The Labor Pains Megathread

[Martinus]

Zanza, you are assuming I said something I didn't. I think it is a balancing act, not an either/or alternative.

Have you read the post where I said:

On the other hand, I also recognise that this should not be a reason to say that, because of this, a person should be let to his or her own devices because it is his or her "fault" - not least of all, because bad choices are often a result of inexperience/naivete, bad upbringing (for example, the parents' and educators' failure to install the mechanism of "delayed reward" in a person), peer pressure and similar factors which, while possible for a person to overcome, are not entirely within one's control.

[Martinus]

In other words, while I fully recognise a need for a system of safety nets and protection of weaker participants, there is a risk with going overboard with it to a degree when consequences of one's bad choices (eg. of choosing immediate gratification over long term investment) become meaningless which encourages moral hazard.

A good example in Poland right now is a debate whether to help people who took mortgage loans in foreign currency, especially the Swiss franc, in early 2000s. These people claim now they were duped by banks and are now having to pay off loans with a nominal amount twice their property. But the same people were considering people like me - who took a loan in Polish zloty, ie the currency in which my salary is paid - fools before 2007, for paying a much higher interest rate.

It's the grasshopper vs. the ant dilemma. Sure, don't let the grasshopper starve or freeze to death, but this shouldn't get to the point where the ant is a dupe for working hard.

[Martinus]

And speaking of disadvantaged groups, while they surely exist, I don't think in modern Western world there are groups the members of which are structurarily prevented from getting ahead.

The problem is different - shitty people, who do not manage to even get their own lives togerher, having kids. And noone - no politician, no activist, no priest - is saying that. Instead, children are presented as something you do to make your life less miserable, something you are congratulated on having. If your life is miserable, if you can't afford to keep yourself above the water line, you have no goddamn business bringing more people into this world. If people just sticked to this rule, there would be much much less cases of people having their lives (and the opportunity for making good choices) fucked up from the moment they are born.

[The Brain]

One of the few advantages of the Swedish system is that people have NO excuse. You're poor? Well you chose to be. Now get away from me.

[Eddie Teach]

I think that's the wrong tact to take when discussing low-paid workers. They are doing necessary work and not necessarily because of their own choices. Like we tell Mono all the time, not everybody can be in the top 30%.

The better argument would be the utilitarian one. If, say, all hardware stores are prohibited from operating on Sunday, that may benefit some hardware store clerks, presuming that:
They don't lose their jobs or get their hours cut.
They don't want to buy hardware on their day off.
They want Sundays off.
On the other hand, everyone who doesn't work for a hardware store loses out.

If this trend is extended across multiple industries, it gets to the point where there's little value in having that day off, because you can't do much. No restaurants, no grocery stores, no movie theaters? You can sit at home on a Wednesday off just fine.

[Tamas]

I think that's the wrong tact to take when discussing low-paid workers. They are doing necessary work and not necessarily because of their own choices. Like we tell Mono all the time, not everybody can be in the top 30%.

The better argument would be the utilitarian one. If, say, all hardware stores are prohibited from operating on Sunday, that may benefit some hardware store clerks, presuming that:
They don't lose their jobs or get their hours cut.
They don't want to buy hardware on their day off.
They want Sundays off.
On the other hand, everyone who doesn't work for a hardware store loses out.

If this trend is extended across multiple industries, it gets to the point where there's little value in having that day off, because you can't do much. No restaurants, no grocery stores, no movie theaters? You can sit at home on a Wednesday off just fine.

I pretty much agree with this.

[Ed Anger]

My objection to what you and Yi have posted so far is not that you think 24-7 openings are okay. That's fine. It can be okay. It's that the only argument you have offered is "the free market is good" and "supply and demand will sort it out". It's the equivalent of a sophomoric Communist answering "collectivization" or "the will of the people" when asked to justify any given policy.

Nationalize game development.

Ethics in game development

[Admiral Yi]

For the record I want to totally distance myself from Marty's position.  We should permit, and approve of, sweatshops in Vietnam not because the ladies that work there are bad people, or have made bad choices, but because they're better off there than they are breaking their backs in rice paddies.  Banning sweatshops doesn't make their life any better, it makes it worse.

[Martinus]

For the record I want to totally distance myself from Marty's position.  We should permit, and approve of, sweatshops in Vietnam not because the ladies that work there are bad people, or have made bad choices, but because they're better off there than they are breaking their backs in rice paddies.  Banning sweatshops doesn't make their life any better, it makes it worse.

Way to totally misunderstand my position. You really have some cognitive issues.

[Razgovory]

I would like to distance myself from Yi's postion on this.  Whatever it may be.  And the next two debates we have.  The third one is okay, and for the fourth one I'll start out disagreeing but let myself be won over by the end.

[Ideologue]

My objection to what you and Yi have posted so far is not that you think 24-7 openings are okay. That's fine. It can be okay. It's that the only argument you have offered is "the free market is good" and "supply and demand will sort it out". It's the equivalent of a sophomoric Communist answering "collectivization" or "the will of the people" when asked to justify any given policy.

Nationalize game development.

Ethics in game development

Jacob: white male?  Yes.

[Ed Anger]

My objection to what you and Yi have posted so far is not that you think 24-7 openings are okay. That's fine. It can be okay. It's that the only argument you have offered is "the free market is good" and "supply and demand will sort it out". It's the equivalent of a sophomoric Communist answering "collectivization" or "the will of the people" when asked to justify any given policy.

Nationalize game development.

Ethics in game development

Jacob: white male?  Yes.

#jacobsgate

[Sheilbh]

#jacobsgate

Oh God no. The world's most tedious argument

[Ed Anger]

Ethics in tedium

[Tamas]

For the record I want to totally distance myself from Marty's position.  We should permit, and approve of, sweatshops in Vietnam not because the ladies that work there are bad people, or have made bad choices, but because they're better off there than they are breaking their backs in rice paddies.  Banning sweatshops doesn't make their life any better, it makes it worse.