Jobs are paid according to supply and demand. Jobs that anybody can do will always be paid poorly.

It’s pretty bad when an obvious comment like this is downvoting on HN. It’s a fact, it’s basic economics but also just how the world works.

If you want mods to earn more create a social network and pay them more.

They don't even need to create a new social network. If they want FTE benefits of a specific company. They could always, you know, apply and clear the interview.

> If you want mods to earn more create a social network and pay them more.

This is an entirely unrealistic and unhelpful suggestion.

Create an AI which understands the intent of a piece of content then.

Moderation is the job of editors and journalists being lost to social media and the internet.

All those millions of local news papers and reporters who had to make judgement calls on whether some content should be displayed, or whether it was not newsworthy?

That is part of what content moderation is, that process debt that SM firms don't want to pay for.

Their suggestion of creating a brand new competing social media network is not a realistic solution to Facebook treating its workers badly. Your suggestion of just creating some AI to do all the work is similarly unrealistic.

They don’t downvote because they think the comment is wrong, they downvote because they’d rather reality not be like that.

This is purely because of exploitation - people work those jobs to guarantee themselves shelter, food and warmth.

If we (as a society) guaranteed everybody enough resources to live, those types of jobs would need to be paid a more appropriate rate, including hazard pay.

Even if we presuppose that everyone working could choose not to work at all, I think your scenario is overly idealistic.

What your scenario changes is that the labor supply gets to be much more selective about the job they take. Supply and demand still exist. Moderating facebook is still a low skill desk job. The pay and benefit floor may be raised across the board, but I don't see what the market force would separate moderating facebook from the other jobs with comparable pay today.

Sure, you could quit a job moderating facebook and not have to worry about keeping yourself solvent. But the same goes for every other job. What would separate them from the jobs that they're on the same level with today?

> What your scenario changes is that the labor supply gets to be much more selective about the job they take.

Indeed, that's the point: to move away from the current system of the wealthy coercing and exploiting the not-wealthy.

PTSD?

> What would separate them from the jobs that they're on the same level with today?

I'm imagining jobs with (for example) a high emotional toll, disgust factor, risk factor.

I believe those aspects are presently undervalued (described above as jobs which "anyone can do"), so I imagine there would be a reassessment of how those tasks are valued. They would likely require relatively higher pay before people were willing to do them.

Jobs with generally poor working conditions, or a high degree of managerial control and low autonomy, could be re-factored into jobs with better working conditions, as people are more able to be selective on that basis.

The thing is not many people want to do this kind of charity.

The only way to solve this is to develop a technology that is advanced enough and cheap enough that everybody can guarantee themselves shelter, food, warmth without any other human involved.

> everybody can guarantee themselves shelter, food, warmth without any other human involved.

I was also going to mention that this is actively prevented by modern society. In practice, you cannot forge these things by yourself, as you will soon be stopped by private landownership.

I'm not sure, the trend is energy become cheaper and cheaper and technology become more advanced every time.

I imagine technology that some day advance enough and autonomous enough and cheap enough that enable me to live off the grid with supply of unlimited solar energy and robot that can make me food.

The only thing that can fix society is to have no society.

> If we (as a society) guaranteed everybody enough resources to live

That would do really weird economic things because either money would have to be something you really want since your basic needs are already covered, or the job would have to be very rewarding because you can basically choose not to go into work arbitrarily.

Well, that's true, but it doesn't make the GP false.

UBI is a coarse hack that can improve this situation up to a limited amount, but it's mainly an open problem. New ideas on this area are very welcome.

If everyone was guaranteed those resources, then no-one is going to do the jobs that need doing.

In other words: [you believe] you benefit from this exploitation and you're quite satisfied with it.

No, you're presented a false dichotomy.

