4 ms·

In general isn't it better to be given a choice instead of having a decision forced upon you? Because even if we consider from our view that one choice is wors

In general isn't it better to be given a choice instead of having a decision forced upon you? Because even if we consider from our view that one choice is worse, other people may value things differently and may be in different situations that apply different weights to the options. If we really think that someone is too incompetent to make a choice and remove the choice from them, then don't we have some duty to help them out? For example, I want a child to go to school, not a job, and think them too incompetent to make the decision of which is better for them. In removing the option to work, I then have a duty to support them if they were needing the job to live (which is done by specific welfare for children or their parents).

nkrisc 8y ago
Sure, choice is good. But if this work is as bad as the article describes, yet people still choose to do it, then consider how bad the other option must be. Hardly a real "choice."
- jstanley 8y ago
  But forcing them onto the worse choice (by stopping them from doing MTurk) is surely worse!
  - ilikehurdles 8y ago
    Exposing the ills of minimally-regulated contract labor isn't forcing anyone to do anything. If amazon benefits from MTurk, it's not going to shut it down if it can help it. If laborers have no other option between earning a fraction of minimum wage for an hours work and going hungry, they'll probably keep working. But calling that a "choice" is like saying the mafioso holding a gun to your head is giving you the freedom to decide to follow his orders.
    - jstanley 8y ago
      Except in this case nobody is holding a gun to anyone's head. Amazon aren't saying "work on MTurk or we'll do some harm to you", they're saying "work on MTurk if you think the money is worth it".
      - danans 8y ago
        If the best option for these workers is earning sub-minimum wage via MTurk to pay for life's basics, then society, through its income distribution patterns, not Amazon, is threatening them harm. Which makes it society's responsibility, through regulatory mechanisms, to improve the workers options.
        jstanley 8y ago
        Regulating MTurk away will do nothing to improve their options, it will just remove their current best option.
        danans 8y ago
        I didn't suggest regulating MTurk away. There are other ways of giving people options. UBI is an example, but there are likely others, for example, a sovereign wealth fund as found in Alaska and Norway.
        a008t 8y ago
        Why not start UBI on a small, voluntary scale, and demonstrate its success? Every one advocating for UBI could go to a poor neighbourhood / country, pick a poor person (or several), and start transferring them a portion of their income every month...
        danans 8y ago
        > Why not start UBI on a small, voluntary scale, and demonstrate its success? That's what YC is doing: https://basicincome.ycr.org/ https://basicincome.ycr.org/ They have 100s of millions to experiment with ... the average person does not. > Every one advocating for UBI could ... Advocacy (and voting) are the most power tools for shaping the future direction of society. It's very effective as a way of bringing change, and we have many examples in recent history of this being true. If it weren't, you wouldn't see huge amounts of money being given to Super PACs to advocate for political positions. > start transferring them a portion of their income every month... This is a rehash of the very tired, and baseless, cliche against higher taxes that says that those who support higher taxes should write a check to the IRS. It's a fallacious argument, because redistribution only has societal impact when operating on a society-wide scale. The most significant example of this, the Great Society (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Great_Society https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Great_Society) wasn't built on voluntary contributions to the government. Individuals of normal means making marginal contributions does little to move the needle on the relevant societal problems in any significant way, whether those problems are infrastructure, poverty, health care, education, etc. These things, if they are done at all, have to be done at a societal scale, and that means via government methods of finance.
    - PurpleBoxDragon 8y ago
      >But calling that a "choice" is like saying the mafioso holding a gun to your head is giving you the freedom to decide to follow his orders. Yes, but hunger, not Amazon, is the one holding the threat over the person, and as of yet we have not found a way to change these fundamental aspects of nature/reality. You aren't going to remove threat, you are going to just make it become realized. Think of how some areas where child labor was reduced but the reasons behind children working weren't fixed resulted in children turning to far more dangerous and illegal labor that would near universally be considered a far worse option than sweat shop work.
IggleSniggle 8y ago
Having a choice is good. Having 1000000000 choices where only a few are good ones means that there is significant cost in discovering what the good choices are. When you need to be making money immediately, you may rationally choose the first option that presents itself...it’s playing the lottery with your time, but with insufficient knowledge and sufficiently high immediate need, that may still be a rational choice.

