Want an Unpaid Internship So You Can Get Valuable Experience ?

Re: Want an Unpaid Internship So You Can Get Valuable Experience ? – Screw You

#141

Post by ahoyhere » Sat, Sep 05, 2009, 8:50 PM UTC

apotheon wrote: post #101

ahoyhere wrote: post #95

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Of course if you banned contraception, the birth rate would rise. But that's not what we're talking about, is it? We're talking about "private acts between consenting adults." Birth control is another kettle of fish entirely. You're taking the employment/sex "between two consenting adults" line and then adding an extreme element, like, for example, everybody on earth is required to work 40 hours a week.

Even if you didn't ban contraception, I'm sure birth rates would rise -- because people who wanted to get off and couldn't get fellatio might still not use contraception all the time. > We're talking about "private acts between consenting adults." Birth control is another kettle of fish entirely. WTF?

We're not actually talking about sex, remember. We're talking about unpaid internships.

The OP was arguing that people are hypocrits, if they say "two consenting adults can do whatever they want" (behind closed doors) for sex, and then turns around and wants worker protection laws.

Nobody in this comment thread is actually talking about sex. It's all about the metaphorical comparison, which IMO, breaks down pretty quickly.

In the metaphor -- two sex vs unpaid internships -- there is no corollary for birth control. It is a red herring.

Get it?

Re: Want an Unpaid Internship So You Can Get Valuable Experience ? – Screw You

#142

Post by bumbledraven » Sat, Sep 05, 2009, 9:23 PM UTC

alex_c wrote: post #29

Unpaid internships are one of the biggest scams ever. You want me to work for you for free so I get "invaluable experience"? How much is my work worth to you, if you're not paying me? For that matter, how much is the experience I get, if I'm doing worthless work? You want ME to be grateful for the privilege of getting the experience of making YOU money for nothing in return? Screw YOU. Mark Cuban makes it sound like…

An unpaid internship with a company like Berkshire Hathaway or Pixar could actually be worth a lot of money. It's incredibly valuable to point to work you've done for a respected organization, paid or not.

Re: Want an Unpaid Internship So You Can Get Valuable Experience ? – Screw You

#143

Post by ahoyhere » Sat, Sep 05, 2009, 9:40 PM UTC

yummyfajitas wrote: post #125

ahoyhere wrote: post #34

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm sorry, but the two have nothing to do with each other. And, honestly, I'm aghast to find such poor reasoning on HN. Employment shapes society. Employment pays taxes, puts rooves over people's heads, causes stress and worry (what if I lose my job!?), informs societal choices regarding basic social services (tied to company healthcare). Finally, employment is a public act because it is a market -- if Joe works for…

Sex is a market. Money is only involved covertly (many women seek wealthy husbands), but it is still a market. Some market pressures: If some women have sex on the 1'st date, it will be hard for women who want to hold out until marriage to compete. Similarly, if Tina and Joan and Kellie engage in fellatio, Jennie might have trouble keeping a boyfriend if she does not. There is your "race to the bottom". Furthermore,…

You are trying to reach too far with this overly facile comparison. Let me show you how:

1. Sexual competition is not nearly as simple as job competition, for several reasons.

2. Many people have multiple sex partners, but a single job is staffed by a single person.

3. Sex isn't required to eat or keep a roof over your head.

4. Sex isn't taxed.

5. Sex doesn't go on your resume.

6. Sex is between two people (or so), not a person and a corporate entity.

7. People don't involve lawyers or accountants before having sex.

8. Trading sex for money is, in almost all parts of the US, illegal.

9. Individual's choices leading to STDs or pregnancy don't compare, on a magnitude level, with governmental regulation changes that affect employment because the majority of Americans who have health insurance are only covered thru their employers

And, as another commenter wrote, if there is a huge imbalance of power between two sexual partners, that is also often illegal.

Re: Want an Unpaid Internship So You Can Get Valuable Experience ? – Screw You

#144

Post by ahoyhere » Sat, Sep 05, 2009, 9:42 PM UTC

apotheon wrote: post #96

ahoyhere wrote: post #81

Earlier quoted context omitted.

And people eating pork created the swine flu epidemic. Please. Because a disease preys on a population does not mean that population created the disease, whether or not it becomes an epidemic. I'm pretty sure that AIDS didn't spring fully formed out of the abyss, thanks to anal sex. And then, if you want to get picky, the deliberate ignoring of the health issues by public authorities escalated the epidemic.

While I'm not particularly fond of kingkongrevenge's example, I don't think you're faithfully representing it. He didn't claim it created the disease -- he claimed it created the epidemic .

So did the widespread distribution of farmed pig products create the swineflu epidemic, as I said -- if the reports are to be believed.

I see what you're saying, but I don't agree that I misrepresented it at all.

