Basic Income Research Proposal - <AUTHOR> https://basicincome.ycr.org/blog <comment><USER5> I would speculate that any end date on this scenario will invalidate results. What a person does if it is guaranteed a job for life vs 5 years is wildly different, as you'll need to make sure when those 5 years are up, you'll be ready to enter the job market again, etc. I believe the same will happen with basic income. If we want to study where people gravitate to more fulfilling jobs, feel happier and so on, you need to guarantee them that stability forever. Otherwise people will just rationalize that they got some free money for a while and will not behave in the same way.

<comment><USER6> If the government guarantees a basic income, you're really only guaranteed (at best) until the next election cycle. Just recently, seven years after its passing, the ACA was nearly reverted, which would have kicked millions of people off government-subsidized health insurance plans.

<comment><USER7> Pensions are a great use-case for smart contracts. I would feel much safer having my retirement assured by a blockchain than a bureaucrat.

<comment><USER8> How would this work? As I understand it pensions are almost never fully funded when they begin because the costs would be prohibitive. Can a smart contract guarantee that funds that are not available now will be made available at a later date?

<comment><USER9> It wouldn't work, almost nothing people want to do with smart contract can actually work because those people tend not to actually understand what a smart contract is or what it can actually do and what it can't do. Virtually every smart contract proposal is DOA due to a misunderstanding of their nature.

<comment><USER7> What's missing from your claim is any justification for it all. You're just claiming, on zero authority, that it's not possible. So enlighten us.

Why do you think it's impossible to encode the mechanics of a pension in a smart contract-based system?

<comment><USER9> I didn't need to, the comment I replied to already addressed a valid why. Smart contracts can't enforce access to funds without locking the funds up from other use, and that's not how things work in the real world. Pensions aren't savings accounts where funds are locked up ready to be used in a black box. They can't interact with the real world without trusted oracles, but we already have that in the real world and they're only real use is when they can do something deterministic on chain. In short, they're largely hype without a real problem to solve... so far.

<comment><USER7> You're just claiming it's impractical today, not technically infeasible for any reason.

1\. Pensions don't currently work like this

There are many thousands of different pension systems across the world.

It stands to reason that you could create new system, and if it had significantly attractive advantages, people would use it.

2\. Trusted oracles are a problem

Yup, we need more decentralized services that smart contracts can take advantage of. Wait a few years, they're coming.

3\. Smart contracts are only useful for deterministic changes

Making deterministic change is precisely what you want. Do you mean statically defined? Because that's obviously not correct. And are you considering a new system specifically designed for pensions?

Virtually all innovative technology is "hype" until it isn't. I agree we have a ways to go.

<comment><USER9> Hence my final words, so far...

> Making deterministic change is precisely what you want.

Yes, but that's a problem when you have to interact with the real world which isn't.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> This is a test of charity, not UBI.

1\. The money involved is voluntarily donated, not confiscated from taxpayers - an essential difference between tax-funded vs charity.

2\. 3000 recipients is vanishingly small on a state or federal level. When _everyone_ gets their monthly $UBI check, supply-and-demand dictates that "free money" will be duly devalued, with prices of low-end essential goods/services rising to match (say, basic rent rising to $1000/mo).

3\. Many who currently produce wealth to make ends meet - paying income-scaled taxes included - may very well be enticed to "go Galt" by seeking a self- sufficient lifestyle where $UBI/mo covers all cash needs without one having to get a job per se. (I find this option quite attractive.)

4\. Old aphorism: "tax what you want less of, subsidize what you want more of." UBI implements/enforces this by punishing the productive and rewarding the idle. Yes, some people will use the opportunity to do laudable activities - which won't necessarily contribute to the economy. Yes, some people will use this to bridge current welfare-to-work transition issues - which are better handled by narrowly fixing that bridging problem _without_ having to involve the entire population. Yes, more people will wonder why they're pulling other people's economic weight, and consider the merits of humble low-income living.

5\. I realize Y Combinator is in the business of giving money to people to encourage productivity. Methinks they're too used to working with the rare hyper-productive, and don't grok how many people are quite content with low- cost no-effort zero-productivity living.

<comment><USER11> >When everyone gets their monthly $UBI check, supply-and-demand dictates that "free money" will be duly devalued, with prices of low-end essential goods/services rising to match (say, basic rent rising to $1000/mo).

At first glance this seems intuitively correct, but I'd encourage anyone reading this to control+f my username in this thread for arguments showing otherwise.

<comment><USER10> I did, and found your arguments wanting. You're conflating local with national behaviors, and conflating high-value goods/services with low.

Take a low-income area and give everyone $1000/mo for no reason (they're not trading any local productivity for it), and rent & other basic costs will immediately rise accordingly. "Move!" you (and I) say - and the limited supply of inexpensive rural housing (matching UBIers' lack of need for jobs) will likewise rise accordingly, as the market of renters just vastly increased. Over time, low-end housing supply may increase, but now you've a market of homes which rather pointedly do _not_ have jobs nearby - you've just created communities of people absolutely dependent on UBI.

<comment><USER11> >you've just created communities of people absolutely dependent on UBI.

This will be the result of the steady march of automation displacing the human workforce regardless. Furthermore, the lack of a UBI system in a high unemployment due to automation scenario would lead to complete collapse of the market economy.

<comment><USER10> We went thru "displacing the human workforce" in the Industrial Revolution. Don't worry, we'll create more low-skill jobs - just like we did back then.

...unless legislators continue prohibiting people from working if they can't produce enough value per hour. Minimum wage is "debtor's prison" redux.

There's plenty of low-skill low-value jobs I could hire people to do, regardless of technological advancement, if only regulations weren't so oppressive.

<comment><USER12> Fighting the minimum wage is a political dead end. People won't vote for that, since they believe people who work a full week should have a decent standard of living. That's the case in Australia, at least.

<comment><USER13> In practice hardly anyone believes people who work a full week should have a decent standard of living. If people actually believed that, then no one would purchase goods manufactured in Mexico, China, etc. Instead, it's more accurate to say that people don't want the inconvenience of actually seeing poor people.

<comment><USER14> I guess this is the usual "hate the game not the player" situation. I wish there was more local products. I'm willing to make sacrifices and vote with my wallet to make that happen. (And I do when it's a realistic alternative) But I can't do that naked - and living in a smallish town, I'd be surprised if I could buy a full set of clothes here which is not produced in China/India/Pakistan/Thailand. (Without going a few hours to the nearest city)

Yes, everybody who works full week should earn enough to make a living. The fact that I'm wearing a t-shirt made in China is mixed up in this in complex ways, but it doesn't change my position.

<comment><USER13> Again, if people were really interested in this then protectionist economic policy would be a major topic in every election.

It's worth noting that Barak Obama, in the primaries, campaigned on a platform of renegotiating NAFTA to not fuck over American workers so hard. Then, after the primaries, that topic vanished and once elected he tried to pass TPP which would've been just as bad for American workers as NAFTA. Then of course Trump campaigned on the same issue, but he's Trump and there's not really anything more to say about that.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER15> The design is flawed from the start. If you have any sort of income guarantee in a system where

(i) there are others in the same currency area who don't receive the income

(ii) the amount is insufficient to live on

(iii) there are insufficient jobs overall in the economy for all that want them

(iv) it isn't permanent

then all you actually have is a tax credit system with a different withdrawal mechanism. [https://medium.com/modern-money-matters/is-basic-income- basi...](https://medium.com/modern-money-matters/is-basic-income-basically- finnished-babadac2d29b)

The pathologies of income schemes that cause all of them to be degraded and cancelled build up over time as people adjust to the new scheme and work out who is failing to reciprocate.

Overall basic income is theft from workers and will be seen as such by those workers. [https://medium.com/modern-money-matters/is-basic-income- basi...](https://medium.com/modern-money-matters/is-basic-income-basically- theft-a95eeedb5aad) They then agitate to have the income removed from those seen as cheating the system.

What we need are guaranteed jobs at a guaranteed living wage, paid for by the state working for the public good. Then private businesses finally have to compete for labour and that maintains the wage share.

People need something to do where they can be of service to others. Not paying off and left to rot.

<comment><USER16> > Overall basic income is theft from workers

Disagree, basic income is equitable distribution of a collective legacy of increasingly advanced tools and a necessary recognition of limited natural resources and duty to share a small portion to every human being on the basis of birth into our society, aka social contract.

<comment><USER10> Your abstract 3rd-party justification from a distance fails to note the rest of that sentence:

"Overall basic income is theft from workers _and will be seen as such by those workers._ "

When enough of those producing wealth decide that UBI = theft, they aren't going to just continue producing without pushing back. Personally, if UBI is implemented, I will "go Galt" and move to a self-sufficient homesteading-style life, leaving any cash-requiring activities (like paying taxes) to my $UBI/mo check. That I am a productive person does not mean my productivity will necessarily be taxable; I grew up in a live-off-the-land family, and would be happy to return to that lifestyle if you're going to just take a big chunk of my income just to give to others.

There are enough jobs (yes, there are). Wealth is not durable (you eat a hamburger, $1 of economic wealth turns to *). Encouraging idleness by funding it is an unsustainable economic strategy, because so many people find paid idleness a desirable lifestyle.

<comment><USER17> >because so many people find paid idleness a desirable lifestyle.

You're close, and it's an easy mistake to make since it seems intuitive. However, the reality is that people find THE IDEA of paid idleness desirable. Small N, but everyone I know who has found themselves in that position has only remained idle for a very short time. Productivity quickly returns, although not in the form of trading time for money.

