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by battery_cowboy 2302 days ago
[citation needed]

Is that anything but conjecture? I see a study showing that UBI is a "good thing", and you didn't provide a source for your reasoning.

Edit: to all those saying that the parent comment is straightforward, or common sense, or whatever, it's not straightforward or common sense because I disagree that UBI would be a failure. No one knows what would happen under UBI, but these types of studies give some evidence as to what is going to happen.

Everyone saying the parent is correct is basically similar to saying we should stop studying fusion because it's common sense we'll never achieve it (there are people who say that, too).

It's a good first step to study this, at least, and goes to show we need to test UBI on a greater scale.

4 comments

The main thing being said is there's a drastic difference between knowing the BI you're getting is temporary and it being a 'permanent' government program. There's no way to provide a citation for that because the only way to run that is to have a full UBI and study the results to see if these short term BI studies still hold water.

However it's not a stretch at all to say people will act different when they're temporarily receiving money than when they'll receive it 'forever'.

In fact it's well known that disposable vs fixed income directly impacts the financial decisions people make
The main argument I, and I believe the OP, was making is because the period of these programs are limited, and not even the full period is guaranteed as this shows, it affects how people act. If it's a program I believe I can count on existing for 10-20 years I can make significant life changes around receiving the money, eg move somewhere super cheap and volunteer or something, but at just a few I know I'm going to have to go back to normal at the end so making those big changes is harder.
What I am saying is that a temporary UBI experiment cannot simulate the changes that a permanent UBI would bring. Especially when everyone is aware that this is temporary.
It’s a logical challenge to the ecological validity of the study.

No citation is needed for straightforward observations.

I think his statement that these UBI experiments yield little insight into how actual UBI could play out full-scale holds water without a source.