Hacker News Reader

Comment by koolba | Hacker News Reader

> Yeah, why don't they just get a job paying twice as much where they don't have to sleep in a tent? Silly peasants. And how is a Google software engineering making six figures, sleeping in a van in 68 degree California, any different from a minimum wage worker sleeping in a tent in a field in the middle-of-winter Scotland?

If the circumstances are so dire that the worker has no other choices for employment, the alternative is no employment at all. That's the baseline comparison point for whatever job Amazon is providing and the worker always has that option as well.

Amazon is not a charity, it's a for-profit company, and arguably by building the warehouse and providing jobs it's doing more long term good than a charity would by handing out sandwiches.

Comments like yours bring to mind the phrase "No good deed goes unpunished". Would they be better off with no jobs at all?

View on HN

I'm kind of amazed by the basest level of empathy that seems to be missing among many in our industry. I'm not even arguing what the right solution is - that is certainly debatable. But given how good we have it as software engineers, when someone's best option is to sleep in a tent for their work, and we comment "how is that any different from someone making twenty times as much voluntarily choosing to live in a van?", it sounds awful close to "Let them eat cake."

I think it could be argued the other way around. The point he was making, of which there are many examples, is that these jobs are better than no job at all.

You can be "empathetic" by pushing for higher minimum wages, but your empathy will more likely hurt the very people you want to help - the unskilled workers.

As is often the case with "feel good" legislation it typical does more harm than good - in the long run.

> You can be "empathetic" by pushing for higher minimum wages...

But that's my point - I'm specifically not advocating any particular policy solution. I'm just advocating that we, who were lucky enough to be born in a highly developed country and are lucky enough to be highly compensated for our work, can at least acknowledge that someone else's position sucks and is unfair, instead of basically thinking "he's lucky he even has a job, he should be grateful."

I'd also argue that it's one thing to say what is possible in the current system, but I think it should be possible to acknowledge that something about the system feels wrong. I mean, some of these exact same arguments are made by the aristocrats in Downton Abbey ("These servants sure are lucky that we exist to give them jobs.")

> But that's my point - I'm specifically not advocating any particular policy solution. I'm just advocating that we, who were lucky enough to be born in a highly developed country and are lucky enough to be highly compensated for our work, can at least acknowledge that someone else's position sucks and is unfair, instead of basically thinking "he's lucky he even has a job, he should be grateful."

> I'd also argue that it's one thing to say what is possible in the current system, but I think it should be possible to acknowledge that something about the system feels wrong. I mean, some of these exact same arguments are made by the aristocrats in Downton Abbey ("These servants sure are lucky that we exist to give them jobs.")

Not using every critique on a topic as a chance to express empathy does not mean one does not have any. IMNSHO, I think I have a ton of empathy. But I have a hell of a lot more rationality and I'd much rather express the latter.

If you're cold, empathy might get you a hug but rationality will get you a coat.

I am not an economist but Krugman is, a left leaning one at that which spent a large time arguing against Bush/Trump. And he is arguing a similar position:

http://www.slate.com/articles/business/the_dismal_science/19...

(This is getting close to politics, a really tiresome subject which happily is banned right now on HN.)

> (This is getting close to politics, a really tiresome subject which happily is banned right now on HN.)

Nope that ban is gone[1].

[1]: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13131251

The politics ban ended early. This has been explained now in countless threads.

I don't know. It sounds an awful lot like your position is that we're only allowed to criticise whoever offers work, and not allowed to defend them. Because they're offering work to poor people?

Should companies only ever offer work to rich people? That sounds a lot like class-based genocide.

Maybe you should try harder to see if maybe there's an underlying assumption you're making that's incorrect? Have you heard of the Double Crux? Read up on it on Less Wrong.

See my answer below to another commenter. I'm not even criticizing Amazon. I'm criticizing tone-deaf people on this board who think that it's the same thing when a rich software engineer chooses to live sparsely as when a poor person lives in a tent so they can get a minimum wage job.

I'd rather Amazon pay higher wages. I would pay more for Prime to support that. I also shop at Costco because they pay their employees good wages. We should avoid races to the bottom.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com