Universal basic income seems to improve employment and well-being - <AUTHOR> https://www.newscientist.com/article/2242937-universal-basic-income-seems-to-improve-employment-and-well-being/#Echobox=1598028651 <comment><USER4> The thing I don't really see accounted for in these experiments is that UBI is not really "universal". It's a group, or a town who or are not isolated from the outside economy, and the participants are usually aware/suspect that this bonus income probably won't last forever, so they know they need to keep working to maintain their careers etc.

I'm not sure there's any way to account for it unfortunately, it is such a compelling idea though I think we kind of all want it to be real.

<comment><USER5> Your first paragraph is exactly how I would word a defense of a UBI trial that had a bad outcome. Let's talk about the good things that happened and were measured instead of speculating about the hypothetical bad things that are out of scope for this trial. A successful small trial will lead to larger future trials that might answer your question in a more satisfying way.

<comment><USER6> It's not a UBI study if it only studies whether people like getting money they don't have to do anything for.

I'm repeating it every time: these kinds of studies are the same as measuring the output of "free energy machines" that supposedly work by breaking physics... while ignoring that they are plugged into a wall-socket. To prove that they work, you'd have to unplug them, otherwise you don't need the sophisticated machine and the fancy theory, an extension cord will do the same much cheaper and more efficiently.

<comment><USER7> Any test that doesn't involve full nationwide UBI is subject to the same criticism, and I predict that even a large-scale three-year-long test that involved every western state will still be dismissed as unworkable for the same reasons: no barrier between eastern and western states, and everyone knew the test would end in three years.

<comment><USER6> > Any test that doesn't involve full nationwide UBI is subject to the same > criticism

No, not really, unless the money for the experiment comes from outside the region. The problem is that the argument _for_ UBI is either that "it'll pay for itself" or "it doesn't cost more than today's system". So we'll need a test that actually tests that.

Maybe it doesn't work and we'll see "okay, it'll be 10% more expensive than today's systems". That can be achieved by raising taxes, and the result of doing that can be seen in the experiment as well: do people leave the region because they don't want to pay an extra 10%, or do they find UBI's benefits to society at large to be so large that they don't mind?

Maybe we'll see that UBI does what the proponents promise: free human innovation and productivity and easily more than pay for itself. Once that result is proven, you'll have no issue to convince anyone.

Not trying to test that at all and then saying "well, even if we would, nobody would accept that" isn't the right approach in my opinion. And it feels like there's something left unsaid: that the proponents also don't believe that it would work and _therefore_ don't want to actually test it, because they're convinced the test will prove that it doesn't work. And as long as it's not tested, they can claim that it totally would work (in theory) without having to prove it.

<comment><USER7> So how do you propose a better test? It seems like you slid easily past that point. To determine whether or not it requires 10% higher taxes, as you suggest, we would have to conduct a test large enough to have an appreciable impact on tax allocation, which seems like it would need to be a _really_ wide test, like state-wide, that lasts for a at least a few years, no?

I guess that's what I'm not seeing: any tests done so far are too small and not long enough and are known ahead of time to be a test. Okay, fine, let's conduct a test that's larger and long-term, with an eye toward permanence. How large, though?How do we avoid the criticism seen on this very page that limiting the number of people involved distorts things? How do we avoid the converse, which is that unless you're Alaska, letting it be known that everyone in a certain area gets free money means an artificial boom in that area?

<comment><USER6> I don't think it's fair to ask those that are skeptical of a claim to provide a test that proves it doesn't work, the duty to prove is on those making the claim.

But still: yes, you'll need a larger unit. It won't necessarily have to be a state, though that depends on the country and the tax-setup within. It would have to be something that can set their own taxes. A village would likely be too small, but a medium sized city of 20-50k should certainly see the benefits if they exist. And it wouldn't need to be limited to a few years: convince the inhabitants and you can democratically vote it in, it'll run in perpetuity, or until the money's gone in the case that it doesn't work.

> How do we avoid the criticism seen on this very page that limiting the > number of people involved distorts things?

That's not really what's criticized. The issue lots of people have with these tests is that they're _only_ testing the distribution of money, but not the funding. You don't need to have millions of people. I'm pretty sure if you can get 10000 people that are broadly representative of the population at large and get them to fund their own UBI, collectively, and play it out, that'll be a good test in most people's eyes. I'll certainly pay attention, because it'll actually test UBI, not just "if we take money from the national taxes and give it to 500 people, what will happen?"

> How do we avoid the converse, which is that unless you're Alaska, letting it > be known that everyone in a certain area gets free money means an artificial > boom in that area?

An artificial boom would still be a boom. Would people invest in an area if they knew that they'd have to pay high taxes? If so: great, let them do it, that's not so bad. The problem arises when the number of people asking for UBI grows faster than those investing & funding the UBI. But that's exactly what has to be tested, because it's pretty obvious that the same would happen on a state or national level - unless we're talking about closed borders, which sounds anachronistic.

<comment><USER7> Thanks for the detailed reply!

> It would have to be something that can set their own taxes

In the US, at least, income taxes are levied at the state or federal level, not anything more local than that. Even sales taxes are generally limited by the state, if not set outright. I haven't lived in every state, so it's possible that there are exceptions somewhere, but generally I think such a test would have to come from elsewhere.

TL;DR: the smallest unit in the US that can set their own taxes _is_ a state, making any test smaller than a state somewhat unhelpful.

> I'm pretty sure if you can get 10000 people that are broadly representative > of the population at large and get them to fund their own UBI, collectively, > and play it out, that'll be a good test in most people's eyes.

Ah, this strikes at the game theory heart of it! And yet still seems to be unworkable in the US. A representative cross-section would need to include both rich and poor, as the nation as a whole does. Either all are asked to pay additional taxes over and above their normal taxes, or the state in which they reside is asked to do with less tax income than normal, as some or all the taxes of those 10k would instead be redirected to the UBI trial. Both seem like a tough sell, either to the richest of the cross-section or to the state itself.

> unless we're talking about closed borders, which sounds anachronistic

Speaking of the US, while we're very poorly suited to doing a small-scale test, we're actually reasonably well suited for having _somewhat_ closed borders, on account of being separated from most countries by big oceans. Movement _within_ the US is trivial, while movement into or out of the US is very difficult. Presumably UBI would have _some_ measure of buy-in that would exclude people who cross the border without documentation, at least initially.

It's even possible that we would end up with a situation like we have now, in which people working without real documentation pay taxes into social security, while never having the ability to draw on social security later in life.

Given the difficulty of finding a cross-section of volunteers and a willing state government, I wonder about alternatives. I think a case could be made that funding a UBI trial from normal revenue could still be instructive _IF_ people participating in such a trial were opted out of all other benefits. That is, let's test the claim that UBI would be cost-effective in part because it would replace existing programs. Pick a cross-section of people, track how much is sent to them and how much is received from them, and make it closed system by denying them access to other support programs. We should be able to track what difference that makes for revenue and expenses, no?

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> Wouldn't nationwide UBI just make everything more expensive? Most people who work will continue to work, most people who don't, won't. More money in circulation = higher prices.

If you care about poor people, why not just try to fix welfare with e.g. Negative Income Tax proposed by Milton Friedman ([https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Negative_income_tax](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Negative_income_tax))?

<comment><USER9> Do prices rise when consumers have more money to spend? Is consumer inflation tied to employment rates? Does inflation slow when poverty grows?

Intuitively it kind of makes sense that everything would get more expensive but if you consider millionaires spending on stocks, the stocks don't rise in price when the millionaires get more money, they are kind of independent. I think the same for poor people. Prices shouldn't rise because more people can afford to buy something but it makes sense that some would rise prices as more people will be able to afford the product. I guess the market and competitors is meant to keep prices down.

<comment><USER10> This feels very much like a false dichotomy. Many millionaires, I assume we mean the extremely wealthy, have the majority of their wealth tied to the extreme growth of stocks based on some extreme economic forces. E.g. bezos with Amazon, Bill gates with Microsoft etc. And so some how comparing that to standard consumerism seems a little off.

<comment><USER9> Yeah the millionaire thing feels off to me, but the idea behind it.... Do prices for consumer goods rise when there are more consumers?

Do things rise in price when the people who usually buy the things have more money?

Are things more expensive in more populated areas or less?

<comment><USER11> Come on, that is basic supply and demand. The only confusing part is that inflation is often considered to be it's own independent thing and it can be controlled exclusively through e.g. the central bank when that's really not the case.

Consumer inflation = price of consumer good increases

Consumer deflation = price of consumer good decreases

demand exceeds supply = price of consumer good increases

supply exceeds demand = price of consumer good decreases

Now use these four basic definitions to answer your comment.

>Do prices for consumer goods rise when there are more consumers?

more consumers = more demand

UBI = less people work = supply stays the same or goes down

In this scenario "demand exceeds supply" is true. Prices do rise and that rise is called inflation.

>Do things rise in price when the people who usually buy the things have more money?

