Latest / Why We Do What We Do / Universal Basic Income pt. 2

Transcript

Universal Basic Income pt. 2 · Why We Do What We Do

• 0:03
  Speaker 1: You're listening to Why we do what we do. Welcome
• 0:15
  Speaker 1: to Why we do what we do. I am your
• 0:18
  Speaker 1: guaranteed to be here host Abraham.
• 0:21
  Speaker 2: And I'm your monthly paycheck host Shane who.
• 0:25
  Speaker 1: We're a psychology podcast. We talk about the things that
• 0:28
  Speaker 1: people do and why they do them, and sometimes policies
• 0:31
  Speaker 1: that affect the thoughts and opinions and behaviors of other people.
• 0:35
  Speaker 1: And this is, by the way, part two of a
• 0:38
  Speaker 1: discussion that we're having.
• 0:39
  Speaker 2: Yes, and what better policy to impact people and their
• 0:43
  Speaker 2: behavior than just giving them money?
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  Speaker 1: Yeah, I mean I don't think most people are going
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  Speaker 1: to bulk at that. I mean a lot of people will,
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  Speaker 1: but most people maybe won't.
• 0:51
  Speaker 2: Yeah, they'll do it for the wrong reasons.
• 0:53
  Speaker 1: That's right, wrong, for the wrong reasons. That's what it is.
• 0:57
  Speaker 2: Uh huh.
• 0:57
  Speaker 1: Anyway, if you're joining us for the first time, welcome,
• 1:00
  Speaker 1: appreciate having you here. You might learn a lot from
• 1:02
  Speaker 1: going back and checking out the first episode. If this
• 1:05
  Speaker 1: is the first one you're ever hearing, I mean, we're
• 1:06
  Speaker 1: certainly happy to have you, and maybe this is all
• 1:08
  Speaker 1: you need. I don't know you do you, But we
• 1:11
  Speaker 1: did cover a lot of ground. As a matter of fact,
• 1:12
  Speaker 1: I'll do a quick recap on what we covered last time.
• 1:15
  Speaker 1: So we basically introduced this idea of universal basic income.
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  Speaker 1: This was a major staple in the candidacy of one
• 1:23
  Speaker 1: Andrew Yang during I think the twenty sixteen elections, where
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  Speaker 1: he was sort of pitching this idea of one thousand
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  Speaker 1: dollars a month to all people. And so we kind
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  Speaker 1: of wanted to talk about the history of this policy,
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  Speaker 1: how it would work, what it is intended to do,
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  Speaker 1: what it could do, and a little bit the sort
• 1:40
  Speaker 1: of objections and rebuttals to those objections from people on
• 1:44
  Speaker 1: both sides of this issue. And mostly we're kind of
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  Speaker 1: just curious. I don't know, what would this do?
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  Speaker 2: You know? Yeah? And I think that's the thing that's
• 1:51
  Speaker 2: really fun about politics and policies is that a lot
• 1:54
  Speaker 2: of times some really cool or novel idea will come
• 1:57
  Speaker 2: up in a system that it's never been try and
• 2:00
  Speaker 2: people will go, huh, I wonder, I wonder how that
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  Speaker 2: will work, or they'll go, no, that's that sounds like
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  Speaker 2: a bad idea and I'll never do that. And so
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  Speaker 2: we're kind of exploring, like, well, what could or what
• 2:11
  Speaker 2: would or what should happen in the event that a
• 2:14
  Speaker 2: UBI does exist for folks.
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  Speaker 1: Yeah, is it a bad idea? We don't know. We're
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  Speaker 1: gonna try and find that out today, because today we
• 2:22
  Speaker 1: are unpacking the evidence, which is to say, the studies,
• 2:26
  Speaker 1: the research, the applications of the idea of a universal
• 2:30
  Speaker 1: basic income in some places where it has in fact
• 2:33
  Speaker 1: been tried. But before we jump into that, I do
• 2:36
  Speaker 1: want to say thank you for joining us on this day,
• 2:39
  Speaker 1: whether you're new or not, we wish to wish you
• 2:41
  Speaker 1: a happy National Avocado Day. Ah.
• 2:45
  Speaker 2: Yes. And it is also Cotton Candy Day, the worst
• 2:48
  Speaker 2: of the candies.
• 2:50
  Speaker 1: It is also National Raspberry Cake Day.
• 2:53
  Speaker 2: I'm into that.
• 2:54
  Speaker 1: Sure.
• 2:55
  Speaker 2: It is Jump for Jellybeans Day.
• 2:58
  Speaker 1: Okay, it is national Day we love our MutS.
• 3:01
  Speaker 2: Oh, we love our MutS. It's shredded wheat Day.
• 3:04
  Speaker 1: Okay. It is black Tot Day. Now do you know
• 3:07
  Speaker 1: what this is, Shane, I had to live this up.
• 3:10
  Speaker 2: No idea.
• 3:11
  Speaker 1: Okay. Apparently this comes from British rum rations for I
• 3:16
  Speaker 1: want to say, the Navy or something like that, and
• 3:19
  Speaker 1: so it was it's some tradition around rum rations. But
• 3:22
  Speaker 1: that is a black taught day.
• 3:25
  Speaker 2: I knew that like a tot was what like a
• 3:27
  Speaker 2: small portion or a sip of like some alcohol, Like
• 3:30
  Speaker 2: you give somebody a small tot and it's like, I
• 3:33
  Speaker 2: think that's like where hot totty comes from.
• 3:35
  Speaker 1: I think maybe at some point we'll have to talk
• 3:38
  Speaker 1: about British rhyming, slang or some of their other idioms,
• 3:41
  Speaker 1: because much like I imagine American slang and idioms must sound
• 3:46
  Speaker 1: to the rest of the world, British idioms and slang
• 3:49
  Speaker 1: I find tremendously confusing.
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  Speaker 2: Nah, we don't need to talk about those lobster backs. No, thanks, Usa, USA. No, Actually,
• 3:59
  Speaker 2: that'd be really fascinating. I know, there's probably some really
• 4:01
  Speaker 2: cool history there. There's a very cool history of England.
• 4:04
  Speaker 2: I'm sure. It's World Ranger Day.
• 4:06
  Speaker 1: It is Uncommon Instrument Awareness Week.
• 4:10
  Speaker 2: Don't play them. Just be aware that a theremin is
• 4:12
  Speaker 2: out there. You should be worried because it's it makes
• 4:15
  Speaker 2: the sound of worry.
• 4:19
  Speaker 1: It is kind of the sound of worry. I agree.
• 4:21
  Speaker 2: Yeah, it's a National Marine Week, which I love absolutely.
• 4:25
  Speaker 1: It is Beans Month, so I appreciate those beans.
• 4:29
  Speaker 2: Yeah, Boston stoked. It's also Anti boredom Month.
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  Speaker 1: Very good, all right, But as I promised, we were
• 4:35
  Speaker 1: going to talk about this universal basic income thing, and
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  Speaker 1: I will get to that in one moment. I would
• 4:41
  Speaker 1: first like to tell you that if you haven't already,
• 4:43
  Speaker 1: you may support this podcast. You can do that by
• 4:46
  Speaker 1: going over to Patreon, picking up some merch, leaving us
• 4:48
  Speaker 1: a rating and review, liking, subscribing, sharing us with a friend,
• 4:51
  Speaker 1: and doing all those kind of cool, awesome rewarding things
• 4:53
  Speaker 1: that just make everyone feel oh so good. And if
• 4:58
  Speaker 1: you don't do that, we're so happy to have you here,
• 4:59
  Speaker 1: thank you for So let's go ahead and dig into
• 5:02
  Speaker 1: our topic here. Unless there's anything I'm forgetting to Billboard
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  Speaker 1: up front.
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  Speaker 2: No, I think we could dive into it.
• 5:07
  Speaker 1: Okay, great, So this is part two talking about universal
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  Speaker 1: basic income. And so the first thing, really the crux
• 5:15
  Speaker 1: of what we're talking about in this discussion to wrap
• 5:18
  Speaker 1: up our overall series I don't know two parterre here
• 5:21
  Speaker 1: on the idea of universal basic income is we want
• 5:24
  Speaker 1: to unpack the evidence here. There have now actually been
• 5:27
  Speaker 1: several experimental attempts to determine how well some program like
• 5:33
  Speaker 1: a universal basic income would be, and that they've tried
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  Speaker 1: in Canada, Switzerland, Finland, the Netherlands, Germany, Kenya and in
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  Speaker 1: several places around the United States.
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  Speaker 2: Yeah, and there have been several well designed studies, which
• 5:47
  Speaker 2: you know is important because there are a lot of
• 5:49
  Speaker 2: studies out there that are not well designed exactly. There
• 5:52
  Speaker 2: were some well designed studies that had very very positive outcomes.
• 5:56
  Speaker 2: And here are some of the examples that we're talking
• 5:58
  Speaker 2: about of these applications of UBI in society.
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  Speaker 1: One of the first ones we're going to unpack here
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  Speaker 1: occurred in Stockton, California. It probably had some name, but
• 6:09
  Speaker 1: I didn't bother turning that up in my review of this.
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  Speaker 1: But this was early on. This is sort of during
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  Speaker 1: the pandemic era, early into lockdown of twenty twenty and
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  Speaker 1: so Mayor Michael Tubbs of Stockton, California created a program.
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  Speaker 1: Oh this did have a name. I wrote it down
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  Speaker 1: and I just forgot that I did. It was called
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  Speaker 1: Mayor's for a Guaranteed Income, which you know, MAGI very catchy.
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  Speaker 2: I like that a lot.
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  Speaker 1: Yeah. So in this program stocked in along with about
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  Speaker 1: thirty other cities, they had received some part of this
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  Speaker 1: million dollar gift from Twitter co founder Jack Dorsey to
• 6:45
  Speaker 1: fund specifically some UBI pilot projects. They wanted to sort
• 6:49
  Speaker 1: of experiment and see how it worked. And so Jack
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  Speaker 1: Dorsey was like, I need to atone for my Twitter
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  Speaker 1: sins and put money out in the world to make
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  Speaker 1: it a better place. And as part of that gesture,
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  Speaker 1: mayors such as Michael Tubbs applied for and received money
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  Speaker 1: to pilot this UBI program.
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  Speaker 2: Yeah, and the program specifically targeted but randomly selected low
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  Speaker 2: income people and ex cons, which is actually really fascinating,
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  Speaker 2: and so specifically X cons have trouble finding work and
• 7:19
  Speaker 2: often have to return to their same friend groups and
• 7:21
  Speaker 2: same activities that landed them in jail in the first place,
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  Speaker 2: and the idea of a UBI in this situation allowed
• 7:27
  Speaker 2: them to get skill training and jobs, so they were
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  Speaker 2: lower rates of recidivism.
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  Speaker 1: Yeah, I mean it's really hard for x cons to
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  Speaker 1: find work. Have whatever opinion about that as you want.
