Stockton Welfare Experiment

[Bodakane]

That insecurity was always there and quite a lot of them are still very religious.

It was always there, but with the fact that world is catching up to the rigging of the game....white males are more terrified than ever. They know their time on top is limited now, bringing their deep insecurities and fear close to the surface.

[TEHPALLYTANK]

It was always there, but with the fact that world is catching up to the rigging of the game....white males are more terrified than ever. They know their time on top is limited now, bringing their deep insecurities and fear close to the surface.

Well it certainly isn't helped by Fox News/OAN/Newsmax constantly gaslighting their viewers, I'd wager a significant amount of the fear among working class white men persists in large part thanks to the gaslighting.

The only people actually afraid of the power dynamic change are pretty few in number, because they've been working to keep it that way. Hence why we often see widespread bipartisan support for sensible legislation, yet elected Republicans rarely vote in line with their electorate.

[Bodakane]

Well it certainly isn't helped by Fox News/OAN/Newsmax constantly gaslighting their viewers, I'd wager a significant amount of the fear among working class white men persists in large part thanks to the gaslighting.

The only people actually afraid of the power dynamic change are pretty few in number, because they've been working to keep it that way. Hence why we often see widespread bipartisan support for sensible legislation, yet elected Republicans rarely vote in line with their electorate.

FOX and other conservative media outlets help foment the insecurity insurrection (lol), and the echo chamber of social media kicks it into overdrive. Its a perfect shit storm, really.

[PC2]

When you use force to get money from richer people in order to give it to poorer people then poorer people's lives get better. No duh, you don't need to study any data to understand that. The core issue is the use of force in paying for these programs and not the question of whether giving people money is helpful to them in various ways. Which is already intuitively obvious.

[eschatological]

When you use force to get money from richer people in order to give it to poorer people then poorer people's lives get better. No duh, you don't need to study any data to understand that. The core issue is the use of force in paying for these programs and not the question of whether giving people money is helpful to them in various ways. Which is already intuitively obvious.

This is called "the social contract" and is literally the basis of all Western Democracy.

[Endus]

This is called "the social contract" and is literally the basis of all Western Democracy.

Not to mention that what he insists on calling "use of force" is just "rule of law". The only alternative to "use of force" is the complete absence of all law.

Which has been recognized as an unworkable idea since the era of Hammurabi at least.

[Kaleredar]

When you use force to get money from richer people in order to give it to poorer people then poorer people's lives get better. No duh, you don't need to study any data to understand that. The core issue is the use of force in paying for these programs and not the question of whether giving people money is helpful to them in various ways. Which is already intuitively obvious.

"Force?" You're not robbing them at gunpoint. It's taking tax money... something that is due the government and has been since the nation's founding... and giving people said money. (That they then spend, thus directly dispersing that money to other people.) That rich people should pay more than poor or middle class people is the simple fact of the matter that the rich can much more easily give than the poor or middle class, which is why something like a flat tax is absolute nonsense.

It's not inherently "unfair" to tax the rich more. Taxing them more does not place an unnecessary burden on their ability to live their life or enjoy their wealth. I'm of the rather firm belief that, pending outrageous exterior circumstances, if you can't live an insanely comfortable and cushy life without a single financial care in the world if you're still a multi-millionaire after taxation that it's solidly a "you" problem.

[s_bushido]

When you use force to get money from richer people in order to give it to poorer people then poorer people's lives get better. No duh, you don't need to study any data to understand that. The core issue is the use of force in paying for these programs and not the question of whether giving people money is helpful to them in various ways. Which is already intuitively obvious.

Using tax money to build drones to murder people on the other side of the planet: 'Murica, fuck yeah!

Using tax money to try and make people more economically secure: UNETHICAL FORCE!!! THEFT!!!

[PC2]

This is called "the social contract" and is literally the basis of all Western Democracy.

The social contract has always been unethical and illegitimate.

Also, there's a fundamental flaw with this kind of study which is that you can't generalize the results of a temporary study to a permanent program such as UBI unless the participants truly believe the income stream is permanent and are blinded from the temporary nature of the income stream. A person who knows the sand is falling in an hourglass does not behave the same as a person who has been told that there is no hourglass.

[Muzjhath]

The social contract has always been unethical and illegitimate.

Also, there's a fundamental flaw with this kind of study which is that you can't generalize the results of a temporary study to a permanent program such as UBI unless the participants truly believe the income stream is permanent and are blinded from the temporary nature of the income stream. A person who knows the sand is falling in an hourglass does not behave the same as a person who has been told that there is no hourglass.

The social contract is society.
Without it you don't have humanity.

[Calfredd]

The social contract has always been unethical and illegitimate.

So a blind optimist and an anarchist.

[PC2]

The social contract is society.

No, society is a group of individuals where as the social contract is the claim that the state is the ultimate authority over us individuals.

Without it you don't have humanity.

Without it you don't have the state but the state is not humanity.

So a blind optimist

How am I blind? Optimism just means any problem can be solved which means doom or decline is never inevitable. It's not a guarantee of anything since humanity can choose to fail if it doesn't want to improve fast enough.

and an anarchist.

I guess so but it doesn't matter because humanity has the capacity to make rapid progress regardless of whether the world is full of states or stateless. It's not a big deal either way.

[Forogil]

TLDR:
*"The researchers Stacia Martin-West of the University of Tennessee and Amy Castro Baker of the University of Pennsylvania collected and analyzed data from individuals who received $500 a month and from individuals who did not."
*"The cash transfer reduced income volatility, for one: Households getting the cash saw their month-to-month earnings fluctuate 46 percent, versus the control group’s 68 percent."
*"In the Stockton study, the share of participants with a full-time job rose 12 percentage points, versus five percentage points in the control group."

https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/ar...ment-pays-off/

Note that these are preliminary non-peer-reviewed results from the study.

