4 ms·

"I'll be okay with a pay cut if it means a more equitable, more fair society" hmm you could make it more equitable by raising your maids comp by your own descri

by qaq 4y ago

"I'll be okay with a pay cut if it means a more equitable, more fair society" hmm you could make it more equitable by raising your maids comp by your own description it would have 0 adverse effect on you.

geysersam 4y ago
Sure, but we need broader reform if anything is to actually change. You can't fight the market forces and systemic problems with personal choices.
- qaq 4y ago
  Sure you can if people take individual action based on their honest believes a lot can change. If people simply virtue signal without taking basic actions that are available to them then there is 0 chance something will change.
  - geysersam 4y ago
    I'm not suggesting virtue signaling. Paying your maid more than market wage is virtue signaling. Voting for a party working to increase her bargaining power is not. We need both individual action and political reform.
    - qaq 4y ago
      No it's not. Crocodile tears about how unfair it is for her to make so little instead of paying her more is virtue signaling. Dems have being in power in CA forever voting for them is not going to change maids wage.
      - sph 4y ago
        The problem is thinking blue or red are the answer to this problem. Their current iteration is the leading reason why we are in this situation now.
        qaq 4y ago
        Nope they are a reflection of their voters e.g. "us". As long as majority regardless of side continues to vote for amorphous virtue signalling unprincipled politicians the things will stay as they are.
        Olreich 4y ago
        Fun part of that is that the political systems are flawed as well and actively resist hiring new politicians who are more principled. In the US, it’s almost impossible to win without endorsement from Dem or Rep parties. Anywhere that does First Past the Post will devolve to two party rule at scale. Many countries have authoritarian regimes, so elections don’t matter. Even just drawing political lines is fraught and liable to bias against the will of the people based on existing precedent. Money in politics provides advantages to the rich and corporate interests. Politicians are motivated to keep constituents happy, but only so far. The political systems generally provide a significant buffer for politicians to act on behalf of themselves or their donors and not get replaced.
        miguelazo 4y ago
        This assumes an informed electorate that has real choices. It is most certainly not, with corruption and a totally dysfunctional profit-driven media ecosystem virtually guaranteeing it remains that way.
      - danaris 4y ago
        So what's your alternative proposal? I 100% agree that paying the maid more is the right answer in this specific case, but saying that the Democrats are part of the problem, even if it's true, fails to account for the facts that a) the Republicans are much more of the problem, and b) there are no other viable parties to vote for due to our voting system. "Voting for the Democrats" is a necessary, but insufficient, part of the solution. Another part is "voting for more progressive Democrats in primary elections". Again, necessary but insufficient. I don't have the whole answer...but I know that bitching about not being able to change anything...doesn't change anything. And, in fact, makes it much less likely that positive change happens, because it either makes people feel helpless, or directs them to utterly impotent methods. Which then fail, and leave them (once again) feeling helpless.
    - Xylakant 4y ago
      While it will have little effect on the system, paying your maid substantially more than market share goes way beyond virtue signaling. It has substantial effect on her life, possibly on the life’s of her partner and children as well. It may make the difference between scraping by and being able to start saving money, accumulating a bit of wealth that can possibly be passed on to the next generation.
    - nottorp 4y ago
      > Paying your maid more than market wage is virtue signaling. Is it? They're more likely to stay in that job and ask for more money on other jobs because now they know it's possible. Just like we devs know we can make FAANG salaries and our asking price is adjusted accordingly.
    - prewett 4y ago
