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Mechanical Turk Stations for the Urban Poor

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Re: Mechanical Turk Stations for the Urban Poor

#91

Post by gojomo »

gregholmberg wrote: post #87
gojomo wrote: post #68

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Minimum wage laws destroy jobs and reduce overall welfare; they should be repealed rather than extended to novel business arrangements. Minimum wages are implemented with noble motivations, but are based on a broken mental model, where the edict alone can lift everyone who would have made less up to the new statutory minimum. In fact, many of the people who would be employed at lower wages aren't (yet) productive eno…

Minimum wage laws destroy jobs and reduce overall welfare; they should be repealed rather than extended to novel business arrangements. This is in fact their purpose. Minimum wage laws destroy low-paying jobs by making them illegal, preventing the least competitive members of our society from having the hours and days of their lives "mined" by an employer for negligible compensation. That having these laws "reduces w…

So having no job is better than a low-paying job, in your analysis?

Brazil has a minimum wage. If it's not enforceable maybe that's because it's based on wishful thinking, pandering to those with an unrealistic mental models, rather than what's sustainable.

These 'vast marginal neighborhoods that no one wants to live in', they are empty ghost towns because no one wants to be there? I don't think so. And the favelas would just disappear if the firm-handed authorities were just a bit more insistent everyone get paid more (or nothing at all!)?

Rich societies can afford nice neighborhoods and rigorous building codes. Societies get rich by accepting every opportunity for voluntary coordination and incremental improvement. Societies stay poor by enacting showoff policies that appear generous but destroy more productivity than they enable, satisfying the aesthetic hopes of comfortable do-gooders, but trapping the really poor.

Re: Mechanical Turk Stations for the Urban Poor

#92

Post by pron »

orangecat wrote: post #86
pron wrote: post #46

OMG! You guys! Aside from a few, most comments here are discussing how to actually do this efficiently. I think this might be forgivable as I assume many of you are quite young, but are you really suggesting exploiting poor populations for menial work w/o social benefits, without dignity, suggesting they walk into some booth, put in a few hours of work without even the physical presence of co-workers and bosses that…

are you really suggesting exploiting poor populations for menial work w/o social benefits, without dignity, suggesting they walk into some booth, put in a few hours of work without even the physical presence of co-workers and bosses that can appreciate their work? I'll go with "yes". Doing productive work, earning money, and gaining basic computer experience would be much better for everyone involved than panhandling…

Because this won't improve their lives one bit. It will turn them into drones working for the rich without dignity or respect. Not every transaction that is marginally beneficial to both sides is movement towards a global optimum. On the contrary, arguments like this, talking about improvement is simple "gradient descent". Instead of throwing the poor an insulting bone, using their desperation to gain beneficial work w/o treating them with dignity (benefits, appreciation), I suggest turning the bright minds of Silicon Valley for some true disruptive thinking.

Think about this: is this suggestion going to provide the poor with true social mobility? Is this something our society can be proud of - poor people working for machines, as machines and getting paid by machines? Or is this another way to maximize profit by forsaking gainful, respectful employment, that can be somehow justified by "well, they'll be slightly better off?"

Why not suggest a mechanism by which tech companies can truly offer the poor a hand that will last for generations and create a better society, one we can be truly proud of, even if it's at the cost of loss of some short-term profit? An investment in society's future, if you like. Surely this is something that will be beneficial for everyone in the long run.

Re: Mechanical Turk Stations for the Urban Poor

#93

Post by gregholmberg »

gojomo wrote: post #91
gregholmberg wrote: post #87

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Minimum wage laws destroy jobs and reduce overall welfare; they should be repealed rather than extended to novel business arrangements. This is in fact their purpose. Minimum wage laws destroy low-paying jobs by making them illegal, preventing the least competitive members of our society from having the hours and days of their lives "mined" by an employer for negligible compensation. That having these laws "reduces w…

So having no job is better than a low-paying job, in your analysis? Brazil has a minimum wage. If it's not enforceable maybe that's because it's based on wishful thinking, pandering to those with an unrealistic mental models, rather than what's sustainable. These 'vast marginal neighborhoods that no one wants to live in', they are empty ghost towns because no one wants to be there? I don't think so. And the favelas w…

... having no job is better than a low-paying job, in your analysis?

