A city experiments with paying people not to be annoying | Hacker News Reader

A city experiments with paying people not to be annoying

economist.com

37 pointshhs85 comments

I'm reminded of the story of an old man who the neighborhood kids would harass by calling him names so one day he offers to pay them some amount for each offensive name. The next time they show up he says he can only afford to pay them a smaller amount. This goes on for a bit until one day he says he can't pay them anymore so, not wanting to swear at him for free, the kids stop. Paying the kids not to wash windows however, would seem to have the opposite effect.

“It's a gigantic social phenomenon. People find ways of getting money by impeding society. Once they can impede society, they can be paid to leave people alone.”

— Richard Stallman, 1986 https://www.gnu.org/gnu/byte-interview

It is always a temptation for a reach and lazy nation, To puff and look important and to say:-- "Though we know we should defeat you, we have not the time to meet you. We will therefore pay you cash to go away."

And that is called paying the Dane-geld; But we've proved it again and again, That if once you have paid him the Dane-geld You never get rid of the Dane.

This is clickbait. The anonymous author wants to make you angry, and it starts with the headline. The article is shallow and provides no insight into what the program looks like.

If the author gave a shit about actual reporting, they'd provide context about other programs that tried similar things, and their results. How are the kids held accountable? What type of training is offered? Is there a pipeline into internships and employment?

Before we besmirch the economists’ good name, worth knowing that the org only publishes under anon authors usually.

I hope the first part was sarcasm

Depends how you feel about maintaining the neo liberal world order I suppose

> the economists’ good name

Lol.

The Economist is one of the finest journalistic outlets in the English media.

Even before it was bought by a far right Japanese outfit, The Economist always bullsh*tted whatever the interests of the English Toffs required. This includes participating in the media frenzy that sold the nonexistent Iraqi WMDs to Western public and all that entailed.

Can you cite a source on the Japanese connection? I don't see anything obvious in their Wikipedia pages.

* https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Economist

* https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Economist_Group

I do see Exor (Agnelli), Rothschild, Cadbury, and Schroders families, but nothing clearly Japanese, nor Japanese far-right.

Sorry, that was the Financial Times. Regardless of that tidbit, the other statements still hold true. Unfortunately.

This low effort article is not an example of fine journalism.

Important context is this and similar trends didn’t just disappear in NYC because of magic Giuliani.

“By the late 1990s the men were gone…” bc a bunch of folks like them and otherwise went prison in NY, and then they got out and/or moved upstate proactively, and now historic, previously beautiful towns like Newburgh are gang, drugs and violence central.

But because it’s 90 minutes up the Hudson from NYC, out of sight out of mind. Trying something vaguely different to clean up a city isn’t a bad thing.

You are suggesting that the downfall of Newburgh was due to people chased out of NYC by Giuliani, but this article suggests that Newburgh was overrun by gangs, drugs, and violence several decades before Giuliani's reign: https://www.theguardian.com/cities/2015/apr/08/resurrecting-....

Newburgh could pass the same laws that gave the NYC mayor the power to kick them out

https://archive.ph/TIVLP

Why not say "we need after-school job opportunities for kids", and making that happen? (Whether it's with the city's public works, or partnerships with local businesses, or whatever.)

And if something like red light squeegee shakedowns is a problem, outlaw it?

Singling out misbehaving people for what should reasonably be default benefits of being a member of society seems to send a suboptimal message.

It's generally understood that early job offers are higher education killers and borderline pro child labor. I'm not saying this is how think but I find it odd that there are rarely early career people in jobs that were common for young people 20 years ago. Grocery, retail, food service, etc.

I don't understand your first sentence.

The Supreme Court says that panhandling is protected by the First Amendment.

Squeegeeing isn't speech, it's an act. The First Amendment protects it no more than it protects the act of armed robbery.

The First Amendment protects "Sir do you have any change?"

> The First Amendment protects "Sir do you have any change?"

The First Amendment protects speech. The First Amendment also protects acts. Flag burning for example is protected under 1A.

I recommend reading the Wikipedia article [1] on Free Speech in the United States. It’s pretty interesting.

[1] https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Freedom_of_speech_in_the_Uni...

You can't call a bank robbery "performance art" and expect to get away with it. Squeegying isn't political expression.

This is embarrassing for the economist. The premise here is based on laughable stat they make hundreds per day, which is definitely not true. It's also just illegal, so any valid replacement of time is a worthy gain, but you can't just pay people to sit around.

> make hundreds per day, which is definitely not true

I'm surprised by that stat, but how do you know it's not true?

Very familiar with region. Even during summer its large group of kids that trade on and off for a few hours at a time.