Again. UBI = less people work = supply stays the same or goes down

more money = more demand

People may buy more than one product if they can afford it or they may buy a higher quality one.

In this scenario "demand exceeds supply" is true again. Prices do rise and that rise is called inflation.

If you were to introduce price controls and set a maximum price for TVs then it is possible that one person buys 3 TVs and two other people can't get a TV at all. The answer is to raise the prices until everyone who wants a TV can get one.

>Are things more expensive in more populated areas or less?

Well, it depends on what "things" you are talking about.

A UBI does not influence the amount of land available so the supply of land would be fixed but the amount of money being received through UBI grows with a greater number of people.

supply = stays the same

demand = increases as more people live in a community

Therefore we see inflation in land prices.

If you were talking about something like an iPhone that can be manufactured in China and then shipped to New York then no, it would not cause inflation because denser populations do not prevent the Chinese (or any other company that's operating outside your city) from building bigger factories and thereby increasing supply to match demand.

supply = increases with demand

demand = increases as more people live in a community

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> 1) I think UBI would probably be a very good thing.

2) I can't help but laugh at how comical these tests are at measuring the impacts of a UBI policy. 2yr temporary welfare payments of 6,720 Euro a year to a tiny, biased subset of the populace is NOT going to give us an idea of the impacts of a UBI policy. Please, someone, at least agree to the payments in perpetuity.

</comment><comment> 0-_-0 When UBI comes up lot of people on HN ferociously debate the merits of UBI vs. negative income tax, but they are _mathematically equivalent_.

For example, a UBI of $1000 and 25% tax is the same as a (possibly negative) income tax of 25% above $4000. That's because:

        (1-0.25)*x+1000 = x+0.25*(4000-x)

You can convert from one to the other.

<comment><USER13> They are equivalent under certain assumptions, but there are still differences (assuming negative income tax would operationally work in the same manner as current tax systems), e.g.:

1) UBI is targeted to citizens, while income tax affect tax residents, these may be different groups of people.

2) tax refund is paid once a year, which would be problematic for people with bad money management abilities.

<comment><USER11> 2) Taxes are already being deducted from your paycheck every month. Negative taxes would instead increase your monthly paycheck.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER14> I don't understand. What under UBI is preventing me from quitting my job and spending the rest of my life playing videogames? I know it's unpopular opinion on HN, but most people don't really learn and explore in their free time, and they don't have high requirements from life. A place to stay, food and electricity is all they need for the most part.

<comment><USER15> ^^This

This is the only argument I present to people that talk to me about UBI in a positive way, ie they want UBI.

If people are given enough money to live on for free I would wager there is zero incentive for them to be productive within society. Zero.

Change my mind!

<comment><USER16> UBI isn't enough money to live on for free. It's about half that.

12k is enough money to live but your standard of living is worse enough to be visibly felt.

If you look at [https://www.gapminder.org/dollar- street/](https://www.gapminder.org/dollar-street/), 12k / yr generally the level where most essentials are visible around the world. But you're likely not going to have:

1) A car

2) A house

3) Feed a family

4) Savings

5) An expensive hobby

You'd need about another 5-10k on the UBI check to really make this argument for UBI... which you get through working.

<comment><USER17> First, you don't need savings if you have UBI forever.

Second, you ignore the basics of economics of demand and supply: if a large enough proportion of the population lies on UBI you will even find cars cheap enough for them, either second hand or purpose built. True story, Renault is a car manufacturer that sells their cars for prices very similar to everyone else, but they built for some years a model that was selling for 5000 Euro (about $6000 at that time) new, with a modern and solid engine and all the safety features mandated by law in Europe. That car was also sold in France for a lot more (8000 euro or more) just because people in France afforded to pay more. Now Renault is still selling 7000 Euro cars (Dacia Sandero) that are really good for the money, while selling Renault branded cars for around 20,000 Euro and more.

<comment><USER16> Not sure if you're a student or never had an income, but savings are not just for retirement. Savings, as opposed to a retirement plan, are for major life decisions like buying a car, getting married, supporting a family, upgrading your standard of living, taking care of emergencies, and affording expensive opportunities (like moving or traveling, for instance).

Also, no, the basics of supply and demand will not make cheap cars a thing. It's not the cost of a car that you can't afford, it's the cost of maintenance. Fuel, maintenance, and insurance (mandatory in the US btw) are all costs to use the car - the average being around $100/mth.

[https://newsroom.aaa.com/tag/cost-to-own-a- vehicle/](https://newsroom.aaa.com/tag/cost-to-own-a-vehicle/) -> 1.1k

And also no, new cars will not become cheaper over time in the US. There's already 19% of the US families who make under 24k a year (we roughly double UBI to account for 2 adult UBI incomes and one car per household rule). That's 24 million households already out of the 130m households in the US. The market for used cars is actually quite big (17.6 million transactions / yr) which is probably why there isn't an $8200 new US car offering (which, btw, requires savings in order to purchase).

Back to my original point, if you have a budget of 1k/month, you could spend ~$400 on rent, $300 on food, $100 on your car, $100 on personal needs, and $100 on misc / emergencies in a small suburban town (like the outskirts of Pittsburgh) -> I've done this in college before. But realistically you would need an extra ~$600-1000 a month to pay for things like - internet, health insurance, furniture, clothes, laptop, phone, heating / ac bill, eating out every so often, a social life, hobbies, travel, etc. So yes, you'd still want double of your UBI income.

<comment><USER17> Not a student, but probably older than many people here. I am quite familiar with countries with very low income and the economics of it, the 19% you mentioned is too small to make an impact in pricing, wait until it goes to 60-80%. I read a study made by my employer in China on how people were living on $1/day in rural areas a few years ago, it all makes sense and it matches the examples from other countries. Just consider the car factory would be crewed by people earning $15-20k, same for suppliers of parts and you can see how a car can get cheaper. Also the cars for low income people are modestly equipped with non-essential features like displays, radio, air conditioning and people with $12k income will accept it this way.

The kind of people that live on UBI (with no other job) are not the kind of people that care about savings.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment> the-dude If there is anything boring about HN, it must be the UBI articles.

Reading the comments I see no new arguments. It feels like Groundhog Day.

</comment><comment><USER18> Isn't this experiment widely considered unsuccessful?

[https://www.helsinki.fi/en/news/nordic-welfare- news/heikki-h...](https://www.helsinki.fi/en/news/nordic-welfare-news/heikki- hiilamo-disappointing-results-from-the-finnish-basic-income-experiment)

[https://www.businessinsider.com/finland-basic-income- experim...](https://www.businessinsider.com/finland-basic-income-experiment- reasons-for-failure-2019-12)

[https://www.theguardian.com/world/2019/feb/08/finland- free-c...](https://www.theguardian.com/world/2019/feb/08/finland-free-cash- experiment-fails-to-boost-employment)

[https://www.jacobinmag.com/2019/12/basic-income-finland- expe...](https://www.jacobinmag.com/2019/12/basic-income-finland-experiment- kela)

[https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2019-02-08/finland-f...](https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2019-02-08/finland- finds-basic-income-failed-to-boost-employment)

[https://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/europe/finland- univ...](https://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/europe/finland-universal- basic-income-trial-unemployment-experiment-trial-a8769621.html)

</comment><comment><USER19> The total spent on all welfare programs is about 1T. If all adults got UBI, assume around 256 million people above 18

1) 256 million @ 12K each is 3T, the current budget is 4.7T, current revenue is 3.5T. Good luck raising taxes by almost double. It will _never_ happen. So UBI will need to be means tested. Ideally it would slowly phase out so there is no disincentive to work.

2) how do you handle UBI for large families? Does each child get UBI? If so I promise you people will have more children to get more UBI. If people dont get more UBI per child, people will have too many children, UBI wont be enough and children will go hungry. Which is why we give food instead of cash

3) How will you handle people selling their UBI income stream for a lump sum, blowing it all, then starving anyway?

4) 10% of the population is pretty much incompetent either in IQ or in emotional intelligence. That would be 30 million that simply wont be able to handle being given money.

<comment><USER13> > 1) 256 million @ 12K each is 3T, the current budget is 4.7T, current revenue > is 3.5T.

Always seems to be that 12K is too big for first iteration. 3T is about 15 % of US GDP. When i computed UBI for my home country (not US) with the same level as existing (means tested) minimum income social welfare benefit, i got that it would need 8 % of GDP.

> Good luck raising taxes by almost double

I also found that about 1/3 of necessary money could be get by removing basic per capita tax deduction. Which is technically tax increase, but it is neutral if one counts UBI as negative tax money.

Another more than 1/3 could be get from state pensions by relabeling part of pension income as UBI. Some small part could be get from removing the minimum income social welfare benefit (but not other social welfare). Altogether that would cover more than 80% of necessary money and one would only need additional taxing of 1-2% of GDP (compared to existing 35%).

3) How will you handle people selling their UBI income stream for a lump sum, blowing it all, then starving anyway?

Personal bankrupcy laws?

