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Some jobs should be paid more. An example is shop workers who are front line during the pandemic and exposing themselves to covid-19 while higher paid people ge
by eecks 6y ago
Some jobs should be paid more. An example is shop workers who are front line during the pandemic and exposing themselves to covid-19 while higher paid people get to work from home. The problem is that it is seen as a low skill job. Same for content moderators. So should they be paid more? Arguably. Will they? Probably not.
- bzb6 6y agoJobs are paid according to supply and demand. Jobs that anybody can do will always be paid poorly.
- throwaway2245 6y agoThis is purely because of exploitation - people work those jobs to guarantee themselves shelter, food and warmth. If we (as a society) guaranteed everybody enough resources to live, those types of jobs would need to be paid a more appropriate rate, including hazard pay.
- new_guy 6y agoIf everyone was guaranteed those resources, then no-one is going to do the jobs that need doing.
- bzb6 6y agoIf everyone was guaranteed those resources, the price of everything would rise so people would still need to do those jobs.
- new_guy 6y agoEven if prices rose with everyone guaranteed resources, why would anyone get off their asses to shovel shit when they can sit at home and get paid basically the same?
- bzb6 6y agoBecause prices would be so high that you would be unable to pay rent or eat on your monthly “allowance”. You could keep raising the allowance every month and things would soon spiral out of control
- throwaway2245 6y agoThis assumes that large landowners and food conglomerates are 100% rentiers. That the money they make is based on the amount they can extract, and not on the value they provide. You're describing a system which is not democratic capitalism, it is serfdom. If that were the case, why would we continue to allow that?
- deleted 6y ago[deleted]
- intended 6y agoThis is a sort of complete miunderstanding of how your world works. Utterly. People work for incentives. People on HN work on their startups - why? They could get a SW job and leave the stress behind, why do they have to struggle? Some people will take the basics and be happy - thats their call. MANY others will do what it takes to get paid because that is what they want. So if you aren't getting enough fruit pickers, well pay more. If apparently your going rate isn't high enough, well then those strawberries are perhaps not economically viable in the first place, since no one in your economy wants to do that work. Obviously its a lot more complex, but the essence of economics is always - people act according to incentives.
- anonuser123456 6y agoGuarantee Resources -> Higher prices for those resources -> People need to work to get those resources -> Resources are no longer guaranteed.
- throwaway2245 6y agoIn other words: [you believe] you benefit from this exploitation and you're quite satisfied with it.
- tomp 6y agoNo, you're presented a false dichotomy. There's no "we as society" that can just magically "provide the resources". The resources must happen, i.e. somebody actually needs to do the work. In other words, it's someone's job. There is no feasible way to run a society without people doing the work. In fact, the pandemic has been a good example of this, on so many levels - farmers in UK complaining that the strawberries are going to rot on the fields without immigrant labour (because of border lockdowns), shops almost running out of food (because of supply chain breakdowns, which governments took a lot of effort to protect/reestablish), mask & PPE shortages (because there's not enough people doing the work in factories - particularly in Europe), food deliveries (i.e. someone needs to actually do the work of getting in a car and driving around), ...
- throwaway2245 6y agoGiving people sufficient basic resources for survival doesn't stop them from working. Everyone being paid more than a living wage is already choosing to do more work than they have to. Why do you assume that people would stop working, if they have a choice? It's already evident that people choose to work without coercion, if they are paid properly. My point is that coercion via threat of personal destitution is bad and should be eliminated, not that work is bad.
- simplerman 6y agoIf no-one is doing jobs that need doing, then pay for those jobs will rise until it reaches equilibrium. Greed and motivation will always be there.
- s1artibartfast 6y agoThat still doesn’t mean it is exploitation. One person has no inherent right to shelter, food and warmth. If someone decides to give it to them, that is charity.
- saltyshake 6y agoI am sure what you just mentioned are actually the universal human rights according to the UN..
- ThrowawayR2 6y agoI was curious about that; it is in Article 25 of the UN's Universal Declaration of Human Rights: "Everyone has the right to a standard of living adequate for the health and well-being of himself and of his family, including food, clothing, housing and medical care and necessary social services ..."
- s1artibartfast 6y agoAnd this is why I have a problem with the UN declaration of human rights.If I choose to live on a Sandune in the middle of the Sahara, Who’s obligation is it to ensure these services are provided to me.That said, I would say it’s a reasonable aspiration for society to be structured in a way that this is achievable for people that want to work for it or can’t work for it, but not a right
- refurb 6y agoThis is why the UN declaration of rights is kind of meaningless. Rights are meaningless if there is no enforcement.
- 0xdde 6y agoWhat do you consider an inherent right, then? Nothing aside from being allowed to exist?
- matz1 6y ago
- matz1 6y agoThe thing is not many people want to do this kind of charity. The only way to solve this is to develop a technology that is advanced enough and cheap enough that everybody can guarantee themselves shelter, food, warmth without any other human involved.
- throwaway2245 6y ago> everybody can guarantee themselves shelter, food, warmth without any other human involved. I was also going to mention that this is actively prevented by modern society. In practice, you cannot forge these things by yourself, as you will soon be stopped by private landownership.