Perhaps yes.

A price is a signal. As with any restriction on free speech, outlawing certain prices (low wages) should show a clear and easily demonstrated social benefit.

In this case, private free enterprise is clearly harmed, but the benefit returned to society is an intangible, a void: society receives only the absence or reduction of sweatshop working conditions.

I think we are actually in violent agreement on most of these issues.

The major exception, I think, is that I am deeply skeptical of a society's ability to check the worst behaviors of private corporations. I believe that certain entire business models are better legislated against and rendered completely illegal, to prevent regulatory capture [0].

EDIT: This view seems to be controversial. May I suggest a little light reading? [1]

[0] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Regulatory_capture

[1] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Jungle

Re: Mechanical Turk Stations for the Urban Poor

#94

Post by gojomo »

blahedo wrote: post #85
gojomo wrote: post #68

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Minimum wage laws destroy jobs and reduce overall welfare; they should be repealed rather than extended to novel business arrangements. Minimum wages are implemented with noble motivations, but are based on a broken mental model, where the edict alone can lift everyone who would have made less up to the new statutory minimum. In fact, many of the people who would be employed at lower wages aren't (yet) productive eno…

> Minimum wage laws destroy jobs and reduce overall welfare Cite, please.

You can look up the debate via the Wikipedia article and other sources. The case for reduced jobs in most situations is very strong, the arguments about overall welfare more intense.

Often analytical (rather than emotional) minimum wage proponents admit a small decrease in total employment but think the benefits to those who make the cutoff helps offset that. That might even be true in a growing economy with generally low unemployment and short unemployment terms. In one with ~20% youth unemployment, and workers discouraged by multi-year stints of unemployment, any job – even a low-paying job – is better than prolonged idleness. Employers are understandably loathe to take a chance on those who have gone years without a reliable work history, or never started a work history at all.

When he wasn't quite as partisan, even Krugman could make an eloquent case that bad jobs at low wages were better than no jobs at all at wishful-thinking wages. See for example:

In Praise of Cheap Labor: Bad jobs at bad wages are better than no jobs at all

http://www.slate.com/articles/business/the_dismal_science/19...

Even today, while Krugman is against any sort of lowering-nominal-wages or lowering-minimum-wages for macroeconomic adjustment, he'd like to achieve the same thing through massive fiscal and monetary stimulus, essentially lowering wages through inflation.

In the funhouse mirror world of politics, the 1-2 punch of higher minimum wages but also inflation is a perennial winning strategy. Give people a superficially popular, though actually harmful, boost in minimum wages: an easy focal point on which to campaign. But prevent its full damage with harder-to-assess, noticeable-only-after-the-election inflation. Or at least keep the celebrated raises below other growth/income indicators, so that it's mostly a symbolic measure. (Any raise large enough to make a 'big difference' for minimum-wage earners would also make a 'big difference' in boosting unemployment.) Via the only-slightly-harmful symbolism, everyone (who is a politician) wins!

Re: Mechanical Turk Stations for the Urban Poor

#95

Post by krschultz »

marshallp wrote: post #39
bmj wrote: post #29

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It would be no different than if a thousand companies banded together to source labor below minimum wage by paying per task, and sharing that labor around rather than employing each laborer in a "job" (eg in a metro area with high population density). Those companies would be paying for net full time labor, while evading the minimum wage responsibility. This is not the sort of disruption we want in the marketplace. L…

That sounds like a pretty good idea, walmart crowdsourcing shelf stacking. Startups might be able to offfer that as service smaller stores right now. Also, the possibility for automation is then great as well. Companies could offer assistive devices and software to the freelance shelf stackers for increasing their productivity, all they way to full blown robots. Can also apply this to other tasks such as crowdsourced…

Robotics is not as cheap as you think. I've brought systems in to factories to do seemingly simple things that cost easily $250k without batting an eye. You can pay someone more than minimum wage for many years for that kind of money.