4) That would be 30 million that simply wont be able to handle being given money.

If they had not be able to handle UBI money, then they would not be albe to handle wage money or existing means tested welfare money as well.

</comment></comment><comment><USER20> > Between November 2017 and October 2018, people on basic income worked an > average of 78 days, which was six days more than those on unemployment > benefits.

That could be at least partially accounted for by previous under-reporting of working hours, when benefits are means-tested.

</comment><comment><USER16> In the preliminary survey, the average working days was 49 for both UBI and control group. In the final, the average was 78 for UBI and 72 for control group. What happened to make the numbers jump up so much for both? Data error?

</comment><comment><USER16> A much better article covering the same experiment here:

[https://www.kela.fi/web/en/news- archive/-/asset_publisher/lN...](https://www.kela.fi/web/en/news- archive/-/asset_publisher/lN08GY2nIrZo/content/results-of-the-basic-income- experiment-small-employment-effects-better-perceived-economic-security-and- mental- wellbeing#:~:text=In%20the%20basic%20income%20experiment,were%20actively%20looking%20for%20work.&text=The%20experiment%20was%20implemented%20by,Social%20Insurance%20Institution%20of%20Finland)).

</comment><comment><USER21> This article makes it seem like we did not know this already. There has been numerous experiments on UBI and pretty much everyone showed that it was working and in fact saving money. One of the biggest examples are the Mincome results [1] which showed significant reduction in hospitilization by 8.5% and only very minor reduction in working hours (mostly women using the money to have more time to care for their children) [1] [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mincome](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mincome)

<comment><USER22> _This article makes it seem like we did not know this already._

Having multiple repeated studies that replicate the same outcomes is a good thing.

<comment><USER23> Indeed. However I wish we could celebrate that replication a little more instead of selling everything as the hottest new finding since sliced bread.

<comment><USER24> To be fair, sliced bread replicated _really_ well.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER25> Interesting the way that this is reported.

"The findings suggest that basic income doesn't seem to provide a disincentive for people to work."

Meanwhile the BBC reported:

[https://www.bbc.com/news/world- europe-47169549](https://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-47169549)

"Giving jobless people in Finland a basic income for two years did not lead them to find work, researchers said."

Nothing actually different is said, but the way it is spun will likely lead the reader to different conclusions.

</comment><comment><USER26> In the end there will always be critics of UBI just as there were critics of combustion engine and now EVs. It's progress and not everyone gets along but UBI does circumvent some evolutionary barriers in modern society- the fact that even the most rich still hoard stuff is just natural instinct and you need some artificial mechanisms to work around that.

</comment><comment><USER27> Why is this never framed as a universal right for food, housing, medical care.

Feel like that has a much bigger chance of going somewhere

<comment><USER28> Because you cannot have something as a 'right', if it requires someone else to be compelled to provide goods and services for you. Because then your right to food means that someone else does not have the right to the fruits of their labour.

Rights are something that can be enjoyed by everyone simultaneously. For instance, your right to travel does not mean that someone else has to buy you a car or a plane ticket - all it requires from others is non-interference.

<comment><USER29> The Universal Declaration of Human Rights disagrees with you. It says

> Everyone has the right to a standard of living adequate for the health and > well-being of himself and of his family, including food, clothing, housing > and medical care and necessary social services, and the right to security in > the event of unemployment, sickness, disability, widowhood, old age or other > lack of livelihood in circumstances beyond his control.

In Article 25.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER28> How is it that people are both against generational wealth which is a sort of a UBI on a family level (£500k, which is not too far from median household wealth in the UK, means you could roughly draw £15'000/year in perpetuity), and for UBI on a national level?

<comment><USER30> Median household wealth is actually at £280k according to government resources, which would about half your 15k to 7.5k roughly. Also, this is not money, it's property value.

If you take a look at the wealth of the average population, two thirds are either pensions or property wealth. This is longterm money which I cannot draw on until retired (and most certainly won't affect my children) and property which I might depend on and therefore not be able to turn into money.

Also people are largely not against generational wealth, they're just demanding that rich people pay their fair share when inherting property wealth to their children. Taxing the top 10% correctly and without fraud would bring in enough cash to support the bottom 30% a lot more through public housing, health care and childcare support.

A UBI for contrast, is direct payment to my bank account that I can use however I like, it's not locked by its form of wealth. I CAN use that payment to save more of my own money to eventually get property wealth, but it gives the people at the bottom possibilities that they won't have without it. Also, poor people don't give a fuck about the median household wealth. Because they won't have any. The UBI however applies to all, poor and rich alike, supporting poor families a lot more than property wealth they don't have.

<comment><USER16> > If you take a look at the wealth of the average population, two thirds are > either pensions or property wealth. This is longterm money which I cannot > draw on until retired (and most certainly won't affect my children) and > property which I might depend on and therefore not be able to turn into > money.

Having to not pay rent is a form of income though.

> Also people are largely not against generational wealth, they're just > demanding that rich people pay their fair share when inheriting property > wealth to their children. Taxing the top 10% correctly and without fraud > would bring in enough cash to support the bottom 30% a lot more through > public housing, health care and childcare support.

Another way to say it is that the top 10% got there because they use their money to make more money. Countries need their money to make more money but not at the cost of society falling apart, so we probably need to reallocate the usage of that money to support a better society overall rather than to just make more money.

What would be interesting is to force rich people to invest in social efforts with their money. Instead of taxing them and taking away money from them (which is quite un-American), instead any monetary amount above X should have some percentage of it devoted to social funds or have to pay a penalty fee (which is effectively a tax) if they don't.

<comment><USER30> > What would be interesting is to force rich people to invest in social > efforts with their money.

Ever heard of tax deductible donations? Also, what makes you think that a private person is better at deciding where to put their money and has less inclination to donate this money to a social cause that has direct positive outcome for them (for example, investing in their already well-financed community and being the 'hero of the town', gaining also political power that way) instead of letting a state, capable of overseeing ALL of its people redistribute the taxed money to the poorest communities or those that need the help the most in some area?

Edit: And I didn't even touch on this point, because it's a whole other discussion but:

> Another way to say it is that the top 10% got there because they use their > money to make more money.

Wealthy people are increasing their wealth through financial tools without contributing anything to society. Also, except for a small number of family or solo entrepreneurs, they didn't get rich on their own. They had employees. Most of those people did not benefit like the business owner did, while they actually did the work. So is it really that unjustified to tax this money and redistribute it to the poor and the workers?

<comment><USER16> > Ever heard of tax deductible donations?

Tax deductible donations have the same intent but is a poor policy implementation for rich people who already pay so little in taxes. It doesn't accomplish the effect of redistribution of wealth because so little redistribution actually happens. We want our wealth to return social good, not extra wealth -> that's the point of the policy.

I should have been more explicit that I was proposing a wealth transfer alternative to UBI, which is to create privatized social funds that rich people are effectively forced to contribute money to or lose their wealth significantly over time.

> Also, what makes you think that a private person is better at deciding where > to put their money and has less inclination to donate this money to a social > cause that has direct positive outcome for them

> instead of a state, capable of overseeing ALL of its people redistribute the > taxed money to the poorest communities or those that need the help the most > in some area?

Uh... who do you think runs the state? Rich people.

And if you really think the state is the perfect ideal father figure that cares for all of its people... please tell me where you live so I can move there too. "The state", in most of human history, is woefully inept at making good, centralized decisions, and it's decentralization (which is btw a UBI principle) that has given us equal rights, fairness, and societal mobility. For most of history, anytime you aggregate power to a central state, bad things happen.

Back to my point though, the interesting thing about social funds is that they can be privatized and form their own market economies. For instance, Elon musk could use his social fund to combat climate change. Bill gates is already doing this to tackle large humanity issues. Warren buffet will probably use it to help middle america. Jeff Bezos... will probably give half of the fund to his wife.

But it's a pretty interesting policy that goes with the spirit of the American ideal which puts the power of changing the world into the individual's hand rather than centralizing it into the government, which is why I described wealth transfer to a government as "un-American".

Social funds with a committed vision towards non profit activities is really not a bad idea the more I think about it. Some rich people will definitely fund UBI with it.

<comment><USER30> > please tell me where you live so I can move there too. "The state", in most > of human history, is woefully inept at making good, centralized decisions

Germany. I'd also add that the countries doing the most for their citizens are probably the Nordic European States plus Germany and France. All of them Social Democracies, so what Americans would probably call a "strong state" oriented approach. I have a lot to critize about my own country, but the social support structures are probably still among the best in the world only toppled by aforementioned Nordic countries like Norway or Denmark.

I really don't think we should rely on the goodwill of millionaires and them running the state is, on a scale, mostly an american issue. Of course we also have lobbies, with which I have a problem, but our European countries are less controlled by wealth than the US for sure.