nkrisc 8y ago

Sure, choice is good. But if this work is as bad as the article describes, yet people still choose to do it, then consider how bad the other option must be. Hardly a real "choice."

jstanley 8y ago
But forcing them onto the worse choice (by stopping them from doing MTurk) is surely worse!
- ilikehurdles 8y ago
  Exposing the ills of minimally-regulated contract labor isn't forcing anyone to do anything. If amazon benefits from MTurk, it's not going to shut it down if it can help it. If laborers have no other option between earning a fraction of minimum wage for an hours work and going hungry, they'll probably keep working. But calling that a "choice" is like saying the mafioso holding a gun to your head is giving you the freedom to decide to follow his orders.
  - jstanley 8y ago
    Except in this case nobody is holding a gun to anyone's head. Amazon aren't saying "work on MTurk or we'll do some harm to you", they're saying "work on MTurk if you think the money is worth it".
    - danans 8y ago
      If the best option for these workers is earning sub-minimum wage via MTurk to pay for life's basics, then society, through its income distribution patterns, not Amazon, is threatening them harm. Which makes it society's responsibility, through regulatory mechanisms, to improve the workers options.
      - jstanley 8y ago
        Regulating MTurk away will do nothing to improve their options, it will just remove their current best option.
        danans 8y ago
        I didn't suggest regulating MTurk away. There are other ways of giving people options. UBI is an example, but there are likely others, for example, a sovereign wealth fund as found in Alaska and Norway.
        a008t 8y ago
        Why not start UBI on a small, voluntary scale, and demonstrate its success? Every one advocating for UBI could go to a poor neighbourhood / country, pick a poor person (or several), and start transferring them a portion of their income every month...
        danans 8y ago
        > Why not start UBI on a small, voluntary scale, and demonstrate its success? That's what YC is doing: https://basicincome.ycr.org/ https://basicincome.ycr.org/ They have 100s of millions to experiment with ... the average person does not. > Every one advocating for UBI could ... Advocacy (and voting) are the most power tools for shaping the future direction of society. It's very effective as a way of bringing change, and we have many examples in recent history of this being true. If it weren't, you wouldn't see huge amounts of money being given to Super PACs to advocate for political positions. > start transferring them a portion of their income every month... This is a rehash of the very tired, and baseless, cliche against higher taxes that says that those who support higher taxes should write a check to the IRS. It's a fallacious argument, because redistribution only has societal impact when operating on a society-wide scale. The most significant example of this, the Great Society (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Great_Society https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Great_Society) wasn't built on voluntary contributions to the government. Individuals of normal means making marginal contributions does little to move the needle on the relevant societal problems in any significant way, whether those problems are infrastructure, poverty, health care, education, etc. These things, if they are done at all, have to be done at a societal scale, and that means via government methods of finance.
  - PurpleBoxDragon 8y ago
    >But calling that a "choice" is like saying the mafioso holding a gun to your head is giving you the freedom to decide to follow his orders. Yes, but hunger, not Amazon, is the one holding the threat over the person, and as of yet we have not found a way to change these fundamental aspects of nature/reality. You aren't going to remove threat, you are going to just make it become realized. Think of how some areas where child labor was reduced but the reasons behind children working weren't fixed resulted in children turning to far more dangerous and illegal labor that would near universally be considered a far worse option than sweat shop work.

IggleSniggle 8y ago

Having a choice is good. Having 1000000000 choices where only a few are good ones means that there is significant cost in discovering what the good choices are. When you need to be making money immediately, you may rationally choose the first option that presents itself...it’s playing the lottery with your time, but with insufficient knowledge and sufficiently high immediate need, that may still be a rational choice.