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Comment by grecy | Hacker News Reader

> It's pretty terrible when people on HN pine for the days of less developed countries (no worker protections, no labor/safety regulations).

The Developed World can not continue with it's standard of living, it's simply not sustainable. Something has to give.

The way I see it, services like Uber and airbnb can slowly chip it down to something sustainable, or we can hold onto it until the bitter end when it all comes crashing down.

Also, just because a job is offered with no worker protections, no labor/safety regulations etc, it doesn't mean a person has to take it. People vote through their actions.

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> The Developed World can not continue with it's standard of living, it's simply not sustainable. Something has to give.

That's not true _at all_. How productive are self-driving cars going to be with no drivers? And electric powertrains? Very! Why would a government allow Uber to have a monopoly on that? They're government owned roads!

You can entirely continue to provide a high quality of life to citizens of a developed country using automation and software.

Shall we continue to socialize the losses and privatize the gains in society? Pardon me for being crass, but fuck that noise.

> That's not true _at all_.

Go and spend some time in the developing world, then you'll reevaluate that statement.

What you don't see/realize is that we've simply outsourced slavery. The reason your iPhone, etc. are so damn cheap is becuase there are slaves building it, who have a standard of living way, way, way lower than yours.

I'm saying it has to equalize globally, which means our has to come down.

I cried when I visited the silver mines in Bolivia - http://theroadchoseme.com/potosi

> What you don't see/realize is that we've simply outsourced slavery. The reason your iPhone, etc. are so damn cheap is becuase there are slaves building it, who have a standard of living way, way, way lower than yours.

Foxconn is replacing most of its workers with robots. Most work can be replaced with software and/or robotics in the next 5-20 years.

> I'm saying it has to equalize globally, which means our has to come down.

Completely disagree. Perhaps on meat consumption, and petroleum use (both which need to decline across the entire world).

> I cried when I visited the silver mines in Bolivia

There are responsible ways for mining for the resources you need.

That has more to do with poor governance than rich countries consuming too much. Bolivia has all the natural resources necessary to provide its people with a high quality of life, but education and corruption act against that.

I live in the country that makes your iPhone. Same here also.

But still , that calls for something like UBER with democratic vote over it's decisions. And since most people will be consumers ,not employees of that service , the incentive towards how to manage it's drivers would be the same.

> But still , that calls for something like UBER with democratic vote over it's decisions. And since most people will be consumers ,not employees of that service , the incentive towards how to manage it's drivers would be the same.

You mean like mass transit provided by a government org? You own the roads, you make the rules.

And people are really bad at making decisions with long term repercussions. Take smoking, drinking, texting while driving, driving without a seatbelt, eating too much, sitting too much, spending all day staring at a computer screen, not sleeping enough, etc. Humans are short-term thinkers. So if you ask a poor person "would you rather protect your industry and reduce the risk to your health, or keep getting paid"... well look at all the people working in coal mines. They sacrifice their health, their neighbors health, their economy, and their planet just to have a paycheck.

People vote with their actions. But people are short sighted, selfish, and greedy. That's why labor regulations and unions were invented. It's just been so long since the days before unions and regulations were created that everyone thinks they're useless. It's been so long since it rained that you start wondering why you have a roof over your house. You'll remember soon enough.

I'm not following your logic of how airbnb and uber are standard of living equalizers.

First, most people employed by the industries being disrupted by these companies (hotels and taxicab companies) are taxicab drivers, maids, bellhops, front desk. All relatively low-paying jobs already.

Paying people at the bottom less keeps prices low. Therefore, people with disposable income can the spend the same amount of money and get more goods and services. It raises the standard of living for the middle-upper class while pushing people in these low paying jobs closer to poverty.

This is not a diatribe against these companies or the free market. I just don't agree with you. These companies are actually raising our standard of living. Giving us more money and time to consume things and spend more money.

> I'm not following your logic of how airbnb and uber are standard of living equalizers.

Globally, I mean, to bring our standard of living closer to those people who are for example building our iPhones for pennies.

The standard of living in the developed world has to come down closer to theirs, and one of the ways we'll do that is through things like uber and airbnb because they are a lot less heavily regulated, and result in less employee income/safety/security etc. I.e. the people who "work" for uber are closer to those in the developing world, than those working for the current taxi scheme in a developed country

Okay, but did you not see my response? People who work for uber are already at the bottom of the proverbial food chain in America. Your use of the word "our" in "our standard of living" is puzzling since you are most likely middle class. Paying them less will marginally raise your standard of living since you could presumably afford more taxi rides.

>it doesn't mean a person has to take it

That's fine as long as the job market is good. Have you considered that those that control enough levers in government might want to keep the job market poor in order to force low wages and less protections? This is how union-busting happens.

The Federal Reserve specifically targets a "healthy" amount of unemployment to prevent inflation.

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