Regarding "good" billionaires, I'd suggest you listen to this: [https://medium.com/@CitationsPodcst/episode-45-the-not-so- be...](https://medium.com/@CitationsPodcst/episode-45-the-not-so-benevolent- billionaire-bill-gates-and-western-media-b1f8e0fe092f) You seem to support Chicago school style approaches, with which I will disagree, being a pretty standard Frankfurt school believer. I'd still like to discuss this further. Find my email in my profile, if you want.

<comment><USER16> Hard to comment on societies I don't know well. Instead I'd like to offer this explanation of my point of view:

There are two competing ideas of governance. One is the umbrella (ie. Godfather) and one is the public servant / slave (ie. Jesus).

\- The godfather creates an empire and everyone who lives under him lives really, really well.

\- The public servant is an invisible figure that solves all the problems of its people and serves the people, meeting their needs.

The US has most likely lived under a godfather system for the last 70 or so years, after WW2. Like it or not, our billionaires have created empires (their companies) and we live really well because of them. If the people of the US want to continue in their standard of living, they need to keep propping up the billionaires' empires because it's those empires that create the umbrella for the high standard of living we have.

This does turn the US economy into... either you serve in the empires and live well, or you live poorly not enjoying the empire's provisions. So you have a dual economy - those in the US who are running the empire's money printing machines, and those who can't help those companies print money. And the dual economy has two results -> really well off people, institutions, and society, and poor people. The poor people are actually rich compared to the rest of the world, but are poor because the rich economy has inflated the prices and expectation for a normal standard of living for those poor people, and they are getting squeezed by both income and cost of living.

Both capitalism and socialism alludes to this kind of situation, with differing opinions of what to do about it.

Capitalism says we should use godfathers to make everyone live well. Prop up the godfathers enough and everyone can live better off than they used to (very key point is relative to the past).

Socialism says no we need to move towards the public servant model to make everyone live well. Remove all the umbrellas and replace them with servitude and everyone can live in an ideal and fair society (also a key point, standard of living is not relative to the past, it's relative to the ideal).

In capitalism moral judgment is based on if you live better than you used to. If you want to see where we started from, just watch BBC's planet earth - you'll see starving lions with rib bones showing, trying to catch gazelle in scorching heat in Africa in order to eat, since they haven't eaten in weeks. You'll see eagles and dozens of birds fighting over dead carcasses that are rotting. From a capitalist point of view, going from having to hunt for your next meal 10,000 years ago to robust supply chains for groceries and upgrading your iphone every year for practically everyone in the world is what they consider moral accomplishment.

In socialism, moral judgment is based on if you live in society as close to the ideal of fairness that it can be. It looks at the relativeness of the current structure of society instead of the relativeness of standard of living improvements over time. If rich people are enjoying more things than poor people right now, that's considered immoral. If everyone has the opportunity and privilege to live a decently comfortable life, that is moral.

The US is very capitalist in mindset. Keep in mind that in capitalism, companies also help those not within the company by creating better quality goods for consumers (everyone else), so the more empires grow, the cheaper/better the consumer goods are, and the better quality of life is for everyone, not just those who work for the empire.

The US is so capitalist that it cannot imagine a world where standard of living and company growth stagnates. That's how dependent the US is on empires and on capitalism. In some ways, if you accept the capitalist moral judgment as a good moral judgment, the US is trying very hard to be moral even when it's practically impossible to do so!

But then again, tell US citizens that their standard of living is going to go down - that they will not get everything at the quality that they expect, that their income is going to shrink, that their livelihood will take a slight hit - and that's too much to bear for the US population's ego because we've never had to tighten our belts in the history of the US for that past 70 years.

But that's exactly what needs to happen for:

1) healthcare costs to come down (doctors and hospitals need to earn a lot less, like maybe 50-60% less)

2) income inequality to stabilize (basically 10% wealth transfer for GDP every year)

3) climate change to be mitigated (reduce carbon emissions which is basically shrink GDP by 1-2%)

4) housing prices need to go down (basically tell everyone that their primary asset needs to depreciate by 30-50% or even more)

So yeah we live and die by the godfathers and their empires - that's the way the US is. And it really doesn't matter who is in the governance seat - neither rich people nor a strong state will do a good job making policy to cause the above to occur - you first have to change the willingness of the American people to willingly accept systematized and distributed personal loss.

To be fair to Americans, social fairness is growing on the importance scale - but you have to tailor the changes in a way that aligns with existing US values and behaviors. You can't just say "oh, implement the way the Chinese/Germans run their government in the US", it's just too foreign to get any traction or pragmatic action (which is what Frankfurt school eschews, right?).

Implementing policies where rich people keep their empires and wealth but instead are forced to use their empires to not keep printing money but to solve other problems - that's very American sounding to me. No one is saying that Bill Gates is a beloved figure btw; we are saying that he's effective at investing into getting rid of malaria though. Same with Elon musk, he ain't no saint but he can sure get us to the moon. He might also get us to clean and renewable energy if he put his mind to it, you never know.

A lot of my inspiration for my thoughts on these issues comes from the waitbutwhy blog. The whole series on the story of us is fascinating, but especially chapter 4 talks about the American view of consumer capitalism which I recommend to read.

[https://waitbutwhy.com/2019/09/enlightenment- kids.html](https://waitbutwhy.com/2019/09/enlightenment-kids.html)

<comment><USER30> > our billionaires have created empires (their companies) and we live really > well because of them

I'd disagree with the statement, that most of the US citizens live a good life while 40% are in danger of being evicted right now. That's only the first example coming from the top of my head. You could easily make an argument how most people living paycheck to paycheck is not a great status also.

> So you have a dual economy - those in the US who are running the empire's > money printing machines, and those who can't help those companies print > money.

Wouldn't you consider this amoral from the start? There is proficiencies that won't ever be able to get out of poverity for this exact reason. Most artists, writers, philosophers, social workers, health care workers won't ever be able to get out of poverity / low middle class, because they are not "worth" as much, as people working IT, finance, governance.

> The poor people are actually rich compared to the rest of the world

This comparison doesn't really matter when they can't live where they are right now. If you want to analyse their quality of living you have to only consider their material conditions where they live, not how their money would be able to make them live in South Africa or Swasiland.

> The US is very capitalist in mindset. Keep in mind that in capitalism, > companies also help those not within the company by creating better quality > goods for consumers (everyone else), so the more empires grow, the > cheaper/better the consumer goods are, and the better quality of life is for > everyone, not just those who work for the empire.

In theory this would lead to better lifestyles for others, but as the capitalist tries to minimize cost and maximize profit, they are moving away from US based production and produce cheaper in China, South East Asia etc. leaving their US workers behind with no wage to buy their products. Capitalism has reached the stage of maxizing profit through globalization, chasing for the cheapest production possible around the globe. This is why US poverity is increasing and unemployment becomes a more and more desperate issue. The capitalist, in the end, doesn't care about the people outside of his profit scope. He should though, since those people buy his products. If nobody is left buying product, their is no profit. Some people argue this can be corrected by "ethical capitalism" which I think is a dream castle, but you might disagree.

I'd argue that we can reach those goals easier, through socialist companies where not one capitalist is controlling the company, but all the workers collectively. They won't go oversees with their production, as they protect their own jobs. They won't cut safety measures for the same reason. Same for health care etc. Workers will protect themselves way better and lead the society to a more balanced way of living this way in general.

I kind of have the feeling you're not that big of a proponent of capitalism as I thought in the beginning... You have some interesting analysis with the appended criticisms.

> you first have to change the willingness of the American people to willingly > accept systematized and distributed personal loss.

We agree that this needs to happen. I don't think the numbers have to be quite as drastic as you proposed, if we just take 80% of the wealth accumulated by the rich (there will be enough left for them) and do a sensible tax reform targeting the Top 10-20% correctly. That would be a start. Going the way of reform, we'd start with that and health care reform and see what's the next step from there. The alternative of revolution is an existing alternative, but costs lives and can hurt the system for the next 20-30 years, so not really desirable. The first step towards reform would be getting Biden into office and then pressuring him to actually take the steps he promised after talking to Sanders.

Regarding instead of taxing, making it so that billionaires need to redistribute privately, I don't agree that that's better than a for example workers council deciding what to do with tax money. The Gates Foundation has distributed their donations 96% to US and European organisations and just 4% to African owned and run organsations. I appreciate them trying to help, but I think you need to put more of this money directly into the hands of African orgs as they for sure know best, what their citizens need.

I'll check out your link later today, thanks. And also thanks for not making this an aggressive, unproductive conversation.

<comment><USER16> > I'd disagree with the statement, that most of the US citizens live a good > life while 40% are in danger of being evicted right now. That's only the > first example coming from the top of my head. You could easily make an > argument how most people living paycheck to paycheck is not a great status > also.

My point is that minimum wage in the US -> ($16.50 / hr in many states), is really high compared to many other countries. For instance, the median wage in Taiwan / China is 1/3 of the minimum wage in the US. Why does the US have the minimum wage so high? Why do bus drivers in the US get paid 10-100 times more than bus drivers in India? It's because of "trickle down" economics - <USER2> the US economy is so strong we can have really high wages for the lowest skilled jobs in our economy.

