15 ms·

Its comments like this that have caused me to really lose faith in the quality of conversation on Hacker News. By your logic above, an indentured servitude wou

by ep103 4y ago

Its comments like this that have caused me to really lose faith in the quality of conversation on Hacker News. By your logic above, an indentured servitude would count as a "not being taken advantage of" and by implication, reasonable moral form of employment. Each of the following questions in your final paragraph are similarly shallow. > People are not agents of free will, and any sub-utopic framework they have to participate in is immoral? This is a straw man argument to its core. No one is, or has suggested that all labor should be abolished unless it meets a utopian ideal. > Even if that's the case It is not the case > I'd like to see the argument that those people who chose and choose to work at uber have worse outcomes than they otherwise would Interestingly, this is the same argument that was used in favor of slavery.

deleted 4y ago
[deleted]
mylons 4y ago
- mylons 4y ago
  [flagged]
andai 4y ago
I don't understand the parallel between working for uber and indentured servitude?
- NegativeLatency 4y ago
  In both instances workers are being taken advantage of by an employer because of asymmetric power in the system.
  - echelon 4y ago
    But there are thousands of other jobs to choose from. The government itself has a bunch of jobs that require similar skills.
    - rnk 4y ago
      Hard for immigrants to get those jobs. They might not in the locations where those jobs are, or can't pass a background check, or might have been arrested for dui 10 years ago, or maybe once wrote a hot check (which must happen way more for poor people). A lot of uber drivers are immigrants without much access to the working world, nothing like I have as a us citizen with a college degree and history of working as a dev. If I just immigrated from Ghana, and I also was maybe driving some times on my buddies car and id because I wasn't allowed to for some reason. This is the underclass world a lot of people are living in.
      - iszomer 4y ago
        You meant *illegal immigrants right?
        polygamous_bat 4y ago
        Your wording sounds like you're posting this as a "gotcha". Would you like to elaborate further? And as a response to your perceived "gotcha", no, they do not need to be illegal. Even a refugee with a medical degree in their home can arrive here and can fall through the cracks in our system just because they aren't able to master a second language fast enough. Not every immigrant is illegal, no matter the pearl clutching.
        iszomer 4y ago
        Gotcha? No. I'm referring to people whom are given the same legal benefits of being able to work besides me when they haven't gone through the proper channels of legalities nor sought to do so. I remember my parents immigrating to the US and not have to cross a river at night with just the clothes on their back or pay off a "coyote" to do so.
  - hammock 4y ago
    Asymmetric power is the engine that turns the world. Everyone on earth has asymmetric power in one context or another. Men and women, kings and peons alike. There is no universality, despite some of the narratives out there Edit: seeing this comment have wide swings from upvotes and downvotes, wish the “most controversial” sorting was a thing
    - Dylan16807 4y ago
      There are places where asymmetric power is fine, and there are places where it's too much and laws need to step in.
      - hammock 4y ago
        Are laws not a form of asymmetric power? I’m not making a normative statement. It’s objective. As easily as what you said, one could say (and US allies like Saudi do say) “women’s rights are mostly fine, but there are places where they go too far and a husband must step in”
        Dylan16807 4y ago
        Sure? I don't really know what relevance this has to the previous conversation. But I would say that laws are much more likely to get things right than to let every powered individual make their own rules.
    - novantadue 4y ago
      The context is the battle between capital and labor. Its (historically) very important and this is just one tiny instance of it. Another instance was on NPR today about the proposed railroad workers strike, apparently they don't get any paid sick days which is outrageous especially considering how lauded Warren Buffet is when he yaks about paying less tax than his secretary; well she doesn't spend $10m a year on tax lawyers and maybe Buffet could spare some sick days for the BNSF workers? Tech examples could include workers in China suffering under 9-9-6, or Google-Apple wage suppression collusion, or a common topic around here, how early startup employees lose their equity comp through some kind of legal slight-of-hand.
  - iszomer 4y ago
    Maybe it's better to think on it in terms of the flexibility of Uber's services when they were a mere startup and their evolution over time (business strategy, finances, app development and deployment, etc) and the myriad of ways so-called consumers, according to the article, took advantage of them and now, more government regulation. I knew of someone who made it his full time occupation to drive for Uber (and still does today) despite the hurdles of being involved in that structure. I also know of another who drove to supplement his existing income stream (during covid19) to make his ends meet.
- delusional 4y ago
  Classes in society necessitate a qualitative differentiator. If you want to argue that it's fair that some people are rich while some people are poor, there has to be some natural inherent difference between the rich and the poor. Canonically in the western world it's usually "gumption" or "intelligence". You'll rarely find that argument made explicitly, but it's implicit in all discussions that presuppose economical classes. Once that observation is made, it becomes clear that the argument is actually: This class of people is unfit for better work, and without our poverty wages they would die. In my opinion that's very similar to the idea that the "negro" was inferior to the white man and therefore it was by his grace that the "negro" was allowed to exist.
  - JumpCrisscross 4y ago
    > there has to be some natural inherent difference between the rich and the poor No? They can all be the same. But without individual incentives to take risks and innovate, the whole doesn’t progress. The meritocratic model works fine among equals.
    - 1270018080 4y ago
      > Canonically in the western world it's usually "gumption" or "intelligence".
      - JumpCrisscross 4y ago
        > Canonically in the western world it's usually "gumption" or "intelligence". reply Emphasis on natural inherence. Meritocracies work if everyone is statistically identical. They even work when everyone is perfectly identical. They don't if every action is independent and identically distributed, but it's not; being lucky in the past can make one more capable in the present even in an unbiased system. We should keep that randomness in mind to avoid being cruel. But systems that ignore this path dependence, or worse, try to stamp it out, underperform those that acknowledge it.
        deleted 4y ago
- rnk 4y ago
  They control your ability to work there. For some people these are the only kinds of jobs they can get, they are stuck there, trying to pay off the vehicle they got a loan for purchasing that they use in the job. They are kind of prisoners. Many of those people can't get other jobs that pay much. Uber can decide you are violating the rules somehow and cut you off (working too much or too little). "People get into these agreements on their own choice" some will say, but these are often people without other good choices.
  - kyleee 4y ago
    Agreed, but is it better for these people to have fewer choices for work? And who is in the best position to decide? The person making the choice to drive for Uber, you or I, politicians? I go back and forth about this on a high level, but don’t necessarily support outright bans on gig work. Maybe just a bit more sensible regulation to help people understand potential earnings vs. all their costs (ex. car payment, insurance, repairs, etc.) and maybe some way to allow them to accrue sick pay based on hours worked. Just to put a slight hand on the scale to help people deciding on gig work. But we’d have the problem of who would pay for any such benefits; Uber may pass the cost along to end users. Maybe funded by taxes somehow
- giaour 4y ago
  Both GGP and indentured servitude's defenders argue that an economic relationship is, by virtue of having been agreed to by both parties, ipso facto non-exploitative. GP was not saying that gig work and indentured servitude are the same or morally equivalent, just pointing out that both use the same argument. The logical fallacy is that just because one option is better than the alternatives, it does not follow that the option in question is good. The villain from Saw may let you choose how you will be murdered, but your having chosen to be stabbed instead of drowned doesn't absolve the killer of their culpability in your death.
