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I see so many comments from self-anointed do-gooders that I just have to explain something from my lived experience. I'm Nigerian. I graduated high school at 1

I see so many comments from self-anointed do-gooders that I just have to explain something from my lived experience. I'm Nigerian. I graduated high school at 15 and because my family didn't have the funds for uni, I got a job in what was essentially a sweatshop factory with extra steps. I got paid 12k Naira ($16) per month. After all, I had was a secondary school education and I couldn't bargain for better. Roughly one year later, I got a job writing for a content mill where I was paid $1 for 100 words. I can't describe my happiness when I got my first $50 for 5,000 words. All earned while sitting at a desk, typing away on a broken laptop, using unreliable internet. To a social justice warrior in SF or NY, it might have been exploitation, but to me an African teenager with no relevant experience or higher education, it was the first step I needed to pull myself up by my bootstraps. I levered up and today, I make the same or a bit more than quite a few freelance writers in the West. Point is, it's okay to feel bad for these Africans; but if you really do, you will support free trade - that's the most successful instrument for lifting humans out of poverty. Without this "starvation-level" gig like some of you may call it, these workers would settle for something less. Today, Nigeria's minimum wage is around 30k Naira, yet many Nigerians don't even make that much. On the other hand, a worker making $2 per hour 8 hours 5 days will net $80 per week or 59k Naira at the current market rates. If you complain someone is exploiting me, please give me a better job - or let me take my least worst option.

