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Comment by Antecedent | Hacker News Reader

There is very little real unemployment in America. Most people just think themselves too good to cut lawns, chop meat, pick fruit, fillet fish, or work on a factory line.

Why would we want to enable snobbery?

Let’s have UBI when there actually are no jobs. Not when there are just no fun jobs.

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> Most people just think themselves too good to cut lawns, chop meat, pick fruit, fillet fish, or work on a factory line.

Most people just think they wouldn't get paid enough for doing that. If the job is the very opposite of fun but doesn't pay significantly more than unemployment then that's not the fault of potential workers.

Considering how unfun and stressful jobs like package delivery are but still get people to do it, I wonder how bad the pay and/or work conditions are for widely unfilled positions.

These jobs are often filled by immigrants who don't have the same options as citizens. If being unemployed and living off of benefits is not an option, the unfun and stressful jobs become a lot more attractive.

Keeping one-self away from harmful jobs, physically, psychologically or economically is not snobbery, it is self-care.

Most jobs are harmful in some way. Shall we only allow some people to practice self-care, while we ask others to do those same harmful jobs so the self-carers may enjoy what the harmful jobs produce?

Harmful jobs should pay accordingly. Some will self sacrifice for the potential higher earnings.

Sure. In a lot of ways, that's how it is today. There are exceptions, but by and large you get a bonus for dangerous and hazardous work. You might not make as much as a SWE, but you'll make more than someone with comparable training and education if your job is more dangerous.

We already have plenty of people (and, more and more we have machines) filling those roles. We don’t need more.

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