I have no idea.  That is exactly why someone needs to research it.  Fortunately for all of us, YC has stepped in to provide some funding for the research.<p>My gut tells me that if societies could work with basic income, someone would have figured it out a long time ago. There have been a lot of societies after all and people have tried a lot of different things. On the other hand, my gut is wrong sometimes.  I think it is super interesting that we may get some well thought out research about this that we can hopefully use to do more research and maybe someday come up with a better system.