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Comment by thiagoperes | Hacker News Reader

First of all, no job should be considered dirty.

Second, if you go to places like Netherlands, Norway and Japan you'll see that it's not about money. Higher education prepares workers to do more complex, more efficient and more productive jobs.

Also, the society is more conscious about not having someone to do stupid things for them like collecting their trays after they eat at the McDonadls, this is YOUR responsibility as a member of a society, to look for others as well.

So in Amsterdam for example, street cleaning and trash collection are done with specialized vehicles. In Denmark, subways are autonomous.

I like to believe that as you increase education and income, the people that would be considered "dumb" in an very unequal society will spend their time developing technologies to automate tasks no one likes to perform and increase productivity.

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Your parent probably meant dirty in a very physical way, not, as you seem to have taken it, a demeaning way. I don't think of "dumb" when I hear "dirty"; maybe the popular Discovery TV Show "Dirty Jobs" is a reason for that.

Also, while I've never been to Norway or Netherlands, I think you're underestimating the number of "dirty jobs" that support you. Who's tilling the land? Mining the minerals? Excavating land? Driving the garbage trunks? Emptying the lobster traps? De-greasing the engines? Tending the public spaces?

I'm not against legalized prostitution, but I think its a strong strike against any claims of higher responsibility towards society.

Yes, many of these things might be automated one day, but that seems far away (a century at least). Your parent's question is valid and, as far as I'm concerned, there's no place on earth that comes remotely close to what you seem to be describing.

> First of all, no job should be considered dirty.

Some jobs, such as cleaning, and collecting waste, literally deal with dirt. I don't think he was using "dirty" as an insult.

You're suggesting that people that would be considered "dumb" today will suddenly start inventing automation of street cleaning, trash collection, and the like if we implement a basic income and better education?

That strikes me as an extraordinary claim.

Yeah, it's more like the people owning the waste companies that would try to drive up automation because of the high costs associated with manual labor.

They meant in the industrial relations sense of being "dirty" Jobs which traditionally came with a premium - sewer workers dustmen steel workers both because its unplesant work and there s also a risk premium.

Its why a pit deputy (coal miner) in the UK can charge £2k for a single weekend shift.

I don't think there are any "pits" in the UK anymore - the last deep coal mine closed at the end of 2015:

http://www.theguardian.com/environment/2015/dec/18/kellingle...

Ah this might have been before that i was at a training course for TUPE and some of the senior Union Guys where there on the same course.

> Also, the society is more conscious about not having someone to do stupid things for them like collecting their trays after they eat at the McDonadls, this is YOUR responsibility as a member of a society, to look for others as well.

To play devil's advocate, why? If my time is more valuable than a McDonald's worker's, why should I be wasting it on cleaning up trays?

Your argument could easily be extended to saying that restaurants are in general frivolous. Isn't feeding yourself a fundamental responsibility as a member of society? Except that destroying restaurants would actually be quite economically negative.

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