zht 4y ago
what about criticisms from fellow Kenyans who say that it is exploitation?
- churchill 4y ago
  Are their opinions more valid than that of the Kenyans that took these jobs? The government can mandate a "fair" wage, but the government never employs everyone at that rate. These "exploiters" are actually giving Africans money for their labor - I think I'm more on the side of those who pay money for an African's labor vs. those that stand on the sidelines and try to determine what is fair.
churchill 4y ago
In case you try to confirm these figures via Google, the exchange rates for the amounts I stated are based on the true (i.e., black) market rates (740 Naira/$1) instead of whatever Google shows.
- andruby 4y ago
  I don’t know about the situation in Nigeria. How come the black market rate (740) is so much higher than the “officia” markets (450)? Are there rules and regulations preventing access to the official forex markets?
  - churchill 4y ago
    The government printed a lot of Nairas starting 2020 (COVID) when oil revenues dried up. The Naira's value plunged against the dollar. The Central Bank still insists the Naira is worth around 453/$1 while the free market insists it's much worse. So, the Central Bank continues to advertise N453/$1 but you can't swap your Nairas to dollars - only at black (i.e., free) market dealers who will give you the true market rate.
    - decremental 4y ago
      Black market currency dealers. Never thought I'd hear something like that.
      - churchill 4y ago
        Yes, price controls often do a "good" job of causing shortages. So, an alternative market appears to fill the need.
      - terafo 4y ago
        It isn't that uncommon in countries with relatively high rate of inflation. For example in Ukraine government set some strict monetary controls and it's not really possible to get USD in cash form from official exchanges.
      - 4y ago
pmarreck 4y ago
Thank you for this very important point. I was going to comment, "was it mutually-beneficial? was it consensual? If so, then where is the harm done?" but your firsthand experience said it much better. Glad you are succeeding (relatively).
- th0ma5 4y ago
  If you don't know the extent of the abuse because it is hidden from you then that certainly isn't consent.
  - pmarreck 4y ago
    How exactly is it "abuse" to be paid a wage that is highly competitive with the other options in your given location and standard of living? Did you even read the comments from other Kenyans in this discussion? Your language is hyperbolic and ridiculous. Over time this lifts those economies up which then forces their pay to go up; it's like slow arbitrage over time. But as it's happening, yes, the paying companies get a better deal. Temporarily. And that is fine.
99_00 4y ago
[flagged]
- churchill 4y ago
  I think "self-anointed do-gooder" captures the idea perfectly. Many of these folks want to help Africans and many low-income countries, but arguments on Hacker News and government decrees don't help the poor. Only free trade, preferably between rich and poor countries, can lift the poor out of poverty. Initially, it starts in a way you might consider "unfair" but soon, that unskilled labor learns better skills and starts to negotiate better wages. So, like I said, many of these "do-gooders" sincerely want to help Africans but their approach hurts even more.
  - bloodyplonker22 4y ago
    In addition, many of these virtue signalers are not donating their money or time to help with anything that they virtue signal on.
    - th0ma5 4y ago
      You see this in conservative virtue signaling so much, hardly any increase in adoption rates, not staying home if they're sick, etc
  - wardedVibe 4y ago
    It's complicated, because some of our best examples of recently successfully developing economies (Japan, Korea, China) actually had pretty heavy state intervention and tariffs to protect growing industries.
- panzagl 4y ago
  Not sure why the downvotes- colonialism is a direct result of thinking we know better than 'those people'
  - deleted 4y ago
    [deleted]
andrewstuart 4y ago
This is an eye opening response thank you and a great argument for getting valid work to Africans. The fact that it’s good for Africans doesn’t absolve rich Silicon Valley tech companies from doing better. Silicon Valley have developed an eye rolling bad reputation for many reasons. The CEO of such an organization would be a fool not to realize that this looks bad to the rest of the community. If I was a tech CEO id be extremely wary of paying anyone $2/hour. What about safety, entitlements, conditions, potential for child labor, hours worked etc. I totally agree that it’s good for African people to get the work but rich companies have to do a whole lot more than just agree to that and pay $2/hour. They have to ensure that if they’re going to do this sort of thing that not only are they paying the $2, they have 100% ensured the working rights of the people. And if they’re remotely smart they would go well beyond, for example sponsoring computer science university for 500 young people.
- churchill 4y ago
  I think it's okay - even preferable - if rich companies decide to pay more, but compared to the alternatives, this "exploitative" gig is actually doing more to lift Africans out of poverty. We've seen this experiment in China - in one generation, hundreds of millions of Chinese have made the leap from farm labor to the iPhone-owning middle class. I think companies can choose to pay better, but even if they choose to be "evil, greedy capitalists" it still beats the majority of local alternatives.
  - deleted 4y ago
    [deleted]
- naasking 4y ago
  > They have to ensure that if they’re going to do this sort of thing that not only are they paying the $2, they have 100% ensured the working rights of the people. So you want every corporation to have a law enforcement or investigative journalism arm? How would that work exactly? What rights, specifically, should they be enforcing? European rights? American rights? Australian rights? The UN's human rights?
- JamesBarney 4y ago
christkv 4y ago
Well done. I wish you all the success in the world.
- churchill 4y ago
  Thank you!
th0ma5 4y ago
A lot of so called "SJW" rhetoric is in support of being able to support yourself.
- incrudible 4y ago
  Unfortunately, that's all that it amounts to: Rhethoric.
- make3 4y ago
  talking about left wing discourse as a single unified entity is insane, when it's millions or billions of people with different beliefs, formations, etc. Like in everything else, some discourse will be productive and some will be misguided.
  - monkeycantype 4y ago
    It’s not very hard to find smart, well informed left wing / progressive discussion - if that’s what you’re looking for. I think it would be great if we got better at recognising that a lot of political discussion pretty silly. The more attention we give to cranks when we straw man our political opposites by spotlighting the latest silly trite out of their mouths the more we elevate them within their own political tribe. I wonder if this might be easier to fix in Australia than the US because our compulsory voting system means politicians can’t win by mobilising their base, when everybody votes you need to persuade the other side to win
    - make3 4y ago
      compulsory vote in the US & Canada would be interesting. It also has no chance of happening as the right in the US is focusing so much energy making it hard for minorities to vote because they know it would fuck them
  - thinking4real 4y ago
    Lol yes left wing discourse is just so broad and complex it can’t possibly be generalized when references.
vt85 4y ago
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purpleblue 4y ago
Thank you for this. It's so infuriating hearing all of this social justice nonsense from people who don't know anything about actual situations. Knowing that people are paid twice the minimum wage is great and that it's not exploitation.
- altruios 4y ago
  The shifting meaning of the word exploitation: Companies are 100% exploiting cheaper labor in other countries - they are only interested in the bottom line. opportunity and exploitation are not mutuality exclusive, nor does one person's opportunity erase another's exploitation. Creating opportunity is great: do that without exploiting people - that isn't a requirement. Praise opportunity given. Denounce exploitations not to remove opportunities - but to improve them.
  - ben_w 4y ago
    "Exploitation" has at least two very different meanings. While I have seen some texts that used the word in the same sense for "exploiting an opportunity" and "exploiting our workers", I think most of the time the former is neutral and the latter either a scam or abuse.
  - sekai 4y ago
    > Creating opportunity is great: do that without exploiting people - that isn't a requirement. Praise opportunity given. Denounce exploitations not to remove opportunities - but to improve them. How much should they pay the workers though? It's already stated that they are paid well above average wage in said country.
    - th0ma5 4y ago
      What a great example of how borders suppress wages!
andrewstuart 4y ago
You are perhaps placed very well to create an outsourcing company that serves the interests of Africans extremely well with entitlements, leave, healthcare, retirement, education and training and gives companies access to a lower cost workforce. You probably would need to lead all your corporate messaging around the points you have raised, and how much further your company goes than the minimum.
- churchill 4y ago
  I really haven't thought about this much but it's a brilliant idea. Maybe I can use it to get into YC & raise 1 bajillion from a16z?
  - andrewstuart 4y ago