There's no "we as society" that can just magically "provide the resources". The resources must happen, i.e. somebody actually needs to do the work. In other words, it's someone's job. There is no feasible way to run a society without people doing the work. In fact, the pandemic has been a good example of this, on so many levels - farmers in UK complaining that the strawberries are going to rot on the fields without immigrant labour (because of border lockdowns), shops almost running out of food (because of supply chain breakdowns, which governments took a lot of effort to protect/reestablish), mask & PPE shortages (because there's not enough people doing the work in factories - particularly in Europe), food deliveries (i.e. someone needs to actually do the work of getting in a car and driving around), ...

Giving people sufficient basic resources for survival doesn't stop them from working.

Everyone being paid more than a living wage is already choosing to do more work than they have to. Why do you assume that people would stop working, if they have a choice? It's already evident that people choose to work without coercion, if they are paid properly.

My point is that coercion via threat of personal destitution is bad and should be eliminated, not that work is bad.

If no-one is doing jobs that need doing, then pay for those jobs will rise until it reaches equilibrium. Greed and motivation will always be there.

If everyone was guaranteed those resources, the price of everything would rise so people would still need to do those jobs.

Guarantee Resources -> Higher prices for those resources -> People need to work to get those resources -> Resources are no longer guaranteed.

Even if prices rose with everyone guaranteed resources, why would anyone get off their asses to shovel shit when they can sit at home and get paid basically the same?

This is a sort of complete miunderstanding of how your world works. Utterly.

People work for incentives. People on HN work on their startups - why?

They could get a SW job and leave the stress behind, why do they have to struggle?

Some people will take the basics and be happy - thats their call. MANY others will do what it takes to get paid because that is what they want.

So if you aren't getting enough fruit pickers, well pay more. If apparently your going rate isn't high enough, well then those strawberries are perhaps not economically viable in the first place, since no one in your economy wants to do that work.

Obviously its a lot more complex, but the essence of economics is always - people act according to incentives.

Because prices would be so high that you would be unable to pay rent or eat on your monthly “allowance”. You could keep raising the allowance every month and things would soon spiral out of control

This assumes that large landowners and food conglomerates are 100% rentiers.

That the money they make is based on the amount they can extract, and not on the value they provide. You're describing a system which is not democratic capitalism, it is serfdom.

If that were the case, why would we continue to allow that?

That still doesn’t mean it is exploitation. One person has no inherent right to shelter, food and warmth. If someone decides to give it to them, that is charity.

This sounds incredibly heartless – even cruel – to me. I'm sorry, but I can't put it any other way.

I'd like to think that we can transcend "survival of the fittest" just a little bit. Besides, you never know if you might need some help from others for shelter, food, or warmth in the future.

If you want to transcend it, make the world that way, for people around you. But neither nature nor the human world is like that by default.

And you can’t expect other people to share your philosophy either. Giving people shelter costs other people time and work. How will you pay for that?

What is your point? We live in a society and we're stuck with each other. We need some rules to organize this. It can't work on a "if I feel like it"-basis.

> Giving people shelter costs other people time and work. How will you pay for that?

We've been doing this kind of thing since modern humans evolved (actually, probably longer). It's just the society got larger and got organized in to nations.

I agree that it is cruel and am in favor of charity, but think it is important to be clear on the differences between rights and desires.

I am sure what you just mentioned are actually the universal human rights according to the UN..

I was curious about that; it is in Article 25 of the UN's Universal Declaration of Human Rights: "Everyone has the right to a standard of living adequate for the health and well-being of himself and of his family, including food, clothing, housing and medical care and necessary social services ..."

And this is why I have a problem with the UN declaration of human rights.If I choose to live on a Sandune in the middle of the Sahara, Who’s obligation is it to ensure these services are provided to me.That said, I would say it’s a reasonable aspiration for society to be structured in a way that this is achievable for people that want to work for it or can’t work for it, but not a right

This is why the UN declaration of rights is kind of meaningless. Rights are meaningless if there is no enforcement.

What do you consider an inherent right, then? Nothing aside from being allowed to exist?