      I assert that you have it backwards. Virtue only exists in interactions with actual people, not with abstract people. Paying a maid more than market value is putting his money where his mouth is, because he believes the maid should be paid more is actual virtue. (Paying the maid more so that he could boast to his friends about resourcing the underprivileged/oppressed-group would be virtue signaling, but at least it would still have the virtue of some amount of self-sacrifice) Voting for politicians is the abstract. Not necessarily virtue signaling, if you actually believe the cause, but how is that likely to help the maid? Even if the party succeeds in doing something effective, how long will it take before the maid is actually better off? And is anyone going to evaluate whether the changes are actually effective in making people better off? Or consider two scenarios: 1) someone claims maids should be paid more but pays them market rate and votes for politicians who claim to be changing the world to make maids better off, or 2) someone else pays the maid 3X the going rate (which he appears to be doing, see other thread) and does not vote for politicians who claim to be making maids better off (to be clear, this is hypothetical, I doubt he does this). Person 2 has made the maid actually better off. Person 1's maid is not better off, and any impact on maids (if any) is disconnected, and conveniently does not require any sacrifice on the part of Person 1. Person 2 has made the maid better off at the expense of themselves; this is the opposite of virtue signaling.
  - spaceman_2020 4y ago
    Blanket statements like that don't really help unless you understand the underlying context. In my context, maids typically work in multiple households. While my household has seen its net worth go up disproportionately, other households around me haven't been as fortunate. So even when I pay 3x the prevailing rate, it doesn't make any real difference since the remaining 6 households my maid goes to can't match my rate. And she has no real bargaining power because in India, there's a huge pool of similarly skilled labor willing to fill in. Which is pretty much my point: that people in tech get paid disproportionately higher. If everyone around me had seen similar wealth increase, my maid's salary would have likely gone up far higher as well.
    - qaq 4y ago
      I grew up poor having any extra money makes a meaningful difference. 3X bump would mean the person is now making like 20% extra it's very meaningful difference pretending otherwise is very disingenuous.
spaceman_2020 4y ago
The typical Indian maid works in multiple households. My maid works in 7 different houses, spending approx. 1-1.5 hours in each. An individual household paying her more can only go so far - EVERYONE will have to start paying her more. I already pay her substantially more than prevailing rate, but can everyone else afford to do the same?
- qaq 4y ago
  It does not have to be about "them" you have a path available to you to make a person that you supposedly feel bad about better off.
  - michaelt 4y ago
    While spaceman_2020 certainly has the money to pay their maid a lot more if they earn 50x what their maid does, that doesn't address the issue of all the other maids in the economy. I mean, I give a sandwich to the one homeless guy I see on my daily commute, which might have a big impact on that one guy - but let's not pretend I'm solving homelessness by doing so.
    - qaq 4y ago
      But it does in a small way and it adds up when a lot of people do it. Being from Ukraine I see first hand how a lot of people volunteering/donating are making very sizeable impact on the problem even though each individuals contribution might be small.
      - miguelazo 4y ago
        And yet the systemic problem— the US using Ukraine as a pawn to weaken Russia, means that all those donations will ultimately mean nothing as the country’s infrastructure is reduced to rubble.
        danaris 4y ago
        You are spreading Putin's propaganda. Russia invaded Ukraine because Putin wants to reconstitute the USSR, with him on top. All the bullshit about NATO is just noise to get people who would otherwise side with the obvious victims to suddenly hem and haw and say, "Well, was Putin provoked? Is this really about the US?" No; you've been suckered. It's about Ukraine, and the people dying there, who won't be in any better shape if the rest of the Western world just hands them over to a megalomaniac dictator who genuinely believes that any Ukrainian who doesn't identify as Russian is mentally ill or a traitor.
miguelazo 4y ago
Individual choices are not the solution to systemic problems. That’s not to say they’re not also important.