    No doubt Sam Altman is open to hearing about how to purchase African labor without any of the publicity downside - hit him up for a few mill. ChatGPT is riding high, it does not need Nike style bad publicity to bring the story down. You would need to be actually ethical rather than marketing ethical - I don't know you so I don't know if you know the difference. Certainly there's no shortage of Silicon Valley "characters" who don't. It's a very powerful "good news story" to sell to potential clients: --> lower cost workforce --> positive life benefit for the African people, lifting people to better lives --> western style work protections at African costs --> "publicity positive" for buyers versus "publicity negative" You would not believe the power of "lower cost workforce" in gaining new clients. If you know a bunch of African programmers then it should not be hard to find work for them at $x/hour to western clients. Any employer that wishes to show it cares for African people and wants to help them to a better life really SHOULD be buying services from your new company. Remember in places like Australia, the banks - who are the biggest buyers of outsources international programmer resources - would consider $40/hour to be an absolute bargain.
    - churchill 4y ago
      I understand what you mean & I 100% stand behind the idea of better-paying jobs for locals, in a way that makes affordable labor available to customers. It's not a zero-sum game - you don't have to treat people like trash to get any value out of their labor.
sharemywin 4y ago
So what happens when most if not all of the assignments dry up because of GPT?
- ben_w 4y ago
  Given what GPT can already do, whatever it is that comes next, us software developers will have to start doing it too.
  - nirav72 4y ago
    Software developers will be fine. Chatgpt is no where near replacing a mid-level developer. Maybe it could be different in 10-15 years. But right now, more often it simply outputs garbage once you up the complexity. Even if the output code was workable, one still has to make it fit into their larger code. Which still requires an understanding of how the code works. Don’t get me wrong - chatgpt could be a great tool for learning. At the very least, it can teach a person on how to ask the right question.
    - ben_w 4y ago
      We have no way of knowing how long it will take to replace us. A developer of a Go AI said much the same about Go two years before AlphaGo won: """After the match, I ask Coulom when a machine will win without a handicap. "I think maybe ten years," he says. "But I do not like to make predictions."""" - https://www.wired.com/2014/05/the-world-of-computer-go/ https://www.wired.com/2014/05/the-world-of-computer-go/ On the other hand, in 2009 I said "ten years" about consumer purchasable self driving cars good enough to not bother with a steering wheel, and that didn't happen. Seemed plausible to me even during the intervening years, given the videos Tesla was putting out. But, didn't happen. But however long it takes, if companies like OpenAI et al can no longer benefit from humans rating the results (which is what I was replying to), then their AIs are going to be ready to replace us too.
sharemywin 4y ago
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- churchill 4y ago
  Like I said somewhere else, I appreciate long theories about "creating a more just and equitable global economy" but until it comes, I will take an option that is significantly better than anything I can get locally. I'm not against paying workers more - not at all. But, most often, "exploiters" are willing to pay $2 per hour while social justice campaigners are willing to pay "thoughts, prayers, and rhetoric." It's an easy choice between $2/hr and thoughts and prayers, especially when $2/hr is miles ahead of what the worker is getting at the moment.
  - Jagombus 4y ago
    "But until it comes I will take an option that is significantly better than anything I can get locally." You support the idea of a just and equitable economy, but until it comes you'll sit on the sidelines and perpetuate and support entities that maintain the opposite? Look, I admire where you came from and your success, but you've internalized capitalism and justified its side effects as a result. I too came from nothing and am now successful (relatively).
    - churchill 4y ago
      This is my problem with wannabe social reformers - they make long speeches about helping the poor & fixing wealth inequality. Which is great, but they never do anything. I don't want conceptual help; I want actual dollars & "exploitative" companies actually pay workers real dollars. I care for the poor, and I support any system that gives them real cash instead of "thoughts and prayers."
      - Jagombus 4y ago
        I'm talking about you, and you're talking about yourself. You're making a big fuss about "SJWs" who offer thoughts and prayers and saying you welcome a more equitable system, but that you will continue perpetuating the feedback loop of inequality until someone else comes along and fixes it. Instead of feeding into a system that you claim nobody else making these lengthy speeches is actually working to fix, why not take steps to join the swafts of people making real efforts to fix it? You're generalizing a bunch of people as grifters who are working in the self-interest of the disenfranchised. I'm an atheist, and I don't offer thoughts and prayers. I offer discourse, and change starts with that. I think you're trying to generalize an entire group of people because you've seen several politicians grift. There are leftists out there that genuinely want to help. But the left and the right is has been infiltrated with fallacious ideas of a self-regulating market, a concept that we've seen exploit children and poor communities across the globe over and over again. And the only thing you have to say is "well at least these poor people are getting paid more dollars than they would be?"
quitit 4y ago
Reminds me of the chinese factories we used. We paid the staff to take downtime, otherwise they'd use free time to work in other factories. Their goal was simple: make a dowry or funds to support the family in the village. Once that was achieved they'd not return after Chinese new year. Every year 15-20% of assembly workers would not return after CNY.
- latchkey 4y ago
  At least in Vietnam, there is something similar... the 13th month of salary. Stay long enough for your Tet holiday bonus and then switch jobs after getting back to work from VNY. Usually for a higher paying job because now you had more experience.
eddsh1994 4y ago
I've seen a similar argument about Chinese "sweat shops" where they were paying above the average salaries for the area & if the work went it'd be disastrous economically for the village. Sometimes you have to be realistic - if the amount earned is good for the area then it's trending in the right way.
- autoexec 4y ago
  > if the amount earned is good for the area then it's trending in the right way. Absolutely not. There's no reason to accept sweatshops just because workers are being paid to be exploited. There's no reason at all that workers in those places couldn't be paid just as well (if not better really) without all of the other issues commonly found in sweatshops like horrific and dangerous working conditions, child labor, sexual abuse, and human rights violations. There's no giving corporations a pass on their use of sweatshops just because they're giving the desperate people they exploit a little more than they could get themselves. That's not "trending in the right way" it's just greed and exploitation. For example, a person who is starving to death will be extremely grateful when someone gives them even rotten and moldy food. They'll accept the food even if the person offering it makes them first perform horrible immoral acts to get it, but that doesn't make it right and the person forcing starving people to do terrible things for spoiled scraps is still an asshole even if it fills that person's stomach for the night
  - eddsh1994 4y ago
    Remove the sweatshop and there are higher suicide rates, less access to healthcare, less schooling, and worse standards of living. These may be counterintuitive but have been studied.
    - autoexec 4y ago
      Higher suicide rates when they aren't locking workers inside under watch and putting nets up around tall buildings? Not exploiting starving men in exchange for spoiled food can be proven to result in increased deaths too. Doesn't make the exploitation okay. Companies can continue to employ overseas labor at attractive rates without allowing those workplaces to be sweatshops and we should insist that they do, not give them a pass to abuse people for profit just because they throw the people they hurt scraps in the process.
monkeycantype 4y ago
Can I please ask where I can find out about the sites Africans use to find online work? In the past I’ve used the highly advertised freelance sites for small pieces of work, and I like the idea of sending the money somewhere where Australian wages are are a lot of money.
- churchill 4y ago
  Upwork, LinkedIn, and Andela are some good places to start.
- asdefghyk 4y ago
  Why not use google, as a start ? ie for Kenya .... https://www.google.com/search?q=site%3Ake+data+entry&oq=site%3Ake+data+entry https://www.google.com/search?q=site%3Ake+data+entry&oq=site... Is for google the phrase site:ke data entry or maybe a more targeted search Or maybe find local job sites?, to hire (virtual assistant) workers directly to cut out freelancer site commission ( but with increased risk .... etc )
- realAzazello 4y ago