- deleted 6y ago[deleted]
- matz1 6y agoI'm not sure, the trend is energy become cheaper and cheaper and technology become more advanced every time. I imagine technology that some day advance enough and autonomous enough and cheap enough that enable me to live off the grid with supply of unlimited solar energy and robot that can make me food. The only thing that can fix society is to have no society.
- marcosdumay 6y agoWell, that's true, but it doesn't make the GP false. UBI is a coarse hack that can improve this situation up to a limited amount, but it's mainly an open problem. New ideas on this area are very welcome.
- finnthehuman 6y agoEven if we presuppose that everyone working could choose not to work at all, I think your scenario is overly idealistic. What your scenario changes is that the labor supply gets to be much more selective about the job they take. Supply and demand still exist. Moderating facebook is still a low skill desk job. The pay and benefit floor may be raised across the board, but I don't see what the market force would separate moderating facebook from the other jobs with comparable pay today. Sure, you could quit a job moderating facebook and not have to worry about keeping yourself solvent. But the same goes for every other job. What would separate them from the jobs that they're on the same level with today?
- crumbshot 6y ago> What your scenario changes is that the labor supply gets to be much more selective about the job they take. Indeed, that's the point: to move away from the current system of the wealthy coercing and exploiting the not-wealthy.
- throwaway2245 6y ago> What would separate them from the jobs that they're on the same level with today? I'm imagining jobs with (for example) a high emotional toll, disgust factor, risk factor. I believe those aspects are presently undervalued (described above as jobs which "anyone can do"), so I imagine there would be a reassessment of how those tasks are valued. They would likely require relatively higher pay before people were willing to do them. Jobs with generally poor working conditions, or a high degree of managerial control and low autonomy, could be re-factored into jobs with better working conditions, as people are more able to be selective on that basis.
- intended 6y agoPTSD?
- worker767424 6y ago> If we (as a society) guaranteed everybody enough resources to live That would do really weird economic things because either money would have to be something you really want since your basic needs are already covered, or the job would have to be very rewarding because you can basically choose not to go into work arbitrarily.
- zpeti 6y agoIt’s pretty bad when an obvious comment like this is downvoting on HN. It’s a fact, it’s basic economics but also just how the world works. If you want mods to earn more create a social network and pay them more.
- bzb6 6y agoThey don’t downvote because they think the comment is wrong, they downvote because they’d rather reality not be like that.
- crumbshot 6y ago> If you want mods to earn more create a social network and pay them more. This is an entirely unrealistic and unhelpful suggestion.
- intended 6y agoCreate an AI which understands the intent of a piece of content then. Moderation is the job of editors and journalists being lost to social media and the internet. All those millions of local news papers and reporters who had to make judgement calls on whether some content should be displayed, or whether it was not newsworthy? That is part of what content moderation is, that process debt that SM firms don't want to pay for.
- crumbshot 6y agoTheir suggestion of creating a brand new competing social media network is not a realistic solution to Facebook treating its workers badly. Your suggestion of just creating some AI to do all the work is similarly unrealistic.
- aneemzic 6y agoThey don't even need to create a new social network. If they want FTE benefits of a specific company. They could always, you know, apply and clear the interview.
- ThePadawan 6y agoJobs are also paid according to the danger they pose, often enforced by government or unions. Want to be an underwater welder? Sure, here's your danger surcharge. Want to be a cab driver on the night shift? Sure, here's your surcharge.
- seneca 6y ago> Jobs are also paid according to the danger they pose Only because it's a function of limiting supply (of willing labor). High danger means fewer people willing to do it, which means it pays more to attract willing candidates. If there are still a ton of willing candidates, you don't get paid extra because you think it's dangerous work.
- bmm6o 6y agoThe job market is not a natural phenomenon like gravity. It is essentially a societal construct already subject to regulation. If it produces outcomes we - its builders and participants - don't like, we can change it. It's true that supply and demand will always be factors, but we can set boundaries. I'm not proposing any particular change here myself, i just want to push back against that fatalistic attitude.
- throw2838 6y agoMods have very easy job, they have to decidee if picture has an underboob, or something is too controversial. Pay is comparable to nurse in hospital. IT IS low skill job, made by low qualified fresh graduates, and AI already handles big part of it.
- newsclues 6y agoCrime scene cleaning pays more than normal janitor jobs, not because the work is harder but because there is emotional labour beyond the simple job. You need to consider the effects of work on employees bodies and minds. There is skill to be treated like a serf for a living and smiling to your masters who claim your labour is low skilled and not deserving of a fair (living) wage.
- throw2838 6y agoI go to pub with them (well, used to, thosr are now closed). Biggest problem they have are workload metrics (number of qualifications per hour). Real nurse has to deal with real blood and real gore. If you believe those mods should be paid more, you are out of your mind. Anyway, this type of jobs will be soon replaced by AI classifiers. Nobody will suffer anymore.
- arminiusreturns 6y agoHave you ever thought that maybe the particular subcontracting group you seem to know so well doesnt represent the entirety of FB mods as a job? You seem strangely adamant that this is no big deal, while ignoring the many reports we've heard over the years of the kind of very bad stuff mods have had to deal with, regardless of your anecdotal experience. Also, on AI classifiers, I think there are far too many nuanced situations to completely replace mods, and your comment about this is very hand-wavy, and even if you are right, we still need to deal with the problems we have now, not defer them by saying there will be a solution in the future.
- throw2838 6y ago