by qaq 4y ago

geysersam 4y ago

Sure, but we need broader reform if anything is to actually change. You can't fight the market forces and systemic problems with personal choices.

qaq 4y ago
Sure you can if people take individual action based on their honest believes a lot can change. If people simply virtue signal without taking basic actions that are available to them then there is 0 chance something will change.
- geysersam 4y ago
  I'm not suggesting virtue signaling. Paying your maid more than market wage is virtue signaling. Voting for a party working to increase her bargaining power is not. We need both individual action and political reform.
  - qaq 4y ago
    No it's not. Crocodile tears about how unfair it is for her to make so little instead of paying her more is virtue signaling. Dems have being in power in CA forever voting for them is not going to change maids wage.
    - sph 4y ago
      The problem is thinking blue or red are the answer to this problem. Their current iteration is the leading reason why we are in this situation now.
      - qaq 4y ago
        Nope they are a reflection of their voters e.g. "us". As long as majority regardless of side continues to vote for amorphous virtue signalling unprincipled politicians the things will stay as they are.
        Olreich 4y ago
        Fun part of that is that the political systems are flawed as well and actively resist hiring new politicians who are more principled. In the US, it’s almost impossible to win without endorsement from Dem or Rep parties. Anywhere that does First Past the Post will devolve to two party rule at scale. Many countries have authoritarian regimes, so elections don’t matter. Even just drawing political lines is fraught and liable to bias against the will of the people based on existing precedent. Money in politics provides advantages to the rich and corporate interests. Politicians are motivated to keep constituents happy, but only so far. The political systems generally provide a significant buffer for politicians to act on behalf of themselves or their donors and not get replaced.
        miguelazo 4y ago
        This assumes an informed electorate that has real choices. It is most certainly not, with corruption and a totally dysfunctional profit-driven media ecosystem virtually guaranteeing it remains that way.
    - danaris 4y ago
      So what's your alternative proposal? I 100% agree that paying the maid more is the right answer in this specific case, but saying that the Democrats are part of the problem, even if it's true, fails to account for the facts that a) the Republicans are much more of the problem, and b) there are no other viable parties to vote for due to our voting system. "Voting for the Democrats" is a necessary, but insufficient, part of the solution. Another part is "voting for more progressive Democrats in primary elections". Again, necessary but insufficient. I don't have the whole answer...but I know that bitching about not being able to change anything...doesn't change anything. And, in fact, makes it much less likely that positive change happens, because it either makes people feel helpless, or directs them to utterly impotent methods. Which then fail, and leave them (once again) feeling helpless.
  - Xylakant 4y ago
    While it will have little effect on the system, paying your maid substantially more than market share goes way beyond virtue signaling. It has substantial effect on her life, possibly on the life’s of her partner and children as well. It may make the difference between scraping by and being able to start saving money, accumulating a bit of wealth that can possibly be passed on to the next generation.
  - nottorp 4y ago
    > Paying your maid more than market wage is virtue signaling. Is it? They're more likely to stay in that job and ask for more money on other jobs because now they know it's possible. Just like we devs know we can make FAANG salaries and our asking price is adjusted accordingly.
  - prewett 4y ago
    I assert that you have it backwards. Virtue only exists in interactions with actual people, not with abstract people. Paying a maid more than market value is putting his money where his mouth is, because he believes the maid should be paid more is actual virtue. (Paying the maid more so that he could boast to his friends about resourcing the underprivileged/oppressed-group would be virtue signaling, but at least it would still have the virtue of some amount of self-sacrifice) Voting for politicians is the abstract. Not necessarily virtue signaling, if you actually believe the cause, but how is that likely to help the maid? Even if the party succeeds in doing something effective, how long will it take before the maid is actually better off? And is anyone going to evaluate whether the changes are actually effective in making people better off? Or consider two scenarios: 1) someone claims maids should be paid more but pays them market rate and votes for politicians who claim to be changing the world to make maids better off, or 2) someone else pays the maid 3X the going rate (which he appears to be doing, see other thread) and does not vote for politicians who claim to be making maids better off (to be clear, this is hypothetical, I doubt he does this). Person 2 has made the maid actually better off. Person 1's maid is not better off, and any impact on maids (if any) is disconnected, and conveniently does not require any sacrifice on the part of Person 1. Person 2 has made the maid better off at the expense of themselves; this is the opposite of virtue signaling.
- spaceman_2020 4y ago
  Blanket statements like that don't really help unless you understand the underlying context. In my context, maids typically work in multiple households. While my household has seen its net worth go up disproportionately, other households around me haven't been as fortunate. So even when I pay 3x the prevailing rate, it doesn't make any real difference since the remaining 6 households my maid goes to can't match my rate. And she has no real bargaining power because in India, there's a huge pool of similarly skilled labor willing to fill in. Which is pretty much my point: that people in tech get paid disproportionately higher. If everyone around me had seen similar wealth increase, my maid's salary would have likely gone up far higher as well.
  - qaq 4y ago
    I grew up poor having any extra money makes a meaningful difference. 3X bump would mean the person is now making like 20% extra it's very meaningful difference pretending otherwise is very disingenuous.

spaceman_2020 4y ago

The typical Indian maid works in multiple households. My maid works in 7 different houses, spending approx. 1-1.5 hours in each. An individual household paying her more can only go so far - EVERYONE will have to start paying her more. I already pay her substantially more than prevailing rate, but can everyone else afford to do the same?

qaq 4y ago
It does not have to be about "them" you have a path available to you to make a person that you supposedly feel bad about better off.
- michaelt 4y ago
  While spaceman_2020 certainly has the money to pay their maid a lot more if they earn 50x what their maid does, that doesn't address the issue of all the other maids in the economy. I mean, I give a sandwich to the one homeless guy I see on my daily commute, which might have a big impact on that one guy - but let's not pretend I'm solving homelessness by doing so.
  - qaq 4y ago
    But it does in a small way and it adds up when a lot of people do it. Being from Ukraine I see first hand how a lot of people volunteering/donating are making very sizeable impact on the problem even though each individuals contribution might be small.
    - miguelazo 4y ago
      And yet the systemic problem— the US using Ukraine as a pawn to weaken Russia, means that all those donations will ultimately mean nothing as the country’s infrastructure is reduced to rubble.
      - danaris 4y ago
        You are spreading Putin's propaganda. Russia invaded Ukraine because Putin wants to reconstitute the USSR, with him on top. All the bullshit about NATO is just noise to get people who would otherwise side with the obvious victims to suddenly hem and haw and say, "Well, was Putin provoked? Is this really about the US?" No; you've been suckered. It's about Ukraine, and the people dying there, who won't be in any better shape if the rest of the Western world just hands them over to a megalomaniac dictator who genuinely believes that any Ukrainian who doesn't identify as Russian is mentally ill or a traitor.

miguelazo 4y ago

Individual choices are not the solution to systemic problems. That’s not to say they’re not also important.