  - gruez 4y ago
    >The logical fallacy is that just because one option is better than the alternatives, it does not follow that the option in question is good. The villain from Saw may let you choose how you will be murdered, but your having chosen to be stabbed instead of drowned doesn't absolve the killer of their culpability in your death. Except that the victims in saw were unwittingly put in those situations. What's happening with gig workers is closer to something like the squid game, where the participants gave informed consent, and even had an opportunity to bail out later.
    - giaour 4y ago
      Economic circumstances limit choices, too (though not as explicitly or as definitively as Jigsaw). Most viewers did not see people choosing to participate in the squid game as a victory for economic free choice, but instead as a commentary on how dire someone’s circumstances had become that they would choose to play and later even reaffirm that choice. Someone’s least bad option can still be pretty terrible!
delusional 4y ago
> Its comments like this that have caused me to really lose faith in the quality of conversation on Hacker News. I get what you're saying but isn't it a little rash to discard all discussion on hacker news because of a splattering of naive shallow comments? I rather agree with your response, but I also understand how many people who have yet to consider the matter deeply, or maybe have never been poor, think of reality as "a group of rational equal individual actors". I very much agree that the argument responded too here share a lot of similarity to arguments for slavery, although the veneer is certainly much more palatable, but we have to remember that even slavery was pretty popular, and hacker news will never be a progressive socialist platform. Personally, I think accepting these types of discussions is a small price to pay for the informed and nuanced discussions i get to have and watch on hacker news.
- qeternity 4y ago
  > share a lot of similarity to arguments for slavery Ok, go on. Please enumerate the similarities.
  - ckw 4y ago
    Slave holders argued, often correctly, that slaves, as capital, enjoyed a higher standard of living than did wage workers, who could be worked to death and thrown away, and that this justified the institution. The original comment said > I'd like to see the argument that those people who chose and choose to work at uber have worse outcomes than they otherwise would Just as it is no argument for slavery that slaves were better off than wage workers, so it is no argument for gig work that gig workers are better off than those with no work at all.
- ep103 4y ago
  Yes, my original comment was a bit brash, agreed. And I do think its a good thing that this sort of is discussed, because the idea expressed is a patently wrong yet extremely popular viewpoint on this platform and the only way to address that is discussion. But, unfortunately, I think there are two major concepts that are also at play here, that cause me to disagree with your position, or perhaps should be better elaborated in order to explain mine. The main two components of swaying public opinion during a public debate are: First, who actually presents the more logical argument. The second is that both viewpoints are given stature and respectability by the mere fact that both viewpoints are included in the debate and by the fact that the community has chosen to engage and listen to the debate. The fact that both the members of the debate and the audience itself are willing to listen to both sides of the discussion and take them both seriously is oftentimes the more major persuasive social force at play. This is because it means that audience members who perhaps do not pay as as much attention to the actual merits within the debate itself, will quickly deduce that by virtue of the fact that the debate is taken seriously, both viewpoints must therefore be serious and well respected. Additionally, the fact that both viewpoints are being debated at all implies that both viewpoints must be relatively similar in liklihood of accuracy and therefore it is reasonable to believe either side of the debate. After all we no longer hold debates on whether or not gravity exists, we only hold debates on things where either side could, potentially, be true. This second point is why the concept of the Overton window exists. This second point is why you cannot correct neo-nazism by discussing neo-nazi ideas in a public forum, and the mere act of giving neo-nazism a public forum at all is a win for the neo-nazi, even if you then win the debate (in short: neo-nazism is such a rightfully hated ideology, that merely giving it the respect of a debate is a step up for the ideology, even if they then lose the debate). Etc This leaves us with a question. Which is more important? Which concept is more responsible for persuading audience members? The first concept or the second? Surely, different discussions in different social situations would lean more heavily towards one or the other being more important. I think if you and I were to a host public, yet small debate in front of a class of aspiring logicians at Oxford University, the merits of the logical argument would be more important than the setting itself. I would be willing to bet that such an audience, in such a not-very-high-profile setting would be more moved by logical argument than the social stature of the event. Conversely, I would posit that the reason Fox News invites liberals on their platform regularly, and then does not give them an adequate chance to prevent their viewpoints, is because it allows the network to put them against actually indefensible and unpopular extremely right wing viewpoints, and leave the uneducated audience, who did not receive a good explanation of either viewpoint, to leave the segment assuming that both viewpoints must be equally well respected and potentially correct. The original post I responded to is factually incorrect. Their viewpoint boils down to the idea that a labor arrangement cannot be exploitative if that labor arrangement was entered into willingly by both parties, with no nuance for what constitutes "willingly" in our economic system. That is a patently false idea, and is only tangentially related to the situation of gig workers to which the author attempts to relate it. So the question becomes, if I give a genuine rebuttal of that memetic idea, which would be more important? Would the Hacker News crowd be moved more by well reasoned argument that goes many paragraphs deep, involving historical examples and moral assessment? Or would the majority of internet readers skip over the debate after the first few sentences or posts, and assume that by virtue of the fact that the original post is the highest voted comment on the page, that it must be a reasonable viewpoint? Considering the fact that at the time I posted, there were numerous attempts at logical refutation, all of which were ignored. And considering the fact that the vast majority of the responses I have received so grotesquely misunderstand my post as to think that I am calling gig workers slaves, as opposed to pointing out the logical fallacies of the post. I have to think that no, the second effect here is more potent to this particular online crowd than the first. In that scenario, nuanced reasoned rebuttal of an extreme viewpoint is not reasonable. To give respect to an unrespectable viewpoint is not a virtue if your audience lacks the intellectual depth or curiosity to critically engage with the debate. In that scenario, the best thing you can do is to put a large warning label on the unreasonable viewpoint that says: "Beware all audience members: the above viewpoint is not considered reasonable or moral by all members of this community." That is how you address the second social concept at play here. People who then, afterward, want to discuss in deeper logic thereafter, are free to do so. And that's why my response was intentionally brash, and why engaging with such an unrespectable and indefensible viewpoint, in public, at the top of the post, is an irresponsible thing to do, until it has been established first to a passive audience that this is not an equal debate between respected opinions. And even then, that is often not sufficient, but it is at least something I could do here.
theonemind 4y ago
I disagree with the grandparent comment, but upvoted it as a topic of discussion. We might as well have someone say the quiet part out loud so that we can pick it apart. No doubt Uber C-levels sleep soundly telling themselves these kinds of things and their lobbyists use these kinds of arguments.
throwaway09223 4y ago
