6 ms·

Thats the whole point of creating a precariat: rich peoples lives get safer and easier, poor peoples lives become less secure and harder. The system is working

by fergie 7y ago

Thats the whole point of creating a precariat: rich peoples lives get safer and easier, poor peoples lives become less secure and harder. The system is working as intended. Three cheers for the gig-economy!!

DoreenMichele 7y ago
"Never attribute to malice that which is adequately explained by stupidity." I doubt that the birth of the precariat was consciously and intentionally master planned by anyone. In some sense, that's attributing too much competence to the upper classes to think they could mastermind such a plan. In another, it's calling them more deeply and comically idiotic than they merit because even rich people are scared here lately of what is going on in the world. At least some of them wish they could figure out how to stamp out the economic instability we have and they just can't figure out how on earth that works. It's hard to design good systems. It's much easier to design a system that does some of the things you want while overlooking a lot of important details and thereby fostering a lot of unintended consequences.
- monadic2 7y ago
  Malice or stupidity makes no effect, and shared incentives are far stronger forces than conspiracies anyway.
- pdkl95 7y ago
  > I doubt that the birth of the precariat was consciously and intentionally master planned by anyone. It was consciously and intentionally create, but the planning is usually obscured behind euphemisms. Nobody directly says they are trying to make employment more precarious; they say they are making a new type of business that is "more efficient". > unintended consequences The consequences may not be intended, but pretending they weren't obvious results of a new design is gross negligence. The long term economic impact and its secondary/tertiary effects on society of a "gig-economy" business "disrupting" a traditional employer are hard to predict. The fact that it would make a lot of people's employment far more precarious is not only obvious, it's the core feature that differentiates the new type of business.
  - DoreenMichele 7y ago
    I began doing gig work while deathly ill and homeless. It was the only kind of paid work I had access to and the world absolutely wasn't throwing money at me out of compassion for my terrible sob story. (I have a genetic disorder, no criminal record etc etc so I'm one of the clearly "unfortunate and deserving poor.") I happen to work for a service that is well designed and gives me control over the things that matter to me. It also has a low barrier to entry but doesn't have a low ceiling. It's possible to make a middle class income this way. So I'm quite convinced that efficiency isn't simply some polite euphemism for "fuck you." I think it's possible to design gig work platforms that work well for the workers. I'm hardly the only person on the planet for whom many regular jobs are simply out of the question. I think the efficiency gains are real and can be managed in a way that is good for all involved parties. I think gig work can be the next industrial revolution where we make it possible for ordinary people to have some of the things historically reserved for the jet set. Because my income was portable, I was able to take a train to another state and get back into housing in a cheaper state than California. For many poor people, that's unimaginable. They would need to look for a job in the new location, which would mean having no income for a time because, say, waitressing jobs don't hire you from out of state typically. I got to work as much or as little as I chose. It was dictated by my health to a large degree, which was enormously frustrating, but it meant that when I was feeling better, I could immediately earn money again. I didn't have to job hunt. For me, gig work was nothing short of a miracle allowing me to have some earned income under circumstances where that should have been simply impossible. So, sorry, I don't think so.