  It's getting harder to get a web-searchable answer, because in countries like Kenya 'good' jobs like this aren't publicly advertised. Yes, really - not publicized! Fact: a lot of jobs (in Kenya, at least) from corporations and international NGOs, come with a deadline to submit your application - yet, the job isn't posted anywhere until 1-2 weeks before the deadline, AND then only on the company's website! Kenya has private job posting sites that obviously crawl the company's pages for listing updates; and this helps to at least get the jobs publicized. But none of these sites have the sophisticated scraping systems like i.e. Indeed.com For "social enterprises" work, it's all made worse because of the bad press and lawsuits that Sama/Samasource -YET AGAIN- and similar companies have been getting into within the last year, re: https://www.wired.com/story/social-enterprise-technology-africa/ https://www.wired.com/story/social-enterprise-technology-afr... These Companies have now stopped (i.e. hidden, temporarily) their listings for "content moderators" and "image labelers". I guess the only way Kenyans are going to find about these jobs are through some connection with current employees; informal sources like Whatsapp groups; or Sama's recruiters sourcing exclusively within the country, so as to not put more international spotlight on their company.
iso1631 4y ago
This is about Kenya though, not Nigeria. Minimum wage in Kenya is twice that in Nigeria at $122 a month.
- churchill 4y ago
  Working 40 hours a week at $2/hr is still $320 per month. That's nearly 3x Kenya's minimum wage. Besides, the government doesn't guarantee every Kenyan $122 a month so the real heroes are those who actually pay that money out-of-pocket.
  - iso1631 4y ago
    It's about the minimum wage for a caretaker or lorry driver.
- realAzazello 4y ago
  How depressing is it that we're all calmly discussing how a nation's minimum wage is $61 per month.
  - iso1631 4y ago
    Cost of living is far cheaper too, assuming you avoid western aimed areas
tehjoker 4y ago
The free market so called allows foreign companies to undermine African countries native industries and set wage floors at the global minimum. A global minimum wage with a system of cooperation and technology transfer and nationalization of companies would massively benefit workers the world over.
- lolinder 4y ago
  ... except for in places like Nigeria and Kenya, because if there were a global minimum wage then companies would hire in countries that are more stable and predictable.
_cenw 4y ago
Less bad exploitation is still exploitation. I'm happy this is work that can help uplift people in third world countries and I don't want the work moved elsewhere. However, Open AI can absolutely afford to pay more than $2 an hour for this sort of job, irregardless of the local economy and who does it - and they absolutely should.
- lolinder 4y ago
  What everyone complaining about what OpenAI can "afford" is missing is that if OpenAI were to pay more, the only rational thing for them to do would be to move the jobs to another country that has lower risk levels. This would leave Kenya without the jobs at all. Thinking you can have both higher wages and jobs in unstable countries is either advocating for state-mandated outsourcing or is wishful thinking.
  - absrd 4y ago
    If a company acts unethically that is bad, even if it's in the company's rational self-interest. It rings especially hollow when the company's supposed mission is to "ensure AI benefits all of humanity"
  - _cenw 4y ago
    Ethics and current day globalized economics don't always mix well. It would still be the right thing to do.
- Terretta 4y ago
  > Less bad exploitation is still exploitation. Your statement is problematic, because (a) clearly at some point "less bad" stops being what anyone defines as exploitation, and (b) if you're not living in the tradeoff space, you're not qualified to judge where that crossover is. There certainly is exploitation to be found*, but paying a multiple of all other opportunities, even if that multiple is below what is available in a different context, is not exploitation. It's putting a thumb on the scale, accelerating the tilt towards equity. * There are articles about labeling or screening done by workers in USA that are as PTSD-inducing as the linked stories, where people were paid US wage and had to quit. Don't confuse the job with the pay, these are two different issues. // Disclosure: I grew up in central Africa. In my teens I worked in the local tech economy, not the expat economy.
jxramos 4y ago
Interesting the term of do-gooder. Reminds me of this comment this fella shared about his pop. https://youtu.be/NS4UT_t73b0?t=967 https://youtu.be/NS4UT_t73b0?t=967 > 16:07 my father once said to me, I'll never forget this as long as I live, he doesn't like a reformer or as he used to call em a "do-gooder" in office. He used to call em do-gooders. > > I said "why pop?", he said "because every time they get in office it seems like all the businesses go out. Nothing happens in business. They make it tough for a guy to operate in business."
- th0ma5 4y ago
  What a great admission that business often operates at the expense of society.
  - jxramos 4y ago
    non-sequitur. I did see this occur personally with this breakfast joint that closed down when some law changed that required some minimum benefits or something or other that added to the payroll expenses and made the venture not worth it. I remember the owner going around informing the guests at their tables that they'd be closing in the next month and if anyone knew of any jobs for their employees they'd welcome the suggestions. It was one of the rare breakfast places in town so it was very missed by us when it bailed. Eventually that location became a Five Guys. It took several years but eventually another breakfast place moved into town.
    - SturgeonsLaw 4y ago
      If a business needs to underpay its staff to survive then it has a faulty business model, so it deserves to fail, and to be replaced by something more robust.
ninjagoo 4y ago
Equal pay for equal work is not a hard concept to understand - it is basic fairness. Deriding advocates of this as "SJW in SF or NY" or "self-anointed do-gooders" indicates a lack of empathy, lack of thought around the broader implications, or in the worst case, capitalistic psychopathy. Sure, you were able to "pull yourself up by your bootstraps". On the other side of the equation, the company paying you a pittance used your capitulation to drive down wages elsewhere, including in its home country. There's a reason why maybe women as a group in this day and age continue to earn only 82 cents on the $ that men make [1]. It is easy for a company to play off the "Nigerian" group of workers willing to accept a pittance against the "Women" group of workers living in a High COL area. Sure, you got your quadruple pay, while some woman here went without money for medicine and died before her time. Nigerian Low COL today can be attributed to colonialism - Europeans extracted the multi-generational wealth in that region and left it impoverished within a short period of time, and it takes time to build that wealth back (real rate of return is typically 2-3%) so everything costs less because that's all the people living there can afford to pay for local consumables and durables like, well, food, or housing. Now the (actual or philosophical) descendants of those Europeans play off the impoverished Nigerians against the local Women to exploit both groups. So instead of fighting to correct the structural injustices of either colonialism or labor exploitation, the English-speaking Nigerians 'pulling themselves up by their bootstraps' lobby for the continued abrogation of equal-pay-for-equal-work and deride the people advocating for structural justice in the form of equal-pay-for-equal-work as "social justice warriors in SF or NY" or "self-anointed do-gooders". Bravo! 1. https://www.census.gov/library/stories/2022/01/gender-pay-gap-widens-as-women-age.html https://www.census.gov/library/stories/2022/01/gender-pay-ga...
- kuboble 4y ago
  > Sure, you were able to "pull yourself up by your bootstraps". On the other side of the equation, the company paying you a pittance used your capitulation to drive down wages elsewhere, including in its home country. Well, that's exactly the point. The hypocrisy is to pretend it is concern about exploiting poor people while actually it's about protecting own high wages.
  - 4y ago
yeeted_african 4y ago
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- Strom 4y ago
  Your indentured slavery comment is a classic strawman and doesn't even apply. It's not a voluntary situation that someone signs up for.
  - thaumasiotes 4y ago
    > It's not a voluntary situation that someone signs up for. Huh? That is in fact the normal state of indentured servitude. Slavery is also commonly a voluntary situation; that's the whole concept of "selling yourself into slavery". > Until the late 18th century, indentured servitude was common in British America. It was often a way for Europeans to migrate to the American colonies: they signed an indenture in return for a costly passage. ( https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Indentured_servitude https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Indentured_servitude )
deleted 4y ago
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- deleted 4y ago
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zzzeek 4y ago
> If you complain someone is exploiting me, please give me a better job - or let me take my least worst option. that's what the so-called "social justice warriors" would be calling for here. OpenAI will be making hundreds of billions on this product and should pay the workers who do all the labor a generous wage with humane working conditions no matter where they live. Additionally, workers here were actually traumatized by the work itself, so much so that the contractor itself cancelled the job eight months early (!). So this is not really ethical and kudos to this article for highlighting the social injustice that OpenAI is apparently built upon. A sweatshop is a sweatshop and US companies ideally should not be profiting from them.

