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Comment by ch4s3 | Hacker News Reader

Let's not be hyperbolic, these people were paid better than 90-5% of workers in the wealthiest country int he world.

* [EDIT] since no one seems to understand my point here let me clarify. It is crass and stupid to compare layoffs at big tech to violence against women and human trafficking. Just utterly disgusting and it comes across as entitled and totally disconnected. You can support labor without comparing like wealthy workers to the most vulnerable people in society and pretending you have similar grievance.

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I’d prefer to see more people raised to join the middle class rather than comments like this with sympathy for the overlords stamping out the last vestiges of the middle class.

Oh please. These workers are wealthy by any reasonable definition. I 100% agree that raising people into the middle class is great goal. But comparing some overzealous layoffs and ham-fisted re-hiring to violence against women and human trafficking is just dumb and gross.

I don't think you get it. The wealth of the people has nothing to do with this. A cheap prostitute and a well paid engineer deserve the same respect. Why are you bringing wealth or social status into it?

> The wealth of the people has nothing to do with this.

Yes it does. Being laid off and rehired before your VERY generous severance runs out is nothing like the disrespect someone in sex work often has to endure. The comparison is totally disconnected from reality. Being wealthy and of high social standing in the US immunizes you from the kind of deprivations faced by people in the informal economy.

Obviously both deserve respect, it just in my opinion minimizes the plight of people being trafficked to compare that to a big tech layoff. It just sounds clueless.

My humor may be crass, but the comparison stands.

You can't assume everyone received a severance, had enough severance or wasn't severely impacted by the layoff (just because they made a decent living prior).

There's a non-zero percent one or more laid off individuals killed themselves due to losing their job. Don't minimize that.

Where's the actual joke? It wasn't structured like a joke, and as someone who enjoys a crass joke, I can confidently say I didn't find it funny.

Meta and Salesforce both gave out severance. Meta's packages were well reported on and were through the end of this year at full pay with healthcare.

> There's a non-zero percent one or more laid off individuals killed themselves due to losing their job. Don't minimize that.

This is gishgallop. You're just bringing in new unrelated things. to muddy the issue. Moreover, do you think wealthy laid off people have higher or lower rates of self harm vs victims of human trafficking?

I didn’t see you were replying to a comment that had been removed when I responded. At the time I replied to you, no where in your post nor the linked article were sex workers or human trafficking mentioned. I assume the one you replied to said that, which again I never saw. In my mind we’re talking about people being laid off from their jobs and then the offending company turning back around and asking for them back at a lower salary.

The original comment I replied to compared laid off facebook workers to sex workers being beaten by their pimps, which I thought was really over the top and kind of terrible.

> Let's not be hyperbolic, these people were paid better than 90-5% of workers in the wealthiest country int he world.

Paying more money doesn't change the poor experience.

Obviously, but it's a far cry from sexual violence and trafficking and the comparison is gross.

That's not what you said though.

It basically is though. I'm pointed out that despite being poorly treated, the people in question are among the wealthiest int he whole world. They are in no way comparable to victims of trafficking. The original comment just came across as hyperbolic, crass, and entitled.

So... it's okay to treat them like crap.

No one is saying that, especially me. I'm saying the comparison is dumb, crass, and minimizes the seriousness of violence against women and human trafficking.

I agree with what you've said! But also let's not be hyperbolic by equating "pimp" with "trafficking".

We're expensive ladies.

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