[zemo]

this is extremely, extremely tone-deaf.

> As long as people are willing to do this job for this amount of money, it will probably not get better unfortunately.

child labor didn't stop because parents stopped being willing to sentence their kids to labor, it stopped because of laws. The free market does nothing to guarantee that working conditions are livable or humane. Any suggestion to the contrary is at best naive, at worst malicious.

> I think empowering people to learn employable skills is a better investment.

That's nice, but where does a single parent working wage labor have the time to learn new skills? Who is paying a livable wage for people to learn new skills?

[innagadadavida]

> child labor didn't stop because parents stopped being willing to sentence their kids to labor...

No it did not, it just moved overseas. It is hard to beat the free market -- it just finds the most economical way to get things done, it does not care about human plight.

[srean]

A law without a budget to support enforcement does not do much. It again comes down to economics - the balance of risks vs returns. This is of course obvious. What provokes me to mention the obvious is the count of politicians/governments who grandstand on issues, pass laws but do not back it with a budget. These are mostly PR exercises.

[token_throwaway]

Unfortunately people are really bad at assessing scale, so they forget that there are always going to be people who "have to" do this kind of job. Always. The goal should be to give people the choices to not end up this way. It is extremely harsh. But life is harsh. We should do what we can as a people to push equality of opportunity, but if we look for equality of outcome, we're just burying our heads in the sand re: the harshness of the world.

[zemo]

> It is extremely harsh. But life is harsh.

Oh please. We don't live in the forest, we don't scrape the dirt for nuts and berries, we live in modern industrialized societies with extreme concentrations of wealth. Life is not innately harsh due to uncontrollable circumstance; modern life is harsh because of the greed of corporations like Amazon and the indifference of comments like yours. In a modern industrialized society, there is no legitimate reason for laborers to work torturous 60 hour weeks. Scores of countries have banned these sorts of working conditions but we turn a blind eye to it because at the end of the day the software industry is utterly indifferent to the harm that it is doing to the rest of the population. We've seen labor riots and civil unrest going back hundreds of years to protest these sorts of labor conditions. These aren't random, unavoidable forces of nature: these are the cruel practices of an industry that treats humans like nothing more than numbers to be optimized.

[token_throwaway]

Please, find an example of a better system in a stronger economy.

[zemo]

why? You're not going to be convinced no matter what I say, because the challenged as posed is a pure trick. Both "better system" and "strong economy" are multivariant. So long as I say "in [place] that has laws mandating [some labor condition], they have [some value higher] in [some dimension]", and you will say "but in [some other dimension] they are [worse]". No matter what case is presented, you will refute it by any means that suit your argument to keep your own already-held conclusion that the profits of the few justify the subjugation of the many. So I could click around to various labor laws and economics statistics and say things like "Denmark's Working Environment Act dictates a standard work week of 37 hours and more than 48 hours a week and they have a higher GDP per capita and their national debt is 39% of GDP compared to the uk's 89% of gdp and they report higher levels of happiness" and you might say something like "yes but their taxes are higher and their life expectancy is shorter and also open-faced sandwiches are bad". There's no one metric to define "better system" or "stronger economy", so the challenge as posed has no merit. So long as you are looking to justify the stance you already have to yourself, you will.

Really, I cannot convince you of this point based on evidence alone. I can only tell you this: I am literally disgusted by your stance and I would never want to work with you or for you, and I think that society as a whole will start to see the software industry as a force of evil, moreso and moreso with each passing day, so long as your stance is the norm.

[mriguy]

You are right about the laws influencing child labor, however they are not a sufficient condition. There also needs to be a corresponding increase in returns to child education over and above returns from labor in order for child labor to vanish. For example: India has very strong laws, however child labor still exists.

[fredgrott]

not really..come on either you want to take a risk and make something and sell it to get higher income or take no risk and go for that low paying warehouse job. Tell us all what risk did any one take in getting a warehouse job?

Gee life is hard...really?

[zemo]

> you want to take a risk and make something and sell it to get higher income

no, almost nobody does that. People who work in an Amazon warehouse have no option to take a risk to make something, they are selling their labor because it is the only way to feed themselves. Almost nobody has the ability to "take a risk and make something". Your comment shows a complete ignorance of how the vast majority of people experience the world. The vast, vast majority of people in the world do not control the means of production or have the ability to do so, they sell their labor because they have no other choice.

This attitude, that everyone being exploited is doing so because they made a choice is endemic to our industry and it is the literally reason that our industry is increasingly seen negatively by those outside of our industry. People who work in Amazon warehouses did not one day decide or not decide to take a risk: the vast majority of them are working any job they can get to avoid going hungry.

If you make something and sell it, you are in control of the means of production; you are not selling your labor, you are selling a product. People who work in an Amazon warehouse are not selling a product, they are selling their labor. The vast, vast majority of people on Earth sell their labor.

you are defending inhumane working conditions. You are defending subjugation in the name of business interest.

This attitude and people like you make me sick of the software industry. I am disgusted by how common the attitude of utter indifference is in our industry.

[watwut]

If there is risk involved, then there are quite a few people guaranteed to lost - and worst off then those warehouse workers. Otherwise it would not be risk, right? Are you even sure that expected payoff is worth it in agreggate? (E.g. if we don't end up with much worst overall economic situation if people would follow your advice)

You talk about "taking risk" is if it would be solution to social problems. It is not.