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  Speaker 1: They are people who will probably need money at some point,
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  Speaker 1: and if they don't have a strategy for getting that
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  Speaker 1: the legal way, they may go the illegal way. So
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  Speaker 1: this was sort of like, let's try and avoid that
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  Speaker 1: happening again. And also early on during lockdown, it was
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  Speaker 1: increasingly difficult for anybody to work, let alone people who
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  Speaker 1: were already going to be like back of the line,
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  Speaker 1: right in terms of how they were prioritized by businesses
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  Speaker 1: who were hiring people and looking at that going you know,
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  Speaker 1: that's a whole other conversation, I think. But another thing
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  Speaker 1: that happened is that one of the outcomes of this program,
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  Speaker 1: the Guaranteed Income program, is that it allowed women in
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  Speaker 1: abusive households to escape and find their own housing. There
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  Speaker 1: were specific accounts some women sharing their story how they
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  Speaker 1: had essentially been beholden to somebody who was providing income,
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  Speaker 1: either all or some of the income, a necessary part
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  Speaker 1: of the income that were very abusive, that these were toxic,
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  Speaker 1: problematic relationships, and they were because they could then rely
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  Speaker 1: on income for themselves, they were able to get out
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  Speaker 1: of that situation and move into a place where they
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  Speaker 1: could at least supplement their cost of living from this program.
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  Speaker 1: And it also allowed some people who were in who
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  Speaker 1: were already employed but maybe we're making very low wages
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  Speaker 1: to instead sort of look for higher paying jobs because
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  Speaker 1: they could afford to not necessarily spend all their time
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  Speaker 1: working at a job that paid low wages. And so
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  Speaker 1: a lot of people found better, pain, higher pain full
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  Speaker 1: time employment because of the cushion that they got from
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  Speaker 1: this support, which again overall meant that their economic contributions
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  Speaker 1: overall were greater. They were just more going out, more
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  Speaker 1: coming in all around, which helps with the overall strength
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  Speaker 1: of the economy. And of course it does force those
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  Speaker 1: businesses who are losing low wage workers to have to
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  Speaker 1: pay a higher wage that they were very unhappy about doing.
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  Speaker 1: But nevertheless we're sort of forced to do in many instances.
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  Speaker 2: Right, I mean, it's already fascinating that, like in this
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  Speaker 2: small kind of pilot program, you're already seeing these like
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  Speaker 2: pretty major effects from it's not even everybody, it's a
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  Speaker 2: small group of people that are accessing it at random,
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  Speaker 2: and just the positive the net positiveness come out of
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  Speaker 2: it is really fascinating already.
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  Speaker 1: So sure.
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  Speaker 2: Yeah, Now there is Denver's Basic Income Project, which started
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  Speaker 2: in the fall of twenty twenty two. So I think
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  Speaker 2: it's really important to kind of point out that, like
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  Speaker 2: a lot of the evidence that we know about now
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  Speaker 2: is fairly new, which is cool.
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  Speaker 1: Yeah, like within the last five years or so. Yeah,
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  Speaker 1: one project we'll talk about has been going on for
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  Speaker 1: like twelve ish years. Yeah, but yeah, it's pretty new
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  Speaker 1: for the most part. Although we talked about the history
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  Speaker 1: a little bit last time.
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  Speaker 2: Yeah. Yeah. So, starting in the fall of twenty twenty two,
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  Speaker 2: eight hundred and seven participants experiencing homelessness for one year
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  Speaker 2: were brought to this project and they were given a
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  Speaker 2: universal basic income.
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  Speaker 1: They wanted to do this experimentally, so they essentially took
• 10:31
  Speaker 1: these these eight hundred and seven people and put them
• 10:34
  Speaker 1: into three groups, and they were randomly assigned, so there
• 10:37
  Speaker 1: was no reason to believe that anyone group should be
• 10:40
  Speaker 1: doing better than another because they tried to randomly distribute
• 10:43
  Speaker 1: everyone across the groups as much as possible. Now, in
• 10:47
  Speaker 1: the different groups, who had Group A, and they received
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  Speaker 1: a flat one thousand dollars a month in cash, no
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  Speaker 1: strings attached. So that comes to if you can do
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  Speaker 1: the math with me, twelve thousand dollars per year. Okay,
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  Speaker 1: So so they, yeah, they it's every single month guaranteed,
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  Speaker 1: you're getting one thousand dollars. That's Group A.
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  Speaker 2: Yeah.
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  Speaker 1: Group B received a large sum up front. Instead, they
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  Speaker 1: got it like a sixty five hundred dollars payment right
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  Speaker 1: away and then five hundred dollars a month for the
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  Speaker 1: rest of the year. And if you do the math
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  Speaker 1: on that, that also comes out to exactly twelve thousand dollars,
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  Speaker 1: So your way you slice it, Group A or Group B,
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  Speaker 1: they're both getting twelve thousand dollars by the end of
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  Speaker 1: the year. One of them got it in the form
• 11:30
  Speaker 1: of one thousand dollars a month, one of them and
• 11:33
  Speaker 1: a big lump sum, and then a smaller five hundred
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  Speaker 1: dollars per month. What do you think you would choose, Shane?
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  Speaker 2: Knowing me, I'd probably take the one thousand dollars a month,
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  Speaker 2: because I think if you gave me sixty five hundred
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  Speaker 2: dollars right away, i'd probably buy a bunch of records
• 11:47
  Speaker 2: fair enough. Yeah, what about you? Which one would you pick?
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  Speaker 1: I think i'd also go for the thousand and mostly
• 11:52
  Speaker 1: because I would like to plan for down the road
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  Speaker 1: to just like constantly have that as part of my
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  Speaker 1: rig budget. And I think if I had the big
• 12:03
  Speaker 1: lump sum, i'd probably throw it all at a bunch
• 12:05
  Speaker 1: of bills and debt really quickly, which is not a
• 12:07
  Speaker 1: bad thing. Yeah, but I wouldn't spread it around very much,
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  Speaker 1: and I feel like the spreading it around is ultimately
• 12:13
  Speaker 1: very useful.
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  Speaker 2: Yeah, for sure, that makes sense. Now. Group C was
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  Speaker 2: the control group who only received fifty dollars a month
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  Speaker 2: for the year, which equates to again math, but that
• 12:23
  Speaker 2: ended up costing six hundred dollars, which is five percent
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  Speaker 2: of the other groups.
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  Speaker 1: Yeah, so they only received five percent of what the
• 12:31
  Speaker 1: other groups received, trying to rule out that, like, you know,
• 12:35
  Speaker 1: they were still receiving something, but it was how much
• 12:37
  Speaker 1: and what that meant because they wanted to sort of
• 12:39
  Speaker 1: see what were the effects here. Okay, so various metrics
• 12:44
  Speaker 1: they wanted to look at, including things like housing, employment,
• 12:47
  Speaker 1: and a lot of other things that might come with
• 12:50
  Speaker 1: people who are experiencing homelessness. And to start with, six
• 12:53
  Speaker 1: percent of group A and Group B and then twelve
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  Speaker 1: percent of Group C were in some sort of house
• 13:00
  Speaker 1: or apartment or hotel at the beginning of the study.
• 13:03
  Speaker 1: Six percent of group A, group B, twelve percent of
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  Speaker 1: Group C. So that doesn't mean that they necessarily lived there,
• 13:10
  Speaker 1: or maybe it was temporary or they you know, they
• 13:12
  Speaker 1: had intermittent access to these places whatever, six and twelve percent.
• 13:17
  Speaker 1: After a year after this experiment, forty four percent of
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  Speaker 1: Group A, forty eight percent of Group B, and forty
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  Speaker 1: three percent of Group C were all in a house
• 13:28
  Speaker 1: or apartment. So essentially went from a negligible small percentage.
• 13:33
  Speaker 1: Not you know, it's not nothing, but up to that
• 13:36
  Speaker 1: they had nearly half of all groups were then no
• 13:40
  Speaker 1: longer unhoused by the end of the year.
• 13:43
  Speaker 2: I mean that's a pretty significant jump when you talk
• 13:46
  Speaker 2: about going from six to six percent to forty four percent.
• 13:49
  Speaker 2: I mean that's a lot of people moving into home.
• 13:52
  Speaker 1: Yeah, that's a I mean that is a meaningfully large jump.
• 13:56
  Speaker 2: Yes, yeah, you know, I was thinking about percentages, and
• 13:59
  Speaker 2: the one thing that keeps coming in to mind is
• 14:01
  Speaker 2: that one of this podcast does end up with an
• 14:05
  Speaker 2: AD at some point in time.
• 14:14
  Speaker 1: Okay, so the Universal Basic AD come ah eight id
• 14:20
  Speaker 1: come yeah.
• 14:23
  Speaker 2: All right.
• 14:23
  Speaker 1: So we've talked about these groups who were in the
• 14:26
  Speaker 1: study in Denver in their project. Now, as we mentioned
• 14:29
  Speaker 1: that there was an increase in housing, now one I
• 14:32
  Speaker 1: think caveat or not caveat. But one argument that was
• 14:35
  Speaker 1: made by people who were sort of against the idea
• 14:39
  Speaker 1: of just a cash no strings attached here you go,
• 14:44
  Speaker 1: was that these would be people who are dependent on
• 14:46
  Speaker 1: the government. These are people who they don't know what
• 14:50
  Speaker 1: to do with the money. They should be told what
• 14:52
  Speaker 1: to do with the money, and like they should get
• 14:54
  Speaker 1: sort of vouchers for specific services that those politicians probably
• 14:57
  Speaker 1: have some stake in any way, right, But anyway, so
• 15:00
  Speaker 1: they sort of say they're not gonna work because they're
• 15:02
  Speaker 1: now getting this money. Okay, Both Group A and Group
• 15:07
  Speaker 1: B significantly increase their full time employment by the end
• 15:10
  Speaker 1: of the year, whereas Group C did actually decline slightly.
• 15:14
  Speaker 1: The ones who are not receiving very much, they only
• 15:16
  Speaker 1: got fifty dollars a month. So the groups that were
• 15:19
  Speaker 1: receiving large larger amounts, either upfront or continuously, had a
• 15:25
  Speaker 1: significant increase in full time employment. Now this is actually
• 15:29
  Speaker 1: important because what we talked about in the last episode
• 15:32
  Speaker 1: was the fact that, like, you have to have an
• 15:34
  Speaker 1: address to have a job, and you have to have
• 15:38
  Speaker 1: a job to have an address. So it actually makes
• 15:40
  Speaker 1: a lot of sense. Like one thousand dollars a month
• 15:43
  Speaker 1: sounds great to those of us who are already making
• 15:45
  Speaker 1: an income every month. Right to someone who's not making
• 15:48
  Speaker 1: an income, that is a wild game changer, But it's
• 15:52
  Speaker 1: not very much money. Like one thousand dollars a month
• 15:55
  Speaker 1: is awesome, and it's still barely enough to cover rent
• 15:59
  Speaker 1: for a lot of people. And I imagine in a
• 16:01
  Speaker 1: city like Denver, that that does not go very far.
• 16:04
  Speaker 1: So all it really did was give them the support
• 16:07
  Speaker 1: they needed so that they could take care of themselves
• 16:11
  Speaker 1: to like get a job and do that sort of thing.
• 16:12
  Speaker 1: So I think that's a really important probable factor to
• 16:16
  Speaker 1: consider in why that would be the case in this
• 16:18
  Speaker 1: situation right now.