There are negative rights and positive rights. The former is freedom from other humans doing things to and the second is requires other humans to do something for you.

I believe that only negative rights are and can be inherent.

You can build social contracts that help people get services and materials on top of this, because people care about each other.

There is no such thing as inherent right, every right must be earned or fight for.

Is/ought.

Rights are oughts, not ises, IMO. (Oughts which I believe in, but still oughts).

I agree, but this is a matter of semantics. There is nothing in the physical universe that supports morality.

Rights are components of a moral framework, inherently philosophical - unless you believe in a god. When someone says something IS a right, they are really saying "This is a fundamental assumption in the moral framework I believe to describe a just world"

What is the point of society if we can't look after everyone in it?

You can look back historically to answer that question in many ways. One common answer had to do with organizing, managing, and controlling people for the benefit of an elite ruling class. Which is still a reasonable description of e.g. US society today.

That makes sense and is an interesting argument. Do you know if there are any books that explore that thought?

It's a big topic. I don't have any single book in mind, but I can point you to some sources.

"Elite theory" in political science and sociology is closely related, e.g.: https://www.britannica.com/topic/elite-theory, which has a history going back to ancient Greece. U. Delaware's polsci department has an intro to this in the US context: https://www1.udel.edu/htr/Psc105/Texts/power.html , and there's also this article by a prof at USCS: https://whorulesamerica.ucsc.edu/power/class_domination.html

Much of Chomsky's writing is concerned with such topics, e.g. https://truthout.org/articles/us-guardian-elite-rulers-date-... , which makes the point that the notion of an elite guardian class goes back to the founding of the US, and it in turn was based on ideas inherited from monarchies.

A couple of others of Chomsky's are https://chomsky.info/199606__/ or https://chomsky.info/20141202/ . These are just examples which deal with particular mechanisms of control which are used by elites to achieve outcomes in their favor.

Marx and Engels are relevant here also. Here's the opening sentence of Chapter I of the Communist Manifesto (https://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1848/communist-m... ):

> "The [written] history of all hitherto existing society is the history of class struggles."

It goes on to discuss power structures in various types of historical society.

There's lots more out there - is there any particular aspect you're interested in?

I think the other posters comment is a pretty pessimistic take. Humans are inherently tribal and a banded together since before we existed as a species. This wasn’t for the advantage of top animal. It offered protection, Stability, and a way to raise young in this environment. Higher primates will share food when they have access but aren’t communes.I would posit that most historic human societies serve the same function. They provide protection from external threats and stabilize chaotic environment. Peasants received protection from their Lords in exchange for taxes. Looking into more recent human history of the US government served much the same function. There was no redistribution of wealth, and no income taxes until they were added on to fund World War I. The idea that governments acting on behalf of society have the goal of Supporting the poor is a relatively new development. National healthcare insurance was largely a development after World War II, and for most of the countries, support of the poor was handled through private charity until late In the 20th century

I was giving a pervasive example of how "looking after everyone in society" has often not really been the main goal of societies. This is consistent with what you wrote, "The idea that governments acting on behalf of society have the goal of supporting the poor is a relatively new development."

> Humans are inherently tribal and a banded together since before we existed as a species. This wasn’t for the advantage of top animal.

Modern governments are not tribal societies, though. As I've observed in https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=25997576 , the Communist Manifesto Ch. 1 opens with the sentence, "The history of all hitherto existing society is the history of class struggles," but adds a footnote about this referring to written history, i.e. history of post-tribal civilizations.

> I would posit that most historic human societies serve the same function.

Perhaps to some extent, but to help disabuse yourself of the notion of the benevolence of the ruling class in this respect, some of the references in my comment linked above might help. In particular, what Chomsky has to say about the elite "guardian class" in the US: https://truthout.org/articles/us-guardian-elite-rulers-date-...

The job market is not a natural phenomenon like gravity. It is essentially a societal construct already subject to regulation. If it produces outcomes we - its builders and participants - don't like, we can change it. It's true that supply and demand will always be factors, but we can set boundaries.

