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Comment by philipallstar | Hacker News Reader

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> "Exploitation" isn't an objective term.

It means “the action or fact of treating someone unfairly in order to benefit from their work”. If you’re having someone reject their rights in a contract because that benefits you, that’s a form of exploitation. You’re making someone worse explicitly so you benefit.

> It often just means "I don't like what I signed up for freely".

From my first post:

> If you can sign them away, you can be swindled of them.

If you’re swindled, you’re not given them away freely.

> If you’re swindled, you’re not given them away freely.

How do you define "swindle"?

Your posts read like “it’s too hard to precisely define these things so why bother” this is what case law is for. To precisely define in the context of real cases what the precise contours of the law are.

Clearly the EU has figured some of this out and might even have some of the specificity you are looking for.

This really reads like you’re playing rhetorical games. Do you legitimately not know what these terms mean or how they apply in the context of signing legal agreements? Are you unaware of their literal definitions?

If you don’t then my apologies, we can break them down for you and link dictionary definitions (or Wikipedia if that’s your preference).

If the statement is that any right that can be signed away can be swindled away, then I think something needs defining to make it a non-fatuous statement. I can sign away 4 years of my life to the military. Does that mean my life can be swindled away?

That's what we have courts and juries for. If a jury unanimously agrees that a typical person in a reasonable situation and with full understanding of the conditions would not be willing to sign such a contract because it would strongly go against their interest, then the person who did sign it has likely been swindled.

It is really not any harder to define than "freely". Presumably by "what I signed up for freely" you mean "what I signed up for without any coercion, threat of violence, etc". The people using "exploitation" here just mean that those conditions also include the implied threat of not having money to live. This is a real material condition which affects what people are prepared to agree to (even if they might be able to find a better offer by shopping around).

It is not hard to understand, and I suspect you are not trying to understand it.

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