<comment><USER18> I believe you but that is anecdotal. I know people that not only want to remain idle if their basic needs are taken care of but currently do, and have been doing it for decades.

Like most human traits, there is a wide degree of variance. As such there is no doubt in my mind UBI would allow a greater number of idlers because it would be more easily available. Just as it would allow more people to trade a job they don't like for a constructive activity they do.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER19> One factor that would be lost in a controlled, basic income test is the inflation effect. Implemented on a national scale, cost inflation of basic consumer needs is a near certainty. On a controlled test of 1000 people inflation would be nearly impossible to achieve without localizing the test to an absurd degree.

I could see this test could serving as a dataset for calculating anticipated inflation rates on a national scale. If money is sent out via a trackable card instead of raw cash, you could begin to extrapolate where this basic income spends would be going, be it consumer products, bills, etc.

<comment><USER20> Yep, basic consumer staple price inflation is something I never see addressed with any satisfaction when people are talking about UBI. Housing prices and rent will assuredly rise proportionally to the basic income amount if this were to be implemented nationally, so wouldn't pumping all this money in basically just have the effect of increasing inequality?

<comment><USER11> >Housing prices and rent will assuredly rise proportionally to the basic income amount if this were to be implemented nationally, so wouldn't pumping all this money in basically just have the effect of increasing inequality?

Unlikely. UBI removes the connection between location and income. As a result you can move to somewhere incredibly cheap to live since there's no need to be in an in demand market in order to have a nice job.

Housing is really quite cheap in the US. With Real Estate you pay for the location not the actual land or building.

Of course people won't necessarily want to move away from their "hip" city, but UBI is "basic" and if you want to stay in a high demand area you will have to supplement UBI with work.

As for basic consumables, demand is unlikely to go up for these fundamental goods because people are _already_ consuming them at their basic required levels under the current system (toilet paper, eggs, milk, bread, chicken, beans, rice, birth control, etc).

<comment><USER21> If people in every location have their income increased, then the housing prices inflate in every location. Saying, "People can just move" is missing the point.

It isn't that they can't afford to live where they are now, it's that BI will be absorbed by price inflation _everywhere_.

<comment><USER11> This is a misunderstanding of how both macro inflation occurs (money supply growing faster than true value of wealth it abstracts), and how price is set (supply and demand).

UBI does not "create" new money and just give it to everyone (which would cause inflation). It's a wealth redistribution. That is, many people will see their income go down under UBI (probably most HN readers for example). The money supply will represent the same amount of wealth, what changes is who owns that wealth and as a result who decides how to use that wealth to consume.

Regarding price changes, price is set by the amount of a good/service demanded by consumers, and the supply of the good/service created by suppliers. High discretionary income does cause the demand for certain goods/services to go up (especially luxuries), but UBI is so basic at $1k per month it won't make much of a change in the demand curve because the type of goods/services that will be consumed by someone living on UBI are so fundamental they are already consuming these goods at the same rate under the current system.

So far as housing is concerned, UBI will pretty much "explode" the supply of acceptable housing for people living solely on UBI since they get access to housing in the entire US instead of having it constrained to locations where they could conceivably "make a living." I'm sure you realize what happens when supply increases drastically but demand stays somewhat constant (everyone has to live somewhere and you can only live in one place at once) -- the price of housing on avg will plummet considerably for UBI'ers.

<comment><USER10> Sounds like yet another argument trying to deny the law of supply-and-demand, like those who quote the laws of thermodynamics and then claim they have a perpetual motion machine.

Instead of having to work for that first $1000/mo, it just...appears. Yes it was earned elsewhere, and whoever earned it won't miss it as much as the recipient will appreciate it, but since the recipient has done nothing for it, its local value plummets. Instead of _some_ low-income people having $1000/mo for rent, now _everyone_ has $1000/mo for rent - and basic prices will rise accordingly.

 _I_ won't notice much change for losing a sub-1% of my income, but those for whom UBI is really intended can go from really struggling to renting (even buying) housing. With limited housing supply, suddenly prices will rise.

While I'm a staunch advocate of "move already!" for solving economic problems, I don't see enough people moving - nor enough housing for them to move to - <USER2> cause "the price of housing on avg will plummet for UBIers".

Imagine the poor section of town. Many/most rent. Suddenly, with no additional productivity, everyone is getting checks for $1000/mo. You think rent etc prices aren't going to suddenly skyrocket? I grasp your theory that people can now move to more affordable locations, not needing to be near jobs - but will they really? before they can, rent prices just shot up, consuming their newfound income. Destination rental prices similarly increase - <USER3> relatively attractive, but higher than before since there is more demand and more money to pay for it.

Yes the supply of acceptable housing for UBIers increases, but those markets already existed and were already priced for a low-demand market; now you've "exploded" the demand - prices will rise, matching people who now have $1000/mo and few expenses.

<comment><USER17> Here you claim to earn more than $100k every MONTH, yet in another comment you claim the amount you are taxed is nearing oppression. It sounds like maybe you're just saying whatever helps your argument at the time.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER22> Basic Income is often proposed in conjunction with cutting basic social services & welfare payments, thus achieving a net gain for the government. This seems to make it attractive to both the neoliberals and the neosocialismés, but I believe this is a terrible mistake that will have the exact opposite effect to what its supporters intend - there will be _more_ poverty and debt slavery, not less. (Methodology debates aside, I generally think both sides want people to propser & be happy).

My proof is by example through thought experiment: I'm a grad student who has a bicycle accident. Without free gov healthcare I now must go into debt to either the hospital or a lender (medical purchases are just one example of an essentially non-negotiable expense). Perhaps I already had other debts, but somehow now my interest payment + living expenses payments are more than my basic income, otherwise known as the normal life of a grad student in todays society anyway - in my case BI didn't work. This is just one example of how easy it is to slide back into poverty with such a system, it could occur slower and over a few generations but sooner or later poverty is back. We just pushed the goal posts back a little bit.

Instead I believe we should leave our dealings with money to the marketplace, but should definitely act as a society to provide a good life for all citizens by seeing that their basic _needs_ are met. Make free public housing that all citizens have a right to ask for. Provide basic but nutritious food to the populace, for free. Encourage free markets and capitalism, but see that the basic needs of every citizen are met - and perhaps a little power in the marketplace i.e. money is also a basic need, but its still only one of many. "If they didn't already exist, people would think public libraries were the most radically extreme socialism".

For these reasons, the growing popularity of BI is worrysome to me. It's just neoliberalism made pallitable by a once-in-every-few-generations wealth transfer.

<comment><USER6> "it could occur slower and over a few generations but sooner or later poverty is back." But, if the UBI is set to a percentage of GDP, then as overall wealth increases, the wealth of those depending on UBI increase. In the past few generations, ex. since the 1950's, real GDP has grown 6x [1] while the population has only doubled [2], meaning the real wealth of our society has grown three-fold in "a few generations".

[1] [http://www.multpl.com/us-gdp-inflation- adjusted/](http://www.multpl.com/us-gdp-inflation-adjusted/)

[2] [https://www.google.com/publicdata/explore?ds=kf7tgg1uo9ude_&...](https://www.google.com/publicdata/explore?ds=kf7tgg1uo9ude_&met_y=population&idim=country:US&hl=en&dl=en)

<comment><USER23> I'm not sure that it gives good incentives to have it directly linked to GDP. I think it would make more sense to have a circuit-breaker type provision where if GDP increases by more than x% the amount increases by y%, but I doubt we would want to decrease it immediately when GDP decreases, since that has the potential to cause a runaway feedback loop.

<comment><USER6> That's really smart. I hadn't even considered that and was naively operating on a default assumption of increasing GDP. Especially during a recession, adjusting the basic-income downwards with GDP could create a devastating runaway feedback loop. I think as you wouldn't want the economy to grow faster than basic income, though, in the circuit-breaker-style implementation as GDP increases by more than x%, the amount should also increase x%, by default. When the GDP is assessed, say annually, it should only increase or maintain the current basic income rate. In the event of an unprecedented long-term decrease in productivity, the congress should be required to take action to lower the payouts.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER24> I like the idea of basic income but I confess that my ideal of a basic income recipient is someone akin to the 19th-century amateur scientist subsisting on a private income whilst making original contributions to human knowledge, and, as a side effect, to society.

Whereas the reality of people receiving free money might be somewhat different. There's the drip, drip welfare payments of _just_ enough money to survive without being motivated to find a job. Then there's the fallout, family break-up and chaos that occur in the wake of a lottery win. Both morally questionable.

Or perhaps there might be a settling down period of people acting irresponsibly followed by a recognition that engagement with the problems of civilisation and survival doesn't end because one has food, shelter and internet. There are novels to write, structures to design, problems to solve and of course there's science to be done. Work is more fun than 'fun'. Pick something worthy of your talents or start the slide into mental disorder and addiction.

Whatever the truth it almost goes without saying that a study alone cannot sort these issues out. Perhaps it can help. But in science experiment is insufficient there has to be theory to go with. (This is a major reason why so few studies in medicine and psychology are reproducible. I assume in sociology too.) What makes it more difficult in this case is there are moral components which can't be assessed empirically, only by conjecture and criticism.

<comment><USER25> >Whereas the reality of people receiving free money might be somewhat different. There's the drip, drip welfare payments of just enough money to survive without being motivated to find a job.

That's why I always clarify that an essential piece of Basic Income is that it is _unconditional_. Whether you're on the bottom rung of society or the top, employed or unemployed, basic income should be the same amount.

