Low unemployment isn’t worth much if the jobs barely pay • Hacker News Board

Re: Low unemployment isn’t worth much if the jobs barely pay

#531

Post by 7thaccount » Sun, Jan 12, 2020, 10:15 PM UTC

hacknat wrote: post #491

7thaccount wrote: post #479

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think work is pretty important to being human, but working 40-60 hours a week is absurd. 30 seems like a sweet spot to me. If we could remote, do only 30, and reduce pointless meetings than I bet we'd have a lot more time for the things that make us happy like family, side projects, exercise, and Netflix.

Why do you think work in and of itself is important? Being useful to your community is absolutely important, but our definition of that utility is absurdly narrow in this market economy. In fact, sometimes what we value and what is useful are totally orthogonal (again teachers are probably undervalued way too much, because we are poor long term thinkers).

Because nearly everyone wants to feel they're contributing to society in some way. I think we agree here. I'm not saying you need a horrendous office job.

Re: Low unemployment isn’t worth much if the jobs barely pay

#532

Post by [deleted] » Sun, Jan 12, 2020, 10:19 PM UTC

contingencies wrote: post #447

Seanzie wrote: post #442

Earlier quoted context omitted.

My mom and i were just discussing my dog's visit to the veterinarian. She said that her father would never have taken a dog to the vet for those symptoms, but my dog got a blood analysis and a stomach X-ray. I spent a lot of money on all this, which paid the vet and their staff and the lab and the equipment manufacturers. Conclusion: increased wealth creates increased opportunity to work.

Medical is a special market due to emotional heartstrings. At a certain point, people will pay anything when death or health are involved. At a political / social impact / behavioral hacking level, there's probably an argument to make near human grade medical services for domestic pets free, as it would likely assist with the reduction in human population growth (aside from companionship, etc.). I am consistently ama…

[deleted]

Re: Low unemployment isn’t worth much if the jobs barely pay

#533

Post by pgodzin » Sun, Jan 12, 2020, 10:20 PM UTC

hacknat wrote: post #465

contingencies wrote: post #274

We must do away with the absolutely specious notion that everybody has to earn a living. It is a fact today that one in ten thousand of us can make a technological breakthrough capable of supporting all the rest. The youth of today are absolutely right in recognizing this nonsense of earning a living. We keep inventing jobs because of this false idea that everybody has to be employed at some kind of drudgery because,…

Also it is a total lie and a very narrow definition of utility. Arguably, we’ve actually under priced some of the most important labor in our society (caregivers, teachers, social workers, etc), and over priced some of the dumbest (sorry, but if Uber disappeared tomorrow, society would be moderately inconvenienced, but little else). Finally, nothing in evolutionary biology teaches us that human beings ought to work.…

What exactly is overpriced about Uber? The drivers aren't making that much and despite Uber's cut they still aren't profitable

Re: Low unemployment isn’t worth much if the jobs barely pay

#534

Post by conanbatt » Sun, Jan 12, 2020, 10:20 PM UTC

contingencies wrote: post #447

Seanzie wrote: post #442

Earlier quoted context omitted.

My mom and i were just discussing my dog's visit to the veterinarian. She said that her father would never have taken a dog to the vet for those symptoms, but my dog got a blood analysis and a stomach X-ray. I spent a lot of money on all this, which paid the vet and their staff and the lab and the equipment manufacturers. Conclusion: increased wealth creates increased opportunity to work.

Medical is a special market due to emotional heartstrings. At a certain point, people will pay anything when death or health are involved. At a political / social impact / behavioral hacking level, there's probably an argument to make near human grade medical services for domestic pets free, as it would likely assist with the reduction in human population growth (aside from companionship, etc.). I am consistently ama…

> Medical is a special market due to emotional heartstrings. At a certain point, people will pay anything when death or health is involved.

This is a common misconception of what healthcare services are. People pay more for unsafer cars every day or decide to travel by plane that carries life&death risks for the pleasures of tourism. Life is a currency we pay with anything, from eating garbage to smoking and drinking and fundamentally, taking risks.

Re: Low unemployment isn’t worth much if the jobs barely pay

#535

Post by svrtknst » Sun, Jan 12, 2020, 10:22 PM UTC

7thaccount wrote: post #531

hacknat wrote: post #491

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why do you think work in and of itself is important? Being useful to your community is absolutely important, but our definition of that utility is absurdly narrow in this market economy. In fact, sometimes what we value and what is useful are totally orthogonal (again teachers are probably undervalued way too much, because we are poor long term thinkers).

Because nearly everyone wants to feel they're contributing to society in some way. I think we agree here. I'm not saying you need a horrendous office job.

Work is important but labor is not, so to speak.

Re: Low unemployment isn’t worth much if the jobs barely pay

#536

Post by hacknat » Sun, Jan 12, 2020, 10:24 PM UTC

Double_Cast wrote: post #527

hacknat wrote: post #490

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Totally, but now play the same scenario in your head if all the social workers or teachers disappeared tomorrow. Uber would be a societal inconvenience, but losing all of our teachers would be a catastrophe.