> Wouldn't you consider this amoral from the start? There is proficiencies > that won't ever be able to get out of poverty for this exact reason. Most > artists, writers, philosophers, social workers, health care workers won't > ever be able to get out of poverty / low middle class, because they are not > "worth" as much, as people working IT, finance, governance.

I wouldn't consider it amoral. The reality is that creating great environments for people to grow up in is hard work, and not a "universal right" by any means. Nature does not give everyone super comfortable and fair lives - consider the cold north or the scorching deserts and you'll realize that this assumption that everyone deserves the same life is... not grounded in the real world. Life is fundamentally unfair. You have certain populations of animals growing up in fertile galopagos without any predators, and you have other animals growing in 10000 ft deep oceans with extremely harsh environments to survive. That's life.

Fairness in life is a good ideal but a bad policy. It's like saying, I don't like how the world has deserts and tundra, I'm going to make the entire world have perfect weather and homogenous, ideal environments for everyone - <USER3> engineering effort would be astronomical and also probably cause a lot of problems to the environment. I'd rather have a policy that is grounded in how the world works, which I think capitalism is (as opposed to socialism).

> I'd argue that we can reach those goals easier, through socialist companies > where not one capitalist is controlling the company, but all the workers > collectively. They won't go oversees with their production, as they protect > their own jobs. They won't cut safety measures for the same reason. Same for > health care etc. Workers will protect themselves way better and lead the > society to a more balanced way of living this way in general.

The assumption that collectives can allocate resources better than individuals is flat out wrong. The reality is that the decision making and skill of the person(s) in charge determine the efficiency of allocation.

This is basic business theory. You don't put a random joe to allocate budget and policy decisions for billions of dollars at the top level; you put a skilled CFO or COO who has 20+ years of experience and has done it many times before to make those decisions.

Capitalism naturally causes the people who have the best allocation skills to be assigned the seat of being the one to allocate resources. This is opposed to socialism, which has no policy or strategy towards who gets the control of the resources.

Where capitalism goes wrong is in hyper focusing on allocating resources to money making. You want the focus to be distributed evenly across money making, social welfare, and innovation.

If you told these CEOs and CFOs running organizations to allocate resources to build better communities instead of just making more money, they would have the skills to do a good job at it. We just don't tell them to do that... because I dunno, American ideals?

> I don't think the numbers have to be quite as drastic as you proposed

I think they have to be much worse than what I proposed. Bloat in the current system is really, really high. In Taiwan, they live the same standard of living as the US with basically 1/4 of the cost.

> if we just take 80% of the wealth accumulated by the rich (there will be > enough left for them) and do a sensible tax reform targeting the Top 10-20% > correctly.

Understand you may not be from the US, but its probably more accurate to say "for us" rather than "for them". If you're a programmer on hacker news, 95% chance you'd be in the top 5% of the US in terms of income generation.

> just 4% to African owned and run organsations.

It's because most African owned and run organizations are not skilled enough to be entrusted with the money to actually produce results.

If you've tried to run an organization before, it's extremely difficult to allocate resources efficiently to solve problems. That's the key bottleneck of economics and I suspect its the major perspective difference between you and me. I view resource allocation as the absolutely hardest problem in the world, where you think everyone can do it well. 99.999% of people, if given $1 million and a difficult mission, will fail that mission, not because they lack heart, morality, ethics, or understanding, but because they don't know how to use the resources given to solve problems.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment> rv-de philosophically I like the idea of a UBI. but realistically I don't believe anymore in solutions based on financial reorganizations. the society needs a fundamental shift of how resources are allocated and used. I expect a UBI to only produce a low-income class that depends on UBI and can't find a job that pays sufficiently well and another high-income class that just gets the UBI on top of their ample salary. prices will factor in the new offset and adapt positively. we'll see more low paying jobs for UBI-dependent people who can't choose.

</comment><comment><USER31> I understand they're not the same, but I'm wondering if it would be reasonable to analyze the impact of the COVID-19 stimulus checks as a data point to inform the effects of UBI.

<comment><USER32> There are presumably too many confounding factors to make that a worthwhile comparison. It's pretty hard to control for businesses semi-voluntarily closing their doors and people actively avoiding the ones that are staying open.

</comment></comment><comment><USER13> Seems to me if people had required similar trials before establishing public pensions and public healtcare then it would never have been established.

</comment><comment><USER33> Truly universal UBI will result in reductions in paychecks by the amount of UBI.

Business owners will think like this:

"Hey Joe, from today we all are getting X amount of dollars from the government. Thus, I am going to reduce your paycheck by the almost the same amount. You will have more money than now, and our business will get a break in these unfortunate economic times".

For Joe, that would be a good offer: we will get effectively in increase in the money in his pocket, while minimizing the danger of being laid off since the business he works for will get 'a break'.

<comment><USER34> Unlikely since UBI will likely be essentially offset by income tax so above a certain threshold (likely just slightly above full time minimum wage) the net benefit will be zero.

If businesses reduce their pay they'll have to pay higher rate taxes on their end (CIT, payroll tax, business rates).

Also in many countries reducing income is illegal, especially in western countries. It's often can only be done during restricting after going through an employment court as an alternative to redundancy and it's limited both in amount and duration.

That said truly universal UBI would require a considerably change to how and what we tax as well as the general employment market you likely won't see basic income until there will be no means of offering sufficient employment to the majority of the population until then UBI is often less effective than direct benefits simply because it's less.

The main less from these UBI studies is that the threshold for cutting off means tested benefits is way too low and there is quite a bit of benefit to gain at continuing proving direct cash benefits at higher income levels. That said we currently don't have any reasonable way to fund it, as well as to ensure that UBI isn't going to be just a wealth transfer program from the working and middle class to corporations.

</comment></comment><comment><USER35> What does it do to the poor suckers who keep working only to have all their money given to people who sit on their asses all day doing nothing?

</comment><comment><USER36> I don't understand why Germany's _socialist_ ministers don't accept the concept of universal basic income. It's baffling to me. [https://www.t-online.de/nachrichten/deutschland/id_88448378/...](https://www.t-online.de/nachrichten/deutschland/id_88448378/auch- heil-lehnt-bedingungsloses-grundeinkommen-ab.html)

<comment><USER37> Why would anybody in government support UBI? If it works, a huge amount of decision making power is moved from the government to the free market.

</comment></comment><comment><USER38> "Give me control of a nation's currency print/supply, and I care not who makes its laws" \--#Rothschild (b. 1744)

</comment><comment><USER39> Since wealth attracts more wealth, and power attracts more power, in any capitalist system, without constant redistribution of wealth to the bottom, eventually you wind up in a situation where a tiny group of people at the top have all the wealth and power. It's a basic feature of any society where property can be used to make money.

UBI would appear to be a pretty straightforward way to keep things balanced and stable, in the long term.

</comment><comment><USER38> May be we should call it Universal Basic INSURANCE;

</comment><comment><USER40> It's re-branded Socialism. Incremental as always. Paired with the social credit score, it's every authoritarians dream.

<comment><USER30> Definition of socialism: Worker owned means of production.

That's it. You're feeding on 100 years of western propaganda and neoliberal ideas.

China is state capitalist, UdSSR was state capitalist.

If you want to see a working socialist state, even though it's suppressed by the US government for 70 years now, which explains most of its problems btw, look to Cuba.

<comment><USER41> Cuba is a "working socialist state"? Have you been to Cuba lately?!

<comment><USER30> Do you understand the concept of being cut off from 90% of the world market? They're struggling to maintain their system while being systematically targeted by the one of largest economic and military powers on the planet.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER42> These articles are interesting not by themselves, but for the reactions they stir on HN. It's interesting how aware of cognitive biases and critical minded one suddenly becomes upon encountering a study that challenges one's worldview. It's also interesting to note the shift between two demographics: old-school libertarians/right-wingers who hold that "you should earn your bread in sweat unless you happen to have private means" (Kalecki 1943), and pro-UBI tech workers who rationally see it as a direct subsidy for their industry. Unlike many other viewpoints where one usually dominates I feel this is one of the few where opinion is fairly evenly divided, and the back-and- forth is interesting.

<comment><USER43> > study that challenges one's worldview

The study doesn't challenge any worldviews. People like money, news at 11.

But the study _does_ challenge one's intelligence. " _Some_ people given money for _some_ time" does not imply anything about " _all_ people given money _forever_ ".</comment></comment>


Amazon is hiring Clojure devs - <AUTHOR> http://lispjobs.wordpress.com/2014/11/25/clojure-software-development-engineers-amazon-com/ <comment><USER2> I'm surprised at the industry adoption of Clojure. I'm not a Lispy, dynamic typing guy, but like the anti-OO stance that Rich and Clojure represents.

I wouldn't be surprised if Clojure has more "industry" adoption than Scala at this point.

Give me Clojure semantics (anti-OO, maps, vectors, and seqs) with some optional typing and a Python syntax then I'm there *

* that's just my preference, no need to convince me of anything other.

