6 ms·

Am I the only one who thinks it's my own business how much I earn as long as I don't do anything illegal? What's next, a database with all guys dick size?

Roritharr 9y ago
I'm pretty sure that someone is on GoDaddy at this moment registering dicksizedb.com
pimmen 9y ago
You've earned all that money, it's nothing to be ashamed of so I don't really see how that's making you more uncomfortable than everyone being able to look up your expensive sports car at the DMV. However, if you're running for office, I would be very interested in knowing how you made all that money (even if none of it was made illegally) since you'll be regulating businesses and what not.
- logicallee 9y ago
  shame isn't the only thing. If everyone knows you deal with trading rare comic books between America and Japan, with no listed prices but a comission between private transactions which you intermediate, have no employees and do it all via a couple of low-key websites, then it is no big deal. They might assume you do a few per year or per month, but that it is hardly some huge market. If, however, the world learns that you made $37.2 million last year doing this, then this signal might be enough for your income to drop to $0 and for you never to make another penny again. (For example because it invites a transparent competitor who does list prices and who you can't or don't want to deal with; or invited eBay, who actually loses money entering this market with a huge splash. Or invited Christie's, the auctiom house, who had not been tracking this part of the market. etc etc.) In capitalist countries salaries can be clear signals for turnover, which could otherwise be private.
  - pimmen 9y ago
    Then, I don't know, don't give it to yourself in that way but rather re-invest in your company if it really is your turnover? Those poor business owners who are making so much money that they're attracting competition can't afford accountants?
    - logicallee 9y ago
      that's not a general solution. firms with employees can also have trouble hiding the size of their divisions if everyone's salary is pubic. this really is pretty key competitive information.
      - pimmen 9y ago
        Then make the search for each individual a separate query and put a processing fee on it. That would make such a lookup scale very poorly.
        logicallee 9y ago
        why is it in the public interest to make the search possible at all?
        deleted 9y ago
        [deleted]
  - lordnacho 9y ago
    > If, however, the world learns that you made $37.2 million last year doing this, then this signal might be enough for your income to drop to $0 and for you never to make another penny again. Which would be a win for the consumer. Information is supposed to do this to markets.
- patrickaljord 9y ago
  > it's nothing to be ashamed What? Am I reading this on HN? The place where people like talking how privacy matter all day and how annoying the fallacy of "if you have nothing to hide you shouldn't worry about the government/corporations spying on you" is? I'm puzzled.
  - foo101 9y ago
    What makes you think salary is a matter of privacy? In a lot of countries, many government jobs come with publicly disclosed salaries. Why do you think a job in a private sector should maintain secrecy for salaries? Privacy applies to private data. Whether salary should be considered private data is the point of argument here. Nobody is arguing about doing away with privacy altogether. So what is your point?
    - patrickaljord 9y ago
      My point is that what two consenting adults contracts is part of their privacy unless you're an authoritarian State.
      - foo101 9y ago
        Except most contracts in the private sector (IT, finance, etc.) are not between two consenting adults. They are usually between one consulting adult and a huge corporation, a corporation that can choose to pay a certain class of people unfairly and still survive in business. It is in the interest of such corporations to maintain this asymmetry of information where they can know your salary and all your colleagues' salary but would discourage you from knowing your colleague salary. If you think salary being private data is the obvious assumption, then think again, maybe you have been conditioned by years of employment in the private sector to believe that salary is private data. In many cultures and in many type of jobs, it is not considered private data.
        patrickaljord 9y ago
        I see that you hold the belief that consenting adults willingly working are being forced to do so, I do not share this belief that corporation are forcing anyone to work for them. Maybe you have been conditioned by years of State education to believe that employment does not imply consent between two parties but is a forced procedure. Many philosophers do not agree with that and consider work contracting to be consented between willing adults.
e12e 9y ago
Fundamentally, it's about democratizing access to information - and about equal pay for equal work. An employer will always know how much every single employee makes - but in collective negotiations, it's nice to be able to see that people make roughly the same for similar positions. And to be able to see that the head of the union's negotiation team isn't given a massive pay bump (on the books) - possibly as an open bribe...
- mrkrabo 9y ago
  You should be able to negotiate a better (or worse) salary and there's nothing wrong about that. Reminds me of Reddit banning salary negotiation because women were worse at negotiating. Infantilisation of society...
  - e12e 9y ago
    It depends a bit on the market for labour. In Norway employers are organised to a higher degree than workers are in unions (IMNHO because business owners understand economics and will readily seek to strengthen their position and lower risk, while workers are more easily sold on the naive dream of individual success through "hard work"). But either way increaaed pay and better work conditions has largely been a result of collective bargaining and strikes. And most employers aren't free to simply give anyone any kind of benefits, because through their employer organisation they've already agreed to collective bargaining. Any employer is free to not organise - but like a worker without a union will most likely just put themselves in a poorer bargaining position. As for highly individual compensation - that would (should) depend on being able to tell how much value a person brings in. And apart from sales, I don't know of many positions where there's a good way to measure that - especially if you try to consider the collective efficiency of a company. Is taking time out of your day to train new employees a net gain for the company? Should you be rewarded or punished if it is? And there's the long time perspective to consider: should all workplaces cater to workers of all ages, and in life phases? Do you place different demands on an 18 year old, a 30 year old and a 60 year old worker?
- mirko22 9y ago
  Coming from ex-communist country and now living in the democratic country which uses collective contracts for government workforce I am willing to argue there is nothing worse for economy (or at least quality of service) then collective contracts. Not all people work the same or contribute the same, and they should not be paid the same. What we have where I live is that people don't do anything and still get paid from my taxes just cos they were able to get collective contract signed. And all this leads to less effective government services. (I am talking a government collective contracts as I am not sure that there are any in real sector)
Broken_Hippo 9y ago
How do you propose we figure out who is doing the illegal stuff? I think most folks are like you - aren't doing anything illegal that they know of and are pretty fair to folks. But the fact of the matter is that some folks aren't fair and are doing illegal things. And even more folks have hidden biases that affect how fairly they pay folks. Being open about things is one way of trying to overcome that sort of thing. The bright side is that most folks won't bother. Even fewer will do so if their name is going to be reported to the person they looked up. But by golly, if I were affected by one of those unfair folks, I'd look it up. And I'm guessing you would too, without considering that the unfair folks woudln't like that privacy invasion. Since it helps those getting screwed over: No. I don't think it is your own business how much you earn.
- mirko22 9y ago
  > How do you propose we figure out who is doing the illegal stuff? So if you are saying that it is no my businesses how much I earn but of public interest to battle criminal, how is this different than saying that all cryptography should be banned cos terrorist use it to plan terror attacks?
nattmat 9y ago
It is not about how much you are earning, but how much taxes you are paying.
sigzero 9y ago
I agree. It's none of anyone's business what I make.