• 16:20
  Speaker 2: Even more so, like when we talk about kind of
• 16:23
  Speaker 2: the net positives that come out of this, all three
• 16:26
  Speaker 2: groups showed a statistically significant decrease in time spent accessing
• 16:30
  Speaker 2: other services, and there was a decrease in jail time
• 16:33
  Speaker 2: and they were fewer and visits in less time spent
• 16:36
  Speaker 2: at the er. So on top of folks getting housing,
• 16:40
  Speaker 2: on top of folks getting more employment, they were using
• 16:43
  Speaker 2: less resources and the community and freeing up resources because
• 16:47
  Speaker 2: they were using them less for other people who might
• 16:49
  Speaker 2: have needed.
• 16:49
  Speaker 1: Them, right including things like where police were allocating their
• 16:53
  Speaker 1: time to in situations you know, people were probably doing
• 16:57
  Speaker 1: very little to warrant that amount of attention and nevertheless
• 17:00
  Speaker 1: we're receiving a lot of it and ending up in jail.
• 17:03
  Speaker 1: And with this program that was just not how that
• 17:06
  Speaker 1: those resources were being spent was on dealing with that situation.
• 17:10
  Speaker 1: And as you said, that also meant fewer trips to
• 17:13
  Speaker 1: the er, which you know that they couldn't pay for,
• 17:16
  Speaker 1: and obviously doctors are obligated to help anyway. So I
• 17:19
  Speaker 1: think a really important consideration there and then as to
• 17:23
  Speaker 1: be expected, and we'll talk about this in other scenarios
• 17:25
  Speaker 1: as well. All participants reported decrease stress and just overall
• 17:30
  Speaker 1: improved mental health and quality of life. In many instances,
• 17:33
  Speaker 1: people report that they use the money to secure vehicles,
• 17:36
  Speaker 1: to secure housing, to pay their debts and their bills,
• 17:39
  Speaker 1: to feed themselves, to get medicine that they needed, all
• 17:42
  Speaker 1: kinds of things that we sort of take for granted
• 17:45
  Speaker 1: as a basic part of our operating day to day
• 17:48
  Speaker 1: when we're not in a situation where we're unhoused and
• 17:50
  Speaker 1: can't have a job because we don't have an address.
• 17:52
  Speaker 1: So that was also a really big effect.
• 17:56
  Speaker 2: Right, So this program costs a little over twenty four
• 18:00
  Speaker 2: thousand dollars but save the city over five hundred thousand dollars.
• 18:05
  Speaker 2: I mean, that's a huge, huge savings when you think
• 18:09
  Speaker 2: about it. Politicians often consider a three dollars a one
• 18:12
  Speaker 2: dollar return on investment a smashing success, and in Denver
• 18:16
  Speaker 2: it was a return on investment of forty nine dollars
• 18:19
  Speaker 2: for every dollar spent. I mean, this is you can't
• 18:22
  Speaker 2: argue against the benefit of just this small program.
• 18:26
  Speaker 1: Yeah, this is basically six times better than their wildest
• 18:29
  Speaker 1: dreams in terms of how effective of a return on
• 18:33
  Speaker 1: investment it was and how much it saved. Okay, one
• 18:38
  Speaker 1: of the biggest, most well known, and most well funded
• 18:41
  Speaker 1: programs that has experimented with this is called Give Directly.
• 18:46
  Speaker 1: Is it a matter of fact, anybody who has heard
• 18:48
  Speaker 1: about this topic has maybe heard of Give Directly the
• 18:51
  Speaker 1: most because this is I think the highest profile one
• 18:55
  Speaker 1: and one of the reasons I saved it for one
• 18:57
  Speaker 1: of the last examples we'll talk about. Yeah, so this
• 19:00
  Speaker 1: this is a charity. It's a nonprofit charity funded by economists.
• 19:04
  Speaker 1: They wanted to try this out and again it delivers straight, unconditional,
• 19:09
  Speaker 1: those strings attached cash infusions to the poorest people. This
• 19:14
  Speaker 1: is a massive charity donation. It started in Kenya. This
• 19:18
  Speaker 1: is all sort of took place in Africa.
• 19:20
  Speaker 2: Here.
• 19:20
  Speaker 1: It started in Kenya, but has since expanded to Uganda, Malawi, Rwanda, Liberia,
• 19:27
  Speaker 1: and the Democratic Republic of the Congo and Morocco. So
• 19:30
  Speaker 1: it's now been implemented in many other places over many iterations,
• 19:35
  Speaker 1: as they sort of continued to alter, expand, and tweak
• 19:39
  Speaker 1: the program by noting their successes and failures as it
• 19:43
  Speaker 1: rolled out.
• 19:43
  Speaker 2: Right, So at the time of this episode, they have
• 19:46
  Speaker 2: given over ten million dollars to over twenty thousand people,
• 19:50
  Speaker 2: simply asking the question are things better, worse, or the same.
• 19:55
  Speaker 1: And you know, I think they had some optimism around
• 19:58
  Speaker 1: what would be the outcome here, but and still the
• 20:00
  Speaker 1: results were kind of startling to them. Right, not only
• 20:04
  Speaker 1: did this cash infusion help the families that received it,
• 20:08
  Speaker 1: but the infusions actually helped the entire surrounding community around
• 20:13
  Speaker 1: those people, and people would spend those money that the
• 20:16
  Speaker 1: money that they got on nearby businesses. That of course
• 20:20
  Speaker 1: improved the overall economy and there was no inflation that occurred.
• 20:24
  Speaker 1: Hunger plummeted, investments in social and private enterprises expanded, the
• 20:29
  Speaker 1: GDP multiplied, and people were significantly happier, less stressed, and
• 20:35
  Speaker 1: report an overall higher quality of life.
• 20:38
  Speaker 2: I think that listening to this, you might hear the
• 20:41
  Speaker 2: way Abraham just described that and think that that was
• 20:43
  Speaker 2: an exaggerated approach to that. No, this is not these
• 20:47
  Speaker 2: are not exaggerated numbers. These are not exaggerated outcomes. This
• 20:50
  Speaker 2: is really what's happening with this stuff, which is like
• 20:53
  Speaker 2: pretty incredible, Like it's almost unbelievable. I mean, like even
• 20:57
  Speaker 2: going further, there is a significant decrease in domestic abuse,
• 21:00
  Speaker 2: and women were able to have a say in how
• 21:02
  Speaker 2: money was spent or else make it on their own
• 21:04
  Speaker 2: and support their children, which was a big deal. And
• 21:06
  Speaker 2: when the money was equally distributed based on lowest income
• 21:09
  Speaker 2: rather than random assignment, things improved even more. I mean,
• 21:13
  Speaker 2: this is just like net benefit for everybody involved.
• 21:17
  Speaker 1: Yeah, not only did the families that receive the money
• 21:20
  Speaker 1: experience improvements, but their wealthier neighbors also somehow saw financial improvements,
• 21:25
  Speaker 1: and literally everybody seemed to experience this overall psychological benefits
• 21:31
  Speaker 1: that come with I guess a guaranteed level of support
• 21:34
  Speaker 1: and adequate assistance.
• 21:37
  Speaker 2: Right. And so although economists did not expect inflation on
• 21:40
  Speaker 2: traded goods, they did expect inflation on services or for
• 21:44
  Speaker 2: services and increased wages, but that didn't happen either. So
• 21:47
  Speaker 2: it only rose b zero point one percent, which is
• 21:50
  Speaker 2: entirely manageable, and prices stayed homogeneous. So overall again, it
• 21:55
  Speaker 2: just was great for every single person. Everybody benefited, everybody
• 22:00
  Speaker 2: made money, Inflation didn't happen, everybody was happier. Yeah, Like,
• 22:04
  Speaker 2: why would we not want to do this?
• 22:06
  Speaker 1: It was like a quadruple win.
• 22:08
  Speaker 2: Everybody wins, everybody wins.
• 22:10
  Speaker 1: And this just utterly transformed the Kenyan economy into a
• 22:13
  Speaker 1: far more vibrant and successful overall economy and government like
• 22:18
  Speaker 1: everything improved and they wanted There were some other things
• 22:21
  Speaker 1: that they tinkered around with, as as I said, they
• 22:24
  Speaker 1: had sort of they had iterated the processes they went
• 22:28
  Speaker 1: because initially it was random assignment that was good, but
• 22:31
  Speaker 1: it had the issue that some of the people who
• 22:33
  Speaker 1: were the worst off were not receiving assistance, and they
• 22:35
  Speaker 1: were then actually much less happy by seeing like why
• 22:39
  Speaker 1: is nothing good happening to me? Sure, and it's happening
• 22:42
  Speaker 1: to my person right next door to me, who now
• 22:44
  Speaker 1: all of a sudden has a real roof and can
• 22:46
  Speaker 1: feed their family. So there was some amount of like
• 22:50
  Speaker 1: jealousy and I guess a lack of feeling like there
• 22:54
  Speaker 1: was good cooperation going on. So then instead what they
• 22:57
  Speaker 1: just they just said, Okay, well, let's just do equal
• 22:59
  Speaker 1: distribute among everybody even if it's a little bit less,
• 23:02
  Speaker 1: and that improved everything. All the jealousy stuff, it all
• 23:05
  Speaker 1: went away. Yeah, Another thing that they tinkered with is
• 23:08
  Speaker 1: the idea of like a large lump sum or a
• 23:11
  Speaker 1: bunch of smaller payments. Just like with the Denver experiment,
• 23:14
  Speaker 1: they wanted to know what would be the case, what
• 23:16
  Speaker 1: tended to happen, And they saw this with the Denver
• 23:19
  Speaker 1: experiment too. What tended to happen is that if they
• 23:21
  Speaker 1: got a large lump sum, they tended to invest that
• 23:24
  Speaker 1: in something important right away. So, like, one example that
• 23:27
  Speaker 1: I saw was a guy who essentially he'd been doing
• 23:30
  Speaker 1: like really difficult labor where he had to like carry
• 23:33
  Speaker 1: something walking like a very long distance and was just
• 23:36
  Speaker 1: doing this back and forth. And with the money that
• 23:39
  Speaker 1: he got, he bought himself this like pretty inexpensive but
• 23:42
  Speaker 1: really efficient and effective little vehicle, and he was able
• 23:45
  Speaker 1: to start doing driving services that were a lot less
• 23:48
  Speaker 1: taxing on him physically, and he could make more money
• 23:51
  Speaker 1: doing it. And so like a lot of people use
• 23:54
  Speaker 1: that big sum to invest in. If they had a business,
• 23:56
  Speaker 1: they'd invest in their business. If they didn't have a business,
• 23:59
  Speaker 1: they started one. Like there was an enormous boom in
• 24:03
  Speaker 1: entrepreneurs starting small businesses with this cash infusion that they received,
• 24:07
  Speaker 1: which again meant that they were hiring people, There were
• 24:10
  Speaker 1: people shopping there. Their overall GDP just exploded because there
• 24:14
  Speaker 1: was so much more trade going on back and forth
• 24:17
  Speaker 1: across the thing. And so people who received the smaller
• 24:20
  Speaker 1: amounts they tended to not necessarily make big expenditures. They
• 24:24
  Speaker 1: would just invest in things constantly, make sure the bills
• 24:26
  Speaker 1: were paid, they had medicine, They might put a little
• 24:29
  Speaker 1: away for savings. But a couple of interesting things sprung up.
