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Comment by rubicon33 | Hacker News Reader

> "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.

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I believe it's happening in Oakland for the California one at least.

Your remark about building your business without taking investor funds may have been made in jest, but most people build their small businesses through debt rather than investor equity.

For those interested in loans for building a small business, Kiva (who I work for) offers interest-free loans here in the U.S. to those without access to traditional credit or those building socially impactful businesses.

I note in the article many recipients of the cash used it to start businesses. Maybe it's a common response.

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.

I don't think you understand what Basic Income is. Basic income is meant to support people who desperately need it as well as wealthy hipsters who just don't feel like working.

Means-tested welfare is indeed a program with the intent of "keeping people from drowning", but that's explicitly NOT what this is about.

I get that is ultimately the idea but I guess I figured that the first stage of rolling something like this out would be to those near the edge and there's no shortage of those.

My assumption is the money would be calibrated to subsistence level so it doesn't concern me that a hipster wants to do art instead of work for money. They'll have to live simply but god bless them if they want to paint in a shared house with other hipsters. Then those who want more money will get jobs. The moral hazard of this doesn't concern me but maybe I'm misguided.

So the first stage of testing a BI is to build a means tested program? Huh?

The moral hazard of this doesn't concern me but maybe I'm misguided.

That's a pretty cynical attitude...I doubt you're now gasping for air as you sink below the waves.

I'm confused.

No i didn't say that was the first stage, I was assuming that they were going to test this with very poor people near the edge before they tested it with people higher up the income ladder. It's an assumption, possibly completely wrong.

The second statement about sinking beneath the waves was there are people who are starving right as we speak even here in the U.S.

I am afraid of the situation where a person who is reasonably well decides to let go of opportunities in the presence of UBI. The parent post is a case in point - what if the person tries the startup idea; but since the person's livelihood is not on the line, the startup never lift offs?

If UBI endangers the motivation of people 'higher in the income ladder', they are likely to become 'people near the edge'. Since UBI hypothesis is testing ideas for the future, it is hard to predict but important that it does not create a demotivated/poorer workforce.

I apologize for calling your initial post cynical as that's right up there with guessing someone's motives. It's usually a wrong guess and, regardless, not helpful.

What's cynical about it?

I guess I must not understand what UBI is all about. I had thought it WASN'T a form of welfare. Rather, it's UNIVERSAL in nature. That would mean theoretically everyone from millionaires, to the poorest, would receive UBI funds.

I'd love to be free from having to earn an income, so that I can work on my own projects (businesses). But who wouldn't, right?

I tried to right my mistake of saying it was cynical by apologizing above. It's not cynical.

As far as free from having to earn an income, of course, you realize we're talking about a floor? Someone could correct me on this but my understanding is "basic income" means enough to survive?

Some people would accept living very simply so they could work on their personal projects, build their business, etc., while others would make seeking additional income their highest priority. That's what I like about this concept is that there does not appear to be coercion or social engineering involved.

One interpretation of UBI is reverse taxation, where you start off with a negative tax obligation instead of 0, and positive tax obligations are added on top of that, usually resulting in a positive balance.

In that situation, is someone with a positive tax obligation really receiving UBI funds? What about if all taxes are raised slightly so that the majority of people's tax obligations remain unchanged? It all gets very pedantic, but it is generally considered both welfare and universal.

It can get even more pedantic in other interpretations, especially when it isn't the government providing the income.

Yes, the "negative income tax" seems to be a mechanism by which to implement UBI. This idea has had champions on the left and right. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Negative_income_tax

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...

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.)

So no basic income just let them steal everything they need? If you're suggesting that everyone can just get a job, the idea is that we are moving toward a time when there simply won't be enough jobs to go around. By the time this program is ready for prime time if it is ever is, that gap between available work and people might be well underway. This in addition to how many people are ready for retirement? There are a lot of trends coming together that could generate the perfect storm that drops us into to utter dystopian chaos.

I've probably spent way too much time on this thread today but this is the most hopeful thing I've seen a while. The news every day is relentlessly negative sometimes horrific.

I don't think this idea would turn that neighborhood you lived in into a utopia, either.

Your concern is the moral hazard. What if automation and other changes make impossible to find jobs for everyone, a massive challenge already, maybe already impossible?

And if everyone's included there doesn't need to be resentment as bob down the street isn't getting something you are not getting, right?

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