I'm not proposing any particular change here myself, i just want to push back against that fatalistic attitude.

Jobs are also paid according to the danger they pose, often enforced by government or unions.

Want to be an underwater welder? Sure, here's your danger surcharge.

Want to be a cab driver on the night shift? Sure, here's your surcharge.

> Jobs are also paid according to the danger they pose

Only because it's a function of limiting supply (of willing labor). High danger means fewer people willing to do it, which means it pays more to attract willing candidates.

If there are still a ton of willing candidates, you don't get paid extra because you think it's dangerous work.

Mods have very easy job, they have to decidee if picture has an underboob, or something is too controversial. Pay is comparable to nurse in hospital.

IT IS low skill job, made by low qualified fresh graduates, and AI already handles big part of it.

Crime scene cleaning pays more than normal janitor jobs, not because the work is harder but because there is emotional labour beyond the simple job.

You need to consider the effects of work on employees bodies and minds.

There is skill to be treated like a serf for a living and smiling to your masters who claim your labour is low skilled and not deserving of a fair (living) wage.

More specifically, there are fewer people willing or able to do crime scene cleaning than normal janitorial work. That drives the price up. Simple supply and demand explain it quite well.

I go to pub with them (well, used to, thosr are now closed). Biggest problem they have are workload metrics (number of qualifications per hour).

Real nurse has to deal with real blood and real gore. If you believe those mods should be paid more, you are out of your mind.

Anyway, this type of jobs will be soon replaced by AI classifiers. Nobody will suffer anymore.

Have you ever thought that maybe the particular subcontracting group you seem to know so well doesnt represent the entirety of FB mods as a job? You seem strangely adamant that this is no big deal, while ignoring the many reports we've heard over the years of the kind of very bad stuff mods have had to deal with, regardless of your anecdotal experience.

Also, on AI classifiers, I think there are far too many nuanced situations to completely replace mods, and your comment about this is very hand-wavy, and even if you are right, we still need to deal with the problems we have now, not defer them by saying there will be a solution in the future.

I am just saying what I heard. Maybe it is AI, maybe it is handled in different office. This company is bussiness oriented, does tech support in multiple languages in large openspace fish bowl. It would be weird to restore passwords on one table, and watch violence on next table.

But I am sure many of them would take this work for a bit of extra money. There are people from Middle East, Ukraine, Romania... We had millions refugees passing through Athens just a few years ago. Reality is simply very different here.

People post things like beheadings, all sorts of sexual assault (including sexual assault on children), and so forth. It's not just underboobs and dickpics.

There have been many stories about this, one example: https://www.theverge.com/2019/2/25/18229714/cognizant-facebo...

Yes, like you said, there is brutal violence and child sexual assault material (CSAM) that moderators have to view. I worked at a non-profit to which Facebook, et. al are required to submit CSAM once detected on their platform. It's been a few years, but the quantity of content submitted from Facebook was truly disturbing.

People I know do not deal with this type of stuff. Maybe it is AI progress, maybe it is handled somewhere else.

But for $35k/year you would find here many people with great english and university education. And life skills to handle this, for example former police officer.

AI does not and cannot deal with these situations.

Secondly Facebook has 11 categories of online harm, 1 of which is nudity.

> https://transparency.facebook.com/community-standards-enforc...

The list is:

Adult Nudity and Sexual Activity

Bullying and Harassment

Child Nudity and Sexual Exploitation of Children

Dangerous Organizations: Terrorism

Dangerous Organizations: Organized Hate

Fake Accounts

Hate Speech

Regulated Goods: Drugs

Regulated Goods: Firearms

Spam

Suicide and Self-Injury

Violent and Graphic Content

Adult nudity is 0.05%-0.06% of all content views. That is the same rate for violent and graphic content. This means people somewhere, are going through millions of pictures of graphic violence.

You could simply be dealing with the lucky team which just has to watch schlongs.