[blfr]

The world is increasingly complex making it seem to many people that their work is unproductive (bullshit/make-work jobs). This and lack of agency in many jobs is what leads to massive frustration with work* but it's not actually an incisive observation about the economy as a whole.

it’s not possible to pilot a UBI. Giving cash to a small subset of the population is not UBI. UBI goes to everyone. It changes the economy as a whole

I am in particular very skeptical of anything that cannot be piloted or otherwise effectively tested on a smaller scale. These things usually don't work, not simply because the idea is generally unsound (though they often are) but because there are no effective means to tune/calibrate even a promising idea.

* Work is one of the least frustrating parts of this complexity since at least people see the paycheck at the end. Many consumers have trouble interacting with e-stores, self-service kiosks, credit card issuers, etc. where they pay for the privilege. This is why service jobs are so terrible: employees are soaking up the aggression born out of this frustration.

[Jedd]

> I am in particular very skeptical of anything that cannot be piloted or otherwise effectively tested on a smaller scale.

In turn, I'm sceptical of people who say we can't entertain any non-trivial, non-cautionary, non-evolutionary changes to the status quo ... while downplaying the fact that the situation we're in now - 9-5, mon-fri, 20-65yo - was not piloted or effectively tested on a smaller scale before all of us inherited it.

[blfr]

Shift work with fixed time frames was absolutely piloted on tiny scales way back during industrial revolution and evolved from there.

We supposedly even had podcasts to make menial work bearable back in... 1865: https://mashable.com/feature/cigar-factory-lectors

[Jedd]

My point was, and remains, that the current de facto, whatever is considered 'normal' in whichever country you currently reside and work, was not piloted or effectively tested.

You inherited your place in it, and it is therefore normal.

I'll extend my argument to suggest that most HNers are familiar with changes that can not be tested in isolation, simply because they require significant changes to the whole platform. [0]

UBI studies - including the one in TFA - help us work out some of the likely effects, but they are - also as per TFA - always going to be fundamentally flawed studies in the absence of a) guaranteed forever, b) universal, and c) basic coverage.

[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flag_day_(computing)

[blfr]

the current de facto, whatever is considered 'normal' in whichever country you currently reside and work, was not piloted or effectively tested

I understand your point and directly disagree with its main part: the move from a family-run farm to a shift-based employment happened before I was born so I did inherit it but it was in fact piloted, tried on small scale, and organic at first.

[rho138]

Nah, they just threw bodies at the problem - shifts be damned. In the US people were working most if not all days of the week. We’re lucky we got where we are now with a 5 day work week brought about by union pressure.

[packetlost]

> We’re lucky we got where we are now with a 5 day work week brought about by union pressure.

This is not backed up by any source I can find. Nearly every source says that the 5 day week was invented by unions in the 1800s, popularized by Henry Ford at the Ford motor company due to measurable improvements to productivity, and made law in the 1930s (in the US) to attempt to counter wide-spread unemployment during the Great Depression. Union pressure is not mentioned anywhere, and honestly doesn't make any sense given that unions were not particularly powerful in those time periods.

[yjftsjthsd-h]

> I'll extend my argument to suggest that most HNers are familiar with changes that can not be tested in isolation, simply because they require significant changes to the whole platform. [0]

Flag days are still tested in a staging environment that represents production as closely as possible, and the overwhelming view of the kind of change you're talking about on a technical level is generally don't do that if you can ever help it.

[fuzzfactor]

This was piloted, only those who first rose to clamor for it were the guinea pigs for years, in place of the previous 6-6, mon-sat, 15-expiration.

Otherwise it couldn't have gotten so popular and we couldn't have inherited it.

[2Gkashmiri]

https://www.firstpost.com/india/karnataka-congress-governmen...

heh. go away and take your UBI and 38 hour work week. they are implementing a law to enforce this. so you will work for twice a 38 hour work week and still be paid less because why not.

[_heimdall]

Oh don't be cynical, free money won't come with strings attached.

[kolinko]

There are things that work and couldn’t be piloted - Postal System for example.

[blfr]

Couriers have existed since the beginning of civilization. With many famous examples, like Pheidippides in keeping with the Olympic spirit.

It was obviously valuable and workable from the smallest scale possible: a verbal message carried by a runner.

[ttyprintk]

But the network effect of mass messaging —- is what the article means by unpilotable.

[blfr]

The network effect of mass messaging was tested at smaller scales many times. Victorian era pneumatic tubes come to mind or unlimited local calls later, but there must be countless other examples that did not require changing the economy as a whole.

[enthulhusiastic]

but is changing the economy as a whole a fair characterization of UBI?

That’s a disservice to the existing complexity of modern economies.

Valid arguments not downvoted pls

[sokoloff]

I think the overwhelming majority of transactions can be characterized as a trade (of goods for money, services for money, work for money, money for other money (in form or time), etc.)

UBI seems quite different in that regard and, while it doesn’t invalidate everything, it introduces a lot more of money for nothing and a corresponding nothing for money trade that is required to fund it.

[_heimdall]

Courier services have existed for a very, very long time. Heck, Ben Franklin was running one to help connect the 13 colonies.

Presumably the government could have actuslly piloted the USPS if they wanted to, only supporting the northeast for example. They just didn't need to, the leap from private courier systems to a government run courier service didn't have many unknowns to test out first.

[inglor_cz]

How so? The first postal systems certainly didn't cover entire kingdoms and didn't serve the entire population.

[HPsquared]

They did work at smaller scale though. It's not dependent on psychological dynamics like UBI.