People on TikTok are paying elderly women to sit in stagnant mud for hours, cry
restofworld.org
restofworld.org
It's a shame, and I'm a person that would not endure indignity like this for any amount of money (probably unless it was a ludicrous amount; we really don't know until the money is on the table in front of us), and I'm sure there are lots of proud people like me, but when these people say they'd rather do this than toil in the fields for $2 I have to say, as disgusting as it is, it's their choice.
To say you don't like it is to say you wish there weren't people willing to pay for this, perhaps you find those people disgusting, and that you wish these people could find a less degrading way to make good money, but at least for me, it is not to say that you think they should be prohibited from doing it.
People who endure this humiliation usually have few other options. In the case of room cleaning, the downsides are largely intrinsic to the job and not necessarily immoral in my point of view - even if we should put mechanisms in place to try to get these people better pay. However, in the case of the TikTok videos, it's purely about exploiting the desperation of others, so I can't put it in the same level as normal unpleasant jobs.
It's the people willing to hurt others for money that bother me most. The ones knowingly selling poisoned or unsafe products because they'll save a fraction of a cent per unit sold. That's "dirty money" to me. It's usually being done by people who already have obscene amounts of wealth too, but even in cases where someone is struggling to feed themselves or their children it doesn't give them the right to hurt others. That's a choice. People who scam and exploit others for profit are just evil.
Maybe it shouldn't be ok, and we should level the field a bit instead?
It's "them" not being able to have enough. Mostly it's not even a supply-side problem: huge amounts of humanitarian aid go to e.g. certain parts of Africa. It's the local power structures that want to stay on top and subdue or crush any competition, and / or advance some religious cause. They don't care about their population starving. They directly forbid and resist e.g. handing out too much food, etc, because it undermines positions of their power, their chokehold on resources.
This can't be realistically solved by sending even more aid (it will convert into even more corruption, yachts, and houses in Toronto and London). It can't even be solved with bombs, bullets, and removal of the current crop of corrupt petty dictators: a new crop would appear instantly.
This likely can be healed by relatively slow education, information, economic nudges, and providing examples of well-functioning societies.
I think education is one thing, but some form of financial or economic aid is probably also needed, but how to do it in a way that sustainably improves the economy is hard.
It's not that simple! This looks to be the case when you're the center of your own universe, but the effects cascade to everyone around them-- once landlords and merchants realize all these wage slaves now have money to burn, they raise prices of everything to capture as much of that as they can. You can no longer remain solvent as a $2 rice-picker; in order to compete with the prostitutes, you're forced to become one yourself. It's only the illusion of choice; if there were a way to make that much money through other means, you'd be doing it already.
This "hack" only works if you're among the first few people to do it. Once everybody is doing it, supply outpaces demand, and now you have to do something even more degrading to stand out from the others in competing to earn the privilege of sucking off some schlub. It's a race to the bottom...and beyond.
Lack of control for inflation is why UBI won't ever work, and why fraud and prostitution are problems. Much as we can't survive off of eating our own shit, you can't have a sustainable economy or civilized society built on rampant cannibalization.
That's why we'll never have UBI: because people are (apparently) fine with this.
As long as we- as a society, allow people to prey (read- profit) off other people it will remain this way.
I believe more and more of us are not OK with this, but it doesn't matter.
The problem is that the people with the money have the power to keep things as they are.
Voting doesn't work, they lobby and own our government.
We need a new way of doing things.
I am not okay with this, and I noticed that people just say "Well it's better than starving" like that's the obvious other choice.
I don't think it is - we could get rid of the system that causes this, or modify it somehow.
There are too many people who just can't see past the system at all. It's like Newspeak where they can't even form a thought that the system could be at fault.
There was a time not that long ago where every human born on this earth had to claw through the mud day in and day out to scrape together survival. A lot of people still live this way, as do all wild animals, and it was like this for all of time before, for every living creature on this earth. This is the nature of life. The system you talk about has created a world where a lot of humans, the majority of them and more humans than even existed 100 years ago, do not have to claw their way to survival until the fateful day they fail. That's not to say it still isn't hard to survive, but it is not as hard for most people as the natural state.
I'd like a world too where nobody has to suffer indignity to feed themselves, but that world requires more of what we have created, not less.
After all, in other first world counties, even those without strong regulations, landlords and merchants don't capture all of your profit.
Your second point about supply of this type of content outpacing demand is valid, though.
A world without social media algorithmic feeds would be extremely tolerable and even better for the vast majority of people in the world.
A world without semiconductors would not be.
Also, a ban on semiconductors is not possible while one on algorithmic For You feeds isn’t just possible but would be fairly trivial requiring only the passage of a handful of bills across a handful of major countries, before it spread across the world.
I also disagree that legislation is just that easy. Many proposed laws to restrict social media are unconstitutional under the 1st amendment.
And to those who dislike algorithmic feeds I say “speak for yourself.” Banning them would be like banning ESPN because sports are a waste of of time.
Look how well did banning of alcohol (which was a really problematic. destructive substance) work in the US.
Banning what people crave is a stopgap measure at best, and it increases the popularity of the banned thing because it gives that thing more publicity, even while limiting its availability.
Look how well specific terms on pornsites were banned. E.g. young or sister.
> it increases the popularity of the banned thing because it gives that thing more publicity
Popularity be damned, cocaine doesn't need a publicist. Yet we ban it to maximize the number of hoops people have to jump through to obtain it. As a result, you can only get your hands on so much, and it will cost you. The "ban" rate-limits consumption.
For instance, websites to sell your organs are "illegal" in America because buying organs from people isn't a legal business practice in America. That kind of business isn't allowed, therefore that kind of website doesn't exist.
So you don't ban social media websites; you ban social media business practices.
I don't hate TikTok. IMO they actually do a fairly decent job of moderating. And TikTok itself is just a tool like any other and can be used in good or harmful ways.
The article mentions no specific content rule was broken and thus the streams were allowed, and it's a fine line for TikTok to walk.
I guess I just don't see how to solve the problem. TikTok can ban the streams to avoid elder abuse, but then they may be forcing them back into labor.
Is this something that needs to be addressed at the country level? Why are the elderly in this situation to begin with?
>In an interview with Indonesian media outlet Detik in January, 55-year-old Inak Mawar, one of the participants in Akhyar’s videos, said she earned almost $600 after nine livestreams, and that she preferred TikTok to working in the fields in Lombok, where she earns $2 per day doing backbreaking labor.
>Mutiara Ika Pratiwi, the head of Perempuan Mahardhika, a Jakarta-based women’s rights organization, told Rest of World the TikTok mud baths were a form of “commodification,” and that it didn’t matter if the women were seen as willing participants.
The article says the mud bath participants were lining up for gigs. I don't understand the videos, but how is this morally different than criminalizing begging?
TikTok is a mirror to the suffering and depravity that occurs in these places. We should be focused collectively on trying to make conditions better for these people, not trying to smash the mirror.