I've been fascinated how US society allows people to be so loud everywhere. For folks like me who prefer silence and peace it can often be a drag, and more stressful than otherwise.

Money is a powerful incentive, but there's a creepy taboo around it's use to solve social problems.

For example, we have very poor engagement in some universities I teach at and I've suggested simply paying the students to attend classes.

Of course the chancellors, denes and other jumped-up administrators think I'm as mad as a box of frogs. But it's they who are utterly stuck in a tiny world-view, prisoners of preconceptions.

> For example, we have very poor engagement in some universities I teach at and I've suggested simply paying the students to attend classes.

> Of course the chancellors, denes and other jumped-up administrators think I'm as mad as a box of frogs. But it's they who are utterly stuck in a tiny world-view, prisoners of preconceptions.

Would be an interesting experiment to say the least.

Charge $X (tuition), every day they show up to class refund $Y (something like $20?), and then at the end of the semester refund an additional amount based on final grade (a = $Z ($500?), b = $Z-250, etc.)

Basically make it so that good students get a discount compared to 'bad' students, but I feel like this would probably go up against some legal issues somewhere.

You could paint this as "rewarding good students", but it's also just as likely to punish students in situations beyond their control, or in situations which aren't ideal.

As someone who had to juggle a full-time job, in high school, and occasionally overslept and missed classes, I can't imagine the frustration I'd have felt at, despite good faith attempt to make my life work, being punished monetarily for not doing better.

One of the reasons I dropped out was that, despite my 3.7 GPA, my attendance record was a constant source of friction with the administration. It was exhausting having to jump through hoops, get lectured, and be treated like a poor performer all because, in my opinion, I didn't have a family that could support me while I focused solely on school.

Thanks (sincerely). you help me make my point here.

I hear your emotional argument. That situation sucks. I'm sorry you didn't get that support and I deal with lots of students in the same situation and it grieves me.

But I question the "zero sum" reasoning. Is the enemy of my enemy always a friend? Is my loss your gain and vice versa? If we punish some people is that the same as rewarding all the others? Does that mean we ought never reward anyone for anything ever? :)

That's what I meant about the "weird taboo". Because I am sure you wouldn't venture the argument that by giving some students higher grades for their performance I am effectively punishing some others for not studying. So, why does money suddenly change everything?

Of course it's a zero sum game - the reward is coming from the tuition people pay. Disadvantaged students end up sponsoring the advantaged ones.

Sorry I don't follow. Can you elaborate a little please?

The money has to come from somewhere. If person A (the person you responded to) and person B (someone who has no trouble attending all classes) both pay $1000 dollars tuition, and person B gets $200 back because of the incentive scheme, you could also have made tuition $900 for both of them.

Net result is that person A (disadvantaged) pays $100 extra tuition and person B (advantaged) pays $100 less.

Your maths is sound, but by defining it as a closed system maybe you're missing the social dimensions, such as the "disadvantaged" student would now be "advantaged" by attending. The rebated money would mitigate their problems attending since money is an immediate and universal value whereas grades have specific and deferred value.

It also misses the reality that university funding is complex. Students fees are one of many income streams which include industry, donors, alumni, government, property investment and a whole lot more.

If you think the money can come from outside of the system (a new source specifically and only for this purpose) by all means it sounds great, people paying less for school, and people being able to treat studying as a job that brings food on the table seems great. I think treating the system as closed is more realistic though, and in that case it’s redistributive i.e. zero sum.

Edit - of course something I was missing in this comment is possibly increased efficiency inside the system. It’s thinkable that higher average attendance would result in higher pass rates and lower educational costs. If that turns out to be a significant effect it might not be zero sum (though I’d personally still not favor such a system for reasons I mentioned in a different comment).

Money changes everything because you can't pay your rent with good grades.

As a student who used to get good grades with low attendance, I would have found such class refunds very annoying and patronizing. It also gives students who are well-off a lot more flexibility in how they structure their time than those for whom the money matters.

Putting a disincentive on resits on the other hand seems reasonable because those come at a cost. I'm not sure that that should go so far as to put a higher reward on higher grades though - trading off high grades for (e.g.) extracurriculars seems entirely reasonable to me and not like something that should be discouraged, and in general a focus on grades rather than learning seems somewhat unhealthy.

When the good students are Asians and the bad students are minorities, I can see this being canceled pretty quickly as being a racist policy. It makes sense to my engineer’s brain though. Why wouldn’t you want a meritocracy.

Probably just stop at the attendance incentive without going into grades. It would probably be more palatable to the higher-ups if the incentive was low-key, like if it went towards your food-court balance.