• 24:32
  Speaker 1: One is that if they knew they were getting small
• 24:35
  Speaker 1: amounts long term, they would actually specifically save it up
• 24:39
  Speaker 1: for something big, and then they would make a big
• 24:41
  Speaker 1: investment in something like a business, So that still happened
• 24:44
  Speaker 1: if it was long enough out. And the other thing
• 24:47
  Speaker 1: that was kind of interesting that they did is that
• 24:49
  Speaker 1: many of the communities decided to start pooling theirs together
• 24:52
  Speaker 1: for a rolling lottery, where essentially they'd say we're not
• 24:55
  Speaker 1: going to take the money we're giving, we're going to
• 24:57
  Speaker 1: put it into a big pot and then someone's going
• 24:59
  Speaker 1: to draw, and then someone else will draw it next time,
• 25:02
  Speaker 1: and you don't know who it's gonna be, but it'll
• 25:03
  Speaker 1: always be someone different. And then that way what happened
• 25:06
  Speaker 1: is that someone would get a really big payout and
• 25:08
  Speaker 1: again they'd use that to invest in some big project
• 25:11
  Speaker 1: like starting a business, like buying a car, whatever. Where
• 25:14
  Speaker 1: it was an investment, it was investment opportunities. So essentially
• 25:17
  Speaker 1: what they landed on in their big discovery was how
• 25:20
  Speaker 1: are people gonna spend a no strings attached cash infusion
• 25:24
  Speaker 1: that they receive the way most smart people would spend
• 25:28
  Speaker 1: that kind of money, right, They needed it and they
• 25:31
  Speaker 1: used it to improve their lives and improve their situation,
• 25:34
  Speaker 1: and they specifically planned for the long term, like that
• 25:37
  Speaker 1: was the thing that they did. So so far, I
• 25:39
  Speaker 1: think they generally consider this a pretty wild success.
• 25:42
  Speaker 2: Yeah, And I mean based on everything that we're seeing here,
• 25:45
  Speaker 2: as far as I can tell, there wasn't anybody that
• 25:47
  Speaker 2: just spent a whole bunch of money on coke venders
• 25:49
  Speaker 2: when they got these.
• 25:53
  Speaker 1: Yeah. No, no, it seems like even the ones where
• 25:56
  Speaker 1: it seemed a little frivolous, like there was one where
• 25:59
  Speaker 1: a lot of people people in these African cities, villages, whatever,
• 26:02
  Speaker 1: that received the money they didn't even have like the
• 26:05
  Speaker 1: roofs were thatched and so they were difficult to repair.
• 26:08
  Speaker 1: They often could be expensive to repair, although not as
• 26:10
  Speaker 1: expensive as getting a new roof, and they were obviously
• 26:13
  Speaker 1: leaky and had all kinds of issues. And so a
• 26:15
  Speaker 1: lot of people one of the things that they do
• 26:17
  Speaker 1: early on is get a better roof. Well, some people didn't,
• 26:20
  Speaker 1: and they followed up in a story I was listening
• 26:22
  Speaker 1: to on one podcast that covered this. They followed up
• 26:26
  Speaker 1: with one guy who essentially he had spent his on
• 26:30
  Speaker 1: so he had kids, his wife I think had passed away,
• 26:33
  Speaker 1: and he actually spent his on a dowry because of
• 26:35
  Speaker 1: the system that was in place there so that he
• 26:37
  Speaker 1: could get married, so that he'd have someone else that
• 26:39
  Speaker 1: would allow him to then get work. And so it
• 26:42
  Speaker 1: was like still an investment. It was an investment in
• 26:45
  Speaker 1: a roof, but it was still an investment in his
• 26:47
  Speaker 1: future and his family's future. Yeah, people were not just
• 26:51
  Speaker 1: going out and buying a bunch of like. And even
• 26:54
  Speaker 1: if they had like, even if some people did do that,
• 26:56
  Speaker 1: the majority of people didn't like the net effect as
• 27:00
  Speaker 1: everybody benefited and maybe some people squandered it, but most
• 27:03
  Speaker 1: people didn't. It like went really well across the board
• 27:07
  Speaker 1: in general, and then general part is the important part.
• 27:10
  Speaker 2: Do you think that anybody that received this, like maybe
• 27:14
  Speaker 2: invested in broadcasting or ads or anything.
• 27:18
  Speaker 1: Hopefully not. Okay, we're back from that Kenyan sponsored advert.
• 27:31
  Speaker 2: CAMI.
• 27:34
  Speaker 1: Good for them. If they did, I guess, yeah, thanks
• 27:36
  Speaker 1: for planning, we give you space for it, and it happened.
• 27:41
  Speaker 1: So there it is.
• 27:43
  Speaker 2: So just like with any good project, any good idea,
• 27:47
  Speaker 2: any good study, there are always caveats because the thing
• 27:50
  Speaker 2: about sciences, and as Paul off It says, is that
• 27:53
  Speaker 2: you can't go out and just make a blanket, absolute
• 27:58
  Speaker 2: claim because at the end of the day, there's all
• 28:00
  Speaker 2: it's going to be some caveat or some asterisk next
• 28:03
  Speaker 2: to the fact that you share right, because there's it's
• 28:05
  Speaker 2: not true for every circumstance every single time. So what
• 28:09
  Speaker 2: are some of the caveats with UBI as we're talking about.
• 28:12
  Speaker 1: This, Well, one of the and I you know, I
• 28:15
  Speaker 1: think it's we have sounded like just big time cheerleaders
• 28:19
  Speaker 1: for the UBI program as we've been talking through it now.
• 28:21
  Speaker 1: I think part of that is just the data are
• 28:24
  Speaker 1: extremely compelling, like it's in line with what our values
• 28:28
  Speaker 1: would be. It supports the hypothesis that we might have,
• 28:32
  Speaker 1: and the data have just been overwhelmingly positive, and the
• 28:35
  Speaker 1: place is where it's been applied. But I also think
• 28:39
  Speaker 1: that we do need to be good skeptics and good
• 28:41
  Speaker 1: scientists and say yeah but, and one big yeah but
• 28:45
  Speaker 1: is that universal basic income has the word universal in it,
• 28:50
  Speaker 1: and that implies that all of the people in a
• 28:53
  Speaker 1: population receive the money, not some of them, all of them.
• 28:57
  Speaker 1: And in the examples that we have been demonstrating, you
• 29:00
  Speaker 1: was distributed or guaranteed income is probably a better way
• 29:03
  Speaker 1: to put it, was distributed only in limited populations of
• 29:07
  Speaker 1: people who were really the most needy in those populations.
• 29:10
  Speaker 1: And although these weren't very successful, perhaps that does suggest
• 29:14
  Speaker 1: that the best application of the hypothesis the policy here
• 29:20
  Speaker 1: is only for people who need it the most, rather
• 29:22
  Speaker 1: than it being actually universal. We don't know what would
• 29:25
  Speaker 1: happen if we did it to an entire population. We
• 29:28
  Speaker 1: haven't done that.
• 29:28
  Speaker 2: Yet, right, And that's kind of the biggest caveat with
• 29:31
  Speaker 2: all this is we really just don't know. Never has
• 29:34
  Speaker 2: this been comprehensively attempted in a closed system, such as
• 29:37
  Speaker 2: an entire country or an entire state. We don't know
• 29:39
  Speaker 2: how much it would actually cost, probably more than we think.
• 29:42
  Speaker 2: We don't know exactly how we pay for it. We
• 29:45
  Speaker 2: don't know if it would drive up inflation. We don't
• 29:47
  Speaker 2: know if it would encourage employment. We don't know how
• 29:50
  Speaker 2: it affect how it would affect wages. We just don't
• 29:53
  Speaker 2: know if it would work as designed. We have examples
• 29:57
  Speaker 2: of variations, but we don't know well, as like a
• 30:01
  Speaker 2: UBI for every single person, what that would do to
• 30:04
  Speaker 2: any society at large.
• 30:06
  Speaker 1: Yeah, exactly. I mean one of the things that I found,
• 30:10
  Speaker 1: they suggested there is basically no way that you would
• 30:14
  Speaker 1: not get massive inflation with this program. Maybe, I mean,
• 30:18
  Speaker 1: we have no idea. We not tried this experiment. There
• 30:22
  Speaker 1: was a sort of version of this experiment that was
• 30:24
  Speaker 1: done in the United States, and many of you who
• 30:28
  Speaker 1: have been around for a minute and remember this thing.
• 30:30
  Speaker 1: There was this thing called COVID, and early in the
• 30:34
  Speaker 1: COVID pandemic, when we were all in lockdown and a
• 30:37
  Speaker 1: ton of people were unable to work, the government under
• 30:41
  Speaker 1: an administration that is not the current administration as we speak,
• 30:45
  Speaker 1: although it did transfer to the subsequent administration, the government
• 30:48
  Speaker 1: cut a whole bunch of stimulus checks to the American people,
• 30:52
  Speaker 1: Most people received this as far as I know, I'm
• 30:54
  Speaker 1: pretty sure this was pretty universally distributed. As long as
• 30:58
  Speaker 1: people had like filed TEX I think was essentially the
• 31:01
  Speaker 1: caveat then you got this. Yeah, And of course during COVID,
• 31:04
  Speaker 1: most people couldn't work or had reduced hours. Insurance dried up,
• 31:08
  Speaker 1: unemployment dried up, rent forgiveness dried up, and the government
• 31:12
  Speaker 1: just cut people checks just because some households were getting
• 31:15
  Speaker 1: well over one thousand dollars just to have like that
• 31:19
  Speaker 1: was just money that they had. Now, did this contribute
• 31:22
  Speaker 1: to the massive inflation we saw immediately following the sort
• 31:26
  Speaker 1: of ending of the pandemic, I guess the last couple
• 31:28
  Speaker 1: of years. Maybe possibly, we don't know. Right, for some
• 31:33
  Speaker 1: people this was a lifeline that they badly needed. This
• 31:36
  Speaker 1: was the thing that made them get through the pandemic.
• 31:40
  Speaker 1: Some people bought new xboxes. You know. It seems to
• 31:43
  Speaker 1: have helped prevent the economy from just grinding to a
• 31:46
  Speaker 1: complete halt. So probably that worked in that way, But
• 31:50
  Speaker 1: again we don't know. That was like a version of
• 31:53
  Speaker 1: this experiment that's been tried on a larger scale, and
• 31:56
  Speaker 1: it was expensive.
• 31:57
  Speaker 2: Yes, and we really don't know. We don't know what
• 32:00
  Speaker 2: the cause effect relationship is, right, Like, that's kind of
• 32:03
  Speaker 2: the problem, and I think it's kind of always the
• 32:05
  Speaker 2: problem with economics. It's like, we really don't know what
• 32:08
  Speaker 2: the cause effect is on such a large scale. Yeah,
• 32:10
  Speaker 2: Like there's too many variables to control.
• 32:12
  Speaker 1: For so many variables. Yeah.
• 32:14
  Speaker 2: Now, based on the available evidence though what we have seen,
• 32:17
  Speaker 2: it seems like only implementing this program with people who
• 32:20
  Speaker 2: need it the most would probably have the intended effect
• 32:22
  Speaker 2: that we're talking about. That is, people who are at
• 32:25
  Speaker 2: extreme levels of poverty and who are experiencing homelessness. So
• 32:29
  Speaker 2: right now, a guaranteed income is so effective with those
• 32:32
  Speaker 2: populations that not only would it likely eliminate our country's
• 32:35
  Speaker 2: homelessness problem, it might actually save more money than it
• 32:39
  Speaker 2: costs by reducing instances of jail time er visits and
• 32:43
  Speaker 2: the need for mental health services that might not be
• 32:45
  Speaker 2: necessary for folks if they have their basic needs met.