When the choice to get a job changes from _" Well I'd lose my benefits"_ to _" Well my basic income is no longer enough, I'll work part time"_, then state welfare no longer becomes as much of a trap. It can finally make strides towards lifting people out of poverty.

<comment><USER26> How will you work part time if there are no jobs due to robotic automation (not that I believe that's a significant problem for a century)?

<comment><USER25> I think the parent comment I was replying to was more concerned about the situation where we have UBI without full automation. In which case there may be a push for jobs not yet automated to be split into part time positions. If society really feels like keeping people employed is a moral good in the face of increasing automation, then there may be pressure to increase workforce numbers and reduce working hours. Especially possible if UBI can close the gap and maintain a safety net.

In addition, full, 100% automation doesn't seem likely to me. Service sectors of the economy may simply keep smaller human staffs in order to keep their hospitality atmosphere. Not enough to offset job loss in other sectors, but there are already plenty of businesses today that have a human element that don't _actually_ need them. It might even look like a luxury business model. No reason that will go away just because robots can do it better.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER27> A huge part of what makes basic income appealing is that it is unconditional and guaranteed. Otherwise it seems like it would create unsafe levels of government control.

For many people, BI would end up being a large portion of their income, such that losing it would be catastrophic. Now those people would become beholden to any government demand made on penalty of revoking BI.

If a government enacts unconditional BI in the year 2020, who's to say they won't change their minds in 2028 and make it conditional on good behavior?

Are there any mechanisms that could make basic income a true unconditional guarantee?

<comment><USER28> This is already an issue with Medicaid. 65 million people depend on the government for free healthcare and cannot afford to lose it.

<comment><USER29> Agree, but no need to only point down.

Social security income is indispensable for the majority of pensioners now. It used to be only for day laborers who it was understood never had an opportunity to save. Things have changed for sure.

Similarly, most old people wouldn't be able to afford their healthcare if it wasn't for Medicare, even it they never even filled out a Medicaid application.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER30> 1k people getting 1k a month for 5 years = $60 million. At the end of the day, an expensive group. Really impressed by the ambition here, and hope for great success for the project.

Basic Income research will be vital in the future when it actually becomes a genuine piece of public policy. Although I have little faith it will be used effectively by politicians/decision makers.

<comment><USER31> impressive, but i feel like this is why we invented computer models and have technology (maybe) to start returning immediate results.

We're basically saying here that $60M (plus the other group) is better spent to see what weights to give to models to see how UBI scales-up rather than spending it to run a full gamut of Test Cases through the models and figuring out which outputs to motivate people to do with the money.

I mean, why are we spending money to figure out what people will spend the money on when we can already envision all the possibilities. Or am i wrong, and no one has modeled this yet??

<comment><USER32> How do you model a population's (or even am individual's) innate preferences and behavior when their income patterns and ability to spend change? You're essentially describing the economic calculation problem.

[0] [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Economic_calculation_problem](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Economic_calculation_problem)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER33> I think peoples choices in a situation like this will be wildly different than if there was a government provided basic income that was available forever, or at least had the appearance of being available forever. Having extra money for a couple years doesn't let you permanently exit the workforce in the same way a permanent basic income would.

As well I think for established people with kids and other commitments 1000 isn't nearly enough to get by but there is a real danger that for young adults you give them this option of completely checking out of society if it's available forever. Rent a cheap house with friends, smoke weed, and play videogames sounds like a pretty decent option to a lot of 18 year olds. Or even younger maybe? When can kids legally drop out of high school?

I really think basic income is a bad idea. I don't think we are anywhere near the point of mass replacement of the entire workforce with robots/ai even in the developed world. Forcing people who are working to pay into a system that lets people contribute 0 to society while enjoying a decent life(24k for a couple/roomates is completely livable in many parts of US especially without a car) is both unfair and likely to cause significant social strife between workers/non-workers.

I really think a basic livable wage with the removal of the minimum wage is a far better solution. Set some minimum livable wage based on 40 hour work week and have the government top up wages rather than incomes. Obviously there would have to be some sort of progressive claw back system to encourage people to find better paying jobs and not just go with the easiest thing available. Maybe have the government act as an employer of last resort creating some busy work cleaning streets or repairing roads.

I really think it's important for people to have something to do when they wake up in the morning and to be contributing members of society. Not only out of a sense of fairness for the people that are working but I think it is incredibly unhealthy to not have any responsibilities in life.

<comment><USER34> >Rent a cheap house with friends, smoke weed, and play videogames sounds like a pretty decent option to a lot of 18 year olds. Or even younger maybe?

I suspect a lot of people here don't appreciate this because they (and many of their friends) have a much different mindset. But I can easily see a lot of that sort of behavior and then, ten or fifteen years in, they decide they want something more out of life, start a family, whatever. But now they're 30 years-old with no skills, never having worked a real job, minimal education, etc. Pretty hard to do a reboot at that point.

<comment><USER35> I suspect you haven't met many of these type of people.

They spend a couple of years doing that, get bored and get on with enhancing their lives. The biggest stoner/gamer I knew is now an extremely well paid city guy. I lived in a dead town and the extended 100 or so people from my age group that I knew in my teens and twenties, a large amount of whom spent a lot of time gaming/smoking, now occupy a huge variety of positions in society across the country (and some the world) in their 30s. I can actually only think of one person who's still a bit of a waster.

Most people actually want to have a good life and you and the parent are simply snobs who don't know the sort of people you so condescendingly talk about.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER36> > We tentatively plan to randomly select 3,000 individuals across two US > states to participate in the study: 1,000 will receive $1,000 per month for > up to 5 years, and 2,000 will receive $50 per month and serve as a control > group for comparison.

So obvious question on many minds, " _Where do I sign up for the free money?_ "

Also, will it be randomly selected or will the selection criteria factor in cost of living, current financial situation, education, etc?

And where is the potentially $66 million dollars for this coming from?

EDIT: On their FAQ[1] I found the answer to my first question:

>> Can I be a study participant?

> Unfortunately, no. It is important that participants are randomly selected > into the study.

[1]: [https://basicincome.ycr.org/faqs](https://basicincome.ycr.org/faqs)

<comment><USER37> It says in the quote that you quoted that it will be randomly selected individuals across two states. ;)

<comment><USER36> I meant the split between $1,000 or $50.

It's not clear (to me at least...) if the randomness applies to choosing the original 3000 people selected to take part in the study, the bucketizing of them afterwards into 1000/2000 groups, or both.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER38> Commenting on the research design.

This research, to me, seems to be ignoring the biggest open question of UBI. All tests to date have looked pretty good, but have only been done on a micro level. The fundamental issue one really needs to answer for UBI is the macro scale effects.

As a society, if we were to redistribute trillions of dollars without commensurate economic value being directly created, we'd expect to see large scale inflation.

Money is a complicated subject, but essentially it represents a transfer of a future scarce resource. For commodities, the cost is essentially the sum of labor to generate it (either to mine the raw resources, build the factory, discover the technology, etc).

If no economic resource is being added to the economy, then you are just devaluing money. That is usually very regressive, and in this case could be made worse by people slightly reducing their economic labor because of the extra income stream. I could see this leading to a bad cycle, where any economic gains due to increasing UBI are later undermined.

Anyway, it would be nice if UBI worked, but I've seen no evidence that it will in a large system. It would be nice to get confirmation of previous UBI studies, but this research proposal is likely to just generate the same data, without addressing any of the open fundamental issues.

</comment><comment><USER39> Just a bit of quick math[0]:

~323,000,000 total US population

77.2% over the age of 18

~250,000,000 total over the age of 18

$12,000 per year per adult = $3,000,000,000,000 per year

[0] - [https://www.census.gov/quickfacts/fact/table/US/PST045216](https://www.census.gov/quickfacts/fact/table/US/PST045216)

<comment><USER40> Trillions. That's what's currently going around in quantitative easing. That's why many are calling for QE for the people. Instead of giving money to financial institutions, give it directly to the people.

[0] [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Quantitative_easing](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Quantitative_easing)

<comment><USER38> There is a big difference between loaning $1T once, and getting paid back, versus giving it away every year.

<comment><USER41> You loan 1T to the poor one year and get paid back 1T from the rich the next from all those poor spending money on goods the rich sell.

UBI isn't like defense spending. It isn't a black hole you put tax dollars down and get nothing out. It means tremendous goods demand for the necessities of life that is extremely stable and reliable for businesses to profit off.

<comment><USER38> No offense, but defense spending is exactly the same as what you describe. It's money that goes to hundreds of thousands of workers that spend it in the economy.

Unlike (some) defense spending, UBI doesn't intrinsically create some economic value. Increased stability would indirectly create economic value, but it needs to be more than the face value of the UBI check for it to not lead to gross inflation.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER42> Here's a more in depth version of the proposal [https://static1.squarespace.com/static/599c23b2e6f2e1aeb8d35...](https://static1.squarespace.com/static/599c23b2e6f2e1aeb8d35ec6/t/59c3188c4c326da3497c355f/1505958039366/YCR- Basic-Income-Proposal.pdf)

It answers many of the questions people are asking here.

</comment><comment><USER43> You know this might be speculative, but I feel like a basic income applied to a national allows that population to act more like an ant hive. In the sense that only 3% of the population is actually doing the real hard work, but this is a healthy paradigm, and is much better than forcing individuals who shouldn't be doing the work they currently are to pursue things they actually care about, such as taking care of loved ones, or some creative pursuit. Jobs such as these don't pay much, but are equally valuable to society.