Roritharr 9y ago

I'm pretty sure that someone is on GoDaddy at this moment registering dicksizedb.com

pimmen 9y ago

You've earned all that money, it's nothing to be ashamed of so I don't really see how that's making you more uncomfortable than everyone being able to look up your expensive sports car at the DMV. However, if you're running for office, I would be very interested in knowing how you made all that money (even if none of it was made illegally) since you'll be regulating businesses and what not.

logicallee 9y ago
shame isn't the only thing. If everyone knows you deal with trading rare comic books between America and Japan, with no listed prices but a comission between private transactions which you intermediate, have no employees and do it all via a couple of low-key websites, then it is no big deal. They might assume you do a few per year or per month, but that it is hardly some huge market. If, however, the world learns that you made $37.2 million last year doing this, then this signal might be enough for your income to drop to $0 and for you never to make another penny again. (For example because it invites a transparent competitor who does list prices and who you can't or don't want to deal with; or invited eBay, who actually loses money entering this market with a huge splash. Or invited Christie's, the auctiom house, who had not been tracking this part of the market. etc etc.) In capitalist countries salaries can be clear signals for turnover, which could otherwise be private.
- pimmen 9y ago
  Then, I don't know, don't give it to yourself in that way but rather re-invest in your company if it really is your turnover? Those poor business owners who are making so much money that they're attracting competition can't afford accountants?
  - logicallee 9y ago
    that's not a general solution. firms with employees can also have trouble hiding the size of their divisions if everyone's salary is pubic. this really is pretty key competitive information.
    - pimmen 9y ago
      Then make the search for each individual a separate query and put a processing fee on it. That would make such a lookup scale very poorly.
      - logicallee 9y ago
        why is it in the public interest to make the search possible at all?
      - deleted 9y ago
        [deleted]
- lordnacho 9y ago
  > If, however, the world learns that you made $37.2 million last year doing this, then this signal might be enough for your income to drop to $0 and for you never to make another penny again. Which would be a win for the consumer. Information is supposed to do this to markets.
patrickaljord 9y ago
> it's nothing to be ashamed What? Am I reading this on HN? The place where people like talking how privacy matter all day and how annoying the fallacy of "if you have nothing to hide you shouldn't worry about the government/corporations spying on you" is? I'm puzzled.
- foo101 9y ago
  What makes you think salary is a matter of privacy? In a lot of countries, many government jobs come with publicly disclosed salaries. Why do you think a job in a private sector should maintain secrecy for salaries? Privacy applies to private data. Whether salary should be considered private data is the point of argument here. Nobody is arguing about doing away with privacy altogether. So what is your point?
  - patrickaljord 9y ago
    My point is that what two consenting adults contracts is part of their privacy unless you're an authoritarian State.
    - foo101 9y ago
      Except most contracts in the private sector (IT, finance, etc.) are not between two consenting adults. They are usually between one consulting adult and a huge corporation, a corporation that can choose to pay a certain class of people unfairly and still survive in business. It is in the interest of such corporations to maintain this asymmetry of information where they can know your salary and all your colleagues' salary but would discourage you from knowing your colleague salary. If you think salary being private data is the obvious assumption, then think again, maybe you have been conditioned by years of employment in the private sector to believe that salary is private data. In many cultures and in many type of jobs, it is not considered private data.
      - patrickaljord 9y ago
        I see that you hold the belief that consenting adults willingly working are being forced to do so, I do not share this belief that corporation are forcing anyone to work for them. Maybe you have been conditioned by years of State education to believe that employment does not imply consent between two parties but is a forced procedure. Many philosophers do not agree with that and consider work contracting to be consented between willing adults.