<comment><USER3> From sources... Amazon is a heavy Java -> Scala shop. They are probably looking at Clojure to diversify as Scala is hitting some growing pains, but they can still leverage their large JVM expertise.

<comment><USER4> Amazon is literally thousands of shops with a libertarian CEO. The fastest way to end a career there is to try to force a company-wide standard language although many have tried and failed.

<comment><USER5> Jeff is actually known for being a micromanager.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> "CORTEX is our next generation platform that handles real-time financial data flows and notifications. Our stateless event-driven compute engine for dynamic data transforms is built entirely in Clojure and is crucial to our ability to provide a highly agile response to financial events."

Amazon is building a competitor to Bloomberg?

<comment><USER7> That was my initial reading, too. Further searching for the CORTEX project revealed that it's probably an internal accounting system.

</comment></comment><comment><USER8> The first thing I thought when I read the title is that they're going to run a Datomic-as-a-Service cluster. I'm still not sure that they're not, though a "stateless event-driven compute engine for dynamic data transforms" sounds more like something to do with AWS Lambda.

<comment><USER9> I've been dreaming of this since Datomic came out. I recommend it to our AWS account rep every chance I get.

</comment></comment><comment><USER10> I wonder what the sable referred to in the job description is referring to? Could it be SableVM.SableVM is a clean room implementation of the JVM but is no longer being maintained.

[http://www.sablevm.org/](http://www.sablevm.org/)

<comment><USER11> Ha, sadly no. Sable is the name of an internal Amazon product that the person posting the job must have forgotten was internal. Nothing secret afaik, just not something offered on AWS.

</comment></comment><comment><USER12>
        coming soon...storm-as-a-service (built on clojure)

</comment><comment><USER13> Sigh.

Implemented a scheme in my undergraduate days (in C), had a small love affair with LISP in general (but none with girls ... probably related).

I'll be opinionated here:

It's not readable. It really isn't. You have to be in the thick of it to see the trees. Idiomatic doesn't cut it.

Operator heavy Haskell is more readable. Most of the modern functional languages read closer to the spoken word.

I'd rather be presented with a legacy OO code base, than an LISP one if the LOC was anything significant.

I hope I don't come across as disgruntled, I am but a mere man, and I know my limits.

And still have fond memories of bedding LISP.

<comment><USER14> _" Implemented a scheme in my undergraduate days (in C), had a small love affair with LISP in general... It's not readable. It really isn't."_

Hang on. Your opinion is that Clojure isn't readable because you didn't find _other_ Lisps readable when you were an undergraduate? But you haven't actually tried Clojure yourself?

I have tried Clojure, and my opinion is that it's easily the most readable programming language I've found.

Clojure has very strong opinions about _complexity_ , which in Clojure parlance is a measurement of interconnectedness between components. The language is built around the idea of reducing complexity, about making things isolated and independent. Idiomatic Clojure code therefore tends to have a very flat structure consisting of isolated functions and data structures. It has a very high degree of code reuse, because it explicitly rejects encapsulation.

Clojure's syntax may be unusual, and individual forms are more information dense than many languages, however the _structure_ of Clojure code is often much easier to understand, and for any non-trivial piece of code, that's the hardest part of comprehension.

When I come across a new Clojure library, I'll often find myself reading a bit of the docs, then heading into the source code to get an idea of how it operates. I rarely do this with an object orientated language, as OOP code tends to be deeper, more interconnected, and because of encapsulation, have more methods to understand. Java in particular is terrible for this.

<comment><USER15> I've written applications using Java, Groovy, Clojure and Scala (in that order) and after Clojure, coding Scala felt specially horrible (yet another syntax to learn! ++: \ ~> and so on...).

Maybe Clojure feels odd for a few hours when coming from C-like syntax, but it becomes so obvious later on. I remember I felt terrified by the parens because I had not written anything serious in it.

<comment><USER16> > I've written applications using Java, Groovy, Clojure and Scala (in that > order)

I'd say the most natural pathways for Java programmers upgrading their language skills are:

* from Java, to Groovy, to Clojure

* from Java, to Groovy, to Scala

* from Java, direct to Clojure

* from Java, direct to Scala

Once someone reaches Clojure and Scala, they seem unwilling to give up what they've gained (the simplicity and macros of Clojure, or the higher-order typing of Scala) to switch to something else, even when that something offers more.</comment></comment></comment></comment>


Sticker Mule is back on AppSumo for 1 day only - <AUTHOR> http://appsumo.com/sticker-mule-rules/

<comment><USER2> This time the deal seems to be working. Sticker Mule was kind enough to give me the deal last week at the promoted price. Well done Sticker Mule. Looking forward to my order shipping soon.</comment>


Multi-process vs. multi-threaded port scanner – I like threaded better I think - <AUTHOR> https://github.com/rootVIII/port_scanner <comment><AUTHOR> The multiprocess one runs faster on local loopback... however when scanning a host on my private LAN the threaded version runs a lot faster!</comment>


Plan to reborder the US into only 38 states - <AUTHOR> http://mentalfloss.com/article/57444/map-only-38-states

<comment><USER2> The shape of Dearborn needs work...</comment>


NHS England to act over fears Covid-19 focus could 'do more harm than virus' - <AUTHOR> https://www.hsj.co.uk/policy-and-regulation/exclusive-nhse-to-act-over-fears-covid-19-focus-could-do-more-harm-than-virus/7027321.article?mkt_tok=eyJpIjoiT1dZM1pUUTBNemd4TkRRMSIsInQiOiJJQTlIMEk3cldpcERVUWI4cFEza2UyZzVYUDlhbDNXN1ZrWXRGZUtOS1dBaVBHUldkMTRNWkFjb2E3bnpWXC9kV3g1YmxBaVlKSTVrMzBRUXplc3ZIdlZxSXpTWEZnWFlicm9RQ2dEYjJVNEswemw0STdCQlFJN3FGcFwvaUxyc2lnIn0%3D <comment><USER2> It seems that the NHS is being pulled in two opposite directions at once. Something has to give; the service had already been cut to the bone and struggled every year with flu cases, plus the perennial tales of patients placed in beds in the corridors of overcrowded hospitals.</comment>


First Case of New Coronavirus Detected in U.S. - <AUTHOR> https://www.npr.org/sections/goatsandsoda/2020/01/21/798137962/china-tries-to-control-travel-in-and-out-of-wuhan-to-stem-coronavirus-spread <comment><USER2> China has been covering it up for 2 months. Minimal action was taken to prevent the disease from spreading and they kept denying until a couple days ago when it was no longer possible to cover it up because it is spreading to neighboring countries who have been complaining for the whole time. Regional/local governments have been trying to downplay it because it makes them "look bad". It is essentially a replay of SARS. Only admit and take action when it's too late.

<comment><USER3> China doesn't get to decide the scientific consensus. Teams of scientists spanning multiple countries + NGOs like the WHO make the risk assessment. The reason the scientific consensus was that there was no human-human transmission was because...there was no evidence of human-human transmission. All previous cases could be directly traced back to the market, and there were previously no clear evidence of healthcare workers or relatives with no exposure to the market but exposure to an infected individual getting sick.

Unlike anonymous users online, professional scientists can't make a claim, especially a very serious one, without evidence. If they do so, later the public will crucify them if it turns out the virus actually cannot spread from human-human.

It's only in the past three days that it because clear that there is evidence of people who don't have a direct link to the market being infected. A big reason for this breakthrough was that the genome of the virus was identified (by, yes, Chinese scientists working within two weeks of realizing a novel outbreak, which is also impressive). This genome sequence makes possible very sensitive tests for identifying infected people more accurately.

Hence, in the light of this new information, the scientific consensus has been updated to reflect likely human-human transmission.

Please stop spreading false information and unnecessary hatred. This only makes the response to a crisis worse.

<comment><USER4> Well, in this case professional scientists actually made claims about the classification of the virus as soon as they had evidence, and before the government had put out an official statement. But then they got prosecuted for "spreading rumors" and people stopped talking publicly about the progress of their research.

Now the government is getting criticized for this by e.g. Hu Fanzhu of East China Normal University's National Discourse Environment Research Center, whose open letter you might want to read if you think stopping people from "spreading false information" is what's important here.

[https://mp.weixin.qq.com/s/toFmfLsLn_x6PhGFliictg](https://mp.weixin.qq.com/s/toFmfLsLn_x6PhGFliictg)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> An important side story is that CCP's active political interference of Taiwan's participation in World Health Organisation and other international coordination effort in the past few years, can affect Taiwan's ability to contain any pandemic from spreading.

And since there is estimated 200,000 Taiwan nationals living across the strait, their mobility especially during the Spring festival can become a huge conduit for spreading infection from China into Taiwan.

It is high time that the UN commits to a resolution to insulate shared global issues (hygiene and environment) from politics, and stop China from playing with fire again and again.

