[pron]

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 can appreciate their work?

Again, I'd like to attribute the responses to the commenters' young age, and I trust your good intentions, but hackers, engineers and all entrepreneurs should really learn something about work-relations, social policy and ethics.

[orangecat]

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 on the street.

In equally loaded terms, why would you deny poor people an opportunity to improve their lives?

[pron]

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.

[orangecat]

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.

[pron]

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.

[ekianjo]

The "sweatshops" in China that you seem to criticize are the ones offering slightly better paid-jobs to the ones who have nothing at all, who live a miserable life in the countryside.

You seem to ignore that Everything derives from work. It gives the poor a way to earn a living, an activity to count on, some sense of being independent (instead of relying on welfare), and it enables them to save (even a little) money. It makes them responsible. It provides them experience that they can build on to become better at what they do and aspire for something a little more advanced. Most poor people who work do not stay at the bottom of their society for their whole life. Work is an effective social ladder, and where we stand right now is the downright proof of it.

"Exploitation" is only a matter of point of view. What you see as exploitation is not an universal, tangible truth for everyone in this world.

[lusr]

It's frustrating debating with one who employs such rhetoric:

1. "I don't consider actively exploiting the poor as "not improving their lives enough"." and "Neither do I consider marginal benefit a positive if it comes at the cost of exploitation."

You've framed the debate as "exploiting the poor" and "exploitation" yet do not give any reason for this other than an implicit claim that sub-minimum wage is exploitation. Let's say the minimum wage is $X/hr and this project allows these people to earn $(X - 0.01)/hr. Is that still exploitation? Why do you assume just because something MIGHT not be minimum wage that it's exploitation? Minimum wage and exploitation are only slightly correlated subjects.

All the original author is suggesting is to OFFER people jobs at a rate that the economy identifies as a sustainable employment opportunity. Kids selling gum at school might earn below minimum wage but it's their choice and their life to do. Nobody is FORCING anybody to take those jobs, therefore this is not exploitation and your dramatic and emotionally overloaded choice of words really does not help you make your point. You need to take a moment to define exploitation and I think in doing so you will see your argument is flawed.

2. "I don't see anyone moving from selling drugs to doing menial mechanical turk work" OK but that's your opinion and minimum wage laws block verifying what the reality of the situation is.

3. "By all means - go and try to turn America's poor into Silicon Valley's drones rather than invest in their future"

Why do you constantly resort to such emotive, overloaded language? There's no conspiracy here; nobody is trying to "turn" anybody into anything. What people ARE saying is "Hey here's a way some people can make some money, maybe some will find it acceptable" and people like you are saying "No I refuse to let anybody explore this possibility because I'm uncomfortable with a society where people are earning less than I think they should because of my beliefs about what people should earn, and I believe that my beliefs override freewill".

Notice that your argument, as far as I can tell after filtering out the emotion, is pretty much all about your beliefs about work and society, and has nothing to do with (a) the actual state of the economy at a given point in time or (b) the actual people out there who might benefit from the proposed arrangement.

[pron]

The reason I employ "emotional rhetoric" is because most people here have employed unemotional or "rational" rhetoric. This isn't statistics. This isn't an optimization problem. What I'm trying to do is to show that when you deal with actual people, people who have so far gotten the short end of the stick at everything, people with desires, people capable of feeling pain - you must at least consider an "emotional" approach.

And I don't need to win an argument here - I've already won. The simple fact is that people earning below average (or, rather, below median) in America are worse off than almost anywhere else in the western world. And that's the majority of the population. I was simply expressing my amazement that a certain world outlook - which I'm not even trying to argue 'cause this is not the place - that has traditionally been common among certain American social groups, has taken hold of SV entrepreneurs. I find this surprising because Northern California has had, for a long time, much sympathy for the counter-culture movement and to ideas of social justice. I also find it interesting that it seems like this approach is expressed here not because of some deeply held beliefs, some ideological values, but simply because of a technical, mathematical way of looking at the world. I was amazed and saddened at the dehumanization expressed here.