• 32:49
  Speaker 1: Yeah, Like, the investment would be worth the cost from
• 32:53
  Speaker 1: the amount of money that would be saved in the
• 32:55
  Speaker 1: other programs that are being used to essentially mitigate the
• 33:00
  Speaker 1: worst effects of an unimproved upon situation for so many people.
• 33:06
  Speaker 1: Right right, So it does seem like at least a
• 33:09
  Speaker 1: version of this one that is targeted. The evidence seemed
• 33:13
  Speaker 1: to suggest that will probably work in the way that
• 33:15
  Speaker 1: we want it to. As far as universal, we just
• 33:19
  Speaker 1: don't know, but for targeted implementation, it would probably get
• 33:22
  Speaker 1: the job done. Right now, it does bring us to
• 33:26
  Speaker 1: a conversation. We are behavior scientists, we think, and we
• 33:30
  Speaker 1: like to try to apply what we know about how
• 33:33
  Speaker 1: behavior works to understand how policies will affect those behaviors, again,
• 33:38
  Speaker 1: putting on our big old skeptical hats of fun so
• 33:41
  Speaker 1: that we can start to unpack these in a very
• 33:44
  Speaker 1: I think, I guess, I want to say, sort of
• 33:46
  Speaker 1: science minded approach, which I guess is just the skeptical approach.
• 33:49
  Speaker 1: But so let's talk through really quick what we do
• 33:52
  Speaker 1: already know about behavior and how we think this would
• 33:56
  Speaker 1: affect behavior.
• 33:58
  Speaker 2: Right, So, I guess maybe a place to start his work. Right, So,
• 34:01
  Speaker 2: if work was entirely optional, people all people likely would
• 34:05
  Speaker 2: do very little of it unless the work itself was rewarding.
• 34:08
  Speaker 2: But anything, I'm sorry I say anything. I meant everything
• 34:12
  Speaker 2: has a cost, and work is not optional. So whether
• 34:15
  Speaker 2: people would stop working in a UBI system depends on
• 34:18
  Speaker 2: how much a UBI would tip the skills away from employment.
• 34:21
  Speaker 2: Meaning the more money that is given, the less likely
• 34:24
  Speaker 2: people are going to need to work. If it's too
• 34:27
  Speaker 2: little money, like if we don't give enough money, then
• 34:30
  Speaker 2: it's insufficient to make any meaningful changes. So there's like
• 34:33
  Speaker 2: this kind of like balance of if I give too much,
• 34:36
  Speaker 2: they folks won't work. If I give too little, it
• 34:38
  Speaker 2: won't do anything at all.
• 34:39
  Speaker 1: Yeah, I mean, it really has. It all has to
• 34:41
  Speaker 1: do with balancing the cost with the money that's sort
• 34:44
  Speaker 1: of awarded or given. So let's take the minimum wage
• 34:48
  Speaker 1: for example, that is currently out there. You might like
• 34:51
  Speaker 1: see the minimum wage and think, oh, what they did
• 34:54
  Speaker 1: is they looked at the cost of living and they
• 34:56
  Speaker 1: calculated how much you would need to make to support
• 34:59
  Speaker 1: yourselves in the current an economy. No, that's not. It
• 35:03
  Speaker 1: is not some scientifically verified number that guarantees that people
• 35:07
  Speaker 1: will make enough money to live independently. It's just a number.
• 35:10
  Speaker 1: It is just a random number that some politicians were
• 35:13
  Speaker 1: able to get passed as law. Now it was like
• 35:15
  Speaker 1: somewhat informed. They obviously have people who go out and
• 35:18
  Speaker 1: do some sort of research and survey to try and
• 35:21
  Speaker 1: give some basic numbers to help. But at the end
• 35:25
  Speaker 1: of the day, when you really boil everything down, it's
• 35:27
  Speaker 1: just a number that they arrived at and enough people
• 35:30
  Speaker 1: agree to. So some people working full time earning minimum wage,
• 35:36
  Speaker 1: they I mean, if you're listening to this and you're
• 35:38
  Speaker 1: one of those people who works full time earning minimum wage,
• 35:41
  Speaker 1: you already know that you maybe still can't afford to
• 35:44
  Speaker 1: pay rent from that one job, like you have to
• 35:46
  Speaker 1: supplement some way or another, right right, And many people
• 35:49
  Speaker 1: will shock. They'll basically they'll get roommates and whatnot so
• 35:52
  Speaker 1: that they can afford rent because minimum wage won't cut it.
• 35:56
  Speaker 1: And not only that, but they also have to pay
• 35:57
  Speaker 1: utilities and transportation and other medical costs and things that
• 36:01
  Speaker 1: come up as and like get groceries and everything. So
• 36:05
  Speaker 1: the expenses are high, to say the least. Right right now,
• 36:09
  Speaker 1: the cost is such that a UBI system that simply
• 36:12
  Speaker 1: helps close the gap between what someone can make from
• 36:15
  Speaker 1: employment and the cost of living would go a very
• 36:19
  Speaker 1: long way to prevent those people and preventing those people
• 36:22
  Speaker 1: from ending up unhoused on the streets doing other things
• 36:26
  Speaker 1: that are maybe on the less legal side of things
• 36:29
  Speaker 1: to try and pay their bills. And get their needs met.
• 36:33
  Speaker 1: And so that I think is an important consideration. And
• 36:35
  Speaker 1: the first thing that you mentioned, we're talking about where
• 36:38
  Speaker 1: incentives lie and whether we're incentivizing away from work, And
• 36:41
  Speaker 1: another is are we incentivizing essentially toward meaningful engagement with
• 36:47
  Speaker 1: the systems that we want to have people engaged in,
• 36:50
  Speaker 1: or are we incentivizing doing shady stuff that is maybe
• 36:54
  Speaker 1: lucrative but all is also kind of illegal.
• 36:57
  Speaker 2: Right right right right now, Trying to dictate how, when,
• 37:00
  Speaker 2: and to what extent received assistance ignores individual circumstances for
• 37:03
  Speaker 2: each person or can even make things worse. I mean,
• 37:06
  Speaker 2: we have to kind of unpack this a little bit, right,
• 37:08
  Speaker 2: It is better to let people spend money in the
• 37:11
  Speaker 2: ways that they feel they need support to support themselves,
• 37:15
  Speaker 2: rather than having or setting up an authority figure to
• 37:18
  Speaker 2: try to decide what should and shouldn't be used or
• 37:22
  Speaker 2: like bought right, So, like that's kind of why like
• 37:23
  Speaker 2: certain programs that limit what people can purchase end up
• 37:27
  Speaker 2: being used as currency. Anyway, I've seen that plenty of times,
• 37:30
  Speaker 2: Like you see that all the time when somebody will
• 37:32
  Speaker 2: take like they'll sell food stamps because they can only
• 37:34
  Speaker 2: buy certain things with food stamps, so they will sell
• 37:36
  Speaker 2: that because it's like, uh, I'd rather have the cash
• 37:38
  Speaker 2: to spend it on things that I need exactly.
• 37:41
  Speaker 1: That is a good example of like a lot of
• 37:44
  Speaker 1: the people who have essentially argued against the idea of
• 37:47
  Speaker 1: just straight cash has basically said, like, we don't know
• 37:50
  Speaker 1: what they're going to spend it on. Instead, we should
• 37:53
  Speaker 1: give them vouchers for things that we think they should
• 37:55
  Speaker 1: spend it on, right, And I'm like, you don't know
• 37:57
  Speaker 1: what they need. Like that might be per for some people,
• 38:00
  Speaker 1: but it won't work for everybody. Cash is universal. They
• 38:04
  Speaker 1: can use it however they're going to use it. I'll
• 38:06
  Speaker 1: tell a quick story here, which is, well, first I'm
• 38:09
  Speaker 1: in a reference if you remember the movie Liar Liar
• 38:12
  Speaker 1: with Jim Carrey, assume that very recent movie, very timely referenced. Yes,
• 38:18
  Speaker 1: of course spoiler anyway, So basic premise, he's not able
• 38:23
  Speaker 1: to lie anymore. So he gets confronted by a homeless
• 38:26
  Speaker 1: person who or an unhoused person, or at least someone
• 38:29
  Speaker 1: who's asking for money on the street who looks to
• 38:31
  Speaker 1: be unhoused, and they said like, can you spare some change?
• 38:34
  Speaker 1: And he says yes, but he had been previously lying
• 38:38
  Speaker 1: to this person. He said, will you and he says no,
• 38:40
  Speaker 1: and he said why not, And so he says Jim
• 38:43
  Speaker 1: Carrey's character, who's telling the truth, says, I believe you'll
• 38:45
  Speaker 1: buy booze with it. And I've heard other people like
• 38:49
  Speaker 1: sort of say like they'll go out and buy things
• 38:52
  Speaker 1: for people that they see who are out on the
• 38:53
  Speaker 1: street asking for money and whatnot. And I sort of
• 38:56
  Speaker 1: have been of the opinion. I'm like, they're like, well,
• 38:58
  Speaker 1: I don't want them to go out and buy alcohol.
• 38:59
  Speaker 1: I'm like, I think that's not really your business, you know.
• 39:03
  Speaker 2: Sure.
• 39:03
  Speaker 1: My philosophy has been like I typically have just carried
• 39:06
  Speaker 1: a whole bunch of ones in my car just in case,
• 39:10
  Speaker 1: just so that I have some on hand. If I
• 39:11
  Speaker 1: see someone who's asking for money, and I'll give them
• 39:13
  Speaker 1: a few bucks, and I'm like, they'll spend it on
• 39:15
  Speaker 1: whatever they think they need. That might be sheltered for tonight,
• 39:18
  Speaker 1: that might be their next meal, it might be booze.
• 39:21
  Speaker 1: That's not up to me. I'm just trying to give
• 39:23
  Speaker 1: them something that they can use to try and help
• 39:25
  Speaker 1: themselves in whatever way that's gonna help them get through
• 39:28
  Speaker 1: the next day. Yeah, and so I've always sort of
• 39:31
  Speaker 1: felt like I don't need to dictate to them how
• 39:33
  Speaker 1: they're gonna spend their money. I'll let them figure that
• 39:36
  Speaker 1: out for themselves because I don't know what their situation is.
• 39:39
  Speaker 1: So I don't know. I just I thought that was
• 39:42
  Speaker 1: I guess I thought it was worth sharing of, like
• 39:44
  Speaker 1: I don't care, Like, maybe they will buy Boozle with it. Whatever,
• 39:47
  Speaker 1: that's their opinion. That's theirs, their money to do with
• 39:49
  Speaker 1: what they want. Now, I'm just trying to give them
• 39:50
  Speaker 1: a little, you know, a little support.