<comment><USER6> There has been critics in Asia on that the ex-Director General (2006-2017) of WHO, Margaret Chan, who was sponsored by China for the position, had been building up influence in the organization for China during her term so WHO would work in China's favour. Its effect is showing this time in how WHO handled this incident. Instead of taking a lead and look into the whether China had handled the pandemic properly upon its onset, WHO just parrot China's official stance, in fear of offending China.

* [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Margaret_Chan](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Margaret_Chan)

</comment></comment><comment><USER7> If you're scared just read the wiki on SARS - the previous coronavirus infection - to refresh your memory.

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

It was a LOT worse that time - Chinese government basically covering up for the first 6 months, virus isolated only much later, sequenced months later.

<comment><USER8> The coverup is such an important part of why SARS turned out so bad. It mutated after the initial outbreak from a relatively benign virus to a much more deadly variety. (The longer the outbreak lasts and the more people are infected, the more likely such a mutation is) This time the Chinese government has been much more open (relatively), and the virus has been identified at a much earlier stage. I'd be pretty optimistic if it weren't for the Lunar New Year holiday, which could really screw up the efforts to contain the spread.

</comment></comment><comment><USER9> If anyone wants to track the progression of the virus, I created a quick site with a Google Maps embed to show where the virus has been found so far. I'll be improving it over the next few days.

[http://www.coronavirusmap.com/](http://www.coronavirusmap.com/)

<comment><USER10> Is it just me, or does it not even have Wuhan?

<comment><USER11> Seems it only marks the countries where the virus has been found, not paticullar cities.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> As someone who lives quite close to the hospital in the article, it was interesting seeing reactions this morning at the office. Some people immediately wondered about their immuno compromised friends and family, while others (myself included) just sort of said "huh" and went about our day. It will be interesting to see how this plays out.

<comment><USER13> I live in a building with a quite a few nurses that work at that hospital. It kind of scares me that one of them open mouth coughed in the elevator with me the other night. Probably nothing more than a tired nurse and a dry throat, but still kind of weird to read about a thing that is a block away from where you live.

<comment><USER14> Hah after reading this there's no way I'm getting near the light rail for the next month or two.

It's a direct line from SeaTac where people we be flying into from SE Asia after lunar new year is over, and is currently undergoing construction so railway cars are packed at rush hour.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER15> It is not SARS, but it is highly possible that it was caused by people who kill and sell wild animals in the live poultry market. Where these animals like gem-faced civet got virus from bats. It is a long-held tradition for certain regions in China to eat wild animals. We even have a Chengyu called: 山珍海味, meaning precious and tasty animals from mountains and seas. Most wild animals are not evolved to be eaten by human, so not like beef or pork, they do not taste well. People only eat it because they can. Because they want to show others that they can. This is sad.

<comment><USER16> Literally every culture hunts wild game. This is such a weird thing to consider unique to China.

<comment><USER17> What they're describing is different from the hunting culture that persists in developed societies. It's more like hunter gatherer hunting for bushmeat embedded in an agricultural and livestock raising society where such hunting is unnecessary so the hunt is more about status, which is a bit unique.

<comment><USER16> > It's more like hunter gatherer hunting for bushmeat embedded in an > agricultural and livestock raising society where such hunting is unnecessary > so the hunt is more about status

It seems like you just described "the hunting culture that persists in developed societies".

<comment><USER18> Just like with Ebola, we really like using "bushmeat" as othering language to describe hunting.

<comment><USER19> Never thought of it like that but "bushmeat" is just hunted game. Right?

<comment><USER18> Yep.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER20> The Chinese government has had difficulties handling the situation. I think we might need WHO to jump in soon.

(Chinese New Years is in 3 days and few hundred million people will travel in congested trains and flights. Also people in China usually don't cover their mouths when they cough)

Coronavirus: Chinese hospitals not testing patients, say relatives [https://www.theguardian.com/world/2020/jan/21/coronavirus- ch...](https://www.theguardian.com/world/2020/jan/21/coronavirus-chinese- hospitals-not-testing-patients-say-relatives)

Wuhan virus kills fourth patient, infects hospital staff amid fear of 'super- spreader' [https://www.scmp.com/news/china/society/article/3046908/new-...](https://www.scmp.com/news/china/society/article/3046908/new- china-virus-likely-human-transmission-stage-infections)

man in Wuhan infected with coronavirus went to hospital but got sent away, took a flight to Dalian & became Patient Zero in Dalian [https://www.reddit.com/r/China/comments/erszdd/disease_contr...](https://www.reddit.com/r/China/comments/erszdd/disease_control_with_chinese_characteristics_man/)

<comment><USER21> The WHO is a policy org. They don't have any power to do anything on their own. They can only recommend things.

</comment></comment><comment><USER22> Coronaviruses are transmitted in what seems to be the same manner as influenza and generate some of the same symptoms. Why do the worst coronaviruses, like SARS, transmit so slowly, while the flu is practically ubiquitous?

<comment><USER23> While SARS does have a longer incubation period, typically 2-7 days compared to the common flu's 1-4 days, the "slow transmission" that you've witnessed is more likely the successful work of national and international public health agencies preventing its spread. Especially by means of contact tracing and quarantine.

Seasonal flu variants have a lethality of around 0.1%. The Spanish flu of 1918 was around 2%. SARS has a fatality rate of around 10%. There is minimal difference in transmission between strains. The only thing preventing disaster is effective public health response.

<comment><USER22> Just according to superficial stats, it looks like the flu kills orders of magnitude more people than SARS and MERS. Is the public health response to these diseases really so effective as to account for most of this difference? I don't pay close attention but also wouldn't off the top of my head be able to describe anything that, say, Washington State does to effectively respond to CoV incidents to keep it from propagating rapidly through the population the way the flu does.

(I'm asking because I'm curious and seriously have no clue how this stuff works).

<comment><USER23> Yes, seasonal flu in the US alone kills around 30,000 each year, and may have killed as many as 60,000 during the 17-18 flu season alone [1]. MERS and SARS have each killed less than 1,000 worldwide.

A few things that may interest you:

* The rate of transmission for a disease is estimated by its R0 or basic reproduction number. R0 estimates the number of new cases from the unaffected population that one infection will cause. A disease with R0 <1 will die out by itself. SARS has an estimated R0 of 3-5, while seasonal flus are between 1 and 2 [2]. So by this measure alone SARS is more "infectious" than the flu. Note that R0 is not a rate and is estimated from mathematical models [3].

* Seasonal flu predominantly kills the young, the elderly, and the immunocompromised. Interestingly, some strains, such as the Spanish Flu, have very different mortality curves that kill healthy middle aged adults far more than average [4]. I would expect a dramatically different public health response compared to normal seasonal flu if a future pandemic had a similar mortality curve.

* In the US, the "tip of the spear" for disease response would be the CDC's Division of Global Migration and Quarantine [5].

[1] [https://www.cdc.gov/flu/about/burden/index.html](https://www.cdc.gov/flu/about/burden/index.html) [2] [https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/19545404](https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/19545404) [3] [https://web.stanford.edu/~jhj1/teachingdocs/Jones- on-R0.pdf](https://web.stanford.edu/~jhj1/teachingdocs/Jones-on-R0.pdf) [4] [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spanish_flu#/media/File:W_curv...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spanish_flu#/media/File:W_curve.png) [5] [https://www.cdc.gov/ncezid/dgmq/quarantine-fact- sheet.html](https://www.cdc.gov/ncezid/dgmq/quarantine-fact-sheet.html)

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER24> They suspected a man in Australia of having it and were awaiting test results yesterdayish too [https://www.smh.com.au/national/first-australian- monitored-f...](https://www.smh.com.au/national/first-australian-monitored- for-coronavirus-authorities-confirm-20200121-p53tc7.html)

There is also /r/China_Flu/ for those that wanta centralized location for news.

I think this is certainly not a great thing but I urge people not to panic. Any time some sort of new disease starts to spread a portion of the population immediately overreacts and starts to get a little nutty "how do I protect myself? What should I buy? Will bleach kill it?! How about OmniCide, Madacide, Opticide?!?!".

Keep in mind that colds and regular flu are going around right now too, if you feel sick it's probably _not_ this virus. Last week my office had a stomach bug, by Friday a few people had bad head/chest colds, this week the stomach bug is all gone and half the office has a head/chest cold and definitely not this virus yet someone on second shift has a hospital mask on (and as far as I know don't have a valid medical reason to remotely justify it).

<comment><USER25> I wish wearing hospital masks was more accepted. Out of the listed reactions, it's probably the least overreaction possible, especially if it's a fashionable one and not actually hospital color...

<comment><USER24> I've read such conflicting information on them. Some sources say they protect other people from you more than they do you, some say they protect you 60-80%, some say washing your hands properly (and frequently) is more effective etc.

<comment><USER26> Even if the mask doesn't actually protect you, it will prevent you from touching your face and mouth absent-mindlessly.

<comment><USER27> Do you have any data about that?