Now, I wasn't trying to change anyone's mind on politics, but just in case someone was expressing his views simply because he's grown accustomed to looking at the world through equations and algorithms, I was hoping maybe my words could jar him out of his technical sleep. Saying "Hey here's a way some people can make some money, maybe some will find it acceptable" without considering whether or not the idea is ethical, whether or not it is humane, seems so... callous. Of course someone will find it acceptable - like I said someplace else, someone will find it acceptable to sell his own organs for money; someone will agree to go into slavery so that he'll have something to eat - but that doesn't make it right. And I'm not even saying you should take my definitions for right and wrong. Use your own. But the first question you should ask yourself is "is this right?" and not, "will this work?"

(All of this is not to say that I cede the "rational" argument, or agree that unregulated free-market capitalism has actual economic merit - I don't. It's just more important for me to address the lack of ethical thinking, or the precedence of economic thinking to it rather than argue economics)

[Klinky]

I agree with your compassion for humanity, but I'd think you're overemphasizing the benefits of having physical co-workers & a boss. There are many self-employed individuals who relish not having to deal with such things. I'd rather see emphasis on how this system would help someone improve their life & their community, instead of just being exploited by rich people in a foreign country.

[stroboskop]

You are being downvoted because most people on Hacker News disagree with you. Also, because your tone may be perceived as slightly hysterical.

I doubt young age of commenters is the reason for their stance and for many intentions are as good as they pay. Crucially, most people here imagine themselves as (future) bosses and do not empathize with the poor operating mechanical turks. Also consider that many here unconsciously are mechanical turk operators while believing they are entrepreneurs.

There are of course others here as well. But look at the brightness of your comment and you will find out who is the majority.

[pron]

I hope you are wrong about this. And my tone is more than slightly hysterical - I am downright panicking. If Ayn-Randian ideology has taken over the hearts of young Silicon Valley startup entrepreneurs, and if that is the current way of thinking in Northern California of all places, then we've got a problem.

But I think you're wrong. I think what we're reading here is not a heartfelt, confident business or social ideology, but a hacker's frame of mind. A hacker mostly thinks about how to do things well. Sometimes he thinks about what to do. Only rarely does he consider the question of why, in the grand scheme of things. Very few hackers consider the social ramifications of technology, and when they do, it's usually very short-term.

[Drbble]

There is a strong Randian thread in SV culture, as there is in most communities where overprivelege mixes with social awkwardness, but it doesn't dominate. Plenty of other folks believe in doing well by doing good.

[pron]

:)

[wilfra]

Pretty sure every libertarian (I am not one), regardless of age, would disagree with you.

If people are willing to do the work for a given wage, the free market should be able to pay them (or so Libertarians believe).

[pron]

There's a market for everything: human organs; hit-jobs. But you know what, I'm not even arguing the merits of the free market. I'm simply amazed at the fact that most comments here simply discuss the efficiency of the process, as if this were an algorithm or a development methodology, rather than something involving real living people, and not any people, but the weakest in society.

I'd like to suggest that instead of building work booths for the poor where machines will pay them money, perhaps the big companies should do everything in their power to make sure these people have a chance at a proper education, so that some day they could have jobs that would give them some dignity. Jobs that the mechanical-turk mega-farmers would wish for their children.

[cornell532]

Libertarianism would say that hit-jobs (and stolen organs) involve coercion. That is, it's not "2 consenting adults", but rather a market for doing harm on to other people and creating a "externality effect" of harm. This is similar to dumping pollutants into our air or oceans. Yes it might appear "free", but it actually does harm to 3rd parties.

In fact, I think the market for human organs is an interesting analog. Personally, I think that introducing free-market principles into organ exchange would be beneficial to all! The notion of paying someone to agree to donate their organs at the end of their life benefits all of society (see wikipedia article http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Organ_donation): LIVES are saved with the greater availability of organs, and the life of the donor is improved with access to money that he/she would otherwise not have. This is not a zero-sum game in which one person must lose for another to win. A principal of economics is that through commerce/trade/exchange we both prosper! Both sides want what the other side is giving them more than what they have to give up. ie the donor wants money more than organs, and the recipient wants organs more than money. Both sides win!