What would robots capable of stocking shelves cost? $500k? It's just not worth it. McDonalds has how many thousands of stores - and they don't bother automating that much. Amazon.com still uses people to pick their orders (for the most part). The companies aren't stupid, someone has run the numbers and figured out that robots are too expensive.

It's not even Moore's law thing. Computer are plenty powerful. You can make a robot do these things. But by the time you buy good quality motors, batteries, and sensors, it gets expensive no matter how cheap the computer is.

Re: Mechanical Turk Stations for the Urban Poor

#96

Post by krschultz »

ajays wrote: post #16

This is a great idea. It would really work if it supplements the welfare checks; it would get people into the mindset of working. Let me explain. Right now, if you're a bum, you make a decent amount of money panhandling + scamming the government ("disability", etc.); let's call this "freeloading". The problem is: the amount of money you can make freeloading is close to minimum wage (if you include everything). So the…

You do realize that $20/hr over the course of a year is roughly $40,000. And $40,000 is more than what something like 40% of the people in the US make in a given year. That would be an unworkable change in the labor market. Most college graduates don't start out making that much right out of college, much less people without a college degree.

Re: Mechanical Turk Stations for the Urban Poor

#97

Post by krschultz »

gojomo wrote: post #94
blahedo wrote: post #85

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Minimum wage laws destroy jobs and reduce overall welfare Cite, please.

You can look up the debate via the Wikipedia article and other sources. The case for reduced jobs in most situations is very strong, the arguments about overall welfare more intense. Often analytical (rather than emotional) minimum wage proponents admit a small decrease in total employment but think the benefits to those who make the cutoff helps offset that. That might even be true in a growing economy with generall…

Let's say we cut minimum wage in half. How many jobs are going to be created? If it's not profitable for the business to hire a worker at $7 an hour, is it going to be at $3/hour? That's a business with crazy low margins.

Pretty much right now minimum wage workers usually do service jobs (fast food, waiting, etc), household chores (cleaning, landscaping), farming, or no-skill manufacturing.

No-skill manufacturing is largely dead in this country. Changing the minimum wage won't change the fact that you still have to follow environmental and safety regulation. That is expensive in its own right. You also can pay $3/hour in a different country and get good people. You can pay $10-15/hour and get great people. If you pay $3/hour in the US, you are going to get the people who can't even get a minimum wage job. I doubt a lot of companies want to hire those people for any price.

For service jobs, you usually have a fairly fixed number of people. If McDonalds has 3 registers, they already have 3 cashiers at lunchtime. Lowering minimum wage just hurts all those people because the pay will be less. It won't create many more jobs.

Farming could see a big increase in people, or at least a big increase in paying people on the books. A lot of migrant farmers are paid off the books below minimum wage as is.

So where is this giant pent up demand for hiring $3/hour workers? All I see is a marginal increase in jobs, and a massive decrease in wages for everyone else near the bottom.

Re: Mechanical Turk Stations for the Urban Poor

#98

Post by orangecat »

pron wrote: post #92
orangecat wrote: post #86

Earlier quoted context omitted.

are you really suggesting exploiting poor populations for menial work w/o social benefits, without dignity, suggesting they walk into some booth, put in a few hours of work without even the physical presence of co-workers and bosses that can appreciate their work? I'll go with "yes". Doing productive work, earning money, and gaining basic computer experience would be much better for everyone involved than panhandling…

Because this won't improve their lives one bit. It will turn them into drones working for the rich without dignity or respect. Not every transaction that is marginally beneficial to both sides is movement towards a global optimum. On the contrary, arguments like this, talking about improvement is simple "gradient descent". Instead of throwing the poor an insulting bone, using their desperation to gain beneficial work…

Because this won't improve their lives one bit.

