I love my current project, I think of it as my third startup, but I also feel like the guy in Jaws when he said "we're gonna need a bigger boat." https://blog.codinghorror.com/the-road-not-taken-is-guaranteed-minimum-income/
Serious question: do we need more studies? UBI studies have been done, repeatedly, and show clear benefits.
Or would that 50M be better spent directly on political lobbying to enact the necessary legislation?
@nikclayton political lobbying is the same as burning the money these days. Would you rather do that.. or actual science that puts the money in the hands of the desperately poor?
I think his point is "the actual science is already done, and they are ignoring it. Shouldn't we focus on making them stop ignoring it?".
@jgg @codinghorror Indeed.
That you or I have the money to fund things like this is ultimately a political failure that needs to be addressed.
Philanthropic millionaires distributing money is no substitute for a fairer tax code.
@nikclayton @jgg no one is saying otherwise. When in doubt, I will put my money in the hands of people who desperately need it.. and generate OVERWHELMING amounts of sound scientific evidence that this works. Problem is, the red state brigade doesn't believe in science. Tell me how I fix that, and I will try my best.
@codinghorror @jgg If "the red state brigade doesn't believe in science" then why do you think more science is going to solve the problem?
Wouldn't funding political efforts to turn the red states/counties blue be more effective?
I'm not saying it has to be an either/or choice. But your blog post that started this thread made no mention of any sort of political effort alongside direct distribution of cash.
@nikclayton @codinghorror @jgg Perhaps that political effort is not necessary. From a scientific point of view, the traditional political lobbying has also been proven to hardly make a difference. In the end, I suspect that the only way to change the political situation is to vote differently. Empowering people to do so by funding _them_ instead of the politicians is at least an effort worth trying.
@mauritslamers @codinghorror @jgg
How do you get politicians to vote for what you want without either (a) standing for election yourself, or (b) lobbying people who are either standing for election, or already in office?
For example, 83% of US voters support Medicaid (https://www.npr.org/sections/shots-health-news/2025/06/17/nx-s1-5435312/medicaid-cuts-big-beautiful-bill-trump-kff-poll).
This means **nothing** if they have no one to vote for who also supports it.
@nikclayton @mauritslamers @codinghorror
Politically speaking, not voting is always the worst possible strategy.
@jgg @nikclayton @mauritslamers Nik, I'm happy to put you on the phone with Dennis Dahmer if you want to truly understand all this. I talk to him regularly. Just send me an email and I'll set it up for you.
@jgg @nikclayton @mauritslamers Nik, you had so very many opinions about all this that you shared at quite some length, so your silence here is striking.
@jgg @nikclayton @mauritslamers I think the takeaway is that's really easy to have a lot of opinions about stuff, whereas actually doing ANYTHING about it is a bit more difficult, isn't it? Talk is cheap. The actual work is, y'know... the job?
@codinghorror @jgg @nikclayton Of course having an opinion is "easy", but I think that a discussion is not just about opinions and actions, or who is right or wrong. It is about the (respectful) exchange of arguments and motivations which can lead to new insights. That is already hard to do in general, needing vocabulary and loads of practice in expressing oneself. Trying to do that in rather short messages is even harder and quickly leads to exchange of opinions rather than arguments.
@mauritslamers @jgg @nikclayton yeah, but seriously? Take that same $50m, and instead of doing sound science with open data results while simultaneously lifting thousands of desperately poor people out of poverty -- by the way, largely in areas that have wildly disproportionate political power in our US political system -- and showing them someone gives a good god damn about them.. and instead, let's give that to $50m to the meaningless, useless, completely broken courtesy Citizens United political lobbying grist mill?
That's a very, VERY hard no from me, my friends. If others want to do otherwise, great. You go, girls.
@mauritslamers @jgg @nikclayton and I reiterate my offer for Nik to call me and discuss this and explain it to me. I'm available. Just say the word, send me a link to the comms service of your choice, and I'm there. Just gird your loins in advance.
@codinghorror @jgg @nikclayton my point exactly: in my previous message I was not able to add (because of actual or perceived character limit) that in my view the argument of effectiveness should be paramount. The effect of that budget directly in the hand of the people who need it is going to be much greater than trying to use it to influence people who don't actually need that money anyway and are unlikely to be swayed by it.
@mauritslamers @jgg @nikclayton The conclusion is fucking obvious. So I'm doing the studies, the science, and every 16 months, 3 more counties, eventually reaching all 50 states, until I'm dead, and then hopefully even beyond that. Because it's not about me. It's about everyone having a fair shot, and not playing a rigged game. I don't play to win. I play purely for the love of the game: life.
@codinghorror @jgg @nikclayton my hope is that if I would be ever in a situation that would allow me to do what you do, I have the courage to do the same.
@codinghorror @jgg @nikclayton There are quite a few parallels between these discussions and the open source software world: the one who does/builds/makes will always be asked why they didn't do it differently... There is an expression in Dutch which translates to "Tall trees catch much wind": if you stick your neck out, you will hear about it.
@codinghorror @jgg @mauritslamers
My dude. It's the weekend. I'm busy.
I'm starting to understand why you're so enamoured with AI - you start spiraling when you hear anything other than "You're absolutely right".
Shit like this (and your recent AI thread) is why people don't like techbros.
@codinghorror @jgg @mauritslamers
The questions I've asked you have been met with deflections, non sequiturs, claims you're different because you're "elite", falling back on "look at all this money I have, some of which I'm donating, I'm the good guy". Or my personal favourite, claim you'll be able to do all the necessary research in 15 minutes.
You're giving the rest of us a bad name.
@codinghorror @jgg @mauritslamers
**We know UBI works**, you link to some of the studies in the blog post. There are political efforts already underway across the US to translate that information into useful political action, in particular the trifecta of https://www.mayorsforagi.org/,
https://countiesforaguaranteedincome.org/, and https://www.legislatorsforagi.org/.
As https://www.texastribune.org/2024/04/23/texas-supreme-court-guaranteed-income/ demonstrates, the problem is not one of "We need more research".
@codinghorror @jgg @mauritslamers
Do you want to see the work get done? Or do you want to be the person who gets credit?
@nikclayton @jgg @mauritslamers it has already begun; WV October, NC November, and then MS probably Jan/Feb next year. More info will be released then, of course.
@nikclayton @jgg @mauritslamers this is not merely "research" (and open source, available to all, research at that) but also doing the very important work of giving money to people in desperate need of it along the way as a part of that research. I think you're losing something critically important when you oversimplify like that.
@jgg @nikclayton @mauritslamers look up this story. It’s not well known, but it should be. This alone is why our third GMI study is in Mississippi. I met the Dahmer family. Incredibly inspiring people.