Hacker News Reader

Comment by thegrimmest | Hacker News Reader

This seems like a perfectly normal consequence of the "at-will" employment resultant from the primary place liberty has in our society. I see nothing wrong with it and think this paradigm should continue and expand. I would say you have as much reason to continue to expect Uber issue you contracts as Uber has that you continue to accept them, namely none at all. A consensual relationship is one that can be terminated at any time without justification.

View on HN

One day your job is going to be a gig job. Sooner or later. If it happens to be later, are you going to be cool living in a privileged oligarch class that has its boot on the face of humanity?

When your philosophy was developed, if you didn’t like your circumstances you could literally move to the wilderness and make a life for yourself by exploiting unclaimed land. Or if you lived in a different part of the world then nations would go to war with each other over resources.

We don’t live in a world with unclaimed land anymore.

It would be really super duper nice if nations stopped going to war with each other over resources.

We have to figure out how to coexist with each other, and that means treating humans with more dignity than an object that is ruled by an algorithm.

The philosophy was developed because people cannot agree on the basics, and there is no supreme moral authority to appeal to. It follows that any enforcement of one person or group's will on another cannot be morally justified, no matter how well-meaning the imposers are. This is the only basis by which people who are fundamentally, diametrically opposed can coexist peacefully.

This assumes an universal ultimate moral precept: that peaceful coexistence despite moral disagreement over every other precept is the ultimate and univeral moral rule.

Of course, one thing on which the vast majority of people, regardless of their different moral systems, agree on is that this is not the case.

Isn't that just forcing the group that wants the status quo's will upon the group that wants change? That doesn't seem like it promotes peaceful coexistence. It just allows the group currently doing the oppressing to continue to do so.

So, that means that land should be free, pedophilia and child porn legal, total anarchy?

There's no such thing as not having the will of a group imposed on others. The best we can do is formalize a non-violent system of consensus of rules we can live by, and then allow only said system to use violence to enforce such rules.... Which is literally what government is.

Pedophilia and child porn involves people who cannot consent, so no. Funny how that's the one that folks reach for though isn't it? Mandating that relationships are consensual isn't equivalent to anarchy. It's exactly one of the rules you're talking about.

I’m not saying I disagree with you re child porn, but realize that you are encoding a lot of moral judgement in what qualifies as consensual. What makes the relationship between Uber and an Uber driver consensual? Can you give consent if your alternative is starvation or homelessness?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pZwvrxVavnQn [2:49]

I agree it's not an absolute, immutable concept, but I think it's a hell of a lot clearer than "good" or "right" or "fair". What makes consent is the fact that either party can opt out at any time for any/no reason. It's consensual because we are decision-making agents, and in spite of privation we can still choose to refuse to transact. Consent is violated by force or direct threat of force, not by the circumstances the transacting parties may find themselves in.

If you're very horny can you still refuse to consent to sex? If you happen to be dying of thirst and I offer you a glass of water, can you refuse? You can. Are there may reasons why you would? I don't imagine so. Does it follow there there are no circumstances under which anyone would refuse? It does not.

Did anyone get my consent before burning coal and spewing toxic gas into the atmosphere?

Did anyone get my consent before pulling all the fish out of the ocean?

Did anyone get my consent before dumping toxic chemicals into the river that runs through my backyard?

These are are problems of the commons[1], and do need governance. They don't however represent direct interactions between people (unlike say employment or sex) and so consent isn't really in-scope here.

1. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Commons

Then let’s consider algorithmic driven gig work as a new type of problem of the commons.

At one point damage to the environment wasn’t considered a problem of the commons.

It's not though, it's simply another option in the market. More options are always better than fewer. No one is forcing anyone to take these gigs, and the relationship between gig provider and worker is frankly none of anyone else's business so long as it's consensual. There is none of your air or water being contaminated.

Well we disagree about what consent means, among a lot of other things.

I'm just using the common definition, as applied to personal/romantic/sexual relationships. I even linked a video that quite clearly explains the definition.

Ok, the video doesn’t seem to cover whether children can give consent, and you said they can’t, so what’s missing?

The legal system that decides when we can give consent (when we become adults, the age of majority) and when we can't (legal incompetence ruled by a court of law).

But you just accept the legal system? What’s the basis? What if it gig work was outlawed?

Also, consent being something that should be respected itself is a liberal social construct (that I wholeheartedly agree with).

This hasn't always been the case, and still isn't everywhere today. Slavery still exists, so does misogyny.

I'm a fan of the saying "tolerance isn't a paradox, it's a peace treaty". To extend that, peace treaties are literally laws.

Who and what determines whether a human can consent? It it an age thing consistent across all humans or a developmental thing? If it's a developmental thing, well then how do you feel about those with developmental disorders (mental or physical)? Is it the case that one legally definable day based on age you become inarguably and unambiguously capable of consent?

Obviously, not arguing for CP here, but I'm pointing out that the age of consent is indeed is a (valuable!) will imposed by society on others. I'm bringing CP up because it shows a bound on behavior which exists, and thus there is a line which needs to be drawn.