Some of the reporting is clearly biased - e.g., the participants of the recipients having full-time job in February 2020 (half-way through the study) was 40% compared to 37% in the control job; which looks less impressive than the 12% vs. 5% change (I don't know why the control and study group differed that much in terms of original employment).

And it is not UBI:
One of the alleged problems with normal welfare systems is that they have the potential to create a high tax bracket when people are no longer eligible ("welfare traps"), and UBI avoids that by giving it to everyone - regardless of income.
However, giving to everyone is twice as expensive (as half are above the median) and is politically complicated (why should Bill Gates get 500$ per month?). There are non-UBI systems in some countries that work that way - e.g. child-care benefits regardless of income.

This study avoided both of those problems in a way that cannot be replicated in a non-study setting, by seeing people below median income as eligible at the start (thus avoiding the second problem) and then keeping them in the study regardless of changes (thus avoiding the first problem).

So someone earning 3,800$ per month and getting a raise by 100$ wouldn't lose the 500$ per month. That works for a 2 year study, but I don't see how that can be a long-term public policy. Additionally any randomized trial also has a placebo effect - the recipients are the lucky chosen ones.

And as in most cases for economical ideas there are studies that go the other way.

[eschatological]

I mean, if you're not willing to accept the tenets at the base of Western Democracy, how does one argue in good faith against you?

I assume you don't use the state-funded roads or schools or fire departments, though, and put out your own fires, since you owe nothing to no one and no one owes anything to you.

[Endus]

No, society is a group of individuals where as the social contract is the claim that the state is the ultimate authority over us individuals.


Without it you don't have the state but the state is not humanity.

Without the State, humanity is relegated to huddling in caves in small family groups, with no recourse if anyone rolls in and kills a bunch of them and takes their stuff.

Literally all of human society and development beyond the simplest stone tools require the concept of a state. Starting with proper agriculture (meaning more than just a small garden). Language, and particularly writing. Any kind of complex construction beyond caves or simple hide huts. Etc.

- - - Updated - - -

I mean, if you're not willing to accept the tenets at the base of Western Democracy, how does one argue in good faith against you?

He's moved past "Western Democracy" to challenging the tenets at the base of all of human society, all human development for the last 16,000 years or thereabouts.

[unfilteredJW]

The social contract has always been unethical and illegitimate.

Also, there's a fundamental flaw with this kind of study which is that you can't generalize the results of a temporary study to a permanent program such as UBI unless the participants truly believe the income stream is permanent and are blinded from the temporary nature of the income stream. A person who knows the sand is falling in an hourglass does not behave the same as a person who has been told that there is no hourglass.

I’ve been saving up my eyerolls for one big one and oh boy have you earned it here.

[Mihalik]

Without the State, humanity is relegated to huddling in caves in small family groups, with no recourse if anyone rolls in and kills a bunch of them and takes their stuff.

Literally all of human society and development beyond the simplest stone tools require the concept of a state. Starting with proper agriculture (meaning more than just a small garden). Language, and particularly writing. Any kind of complex construction beyond caves or simple hide huts. Etc.

The social contract is present even in any human society where more than 1 immediate family cooperates/cohabitates. It's present in some form even in the most primitive tribes living in complete isolation.

The larger the group gets the more complex the social contract becomes and the more complex its results in turn become.

Libertarians are fucking retarded, howling into void on interwebz against the social contract while conceptually failing to realize they are just an unfortunate by product of the success of the social contract.

[RadasNoir]

I guess so but it doesn't matter because humanity has the capacity to make rapid progress regardless of whether the world is full of states or stateless. It's not a big deal either way.

Every time I think you can't get any more disconnected from reality, you fucking power up like some sort of goddamn anime supervillain.

What sort of privileged life do you lead where everything is all sunshine and rainbows even if the very basis for a functioning human society was removed??

[Glorious Leader]

Libertarians are fucking retarded, howling into void on interwebz against the social contract while conceptually failing to realize they are just an unfortunate by product of the success of the social contract.

Indeed the one social construct they hold dearest is entirely a product of the social contract. Private property is nothing without the state. If you read the likes of Rothbard they get around this by arguing metaphysical nonsense called "homesteading" and "natural law" as if they were entitled by the universe itself to own property.

- - - Updated - - -

So a blind optimist and an anarchist.

He is not an anarchist in the least. Actual anarchist seek to undermine forms of Dominion and hierarchy. Private property is the grosses form of hierarchy.

- - - Updated - - -

Not to mention that what he insists on calling "use of force" is just "rule of law". The only alternative to "use of force" is the complete absence of all law.

Which has been recognized as an unworkable idea since the era of Hammurabi at least.

See but he isn't actually against force at all because violence and force is implicit in the conception of private property. The rich only exist because the force of the state back their claim to be rich even if its just the IMPLIED force of the state. Dumbass libertarians argue for the NAP but are so ignorant of how exactly property functions. What they're actually asking for is the most narrow and most savage force possible, a police state whos ONLY existence is to enforce property claims no matter how egregious and savage the resulting inequity and inequality is. And that's what they would call liberty as if all human freedom and dignity could be to reduced to a commodity. Its so incredible myopic and narrow but thanks to an incredible well funded propaganda machine these people can wrap themselves in the flag and scream about muhhh freedoms and get taken seriously.