I have absolutely no problem with compensating organ donors for actually helping other humans and improving society through their generous donation.

Likewise, if 2 consenting adults want to engage in a relationship in which 1 works for an agreed upon wage, and the other provides that work, I see no reason to intervene in that arrangement. As long as each party is aware of the risks and the full terms of the deal are openly on the table (ie if doing this work could be deleterious to worker for some reason and that information is not disclosed) then people should be free to engage in their course of business.

[whateverer]

Yeah... that would get really morbid as desperate people start to sell their organs to secure the welfare of their loved ones. Sometimes rational actors acting in their best interest is the least important part of how you model a problem.

[cornell532]

What do they do now? You make it sound like there's a better alternative currently available!

The reason they would consider selling a FUTURE interest in their organs is because it would be the best option on the table. Since it's not currently available as an option, they must be choosing considerably worse option now (which is the best currently available option).

How is your alternative more just, more fair, better?

---------------- EDIT ----------------

Imagine YOUR loved one received a liver/heart/kidney in this manner, thereby saving his/her life. And in so doing it DID improve the welfare of someone loved by the donor allowing him/her to get a better education, get better housing, or something else worthwhile.

What is so horrible about that? Your insurance company would cover it and it would make the world a BETTER PLACE for everyone. By the way, the surgeon gets paid a lot of money for a complex procedure like organ transplant; what's wrong with a donor getting a tiny fraction of that for his/her contribution providing the amazing, wonderful gift of life?

[whateverer]

Well, without regulation it won't necessarily be the _FUTURE_ interest in selling an organ. As I said, desperation can make a person do crazy things, and there's more to consent whether there's a contract involved and no guns pointed to anyone's head.

And while it creates an incentive to donate organs, it also allows wealthier people to hoard them. Remember that the circumstances which allow the organs of a person to be successfully extracted for transplant are pretty rare[1], they essentially have to die in a hospital of brain death with their organs intact, so even if more people are willing and legally bound, offer may still fail to satisfy demand, only this time it will be mostly a matter of who has more money. And that's not exactly fair.

1. http://www.organtransplants.org/understanding/death/

[pron]

Well, I think that the problem with what you're saying is the definition of "consent". Suppose there existed a part of society that was born to people of means, or at least - connections. Then, suppose there was another part that was born to generations of neglect, and even abuse by the other part (I think that in the US, abuse had taken some extreme forms at various times in history). Now, I'm not so sure that a person coming from the disadvantaged part of society can actually give his free "consent" to sell a kidney to someone coming from the well-connected part. Sure, both side may want what the other side offers, but I doubt the freedom of such a decision. There are many forms of coercion - some of them very subtle yet very powerful.

EDIT: Though, again, my main complaint isn't about one opinion or another regarding this issue, but about the lack of discussion of what is, in-fact, the real issue here. Instead, I see commenters suggesting ways to deal with vandalism or "crap data". To me it sounds like discussing the (efficient) mechanics of, well, I don't want to give extreme historical analogies here which do not apply, but the point is that people are quick to suggest ways for improving a process before giving serious, and I mean serious, thought to the question of whether this process should exist in the first place, and what could its effect be on the minds and souls of the people its targeting.

[cornell532]

Ah, now we arrive at the real nut of anti-Libertarianism: paternalism. The notion that somehow adults are not capable of making their own decisions. This is our fundamental disagreement. To me, impoverished, indigent people struggling to make ends meet are fully capable of making their own decisions. People fondly recall stories of their immigrant ancestors working hard and struggling in order to provide a better life for their children. Why do we want to curtail the ability of today's poor from making the same decisions? You're deciding for them that it's better to stay poor than whatever alternative they might choose for themselves (in an effort to climb out of poverty) because you know better than them.

I will admit, there are roles for government regulation in the marketplace. I simply do not know enough about the chicken I buy at the grocery to make an informed choice. I appreciate the health inspectors, organic labels, and other regulations that facilitate a free, fair, and efficient marketplace in which I do not need to know the farmer to be confident my chicken will not poison me.

However, I do not think lack of open (and understandable) information is the issue in this particular case.