    - raws 7y ago
      I don't think you can use your own anecdotal case to disprove a huge societal movement affecting tens of millions when in some cases the current market offerings albeit inflexible in some of their aspects and need a revamp already exist and cover the great majority of the market ie: cabs vs uberlikes. Edit1: Could you clarify, I'm curious as to what kind of the jet set class items would be accessible at the entry level or not so far high in the gig-econ? Edit2: Also I do not mean to say that the gig-econ does not offer economical sustenance or reinsertion for workers that cannot endure more classical jobs but they're the great minority in these kind of jobs but that is just my own opinion and read on the market
- crysis2917 7y ago
  "Never attribute to malice that which is adequately explained by stupidity." "that's attributing too much competence to the upper classes to think they could mastermind such a plan" ROFL
  - DoreenMichele 7y ago
    "The rich get richer" is a known thing and it's often about things like cronyism, not sheer, objective competence. https://simplicable.com/new/failing-upwards https://simplicable.com/new/failing-upwards https://simplicable.com/new/cronyism https://simplicable.com/new/cronyism
    - monadic2 7y ago
      What is objective competence? The rich reward what they recognize; incompetence is universal. Unrelated, I have heard from my friends that your homelessness resource site for san diego is still extremely useful, even outside of san diego. Thank you.
      - DoreenMichele 7y ago
        Objective competence: Let's say you are playing a free game you downloaded to your phone. You don't have to spend money to accomplish anything in particular, but if you have money to spare, you can spend actual real life dollars on in-app purchases to get past some challenge. It takes actual skill to get past certain challenges. Rich people can be sort of halfway competent at playing the game and get farther, faster because they can rely on in-app purchases. Real life is not unlike that. In real life, rich people are often able to throw money at their problems. Poor people are not able to do the same. If poor people want a solution, they have to be extremely competent to make that happen. They can't hire a high-priced lawyer or whatever to fix the mess for them. It gets compounded because rich people will have compassion for the problems of other rich people and hire them out of pity when their consulting business is in a slump. Poor people will be rejected and told their inability to find adequate work is evidence of incompetence and that they don't deserve to be hired. Once you are rich enough, people will kiss your ass, help you save face, etc when you fuck up. Poor people generally don't get the same courtesies. This has been a huge problem for me in recent years. Men on HN are obviously competent if they have a lot of karma. My high karma count isn't considered evidence of competence and my need for an income is me "panhandling the internet." Etc. Ad nauseum.
- raws 7y ago
  Yet it is quite clear and obvious how the rich have easier access to the regulators of the system through subsystems like lobbying which in effect skews the rules in their favor especially since the regulators are hardly ever issued from the lower classes which has the artificial indirect effect to reinforce their representation in the system and consequently the creation of rules for this highly privileged class just on the simple fact of ease of access in comparison to the lower classes whom don't even necessarily have the proper education to understand how such systems negatively affect their proper democratic representation on the political level.
amelius 7y ago
At least the wealthy have placed the urgency of the situation above the economy.

