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A lottery doesn't feel very fair though, does it? Why should a few people get paid more for the same work? Doesn't make sense.

tablespoon 5y ago
>>> Pay the menial jobs better. The person cleaning the toilets at Facebook should earn more than the developers there. >> I don't think you've tried very hard to figure out ways to decide. The obvious one is lottery, but there are many more. > A lottery doesn't feel very fair though, does it? Why should a few people get paid more for the same work? Doesn't make sense. A lottery is about the fairest way to distribute a scarce resource imaginable. And it seems even less fair to declare that everyone whose job is to clean toilets should continue to get equally crappy wages, while there's massive inequality in income all over the place.
- username90 5y ago
  That is such a stupid argument, lottery is one of the worst way to distribute a scarce resource. It is better to split it up and pay everyone dividends rather than give a few the whole thing. In the case of Facebook we would tax it to hell so everyone could share, not do a damn lottery so a few janitors can get rich. Of course that is if you are in the "distribute resources to the people camp", but I see no reason why a lottery would ever be the right thing to do here no matter what camp you are in, it isn't like the world would be better off if we had a lottery of who gets to inherit the billions of dollars the 0.0001% owns rather than distribute it. So in short, the right thing to do is either leave facebook as is, or tax it so that neither its software engineers nor its janitors can earn much more than an average American.
  - tablespoon 5y ago
    > That is such a stupid argument, lottery is one of the worst way to distribute a scarce resource. It is better to split it up and pay everyone dividends rather than give a few the whole thing. Not every resource is divisible or practically divisible (e.g. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Judgement_of_Solomon https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Judgement_of_Solomon). You're kind of going all over the place to dispute everyone's points. If Facebook were to pay its toilet cleaners far above the market rate for that job, a fair way to solve the problem of "who gets these jobs" in the face of a glut of qualified applicants is by using a lottery. You're right there's all kinds of other things that may be better to do, but we were talking about this specific artificial scenario.
wpietri 5y ago
As I said, I don't think you've tried very hard. I am not going to name all the possibilities one at a time. If unfairness in jobs and compensation is what really motivates you, there are much bigger fish to fry than some totally imaginary jobs that will never exist.

tablespoon 5y ago

>>> Pay the menial jobs better. The person cleaning the toilets at Facebook should earn more than the developers there. >> I don't think you've tried very hard to figure out ways to decide. The obvious one is lottery, but there are many more. > A lottery doesn't feel very fair though, does it? Why should a few people get paid more for the same work? Doesn't make sense. A lottery is about the fairest way to distribute a scarce resource imaginable. And it seems even less fair to declare that everyone whose job is to clean toilets should continue to get equally crappy wages, while there's massive inequality in income all over the place.

username90 5y ago
That is such a stupid argument, lottery is one of the worst way to distribute a scarce resource. It is better to split it up and pay everyone dividends rather than give a few the whole thing. In the case of Facebook we would tax it to hell so everyone could share, not do a damn lottery so a few janitors can get rich. Of course that is if you are in the "distribute resources to the people camp", but I see no reason why a lottery would ever be the right thing to do here no matter what camp you are in, it isn't like the world would be better off if we had a lottery of who gets to inherit the billions of dollars the 0.0001% owns rather than distribute it. So in short, the right thing to do is either leave facebook as is, or tax it so that neither its software engineers nor its janitors can earn much more than an average American.
- tablespoon 5y ago
  > That is such a stupid argument, lottery is one of the worst way to distribute a scarce resource. It is better to split it up and pay everyone dividends rather than give a few the whole thing. Not every resource is divisible or practically divisible (e.g. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Judgement_of_Solomon https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Judgement_of_Solomon). You're kind of going all over the place to dispute everyone's points. If Facebook were to pay its toilet cleaners far above the market rate for that job, a fair way to solve the problem of "who gets these jobs" in the face of a glut of qualified applicants is by using a lottery. You're right there's all kinds of other things that may be better to do, but we were talking about this specific artificial scenario.

wpietri 5y ago

As I said, I don't think you've tried very hard. I am not going to name all the possibilities one at a time. If unfairness in jobs and compensation is what really motivates you, there are much bigger fish to fry than some totally imaginary jobs that will never exist.