> "By your logic above, an indentured servitude would count as a "not being taken advantage of" and by implication, reasonable moral form of employment." No it wouldn't. Indentured servitude requires someone to be indentured, which is immediately in conflict with OP's correct observation that no one is being forced to work. They directly hinged their question on the premise that the workers are free to make choices. OP's question regarding the free choices of previously unemployed workers is valid. Questioning why 1099 employment isn't "moral" as you put it is also valid. > > People are not agents of free will, and any sub-utopic framework they have to participate in is immoral? > This is a straw man argument to its core. No one is, or has suggested that all labor should be abolished unless it meets a utopian ideal. Actually your response is the straw man here, because you have introduced and attacked an absolute (all labor) where one did not previously exist. You're projecting the errors you yourself are making onto OP.
- deleted 4y ago
  [deleted]
- jjoonathan 4y ago
  > no one is being forced to work Given that people need to work to live, replacing more/better jobs with fewer/worse jobs is absolutely a moral imposition on the working population. Rationalizing this on the grounds that people are "free" to choose among the fewer/worse jobs is diabolical.
  - throwaway09223 4y ago
    That is not the scenario described. There wasn't an industry of employee Uber drivers prior to Uber coming on the scene. In fact, taxi drivers in California were all typically self employed already. These positions fall apart under even the most cursory examination.
    - jjoonathan 4y ago
      > industry of employee Uber drivers prior to Uber Wow, you really did a good job of accounting for the aggregate labor supply/demand dynamics right there. There was no Uber before Uber therefore Uber is great! You heard it here first, people! > These positions fall apart under even the most cursory examination. Right back atcha.
adolph 4y ago
Be the change you'd like to see. What are the lines a person may not cross for crossing is an indication that the person is lacking information or decision making competence and thus decision making power is taken from them? Some might argue for one extreme or another, the rest of us see it at some point between total and no decision making power with the line drawn at different points in different contexts. Besides drawing the line, there is the matter of who can draw it. Why would one think that on the main the FTC is better at making the decision in this context than the person making the decision?
VoodooJuJu 4y ago
The grandparent deserves a good rebuttal, and I don't think this is very good. This comment is effectively saying that the gig worker is in fact not a free agent by using analogies like slavery and indentured servitude, but these analogies don't map well to the gig worker's economic position. I'm going to second the GP's request for a convincing argument, as I've also yet to see one.
- frereubu 4y ago
  I didn’t read this as a rebuttal, it’s pointing out the logical fallacies in the structure of the GP’s argument, so criticising it for not offering a rebuttal is slightly missing the point. They certainly aren’t saying that Uber drivers are in an identical situation to slaves.
  - throwaway09223 4y ago
    But there aren't any fallacies in the GP's argument. And it is quite directly making an absurd and unsupportable statement regarding indentured servitude for a job opportunity that is undeniably no strings attached.
    - pessimizer 4y ago
      > People are not agents of free will, and any sub-utopic framework they have to participate in is immoral? This is so fallacious that it almost doesn't parse as English (largely imo because it's been fluffed up to hide the utterly commonplace "so you're saying everything is wrong unless it's perfect?" strawman.)
      - kryogen1c 4y ago
        It's intended to be a steelman and is a rephrasing of an argument said to me in the past; you could dig it up in my comment history from a previous uber discussion should you be so inclined. Regardless, feel free to ignore my strawman and tell me the real argument.
cat_plus_plus 4y ago
> By your logic above, an indentured servitude would count as a "not being taken advantage of" and by implication, reasonable moral form of employment. Sure? https://www.usa.gov/join-military https://www.usa.gov/join-military
remote_phone 4y ago
It’s comments like yours actually that make me lose faith in HN. It’s a lazy argument parroted by activist with no actual contact with people who drive for Uber. Most Uber drivers are happy because they can select their hours and the more they work the more money they make. It’s pretty simple. They aren’t poor, stupid uneducated masses that need saving by the likes of you. Your elitist views looking down on their ability to discern what is good for them is exactly why Trump disastrously won and we all suffered. And unfortunately why the Republicans will probably win again in 2024.
- kelnos 4y ago
  I think you're putting words in people's mouths. I don't think anyone is claiming that people are too stupid to know that a particular job is exploitative. The claim is that they know full well that these kinds of jobs are exploitative, but don't have much choice in the labor market, and so take them anyway. Just because someone sees that they have little choice, and then chooses exploitation over poverty, homelessness, or starvation, it doesn't mean that it's ok that we have jobs that exploit workers. It's the role of labor regulators to try to reduce the exploitative nature of these jobs. And if a job can't exist without exploiting workers, then it must be shut down. This isn't new or particularly controversial; it's been the goal of labor movements for centuries. I mean this in general terms; I have heard both good and bad stories about what it's like to drive for Uber, so I'm not quite ready to raise up the pitchforks against them, but I do believe they are worthy of more scrutiny.
DiggyJohnson 4y ago
This comment genuinely makes no sense to me. If you are going to leverage extremely strong analogies, like indentured servitude, then you need to justify that. It seems like you are disappointed by any conversation that doesn't mix up idealism with what's realistic, and what is going on. A request for explanation almost by definition cannot be a strawman. Just because you disagree with the context of that question does not justify such a shallow, emotional response.
- dpkirchner 4y ago
  > A request for explanation almost by definition cannot be a strawman. It can when the request isn't really a request but an assertion taken to an absurd extreme that merely resembles a question. cf Tucker Carlson "just asking questions".
  - DiggyJohnson 4y ago
    You’re the one asserting extremes. I simply see no other way of interpreting this discussion. Have a good one.
- ckw 4y ago
  The point is that indentured servants also willingly enter their contract. So if that is the standard—- that one who willingly accepts a duty is incapable of being exploited, then neither are indentured servants. In fact, according to that standard slavery is arguably not exploitation either, so long as the slave initially consents. But most people would find this absurd: slavery is the prototypical example of exploitation.
  - DiggyJohnson 4y ago
    But the original comment wasn’t asserting anything like this, it’s asking for the aspects of gig economy jobs that make it coercive or exploitative in light of the consent of its workers. The onus is on the person connecting that to indentured servitude to explain why that connection is apt. Otherwise it’s a useless connection.
qeternity 4y ago
> Its comments like this that have caused me to really lose faith in the quality of conversation on Hacker News. Wow, quite tone deaf for a response that doesn't actually address any single topical point, but just offers a very poor strawman. Nobody is arguing that slavery is bad. People are asking how driving for Uber is remotely like slavery. And so far, nobody has answered. Instead of mud slinging, how about being the change you want to see on HN.
- ROTMetro 4y ago
  Society made a bunch of rules about the employee/employer relationship. Society allowed business to use contractors to fill positions that didn't fall under that relationships, for example, to fill short term needs with contractors, or to bring in specialists that companies did need and couldn't afford to have full time. Uber decided fuck Society's contract/norms for the business/employee relationship, we are going to abuse the definition of 'contractor'.
tsunamifury 4y ago
Many of the people here are becoming sociopathic in their desire to control the world around them through technology and have completely lost empathy for the average person who is a victim of these industries. The gig economy is clearly arbitraging labor in a manner most would consider somewhere between exploitative and unfair. And the broader economy puts pressures on them to exist in that. As inequality mostly driven by technology grows more and more people will be required to accept less and less fair employment so the gig economy is essentially betting on a worse tomorrow. I dont like that, i dont support it, and if the ceos of these companies are your neighbors like they are mine — you see how completely nihilistic they are about this. They know it, they don’t care. But they pretend a story that this is a better world for you, the naive tech worker.
