can be very
helpful in areas like public health.

~~~
PeterStuer
Non-amaricans often think that the US has just one dominant political
ideology. Sure, it comes in two flavors, red and blue, but both are neo-
liberal capitalist market ideologies. That ideology also strongly believes in
personal responsibility, you are the master of your own outcomes. While there
is a realization that yes, the system is rigged in favor of rent seeking and
exponential accumulation, there is also the believe that at least some of the
wealth is shared through 'trickle down' employment schemes. It is important to
realize this 'sharing' is not a deliberate goal, but more like the man in the
story hiring a day-laborer to help with his fishing, an accidental byproduct
of accelerating rent-seeking wealth accumulation. The fishing aid is not hired
for charity, but because the potential of the fishing net in maximizing return
is higher even after deducting wages. He also has no concept of
sustainability. His motive is immediate profit maximization, so he can go on
hiring boats and fisherman until the lake is all fished up. By that time he'll
be 'rich', probably living far away or at least long have crossed the
threshold where is further wealth accumulation does not depend on any specific
lake or industry. It is those hired fishing aids that will feel the brunt of
this natural disaster, not the owner. Back to the US. What happens if trickle
down stops because machines are better/cheaper/faster? What do you 'do' with
'people'? Let them starve in horrible circumstances while you hide behind big
fences guarded by a ruthless G4S private army? Or do you somehow continue to
trickle down? But on what basis? 'Meaningless' labor, just because you can't
stand 'laziness'? Or do you provide the 'basics', like food, shelter,
medicine, regardless of their inherently meaningless chore completion rate? I
guess what it realy boils down to in the end is the question of what we
believe 'being human' is all about.

~~~
dragonwriter
> Non-amaricans often think that the US has just one dominant political
> ideology. Sure, it comes in two flavors, red and blue, but both are neo-
> liberal capitalist market ideologies.

I suppose that from 1992 until (but not including) 2016, looking from the
outside only at major party Presidential nominees, it would be easy to miss
the substantial dissent from the neoliberal consensus in the US (even within
both major parties, and even in the segment of those parties in government.)

OTOH, since we elected an authoritarian populist whose economic approach
blends mercantilist protectionism with corporatism, the idea that the only
economic philosophy with any currency in US politics is neoliberalism isn't
even something that relatively disengaged foreign observers can be
excused.for.buying into.

------
stagbeetle
> _As automation reduces the need for human labor, some Silicon Valley
> executives think a universal income will be the answer — and the beta test
> is happening in Kenya._

This is not the situation I think of when I hear "basic income." Why Kenya?

> _GiveDirectly wants to show the world that a basic income is a cheap,
> scalable way to aid the poorest people on the planet._

Oh.

I was under the belief that only the middle class protested for basic income.
It would have been more interesting if the "beta test" was done on educated/
first world persons, so we can finally get progress (or a full stop) on this
debate.

I believe this idea wasn't thought out past the "we want to put on airs"
phase. Is injecting capital into a system that relies on crime to keep afloat,
really the _best_ idea GiveDirectly could have come up with?

This is similar to the Toms fiasco where they would donate a pair of shoes to
Africa for every pair bought -- it crippled the local fabrics businesses.

Perhaps if one wanted to fix the African economy, one would invest into
economic think-tanks and their executionary tandems, instead of over glorified
tax shelters.

~~~
paulpauper
Kenya is very cheap, as opposed to a UBI trial in America, which would be far
more expensive

~~~
stagbeetle
This is true.

It looks like Finland is doing the first experiment, even if it's only on the
unemployed[0].

[0][http://www.news.com.au/technology/innovation/finland-
begins-...](http://www.news.com.au/technology/innovation/finland-begins-
universal-basic-income-trial-as-the-world-watches/news-
story/7ae91901c856ca697ed6b30e18cbba00)

------
WheelsAtLarge
Giving money is a great short term solution but we all know that free always
has a limit. 22 dollars per month is a good start but at 22 bux they will
never reach the standard of living we enjoy in the west. The goal should be to
ensure that everyone has a job or business that provides the person a decent
living.

I think that in addition to the money they should help with the following:

1)Education and the ability to get it at will. Financial education should be a
priority. 2)Entrepreneurship, make sure anyone that wants to start a business
knows what to do. 3)Security and the enforcement of the law thru a judicial
system, both criminal and civil. 4)A working financial system. Make sure
businesses and people can borrow money. 5)A way to go bankrupt that will let
people start over. It should not be too painful for both creditors and
borrowers. 6)A political system that works for the majority. 7) Community
leadership that works towards the betterment of the town. 8)A tax system that
will let the town provide items that no single person can provide on their
own. It's a reality as painful as they are taxes and their prudent use help
improve the community's standard of living. 9) Secure property rights. If
someone owns something they should do with it what they want without
infringing on the community's well being and no one should be able to take it
away from them by force.

What gets me railed up is the inability to use the town's human capital.
Giving free money will not help forever. If you could get people to work
together they would eventually get out of poverty. Maybe the current
generation might not but eventually they would be able to do it.