Re: Want an Unpaid Internship So You Can Get Valuable Experience ? – Screw You

#145

Post by codexon » Sat, Sep 05, 2009, 9:48 PM UTC

iseff wrote: post #86

A serious question: What's the difference between an "unpaid internship" and a CEO of a successful company (e.g. Steve Jobs) who gets paid $1/year? Is there not a way to get around this law by simply putting the intern on a $1/summer salary?

The difference is that a CEO like Steve Jobs gets millions or billions worth of stock options which is equivalent to a salary except instead of getting taxed at the +35% bracket, it get's taxed at 15% capital gains tax (lowered from 20% by Bush).

Re: Want an Unpaid Internship So You Can Get Valuable Experience ? – Screw You

#146

Post by mattj » Sat, Sep 05, 2009, 10:16 PM UTC

bumbledraven wrote: post #142

alex_c wrote: post #29

Unpaid internships are one of the biggest scams ever. You want me to work for you for free so I get "invaluable experience"? How much is my work worth to you, if you're not paying me? For that matter, how much is the experience I get, if I'm doing worthless work? You want ME to be grateful for the privilege of getting the experience of making YOU money for nothing in return? Screw YOU. Mark Cuban makes it sound like…

An unpaid internship with a company like Berkshire Hathaway or Pixar could actually be worth a lot of money. It's incredibly valuable to point to work you've done for a respected organization, paid or not.

Except that by being unpaid, they're saying that what you did for them wasn't worth enough to pay them for it.

Re: Want an Unpaid Internship So You Can Get Valuable Experience ? – Screw You

#147

Post by Mcuban » Sat, Sep 05, 2009, 10:18 PM UTC

mattchew wrote: post #128

alex_c wrote: post #29

Unpaid internships are one of the biggest scams ever. You want me to work for you for free so I get "invaluable experience"? How much is my work worth to you, if you're not paying me? For that matter, how much is the experience I get, if I'm doing worthless work? You want ME to be grateful for the privilege of getting the experience of making YOU money for nothing in return? Screw YOU. Mark Cuban makes it sound like…

You want ME to be grateful for the privilege of getting the experience of making YOU money for nothing in return? Screw YOU. No one is talking about making you take an unpaid internship that you don't want. We're talking about whether Joe Q. Eagerbeaver should be prevented from taking an unpaid internship that he does want. Whatever happened to treating people like mentally competent adults capable of making their ow…

amen

Re: Want an Unpaid Internship So You Can Get Valuable Experience ? – Screw You

#148

Post by masklinn » Sat, Sep 05, 2009, 10:36 PM UTC

yummyfajitas wrote: post #123

tvon wrote: post #100

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't know what else I would expect from a thread that started on such an idiotic statement, but yes, you can say that sadomasochism and unpaid internships are similar in that you can get out of both of them by saying words.

The point is that they are both activities engaged in by two consenting adults. It's a common belief that one is not the business of the state, but the other one is. My question: what are the exceptions to the "two consenting adults can do as they wish in privacy" rule?

> My question: what are the exceptions to the "two consenting adults can do as they wish in privacy" rule?

(active) voluntary euthanasia is one, though I think it's legal in a pair of US states (Oregon since '94 and Washington since 2008).

Re: Want an Unpaid Internship So You Can Get Valuable Experience ? – Screw You

#149

Post by abalashov » Sun, Sep 06, 2009, 12:06 AM UTC

For example, there was a case of an internship for working on a train. The company had the interns driving trains from one end of their yard to the other under close supervision. The moving of the trains was completely unnecessary and was just being done to train the potential employees.

It seems to me that this is a rather vague, academic argument.

Maybe the trains benefit from occasional movement in order to keep their mechanical systems lubricated, so that certain fluids and pressure chambers don't go flat, etc.

Obviously, I have no idea if that's true. I don't know a thing about trains or other mechanical systems.

The point is that if one wants to, one can probably make the claim - however tenuous - that just about any sort of 'kinetics' of supposedly "no value" to the company do, in fact, have some benefit.

Grooming potential future employees by having them do "useless" work can lower future recruitment costs and reduce risk. Isn't that "valuable?"

Re: Want an Unpaid Internship So You Can Get Valuable Experience ? – Screw You

#150

Post by abalashov » Sun, Sep 06, 2009, 12:08 AM UTC

mattj wrote: post #146

bumbledraven wrote: post #142

Earlier quoted context omitted.

An unpaid internship with a company like Berkshire Hathaway or Pixar could actually be worth a lot of money. It's incredibly valuable to point to work you've done for a respected organization, paid or not.

Except that by being unpaid, they're saying that what you did for them wasn't worth enough to pay them for it.

Not necessarily; maybe it is that the conditions under which the work was performed (i.e. a low level of experience) brought negligible value to the organisation or entailed too high a risk or quality variance to be worth paying for, even if the actual kinetics are remunerable, in principle.