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Comment by goldenchrome | Hacker News Reader

I’ve found that most people seek fulfillment by being useful. Being useful means that you can see how your labor benefits the people in your community. Many jobs that exist today don’t feel useful because there are too many layers of abstraction between the labor and the societal benefit. Many people even feel that their labor is a net negative for society. Unemployment benefits may provide a living but I don’t think it’s viable for your soul long term because you know you’re not being useful. However, it’s better than working hard for no good reason and getting paid the same, or less.

If our society is too efficient, we run out of ways to give people meaning.

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An additional data point: retail.

Retail workers are treated incredibly poorly, and the American customer frequently uses the interaction to establish the social class hierarchy for themselves.

This group was also ongoingly and repeatedly thrown to the wolves in COVID responses, being most exposed to the possibility of dying from the virus.

It is no surprise that the places which can't find workers are restaurants and retail outlets.

Perhaps spend a few years cleaning toilets for a living and report back to us on how fulfilling it is to benefit people in your community. The very same people who will look down on you as a total looser for doing such a shitty job. Perhaps that will change your mind?

Obvious that a lot of folks in the tech community did not grow up a poor Appalachian boy.

Welfare is a plague.

I know so many people who did not work because it would cut into their welfare.

I know so many homes that lived lies (separate fake addresses, never marrying) so they could get welfare.

I've seen welfare programs (wic, food stamps) exchanged for cash..

I've seen emergency rooms abused with medical cards (something most yuppies do not even know exists --- most do not seem to know most poor people already get free healthcare).

It's a sad thing. Reality on the privileged persons terms, I guess.

So using your logic, we should also stop having CEO’s because some of them enrich themselves instead of doing their job? And stop having politicians because some of them are corrupt and take bribes? And get rid of all police because some cops are dangerous and corrupt? Where do we stop? Or do you think that only rich people deserve to cheat and misuse the power they have? Why are you selecting only the most desperate and low status/underprivileged people for punishment? Yes some people, rich and poor, take advantage. That doesn’t mean that all should pay for it.

Are you saying since other people do bad things we shouldnt aim to design systems that put productive people first?

At least in these other, and we agree equally scummy cases, theres some run-off benefit we can assume given the higher levels of profit and/or related risk.

"...get rid of all police because some cops are dangerous and corrupt" because I said I've seen welfare do more harm than good? Geez, makes total sense.

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