Previous discussions:

3 months ago: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=45590900

4 years ago: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=29977176

People have seemed critical of the presentation, scope, and goal of this program. (e.g. It's not "universal" basic income, the number of recipients is limited to 2,000, and why are artists being subsidized instead of essential workers?)

Now it seems that we'll get some real world answer to those questions/concerns.

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bawolff 6 hours ago | parent | next [-]

I dont see how we are getting "answers". Disagreeing with program design is not a question.

Tbh though, that doesn't sound that special. Many countries subsidize artists.

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ergocoder 5 hours ago | parent [-]

There's no good way to evaluate the result anyway.

Grants like this at a small scale is generally inconsequential to the country.

	▲	bawolff 3 hours ago \| parent [-]
		You could evaluate how much art gets created

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bell-cot 15 hours ago | parent | prev [-]

> and why are artists being subsidized instead of essential workers?

There are far more than 2,000 real, paying jobs for schoolteachers. And for grocery clerks. And for nurses. And for fire fighters. And for drivers of rubbish lorries. And for ...

Not so much for the folks who hope to be the next James Joyce or Louis le Brocquy.

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sam_lowry_ 15 hours ago | parent | next [-]

I hope to be the next Rothshild, give me a trillion!

	▲	its_magic 15 hours ago \| parent [-]
		Why just one trillion? Give everyone 10 trillion so we can ALL be mega-rich.

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AlexandrB 14 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-]

Many people who work as schoolteachers, grocery clerks, etc. at one point might have had ambition to be the next James Joyce.

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jl6 14 hours ago | parent [-]

Joyce did work as a schoolteacher. Maybe he would have written better books if he hadn’t had to do this.

	▲	lucketone 4 hours ago \| parent [-]
		Equally possible that those books would have been worse.

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mantas 15 hours ago | parent | prev [-]

Those can go and do normal jobs like grocery clerks. While doing their art in free time. Like many famous artists were doing.

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bell-cot 13 hours ago | parent | next [-]

With the modest size of the monthly checks, most of them may need to do that anyway.

But the obvious point is to help "artists" in Ireland. It's pretty normal for small nations to want to cultivate / protect / subsidize their arts / culture / language / whatever. The Irish gov't isn't trumpeting this program because they think it'll annoy Irish voters.

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mantas 12 hours ago | parent [-]

I’m all for encouraging people to create art.

But I think people who benefit from this won’t be artists. But people who are good at making money off artsy projects.

I’d see much more value in investing in supply and demand. First, provide free studios with arts supplies, music instruments and so on. Next, force government agencies to hire local artists. Make municipalities have live music for local events and hire local musicians. Make gov agencies buy local art for decorations etc.

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bell-cot 12 hours ago | parent [-]

> ...I think people who benefit...

325 Euros/week sounds like basic rent & food & transportation. Not artsy projects with enough spare Euros for someone to skim serious money off from.

Providing "free" studios, supplies, instruments, etc. sounds like a scheme to give politicians more photo ops and bureaucrats more jobs. Why can't the artists just source exactly what they think they need from existing supply chains?

	▲	TheOtherHobbes 7 hours ago \| parent [-]
		It's about 60% of the Irish minimum wage. So more of a nice gesture than a generous handout or a true attempt at UBI.

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metalman 9 hours ago | parent | prev [-]

artists dont do "normal" and generaly experience reality from a particular, and personal point of view, and grocerie store managers and young artists will almost certainly have mutualy antagonistic points of view. artists thrive in random spontainious environments, but forget about food, so we give them money, that they give to normal grocery store clerks, and we all forgo the seething frustration that would result from your suggestion.