<comment><USER44> A lot more video games will be played

<comment><USER41> Maybe for a year. Then people will want meaning in their lives and would seek meaningful productive things to do that they _want_ to do.

The reason people right now love gaming so much and often to an unhealthy degree is because its an escape from a life they don't like living but have no choice in because they are chained to a job to survive.

<comment> aaron-lebo Yeah, for a lot of people living in Azeroth is still going to be more fun than living off 12k a year. Entertainment is made to be addictive, none of those dynamics you are talking about are going to change.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER45> It blows my mind that the allegedly smart SV elite think Guaranteed Basic Income will solve more problems than it creates.

But maybe there much smarter than I, and they secretly want to create these problems so they can capitalize on them.

Or maybe, they want to sap the proletariat of their drive so that the elite can remain the elite forever.

<comment><USER46> I wonder the same.

My tin-foil theory: The poor are no longer able to purchase consumer goods as their entire income goes to their basic needs. With the middle class being pushed to the poor class, this will have devastating consequences for our consumerist-based economy. Thus, BI is nothing more than recession prevention.

Of course, that's probably not the case.

</comment></comment><comment><USER47> At what point does the government controlling your income start to impede personal freedom?

Wouldn't any politician campaigning to increase the basic income be almost automatically elected?

<comment><USER48> Is everyone currently clamoring to elect politicians that want to increase welfare and other "Great Society" programs?

<comment><USER49> > Is everyone currently clamoring to elect politicians that want to increase > welfare and other "Great Society" programs?

People aren't clamoring to increase welfare because the people whom it's perceived to benefit aren't the ones who actually have the largest voting power.

People absolutely do reward politicians for securing funding for their constituents, usually in the form of earmarks, targeted tax breaks (e.g. disaster relief, geographically targeted bailouts), and stipends. In fact, it's one of the strongest predictors of support for politicians representing smaller districts.

Only at the national level (ie, when running for president) does it become problematic to be perceived as having spent Congressional funds on your own district, because the new constituency includes people who had their money "taken away" in order to provide those earmarks.

<comment><USER48> I don't think richer people would think that the government giving $1000 a month to everyone would see that as benefitting themselves, there's your opposition to increasing BI or having it at all. And I don't disagree with those last two points.

<comment><USER49> > I don't think richer people would think that the government giving $1000 a > month to everyone would see that as benefitting themselves, there's your > opposition to increasing BI or having it at all.

Huh? No, the point isn't what the richest people would think - they have an incentive to oppose either welfare or cash handouts. The point is that currently, welfare only targets the people with the lowest voting power, because they're both a very small bloc and also a bloc that doesn't vote very consistently in the first place. So there isn't a huge political incentive to increasing _welfare_.

As soon as you make that a handout that targets everyone (or appears to target everyone), you've suddenly put the largest voting bloc - those who are neither very wealthy nor on welfare - in a position where they _will_ start to clamor to increase it more and more, because they'll see that as money flowing towards themselves.

<comment><USER48> I don't think I said richest...

Also I don't think it's hard to see how this thought would come about (not saying I'm advocating it). But there are plenty of ideas that would help society in general (lower college tuition) that many Americans are against whether rationally or irrationally.

If you fail to see how the American public would have a negative reaction to some kind of redistribution of wealth I think you should think about the average American's reaction to the idea of a socialist politician.

<comment><USER49> > If you fail to see how the American public would have a negative reaction to > some kind of redistribution of wealth I think you should think about the > average American's reaction to the idea of a socialist politician.

That's not it - I'm not saying that the American public wouldn't have a negative reaction to "redistribution of wealth". I'm saying that the American public has a negative reaction to "redistribution of wealth" when _they don 't think it benefits them_. In other words, they're generally fine with wealth being redistributed from other people _to_ them, which is most evidenced by people of all income levels usually (though not always) being on board with federal money coming in to their district. This generally takes the form of federally-funded infrastructure projects or targeted subsidies.

I'm using that to explain why people in between welfare-level poverty and comfortable wealth would have a different reaction to a stipend that (they think) is coming out of other people's tax dollars than they would to current welfare programs (which [as they perceive] don't benefit them).

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><AUTHOR> hey! elizabeth rhodes, the basic income research director at ycr, is keeping an eye on this thread and will reply to questions if you have them.

<comment><USER50> this is not a question. i know there are tons of those that say no to basic income (just glance the comments here), yet if i was eligible (different country) i would have applied right away and quit my job. i have a few side projects and some of them just weeks and months away from release, i could return the money with interest if things go as planned (maybe a contract). banks are aggressive, i can not ask my family, kickstarter and similar are too visible, ventures are so noisy and my goals and the respect for the people in general not aligned with them. this would be ideal because it is quite relaxed. here you go, an ideal setup!

</comment></comment><comment><USER51> > 1,000 will receive $1,000 per month for up to 5 years

What does this mean? Is it going to be 5 years or not? Will different participants get it for a different amount of time? Will they know when it is going to stop?

<comment><USER39> From the linked proposal:

"We propose two treatment arms, one of which will receive the basic income payments for 3 years while the other receives a 5-year guarantee."[0]

[0] - [https://static1.squarespace.com/static/599c23b2e6f2e1aeb8d35...](https://static1.squarespace.com/static/599c23b2e6f2e1aeb8d35ec6/t/59c3188c4c326da3497c355f/1505958039366/YCR- Basic-Income-Proposal.pdf)

</comment></comment><comment><USER52> My bias is that inherited wealth passed down down through the traditional family structure remains the greatest guarantor of multi-generational financial prosperity and stability. Even a single member of your immediate extended family attaining professional status as Doctor or Lawyer results in a higher probability of entry to the middle class for the entire family than any other indicator.

The big question proponents of Universal Basic Income must answer is: does direct stimulus of aggregate demand result in real growth? Is risk de- incentivized when a labor market participant is not required to work for marginal increases in "happiness"?

Taking our current central bankers experiments with quantitative easing (and now, perhaps, quantitative tightening) as a proxy for injecting liquidity into the system I think there is at least one evident result: bubbles forming in even the unlikeliest of places.

In any case, full support for YC's experiment and can't wait to see the data and results. Best of Luck and thanks for your vision and efforts!

</comment><comment><USER53> > First, we just wrapped up a one-year feasibility study in Oakland

Are the results of this feasibility study publicly available?

<comment><USER54> Yes, you can go and read about communism and how 100s of millions died while it was being implemented

<comment><USER55> That gave me a serious chuckle. It was so unexpected. Thank you.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER56> I think a better direction would be if YC Research could figure out a process to growth hack a new high density city from scratch instead of everyone crowding into physically constrained existing city. Make YC entry conditional on relocating to somewhere besides Silicon Valley/San Francisco. Maybe somewhere in California (Redding, Modesto) so you have the same rules/regulation as in California but with minimal earthquake risk, plenty of land and existing water resource Maybe even do something like the Amazon second headquarters RFP.

Sort of like what PG describes here: [http://www.paulgraham.com/pgh.html](http://www.paulgraham.com/pgh.html)

</comment><comment><USER57> My guess on how it will turn out:

1\. People given Basic income and minimal addictions will fair best 2\. People without basic income and minimal addictions will fair second best 2\. People without basic income and addictions will fair third best(drugs, major alcohol, internet/game)

4\. People given basic income and addictions will fair worst(drugs, major alcohol, internet/game)

I'm probably completely wrong. 3 and 4 could be switched in which case Basic income would be always better.

My general premise is giving people with a strong addiction money without some kind of life structure is a bad idea.

Please don't down vote me if you disagree. Please just comment on how you disagree.

<comment><USER58> Agreement/disagreement are not the only reasons for the voting system. Relevance is important, too.

<comment><USER57> I agree that my opinion/guesses are irrelevant. But, it started a conversation that could become relevant.

\- or devolve into BS you never know.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER59> Start small. Give very adult citizen the same fixed amount. Deduct that amount from existing welfare payments.

We now have a guaranteed universal Citizens's "Basic" Income, albeit at a very low level, paid for by taxpayers via the normal progressive tax system and which primarily helps the working poor.

Iron out all the inevitable implementation problems.

Then raise the level to the minimum level for welfare payments and remove a swathe of bureaucracy.

Observe the results while gaining a sensible Welfare System based upon "From each according to their ability, To each equally, with neither favour nor discrimination".

Adjust as necessary.

</comment><comment><USER58> Correct me if I'm wrong, but doesn't UBI operate on the premise that it's replacing many of the existing social programs? For example, unconditional money rather than food/housing assistance. If the participants of the study also get access to these things, doesn't that severely limit the usefulness of this study?

Also, $1k/mo is pretty small. Are you just hoping to observe some behavioral changes at the margin with which to extrapolate?

<comment><USER60> There seems to be a common bait-and-switch tactic performed by proponents of UBI, in which they mention UBI as a replacement for social programs when talking about affordability, but back away from that assertion when questioned about how to handle (for example) recipients that spend all of their UBI on drugs instead of food.

<comment><USER61> I see that as a societal symptom instead of a personal failure. I would rather a person spend their time playing videogames* instead of being stuck working dead-end jobs until the day they die.

*Drugs are a different issue, that should be treated as a health problem and dealt with accordingly.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER62> I hope many of the study participants are living in a low COL area. If the $1000 per month covers most if not all of your expenses it gives someone a much greater opportunity to pursue something the can really improve their life rather than just a nice boon on top of their current income. Of course, this is more of an "I hope this improves peoples' lives" rather than considering how best to design the experiment.

