Dutch city of Utrecht to experiment with a universal, unconditional "basic income"

[ksen]

http://www.independent.co.uk/news/w...-universal-unconditional-income-10345595.html

There will be three groups:

1) Group A will get the stipend with no strings attached,
2) Group B will get the stipend with strings attached, and
3) Group C will continue under current rules.

What do you guys think will happen?

 

[dismal]

What do you guys think will happen?

People will realize it's not universal?

In any case, it would be dangerous to conclude this experiment would produce the same results as actually doing it for a few generations.

 

[ronburgundy]

Basing policy on actual science? I think conservatives everywhere are asking, "Whut ya doin' that fur?"

I think that the rest of the free-world will owe them a massive favor for having the guts and sense to actually conduct an experiment, which despite lack of perfect controls, will likely yield more meaningful data for evaluating competing theories than any that exists to date.

 

[dismal]

Basing policy on actual science? I think conservatives everywhere are asking, "Whut ya doin' that fur?"

I think that the rest of the free-world will owe them a massive favor for having the guts and sense to actually conduct an experiment, which despite lack of perfect controls, will likely yield more meaningful data for evaluating competing theories than any that exists to date.

LOL @ science. This can only provide some nice data on how some people react to being placed in this experiment.

No sane person in this experiment would make decisions as if they were in an actual society that guaranteed them cradle to grave UBI.

 

[Nice Squirrel]

Sit UBI sit.
Good dog.

 

[ksen]

No sane person in this experiment would make decisions as if they were in an actual society that guaranteed them cradle to grave UBI.

So what do you think will happen?

Will behavior change for any of the groups?

 

[Nice Squirrel]

Well all the people with a guaranteed UBI will get addicted to drugs, have illegitimate children, fill emergency rooms, and demand more free stuff.
All the people with strings will use the UBI to buy lobster.
And the people who get no stipend will become business leaders, but only if we kick them repeatedly if they become homeless.

 

[dismal]

No sane person in this experiment would make decisions as if they were in an actual society that guaranteed them cradle to grave UBI.

So what do you think will happen?

Will behavior change for any of the groups?

Yeah, I think people respond to incentives and there will be some response to the experiment. The mistake would be in assuming there would be the same response to the experiment as there would be if there were a certain lifetime UBI.

 

[ronburgundy]

Basing policy on actual science? I think conservatives everywhere are asking, "Whut ya doin' that fur?"

I think that the rest of the free-world will owe them a massive favor for having the guts and sense to actually conduct an experiment, which despite lack of perfect controls, will likely yield more meaningful data for evaluating competing theories than any that exists to date.

LOL @ science. This can only provide some nice data on how some people react to being placed in this experiment.

No sane person in this experiment would make decisions as if they were in an actual society that guaranteed them cradle to grave UBI.

Your lack of understanding of the nature of science is well documented. Science does not require perfect generalization to contexts outside the experimental situation. The best controlled experiments in the "hardest" of sciences usually have poor external validity, because the controls that improve internal validity inherently reduce similarities to real world conditions. What their study will do in have higher internal validity (meaning interpretable results with identifiable causes for the differences between the conditions within the context of the study), moreso than any and all empirical data currently being used to evaluate the theoretical claims. How the results might change for a condition over longer term implementation is a question that needs to be discussed (just like it always is in science), but it doesn't make it non-science.

IOW, your blind dismissal of the study due to it being imperfect is scientifically illiterate and as irrational as people that dismiss highly reliable national surveys just because no one they personally know was polled.

The people involved are all already on welfare, a large % of whom are only on it for a short term anyway, so your "cradle to grave" requirement is irrelevant to how it would impact them. The two new experimental conditions involve adding incentives to get more benefits, versus adding unconditional benefits without incentives. Plenty of assumptions tossed about by theorists presume that even in the short term these additions will impact how people behave regarding seeking employment, seeking better employment, improving their skills via education, etc.. Thus, the data will test whether those assumptions are valid. If the experiment last even a year, it is implausible that any between condition differences would magically be the opposite of what they would be on a longer term basis. Thus, various possible long term outcomes can be largely ruled out along with assumptions that predict those contradicted outcomes.

 

[dismal]

LOL @ science. This can only provide some nice data on how some people react to being placed in this experiment.

No sane person in this experiment would make decisions as if they were in an actual society that guaranteed them cradle to grave UBI.

Your lack of understanding of the nature of science is well documented.

Not going to bother with the rest. Ignorant and insulting are not a good combination.

This experiment will measure something, but it will not be how people behave in society with UBI.

 

[dystopian]

I was wondering whether to post about this. My thoughts as a Dutch person are, in no particular order:

• Utrecht isn't the only Dutch city that is talking about doing this. Nijmegen's city council has also voted in favor of an experiment with basic income; although that experiment is about replacing welfare with a basic income system that doesn't have welfare's restrictions; so it isn't exactly universal basic income, but the party that proposed the experiment (Greens) has stated their ultimate hope is for a universal basic income. Besides Nijmegen and Utrecht, other cities (Tilburg, Groningen, Wagening, among others) apparently have plans to do some of these kinds of experiments. An article published back in April revealed that at least 14 Dutch cities and towns are considering experimenting with Basic Income in some shape or form. It might be even more by now. Several of our big political parties have also adopted motions on their national congresses to perform these kind of experiments.
• It's good authorities are finally talking about a UBI/BI again; and appear to be quite serious about it.
• I fear that if it were actually universally implemented, various parties would try and subvert it by adding conditions, defeating the purpose. There's a strong conservative-liberal current in Dutch politics in the form of the ruling VVD. For the Americans among us unfamiliar with the term conservative-liberalism; the VVD are akin to what you might call neo-conservatives. They worship the free market, like small government, authoritarian, and oppose immigration. On the other hand, they're pro-EU, pro-seperation of church and state, pro-choice, pro-gay rights, pro-euthanasia, and pro-choice in general except when it comes to drugs because you know, the authoritarian streak in them loves putting people in prison. As one might imagine, the VVD is generally not charmed by the idea.
• I also fear that those same kinds of parties that would add restrictions would also keep the UBI below what people need to actually live and pay their basic necessities; on the same old arguments about it otherwise making people lazy... which might screw me over personally; and would also kind of defeat the purpose of a UBI in the first place.
• I'm excited.
• But I'm excited in a very Dutch fashion, which means that while I'm slightly hopeful, I fully expect this will die a quiet death somewhere along the way. Only to then be resurrected again. Only to die another death. Only to be resurrect again! So it can die once more. Ad infinitum.

