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>money for services not rendered is a convenient abstraction. in reality we're talking about people. it's so miserably brutal to come into the comments of any
by anon_tor_12345 6y ago
>money for services not rendered
is a convenient abstraction. in reality we're talking about people.
it's so miserably brutal to come into the comments of any article on hn where wealthy people (engineers) bandy about about working class people. i don't have much else to say because i'm not going to debate whether ___ tech company, at some (even nontrivial) cost to their equity holders, should help support people that make minimum wage. i'm only leaving this comment so that some can reflect on their position.
- PurpleFoxy 6y agoThe thing is, if you leave it up to the companies to look after these people, it’s going to turn ugly every time. It should be the governments job to make sure everyone has a baseline level of life quality.
- sitkack 6y agoIn the meantime do we do the right thing, or do we wait for the right solution? We fix the thing needing fixing right now with the tools we have.
- chii 6y agoBut that's the problem - if some companies do the "right thing" (whatever that means), it lessens the pressure on society to establish this baseline. Companies shouldn't have to do the "right thing" - they're concern is to make money for their owners. They should follow the rules of society, but should not be expected to offer charity whenever something calamitous happens.
- anon_tor_12345 6y agoEveryone has to do the right thing. That's the categorical imperative.
- chii 6y agoBut if everyone must do the right thing, why not legislate it so that they will be enforced? Why give the illusion of choice between the right thing and the profitable thing?
- frongpik 6y agoSuch is the nature of "doing the right thing" - it must be a free will choice. This is not a matter of law, but a matter of maturity of society.
- stickfigure 6y agoPeople kill over disagreements about "the right thing". Your reduction is not meaningful or useful.
- anon_tor_12345 6y agoIt's not my reduction - the person I responded to used it and I coattailed
- ddingus 6y agoI agree. The level of economic struggle in the US is unnecessary. At what point do we people stand in solidarity to remedy this state of affairs? We did that for gay people, black people, women, etc... Should we not do that same thing on this quality of life matter?
- sokoloff 6y agoIt’s a math problem. The US standard of living is fairly high and that’s expensive to maintain. Pick a number in your mind of how much money the government should guarantee every adult citizen every year. If you seized all the wealth of every US billionaire and gave it equally to all US citizens 18 or older, each citizen would receive less than $20K. Not per year, but once ever. There’s a lot of people demanding a lot of goods and services and most of that work is an actual grind. There’s a difference between saying (obviously correctly) that gay people, black people, women should all be equally able to participate in the economic engine. It’s another thing entirely to eliminate the heat, friction, and struggle in that engine.
- ddingus 6y agoOh don't know, with wages basically flat for decades, the people would very likely be much better off having taken home the tens of trillions they didn't. In that scenario, we would be talking about a small number of people, and the word unnecessary would be much harder to support. That real grind matters. Without it, even more of us are worse off. I agree it is a math problem, but disagree on framing it in immediate terms and in mere dollar terms. Just insuring everyone can see the doctor costs the nation less and makes more of the dollars earned liquid. There are a lot of things we can do to improve on the struggle. That does not have to mean dollars paid directly to people.
- anon_tor_12345 6y agoPeople say it's the government's responsibility to take care of impoverished -> government says it's the people's responsibility to vote for reps that pass progressive legislation -> people say reps should write progressive legislation -> and on and on and on. And in the meantime so many starve and suffer.
- 1123581321 6y agoYou wrote this in response to someone who made a point of saying they weren't close to wealthy. There are many engineers here but all income and wealth levels are represented.
- anon_tor_12345 6y ago> There are many engineers here but all income and wealth levels are represented. how much would you like to bet that not a single engineer here makes minimum wage?
- 1123581321 6y agoI’m not wealthy, so perhaps $20 that there are engineers here making poverty income? Keep in mind there are more than engineers here, was my point, as well as that it was weird to exploit a person who specifically identified as not wealthy to jeer at anyone claiming to have difficulty paying for no service.
- anon_tor_12345 6y agoYou're talking about a hypothetical that just doesn't apply - the person I responded to said themselves that they have equity in a company. They were not making poverty wages.
- 1123581321 6y agoPlease don’t conflate the poverty bet you initiated with the non-wealthy claim they initiated.
- Aerroon 6y agoRemember that there are people from all over the world here. I've worked for $600-700 a month on writing code before.
- stickfigure 6y agoPretty much every founder of an early-stage bootstrapped startup is making less than minimum wage - and many of us are deeply negative.