</comment><comment><USER63> Robot tax. Fund basic income on the basis whereby every job that is replaced by automation, a tax must be paid by a company with more than 1000 employees.

</comment><comment><USER64> Curious as to how the control group monthly amount ($50) was decided upon. Was it basically an incentive for those selected to participate?

<comment><USER65> I would speculate yes. (1) You want subjects in the control group to be incentivized to maintain contact with the researchers throughout the study and be willing to spend time answering their questions. (2) Whenever feasible, you want all subjects in a research study to be better off than not participating in the study. (3) It also controls for some minor confounding effects like "gets in the habit of going to the bank monthly and cashing a check".

</comment></comment><comment><USER66> I like to do this though experiment sometimes.

Let's assume some sort of Basic Income is enacted. A standard livable amount for all adults, that will scale with inflation, and even with number of dependents.

Some people will still work. Will still pursue hard working jobs that contribute to society, that push our capabilities as a species forward, and _add value_ (important). But think about most of the world and people that you know...I'd imagine that on average, people would elect to not choose to - <USER4> lack of a better term - "work hard" to boost their income if their basic needs are covered. Some folks would just love to let others take the wheel, and enjoy their netflix and soylent in peace. This needs proof of course, but I believe that's an assumption we can make for sake of discussion.

Now...we all know that automation is coming. Already we see many of the tasks that humans depend on for survival and prosperity being done faster and more efficiently with artificial intelligence and robotics. Things like harvesting natural resources, agriculture, production of goods, and even building infrastructures. The responsibility of these tasks is shifting away from the people, and into the hands (clamps?) of specialized machines.

So, assuming 1) we have individuals who are having their needs provided for, but not making a measurable contribution to the survival of the species/system and 2) we are trending toward automation and hyper optimization for all the processes that we depend on for survival...when do AI and/or algorithms start to find that certain people are not worth being provided for? Who manages these systems? Someone that we elect? An artificial entity?

I'd honestly love to hear others thoughts on this. I know I would rather fight and claw for survival than pray to someone that they don't choose me to shoot off into space.

<comment><USER41> It happens a lot where people make this jump from autonomous machines to sentient machines. It isn't a small gap. Going from domain learning and genetic algorithms to develop solutions for a hardcoded task to sapience is a _huge_ leap.

It won't be accidental, or at least come out of nowhere. We _should_ be able to see it coming even if it will come out of evolving algorithms. There will absolutely be intent in constructing intelligent artificial life.

</comment></comment><comment><USER67> A few questions:

Will there be travel restrictions? (if someone is receiving this money, do they have to stay in the same city/country, or can they move?)

What age ranges will be included in the study? [I found the answer in the report: it's 21 to 40]

Is there a control group that won't be interviewed regularly? I'm more motivated when my boss talks to me. Requiring people to meticulously manage their time will already bring a productivity boost.

What about controlling for the end date? My contracts last for 1 year at a time. If I suddenly knew I'd have a steady income for 5 years, that would be a huge relief, and I'd change my lifestyle accordingly and settle down (e.g. be able to plan to start a family). That feeling is independent of the amount of money, it's just the stability.

My first feeling is that living with basic income will be similar to retirement. (and there's a lot more data about what retired people spend their time doing).

</comment><comment><USER68> Really awesome to see this coming together. 2 q's - how was the $1,000 per month figure calculated, and will you be deploying in a small, low-income, isolated community where local inflation might occur, a large metropolitan community, distributed randomly across the 2 states? Interesting problems to consider in this study design!

<comment><USER68> Found the answer to my sampling question: "As described above, we will select areas for the study by taking a stratified random sample of Census tracts in large regions within the two states where median household income does not exceed the area median income. After sampling tracts, we will randomly select addresses within tracts from USPS DSF (a sampling frame of all addresses). We will screen selected addresses for eligibility, ultimately enrolling no more than one percent of individuals within a Census tract. We may use available administrative data eliminate as many ineligible households from the sampling frame as possible to cut down on recruitment and enrollment costs, but we are examining the reliability of this data during the pilot. We are contracting with a survey research firm with extensive experience fielding national studies to assist with sampling, manage recruitment, and conduct in- person enrollment and baseline surveys."

To my thinking it would have been interesting to study the possible inflation effects (treat the isolated community as representative for the whole country) but I'm sure there is a good reason/past research for structuring the sample this way.

</comment></comment><comment><USER69> The idea that UBI will wipe away the ignorance and cultural dogma that keeps poor people poor is absurd.

How many lottery winners hold on to their winnings?

Let's be realistic. If you give the uneducated poor free money, the only thing that will change is how much money they have to spend on junk food and dated electriconics.

UBI as a policy in a place like the U.S. is hopelessly niave. Our culture of poverty if the typical culture of ignorant poverty. I speak as someone who lived among the poor-hell, in high school I dated two women from the same trailer park, poverty in the U.S. is about getting mine, and often times about getting one over the man.

These aren't temporarily downtrodden future intellectuals. These are people who haven't understood education or work for generations. But, on the other hand, who are we to claim our culture is superior?

<comment><USER9> > The idea that UBI will wipe away the ignorance and cultural dogma that keeps > poor people poor is absurd.

No one is saying that.

> How many lottery winners hold on to their winnings?

Not relevant.

> Let's be realistic. If you give the uneducated poor free money, the only > thing that will change is how much money they have to spend on junk food and > dated electriconics.

That's the point. UBI isn't welfare, it's not meant to rehabilitate people and make them into workers. If most people who get UBI choose to live off it and not work, and remain poor, fucking great, that's the whole point of the program, to reduce the working population down to those who actually want to work as there aren't going to be enough jobs for everyone and many people would choose not to work if they could.

You just really do not understand what UBI is about, not at all.

</comment></comment><comment><USER70> Given the skew of poverty in the USA to black and latin populations you might want to consider hiring several full time people on to the team and leadership who can bring the understanding that can only come from being part of those communities. Otherwise this can be attacked as being dominated by rich white people. While the intent is clear the execution needs to match the targeted end users.

You may also want to consider the efffect of health care. In other UBI environments free healthcare is a given. In this experiment healthcare costs can easily cripple the impact of the regular income. Control for that by providing health care insurance, or make it two experiments by doing some with and some without. If that doesn't work maybe consider doing this experiment in another country.

</comment><comment><USER71> I'm somewhat doubtful of the design as it's explained in this blogpost, seems like there will be lots of treatment externalities. I'd really recommend anyone who's interested read [http://cega.berkeley.edu/assets/cega_research_projects/1/Ide...](http://cega.berkeley.edu/assets/cega_research_projects/1/Identifying- Impacts-on-Education-and-Health-in-the-Presence-of-Treatment- Externalities.pdf) for an explanation of why a totally randomised control trial is the wrong choice for things like this.

</comment><comment><USER72> Wow. Looks like they'll spend a lot of money for this research. Congrats to everyone involved!

I thought basic income was about a time where AI would take most of the jobs, and everything would be far cheaper thanks to automation. I cannot understand how it'll help you not work in the current world.

Because working part-time might not be an option for many, even if they are ready to forgo the money. We also have not built that automated world yet, so although $1000/m certainly helps, it is still not enough to pay for a comfortable life in the US.

Maybe someone more informed on the subject can enlighten me.

<comment><USER73> Because it is not meant to "help you not work." It is meant to ensure a basic minimum whether you work or not. It is also not meant to "pay for a comfortable life." It is meant to prevent you from starving.

For the sake of argument, however, as you say, going part time is not an option for many people. For the lowest paid jobs, on the other hand, going full time is often not an option. The jobs at the bottom tend to be part time with no benefits and no guaranteed hours. These are the people who will be most benefited by a basic income. If they are additionally stuck in a hostile work environment, the basic income may give them enough cushion to quit the job rather than hanging on just so they don't starve. It may also give them enough money to take time off work and go to school in order to earn a slightly better income. And, if they are laid off through no fault of their own, it may allow them to eat until they can find another job.

</comment></comment><comment><USER74> The Basic Income research project in Finland is certainly relevant here. A podcast episode: [http://99percentinvisible.org/episode/the-finnish- experiment...](http://99percentinvisible.org/episode/the-finnish-experiment/) A recent article: [https://www.nytimes.com/2017/07/20/opinion/finland- universal...](https://www.nytimes.com/2017/07/20/opinion/finland-universal- basic-income.html)

</comment><comment><USER10> In real UBI implementation, is it considered taxable income?

Core to UBI is that since _everyone_ gets UBI, and since I pay substantial taxes, I'd pay a minimum of $UBI in taxes and simply get it back as a UBI check for a net total of $0.

BUT... If that's taxable income, I have to pay (say) a cumulative 33% on that additional "income". Instead of a net $0, I have to pay something like $4000 in additional taxes. WTF?

</comment><comment><USER75> Many countries already have a form of age restricted UBI.

The state pension.

I know many pensioners in the UK that work as the state pension does not provide 'enough'.

<comment><USER76> Enough for what ? Eating ? Maintaining a family house that is not residence of your children anymore ? Having a car ? Covering additional health expenses ?

</comment></comment><comment><USER53> 99pi recently released a podcast on the basic income research being done by the Finnish government & YCombinator:

[http://99percentinvisible.org/episode/the-finnish- experiment...](http://99percentinvisible.org/episode/the-finnish-experiment/)

</comment><comment><USER77> > We tentatively plan to randomly select 3,000 individuals across two US > states to participate in the study: 1,000 will receive $1,000 per month for > up to 5 years, and 2,000 will receive $50 per month and serve as a control > group for comparison.