- peterangular 4y ago
  > Many of the people here are becoming sociopathic Tons of people here are well monied professionals who struggle to put themselves into another person's shoes. They grew up privileged, got to go to school/college, and ended up on a good career path. They're people who will unironically say people should "pull themselves up by the bootstraps," and claim that we're in a meritocracy where hard work guarantees financial stability + success. They have no idea what it's like for a person struggling to get by, and they've been sold a lifetime of "poor person = bad," or "poor person = lazy" propaganda. There are lots of people here that struggle with basic empathy.
  - newfriend 4y ago
    And lots of people use "empathy" as an excuse to forcibly extract money from productive people in order to give it away to leeches. Suckers who believe that every poor person is just a hard-working, well-intentioned person who wasn't given enough opportunities. There are, of course, many poor people who are not lazy. But there are likely more who are lazy, dull, and sucking up resources that could better be used to improve society.
    - peterangular 4y ago
jonfw 4y ago
> Interestingly, this is the same argument that was used in favor of slavery. That's really not very interesting, this same argument can be applied to many things that were good and many things that were bad. Let's try and focus on the topic at hand vs arguing semantics
- kyleee 4y ago
  Probably tends to derail the thread also by relating the topic at hand to slavery, indentured servitude, etc
- ckw 4y ago
  I think it’s not only very interesting but highly revealing that the same argument made in favor of the most iniquitous of all labor relations is reflexively used to justify gig work.
- Dylan16807 4y ago
  It's not about semantics, it's "this argument sucks, find a better one".
  - jonfw 4y ago
    The OP is making a utilitarian argument. You can’t argue that utilitarianism is a defunct philosophy because people once used it to justify slavery. If you are making this argument, please share your philosophy that no bad person has ever used to make a point
    - Dylan16807 4y ago
      I think you're strongly misunderstanding the criticism. It's not "utilitarianism is wrong". It's more like "the specific claim that sub-standard working conditions are better than nothing is a very old and weak argument that has a tradition of being used to justify subjugation". And frankly I don't see how OP's argument is particularly utilitarian. Is the counterargument of "allowing companies to do this hurts workers in aggregate" not equally utilitarian? Worrying about free will and free association is more the realm of liberalism, isn't it?
JaceLightning 4y ago
/\ Its comments like this that have caused me to really lose faith in the quality of conversation on Hacker News. People can quit Uber/Lyft whenever. Indentured servitude cannot be quit. There's a difference in "creating an opportunity for people" and "forcing them to work for you" > this is the same argument that was used in favor of slavery. Nope. There's a difference in creating a new choice for people and taking all choice away from them.
- somebodythere 4y ago
  Taking the choice away is mostly about preventing a race to the bottom, especially in professions where the workers don't have the bargaining power to demand respectful working conditions. This is why we have minimum wage laws, working hour limits, workplace safety laws etc.
- slumpt_ 4y ago
  > People can quit Uber/Lyft whenever. Indentured servitude cannot be quit. This implies they have viable alternate choices (setting aside the obvious other option, unemployment or being houseless). It may be that Uber/Lyft are the only employers they have access to, or they may otherwise have a sufficient amount of bills / debt that they have no personal time / cash to explore employment alternatives adequately. Conservative (and by and large its ally, libertarian) politics lean on this often obfuscated nuance to sell this idea that the poor always have the choice to simply leave exploitative employers. It is not so simple.
- xani_ 4y ago
  > People can quit Uber/Lyft whenever. Indentured servitude cannot be quit. same thing really if you have no other option to earn rent and food. And them using it as opportunity to pay low (after you include car deprecation/fuel/repairs might be even at/below minimal wage level) means you can't just do your 40 hours/week to support yourself.
- ckw 4y ago
  The original comment said > I'd like to see the argument that those people who chose and choose to work at uber have worse outcomes than they otherwise would The reply: > this is the same argument that was used in favor of slavery. To which you replied > Nope. There's a difference in creating a new choice for people and taking all choice away from them. The commenter is not saying that gig work is the same as slavery here, they are saying that slave holders argued, often correctly, that slaves, as capital, enjoyed a higher standard of living than did wage workers, who could be worked to death and thrown away, and that this justified the institution.
whywhywhydude 4y ago
What a low effort rebuttal. Why are you comparing gig work to indentured servitude? Is Uber forcing people to drive cars? If your argument is people don’t have any other options, is that really uber’s fault or is that fault of the society?
zugi 4y ago
> Its comments like this that have caused me to really lose faith in the quality of conversation on Hacker News. Interestingly, it's comments like yours that cause me to lose faith in the quality of conversation at Hacker News. Basically Godwin'ing to "slavery" when the prior poster clearly talked about free will and choice is intellectual laziness.
- slumpt_ 4y ago
  Free will and choice suppose one's back isn't against a wall with respect to bills, a roof over one's head, medical or mental issues affecting either of the aforementioned. That we went from "I have no job at all and am unemployable" to "it appears I can be exploited for my labor at a rate that doesn't allow me to escape poverty, but may allow me to at least not starve to death" is not defensible or desirable. That you see it as acceptable or a reflection of a legitimate "choice" moreso reflects on your inexperience with or inability to adequately reason about the reality of sincere poverty, not reality.
  - zugi 4y ago
    In a discussion about Uber drivers you jump to slavery and nearly starving to death. Then follow it up with attacks on my "inexperience" and "inability to adequately reason." You are the one whose confrontational and disrespectful manner of conversing impedes legitimate discourse. The person lowering the quality of HN discussion is you.
    - slumpt_ 4y ago
      I could have perhaps more delicately put my assessment that there are facets to poverty you appear to gloss over, either willingly or not. Can you address the first two paragraphs originally posted? You were upset with the third and opted to sidestep confronting the argument.
deleted 4y ago
[deleted]
m00x 4y ago
Comments like this make me lose faith in the actual teachings of philosophy and logic to non-academics. OP's post is not a straw man, and you have done nothing to prove it. Your comment reads like someone who read a few books on logic and argument and started using them whenever they have an argument without understanding it.
sigzero 4y ago
Those are horrible examples.
scarface74 4y ago
How is it “indentured servitude”? People used their own free will and decided to work for Uber.
- ckw 4y ago
  It isn’t indentured servitude, but it cannot be distinguished from indentured servitude by the willful nature according to which the contract is entered, because indentured servants entered willfully into their contracts as well.
  - scarface74 4y ago
    Are you claiming that every single Uber driver would rather be doing something else than driving for Uber?
    - ckw 4y ago
      I am correcting your misapprehension that the parent is equating gig work with indentured servitude. They are not. And I am reiterating the point the parent makes regarding the error both the grandparent and you make, in inferring from the willful entrance into a contract the non-exploitative nature of that contract and its execution. To repeat: indentured servants entered willfully into their contracts, yet those contracts were manifestly exploitative. Hence the willful nature of one’s entrance into a contract says nothing about whether it is exploitative in character or execution.
      - scarface74 4y ago
        In that case does every company who employs people who would rather be doing another job, but don’t have a choice “exploitive”?
        ckw 4y ago
        No. In a country like Denmark, even low status jobs like fast food pay a living wage (~$22/hr), provide a pension, 6 weeks paid vacation, etc. https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/mcdonalds-workers-denmark/ https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/mcdonalds-workers-denmark/