zht 4y ago

what about criticisms from fellow Kenyans who say that it is exploitation?

churchill 4y ago
Are their opinions more valid than that of the Kenyans that took these jobs? The government can mandate a "fair" wage, but the government never employs everyone at that rate. These "exploiters" are actually giving Africans money for their labor - I think I'm more on the side of those who pay money for an African's labor vs. those that stand on the sidelines and try to determine what is fair.

churchill 4y ago

In case you try to confirm these figures via Google, the exchange rates for the amounts I stated are based on the true (i.e., black) market rates (740 Naira/$1) instead of whatever Google shows.

andruby 4y ago
I don’t know about the situation in Nigeria. How come the black market rate (740) is so much higher than the “officia” markets (450)? Are there rules and regulations preventing access to the official forex markets?
- churchill 4y ago
  The government printed a lot of Nairas starting 2020 (COVID) when oil revenues dried up. The Naira's value plunged against the dollar. The Central Bank still insists the Naira is worth around 453/$1 while the free market insists it's much worse. So, the Central Bank continues to advertise N453/$1 but you can't swap your Nairas to dollars - only at black (i.e., free) market dealers who will give you the true market rate.
  - decremental 4y ago
    Black market currency dealers. Never thought I'd hear something like that.
    - churchill 4y ago
      Yes, price controls often do a "good" job of causing shortages. So, an alternative market appears to fill the need.
    - terafo 4y ago
      It isn't that uncommon in countries with relatively high rate of inflation. For example in Ukraine government set some strict monetary controls and it's not really possible to get USD in cash form from official exchanges.
    - 4y ago

pmarreck 4y ago

Thank you for this very important point. I was going to comment, "was it mutually-beneficial? was it consensual? If so, then where is the harm done?" but your firsthand experience said it much better. Glad you are succeeding (relatively).

th0ma5 4y ago
If you don't know the extent of the abuse because it is hidden from you then that certainly isn't consent.
- pmarreck 4y ago
  How exactly is it "abuse" to be paid a wage that is highly competitive with the other options in your given location and standard of living? Did you even read the comments from other Kenyans in this discussion? Your language is hyperbolic and ridiculous. Over time this lifts those economies up which then forces their pay to go up; it's like slow arbitrage over time. But as it's happening, yes, the paying companies get a better deal. Temporarily. And that is fine.

99_00 4y ago

[flagged]

churchill 4y ago
I think "self-anointed do-gooder" captures the idea perfectly. Many of these folks want to help Africans and many low-income countries, but arguments on Hacker News and government decrees don't help the poor. Only free trade, preferably between rich and poor countries, can lift the poor out of poverty. Initially, it starts in a way you might consider "unfair" but soon, that unskilled labor learns better skills and starts to negotiate better wages. So, like I said, many of these "do-gooders" sincerely want to help Africans but their approach hurts even more.
- bloodyplonker22 4y ago
  In addition, many of these virtue signalers are not donating their money or time to help with anything that they virtue signal on.
  - th0ma5 4y ago
    You see this in conservative virtue signaling so much, hardly any increase in adoption rates, not staying home if they're sick, etc
- wardedVibe 4y ago
  It's complicated, because some of our best examples of recently successfully developing economies (Japan, Korea, China) actually had pretty heavy state intervention and tariffs to protect growing industries.
panzagl 4y ago
Not sure why the downvotes- colonialism is a direct result of thinking we know better than 'those people'
- deleted 4y ago
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andrewstuart 4y ago

This is an eye opening response thank you and a great argument for getting valid work to Africans. The fact that it’s good for Africans doesn’t absolve rich Silicon Valley tech companies from doing better. Silicon Valley have developed an eye rolling bad reputation for many reasons. The CEO of such an organization would be a fool not to realize that this looks bad to the rest of the community. If I was a tech CEO id be extremely wary of paying anyone $2/hour. What about safety, entitlements, conditions, potential for child labor, hours worked etc. I totally agree that it’s good for African people to get the work but rich companies have to do a whole lot more than just agree to that and pay $2/hour. They have to ensure that if they’re going to do this sort of thing that not only are they paying the $2, they have 100% ensured the working rights of the people. And if they’re remotely smart they would go well beyond, for example sponsoring computer science university for 500 young people.

churchill 4y ago
I think it's okay - even preferable - if rich companies decide to pay more, but compared to the alternatives, this "exploitative" gig is actually doing more to lift Africans out of poverty. We've seen this experiment in China - in one generation, hundreds of millions of Chinese have made the leap from farm labor to the iPhone-owning middle class. I think companies can choose to pay better, but even if they choose to be "evil, greedy capitalists" it still beats the majority of local alternatives.
- deleted 4y ago
  [deleted]
naasking 4y ago
> They have to ensure that if they’re going to do this sort of thing that not only are they paying the $2, they have 100% ensured the working rights of the people. So you want every corporation to have a law enforcement or investigative journalism arm? How would that work exactly? What rights, specifically, should they be enforcing? European rights? American rights? Australian rights? The UN's human rights?
JamesBarney 4y ago

christkv 4y ago

Well done. I wish you all the success in the world.

churchill 4y ago
Thank you!

th0ma5 4y ago

A lot of so called "SJW" rhetoric is in support of being able to support yourself.