e12e 9y ago

Fundamentally, it's about democratizing access to information - and about equal pay for equal work. An employer will always know how much every single employee makes - but in collective negotiations, it's nice to be able to see that people make roughly the same for similar positions. And to be able to see that the head of the union's negotiation team isn't given a massive pay bump (on the books) - possibly as an open bribe...

mrkrabo 9y ago
You should be able to negotiate a better (or worse) salary and there's nothing wrong about that. Reminds me of Reddit banning salary negotiation because women were worse at negotiating. Infantilisation of society...
- e12e 9y ago
  It depends a bit on the market for labour. In Norway employers are organised to a higher degree than workers are in unions (IMNHO because business owners understand economics and will readily seek to strengthen their position and lower risk, while workers are more easily sold on the naive dream of individual success through "hard work"). But either way increaaed pay and better work conditions has largely been a result of collective bargaining and strikes. And most employers aren't free to simply give anyone any kind of benefits, because through their employer organisation they've already agreed to collective bargaining. Any employer is free to not organise - but like a worker without a union will most likely just put themselves in a poorer bargaining position. As for highly individual compensation - that would (should) depend on being able to tell how much value a person brings in. And apart from sales, I don't know of many positions where there's a good way to measure that - especially if you try to consider the collective efficiency of a company. Is taking time out of your day to train new employees a net gain for the company? Should you be rewarded or punished if it is? And there's the long time perspective to consider: should all workplaces cater to workers of all ages, and in life phases? Do you place different demands on an 18 year old, a 30 year old and a 60 year old worker?
mirko22 9y ago
Coming from ex-communist country and now living in the democratic country which uses collective contracts for government workforce I am willing to argue there is nothing worse for economy (or at least quality of service) then collective contracts. Not all people work the same or contribute the same, and they should not be paid the same. What we have where I live is that people don't do anything and still get paid from my taxes just cos they were able to get collective contract signed. And all this leads to less effective government services. (I am talking a government collective contracts as I am not sure that there are any in real sector)

Broken_Hippo 9y ago

How do you propose we figure out who is doing the illegal stuff? I think most folks are like you - aren't doing anything illegal that they know of and are pretty fair to folks. But the fact of the matter is that some folks aren't fair and are doing illegal things. And even more folks have hidden biases that affect how fairly they pay folks. Being open about things is one way of trying to overcome that sort of thing. The bright side is that most folks won't bother. Even fewer will do so if their name is going to be reported to the person they looked up. But by golly, if I were affected by one of those unfair folks, I'd look it up. And I'm guessing you would too, without considering that the unfair folks woudln't like that privacy invasion. Since it helps those getting screwed over: No. I don't think it is your own business how much you earn.

mirko22 9y ago
> How do you propose we figure out who is doing the illegal stuff? So if you are saying that it is no my businesses how much I earn but of public interest to battle criminal, how is this different than saying that all cryptography should be banned cos terrorist use it to plan terror attacks?

nattmat 9y ago

It is not about how much you are earning, but how much taxes you are paying.

sigzero 9y ago

I agree. It's none of anyone's business what I make.