That's 66 million dollars, if you're wondering.

</comment><comment><USER78> Will this research enable conclusions about the macroeconomic effects of UBI? It seems like it'd be difficult to predict how national and international markets will react to an entire country suddenly receiving a UBI based on a study of only a few thousand people.

</comment><comment><USER79> How will the 1000 a month be treated in a fiscal sense? I have close to no knowledge about the US tax system, but I would guess it has some impact.

Also, will be interesting to see the difference in results from this study to ones done in countries where healthcare is free or subsidised.

<comment><USER80> The effective tax rate an individual would face depends on how much income an individual derives from other sources during this time in addition to the basic income, along with their household demographics (number of children, marriage situation).

By itself with no other income sources the individual would fall below the US federal poverty level[0] by $60 and would likely qualify for some Earned Income Credits[1] as well as subsidized health care.

Adding children or a spouse (especially a working one) will crank the tax rate up or down.

Then there is an entire universe of tax complexity having to do with credits and penalties an individual or family might face.

[0][https://aspe.hhs.gov/poverty-guidelines](https://aspe.hhs.gov/poverty- guidelines)

[1][https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Earned_income_tax_credit](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Earned_income_tax_credit)

</comment></comment><comment><USER81> One interesting thought, maybe, would be, as robotics/automation takes over and grows, is to introduce special automation tax from which BI could be partially (or fully?) funded? Maybe ti could alleviate some of the inflation concerns.

</comment><comment><USER77> Couldn't they research and study people who already don't work for a living? I mean those who already own capital and don't expect the government to steal some for them?

That would sure be cheaper.

</comment><comment><USER82> Really like the idea of basic income. However, after living in the real world as long as I have, I know all it would do is raise rent by exactly that amount, everywhere.

</comment><comment><USER83> I'm curious why another study is needed. Is it because the results of past studies didn't make a strong case for the UBI?

</comment><comment><USER84> 5 years is an eternity in today's age, progression-wise. Hopefully results will be published as the trial progresses.

</comment><comment><USER85> So the first steps to a basic income are capital controls and a VAT, right?

I wonder how long it will be until USA is ready for that stuff.

<comment><USER86> Don't most states in the US already have sales tax (which is effectively VAT by another name)?

</comment></comment><comment><USER87> UBI is great, now everyone will be able to pay for healthcare!

</comment><comment><USER88> Where are the results of the feasibility study in Oakland?

</comment><comment><USER89> Congrats to the ycr team on the progress and accomplishments to date.

I must say after reading through to the full proposal, I was a little disappointed it doesn't include much that stood out as different or "disruptive" or "new" as I would have hoped given that it has grown out of YC. YCR has definitely done some cool things and is moving very quickly and again congrats on the successes so far.

Maybe other things are going on behind the scenes that were not included in the proposal and are not on the website? I couldn't help but get the impression while reading the proposal that this sounds like a proposal that any ol' well-funded private foundation could have come up with, and unfortunately I fear the study will run into the same problems those other private foundation type studies run into while in progress and once completed. What a waste and shame if that happens.

I fully understand there are limitations to these studies, and rules to play by, and there are many working components as these studies grow bigger in scale and touch more people and must interact more with the government and press then research teams kind of need to become more risk averse and CYA a lot more. But couldn't there be a secondary smaller research studies going that actually try new and interesting UBI research and try to answer some of the harder questions UBI faces as well as look harder at some of the multi- sigma rare events (pros and cons) of UBI that could happen.

Also I want to commend YCR for what looks to be a legit "people first" research approach. I wish more policy type researchers follow your lead and think about how people might be affected or not affected as a result of policy instead of just making assumptions based on big macro numbers changing and then trying to change those numbers.

Again no offense, but this study feels like similar studies: Get some smart brand name Phd's, spend a lot of money and spend a lot of time to get data needed to calculate some "results" numbers to support a policy idea or two. Great, these "results" will end up in some random think tank type policy articles and papers that government representatives have thrown their way every day by various lobbying and advocacy groups. These results will probably make a few good buzzworthy headlines on various news and "pseudo" news sites from NYtimes down to buzzfeed. Great.

Headline: "A new large UBI study just showed xyz positives happen under UBI but there's a couple exceptions...".

This is a lot of money and time to run a study you know no matter how successful it is what UBI naysayers will still have tons of ammunition to complain why policy shouldn't be changed yet or at least not dramatically. What then? Another 5 year study?

Cool story bro. Good studies that lead to good policies do 2 things: 1. They show evidence of doing the good thing they are suppose to do. 2. They shutdown most or all of the things the other side is using to prevent the policy from passing. This study is not doing enough of either, especially #2.

Are you guys studying things like: The psychology of people once UBI is more common and less stigmatized not just the psychology of getting unconditional money? How to pay for it? Seriously here. What will the uptake rate be? Will the first years pull down tax payers into UBI before re-adjusting and they return to work. What are you really shooting for here? 20% 33% 50% feeding back into the payer loop? What tactics might groups or business use to reverse or combat the psychology on UBI, what will be used to take advantage of people who suddenly have money and no restrictions on it? Hello more MLM schemes? Look at Norway news this week and their SWF, don't make that mistake.

I realize you have aggregation problems and methodological individualism stuff and what not. But start a moonshots division in YCR please. Good luck.

</comment><comment><USER90> Research like this is dangerous.

> We tentatively plan to randomly select 3,000 individuals across two US > states to participate in the study: 1,000 will receive $1,000 per month for > up to 5 years, and 2,000 will receive $50 per month and serve as a control > group for comparison.

Is this a joke? This may as well read: "We'd like to research the effects of Universal Basic Income. We tentatively plan to select 300 individuals from opposite sides of a freeway: 100 will receive a free roast beef sandwich, and 200 will receive a pack of airline peanuts and serve as a control group for comparison."

UBI costs 1- to 2-million dollars PER HEAD to simulate. You can't cut corners on this and still expect to get relevant data. Not only are you not getting the data you want on how UBI would affect human behavior on the scale of a lifetime, you're also totally ignoring the greater sociological impact and resulting economic impact.

The 5-year span is too short to impact human behavior, the 1000-person headcount is too small to observe any greater sociological or economic impact, and the source of the funding (willing voluntary participants interested in UBI) means we're getting zero data on how the public would feel about being forced to fund this.

This research addresses literally none of the strongest arguments against UBI.

Maybe this is cynical, but I think they might already know all of this. They're just doing it anyway because they know a horn offering 5 years of free money will get their blog a lot of attention, and they know the results of this "research" will be biased toward the pro-UBI result they already want.

I guess we can all look forward to decades of liberal arts majors citing the outcome of this research as if it means anything. It's really unfortunate too, because these are the issues that really matter.

People spend all their energy arguing about race and sex and abortion and gay marriage and cops and who gets to use which bathroom, but nothing impacts human prosperity (and suffering and death and peace and war) the way macroeconomics can. That's when policy gets real and impacts people on a scale with a lot of zeroes on the end, and when enough people are misinformed about something like this, it has the potential to take humanity down a very dark path.</comment>


The NDA for Friends - <AUTHOR> http://thenextweb.com/2009/07/01/friendda-nda-friends-douche/

<comment><USER2> "a web obsessed person who follows everything that's happening on 'the next web'"

... and he finds friendDA 9 months later?

</comment><comment><USER3> If a close friend of mine, in all seriousness presents me this form in the casual manner the author suggests, I wouldn't be able to help but think that he's the one being the "douche" by ridiculing the trust in our friendship with this poorly fabricated "agreement".

<comment><USER2> If someone handed you a friendDA to sign they are indeed being a 'douche'. The site and form exist only to explain the concept.

The ideal usage is no more than saying "friendDA?" to signify a shift in tone and clarify implicit assumptions of the conversation. It's easier to say than "this next idea means more to me than the usual shit we talk about, can we keep it between us?"

It might be worth looking at Rands original post. [http://www.randsinrepose.com/archives/2008/10/19/friendda.ht...](http://www.randsinrepose.com/archives/2008/10/19/friendda.html)

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> 1\. The _idea_ isn't really worth that much.

2\. Would your friends be douches unless they signed an agreement not to be?

<comment><USER2> The friendDA isn't meant to protect ideas. It's meant to protect friendships.

(by framing a conversation to prevent honest misunderstandings that nevertheless cause feelings betrayal and violation of trust).</comment></comment>


A Writer Who Questions the Wisdom of Teaching With Technology - <AUTHOR> http://chronicle.com/article/Is-Technology-Making-Your/66128/

<comment><USER2> Don't waste your time with this. He's constantly saying studies agree with him but when pushed for an actual study this is the one he comes up with...

There's a study called "The Laptop and the Lecture" that divided a class into two sets. One-half of the students could use their laptops in a classroom while listening to a lecture. They were free to surf the Web. And the other half had to keep their laptops closed. And then there was a test of comprehension. And the students who used their laptops scored significantly lower on the comprehension test for how well they could remember the content of the lecture.

That has nothing to do with technology and everything to do with distraction. Place kids near a window they can look out of and you'll probably get roughly the same results.

In short this is nothing more than Nicholas Carr trying to get people to pay attention to him

</comment><comment><USER3> The Flickering Mind is a great book to read on this subject. [http://www.amazon.com/Flickering-Mind-Technology- Classroom-L...](http://www.amazon.com/Flickering-Mind-Technology-Classroom- Learning/dp/1400060443/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1280441216&sr=8-1)

Oppenheimer does a great job of citing actual studies. And it turns out despite thousands of different efforts, there's little evidence to say computer technology makes a bit positive impact on education.