Wages vary according to marginal utility rather than total utility. The question is not "what if all teachers disappeared", but "what if one particular teacher disappeared".

Wages for public sector workers are legally defined and, at least, in this case, have very little to do with any measure of utility. Our society is horrendous at measuring utility in almost all long term cases.

Re: Low unemployment isn’t worth much if the jobs barely pay

#537

Post by jzwinck » Sun, Jan 12, 2020, 10:25 PM UTC

alpha_squared wrote: post #457

contingencies wrote: post #447

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Medical is a special market due to emotional heartstrings. At a certain point, people will pay anything when death or health are involved. At a political / social impact / behavioral hacking level, there's probably an argument to make near human grade medical services for domestic pets free, as it would likely assist with the reduction in human population growth (aside from companionship, etc.). I am consistently ama…

> I am consistently amazed how cheap and fast medical services are in developing countries. The equipment costs so much less outside of western regulatory oversight, and to the consumer standard blood test batteries are often ~5-10 minutes and ~free. This makes me wonder how much other countries indirectly benefit from the regulatory oversight that exists in the west. It's the regulatory oversight, compounded with ca…

We in the east are well aware that we benefit in some ways from the extremely risk averse regulators in the US and Europe and others. It's often explicitly acknowledged with labels like "treatment developed in the US" though it can also be hard to separate the real from the false claims of such.

On the other hand, not only does the east manufacture many of the pharmaceuticals sold in the west, it is a vast market which provides additional revenue with a convenient geographical separation which is difficult to arbitrage (Ibuprofen costs nothing in India compared to the US, but you don't see Indians flying to the US with suitcases of pills for sale).

Re: Low unemployment isn’t worth much if the jobs barely pay

#538

Post by turbinerneiter » Sun, Jan 12, 2020, 10:27 PM UTC

AdrianB1 wrote: post #521

turbinerneiter wrote: post #515

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Tax is not coercion, we live in a democracy. You pay tax because society has decided to fund certain things via contributions from all. It's like the membership fee in a club used to pay for the clubhouse. If you don't like it, stop using the facilities and leave. I pay my taxes willingly to fund schools, hospitals, police, justice - all the basic infrastructure needed to maintain civilization. I vote to influence th…

Democracy does not exclude coercion, it's just coercion of the minority by the majority. Tell me you have the option not to pay any taxes ... can you? I grew up and lived in a Communist country, such a speech is not touching me for a very long time. Sorry for the insensitivity to your bubble.

I do have the option to not pay taxes - I just have to cease to use any of the things that are provided with tax money. Including a passport.

What does you growing up in a communist regime have to do with any of what I'm saying? Are there even taxes in communist systems?

Seriously, how do you pay for policemen without taxes? And without policemen, who protects your property from theft? How do you imagine a capitalist system to work without courts?

And I really do not understand what you think my bubble is and how you think you are insensitive to it.

I'm not promoting communism here and stop acting like there is only communism or complete radical free market anarchy.

Re: Low unemployment isn’t worth much if the jobs barely pay

#539

Post by kelnos » Sun, Jan 12, 2020, 10:28 PM UTC

supernova87a wrote: post #36

I don't think low unemployment is the unequivocal positive sign that politicians/ think it is ("We're putting millions of Americans back to work!"). Maybe it's not something to be so proud of. If people are having to come out of the woodwork to take jobs that aren't moving the average wage up, maybe they're doing it because they have to, in order to get by. Is it a good thing that a 60+ year old goes back to work at…

Exactly. In the same vein, is it a good thing that someone in their 20s/30s/40s has to take on 2 or 3 jobs, working 10+ hours per day, just to get by?

Re: Low unemployment isn’t worth much if the jobs barely pay

#540

Post by sandworm101 » Sun, Jan 12, 2020, 10:37 PM UTC

pgodzin wrote: post #533

hacknat wrote: post #465

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Also it is a total lie and a very narrow definition of utility. Arguably, we’ve actually under priced some of the most important labor in our society (caregivers, teachers, social workers, etc), and over priced some of the dumbest (sorry, but if Uber disappeared tomorrow, society would be moderately inconvenienced, but little else). Finally, nothing in evolutionary biology teaches us that human beings ought to work.…

What exactly is overpriced about Uber? The drivers aren't making that much and despite Uber's cut they still aren't profitable

Because that core business isn't where all the money is going. The basic concept of software connecting buyers to sellers (riders to available drivers) is a simple software problem, easily solvable by a few guys and servers given time. Uber spends money on expansion, marketing and a constant game of legal stratego against any town/city/country that seems to get in its way. We are overpricing, over-rewarding, those companies who live to rise their stock price. We should be rewarding those companies whose continued existence is of the greatest benefit to society. That probably isn't Uber.