by ep103 4y ago

deleted 4y ago

[deleted]

mylons 4y ago

mylons 4y ago
[flagged]

andai 4y ago

I don't understand the parallel between working for uber and indentured servitude?

NegativeLatency 4y ago
In both instances workers are being taken advantage of by an employer because of asymmetric power in the system.
- echelon 4y ago
  But there are thousands of other jobs to choose from. The government itself has a bunch of jobs that require similar skills.
  - rnk 4y ago
    Hard for immigrants to get those jobs. They might not in the locations where those jobs are, or can't pass a background check, or might have been arrested for dui 10 years ago, or maybe once wrote a hot check (which must happen way more for poor people). A lot of uber drivers are immigrants without much access to the working world, nothing like I have as a us citizen with a college degree and history of working as a dev. If I just immigrated from Ghana, and I also was maybe driving some times on my buddies car and id because I wasn't allowed to for some reason. This is the underclass world a lot of people are living in.
    - iszomer 4y ago
      You meant *illegal immigrants right?
      - polygamous_bat 4y ago
        Your wording sounds like you're posting this as a "gotcha". Would you like to elaborate further? And as a response to your perceived "gotcha", no, they do not need to be illegal. Even a refugee with a medical degree in their home can arrive here and can fall through the cracks in our system just because they aren't able to master a second language fast enough. Not every immigrant is illegal, no matter the pearl clutching.
        iszomer 4y ago
        Gotcha? No. I'm referring to people whom are given the same legal benefits of being able to work besides me when they haven't gone through the proper channels of legalities nor sought to do so. I remember my parents immigrating to the US and not have to cross a river at night with just the clothes on their back or pay off a "coyote" to do so.
- hammock 4y ago
  Asymmetric power is the engine that turns the world. Everyone on earth has asymmetric power in one context or another. Men and women, kings and peons alike. There is no universality, despite some of the narratives out there Edit: seeing this comment have wide swings from upvotes and downvotes, wish the “most controversial” sorting was a thing
  - Dylan16807 4y ago
    There are places where asymmetric power is fine, and there are places where it's too much and laws need to step in.
    - hammock 4y ago
      Are laws not a form of asymmetric power? I’m not making a normative statement. It’s objective. As easily as what you said, one could say (and US allies like Saudi do say) “women’s rights are mostly fine, but there are places where they go too far and a husband must step in”
      - Dylan16807 4y ago
        Sure? I don't really know what relevance this has to the previous conversation. But I would say that laws are much more likely to get things right than to let every powered individual make their own rules.
  - novantadue 4y ago
    The context is the battle between capital and labor. Its (historically) very important and this is just one tiny instance of it. Another instance was on NPR today about the proposed railroad workers strike, apparently they don't get any paid sick days which is outrageous especially considering how lauded Warren Buffet is when he yaks about paying less tax than his secretary; well she doesn't spend $10m a year on tax lawyers and maybe Buffet could spare some sick days for the BNSF workers? Tech examples could include workers in China suffering under 9-9-6, or Google-Apple wage suppression collusion, or a common topic around here, how early startup employees lose their equity comp through some kind of legal slight-of-hand.
- iszomer 4y ago
  Maybe it's better to think on it in terms of the flexibility of Uber's services when they were a mere startup and their evolution over time (business strategy, finances, app development and deployment, etc) and the myriad of ways so-called consumers, according to the article, took advantage of them and now, more government regulation. I knew of someone who made it his full time occupation to drive for Uber (and still does today) despite the hurdles of being involved in that structure. I also know of another who drove to supplement his existing income stream (during covid19) to make his ends meet.
delusional 4y ago
Classes in society necessitate a qualitative differentiator. If you want to argue that it's fair that some people are rich while some people are poor, there has to be some natural inherent difference between the rich and the poor. Canonically in the western world it's usually "gumption" or "intelligence". You'll rarely find that argument made explicitly, but it's implicit in all discussions that presuppose economical classes. Once that observation is made, it becomes clear that the argument is actually: This class of people is unfit for better work, and without our poverty wages they would die. In my opinion that's very similar to the idea that the "negro" was inferior to the white man and therefore it was by his grace that the "negro" was allowed to exist.
- JumpCrisscross 4y ago
  > there has to be some natural inherent difference between the rich and the poor No? They can all be the same. But without individual incentives to take risks and innovate, the whole doesn’t progress. The meritocratic model works fine among equals.
  - 1270018080 4y ago
    > Canonically in the western world it's usually "gumption" or "intelligence".
    - JumpCrisscross 4y ago
      > Canonically in the western world it's usually "gumption" or "intelligence". reply Emphasis on natural inherence. Meritocracies work if everyone is statistically identical. They even work when everyone is perfectly identical. They don't if every action is independent and identically distributed, but it's not; being lucky in the past can make one more capable in the present even in an unbiased system. We should keep that randomness in mind to avoid being cruel. But systems that ignore this path dependence, or worse, try to stamp it out, underperform those that acknowledge it.
      - deleted 4y ago
rnk 4y ago
They control your ability to work there. For some people these are the only kinds of jobs they can get, they are stuck there, trying to pay off the vehicle they got a loan for purchasing that they use in the job. They are kind of prisoners. Many of those people can't get other jobs that pay much. Uber can decide you are violating the rules somehow and cut you off (working too much or too little). "People get into these agreements on their own choice" some will say, but these are often people without other good choices.
- kyleee 4y ago
  Agreed, but is it better for these people to have fewer choices for work? And who is in the best position to decide? The person making the choice to drive for Uber, you or I, politicians? I go back and forth about this on a high level, but don’t necessarily support outright bans on gig work. Maybe just a bit more sensible regulation to help people understand potential earnings vs. all their costs (ex. car payment, insurance, repairs, etc.) and maybe some way to allow them to accrue sick pay based on hours worked. Just to put a slight hand on the scale to help people deciding on gig work. But we’d have the problem of who would pay for any such benefits; Uber may pass the cost along to end users. Maybe funded by taxes somehow
giaour 4y ago
Both GGP and indentured servitude's defenders argue that an economic relationship is, by virtue of having been agreed to by both parties, ipso facto non-exploitative. GP was not saying that gig work and indentured servitude are the same or morally equivalent, just pointing out that both use the same argument. The logical fallacy is that just because one option is better than the alternatives, it does not follow that the option in question is good. The villain from Saw may let you choose how you will be murdered, but your having chosen to be stabbed instead of drowned doesn't absolve the killer of their culpability in your death.
- gruez 4y ago
  >The logical fallacy is that just because one option is better than the alternatives, it does not follow that the option in question is good. The villain from Saw may let you choose how you will be murdered, but your having chosen to be stabbed instead of drowned doesn't absolve the killer of their culpability in your death. Except that the victims in saw were unwittingly put in those situations. What's happening with gig workers is closer to something like the squid game, where the participants gave informed consent, and even had an opportunity to bail out later.
  - giaour 4y ago
    Economic circumstances limit choices, too (though not as explicitly or as definitively as Jigsaw). Most viewers did not see people choosing to participate in the squid game as a victory for economic free choice, but instead as a commentary on how dire someone’s circumstances had become that they would choose to play and later even reaffirm that choice. Someone’s least bad option can still be pretty terrible!