 

[ronburgundy]

Your lack of understanding of the nature of science is well documented.

Not going to bother with the rest. .

Your not going to bother for the same reason that cows don't "bother" jumping over the moon.

 

[dismal]

Not going to bother with the rest. .

Your not going to bother for the same reason that cows don't "bother" jumping over the moon.

Which of these are you disputing:

1) This experiment will measure how people behave in this experiment
2) This experiment will not create a society with permanent UBI
3) Ergo, this experiment will not measure how people behave in a society with permanent UBI

 

[dystopian]

Incidentally, I have not found any firm figures on how high the basic income would be in any of these experiments. I've heard figures of 1400 and 1500 euros a month; but those appear to be educated suggestions rather than anything concrete.

 

[ZiprHead]

Sit UBI sit.
Good dog.

Scrubs

 

[ronburgundy]

Your not going to bother for the same reason that cows don't "bother" jumping over the moon.

Which of these are you disputing:

1) This experiment will measure how people behave in this experiment
2) This experiment will not create a society with permanent UBI
3) Ergo, this experiment will not measure how people behave in a society with permanent UBI

#3 is valid only if the qualifier "directly measure" is added.
That makes it rather meaningless, since almost no scientific experiment measures its variables under conditions that perfectly match the "real world" to which the science is always generalized. IOW, it doesn't distinguish this study from 99.9% of scientists consider sound science.
Show me an experiment that you consider good "science" that measures the variables under the exact same conditions as the uncontrolled "real world".

The meaningful version of #3 is that this experiment will yield data that predicts how various systems implemented on a permanent basis would differently impact how people behave. Nothing you've said provides any valid basis to doubt this. While the predictions are sure to be far from perfect (as they usually are in predicting behavior of complex systems), they will be far more accurate from this data than from existing theories. IOW, it is empirical science that for any rational person will be incorporated into and alter (even if to a small degree) their theories and predictions about what will happen and why.

Science is fundamentally about inference from observed data to unobserved instances, usually in contexts that are not identical to those where the observations were made. Short term effects are highly predictive of long term effects and rarely do the effects reverse their pattern between the two. Thus, unless you can present specific validated psychological mechanisms for why a reversal of the behaviors is plausible, then the data will provide the best most valid basis for what will happen in the long term, even if to a lesser or greater degree.

Your response is identical to a person who dismisses the GMO studies that show no harmful effects by saying that they have zero implications for effects outside the short time-frame studies and outside the very specific locations and narrow conditions under which they were tested.

 

[Jayjay]

http://www.independent.co.uk/news/w...-universal-unconditional-income-10345595.html

There will be three groups:

1) Group A will get the stipend with no strings attached,
2) Group B will get the stipend with strings attached, and
3) Group C will continue under current rules.

What do you guys think will happen?

Group B will work slightly more than group A, but they won't be as happy. Also in group B, there is a bigger chance that some candidates will drop out due to not being able to meet the conditions and thus having too little income compared to what they would be legally entitled to. Also group B employees will accept lower paying jobs than either group A or C, as their income will be subsidized by the stipend.

 

[Jayjay]

What do you guys think will happen?

People will realize it's not universal?

In any case, it would be dangerous to conclude this experiment would produce the same results as actually doing it for a few generations.

Why would running the test longer produce considerably different results? Are you saying that people choose the kinds of jobs they do due to cultural norms and expectations, rather than financial considerations?

 

[dismal]

Which of these are you disputing:

1) This experiment will measure how people behave in this experiment
2) This experiment will not create a society with permanent UBI
3) Ergo, this experiment will not measure how people behave in a society with permanent UBI

#3 is valid only if the qualifier "directly measure" is added.

bzzzt. Wrong. It won't measure it at all.

#3 is absolutely correct without any qualification.

 

[Jayjay]

I was wondering whether to post about this. My thoughts as a Dutch person are, in no particular order:

• I also fear that those same kinds of parties that would add restrictions would also keep the UBI below what people need to actually live and pay their basic necessities; on the same old arguments about it otherwise making people lazy... which might screw me over personally; and would also kind of defeat the purpose of a UBI in the first place.
• I'm excited.

I'm excited about it precisely because I don't think UBI has any particular threshold for being useful. UBI should work even if it is not enough to live on, and actually I think that if UBI is implemented somewhere it would be better to start off conservatively so it doesn't bankrupt the entire system.

This particular experiment is just about the recipients, so it makes sense to keep it high enough to cover all basic living costs (i.e. roughly the same average amount of money that the control group receives). But in a practical implementation, somebody has to pay for it, which is not only the biggest hurdle political and in terms of public perception, but also has a huge impact on national economy.