Lawmakers in Chicago, Illinois, are readying a bill to test universal basic income. The idea is to give a fixed stipend to families without requiring reams of paperwork to assess eligibility. Advocates think that this streamlined system will allocate resources more fairly and with less bureaucratic bloat.
I propose that something similar could be used to fund science. In such a system, all qualified scientists would get some guaranteed funding — no grants required. But there should be one added step: everyone must anonymously allocate a fraction of their funds to other researchers of their own choosing.