Also money for grades would give people more incentive to cheat.

"I can't afford to get a B this semester."

> I can see this being canceled pretty quickly as being a racist policy.

That's where my first thought went to as well, basically it being nuked from orbit due to racial bias.

Second thought was it would probably be really bad PR and spun as "THIS COLLEGE IS BUYING GRADES!"

Merit, or race, has nothing to do with wanting to attend classes.

Income and society-economic standing does. Plenty of people work jobs while going to college, a perfect attendance record is not their goal, clawing their way out of poverty is.

I went to college in my parent’s dime and skipped well over half the classes I was supposed to attend (some of which because I had intentionally double-booked them). My point is that using attendance as some sort of measure of “merit” is very divorced from the reasons students choose not to attend classes. It can be because they’re lazy and don’t care, but it’s also often (as you mentioned) because they have other things they have to do, or just don’t see the value in attending.

> My point is that using attendance as some sort of measure of "merit"

No, I'm not proposing it be a measure of merit. Or a "measure" of anything. It's an incentive to attend classes, nothing more.

> or just don’t see the value in attending.

This is the oddest and also most interesting remark. If they don't see value in attending then why are they on the course? And, if they don't see value then they are free to exercise the right not to come and to forgo the financial reward too, and surely nothing is lost?

I think buried behind some arguments here (perhaps not yours specifically) is the idea that we ought to simply make degrees something you pay for - by enrolling you get the certificate and the courses are non-assessed. In that case performance, attendance and participation become a different orthogonal quality prospects. It's a proposal that has quite some support amongst my colleagues and which I've argued for here[1]

[1] https://www.timeshighereducation.com/campus/fear-zombie-stud...

Well I can tell you I didn't attend classes I thought were not worth going to. Usually this either meant that I already knew the material, could learn the material externally (either because lecture slides got posted, or I would just go look up things myself), or I thought the class itself was irrelevant.

Did you miss the bit about grades?

It was a more thorny discussion I didn't feel like I was interested exploring.

OTOH stipends based in academic excellence do exist, all the way to balancing off your tuition.

They are few and far between though, for rare star performers, not a program that covers every student.

A daily reward would be much more psychologically motivating than a stipend.

Paying students for classroom attendance is standard for military universities. You may try to speak to professors there. I heard it yields quite a difference in performance of average students.

Thanks, I was not aware this practice had precedent, sounds like the way I'd like to teach, I'll dial up some old contacts. As professors we get mostly stick and precious few carrots in British universities.

This would MASSIVELY increase engagement in schools. People still act as though it's a no-brainer to go to college, but when you have to take a significant amount of time to do it and pay your way through it it's like a perfectly-designed ultimate resource-suck on your life. If you don't get it done right after secondary school before you have a "real job", good luck trying to fit it in with your work, not to mention your social life.

Also let's not forget how many universities have endowments that are tens of BILLIONS in value. Tuition isn't even a drop in that bucket.

Basically it’s a scholarship with a different reward granularity. Instead of paying per semester, pay per class.

Doesn't this create the incentive to be annoying?

Anything but UBI, I guess…

Hmm.. in this case, if you give people (some form of an) UBI, they stop working... is this really what we want for everyone?

In the long term, yes, it feels like a society where nobody is doing any work other than "just for fun" is the goal worth aiming for.

Finland experimented with UBI, and it found out that UBI does not affect people working or not working at all.

That's just bullsh*t propagated by the incumbent economic establishment to prevent anything like UBI causing them end up having to pay the taxes that they owe for their tax-dodging wealth.

Yes, every time-limited trial shows that, because people won't just quit their jobs and move to a cheaper place with a year of two of UBI... but UBI "for life" is a whole different thing.

> but UBI "for life" is a whole different thing

That's changing goalposts. The study found out that having an UBI did not do any change in behavior pattern except making those who lived precariously have better psychology.

These objections originate from the puritan ethic that still afflicts mostly the US - 'People are lazy and only hardworkers are good'. There is no such thing. Human species is a curious and active species. It cannot stay idle for long. Leave aside its individuals need to be part of something and need to be doing something.

It's not changing goalposts. UBI as a "for-life" thing is something totally different than a "two year experiment". You cannot extrapolate data from a temporary experiment and assume it will work with unlimited situations. Noone will quit their job and leave for somewhere cheaper, if the money runs out in two years. If it doesn't, people will do that.

And it's not that "people are lazy and hardworkers are good", but it's unfair, that we should take the money from those who work and give it to those who don't. You don't have to work, it's your choice, I don't care, just don't take my money. (and yes, there are people who are eg. tetraplegic, and actually cannot work, and there should be social support systems for them... but for normal, able people, work, don't work, who cares, just don't leech of from those who do).

