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Phone thieves in Brazil have an easy target: Gig workers
- yetihehe 3y agoSoon, to deliver pizza you will need something like this: "The Deliverator belongs to an elite order, a hallowed sub-category. He's got esprit up to here. Right now he is preparing to carry out his third mission of the night. His uniform is black as activated charcoal, filtering the very light out of the air. A bullet will bounce off its arachno-fiber weave like a wren hitting a patio door, but excess perspiration wafts through it like a breeze through a freshly napalmed forest. Where his body has bony extremities, the suit has sintered armorgel: feels like gritty jello, protects like a stack of telephone books."
- fakedang 3y agoTo be fair, this isn't a gig worker problem, it's a Brazil problem. Coming to most cities near you soon!
- youngNed 3y agoSadly, no: https://www.theguardian.com/world/2023/sep/20/foreign-delivery-riders-face-gang-attacks-dublin https://www.theguardian.com/world/2023/sep/20/foreign-delive...
- fakedang 3y agoAs I said, coming to a city near you (might've already arrived in some cases).
- rmellow 3y ago> They threw rocks and bottles and sticks and if they succeeded in knocking over the rider sometimes followed up with fists and knives and seized the bicycle as a trophy. This is different from what happens in Brazil. That situation looks like it's primarily driven by sadism, whereas in Brazil it tends to be primarily financially motivated, though sometimes sadism is a secondary objective.
- youngNed 3y agoGig workers are an easy target, in Brazil, in Ireland, in the UK, wherever. Whether they are being attacked for their phone, for their bike, because racism, whatever. It doesn't change that they are an easy target. This is a gig worker problem, not a Brazil problem.
- rocketbop 3y agoIt's a gig worker problem but it's also a much larger societal problem, particularly in the Irish case. The kids who get involved in those attacks would look for other targets if there were no gig workers. The roots behind that include poverty, stagnant residential areas with few prospects, and of course lots of other things like more general cultural deficiencies in the national psyche. I'm sure there are good social historians who can describe this far better than I can. The GP's description of the behaviour as sadistic is pretty on point, I think, and makes it more despicable and worrying than when the cause is financial.
- tetromino_ 3y agoAlready here in NYC, although the thieves are primarily after bikes and scooters instead of phones: https://www.curbed.com/article/nyc-delivery-workers.html https://www.curbed.com/article/nyc-delivery-workers.html