• 39:52
  Speaker 2: I've heard stories like that too, and like kind of
• 39:54
  Speaker 2: that phrasing and stuff, And I've always kind of subscribed
• 39:56
  Speaker 2: the idea of like doing good recklessly right, like it
• 39:59
  Speaker 2: doesn't matter like you did that, you did that thing
• 40:02
  Speaker 2: to do good, right, Like, so like whatever that person
• 40:06
  Speaker 2: chooses to do with it, that's for them to decide.
• 40:08
  Speaker 2: But at the end of the day, you held the
• 40:10
  Speaker 2: door for the person, you gave them some money, like
• 40:12
  Speaker 2: you did something because it was just a good thing
• 40:15
  Speaker 2: to do. And I think that like that to me
• 40:17
  Speaker 2: is like, you know, for those folks that struggle with like, well,
• 40:20
  Speaker 2: if they spend it on this and then you can
• 40:21
  Speaker 2: kind of go, well, you did a good deed regardless
• 40:23
  Speaker 2: of how they handed handled that good deed.
• 40:26
  Speaker 1: Very good point. I love that. I want that to
• 40:28
  Speaker 1: be a shirt. Now do good recklessly.
• 40:30
  Speaker 2: Yeah, do good recklessly. I love it.
• 40:32
  Speaker 1: Reckless do gooders. That's fantastic.
• 40:35
  Speaker 2: That's us, that's us at this show. Well, you like
• 40:37
  Speaker 2: to go out and be like to cause a ruckus
• 40:39
  Speaker 2: for good.
• 40:39
  Speaker 1: On the show Parks and wreck the guy who like
• 40:41
  Speaker 1: goes around pulling these elaborate pranks where he's doing something
• 40:44
  Speaker 1: like building a playground in a low income neighborhood or built, like, yeah,
• 40:48
  Speaker 1: patching up a hospital that's falling apart, and he likes
• 40:51
  Speaker 1: things of these these big pranks and it's just a
• 40:55
  Speaker 1: guy going on doing like super nicely.
• 40:58
  Speaker 2: Yeah, we forgot about that little subplot that was so fun.
• 41:01
  Speaker 1: Yeah, very very good. Well, speaking of doing good recklessly,
• 41:05
  Speaker 1: we're going to do bad recklessly and plan an ad
• 41:08
  Speaker 1: to ad recklessly. Okay, we are back from that little
• 41:19
  Speaker 1: reckless break. Let's there's a little bit more to talk
• 41:22
  Speaker 1: about here in terms of trying to envision how this
• 41:25
  Speaker 1: plays out as we think about how people handle this emotionally, psychologically,
• 41:30
  Speaker 1: et cetera, and there's this concept of that you'll hear
• 41:34
  Speaker 1: a lot from people they'll call them handouts, which I
• 41:37
  Speaker 1: think is just the worst.
• 41:40
  Speaker 2: Yeah yeah, so this calls out values of the user
• 41:43
  Speaker 2: right away, right. So, Like, it's a term that has
• 41:46
  Speaker 2: been frequently used pejoratively in politics to deride the idea
• 41:49
  Speaker 2: of offering quote unearned support to people. Wealthy people don't
• 41:54
  Speaker 2: complain about handouts when they exploit tax loopoles, when they
• 41:57
  Speaker 2: are given free money or free or cheap labor, when
• 42:00
  Speaker 2: they inherit money, they inherit land, they inherit privileges. And
• 42:04
  Speaker 2: people don't hate free given rewards or promotional items at
• 42:08
  Speaker 2: events or buy companies. I mean, like, how many times
• 42:10
  Speaker 2: have we gotten to a conference that people are like, ooh, goodies,
• 42:13
  Speaker 2: and they like stuff their bags full of pens that
• 42:15
  Speaker 2: they'll never use. Right, And so everyone loves handouts, And
• 42:20
  Speaker 2: this idea of handouts being bad when solely used to
• 42:24
  Speaker 2: help people who are in needy, but people that are
• 42:27
  Speaker 2: totally okay with helping people who don't need it is
• 42:29
  Speaker 2: completely backwards. It doesn't make any sense. Everybody loves free things.
• 42:34
  Speaker 2: Everybody loves getting the thing that they didn't quote unquote
• 42:37
  Speaker 2: earn except when we go to conferences and we get pens.
• 42:41
  Speaker 2: We didn't need that thing. But when a person is
• 42:43
  Speaker 2: on the street and they need food, or they need
• 42:46
  Speaker 2: a blanket to stay warm at night so they don't
• 42:48
  Speaker 2: freeze the death, or they need a pair of shoes
• 42:50
  Speaker 2: so they can walk to the next place, suddenly that's
• 42:52
  Speaker 2: a bad thing. So this term handout is a term
• 42:55
  Speaker 2: that's used derogatorily. Is it's a misdirect, it's a scam,
• 42:58
  Speaker 2: and it's a lie, and it's a manipulation tactic. It's
• 43:01
  Speaker 2: just a bad way to describe any of this stuff
• 43:04
  Speaker 2: because it's often used to keep people subjugated.
• 43:08
  Speaker 1: Yeah, so if you are complaining about something being a handout,
• 43:11
  Speaker 1: shut up your own.
• 43:12
  Speaker 2: Yeah.
• 43:13
  Speaker 1: Let's also talk about So there is a thing that
• 43:17
  Speaker 1: I think a lot of people point to in sort
• 43:19
  Speaker 1: of economists is the idea of an open or a
• 43:22
  Speaker 1: closed economy. And we often think about this when we
• 43:25
  Speaker 1: are trying to leverage some kind of outcome that we
• 43:30
  Speaker 1: are trying to incentivize or encourage behavior to go in
• 43:33
  Speaker 1: a particular direction by saying, let's make the things that
• 43:37
  Speaker 1: this person is interested in and value available when they
• 43:41
  Speaker 1: are doing things that are also in the best interest
• 43:44
  Speaker 1: of their own safety and well being, right, because sometimes
• 43:47
  Speaker 1: they figure out how to get those things for free.
• 43:49
  Speaker 1: Let me put this in a lot more specific and
• 43:51
  Speaker 1: less vague terms. Basically, they know how to get stuff
• 43:55
  Speaker 1: they like, and if we instead make that stuff restricted
• 43:58
  Speaker 1: only for them doing appropriate things that are ultimately in
• 44:01
  Speaker 1: their best interest in a lot of times anyway, then
• 44:03
  Speaker 1: they will make those choices. It's like people who will
• 44:06
  Speaker 1: engage in those stick contracts where they they'll put up
• 44:08
  Speaker 1: money for a cause that they really really hate if
• 44:11
  Speaker 1: they don't meet some personal goal, and then if they
• 44:14
  Speaker 1: don't meet that goal, that money goes to a cause
• 44:16
  Speaker 1: that they really really hate, or instead they get the
• 44:19
  Speaker 1: money back when they complete whatever objective they have, like
• 44:22
  Speaker 1: a writer who's trying to write their book, and they
• 44:24
  Speaker 1: get the money back if they meet certain writing deadlines,
• 44:26
  Speaker 1: or they lose it if they don't. And so people
• 44:29
  Speaker 1: will make that choice, and I think many people would
• 44:31
  Speaker 1: make that choice, and many people do. But anyway, that's
• 44:34
  Speaker 1: one piece of the pie. The other, though, is how
• 44:38
  Speaker 1: people behave with respect to the idea of a token economy,
• 44:42
  Speaker 1: which is really important because this is very different from
• 44:45
  Speaker 1: a direct reward that is by itself a petitive. It's
• 44:49
  Speaker 1: a rewarding, it's a reinforcing effect. Right right, when we
• 44:53
  Speaker 1: eat ice cream, nobody pays us for eating ice cream
• 44:56
  Speaker 1: and says that tastes better now because I just paid you. Like, no,
• 44:58
  Speaker 1: we were going to eat that because it take We
• 45:00
  Speaker 1: just like it. Yeah. Of course money is a very flexible,
• 45:04
  Speaker 1: very malleable token economy, but it is still a token economy,
• 45:09
  Speaker 1: and token economies work different in how they move behavior
• 45:13
  Speaker 1: because in a token economy you can bank your rewards,
• 45:17
  Speaker 1: you can move them around to allocate rewards to better
• 45:21
  Speaker 1: rewards and like a tiered system. Even animals do this.
• 45:24
  Speaker 1: They figured out how to like animals will manipulate a
• 45:26
  Speaker 1: token economy just fine. Right, So this is pretty basic stuff,
• 45:29
  Speaker 1: and we talked about this a little bit when we
• 45:31
  Speaker 1: did an episode on money in general. But the idea
• 45:34
  Speaker 1: here at the token economy is that like giving people
• 45:39
  Speaker 1: just a reward or like a basic thing that they need,
• 45:43
  Speaker 1: let's say food, for example, means they no longer need
• 45:46
  Speaker 1: to work they get that thing. Okay, that's fine. I
• 45:49
  Speaker 1: actually don't necessarily even have a problem with that, because
• 45:52
  Speaker 1: I want people to survive and thrive and do well,
• 45:54
  Speaker 1: but they're unlikely to do anything to get that. If
• 45:57
  Speaker 1: they're just getting it for free, you can collect endlessly,
• 46:02
  Speaker 1: so even when you've got some coming in, first of all,
• 46:05
  Speaker 1: they buy themselves are inherently worthless. You can't eat money,
• 46:08
  Speaker 1: you can't use it to keep yourself warm, You literally
• 46:11
  Speaker 1: can't do anything functional with it. You can do a
• 46:13
  Speaker 1: lot of things to back up with it, or they're
• 46:15
  Speaker 1: backed up by a lot of things, though, and so
• 46:17
  Speaker 1: in token economies, people tend to prefer and work better
• 46:21
  Speaker 1: in situations where they can bank large sums of it
• 46:24
  Speaker 1: and then spend it as they wish on things as
• 46:27
  Speaker 1: they need them, as they want them, et cetera. And
• 46:30
  Speaker 1: so I think people will hear like, well, if you're
• 46:32
  Speaker 1: just giving them money, then you're just incentivizing them doing nothing.
• 46:36
  Speaker 1: Like the problem is they still aren't getting things that
• 46:39
  Speaker 1: they need to survive. The things that they need to
• 46:41
  Speaker 1: survive they can get with money, and they can't get
• 46:44
  Speaker 1: money because they can't get a job for whatever reason,
• 46:46
  Speaker 1: or the job they have is not paying them enough
• 46:48
  Speaker 1: money for them to get the things that they need.
• 46:50
  Speaker 1: So when we simply supplement that token economy, then behavior
• 46:56
  Speaker 1: is then more likely to invest that token economy to
• 47:00
  Speaker 1: row the bank like that that is mostly where that's
• 47:03
  Speaker 1: likely to go, because again, tokens we can collect endlessly,
• 47:08
  Speaker 1: Like I give you one piece of chocolate. Great, you're
• 47:10
  Speaker 1: very happy. I give you two pieces of chocolate. Great,
• 47:13
  Speaker 1: you're very happy. I give you fifteen million pieces of chocolate.