> but it's unfair, that we should take the money from those who work and give it to those who don't

Its minimum income. Not maximum income. If someone wants to go retire in a remote 3rd world country, living with minimal comforts with his/her ubi, I have no problem with that. A fraction of the money going to such a cause is much better than people working like slaves to survive or going homeless if they dont want to. I want a society of people that does things willingly. Not through coercion over survival.

I doubt this is the place to do the whole debate on UBI (I do take the blame for bringing it up) but I do want to point out that these people are definitely not doing any productive work right now.

Lol paying people not to wild out, insanity. Wildin' out is cool to many, being bad is cool and sexy. People will wild out and break any agreements regardless.

You'd think this would be common enough knowledge, but...then you'd not be writing for the Economist.

Indeed. Privileged upper middle class kids who've never lived as a poor person or lived in high crime areas, trying to solve everyone's problems without any life experiences nor evidence their solutions would work.

I can’t imagine in living in a place where people can just ran out, spit on your windshield, rub it around with a cloth, then demand money and if you don’t pay up you might get shot. What insane people vote for this?

>I can’t imagine in living in a place where people can just ran out, spit on your windshield, rub it around with a cloth, then demand money and if you don’t pay up you might get shot. What insane people vote for this?

I'm thankful that this doesn't happen where I live (NYC). Where does this happen, so I know not to rent a car there.

Baltimore.

Vote for what, exactly?

Turning a blind eye to crime as a way of signaling good virtue

I don't know if anybody actually does this aside from victimless crimes like drug use.

Call it what it is: blackmail.

Extortion. "Squeegy kids" use the implicit threat of violence against you or your car to extort payment from drivers. The "service" they provide is worse than worthless, they make your car filthy. They're an absolute menace.

I don't see why cities should have to resort to paying them off. They surely violate numerous laws with their scheme, anything from doing business without a license to jaywalking. But of course to enforce such laws you need cops to chase them down and arrest them in broad daylight, which risks bad optics for the city if the cops get too overzealous. Still, better policing is the correct answer.

I seriously doubt paying them off even could work. Why would they not take the payment then do it anyway? You'd still need cops to arrest them to know which didn't stay true to the agreement.

It’s just an example of spineless politicians pandering to a whiny people and unable to manage the police force.

In my city we’ve become inundated with sad sack beggars at intersections. Many of them are part of organized rings of hustlers. Our mayor wants to respect their feeling or whatever and police are not allowed to engage them. In one case, there was a full on brawl on an exit ramp between rival groups before the cops were cleared to break it up.

> I seriously doubt paying them off even could work. Why would they not take the payment then do it anyway?

Because then they wouldn't get paid more later.

No it does not, bullies and criminals are not seeking to optimize their cash flow. I know this is just for squigees and other petty annoyances, but it's a slippery slope to paying people to just not commit crimes.

Have you lived in the ghetto or in extremely poor neighborhoods? I grew up in Oakland, Modesto, and Fresno, with gang banging friends and having to deal with these other gangsters not in your crew, who would like nothing more than to beat you up, steal your cash, and brag to their friends about commit their crimes. Those who commit crimes will commit crimes on the whim, jump you and cash, and never once have foresight on how their present actions have future consequences.

Empower bullies and lowlifes, and they'll continuously pick on you and bully you and others.

> Have you lived in the ghetto or in extremely poor neighborhoods?

Yes.

> Those who commit crimes will commit crimes on the whim

The vast majority of the time, that "whim" is "I need cash to buy dinner". This is especially true of people squeegeeing cars.

I would much rather see full-fledged safety nets like UBI, but paying people such that they are no longer dependent on nuisance or outright crime for survival is a start.

Yes, they would. Unless you're also proposing some enforcement mechanism where you detect defectors. But, if you could reliably detect them, why not just stop them?

Unless the police are out there chasing them down and establishing an arrest record to show they previously lied, why would they be denied payments in the future?

People in that situation usually have a high time preference.

>I don't see why cities should have to resort to paying them off.

you're always paying someone. You can enact punitive and harsh measures and put kids and teenagers into the justice system where they'll cost 10x as much if not more including in their adulthood, or you can draw a baseline in and simply pay them enough money to not resort to this quasi-begging. Couple this with an attendance requirement to go to school and you're probably saving yourself countless of dollars so I don't really see the issue.

It's basically analogous to war on drugs type policies. Instead of just providing addicts with clean needles and drugs you spent ten times as much and wasting police resources on chasing harmless people around. It's moralizing instead of effective policy

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