Sometimes they fail badly and serve as a warning to the rest of us that 'here be dragons' and other times they unexpectedly succeed and the rest of us can learn that, in certain circumstances, living up to your beliefs with the collective wallet can work out positively, net-net.
You know, if you'd consider listening, ordinary economists could have also served as that warning in many cases — like, for instance, in the case of AB5 and its impact on freelance journalists... or the impact of not-building-housing on the housing crisis...
Given CA is mostly a one-party state, it's more about intraparty influence over the party's platform, than it is about blaming the "other" party.
Is that what you are talking about, a voluntary thing? I am all for a new form of government of voluntary "a la carte" democracy, where, e.g., if you want "free" healthcare, you can sign up to be taxed for it, or if you want "free" education, you can sign up to be taxed for that, or if you want to "help" the homeless (which I do) you can sign up to be taxed in order to "help" that too. By all means, you want to fund the CA UBI, you should demand to sign up for that, maybe through your employer or when you file your tax return every year.
Anything but voluntary payment of taxes for anything outside of the core functions of government is actually the opposite of strong ethical underpinnings; it's objectively immensely immoral and unethical, no different than other forms of theft and slavery.