delusional 4y ago

> Its comments like this that have caused me to really lose faith in the quality of conversation on Hacker News. I get what you're saying but isn't it a little rash to discard all discussion on hacker news because of a splattering of naive shallow comments? I rather agree with your response, but I also understand how many people who have yet to consider the matter deeply, or maybe have never been poor, think of reality as "a group of rational equal individual actors". I very much agree that the argument responded too here share a lot of similarity to arguments for slavery, although the veneer is certainly much more palatable, but we have to remember that even slavery was pretty popular, and hacker news will never be a progressive socialist platform. Personally, I think accepting these types of discussions is a small price to pay for the informed and nuanced discussions i get to have and watch on hacker news.

qeternity 4y ago
> share a lot of similarity to arguments for slavery Ok, go on. Please enumerate the similarities.
- ckw 4y ago
  Slave holders argued, often correctly, that slaves, as capital, enjoyed a higher standard of living than did wage workers, who could be worked to death and thrown away, and that this justified the institution. The original comment said > I'd like to see the argument that those people who chose and choose to work at uber have worse outcomes than they otherwise would Just as it is no argument for slavery that slaves were better off than wage workers, so it is no argument for gig work that gig workers are better off than those with no work at all.
ep103 4y ago
Yes, my original comment was a bit brash, agreed. And I do think its a good thing that this sort of is discussed, because the idea expressed is a patently wrong yet extremely popular viewpoint on this platform and the only way to address that is discussion. But, unfortunately, I think there are two major concepts that are also at play here, that cause me to disagree with your position, or perhaps should be better elaborated in order to explain mine. The main two components of swaying public opinion during a public debate are: First, who actually presents the more logical argument. The second is that both viewpoints are given stature and respectability by the mere fact that both viewpoints are included in the debate and by the fact that the community has chosen to engage and listen to the debate. The fact that both the members of the debate and the audience itself are willing to listen to both sides of the discussion and take them both seriously is oftentimes the more major persuasive social force at play. This is because it means that audience members who perhaps do not pay as as much attention to the actual merits within the debate itself, will quickly deduce that by virtue of the fact that the debate is taken seriously, both viewpoints must therefore be serious and well respected. Additionally, the fact that both viewpoints are being debated at all implies that both viewpoints must be relatively similar in liklihood of accuracy and therefore it is reasonable to believe either side of the debate. After all we no longer hold debates on whether or not gravity exists, we only hold debates on things where either side could, potentially, be true. This second point is why the concept of the Overton window exists. This second point is why you cannot correct neo-nazism by discussing neo-nazi ideas in a public forum, and the mere act of giving neo-nazism a public forum at all is a win for the neo-nazi, even if you then win the debate (in short: neo-nazism is such a rightfully hated ideology, that merely giving it the respect of a debate is a step up for the ideology, even if they then lose the debate). Etc This leaves us with a question. Which is more important? Which concept is more responsible for persuading audience members? The first concept or the second? Surely, different discussions in different social situations would lean more heavily towards one or the other being more important. I think if you and I were to a host public, yet small debate in front of a class of aspiring logicians at Oxford University, the merits of the logical argument would be more important than the setting itself. I would be willing to bet that such an audience, in such a not-very-high-profile setting would be more moved by logical argument than the social stature of the event. Conversely, I would posit that the reason Fox News invites liberals on their platform regularly, and then does not give them an adequate chance to prevent their viewpoints, is because it allows the network to put them against actually indefensible and unpopular extremely right wing viewpoints, and leave the uneducated audience, who did not receive a good explanation of either viewpoint, to leave the segment assuming that both viewpoints must be equally well respected and potentially correct. The original post I responded to is factually incorrect. Their viewpoint boils down to the idea that a labor arrangement cannot be exploitative if that labor arrangement was entered into willingly by both parties, with no nuance for what constitutes "willingly" in our economic system. That is a patently false idea, and is only tangentially related to the situation of gig workers to which the author attempts to relate it. So the question becomes, if I give a genuine rebuttal of that memetic idea, which would be more important? Would the Hacker News crowd be moved more by well reasoned argument that goes many paragraphs deep, involving historical examples and moral assessment? Or would the majority of internet readers skip over the debate after the first few sentences or posts, and assume that by virtue of the fact that the original post is the highest voted comment on the page, that it must be a reasonable viewpoint? Considering the fact that at the time I posted, there were numerous attempts at logical refutation, all of which were ignored. And considering the fact that the vast majority of the responses I have received so grotesquely misunderstand my post as to think that I am calling gig workers slaves, as opposed to pointing out the logical fallacies of the post. I have to think that no, the second effect here is more potent to this particular online crowd than the first. In that scenario, nuanced reasoned rebuttal of an extreme viewpoint is not reasonable. To give respect to an unrespectable viewpoint is not a virtue if your audience lacks the intellectual depth or curiosity to critically engage with the debate. In that scenario, the best thing you can do is to put a large warning label on the unreasonable viewpoint that says: "Beware all audience members: the above viewpoint is not considered reasonable or moral by all members of this community." That is how you address the second social concept at play here. People who then, afterward, want to discuss in deeper logic thereafter, are free to do so. And that's why my response was intentionally brash, and why engaging with such an unrespectable and indefensible viewpoint, in public, at the top of the post, is an irresponsible thing to do, until it has been established first to a passive audience that this is not an equal debate between respected opinions. And even then, that is often not sufficient, but it is at least something I could do here.

theonemind 4y ago

I disagree with the grandparent comment, but upvoted it as a topic of discussion. We might as well have someone say the quiet part out loud so that we can pick it apart. No doubt Uber C-levels sleep soundly telling themselves these kinds of things and their lobbyists use these kinds of arguments.

throwaway09223 4y ago

> "By your logic above, an indentured servitude would count as a "not being taken advantage of" and by implication, reasonable moral form of employment." No it wouldn't. Indentured servitude requires someone to be indentured, which is immediately in conflict with OP's correct observation that no one is being forced to work. They directly hinged their question on the premise that the workers are free to make choices. OP's question regarding the free choices of previously unemployed workers is valid. Questioning why 1099 employment isn't "moral" as you put it is also valid. > > People are not agents of free will, and any sub-utopic framework they have to participate in is immoral? > This is a straw man argument to its core. No one is, or has suggested that all labor should be abolished unless it meets a utopian ideal. Actually your response is the straw man here, because you have introduced and attacked an absolute (all labor) where one did not previously exist. You're projecting the errors you yourself are making onto OP.

