Scott Santens
scottsantens.com · Personal blog · on HN since 2015
Scott Santens, a writer and advocate of basic income, argues for universal basic income and reports on experiments and policy.
What HN saysHN commenters use his posts as UBI explainers, but one points out he is an advocate rather than an objective observer, and another disputes a piece's assumptions.
23HN people shared it
8linked it in comments
53stories submitted
508story points
6 months agolast shared
2015people per year2026
Most-shared posts
- 1An Engineering Argument for Basic Income2 people · 51 points · first shared 2020 · 73 comments on HN
- 2Why China Could Surprise World by Being the First Country to Adopt UBI2 people · 21 points · first shared 2024 · 5 comments on HN
- 3Basic Income Observations Log: Entry One – The Importance of Security2 people · 15 points · first shared 2016 · 1 comments on HN
- 4Did Sam Altman's Basic Income Experiment Succeed or Fail?2 people · 6 points · first shared 2024 · 1 comments on HN
- 5Did Spain's B-Mincome Experiment Prove Unconditional Basic Income Doesn't Work?2 people · 5 points · first shared 2023 · discussion on HN
- 6AI Will Rapidly Transform Labor, Exacerbating Inequality, Insecurity, Poverty2 people · 4 points · first shared 2023 · discussion on HN
- 7Top Basic Income Articles of 20162 people · 3 points · first shared 2016 · discussion on HN
- 8NIT and UBI: What makes them the same and what makes them different?2 people · 2 points · first shared 2019 · discussion on HN
- 9The Angine de Poitrine Argument for UBI2 people · 2 points · first shared 2026 · discussion on HN
- 10Homepage2 people · first shared 2016
- 11Basic income faq2 people · first shared 2016
- 12Billionaire-Fueled Lobbying Group Behind the State Bills to Ban UBI Experiments1 people · 115 points · first shared 2024 · 186 comments on HN
- 13Basic income: the water room analogy1 people · 69 points · first shared 2015 · 113 comments on HN
- 14The Spaceballs Argument for Unconditional Basic Income1 people · 60 points · first shared 2023 · 77 comments on HN
- 15The Reasons Authoritarianism Is Growing – and How to Reverse It1 people · 41 points · first shared 2024 · 82 comments on HN
What HN people wrote when they linked it
jostylr · 2020-07-16
Read the Tryanny of Kindness. It is from 1993 and is a former welfare mother and advocate who advocates for a guaranteed income.
The book goes into great length of the pathology of the welfare system and its non-profit charity profiteers. Of course that was 27 years ago.
It obviously depends on the UBI. If it covered children, it would be absolutely better for the recipients. If it does not cover children, as in Yang's plan, then it is questionable, but it still could benefit a lot because many do not get it at all:
https://medium.com/basic-income/there-is-no-policy-proposal-more-progr…
http://www.scottsantens.com/tanf-is-terrible
ZoeZoeBee · 2016-11-14
This article was originally posted in 2014, the author Scott Santens pretends to take an objective look at UBI, but in reality Scott is "Writer and advocate of basic income for all" according to his website
http://www.scottsantens.com/
2noame · 2026-03-15
This is a silly piece that makes a false assumption after false assumption. It's just not the case that UBI creates excess inflation. It can, but in order to do so, it has to be designed in a particular way in a particular economic environment.
This piece of mine gets into the variables to consider:
https://www.scottsantens.com/17-key-variables-that-determine-ubis-infl…
akvadrako · 2022-01-18
That isn't how the term is normally used. This is a good intro: https://www.scottsantens.com/negative-income-tax-nit-and-unconditional…
And you can even see on wikipedia that:
> Therefore, a family with $0 income would be entitled to receive $1500 in subsidy.
^ https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Negative_income_tax
jchrisa · 2021-05-11
Here's a quick blog post with a link to more depth, on how UBI can be good for the economy. https://www.scottsantens.com/the-cost-of-universal-basic-income-is-the…
In computing terms, I like to think that monetary flows are how the market shares information. So having more people "in the game" will increase the fidelity of the information, opening new markets. For example, discount retail might be able to serve more specialty niches.
chillacy · 2020-05-21
The author of the expanse himself clarified that Basic is not UBI http://www.scottsantens.com/the-expanse-basic-support-basic-income
wwweston · 2019-06-17
Krugman's point is not uncontested:
http://www.scottsantens.com/our-paradoxical-economy-courtesy-of-techno…
Additionally, even if we're not peering around the metrics for dynamics hiding behind them, there's the question of how much of the by-Krugman's-metric still rising (if not "soaring") productivity it would take to soften the labor market. I'd like to think he knows the answer to that question, but it isn't clear.
hypertexthero · 2018-07-23
It is not easy, but it is something I believe we need to try as part of the solution to the problems facing our species on this planet.
http://www.scottsantens.com/basic-income-faq