Regarding your last point, I agree with you. The more interesting aspect here is not the implementation details, but rather the questions you're raising of free enterprise, the freedom to work, and the freedom to engage in free & fair commerce of your choosing.

[pron]

Sorry, buddy. What you're describing isn't libertarianism. Libertarianism must first of all advocate true liberty, including liberty from exploitation, and if it's not the government's job to enforce this freedom, then you must advocate the exploited's right to fight the exploitation, even through violent means, because exploitation is a form of violence as well. That people under extreme duress do not really have the option of a truly free choice is not paternalism - it's a fact.

What you're describing isn't libertarianism. It's simply a way to preserve power in the hands of those who already possess it. You can't condone the government's right to legislate laws that permit economic exploitation but prohibit violent opposition.

[ChrisNorstrom]

lol, you must be in lala land. There are millions of poeple in the United States of America that live in Third World Country like conditions. Unless you're willing to empty your bank account and help them out, this is way it is. That's how the USA got started, that's how China is getting started, that's how Dubai got started. That's reality. The world is not perfect, a shitty job is better than no job.

[pron]

Sure. Pretty soon I bet we'll hear some suggestions - all backed up by hard data, mind you - to reinstate slavery, only this time around it will be voluntary. After all, slave owners fed and clothed their slaves. It will certainly be an improvement over the way some people are living now, so that's a win-win, right? Then some people will say that slavery is wrong, plain wrong, whether it's voluntary or not, and whether it is beneficial to the slaves or not, only to be rebuffed by those in this forum who'll say there's simply not enough evidence to support the necessity of ethics, and others will say: well, that's just the way of the world.

Until that happens, we have before us the suggestion to build working-booths for the poor, where they can simply walk in and work for us, and get paid directly by a money dispenser so that we won't even have to see them or talk to them. And they won't even have to commute - we'll build those hi-tech sweatshops right in their slums. We won't even know their names, and if one of them gets sick - well, someone else will take his place and we won't even have to know about it because we can't really be bothered by poor people and their problems. They should be thankful that we need cheap labor so much that we're even willing to employ them (as long as they don't have to come into the office) - it's certainly better than whatever they must be doing now; selling drugs, probably - after all, that's what poor people do, right? All we have to think about now is how to prevent them from cheating us and stealing our money.

How come people are so sure they can revolutionize the world with some stupid web or mobile app, sure that they can disrupt the market and unseat market leaders, but when it comes to social issues some of those very same people sound like slaves to power themselves? How come hackers who are supposedly able to "think outside the box" sound like old, bitter, fatalist, soulless conservatives?

[ChrisNorstrom]

I understand your concern and it's really nice to know there's warm hearted people like you out there. But you're either a perfectionist, or have no contact or experience with anyone living in poverty. Keeping people who are impoverished out of trouble and giving them a job no matter how demeaning is the most important first step. Believe me, I live in St. Louis, We're tied with Detroit for having the most violent crime in the whole United States. Poor people living the ghetto are not all the "poor souls being taken advantage of" that you think they are. Those people need discipline, a job, and ANY kind of income. No one will hire them for a reason. They're not just well behaved people sitting around hoping for a miracle. They have serious behavioral problems that really hurt their ability to have ANY kind of job. And a mechanical Turk solution is the last hope for many of them.

Also, in your attempt to achieve "perfect" you will end up achieving nothing.

I understand your thought process and it DOES make sense but we are not living in a perfect world, we are living in capitalism. And if you don't pay poor people in America a few pennies to type in "cat" next to a picture of a cat, that business owner will go to another country and get them to type "cat" next to a picture of a cat.

In the perfect world this wouldn't be an issue, there would be a world wide minimum wage but there isn't. So we have to stick with what works, not what's perfect. Not what's right. Not what's correct. But what works at the moment. That's what the world was built on.

[yummyfajitas]

...to reinstate slavery, only this time around it will be voluntary.

Go look up the definition of slavery. Your post is internally contradictory.

[Drbble]

Even if entered into voluntarily, without an opportunity to exit slavery is still the correct term.

[yummyfajitas]

As far as I'm aware, to exit the turk-booth you simply need to click "logout". Has someone proposed something different?