Proof by assertion is not terribly convincing.

Not every transaction that is marginally beneficial to both sides is movement towards a global optimum

"Marginal" is more than zero bits.

Think about this: is this suggestion going to provide the poor with true social mobility?

I could easily see that happening.

Is this something our society can be proud of - poor people working for machines, as machines and getting paid by machines?

Even in those ridiculous terms (applicable to many white collar jobs), yes, compared to common alternatives like panhandling or selling drugs.

Why not suggest a mechanism by which tech companies can truly offer the poor a hand that will last for generations and create a better society

Go for it. In the meantime, stop standing in the way of people who are trying to improve things because you don't think they're improving them enough.

Re: Mechanical Turk Stations for the Urban Poor

#99

Post by pron »

orangecat wrote: post #98
pron wrote: post #92

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Because this won't improve their lives one bit. It will turn them into drones working for the rich without dignity or respect. Not every transaction that is marginally beneficial to both sides is movement towards a global optimum. On the contrary, arguments like this, talking about improvement is simple "gradient descent". Instead of throwing the poor an insulting bone, using their desperation to gain beneficial work…

Because this won't improve their lives one bit. Proof by assertion is not terribly convincing. Not every transaction that is marginally beneficial to both sides is movement towards a global optimum "Marginal" is more than zero bits. Think about this: is this suggestion going to provide the poor with true social mobility? I could easily see that happening. Is this something our society can be proud of - poor people wo…

I don't consider actively exploiting the poor as "not improving their lives enough". Neither do I consider marginal benefit a positive if it comes at the cost of exploitation. Thirdly, I don't see anyone moving from selling drugs to doing menial mechanical turk work. Lastly - I'm not standing in anyone's way. By all means - go and try to turn America's poor into Silicon Valley's drones rather than invest in their future. In China's sweatshops I can at least be fairly certain that the workers are greeted with a "hello" in the morning. Perhaps someone is even concerned if they don't show up for work. If you want to build hi-tech services on the backs of people who don't get even that - go ahead. I'll be marveling at the this new turn hi-tech capitalism is taking, while sitting in my armchair sipping tea and reading Charles Dickens.

Re: Mechanical Turk Stations for the Urban Poor

#100

Post by gregholmberg »

yummyfajitas wrote: post #36
ajays wrote: post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I understand what you're saying; but the problem here is that 1 state raised the minimum wage. Naturally, jobs will flow to the neighboring states. But what if the Federal minimum wage was raised? You do understand the point I'm trying to make: that there should be _some_ _significant_ economic incentive for people to get off welfare and on to work! Right now the incentive is minimal at best. So how do you create the…

You can either take away welfare benefits; or you can give much more rewards for working. A third, mostly unexplored option, is to reduce the status/luxuries of people accepting welfare. I.e., instead of receiving housing vouchers and money to buy food/clothing, they could receive dormitory rooms (no TV or XBox), healthy dormitory meals and government issued grey jumpsuits. Under such a system, there would be a signi…

... instead of receiving housing vouchers and money to buy food/clothing, they could receive dormitory rooms (no TV or XBox), healthy dormitory meals and government issued grey jumpsuits.

I am surprised, and a little disappointed, that there has been no mention yet in these comments of Marshall Brain's story "Robotic Nation". It is a well-reasoned exploration of exactly this issue.

  ---------------------------------------------
From "Robotic Nation"

The January 20, 2003 issue of Time magazine notes the trend:

"Cities have lost patience, concentrating on getting the homeless out of sight. In New York City, where shelter space can't be created fast enough, Mayor Mike Bloomberg has proposed using old cruise ships for housing."

This is not science fiction -- this is today's news. What we are talking about here are massive, government-controlled welfare dormitories keeping everyone who is unemployed "out of sight". ...

  ---------------------------------------------
http://www.marshallbrain.com/robotic-nation.htm
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