basic income, alternate outcomes
TRANSCRIPT
“Basic Income, Alternate Outcomes”By: John F. C. Cheong, Ph.D.
Feedback and comments to: [email protected]
“Basic Income, Alternate Outcomes”By: John F. C. Cheong, Ph.D.
Feedback and comments to: [email protected].
1. One Basic Income, Many Possible Ways…2. Getting the “Hamster Tribe” off the Treadmill?3. Reiss Profile: Timely Update for the New Millennium4. Why Target Millennials (aka “Gen-Y”)?5. The Curative Power of Community Currencies6. Through the Looking Glass: Binero vs. Dinero7. A “Smart Contract” Approach to Administration8. Trusting Multi-Armed Bandit to Run Experiments9. Recruiting/Reconsidering the Ideal Candidates10. Overview of How Everything Fits Together11. The 5 Key Elements of Our Research Testbed12. Anticipated Problems and Proposed Solutions
One Basic Income, Many Possible Ways…
What I wouldn’t do for a cup of Joe…
Ehh, how about getting a job at
Peet’s, Doc? Instead of hunting
rabbits all day?
“Do we have to behave in particular ways to justify compassion and support?Or is simply human dignity enough?” — Evelyn Forget
What do you think happens when this hamster gets off the treadmill?
Nothing interesting happens.It just becomes an empty treadmill.
But we already knew that.
Now what do you think will happen when an entire “hamster tribe” gets off their treadmills?
Aplenty! They all now want something to do!
It is still possible that they may all end up playing video games… unless there’s something more meaningful for them to do together, i.e., for maximal “social multiplier effect.”
Time for an Update to Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs (circa 1943) for the New Millennium?
Reiss Profile: The 16 Basic Desires That Motivate Our Actions and Define Our Personalities
Definitely more along the social dimensions now.
Who R U?
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1 Power
2 Independence
3 Curiosity
4 Acceptance
5 Order
6Saving
7Honor8
Idealism9
Social Contact
10Family
11Status
12Vengeance
13Romance
14Eating
15Physical Activity16Tranquility
A “Shared Context with Common Pain” is the Key.“It’s hard enough being a college graduate with a stacked resume and decent people skills andstill being unable to land even a mediocre receptionist job; I don’t need legions of older adultsjudging me for working three part-time entry-level jobs to support myself in order to follow apassion of liberal arts. We all know that the job market blows right now, especially for those of uslooking for “real” jobs. But hey, in the meantime, the world will always need another server,barista, or nanny. Keep hanging in there, millennials.” — Alex
“A lot of our social services were based on the notion that there are a lot of 40 hour-per-weekjobs out there, full-time jobs, and it was just a matter of connecting people to those jobs andeverything will be fine. Of course, one of the things we know is that’s certainly not the case,particularly for young people who often find themselves working in precarious jobs, working incontracts for long periods of time without the benefits and long-term support that those of uswho have been around longer take for granted.” — Evelyn Forget
The Curative Power of Community Currencies
Toda Oar: A community currency used in Toda City in Saitama Prefecture, near Tokyo. The Oaris issued and managed by the Community Currency Toda Oar Management Committee, which isstaffed by volunteers. First issued in 2003, the purpose of the Oar was to revitalize citizenactivity and encourage mutual assistance. The unit of this currency is the Oar (i.e., equivalent toone yen). Both 10-Oar and 100-Oar bills are in circulation. People’s favorable perception of theirowncommunity currency drives its circulation, and thus helps revitalize the local economy.
Other Complementary Currencies in Circulation:
ComplementaryCurrencies
Loca
le
Sinc
e
Commission
s
Mem
bers
hip
Fees
Dem
urra
ge
Scrip
(not
es)
Virt
ual
Mob
ile
Paym
ents
(Par
tly)
Fiat
Back
ed?
Conv
ertible
Back
to F
iat?
Awa
rene
ss
Prof
. M
gmt
Size
(Vo
lume)
1 WIR 1934 3% Yes No No Yes No No No Good Yes Huge
2 RES 1995 7% Yes No No Yes No No No Poor Yes Very Big
3 Talente 1996 0% Yes No Yes Yes No Yes 5%Loss Poor No Big
4 Chiemgauer 2003 5% Yes Yes Yes Yes No Yes Yes Poor Yes Big
5 Bristol Pound 2012 0% No No No Yes Yes Yes Partly Good No Tiny
6 BerkShares 2006 5% No No Yes No No Yes 5~10%Loss Poor No Small
7 Palmas 2003 2~15% No No Yes - No No No Poor Yes Small
8 RES Catalonia 2012 7% Yes No No Yes No Yes No Poor Yes Tiny
9 Sol Violette 2011 - Yes Yes Yes - No Yes 5%Loss Poor Partly Tiny
Source: IJCCR (International Journal of Community Currency Research).
Through the Looking Glass: Binero vs. DineroI’m Bizarro, your doppelganger. Got anything to trade?
Flat-Earth economics of Middle Earthuses “dinero”, a fiat currency based on a falling-domino world order, which is sometimes destabilizing for its denizenswho’re often trapped in a web of dogmas.