by fergie 7y ago

DoreenMichele 7y ago

"Never attribute to malice that which is adequately explained by stupidity." I doubt that the birth of the precariat was consciously and intentionally master planned by anyone. In some sense, that's attributing too much competence to the upper classes to think they could mastermind such a plan. In another, it's calling them more deeply and comically idiotic than they merit because even rich people are scared here lately of what is going on in the world. At least some of them wish they could figure out how to stamp out the economic instability we have and they just can't figure out how on earth that works. It's hard to design good systems. It's much easier to design a system that does some of the things you want while overlooking a lot of important details and thereby fostering a lot of unintended consequences.

monadic2 7y ago
Malice or stupidity makes no effect, and shared incentives are far stronger forces than conspiracies anyway.
pdkl95 7y ago
> I doubt that the birth of the precariat was consciously and intentionally master planned by anyone. It was consciously and intentionally create, but the planning is usually obscured behind euphemisms. Nobody directly says they are trying to make employment more precarious; they say they are making a new type of business that is "more efficient". > unintended consequences The consequences may not be intended, but pretending they weren't obvious results of a new design is gross negligence. The long term economic impact and its secondary/tertiary effects on society of a "gig-economy" business "disrupting" a traditional employer are hard to predict. The fact that it would make a lot of people's employment far more precarious is not only obvious, it's the core feature that differentiates the new type of business.
- DoreenMichele 7y ago
  I began doing gig work while deathly ill and homeless. It was the only kind of paid work I had access to and the world absolutely wasn't throwing money at me out of compassion for my terrible sob story. (I have a genetic disorder, no criminal record etc etc so I'm one of the clearly "unfortunate and deserving poor.") I happen to work for a service that is well designed and gives me control over the things that matter to me. It also has a low barrier to entry but doesn't have a low ceiling. It's possible to make a middle class income this way. So I'm quite convinced that efficiency isn't simply some polite euphemism for "fuck you." I think it's possible to design gig work platforms that work well for the workers. I'm hardly the only person on the planet for whom many regular jobs are simply out of the question. I think the efficiency gains are real and can be managed in a way that is good for all involved parties. I think gig work can be the next industrial revolution where we make it possible for ordinary people to have some of the things historically reserved for the jet set. Because my income was portable, I was able to take a train to another state and get back into housing in a cheaper state than California. For many poor people, that's unimaginable. They would need to look for a job in the new location, which would mean having no income for a time because, say, waitressing jobs don't hire you from out of state typically. I got to work as much or as little as I chose. It was dictated by my health to a large degree, which was enormously frustrating, but it meant that when I was feeling better, I could immediately earn money again. I didn't have to job hunt. For me, gig work was nothing short of a miracle allowing me to have some earned income under circumstances where that should have been simply impossible. So, sorry, I don't think so.
  - raws 7y ago
    I don't think you can use your own anecdotal case to disprove a huge societal movement affecting tens of millions when in some cases the current market offerings albeit inflexible in some of their aspects and need a revamp already exist and cover the great majority of the market ie: cabs vs uberlikes. Edit1: Could you clarify, I'm curious as to what kind of the jet set class items would be accessible at the entry level or not so far high in the gig-econ? Edit2: Also I do not mean to say that the gig-econ does not offer economical sustenance or reinsertion for workers that cannot endure more classical jobs but they're the great minority in these kind of jobs but that is just my own opinion and read on the market
crysis2917 7y ago
"Never attribute to malice that which is adequately explained by stupidity." "that's attributing too much competence to the upper classes to think they could mastermind such a plan" ROFL
- DoreenMichele 7y ago
  "The rich get richer" is a known thing and it's often about things like cronyism, not sheer, objective competence. https://simplicable.com/new/failing-upwards https://simplicable.com/new/failing-upwards https://simplicable.com/new/cronyism https://simplicable.com/new/cronyism
  - monadic2 7y ago
    What is objective competence? The rich reward what they recognize; incompetence is universal. Unrelated, I have heard from my friends that your homelessness resource site for san diego is still extremely useful, even outside of san diego. Thank you.
    - DoreenMichele 7y ago
      Objective competence: Let's say you are playing a free game you downloaded to your phone. You don't have to spend money to accomplish anything in particular, but if you have money to spare, you can spend actual real life dollars on in-app purchases to get past some challenge. It takes actual skill to get past certain challenges. Rich people can be sort of halfway competent at playing the game and get farther, faster because they can rely on in-app purchases. Real life is not unlike that. In real life, rich people are often able to throw money at their problems. Poor people are not able to do the same. If poor people want a solution, they have to be extremely competent to make that happen. They can't hire a high-priced lawyer or whatever to fix the mess for them. It gets compounded because rich people will have compassion for the problems of other rich people and hire them out of pity when their consulting business is in a slump. Poor people will be rejected and told their inability to find adequate work is evidence of incompetence and that they don't deserve to be hired. Once you are rich enough, people will kiss your ass, help you save face, etc when you fuck up. Poor people generally don't get the same courtesies. This has been a huge problem for me in recent years. Men on HN are obviously competent if they have a lot of karma. My high karma count isn't considered evidence of competence and my need for an income is me "panhandling the internet." Etc. Ad nauseum.
raws 7y ago
Yet it is quite clear and obvious how the rich have easier access to the regulators of the system through subsystems like lobbying which in effect skews the rules in their favor especially since the regulators are hardly ever issued from the lower classes which has the artificial indirect effect to reinforce their representation in the system and consequently the creation of rules for this highly privileged class just on the simple fact of ease of access in comparison to the lower classes whom don't even necessarily have the proper education to understand how such systems negatively affect their proper democratic representation on the political level.

amelius 7y ago

At least the wealthy have placed the urgency of the situation above the economy.