• 47:16
  Speaker 1: At some point along the line, you're like, I think
• 47:18
  Speaker 1: I'm good on chocolate, bro, Like, you can hold it
• 47:21
  Speaker 1: up on the chocolate, now, Yeah, I don't really need
• 47:24
  Speaker 1: fifteen million pieces. Three was good, four was fine. Two
• 47:27
  Speaker 1: fifteen million way over the top. Sure, that is not
• 47:30
  Speaker 1: true with token economies. You could I could give you
• 47:33
  Speaker 1: five dollars. I could give you fifteen million dollars. You'd
• 47:36
  Speaker 1: be like, keep it coming, We're good, Like, yeah, I'm
• 47:39
  Speaker 1: happy to all the throw it. Just keep that sending
• 47:41
  Speaker 1: in my way. Because there's this like it doesn't have
• 47:44
  Speaker 1: an expiration, it doesn't have a finite use. And I
• 47:48
  Speaker 1: guess I would say that I think that the value
• 47:50
  Speaker 1: does start to decrease as large enough sums of it
• 47:53
  Speaker 1: roll in, right, Like you get a large enough amount
• 47:55
  Speaker 1: if you're at fifteen million dollars, and I'll give you another
• 47:57
  Speaker 1: one hundred you like, cool, thanks, But if you've got
• 47:59
  Speaker 1: nothing and I give you a hundred dollars, fantastic. Sure,
• 48:02
  Speaker 1: so there is the proportional relation there, but nevertheless, like
• 48:05
  Speaker 1: it is a nearly bottomless scale under on which we
• 48:09
  Speaker 1: can continue to receive and work to receive that. And again,
• 48:14
  Speaker 1: it only has value because we can trade it for stuff.
• 48:16
  Speaker 1: So most likely what happens when people are accruing their
• 48:19
  Speaker 1: tokens their money, is that they invest it in something important,
• 48:22
  Speaker 1: something that's going to last, something that's going to mean
• 48:25
  Speaker 1: that they either don't have to spend as much down
• 48:27
  Speaker 1: the road, or they can make more so they can
• 48:29
  Speaker 1: support whatever they're doing in terms of their behaviors, which
• 48:31
  Speaker 1: is pain, rent and bills and medicine and food and
• 48:34
  Speaker 1: that sort of thing.
• 48:35
  Speaker 2: Right exactly, you nailed it.
• 48:37
  Speaker 1: As usual. I end with the just longest time raid
• 48:40
  Speaker 1: of a rant of just talking while sounding like I
• 48:44
  Speaker 1: don't breathe.
• 48:45
  Speaker 2: I think it could be worse. I always appreciate your
• 48:47
  Speaker 2: tie raids.
• 48:48
  Speaker 1: They happen just unbidden all the time.
• 48:51
  Speaker 2: Yeah, you're welcome. That's what this podcast is about. Why
• 48:53
  Speaker 2: why Abraham does what he does?
• 48:55
  Speaker 1: Sure? Sure, okay, So anyway, I think there's there could
• 49:00
  Speaker 1: be more to unpack in that. I think there's a
• 49:01
  Speaker 1: whole segment of talking about like how language affects rules
• 49:05
  Speaker 1: and rules affect behavior, and how we track contingencies and
• 49:09
  Speaker 1: get into the nitty gritty technical details of it all.
• 49:11
  Speaker 1: But I think the big picture outcome is just this
• 49:13
  Speaker 1: is that, as we've sort of discussed in here, people
• 49:17
  Speaker 1: who make a lot of money, a universal basic income,
• 49:20
  Speaker 1: they'll barely notice and to cover the cost of that
• 49:23
  Speaker 1: already be paying more in taxes than they're getting back
• 49:26
  Speaker 1: from the income in the first place. Right, people who
• 49:28
  Speaker 1: don't make very much money, it is a huge lifeline,
• 49:31
  Speaker 1: and whatever their pain in taxes is so small that
• 49:34
  Speaker 1: even though it does contribute to that, they're still getting
• 49:36
  Speaker 1: a lot more back in return. So in theory it
• 49:40
  Speaker 1: very well may have the exact intended effect, which is
• 49:43
  Speaker 1: to support the people who need it the most. In practice,
• 49:47
  Speaker 1: we don't know. We just don't know. It's very possible
• 49:49
  Speaker 1: it would drive inflation through the roof. It's very possible
• 49:52
  Speaker 1: it would collapse the economy. It's possible things would go
• 49:54
  Speaker 1: awesome and everyone would be happy, and there would be
• 49:57
  Speaker 1: no more wars or fighting or homelessness. Or any or
• 50:00
  Speaker 1: drug overdoses or anything. It'd be great.
• 50:02
  Speaker 2: Yeah we're going.
• 50:03
  Speaker 1: To know because no one's going to do that experiment.
• 50:06
  Speaker 2: Yeah, exactly.
• 50:06
  Speaker 1: But what we have seen is that when this guaranteed
• 50:10
  Speaker 1: cash assistance is offered to people who need it the most,
• 50:13
  Speaker 1: they make the most of it and they benefit and
• 50:16
  Speaker 1: it helps everybody all around and ultimately saves money on
• 50:19
  Speaker 1: the investment. So the overall effect is net positive pretty
• 50:23
  Speaker 1: much every way that you slice it. You care about
• 50:25
  Speaker 1: the well being of people, good, this helps them. You
• 50:27
  Speaker 1: care about the economy, good, this helps it. You care
• 50:30
  Speaker 1: about the moral right thing to do. Great, you're helping
• 50:33
  Speaker 1: people who really need it, like, yeah, you care about
• 50:35
  Speaker 1: not spending government funding on all these social projects. Great,
• 50:39
  Speaker 1: this will actually save money because fewer of them will
• 50:41
  Speaker 1: be needed. Like, this is a win win, win win,
• 50:45
  Speaker 1: everybody wins.
• 50:46
  Speaker 2: Yeah. I mean, by the look of it and by
• 50:48
  Speaker 2: the data, it's promising, right Like, And that's really what
• 50:51
  Speaker 2: it comes down to. It's promising and it's demonstrated an
• 50:53
  Speaker 2: effect on a small scale. So let's consider Yeah, maybe
• 50:57
  Speaker 2: more replicating that multiple times and seeing and maybe that
• 51:00
  Speaker 2: would be enough, right, Like, maybe we don't need large scale,
• 51:06
  Speaker 2: huge universal basic income. Maybe we just need guaranteed income
• 51:09
  Speaker 2: for folks that really need it and let's watch the
• 51:11
  Speaker 2: benefits come from that.
• 51:12
  Speaker 1: Yeah, it seems like at this point it's probably worth
• 51:15
  Speaker 1: the investment to continue the experiment on that level. I
• 51:19
  Speaker 1: have no idea whether universal basic income would work none whatsoever.
• 51:23
  Speaker 1: Maybe it'd be great, maybe it'd be terrible, But it
• 51:26
  Speaker 1: does seem like this small scale, targeted approach will probably
• 51:29
  Speaker 1: do the trick in terms of all the things that
• 51:32
  Speaker 1: we hope that it would possibly do.
• 51:34
  Speaker 2: Right.
• 51:34
  Speaker 1: I found one quote that I meant to include before,
• 51:37
  Speaker 1: but there was just it was just a summary thing
• 51:39
  Speaker 1: where they were talking about a large review in the
• 51:41
  Speaker 1: Journal of Social Policies in twenty eighteen looked at one
• 51:44
  Speaker 1: hundred and sixty five studies that did this, and in general,
• 51:48
  Speaker 1: what they found was it improved everything. It improved education,
• 51:51
  Speaker 1: improved work, and improved a sense of empowerment among the
• 51:54
  Speaker 1: people who are in the group, and improved health and
• 51:57
  Speaker 1: improved nutrition. Like it was just good, good, good, good,
• 52:00
  Speaker 1: goodness of all the good, all goodness, all goodness. And
• 52:03
  Speaker 1: this again, this is just there's studies on this. Now
• 52:06
  Speaker 1: it's really clear the effect seem to be pretty pretty
• 52:08
  Speaker 1: much there. But again, these are on the small scale
• 52:11
  Speaker 1: applications that are very targeted, so we just don't know
• 52:13
  Speaker 1: how it would affect in a large scale.
• 52:15
  Speaker 2: Right exactly.
• 52:16
  Speaker 1: All right, Well, I got a second mini rant in there,
• 52:19
  Speaker 1: so maybe we I mean, it was it's kind of
• 52:21
  Speaker 1: for you, it's kind of take on points. But I
• 52:25
  Speaker 1: think what we can do is maybe, I mean, do
• 52:27
  Speaker 1: you have anything else to add before we wrap this up?
• 52:29
  Speaker 2: No, I think that covers it. I mean, I think
• 52:31
  Speaker 2: it's just one of those things where it's like, it
• 52:33
  Speaker 2: just seems like this does ultimate good, so let's maybe
• 52:35
  Speaker 2: consider it.
• 52:36
  Speaker 1: Yeah, And again it's like, if you care about the science,
• 52:41
  Speaker 1: science is on the side of this, right, If you
• 52:44
  Speaker 1: care about policy, policy is on the side of this.
• 52:47
  Speaker 1: The only people who are not on the side of this,
• 52:49
  Speaker 1: as far as we can tell, are the people who
• 52:51
  Speaker 1: are so married to their ideology that they can't see
• 52:54
  Speaker 1: the truth and the data that are sitting in front
• 52:56
  Speaker 1: of them. Yeah, and those people are buttholes, and those
• 52:59
  Speaker 1: people run this country.
• 53:02
  Speaker 2: Gross.
• 53:02
  Speaker 1: There are at least large chunks of it, like Florida, yeah,
• 53:06
  Speaker 1: in Texas to name a few. Anyway, we'll wrap this
• 53:13
  Speaker 1: up here. I think we like to always share some recommendations.
• 53:17
  Speaker 1: If you're joining us for the first time, stick around
• 53:19
  Speaker 1: because we're going to have a fun part of this
• 53:22
  Speaker 1: podcast where we say happy things. And if you have
• 53:25
  Speaker 1: been with us for a long time, well then you
• 53:27
  Speaker 1: know what's coming. Stick around because we're happy to have
• 53:29
  Speaker 1: you and tell you some stuff that you could go
• 53:31
  Speaker 1: check out or completely ignore. Maybe just here and say
• 53:34
  Speaker 1: now I know that that's a thing. Otherwise, first, I
• 53:37
  Speaker 1: would like to say, as I mentioned at the top
• 53:39
  Speaker 1: of this, if you like to support us, you can
• 53:41
  Speaker 1: do this, do that, do this, do that, do whatever
• 53:44
  Speaker 1: by heading over to our Patreon. When you do that,
• 53:46
  Speaker 1: you get to hang out with a very cool group
• 53:47
  Speaker 1: of people who help make this podcast happen. You can
• 53:51
  Speaker 1: even join us over there for free, just to be
• 53:52
  Speaker 1: part of the group, be part of the cool kids.
• 53:54
  Speaker 1: That's cool. We're happy to have you. But we are
• 53:56
  Speaker 1: going to do a special shout out for all those
• 53:58
  Speaker 1: people who have really made the leap to help us
• 54:00
  Speaker 1: out commit financially and to whom we are just eternally grateful,
• 54:03
  Speaker 1: and that is Mike m Megan, Mike t, Justin, Kim, Joshua, Brad, Stephanie,
• 54:08
  Speaker 1: Olivia Brian, Ashley, Kiara, and Michelle. Thank you all so
• 54:12
  Speaker 1: much for continuing to support us. You are all the best.
• 54:15
  Speaker 2: Yeah, we love you so much.
