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Comment by Fargren | Hacker News Reader

I think we need to experiment with this before deciding whether it's a good or bad idea. A whole country is probably not the way to start, though.

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While I personally would love to see this pass and the experiment to go ahead, I only really feel comfortable saying that since I don't live in Switzerland and won't have to deal with any potential fallout.

There have been experiments along these lines. I'm not sure why but I read about this on on HN not so long ago..

  https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8792192

As described in plenty of comments in that thread, that experiment was not in basic income. Minimal income and basic income are different in fundamental ways, and could potentially lead to fundamentally different behaviours.

I'm not sure it will work in a smaller area. If you just did it in one city poor people from all over the country would move there and bankrupt the program.

There were many experiments like this, including whole countries. E.g. in North Korea, there _is_ a guaranteed basic income (at least by law), equivalent to a bowl of rice per day.

Urgh really? That is so disingenuous I actually feel a bit dirty after reading it. Sorry, but surely you are invoking the comparison to North Korea because you hope to argue against guaranteed income by association.

Also, a bowl of rice a day really is fundamentally different to a guaranteed income that can be spent as the recipient wishes. It is more like food stamps in the US.

> Urgh really? That is so disingenuous I actually feel a bit dirty after reading it.

Just walk away. Because you won't win any argument with that type. A very convinced yet insecure type.

A bowl of rice a day is not enough to live on.

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