Edge economics of the Outer Rim uses “binero”, a community currency based on a borderless universe, which offers boundless opportunities to its netizensfor spontaneous social endeavors.
A “Smart Contract” Approach to Administration
Blockchain
Bankchain
Smart Asset
Ether
Democratic Autonomous Organization
Smart Property
Cryptocurrency
Proof-of-X
Transaction Ledger
Mining
Consensus
Nodes P2P
Keys
Tokens
Identity
Smart Contract
“You never change things by fighting the existing reality. To change something, build a new modelthat makes the existing model obsolete.” — R. Buckminster Fuller (1895-1983)
Trusting Multi-Armed Bandit to Run ExperimentsSeriously!?I kid you not.
We have only a limited supply of
real money.
The MAB Problem Formulation: “The problem of dynamic pricing with limited supply isconsidered. A seller has k identical items for sale and is facing n potential buyers ("agents") thatare arriving sequentially. Each agent is interested in buying one item. Each agent's value for anitem is an IID sample from some fixed distribution with support [0,1]. The seller offers a take-it-or-leave-it price to each arriving agent (possibly different for different agents), and aims tomaximize his expected revenue. It has been recognized that even in a setting with limitedsupply, the MAB approach can still be fruitfully applied.”
— M. Babaioff, S. Dughmi, R. Kleinberg, and A. Slivkins (2011)
Recruiting the Ideal Manchurian Candidates
Manchurian Bannermen: the “original 1%” of China, a hereditary occupational caste secured bydynastic power for over 250 years (from 1644 to 1911), ranked above others in society. In Chinaproper, bannermen did not cultivate the fields (as they had in Manchuria) but rather lived offstipends, paid part in silver and part in grain. The dynasty supported bannermen and their familiesfrom cradle to grave, with special allowances for travel, weddings, and funerals. The bannerpopulation grew and within a couple of generations, there were not enough positions in the bannerarmies for all adult males in the banners. Yet bannermen were not allowed to pursue occupationsother than soldier or official. Consequently, many led lives of forced idleness, surviving on stipends.
I’m bored. Me too.
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F G
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Reconsidering the Ideal Millennial Candidates
“Faith is the number one element. It isn’t something that spreads itself uniformly. Faith isconcentrated in a few people at particular times and places. If you can involve young peoplein an atmosphere of hope and faith, then I think they’ll figure out how to get the answer.Faith and hope are absolutely central to everything one does.”
— John A. Wheeler (1911-2008)
Overview of How Everything Fits Together:Mission
Statement
“Millennial Hamster Tribe” (Target)
“Unemployed Gen-Xers”
(Control)
Communication Medium
Community Relationships
4 Key Resources:
Community Currency Reserves+ Smart Contracts + Multi-Armed Bandit+ Decentralized Autonomous Organization
5 Key Activities:
Administration + Experiment Design+ Analysis + Interpretation + Reporting
4 Key Partners:
BasicIncome
Disbursements
Non-Monetary Outcome Measures
$$
The 5 Key Elements of Our Research Testbed:
Scope: Specify population size of “hamster tribe” plus ashared context to delineate initial scope of study.
People: Recruit income-challenged, tech-savvy millennials of a certain Reiss Profile as participants in the study.
Money: Create and disburse mission-specific “community currency” (backed by fiat money) as basic income to participants based on a certain t.b.d. formula.
Administration: Deploy programmable “smart contract” technologies to automate all aspects of currency circulation, transaction, conversion into-and-out of network, etc.
Optimization: Conduct experiments using a “multi-armed bandit” approach guided by real-time analytics to optimize the use of limited money resources (i.e., stretch $$).
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“The formal purpose of social experiments is to provide knowledge about mass humanbehavior that will be useful in the design of policies. So the lessons for policy depend on whatwe read the experiments as saying about behavior.” — Robert Solow
Anticipated Problems & Proposed Solutions:Anticipated Problems Proposed Solutions
“What’s the Point of Giving Away These Free Money?”
Design mission-specific community currency to direct efforts towards non-monetary good social outcomes.
Prevalence of Weak Statistical Results
Conduct individual, qualitative case studies with narratives for supplemental coverage to add color and greater depth.
Bureaucratic and Wasteful Administrative Overhead.
Adopt “smart contract” technologies to automate and reduce unnecessary administrative overhead.
Costly Overhead of Data Collection & Processing.
Reduce labor costs by adding off-the-shelf analytics support to smart contracts and community currency.
Potential Privacy Control Requests or Complaints.
Set up hands-off, decentralized administration of selectable privacy controls: “visible” or “incognito”.
Small Risk of Unforeseen Funding Gap (e.g., Dauphin).
Let multi-armed bandit optimize money resources from the get-go, i.e., let’s stretch the mighty dollar!
Potential Long-Term Costs Might be Missed in Study?
Induce time distortion in participants via cognitive design of social cues implanted into the Outer Rim!
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Thank You... for Betting on This Alternate Outcome!
Basic Income Researcher
“There are only two ways to live your life. One is as though nothing is a miracle.The other is as though everything is a miracle.” — Albert Einstein
Visual Bio of My Silicon Valley Adventures
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Basic income, …moi?