incrudible 4y ago
Unfortunately, that's all that it amounts to: Rhethoric.
make3 4y ago
talking about left wing discourse as a single unified entity is insane, when it's millions or billions of people with different beliefs, formations, etc. Like in everything else, some discourse will be productive and some will be misguided.
- monkeycantype 4y ago
  It’s not very hard to find smart, well informed left wing / progressive discussion - if that’s what you’re looking for. I think it would be great if we got better at recognising that a lot of political discussion pretty silly. The more attention we give to cranks when we straw man our political opposites by spotlighting the latest silly trite out of their mouths the more we elevate them within their own political tribe. I wonder if this might be easier to fix in Australia than the US because our compulsory voting system means politicians can’t win by mobilising their base, when everybody votes you need to persuade the other side to win
  - make3 4y ago
    compulsory vote in the US & Canada would be interesting. It also has no chance of happening as the right in the US is focusing so much energy making it hard for minorities to vote because they know it would fuck them
- thinking4real 4y ago
  Lol yes left wing discourse is just so broad and complex it can’t possibly be generalized when references.

vt85 4y ago

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purpleblue 4y ago

Thank you for this. It's so infuriating hearing all of this social justice nonsense from people who don't know anything about actual situations. Knowing that people are paid twice the minimum wage is great and that it's not exploitation.

altruios 4y ago
The shifting meaning of the word exploitation: Companies are 100% exploiting cheaper labor in other countries - they are only interested in the bottom line. opportunity and exploitation are not mutuality exclusive, nor does one person's opportunity erase another's exploitation. Creating opportunity is great: do that without exploiting people - that isn't a requirement. Praise opportunity given. Denounce exploitations not to remove opportunities - but to improve them.
- ben_w 4y ago
  "Exploitation" has at least two very different meanings. While I have seen some texts that used the word in the same sense for "exploiting an opportunity" and "exploiting our workers", I think most of the time the former is neutral and the latter either a scam or abuse.
- sekai 4y ago
  > Creating opportunity is great: do that without exploiting people - that isn't a requirement. Praise opportunity given. Denounce exploitations not to remove opportunities - but to improve them. How much should they pay the workers though? It's already stated that they are paid well above average wage in said country.
  - th0ma5 4y ago
    What a great example of how borders suppress wages!

andrewstuart 4y ago

You are perhaps placed very well to create an outsourcing company that serves the interests of Africans extremely well with entitlements, leave, healthcare, retirement, education and training and gives companies access to a lower cost workforce. You probably would need to lead all your corporate messaging around the points you have raised, and how much further your company goes than the minimum.

churchill 4y ago
I really haven't thought about this much but it's a brilliant idea. Maybe I can use it to get into YC & raise 1 bajillion from a16z?
- andrewstuart 4y ago
  No doubt Sam Altman is open to hearing about how to purchase African labor without any of the publicity downside - hit him up for a few mill. ChatGPT is riding high, it does not need Nike style bad publicity to bring the story down. You would need to be actually ethical rather than marketing ethical - I don't know you so I don't know if you know the difference. Certainly there's no shortage of Silicon Valley "characters" who don't. It's a very powerful "good news story" to sell to potential clients: --> lower cost workforce --> positive life benefit for the African people, lifting people to better lives --> western style work protections at African costs --> "publicity positive" for buyers versus "publicity negative" You would not believe the power of "lower cost workforce" in gaining new clients. If you know a bunch of African programmers then it should not be hard to find work for them at $x/hour to western clients. Any employer that wishes to show it cares for African people and wants to help them to a better life really SHOULD be buying services from your new company. Remember in places like Australia, the banks - who are the biggest buyers of outsources international programmer resources - would consider $40/hour to be an absolute bargain.
  - churchill 4y ago
    I understand what you mean & I 100% stand behind the idea of better-paying jobs for locals, in a way that makes affordable labor available to customers. It's not a zero-sum game - you don't have to treat people like trash to get any value out of their labor.

sharemywin 4y ago

So what happens when most if not all of the assignments dry up because of GPT?

ben_w 4y ago
Given what GPT can already do, whatever it is that comes next, us software developers will have to start doing it too.
- nirav72 4y ago
  Software developers will be fine. Chatgpt is no where near replacing a mid-level developer. Maybe it could be different in 10-15 years. But right now, more often it simply outputs garbage once you up the complexity. Even if the output code was workable, one still has to make it fit into their larger code. Which still requires an understanding of how the code works. Don’t get me wrong - chatgpt could be a great tool for learning. At the very least, it can teach a person on how to ask the right question.
  - ben_w 4y ago
    We have no way of knowing how long it will take to replace us. A developer of a Go AI said much the same about Go two years before AlphaGo won: """After the match, I ask Coulom when a machine will win without a handicap. "I think maybe ten years," he says. "But I do not like to make predictions."""" - https://www.wired.com/2014/05/the-world-of-computer-go/ https://www.wired.com/2014/05/the-world-of-computer-go/ On the other hand, in 2009 I said "ten years" about consumer purchasable self driving cars good enough to not bother with a steering wheel, and that didn't happen. Seemed plausible to me even during the intervening years, given the videos Tesla was putting out. But, didn't happen. But however long it takes, if companies like OpenAI et al can no longer benefit from humans rating the results (which is what I was replying to), then their AIs are going to be ready to replace us too.

sharemywin 4y ago

[flagged]