This isn't to say it's completely useless or that it doesn't provide overwhelming value in other industries. But I think our problems in education need to be solved in different ways. Key among them is challenging the philosophy of John Dewey.</comment>


Lua Bash: Run Lua as a Bash loadable - <AUTHOR> http://freshmeat.net/projects/luabash/ <comment><USER2> I like seeing more and more software extensible by Lua, which is a very decent language. My very favorite is LuaTeX (luatex.org), where you can access all ugly TeX internals from Lua and even create a complete typesetting system without using the rather complicated TeX language, which is based on macro expansion. I am not so sure if I'd use Lua Bash, for bash has always been "good enough" for me.

<comment><AUTHOR> Oh, hi Patrick.

The reason Rene Rebe wrote luabash initially was to speed up certain shell scripts without drastic rewriting of existing code, efficiency being the main justification for dynamic loadables (which came from ksh) in the first place.

The code here is simple, and I enjoyed reading it: it lit a few lights for me about how to use Bash loadables.

</comment></comment><comment><USER3> What's really cool is, that on a system with a c-compiler and swig it is now possible (and trivial) to inline some C-code in a lua script, generate a swig wrapper from lua, compile it from lua, load it as a module into the lua interpreter and then export the defined functions automatically to bash!!

<comment><USER4> Forget swig. Have you seen luajit new ffi library? If you think Lua's C interface is simple, you're gonna be blown out of your mind with luajit's:

local ffi = require("ffi")

ffi.cdef[[

int printf(const char *fmt, ...);

]]

ffi.C.printf("Hello %s!", "world")

<comment><USER3> Ow, this is cool. Here's the mouth watering announcement:

<http://article.gmane.org/gmane.comp.lang.lua.general/74072></comment></comment></comment>


BuyYourFriendADrink.com - (NYC area only currently) - <AUTHOR> http://webware.com/8301-1_109-9711121-2.html?tag=blog <comment><USER2> Ahh. So the goal of the site is to turn a three-martini lunch with friends or clients into an evening of drinking alone. Excellent.

But in all seriousness, it does seem like a solution in search of a problem. Kind of cool though as a unique gift, but once it loses its uniqueness then it's done.</comment>


Ask: what the hell is service-oriented architecture? - <AUTHOR>

Here is the back cover blurb for a book on "service-oriented modeling" and service-oriented architecture.
Service-oriented architecture (SOA) is the hottest topic in the IT arena. Providing a comprehensive plan to interrelate business with technology, SOA combines the talents and skills of an entire organization, with its requisite needs and computing know-how. Presenting the necessary tools—processes, best practices, and standards—for developing a sound SOA, Service-Oriented Modeling: Service Analysis, Design, and Architecture introduces a service-oriented modeling framework that employs an agile and universal business and technology language to facilitate analysis, design, and architecture initiatives.
I have no clue what that means. I wonder: precisely what is that in terms of actual programs, bits, and bytes? Is it simple, flexible web services? Exposing programs as web services? Web services as a loose coupling technique of disparate systems? Throw me a bone here. <comment><USER2> Here's an excerpt from a discussion on ACM Queue[1] between Jim Gray and Werner Vogels on this:

 _We went through a period of serious introspection and concluded that a service-oriented architecture would give us the level of isolation that would allow us to build many software components rapidly and independently. By the way, this was way before service-oriented was a buzzword. For us service orientation means encapsulating the data with the business logic that operates on the data, with the only access through a published service interface. No direct database access is allowed from outside the service, and there's no data sharing among the services._

[1] - [http://www.acmqueue.com/modules.php?name=Content&pa=show...](http://www.acmqueue.com/modules.php?name=Content&pa=showpage&pid=388)

</comment><comment><USER3> Another BUZZWORD created by BIGBULLS like IBM, Oracle, MIcrosoft etc. to scare away the customers and make more money. Thats how they have been minting money all these years... Technically SOA is not a rocket science, primarily uses webservices but these companies have wrapped it around too much of BULLSHIT to make things looks scarry so that customers would run towards them to adopt SOA. Instead of trying to keep things simpler..they are making it more complicated each day since i started follwing SOA 3 years back</comment>


Lua 5.2.0 (work1) now available - <AUTHOR> http://lua-users.org/lists/lua-l/2010-01/msg00260.html

<comment><USER2> There's some information in the readme.html file included with the distribution, and a bit more in the manual.

Work versions are aimed at the active lua community as a way to get feedback on features before they are finalized.

Very quick summary:

new syntax for lexical 'sandbox' environments

hex escapes in strings

tables and strings support _len metamethod

__pairs and __ipairs metamethod for iterator support

improvements to GC, week tables, xpcall

<comment><USER3> One of the Lua authors has recently posted a more thorough summary:

<http://article.gmane.org/gmane.comp.lang.lua.general/61505>

The in keyword has been very controversial as with it comes the deprecation of setfenv and getfenv, which are very useful for sandboxing and other tricks. The inclusion of a standard bit operations library is also a big deal, though Mike Pall (author of LuaJIT and LuaBitOp) has raised some objections.

<comment><AUTHOR> Indeed. About a week ago, I wrote an extension to load modules in a proxy for hot code loading. It's pretty closely tied to get/setfenv. It's still too new to share, but I'm going to see if I can get it working with 5.2. Requiring the debug library (for debug.[sg]etfenv) will be a dealbreaker for some people.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> Is there a good overview anywhere summarizing the changes/improvements since Lua 5.1?

<comment><USER5> Yes, Roberto Ierusalimschy posted a more complete list of changes to the email list:

<http://article.gmane.org/gmane.comp.lang.lua.general/61505></comment></comment>


Was Y Combinator Worth It? - <AUTHOR> http://techcrunch.com/2014/02/15/was-y-combinator-worth-it/ <comment><USER2> I think you are mixing up a correlation vs causation effect.

The first thing is there is an extremely important causation effect, the more investors you have, the easier it is to get more people to invest (social proof).

So, inbound vs outbound:

If you have a lot more investors already committed, you have a lot more social proof. Naturally if you have more investors, you will have a lot investors talking about your deal to other investors. Thus, the people who contact you inbound want to invest. However, it has nothing to do with the fact that they are inbound, it is just that by the time they are contacting you, your fundraising already was dripping with social proof.

Conversely, at the beginning when you have no investors, you likely are going to have to contact some of them. This is obviously going to have a much lower conversion rate, because you have no social proof!

Taken to the logical extreme, if inbound investors are so much more valuable than outbound, when you start fundraising you should just sit next to your telephone and wait for investors to call you. But of course that won't work, because it isn't inbound investors that actually matter. It is all about building social proof, and then once you have that, a lot of good things are going to happen. For example, YC is very powerful indication of social proof, and look how much easier fundraising became!

Basically, people who read this TC article: if you are interested in fundraising, PG wrote the canonical piece about it, [http://paulgraham.com/fr.html](http://paulgraham.com/fr.html)

This post is fun, and I congratulate you on raising your round, but this data isn't predictive or useful.

<comment><USER3> _This post is fun, and I congratulate you on raising your round, but this data isn 't predictive or useful._

Yeah, "get inbound investor attention" is the worst advice ever; by definition, it's impossible. Trying to make people like you tends to have the opposite effect. It's like telling an awkward 17-year-old that he'll solve all his problems with women if he gets laid by a supermodel.

The fatalism is important. I'm glad that someone on the inside has the courage to point it out. The extremely low rate of success for outbound traffic, especially pre-YC, confirms the fatalistic view of the Valley that is, IMO, the right one. If you're born into connections, you're solid. If you have enough before-age-of-carefulness dirt on important people while at Stanford and got in The Club, you'll never have to raise money; you'll be in the position to turn it away. If you're anyone else, though, the best advice regarding SillyCon Valley is just to sit this lifetime out, because the factors that matter most are those you can't do anything about.

<comment><USER4> Y'know what's universally unattractive to both investors and women? Fatalism.

People want to see how well you play the cards that you're dealt. If you can make something happen starting from nothing, then they figure that once they give you some cards to play with, you'll do even better from that. If you _can 't_ make something happen with limited resources, what makes you think that more resources will magically fix things?

This applies to a lot of other things as well - most of the time, when you start at a new job you have to start small, because people who control the resources want to see that you can work effectively on a small project before they give you a big mission-critical project. I've seen people get hired into Google at T4 (nowadays, virtually everybody is hired into T4 or below) and then work their way up to T9 because every time they're given a more ambitious challenge they master it in short order.

<comment><USER5> Can you translate T4 and T9 into something a non-Googler can understand? Maybe to what would be on that person's business card?

<comment><USER4> T4 = Software Engineer III, T9 = Distinguished Engineer. I'm not sure if other places have Distinguished Engineer titles, but it's basically the engineering ladder equivalent of a high-level eng Director or low-level VP, supposedly "People who have made critical contributions to Google or industry-changing software developments." Basically Jeff Dean level post-Bigtable.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> I always think that speculation about YC's fundraising value obscures the correct causal link. YC doesn't make fundraising easier, per se, it makes you build a more valuable company. That makes fundraising easier.

I get some variation of this question a lot. I assume that all recent YC alumni do. I always talk about (a) the intense focus that YC gives it's founders, (b) the positive pressure that the partners, the dinners, and the batch provides, and (c) the incredibly supportive guild of alumni.