As I've written below[1], I agree consent is not an immutable fact of nature, but a human construct with arbitrary boundaries. Most of your questions are answered already by the legal system which defines the concept though. In order to consent (say to sign a contract) you have to be of the age of majority and not ruled legally incompetent by a court of law. So basically yes, an age thing, and the "who" that decides is a court of law.

All I'm suggesting is that this liberal imposition - that relationships between adults (as above caveated) must be symmetrically consensual - should take precedence over how good, right, just, harmonious, or fair said relationships are perceived to be. If we think we can make something more fair but less consensual, we should not.

1. https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=37081906

I know this is a very peripheral point but habitable "unclaimed" land has not really existed through most of human history.

At best there might be the occasional power vacuum. Just existing is a political act and the unit of human survival is tribe-sized or larger.

Land described as "unclaimed" is typically a convenient fiction used to support sovereignty transfer.

So in other words, war.

Depends on your definition of war. War typically implies a larger scale and organisation.

Corporations aren't entitled to liberty. Uber isn't a person, it's a hivemind - if it has to cut off one drone, it doesn't affect the hive. Except drivers aren't drones who can simply accept being liquidated for the good of the hive. Allowing that behavior is anti-liberty - the liquidated driver has had their means of providing for their own liberty revoked by an entity that is private, arbitrary and capricious.

I think the GP was talking about liberty with regard to the worker, that they are free to take (or refuse) any jobs they want.

Of course, the inherent power imbalance between an employer and a worker is what allows for exploitation, when not otherwise protected by law.

I’m directly arguing against their concept of liberty. Being at the whim of Uber’s C-Suite isn’t it.

I doubt John Locke would agree that liberty could mean to be suddenly left high and dry with no notice that would likely cost you money.

You can be left exactly as high and as dry as the contract you signed stipulates, and if you have a dispute we have a pretty good system to work that out.

Fair contracts need negotiating power on both sides.

Equal negotiating power

I’m not sure about equal as life can be messy (you have a cash flow problem and need to sell now, the buyer knows that - can that be equal?) but certainly fair should be a good start.

As a practical matter, that doesn't work when the power imbalance is so great that one side doesn't have a realistic way to negotiate the contract.

I.e. if the best job that someone can negotiate is one where they are being exploited or abused, then that doesn't make the exploitation/abuse any more just.

The trouble is that most people will become homeless if they don't get a job. As long as there is a steady rate of unemployment, there are people that can't meaningfully decline whatever conditions are in their employment contract.

And that's what this pretty good system doesn't account for: the inherent coercion of a fundamentally unjust system

> I doubt John Locke would agree that liberty could mean to be suddenly left high and dry with no notice that would likely cost you money.

Its been a while since I’ve read Locke, but my impression was that he would agree with that. (Not that I would, to be sure.)

What makes you think he wouldn’t?

He wrote about ideals but was not an idealist nor ideologue, and in fact was very pragmatic in nature. That’s possibly his nature or from his work as a doctor. What also stems from that, and his religious outlook, is that his ideas were to serve humans better and promote their good and benefit.

Hence, I doubt he’d find a giant company using its negotiating power - and not forgetting its other legal shenanigans (most relevant in this case would be trying to prevent unions[1] forming) - that necessitates harm to an individual through a “consensual” contract to be part of his idea of what liberty looks like. Would you negotiate such a contract for yourself? I doubt it. Can an Uber driver negotiate it away? I doubt that even more. In fact, there is no negotiation, it’s a take it or leave it offer.

In short, he didn’t seem interested in allowing powerful interests to crush individual interests based on some ill-conceived notion that it’s a free market or that there is true freedom to consent in any meaningful way.

[1] https://www.wsj.com/articles/uber-lyft-and-others-launch-cam...

"A consensual relationship"

Since most of us have to work to live is it consensual? I do understand that there are other places to potentially work but that may be limited.

I, for one, welcome the Randroid Cyberpunk Dystopia.

we could write the law to say thats the default when the power dynamics are the exact same

and then let the exception make the rule, since it never will be the same

Why do the power dynamics have to be the same? Are you suggesting that two parties cannot have a consensual relationship unless they have the same amount of power? Why not?

And how do you even measure 'power'?

Because it will be inevitable that someone with less power will enter into the relationship out of compulsion due to (real or perceived) no other choice, and not because they want to.

The McDonald's CEO is gone because of a consensual relationship where the power dynamics were unbalanced

in employment, yes, I am suggesting that, and that the basis behind at-will employment is flawed, there are plenty of ways to allow for the paid-person to exit a contract whenever they want without it meaning the company fires them whenever they want for any reason.

in other contexts, no, I am not suggesting that, but there are some fringes that try

Why is employment special? Why is a person more entitled to employment than any other sort of relationship (which you seem to agree ought to be consensual)?

> thats the default when the power dynamics are the exact same

That's impossible to codify at any reasonable level.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com