churchill 4y ago
Like I said somewhere else, I appreciate long theories about "creating a more just and equitable global economy" but until it comes, I will take an option that is significantly better than anything I can get locally. I'm not against paying workers more - not at all. But, most often, "exploiters" are willing to pay $2 per hour while social justice campaigners are willing to pay "thoughts, prayers, and rhetoric." It's an easy choice between $2/hr and thoughts and prayers, especially when $2/hr is miles ahead of what the worker is getting at the moment.
- Jagombus 4y ago
  "But until it comes I will take an option that is significantly better than anything I can get locally." You support the idea of a just and equitable economy, but until it comes you'll sit on the sidelines and perpetuate and support entities that maintain the opposite? Look, I admire where you came from and your success, but you've internalized capitalism and justified its side effects as a result. I too came from nothing and am now successful (relatively).
  - churchill 4y ago
    This is my problem with wannabe social reformers - they make long speeches about helping the poor & fixing wealth inequality. Which is great, but they never do anything. I don't want conceptual help; I want actual dollars & "exploitative" companies actually pay workers real dollars. I care for the poor, and I support any system that gives them real cash instead of "thoughts and prayers."
    - Jagombus 4y ago
      I'm talking about you, and you're talking about yourself. You're making a big fuss about "SJWs" who offer thoughts and prayers and saying you welcome a more equitable system, but that you will continue perpetuating the feedback loop of inequality until someone else comes along and fixes it. Instead of feeding into a system that you claim nobody else making these lengthy speeches is actually working to fix, why not take steps to join the swafts of people making real efforts to fix it? You're generalizing a bunch of people as grifters who are working in the self-interest of the disenfranchised. I'm an atheist, and I don't offer thoughts and prayers. I offer discourse, and change starts with that. I think you're trying to generalize an entire group of people because you've seen several politicians grift. There are leftists out there that genuinely want to help. But the left and the right is has been infiltrated with fallacious ideas of a self-regulating market, a concept that we've seen exploit children and poor communities across the globe over and over again. And the only thing you have to say is "well at least these poor people are getting paid more dollars than they would be?"

quitit 4y ago

Reminds me of the chinese factories we used. We paid the staff to take downtime, otherwise they'd use free time to work in other factories. Their goal was simple: make a dowry or funds to support the family in the village. Once that was achieved they'd not return after Chinese new year. Every year 15-20% of assembly workers would not return after CNY.

latchkey 4y ago
At least in Vietnam, there is something similar... the 13th month of salary. Stay long enough for your Tet holiday bonus and then switch jobs after getting back to work from VNY. Usually for a higher paying job because now you had more experience.

eddsh1994 4y ago

I've seen a similar argument about Chinese "sweat shops" where they were paying above the average salaries for the area & if the work went it'd be disastrous economically for the village. Sometimes you have to be realistic - if the amount earned is good for the area then it's trending in the right way.

autoexec 4y ago
> if the amount earned is good for the area then it's trending in the right way. Absolutely not. There's no reason to accept sweatshops just because workers are being paid to be exploited. There's no reason at all that workers in those places couldn't be paid just as well (if not better really) without all of the other issues commonly found in sweatshops like horrific and dangerous working conditions, child labor, sexual abuse, and human rights violations. There's no giving corporations a pass on their use of sweatshops just because they're giving the desperate people they exploit a little more than they could get themselves. That's not "trending in the right way" it's just greed and exploitation. For example, a person who is starving to death will be extremely grateful when someone gives them even rotten and moldy food. They'll accept the food even if the person offering it makes them first perform horrible immoral acts to get it, but that doesn't make it right and the person forcing starving people to do terrible things for spoiled scraps is still an asshole even if it fills that person's stomach for the night
- eddsh1994 4y ago
  Remove the sweatshop and there are higher suicide rates, less access to healthcare, less schooling, and worse standards of living. These may be counterintuitive but have been studied.
  - autoexec 4y ago
    Higher suicide rates when they aren't locking workers inside under watch and putting nets up around tall buildings? Not exploiting starving men in exchange for spoiled food can be proven to result in increased deaths too. Doesn't make the exploitation okay. Companies can continue to employ overseas labor at attractive rates without allowing those workplaces to be sweatshops and we should insist that they do, not give them a pass to abuse people for profit just because they throw the people they hurt scraps in the process.

monkeycantype 4y ago

Can I please ask where I can find out about the sites Africans use to find online work? In the past I’ve used the highly advertised freelance sites for small pieces of work, and I like the idea of sending the money somewhere where Australian wages are are a lot of money.

churchill 4y ago
Upwork, LinkedIn, and Andela are some good places to start.
asdefghyk 4y ago
Why not use google, as a start ? ie for Kenya .... https://www.google.com/search?q=site%3Ake+data+entry&oq=site%3Ake+data+entry https://www.google.com/search?q=site%3Ake+data+entry&oq=site... Is for google the phrase site:ke data entry or maybe a more targeted search Or maybe find local job sites?, to hire (virtual assistant) workers directly to cut out freelancer site commission ( but with increased risk .... etc )
realAzazello 4y ago
It's getting harder to get a web-searchable answer, because in countries like Kenya 'good' jobs like this aren't publicly advertised. Yes, really - not publicized! Fact: a lot of jobs (in Kenya, at least) from corporations and international NGOs, come with a deadline to submit your application - yet, the job isn't posted anywhere until 1-2 weeks before the deadline, AND then only on the company's website! Kenya has private job posting sites that obviously crawl the company's pages for listing updates; and this helps to at least get the jobs publicized. But none of these sites have the sophisticated scraping systems like i.e. Indeed.com For "social enterprises" work, it's all made worse because of the bad press and lawsuits that Sama/Samasource -YET AGAIN- and similar companies have been getting into within the last year, re: https://www.wired.com/story/social-enterprise-technology-africa/ https://www.wired.com/story/social-enterprise-technology-afr... These Companies have now stopped (i.e. hidden, temporarily) their listings for "content moderators" and "image labelers". I guess the only way Kenyans are going to find about these jobs are through some connection with current employees; informal sources like Whatsapp groups; or Sama's recruiters sourcing exclusively within the country, so as to not put more international spotlight on their company.

iso1631 4y ago

This is about Kenya though, not Nigeria. Minimum wage in Kenya is twice that in Nigeria at $122 a month.

churchill 4y ago
Working 40 hours a week at $2/hr is still $320 per month. That's nearly 3x Kenya's minimum wage. Besides, the government doesn't guarantee every Kenyan $122 a month so the real heroes are those who actually pay that money out-of-pocket.
- iso1631 4y ago
  It's about the minimum wage for a caretaker or lorry driver.
realAzazello 4y ago
How depressing is it that we're all calmly discussing how a nation's minimum wage is $61 per month.
- iso1631 4y ago
  Cost of living is far cheaper too, assuming you avoid western aimed areas

tehjoker 4y ago

The free market so called allows foreign companies to undermine African countries native industries and set wage floors at the global minimum. A global minimum wage with a system of cooperation and technology transfer and nationalization of companies would massively benefit workers the world over.

lolinder 4y ago
... except for in places like Nigeria and Kenya, because if there were a global minimum wage then companies would hire in countries that are more stable and predictable.