• 54:16
  Speaker 1: Otherwise, you can support us as I mentioned, you can
• 54:18
  Speaker 1: pick up some merch leave us a rating and review, subscribe.
• 54:21
  Speaker 1: If you would like to tell us your thoughts about
• 54:23
  Speaker 1: universal Basic income or anything that we mentioned in here,
• 54:25
  Speaker 1: or maybe if you receive universal basic income, you can
• 54:28
  Speaker 1: email us and tell us about that. We might even
• 54:30
  Speaker 1: read that email on the air. You can email us
• 54:33
  Speaker 1: directly at info atwwdwwdpodcast dot com. You can also reach
• 54:37
  Speaker 1: out to us on the social media platforms. In there
• 54:40
  Speaker 1: you will speak to our social media coordinator, Emma Wilson. Which,
• 54:44
  Speaker 1: speaking of Emma Wilson and our social media coordinator, I
• 54:47
  Speaker 1: have the team of people who also help make this
• 54:49
  Speaker 1: podcast happen, writing in fact checking from Shane and myself
• 54:53
  Speaker 1: and the audio wizardry that makes this sound like to
• 54:56
  Speaker 1: people having a real conversation and not just Abraham ranting
• 54:59
  Speaker 1: into a microphone like a lunatic. Is justin who just
• 55:02
  Speaker 1: does the best because I'm not real, Yes, just to
• 55:06
  Speaker 1: make sure that Shane's voice gets in there, I may
• 55:08
  Speaker 1: I otherwise otherwise you hear too much of me.
• 55:12
  Speaker 2: We'll make your word.
• 55:13
  Speaker 1: No, I could not do this without Shane. We did
• 55:16
  Speaker 1: this experiment. I had to close out a nostalgia episode
• 55:19
  Speaker 1: recently without you, and it was just me just blathering
• 55:21
  Speaker 1: on about nothing. Very much needed.
• 55:23
  Speaker 2: We need each other.
• 55:25
  Speaker 1: We need each other. Also, of course, thank you so
• 55:27
  Speaker 1: much to our listeners, without whom we would just be
• 55:30
  Speaker 1: talking to each other, which is fun. We still do it,
• 55:32
  Speaker 1: but we.
• 55:32
  Speaker 2: Still talk to each other. Yeah, it's great.
• 55:34
  Speaker 1: We're happy to have you here. Listen to the things
• 55:37
  Speaker 1: that we say that are intended not just for one another,
• 55:39
  Speaker 1: but also for a broader audience. Anyway, am I missing
• 55:43
  Speaker 1: anything anything you like to add or that I forgot
• 55:45
  Speaker 1: before we transition to some recommendations.
• 55:47
  Speaker 2: No, I think that covers it.
• 55:48
  Speaker 1: Okay, let's recommend some things. Recommendations, Shane, I'm about blue
• 56:01
  Speaker 1: in the face from all the speaking to go first.
• 56:03
  Speaker 2: All right, I'm gonna recommend a book that I had.
• 56:06
  Speaker 2: It was such a joy to read. Every time I
• 56:09
  Speaker 2: started it, I could not put it down.
• 56:10
  Speaker 1: Well stuck at the airport.
• 56:11
  Speaker 2: Yeah, while I stuck at the airport, So I read
• 56:13
  Speaker 2: probably like four hundred pages of book while I was
• 56:16
  Speaker 2: at the airport. Wow, yeah, I was there for a
• 56:19
  Speaker 2: long time. So this book is called DIY The Wonderfully
• 56:23
  Speaker 2: Weird History and Science of Masturbation by doctor Eric Sprinkle,
• 56:28
  Speaker 2: And I gotta say this was one of the best
• 56:32
  Speaker 2: and funny. This is the kind of science dissemination I
• 56:34
  Speaker 2: like where it's like it's thoughtful.
• 56:36
  Speaker 1: It's insemination or desemination.
• 56:39
  Speaker 2: Yes, that's part of the reason. Like why when you
• 56:41
  Speaker 2: recommended Paul off it before, Like I really enjoy his
• 56:44
  Speaker 2: stuff because there's like a little bit there's enough of
• 56:45
  Speaker 2: a snark in it that you're like, this guy's got to.
• 56:48
  Speaker 1: Get such of humor's fun.
• 56:49
  Speaker 2: This takes it to a whole other level and it
• 56:52
  Speaker 2: is absurd and a lot of fun and super fascinating
• 56:56
  Speaker 2: when you kind of get into kind of like and
• 56:59
  Speaker 2: when you get to know a little bit about what
• 57:00
  Speaker 2: this guy likes to write about, like where he's very
• 57:02
  Speaker 2: like his whole goal is like sex positivity and like
• 57:05
  Speaker 2: sexual liberation and stuff. Okay, sure, super super cool perspective
• 57:09
  Speaker 2: and super great read. I mean it's a short read,
• 57:12
  Speaker 2: it's an easy read, and it is a lot of fun.
• 57:15
  Speaker 2: And I think I mentioned it I was telling Abraham
• 57:17
  Speaker 2: on the beginning. At the beginning of this, I have
• 57:19
  Speaker 2: an autographic copy and he signed it enjoy yourself, doctor
• 57:24
  Speaker 2: Eric Sprinkle. So if that tells you what you're getting into,
• 57:27
  Speaker 2: so strong recommend if you're into sexuality, if you're into
• 57:30
  Speaker 2: just weird human history, if you're into any of that stuff,
• 57:33
  Speaker 2: if you're into yourself, it's a great read.
• 57:36
  Speaker 1: I would say based on your description. Even if you're
• 57:38
  Speaker 1: not into sexuality, probably worth checking out too.
• 57:41
  Speaker 2: Yeah, the Pope makes an appearance.
• 57:43
  Speaker 1: It's great, awesome dy The Wonderfully Weird History of Science
• 57:46
  Speaker 1: and Masturbation by doctor Eric Sprinkle.
• 57:48
  Speaker 2: Uh huh.
• 57:49
  Speaker 1: Sounds very, very entertaining and definitely going on the list. Yes,
• 57:54
  Speaker 1: I recommending a TV show. I've only seen about two
• 57:57
  Speaker 1: seasons of this TV show, but man is it fun.
• 57:59
  Speaker 1: So this is a sitcom done in the mockumentary style
• 58:04
  Speaker 1: called Abbot Elementary. As you might guess from the name,
• 58:07
  Speaker 1: it essentially follows some elementary school teachers around. There are
• 58:12
  Speaker 1: various excursions and humorous hijinks that take place in a
• 58:17
  Speaker 1: fictionalized school setting that is largely focused on like an
• 58:21
  Speaker 1: underprivileged school. But man, it's just it's so funny, and
• 58:25
  Speaker 1: it's so sort of quick and sharp and witty. The
• 58:28
  Speaker 1: writing is great, the acting is great. It's just a
• 58:31
  Speaker 1: ton of fun. And it's one of those shows that
• 58:33
  Speaker 1: you can really just plunk down and sit down and
• 58:35
  Speaker 1: just two through tons of episodes because they're only like
• 58:37
  Speaker 1: twenty minutes, so you know, the pacing is really quick
• 58:40
  Speaker 1: and really good. If you like, oh, I just want
• 58:42
  Speaker 1: to watch something funny for a you know, thirty minutes
• 58:45
  Speaker 1: or forty minutes or something, you can blast through a
• 58:47
  Speaker 1: couple of episodes and feel pretty good about yourself afterwards.
• 58:50
  Speaker 1: So yeah, yeah, it's just just fun. So if you're
• 58:52
  Speaker 1: into short, fun, little sitcom y type mockumentary style TV shows,
• 58:58
  Speaker 1: strong recommend for Abbot Elementary.
• 59:00
  Speaker 2: Oh that's so great, isn't Who's who's in it? There's somebody,
• 59:05
  Speaker 2: There's somebody I know in it, I think, right.
• 59:07
  Speaker 1: It has a really good cast, and I know that
• 59:09
  Speaker 1: I've seen pretty much all of them or most of
• 59:11
  Speaker 1: them and something else, So it's got Quinta Brunson is
• 59:14
  Speaker 1: sort of the main lead. Yeah, she was on Miracle Workers,
• 59:18
  Speaker 1: the TV show I've recommended on here. Oh yeah, yeah,
• 59:20
  Speaker 1: also funny. Apparently that one's that was sort of out.
• 59:22
  Speaker 1: She was in Weird, the Al Yankovic story. Big recommend
• 59:28
  Speaker 1: on that she was in. I never saw this, but
• 59:31
  Speaker 1: it was called American Pickle. An American Pickle.
• 59:33
  Speaker 2: I haven't seen that either, didn't.
• 59:34
  Speaker 1: Get great rating. She was on a Big Mouth a
• 59:36
  Speaker 1: voice a character on Big Mouth, So okay, she's got
• 59:38
  Speaker 1: a lot of stuff. Yeah, really fun. I definitely remember
• 59:42
  Speaker 1: her from Miracle Workers. The other sort of main lead
• 59:46
  Speaker 1: ish character I guess is Tyler James Williams Man. He's
• 59:49
  Speaker 1: been on a ton of stuff. One that stands out
• 59:51
  Speaker 1: to me that I definitely saw was he was on
• 59:52
  Speaker 1: Walking Dead Key and Peel Dear White People. So he's
• 59:57
  Speaker 1: been on on a man. His IMDb credit are long.
• 1:00:01
  Speaker 1: He's been around and doing a lot of stuff. So
• 1:00:03
  Speaker 1: guys getting a lot of work. So anyway, Yeah, it's
• 1:00:06
  Speaker 1: it's really fun. I definitely think it's worth checking out
• 1:00:09
  Speaker 1: good stuff.
• 1:00:10
  Speaker 2: Yeah, no, it looks like it's great. I have not
• 1:00:12
  Speaker 2: had a chance to see it, but I want to
• 1:00:14
  Speaker 2: sit down and watch it because I need a new
• 1:00:15
  Speaker 2: show anyway.
• 1:00:16
  Speaker 1: So I think there's only three seasons at the time
• 1:00:18
  Speaker 1: that we're recording this. It's on streaming on Hulu, but
• 1:00:21
  Speaker 1: I think it's an ABC show. So if I'm sure
• 1:00:24
  Speaker 1: they have ABC Plus or some subscription service that you
• 1:00:27
  Speaker 1: can get it there, or if it just you know,
• 1:00:30
  Speaker 1: record it to your DVR or whatever. But sure. All right, Well,
• 1:00:33
  Speaker 1: that's enough about our recommendations, which are always fun and
• 1:00:35
  Speaker 1: we enjoy them. And I think that wraps up our
• 1:00:37
  Speaker 1: conversation on universal basic income. Thank you all so much
• 1:00:40
  Speaker 1: for joining us. I think that's all I have anything
• 1:00:42
  Speaker 1: from you? Anything else?
• 1:00:44
  Speaker 2: Nope, that's it for me. Okay, this is Abraham and
• 1:00:46
  Speaker 2: it's a shame we are out see yuh. You've been
• 1:00:50
  Speaker 2: listening to Why We Do what we do.
• 1:00:52
  Speaker 1: You can learn more about this and other episodes by
• 1:00:55
  Speaker 1: going to WWD WWD podcast dot com. Thanks for listening,
• 1:01:00
  Speaker 1: and we hope you have an awesome day