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Comment by rdudekul | Hacker News Reader

In India I have tested this in my own small way, by giving money to some known poor people. My experience has been that typically women utilize the money far more effectively than men. May be India is a bit peculiar in terms of feelings of entitlement being higher among men.

Looking forward to the results of this test.

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> by giving money to some known poor people

That is just welfare, if done on a governmental level, or charity, if you do it individually.

For it to be a true experiment about UBI, you would have to find an area that's somewhat autonomous, provide everyone indiscriminately with the same amount of money that would suffice for maintaining their basic living needs and guarantee the income for at least a certain period of time. Otherwise, well, good for you for helping the needy but it doesn't have anything to do with universal basic income.

That wouldn't have much to do with universal basic income either unless the money being provided was somehow extracted from the very same group of people. Giving away someone else's money is of course more likely to "work".

It's fairly close, it's just the "local rich" for whom the UBI is an additive rather than their main income source has been abstracted for donations. Based on the assumption that there'd be a semi-stable taxation system in place when people are earning more through trade/working, it'd be a reasonable way to test, no?

To what desired effect did the women utilize the money "far more effectively" than the men?

Without knowing the purpose of their spendings I can only assume that you morally approve one over the other (which would put a big dent in your flippant "feelings of entitlement being higher among men" theory).

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