_cenw 4y ago

Less bad exploitation is still exploitation. I'm happy this is work that can help uplift people in third world countries and I don't want the work moved elsewhere. However, Open AI can absolutely afford to pay more than $2 an hour for this sort of job, irregardless of the local economy and who does it - and they absolutely should.

lolinder 4y ago
What everyone complaining about what OpenAI can "afford" is missing is that if OpenAI were to pay more, the only rational thing for them to do would be to move the jobs to another country that has lower risk levels. This would leave Kenya without the jobs at all. Thinking you can have both higher wages and jobs in unstable countries is either advocating for state-mandated outsourcing or is wishful thinking.
- absrd 4y ago
  If a company acts unethically that is bad, even if it's in the company's rational self-interest. It rings especially hollow when the company's supposed mission is to "ensure AI benefits all of humanity"
- _cenw 4y ago
  Ethics and current day globalized economics don't always mix well. It would still be the right thing to do.
Terretta 4y ago
> Less bad exploitation is still exploitation. Your statement is problematic, because (a) clearly at some point "less bad" stops being what anyone defines as exploitation, and (b) if you're not living in the tradeoff space, you're not qualified to judge where that crossover is. There certainly is exploitation to be found*, but paying a multiple of all other opportunities, even if that multiple is below what is available in a different context, is not exploitation. It's putting a thumb on the scale, accelerating the tilt towards equity. * There are articles about labeling or screening done by workers in USA that are as PTSD-inducing as the linked stories, where people were paid US wage and had to quit. Don't confuse the job with the pay, these are two different issues. // Disclosure: I grew up in central Africa. In my teens I worked in the local tech economy, not the expat economy.

jxramos 4y ago

Interesting the term of do-gooder. Reminds me of this comment this fella shared about his pop. https://youtu.be/NS4UT_t73b0?t=967 https://youtu.be/NS4UT_t73b0?t=967 > 16:07 my father once said to me, I'll never forget this as long as I live, he doesn't like a reformer or as he used to call em a "do-gooder" in office. He used to call em do-gooders. > > I said "why pop?", he said "because every time they get in office it seems like all the businesses go out. Nothing happens in business. They make it tough for a guy to operate in business."

th0ma5 4y ago
What a great admission that business often operates at the expense of society.
- jxramos 4y ago
  non-sequitur. I did see this occur personally with this breakfast joint that closed down when some law changed that required some minimum benefits or something or other that added to the payroll expenses and made the venture not worth it. I remember the owner going around informing the guests at their tables that they'd be closing in the next month and if anyone knew of any jobs for their employees they'd welcome the suggestions. It was one of the rare breakfast places in town so it was very missed by us when it bailed. Eventually that location became a Five Guys. It took several years but eventually another breakfast place moved into town.
  - SturgeonsLaw 4y ago
    If a business needs to underpay its staff to survive then it has a faulty business model, so it deserves to fail, and to be replaced by something more robust.

ninjagoo 4y ago

Equal pay for equal work is not a hard concept to understand - it is basic fairness. Deriding advocates of this as "SJW in SF or NY" or "self-anointed do-gooders" indicates a lack of empathy, lack of thought around the broader implications, or in the worst case, capitalistic psychopathy. Sure, you were able to "pull yourself up by your bootstraps". On the other side of the equation, the company paying you a pittance used your capitulation to drive down wages elsewhere, including in its home country. There's a reason why maybe women as a group in this day and age continue to earn only 82 cents on the $ that men make [1]. It is easy for a company to play off the "Nigerian" group of workers willing to accept a pittance against the "Women" group of workers living in a High COL area. Sure, you got your quadruple pay, while some woman here went without money for medicine and died before her time. Nigerian Low COL today can be attributed to colonialism - Europeans extracted the multi-generational wealth in that region and left it impoverished within a short period of time, and it takes time to build that wealth back (real rate of return is typically 2-3%) so everything costs less because that's all the people living there can afford to pay for local consumables and durables like, well, food, or housing. Now the (actual or philosophical) descendants of those Europeans play off the impoverished Nigerians against the local Women to exploit both groups. So instead of fighting to correct the structural injustices of either colonialism or labor exploitation, the English-speaking Nigerians 'pulling themselves up by their bootstraps' lobby for the continued abrogation of equal-pay-for-equal-work and deride the people advocating for structural justice in the form of equal-pay-for-equal-work as "social justice warriors in SF or NY" or "self-anointed do-gooders". Bravo! 1. https://www.census.gov/library/stories/2022/01/gender-pay-gap-widens-as-women-age.html https://www.census.gov/library/stories/2022/01/gender-pay-ga...

kuboble 4y ago
> Sure, you were able to "pull yourself up by your bootstraps". On the other side of the equation, the company paying you a pittance used your capitulation to drive down wages elsewhere, including in its home country. Well, that's exactly the point. The hypocrisy is to pretend it is concern about exploiting poor people while actually it's about protecting own high wages.
- 4y ago

yeeted_african 4y ago

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Strom 4y ago
Your indentured slavery comment is a classic strawman and doesn't even apply. It's not a voluntary situation that someone signs up for.
- thaumasiotes 4y ago
  > It's not a voluntary situation that someone signs up for. Huh? That is in fact the normal state of indentured servitude. Slavery is also commonly a voluntary situation; that's the whole concept of "selling yourself into slavery". > Until the late 18th century, indentured servitude was common in British America. It was often a way for Europeans to migrate to the American colonies: they signed an indenture in return for a costly passage. ( https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Indentured_servitude https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Indentured_servitude )

deleted 4y ago

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deleted 4y ago
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zzzeek 4y ago

> If you complain someone is exploiting me, please give me a better job - or let me take my least worst option. that's what the so-called "social justice warriors" would be calling for here. OpenAI will be making hundreds of billions on this product and should pay the workers who do all the labor a generous wage with humane working conditions no matter where they live. Additionally, workers here were actually traumatized by the work itself, so much so that the contractor itself cancelled the job eight months early (!). So this is not really ethical and kudos to this article for highlighting the social injustice that OpenAI is apparently built upon. A sweatshop is a sweatshop and US companies ideally should not be profiting from them.