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER18> [https://www.mobs-lab.org/2019ncov.html](https://www.mobs- lab.org/2019ncov.html)

Current modeling estimates put the likely number of infections between 1 and 6.2 thousand, primarily concentrated in China.

<comment><USER28> This estimate [0] puts it at 4,000 as of Jan 18.

It's weird to not have government numbers that are actionable and we have to use models that range from 1-9.7k.

[0] [https://www.imperial.ac.uk/mrc-global-infectious-disease- ana...](https://www.imperial.ac.uk/mrc-global-infectious-disease-analysis/news --wuhan-coronavirus/)

<comment><USER18> It's actually not all that weird. The link I posted above is from a group that was funded by the NIH in a program called MIDAS (Modeling Infectious Disease Agent Study). The express _goal_ was to produce modeling platforms usable by the government.

Imperial's MRC group has a very similar mandate, IIRC. Where these numbers are coming from, and the range of uncertainty around them, is very much characteristic of an emerging infectious disease (bad early data, stochasticity, etc.).

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER29> Reports are that China has just quarantined Wuhan, a city of 11 million people.

<comment><USER30> Logistically, how can they do this?

<comment><USER31> China has the largest active military in the world, according to this list in Wikipedia:

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_number_of...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_number_of_military_and_paramilitary_personnel)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER32> I read on Reddit that Chinese New Year is the largest regularly occurring human migration event in the world. Millions of Chinese people gather on public transport and planes To go home to celebrate. It's in a few days I think.

Also I'm not sure how the CDC is preparing for this under 45, but given the state of the federal government I would guess it's less prepared than the days of the Ebola scare.

Hopefully things will not be too interesting. I hate it when things are interesting.

<comment><USER18> A couple notes, from an infectious disease epidemiologist:

\- The CDC Director is, in rare form for this administration, not someone devoted to dismantling the agency he's in charge of. I work with the CDC fairly frequently, and they're in pretty good shape.

\- This is our third novel coronavirus, and the 2nd out of China. There's been a lot of prep work for this.

<comment><USER33> But wouldn't prevention require to screen all returning passengers from China and/or other Asian countries after Chinese New Year? I'm not sure how feasible that would be with the number of connecting flights with passengers from China arriving in the US each day. Or is it enough to isolate patients once they are ill enough to seek treatment?

<comment><USER18> Generally speaking in the U.S., quick isolation and contact tracing once cases do arise works well enough when combined with good infection control at the point of treatment.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER34> I was in Guangdong when SARS happened in 2003, I have heard rumors for months until the Chinese gov eventually admitted there's such virus exists. Ever since then I basically have zero trust in the Chinese gov. For this time, since Chinese new year is coming, I had actually warned my coworkers do not go back to China, especially Wuhan, a couple days back. So bad not everyone listen, now they are kind of scared.

<comment><USER20> Yup SARS did not coincide with hundred of millions of people stuffed in closed compact train cars and plane seats for hours at a time. This coronavirus might mutate faster than we could predict. Nobody should be traveling to China right now

</comment></comment><comment><USER35> I feel like it has been so long since the swine flu, bird flu, H1N1 flu, and other flu scares that we are due for one.

Like the recessions the flu scares are cyclical.

<comment><USER36> The Spanish Flu was almost exactly 100 years ago. Recent enough that we think of it as being in modern times with relatively modern medicine and hospitals. My grandmother lived through it, so this isn't the distant past.

Current estimates are that it killed up to 100,000,000 million people, as many as the black plague.

We have much better medicine now, thankfully. But we also live in a much more deeply connected world with millions of people flying every single day.

<comment><USER37> It's curious how little cultural impact it has compared to the world wars or Black Plague despite the death-toll. I've never seen a TV series or film about it or any art, songs or phrases. There is no iconic photograph that comes to mind. It's just a minor footnote to WW1. I don't know if it's wartime censorship or just overshadowed but it's really quite odd.

<comment><USER38> > _little cultural impact_

How many people are dying today from preventable causes? Have you heard songs about them?

<comment><USER39> The Spanish Flu was, by definition, not curable since so many people died of it.

There have been many films, books, and other media about other epidemics. HIV/AIDS, bubonic plague, smallpox, and polio come to mind.

I think GP was pointing out how much WW1 overshadowed everything else that was going on at the time. In any other moment in history, the Spanish Flu would have been a significant occurrence.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER40> Bit alarming considering chinese new year is coming up.

</comment><comment><USER41> This virus is going to spread a lot wider and faster in the next month as chinese new year is next week. Most people are going to their home town then back to major cities all over the world not just China.

</comment><comment><USER42> Anyone have a sober perspective of how bad this is likely to get? Is this comparable to a bad but forgetten-by-the-next-year flu strain? To SARS? To the Spanish Flu?

<comment><USER43> I don't think we can know yet. It's infected around 300 people, 6 of whom have died, putting a mortality rate of around 2%. Thats not as bad as SARS, which was 10%, but its early. SARS ended up being restricted to around 8000 people, mostly concentrated in China, though eventually spreading to dozens of countries, but its impossible to say how far and wide this one could spread, especially given that the outbreak is occuring on the eve of Chinese New Year.

According to some of the sources I've found online, coronaviruses tend to be much less easily spread from human to human than something like the flu, but just a few days ago officials were saying they didn't think this virus was transmissible between humans, which they now have confirmed is in fact possible, so clearly its a very fast developing situation.

<comment><USER18> That mortality rate isn't at all reliable at this point - we have lots of unconfirmed cases which messes with the denominator, and we haven't had all the people who _do_ have it develop their outcome.

2% is very much a best-case estimate right now.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER44> _A traveler from China_ landing on US soil, and detected at the airport (Seattle). This isn't spreading in the US population... yet. (And won't be from this, if containment procedures in Seattle work... and if they didn't transmit it to others on the plane... and maybe a few other ifs.)

<comment><USER43> According to the Washington Post[0], it wasn't caught at the airport, and he isn't a traveller, he is a resident in the Seattle area returning from China.

> Washington state health officials said the man, a resident of Snohomish > County, Wash., returned from a trip to the region around Wuhan, where the > outbreak began. He arrived at Seattle's international airport last > Wednesday. Shortly afterward, he began feeling ill and reached out to his > health-care provider on Sunday. Local, state and federal officials quickly > collected samples and sent them to the Centers for Disease Control and > Prevention, where his case was confirmed Monday as the coronavirus

Officials say they are trying to track down people he may have had contact with. Sounds like he was on top of things, and so they identified things as quickly as possible, but the disease is not necessarily contained.

[0] [https://www.washingtonpost.com/health/2020/01/21/coronavirus...](https://www.washingtonpost.com/health/2020/01/21/coronavirus- us-case/)

<comment><USER45> > he isn't a traveller, he is a resident in the Seattle area returning from > China.

A traveller is somebody who travels, e.g., from Seattle to China and back.

<comment><USER43> The implication seemed to be that it was someone passing through, as opposed to a resident. But yes, my read could have been wrong.

<comment><USER45> It confused me a bit on initial reading because a non-traveller in Seattle would have to have caught it there.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER46> The U.N. should declare an emergency to curb the spreading of the coronavirus(they are still talking over this like wtf!). Neighboring countries have amped up screenings of flyers from China.

</comment><comment><USER47> Scary stuff, I'm travelling with my family through China into Russia. Make sure you mask and hand sanitizer handy.

</comment><comment><USER48> First the swine flu kills half the pigs in China. Now this thing.

</comment><comment><USER49> The marketing department of the beer company must be livid.

<comment><USER50> Not if they're smart enough to capitalize on this.

With just the right touch, they could potentially crush it with the Super Bowl coming.

I don't know. Maybe a bunch of people sitting around holding Corona Light beers with hospital masks on. They are just looking at each other. Then at their beers. They can't take their masks off. One guy tries to drink it through the mask, just kind-of chokes. Another tries to pour it through the little cracks at the top of the mask... no good. Finally, one guy says screw- it, takes his mask of and drinks the beer. Everyone else follows.

Then, to be a little tongue in cheek, a guy at the very end of the commercial coughs.

</comment></comment><comment><USER51> As someone who takes regular flights on planes I find this disturbing.

<comment><USER52> Wearing an N95 mask and washing your hands properly will prevent the overwhelming majority of transmission. Could someone still sneeze in your eye? Sure. Could you wear your mask improperly because you haven't been fit tested, yeah. But you sure can reduce your risk a lot.

<comment><USER53> > Could you wear your mask improperly because you haven't been fit tested, > yeah.

It is next to impossible to wear an N95 mask correctly.

<comment><USER18> It's also not at all clear that N95 masks are meaningfully superior to surgical masks.

One of several studies on the topic: [https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4868605/](https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4868605/)

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER54> I read on the news first symptomes observed in USA,also here who[0] emergency prep. responses, given details about some cases [0][https://www.who.int/csr/don/archive/year/2020/en/](https://www.who.int/csr/don/archive/year/2020/en/)</comment>