deleted 4y ago
[deleted]
jjoonathan 4y ago
> no one is being forced to work Given that people need to work to live, replacing more/better jobs with fewer/worse jobs is absolutely a moral imposition on the working population. Rationalizing this on the grounds that people are "free" to choose among the fewer/worse jobs is diabolical.
- throwaway09223 4y ago
  That is not the scenario described. There wasn't an industry of employee Uber drivers prior to Uber coming on the scene. In fact, taxi drivers in California were all typically self employed already. These positions fall apart under even the most cursory examination.
  - jjoonathan 4y ago
    > industry of employee Uber drivers prior to Uber Wow, you really did a good job of accounting for the aggregate labor supply/demand dynamics right there. There was no Uber before Uber therefore Uber is great! You heard it here first, people! > These positions fall apart under even the most cursory examination. Right back atcha.

adolph 4y ago

Be the change you'd like to see. What are the lines a person may not cross for crossing is an indication that the person is lacking information or decision making competence and thus decision making power is taken from them? Some might argue for one extreme or another, the rest of us see it at some point between total and no decision making power with the line drawn at different points in different contexts. Besides drawing the line, there is the matter of who can draw it. Why would one think that on the main the FTC is better at making the decision in this context than the person making the decision?

VoodooJuJu 4y ago

The grandparent deserves a good rebuttal, and I don't think this is very good. This comment is effectively saying that the gig worker is in fact not a free agent by using analogies like slavery and indentured servitude, but these analogies don't map well to the gig worker's economic position. I'm going to second the GP's request for a convincing argument, as I've also yet to see one.

frereubu 4y ago
I didn’t read this as a rebuttal, it’s pointing out the logical fallacies in the structure of the GP’s argument, so criticising it for not offering a rebuttal is slightly missing the point. They certainly aren’t saying that Uber drivers are in an identical situation to slaves.
- throwaway09223 4y ago
  But there aren't any fallacies in the GP's argument. And it is quite directly making an absurd and unsupportable statement regarding indentured servitude for a job opportunity that is undeniably no strings attached.
  - pessimizer 4y ago
    > People are not agents of free will, and any sub-utopic framework they have to participate in is immoral? This is so fallacious that it almost doesn't parse as English (largely imo because it's been fluffed up to hide the utterly commonplace "so you're saying everything is wrong unless it's perfect?" strawman.)
    - kryogen1c 4y ago
      It's intended to be a steelman and is a rephrasing of an argument said to me in the past; you could dig it up in my comment history from a previous uber discussion should you be so inclined. Regardless, feel free to ignore my strawman and tell me the real argument.

cat_plus_plus 4y ago

> By your logic above, an indentured servitude would count as a "not being taken advantage of" and by implication, reasonable moral form of employment. Sure? https://www.usa.gov/join-military https://www.usa.gov/join-military

remote_phone 4y ago

It’s comments like yours actually that make me lose faith in HN. It’s a lazy argument parroted by activist with no actual contact with people who drive for Uber. Most Uber drivers are happy because they can select their hours and the more they work the more money they make. It’s pretty simple. They aren’t poor, stupid uneducated masses that need saving by the likes of you. Your elitist views looking down on their ability to discern what is good for them is exactly why Trump disastrously won and we all suffered. And unfortunately why the Republicans will probably win again in 2024.

kelnos 4y ago
I think you're putting words in people's mouths. I don't think anyone is claiming that people are too stupid to know that a particular job is exploitative. The claim is that they know full well that these kinds of jobs are exploitative, but don't have much choice in the labor market, and so take them anyway. Just because someone sees that they have little choice, and then chooses exploitation over poverty, homelessness, or starvation, it doesn't mean that it's ok that we have jobs that exploit workers. It's the role of labor regulators to try to reduce the exploitative nature of these jobs. And if a job can't exist without exploiting workers, then it must be shut down. This isn't new or particularly controversial; it's been the goal of labor movements for centuries. I mean this in general terms; I have heard both good and bad stories about what it's like to drive for Uber, so I'm not quite ready to raise up the pitchforks against them, but I do believe they are worthy of more scrutiny.

DiggyJohnson 4y ago

This comment genuinely makes no sense to me. If you are going to leverage extremely strong analogies, like indentured servitude, then you need to justify that. It seems like you are disappointed by any conversation that doesn't mix up idealism with what's realistic, and what is going on. A request for explanation almost by definition cannot be a strawman. Just because you disagree with the context of that question does not justify such a shallow, emotional response.

dpkirchner 4y ago
> A request for explanation almost by definition cannot be a strawman. It can when the request isn't really a request but an assertion taken to an absurd extreme that merely resembles a question. cf Tucker Carlson "just asking questions".
- DiggyJohnson 4y ago
  You’re the one asserting extremes. I simply see no other way of interpreting this discussion. Have a good one.
ckw 4y ago
The point is that indentured servants also willingly enter their contract. So if that is the standard—- that one who willingly accepts a duty is incapable of being exploited, then neither are indentured servants. In fact, according to that standard slavery is arguably not exploitation either, so long as the slave initially consents. But most people would find this absurd: slavery is the prototypical example of exploitation.
- DiggyJohnson 4y ago
  But the original comment wasn’t asserting anything like this, it’s asking for the aspects of gig economy jobs that make it coercive or exploitative in light of the consent of its workers. The onus is on the person connecting that to indentured servitude to explain why that connection is apt. Otherwise it’s a useless connection.

qeternity 4y ago

> Its comments like this that have caused me to really lose faith in the quality of conversation on Hacker News. Wow, quite tone deaf for a response that doesn't actually address any single topical point, but just offers a very poor strawman. Nobody is arguing that slavery is bad. People are asking how driving for Uber is remotely like slavery. And so far, nobody has answered. Instead of mud slinging, how about being the change you want to see on HN.

ROTMetro 4y ago
Society made a bunch of rules about the employee/employer relationship. Society allowed business to use contractors to fill positions that didn't fall under that relationships, for example, to fill short term needs with contractors, or to bring in specialists that companies did need and couldn't afford to have full time. Uber decided fuck Society's contract/norms for the business/employee relationship, we are going to abuse the definition of 'contractor'.

tsunamifury 4y ago

Many of the people here are becoming sociopathic in their desire to control the world around them through technology and have completely lost empathy for the average person who is a victim of these industries. The gig economy is clearly arbitraging labor in a manner most would consider somewhere between exploitative and unfair. And the broader economy puts pressures on them to exist in that. As inequality mostly driven by technology grows more and more people will be required to accept less and less fair employment so the gig economy is essentially betting on a worse tomorrow. I dont like that, i dont support it, and if the ceos of these companies are your neighbors like they are mine — you see how completely nihilistic they are about this. They know it, they don’t care. But they pretend a story that this is a better world for you, the naive tech worker.