YC helps founders build companies that are valuable. VCs and angels know that.

<comment><USER7> Totally true. I'd add though that there definitely is a level of initial respect you get as a YC company. It doesn't help close the deal, but it will generally keep you out of associate land.

</comment></comment><comment><USER8> > One last point on this, almost any VC will take a meeting with almost any > entrepreneur.

As someone who was trying desperately to raise money in 2008 (from the Midwest, no less), just wanted to note that this is false. I contacted several dozen VCs and literally zero were interested in hearing a pitch.

This was for a company that had thousands of users and won a $50k business plan competition, so it's not like we were a joke company on the "almost any entrepreneur" spectrum.

Sure, it was 2008, and sure, we were nowhere near Sand Hill Road, but I wouldn't want people getting the impression that it's trivial for non-YC companies to get in the room with VCs anytime they please. It's not.

<comment><USER9> You can't directly contact VCs unless they already know you, you need an introduction from someone on their radar. Notice the company in the article refers to meetings via introductions as "outbound."

VC's will at least meet with most companies if they play their game. Think of the introduction game as a captcha on the company level.

<comment><USER10> +1 to that. If you want intros to VCs then identify target companies, then mine LinkedIn to find out who you know who knows people there. If you're not just starting out in your career, you're likely to find a bunch of avenues. And they'll probably lead to meetings. This would have been harder in 2008, of course, so I understand that it wouldn't have worked for the GP. But for people starting now it should work.

OTOH as the OP says, the chances of getting funded by anyone you meet that way are vanishingly small. But if you do truly impress anyone, they are quite likely to introduce you to other people. And those people can wind up being either investors or introducers to investors. Think of the LinkedIn mining as a way of bootstrapping your VC network.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> _In total we took 121 calls /meetings with potential investors, and received a check from 43 of them._

To me this is the most important sentence in the article. Just under 2/3 of their meetings, 65% resulted in no deal. That is 78 well placed, well funded, fully informed NO's. In the end though none of those Nos matter.

I think people overlook that aspect and just see the yes'. Congrats to EasyPost for all their success.

 _edit_ Since my point appears to be unclear to some: "Don't be discouraged by rejection"

<comment><USER3> _To me this is the most important sentence in the article. Just under 2 /3 of their meetings, 65% resulted in no deal. That is 78 well placed, well funded, fully informed NO's. In the end though none of those Nos matter._

You realize that most people in the VC-funded world would suck Hitler's cock to have a 35% "Yes" rate, right? That's two orders of magnitude better than what non-connected plebes like most of us face.

If I recall correctly, the average acceptance rate is well under 1%.

<comment><USER12> This is an interesting discussion, but as a side note, I have to say that is the one of the less likely Godwinnings I've seen in some time.

<comment><USER13> It's not a Godwinning per se; Hitler just had a notoriously bad-tasting cock.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER14> Let's simplify this even more - risk.

Getting into YC reduces perceived investor risk. Full stop. It doesn't reduce the actual risk that the investment won't fail, but it's much easier on our brains to say "Well these guys are a YC company and YC companies tend to do well. If they don't do well, there is at least a support network of partners/alumni to ease the pain".

There is nothing worse for an investor to speak to someone they don't know, or don't have any connection to.

There are two simple ways to increase your chances of funding: (1) get so much traction without funding that any investor would be dumb to pass you up or (2) be massively connected. Both aren't easy but they are by far the strongest signals right now to investors.

So is any incubator "worth it"? For many early stage startups, the answer is categorically - "yes". If you break down the cost-to-benefit ratio, the cost of doing an incubator is usually very low, while the benefit can be and normally is very high.

Last note - people often neglect the notion of high profile investor's ability to "cast a wider net". This is one of the huge benefits to YC. Getting a good investor on board isn't _always_ just about capital. They can prove to be a huge part of your marketing plan.

</comment><comment><USER15> The really interesting thing here is how essentially worthless "please introduce me to your investor; I'd like to talk to them" is.

It pretty much argues for having an inbound-only strategy, and some low-stress easy way to filter those (e.g. "I'll pick up the phone for {pg, pmarca, cdixon, fredwilson, ...}, "this set of people go to weekly-batch email response time", "these people are sent to /dev/null"). A decent profile on a place like AngelList, but not much else.

</comment><comment><USER16> " Why? Because that's their job, to meet with entrepreneurs. It also means that if they schedule it on, say a Friday in SF at 11am, they can: a) avoid driving down to Sand Hill altogether, and b) arrive in Tahoe in time for a few evening runs. Be wary in thinking it's anything more than that."

Thanks for the gratuitous kick in the nuts.

Did you consider that maybe the fact your meetings with VCs didn't result in good outcomes might be a signal of something else?

Having done both, running a company is definitely more work at the peak, but being a great VC is a ton of work, too.

You've got a lot to learn about VCs if you think we meet with you so we can go night skiing. Or that any VC goes night skiing.

<edit for tone at expense of humor >

</comment><comment><USER17> Interesting look into your fundraising process Jarrett.

It's impossible to distinguish the impact that YC had on your second go around at fundraising versus the impressive progress that EasyPost had made as a company.

YC definitely helps with fundraising--it's a strong signal of social proof and it can generate a sense of urgency in investors--but growth metrics and traction are usually the most important things.

</comment><comment><USER18> The result is not totally surprising but it's nice to see some numbers to quantify it. The only negative thing I see is the fact that the only comments so far are complaining about identifying investors.

</comment><comment><USER19> Hundreds of calls and meetings. When does one work on the product? I'm a bit disillusioned by the apparent focus on funding over product in the valley. I hope it is a misconception of mine.

<comment><USER20> Ideally, there's no "one" working on the product. This is the value of a non- technical cofounder - their job is to adeptly handle the logistics that guys like us find burdensome, minimizing distraction.

Whether (disproportional) funding focus is a problem in the valley depends on who you're talking to. There are a lot of people who view startups as a path to riches - for whom a good product is only means to an end - a good payday. There are others for whom good product is a passion, and money is mostly irrelevant.

The occam's razor explanation: stories about cash mountains have much wider appeal than those about niche product development - so more of those stories get written.

</comment></comment><comment><USER3> I'm not a fan of Paul Graham, but is Y Combinator worth it? Absolutely. It'd be worth it to give up _30_ percent of your business to get into The Club, much less then 6-10% YC reportedly takes.

Y Combinator is a brilliant idea. Paul Graham was something that would be a rarity now, and probably always has been-- a smart, good, straight-shooter who made it big. That made him a really attractive personality, especially to the young, and the fact that he's a good writer didn't hurt either.

YC enabled him to turn that reputation into gold: because the benefit of a startup being YC-approved turned out to be so vast, he can get an early percentage at a low valuation. To be clear about it, his startups benefit as much as he does. He's not screwing them over in any way.

This is probably why I have to deal with the rankban/slowban treatment. I'm a thread. I'm a smart, good guy, and not a bad writer either, who did the startup thing (twice) and found it utterly worthless. (I'm PG's Antichrist.) There are hundreds like me, in fact, but most people who fail at something slink away in shame, like it was their fault even if the game was totally rigged. Not me. I have to go back and warn the others, no matter how much I am to be punished for the service.

Is Y Combinator worth it? Hell yeah. I'd argue, at this point, that it's _not_ worth it to take on the Valley if you're not backed by YC. The pipeline has been established, the game is over, the land has been mapped and the good gold mines are known. Whatever is the mid-21st-century's engine of innovation, it will be far the fuck away from SillyCon Valley. In the mean time, VC-funded startups are the new I-banking and if you can get the acceleration that comes from the YC stamp of approval, you should absolutely do it. That's not how I would like the world to be; but that's how it is.

It's a shame, though, that this subsociety (Silicon Valley) that claims to be advanced and futuristic is still, in truth, a feudalistic reputation economy in which who you know matters a hundred times more than what you know. ("What you know" only matters in terms of the savoir-faire needed to acquire backers.) It's not about technical excellence any more and hasn't been for some time.

<comment><USER21> > I'm not a fan of Paul Graham

Not to dogpile you for daring to insult the Dear Leader, but can you elaborate on this? You go on to say,

> Paul Graham was something that would be a rarity now, and probably always > has been-- a smart, good, straight-shooter who made it big.

Looking at some of the other stuff you have to say, it looks like your problem with him is that he portrays Silicon Valley like the American Dream of yesterday - "Anyone can make it big here if they're smart and hardworking enough" when it's not necessarily true. You have your own experiences to back this up, and I guess you feel kind of cheated.

I'm a complete outsider, (Military currently, although I'll probably be working for Intel in a few months) so this side of things interests me. The contrast of PG saying, "Lots of people should try startups" and the fact that the vast majority of startups fail is kind of weird.

<comment><USER22> _The contrast of PG saying, "Lots of people should try startups" and the fact that the vast majority of startups fail is kind of weird._

They're not logically distinct, however, if (like PG) you think that you're better off trying for success via the YC model.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER23> Quote "To date we've raised $3 million from ..." (long list of names of VCs and individual investors.)

Bad idea to list these names. Some of the listed parties are individuals, small investors, who will surely want their status as speculative investors to be kept confidential.

<comment><USER24> I left off the ones that wouldn't appreciate it

<comment><USER23> How did you decide which people wouldn't mind -- did you ask each one? Also, perhaps more to the point, what value does it add to the article?

<comment><USER25> being able to list someone as an investor should be part of your investment agreement. I've only dealt with large firms, not individuals, but it is in all my agreements whether I may use their names.</comment></comment></comment></comment>