peterangular 4y ago
> Many of the people here are becoming sociopathic Tons of people here are well monied professionals who struggle to put themselves into another person's shoes. They grew up privileged, got to go to school/college, and ended up on a good career path. They're people who will unironically say people should "pull themselves up by the bootstraps," and claim that we're in a meritocracy where hard work guarantees financial stability + success. They have no idea what it's like for a person struggling to get by, and they've been sold a lifetime of "poor person = bad," or "poor person = lazy" propaganda. There are lots of people here that struggle with basic empathy.
- newfriend 4y ago
  And lots of people use "empathy" as an excuse to forcibly extract money from productive people in order to give it away to leeches. Suckers who believe that every poor person is just a hard-working, well-intentioned person who wasn't given enough opportunities. There are, of course, many poor people who are not lazy. But there are likely more who are lazy, dull, and sucking up resources that could better be used to improve society.
  - peterangular 4y ago

jonfw 4y ago

> Interestingly, this is the same argument that was used in favor of slavery. That's really not very interesting, this same argument can be applied to many things that were good and many things that were bad. Let's try and focus on the topic at hand vs arguing semantics

kyleee 4y ago
Probably tends to derail the thread also by relating the topic at hand to slavery, indentured servitude, etc
ckw 4y ago
I think it’s not only very interesting but highly revealing that the same argument made in favor of the most iniquitous of all labor relations is reflexively used to justify gig work.
Dylan16807 4y ago
It's not about semantics, it's "this argument sucks, find a better one".
- jonfw 4y ago
  The OP is making a utilitarian argument. You can’t argue that utilitarianism is a defunct philosophy because people once used it to justify slavery. If you are making this argument, please share your philosophy that no bad person has ever used to make a point
  - Dylan16807 4y ago
    I think you're strongly misunderstanding the criticism. It's not "utilitarianism is wrong". It's more like "the specific claim that sub-standard working conditions are better than nothing is a very old and weak argument that has a tradition of being used to justify subjugation". And frankly I don't see how OP's argument is particularly utilitarian. Is the counterargument of "allowing companies to do this hurts workers in aggregate" not equally utilitarian? Worrying about free will and free association is more the realm of liberalism, isn't it?

JaceLightning 4y ago

/\ Its comments like this that have caused me to really lose faith in the quality of conversation on Hacker News. People can quit Uber/Lyft whenever. Indentured servitude cannot be quit. There's a difference in "creating an opportunity for people" and "forcing them to work for you" > this is the same argument that was used in favor of slavery. Nope. There's a difference in creating a new choice for people and taking all choice away from them.

somebodythere 4y ago
Taking the choice away is mostly about preventing a race to the bottom, especially in professions where the workers don't have the bargaining power to demand respectful working conditions. This is why we have minimum wage laws, working hour limits, workplace safety laws etc.
slumpt_ 4y ago
> People can quit Uber/Lyft whenever. Indentured servitude cannot be quit. This implies they have viable alternate choices (setting aside the obvious other option, unemployment or being houseless). It may be that Uber/Lyft are the only employers they have access to, or they may otherwise have a sufficient amount of bills / debt that they have no personal time / cash to explore employment alternatives adequately. Conservative (and by and large its ally, libertarian) politics lean on this often obfuscated nuance to sell this idea that the poor always have the choice to simply leave exploitative employers. It is not so simple.
xani_ 4y ago
> People can quit Uber/Lyft whenever. Indentured servitude cannot be quit. same thing really if you have no other option to earn rent and food. And them using it as opportunity to pay low (after you include car deprecation/fuel/repairs might be even at/below minimal wage level) means you can't just do your 40 hours/week to support yourself.
ckw 4y ago
The original comment said > I'd like to see the argument that those people who chose and choose to work at uber have worse outcomes than they otherwise would The reply: > this is the same argument that was used in favor of slavery. To which you replied > Nope. There's a difference in creating a new choice for people and taking all choice away from them. The commenter is not saying that gig work is the same as slavery here, they are saying that slave holders argued, often correctly, that slaves, as capital, enjoyed a higher standard of living than did wage workers, who could be worked to death and thrown away, and that this justified the institution.

whywhywhydude 4y ago

What a low effort rebuttal. Why are you comparing gig work to indentured servitude? Is Uber forcing people to drive cars? If your argument is people don’t have any other options, is that really uber’s fault or is that fault of the society?

zugi 4y ago

> Its comments like this that have caused me to really lose faith in the quality of conversation on Hacker News. Interestingly, it's comments like yours that cause me to lose faith in the quality of conversation at Hacker News. Basically Godwin'ing to "slavery" when the prior poster clearly talked about free will and choice is intellectual laziness.

slumpt_ 4y ago
Free will and choice suppose one's back isn't against a wall with respect to bills, a roof over one's head, medical or mental issues affecting either of the aforementioned. That we went from "I have no job at all and am unemployable" to "it appears I can be exploited for my labor at a rate that doesn't allow me to escape poverty, but may allow me to at least not starve to death" is not defensible or desirable. That you see it as acceptable or a reflection of a legitimate "choice" moreso reflects on your inexperience with or inability to adequately reason about the reality of sincere poverty, not reality.
- zugi 4y ago
  In a discussion about Uber drivers you jump to slavery and nearly starving to death. Then follow it up with attacks on my "inexperience" and "inability to adequately reason." You are the one whose confrontational and disrespectful manner of conversing impedes legitimate discourse. The person lowering the quality of HN discussion is you.
  - slumpt_ 4y ago
    I could have perhaps more delicately put my assessment that there are facets to poverty you appear to gloss over, either willingly or not. Can you address the first two paragraphs originally posted? You were upset with the third and opted to sidestep confronting the argument.

deleted 4y ago

[deleted]

m00x 4y ago

Comments like this make me lose faith in the actual teachings of philosophy and logic to non-academics. OP's post is not a straw man, and you have done nothing to prove it. Your comment reads like someone who read a few books on logic and argument and started using them whenever they have an argument without understanding it.

sigzero 4y ago

Those are horrible examples.

scarface74 4y ago

How is it “indentured servitude”? People used their own free will and decided to work for Uber.

ckw 4y ago
It isn’t indentured servitude, but it cannot be distinguished from indentured servitude by the willful nature according to which the contract is entered, because indentured servants entered willfully into their contracts as well.
- scarface74 4y ago
  Are you claiming that every single Uber driver would rather be doing something else than driving for Uber?
  - ckw 4y ago
    I am correcting your misapprehension that the parent is equating gig work with indentured servitude. They are not. And I am reiterating the point the parent makes regarding the error both the grandparent and you make, in inferring from the willful entrance into a contract the non-exploitative nature of that contract and its execution. To repeat: indentured servants entered willfully into their contracts, yet those contracts were manifestly exploitative. Hence the willful nature of one’s entrance into a contract says nothing about whether it is exploitative in character or execution.
    - scarface74 4y ago
      In that case does every company who employs people who would rather be doing another job, but don’t have a choice “exploitive”?
      - ckw 4y ago
        No. In a country like Denmark, even low status jobs like fast food pay a living wage (~$22/hr), provide a pension, 6 weeks paid vacation, etc. https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/mcdonalds-workers-denmark/ https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/mcdonalds-workers-denmark/