One thing I think worth interrogating here is why an article like this triggers such revulsion, but professions like nannying or housecleaning feel more easy to accept. In both cases, someone...
Exemplary
One thing I think worth interrogating here is why an article like this triggers such revulsion, but professions like nannying or housecleaning feel more easy to accept.
In both cases, someone comes to your house and fulfills a household role on your behalf. In both cases, the tasks being offloaded are things that mature adults are (perhaps unfairly) expected to do entirely on their own (cooking, cleaning, time management... parenting, even?). In both cases, hiring someone to do this work is a privilege afforded only to folks with quite a bit of disposal income. Yet, the scenario in this article feels so much worse. Why?
My theory is that, because of a combination of factors, this whole scheme has just about the most horrid optics possible. The desk setup? The condescension directed at his younger assistants? The constant (very personal) interaction over a period of 16 hours, 7 days a week ? A wealthy male hiring a female personal assistant? It feels... Overly familiar in an adult-to-adult way. It gives me skeevy vibes, while the other jobs don't. By comparison, nannies have a caregiver-to-child relationship (wholesome!), and housecleaners are often given privacy to focus on the task in isolation (less chance of a creepy relationship forming!). The working relationship between hirer and hiree is entirely different.
I mostly just wanted to point this out because a lot of the criticisms leveled at this post (privilege, entitlement) could in theory be leveled at people who have the audacity to hire others to do their housework and parenting for them, too. (The horror!) But, I don't think the act of exchanging money for personal labor is the true offense here?
(Tangent, but I mean, there's a whole separate conversation to be had about e.g. disabled folks hiring others to take care of tasks they don't have the capacity or ability for. But again, that has way better optics! There's an actual life-or-death need there, which isn't present in this blog post. Yet I've still seen disabled folk online get caught in the crossfire when discussing the ethics of hiring folks to take care of personal labor. Not good! But, I digress, aha.)
All together, I really think it comes down to just... The uniquely nauseating way this person went about his experiment, more so than the role in a vacuum.
I think there are a few layers of why this feels so icky. He's in the mission district, ground zero for gentrification and inequity in San Francisco, pushing a pretty inequitable idea. In my mind...
I think there are a few layers of why this feels so icky.
He's in the mission district, ground zero for gentrification and inequity in San Francisco, pushing a pretty inequitable idea. In my mind that, plus the premise here, is enough.
He's pushing the incredibly problematic premise that "productivity" is the end all be all. This is toxic work culture. He is the CEO, he sets the culture for his company.
He's taking advantage of a deregulated work environment driven by companies like the one he is at the helm of. I'd be surprised if anyone defending his "fair wage" earns anywhere near the minimum wage.
I think part of that may come down to what feels familiar. If you are used to nannies and housecleaners, it may not be off putting to read an article about hiring them. Within my social circle...
One thing I think worth interrogating here is why an article like this triggers such revulsion, but professions like nannying or housecleaning feel more easy to accept.
I think part of that may come down to what feels familiar. If you are used to nannies and housecleaners, it may not be off putting to read an article about hiring them.
Within my social circle (even amongst friends who could afford it), hiring a nanny or a regular housecleaner falls very much into "icky" territory. On an intellectual level, I can't say that there is anything wrong with it. However, on a more personal level, I would probably feel uncomfortable associating with someone who did due to the strongly negative cultural associations I've acquired throughout my life.
"Full time" are the key words here. I know many middle and even some lower-middle income folk who have hired a housecleaner to come and clean for an hour or two once or twice a month. That's not...
My line in the sand for 'too much inequality' is when one person earns enough money to hire another person full time.
"Full time" are the key words here. I know many middle and even some lower-middle income folk who have hired a housecleaner to come and clean for an hour or two once or twice a month. That's not "icky"-- that's being adult enough to realize that maybe you need some help and then putting aside a little bit of money in the budget to get that help.
Hire a housecleaner to come every day? That's a bit much-- chances are your house doesn't even need to be the level of clean that would require a housekeeper every day. Would it be nice to have an immaculately clean house? Sure. But that housecleaner makes a more positive impact when they help a larger variety of people to keep their shit together rather than just a few people looking to "perfect" their living space.
I'm one of those folks. Disabled partner + full-time job + ADHD + depression + not being great at the tasks... It was worth the money, it just took time for me to get over the mental hurdle.
I'm one of those folks. Disabled partner + full-time job + ADHD + depression + not being great at the tasks... It was worth the money, it just took time for me to get over the mental hurdle.
It's honestly been great. We used a local agency and while we often get the same person, it does rotate occasionally. There's zero shame/judgement from them for our place being messier than I...
It's honestly been great. We used a local agency and while we often get the same person, it does rotate occasionally. There's zero shame/judgement from them for our place being messier than I think it should be and we had them come every 2 weeks. We tipped well, and our usual person got tipped with ribeyes cut off a prime rib once (we got really lucky and got one out of the flash food for cheap). When we moved after my partner was hospitalized, we paid them to do a move out clean. Apparently they told our person the apt was now vacant and she started crying because she thought my partner passed away. She's really great and once were moved in fully we'll set them up again, I hope, if we can still afford them! (Wheelchair vans are expensive AF)
I think that's probably what it comes down to for me as well. It's too close to a servant-master relationship, and it brings income disparity into sharp focus. There are plenty service roles that...
I think that's probably what it comes down to for me as well. It's too close to a servant-master relationship, and it brings income disparity into sharp focus.
There are plenty service roles that don't bother me in the least, but I think it's because they serve many different people, are often in the same class as people they serve (if not higher), and they could realistically afford the same services that they offer: tradespeople can hire tradespeople, lawyers can hire lawyers, waiters can eat at restaurants, cashiers can go shopping, construction workers can buy houses, etc.
But someone's full-time housecleaner can't afford to hire a their own full-time housecleaner because it would eat their entire income.
I am not in the least bothered by people who pay for weekly housecleaning services or for a regular nanny to watch their kids a couple hours after school. Such a housecleaner and such a nanny absolutely could afford the services they offer, and so the employer-employee relationship doesn't feel quite so classist.
Coming from a society in which full time, live in help is normal for middle class families, I think this really just comes down to what you're culturally used to.
Coming from a society in which full time, live in help is normal for middle class families, I think this really just comes down to what you're culturally used to.
Interesting! Thanks for sharing your perspective. Where I'm coming from, my partner has worked as a (EDIT: non-full time) nanny for a specific family over the course of many years? And, AFAIK she...
Interesting! Thanks for sharing your perspective.
Where I'm coming from, my partner has worked as a (EDIT: non-full time) nanny for a specific family over the course of many years? And, AFAIK she loved the experience and formed a very deep connection with the family and especially the child she took care of.
So, I think that's why I might have a better impression of that role? Not from the perspective of the hirer, but from the perspective of the person being hired. But, maybe I should have a deeper conversation with my partner about exactly how she felt towards the family and their financial ability to hire her.
I've known several housekeepers, and they get immense satisfaction from helping people that need it (and they're usually much nicer than the people who don't!) A rather extreme version of this is...
I've known several housekeepers, and they get immense satisfaction from helping people that need it (and they're usually much nicer than the people who don't!) A rather extreme version of this is https://m.youtube.com/@Aurikatariina - she cleans houses that are full of trash, insects, rot, and worse, all in an effort to help lift up the people living in it and help them through a really bad time in their lives. I love that she always respects the privacy of her clients, as far too many "do good" channels use the people's names/faces/emotional reactions to garner more views.
One thing I've heard many housekeepers say is that yes, they would absolutely hire a housekeeper themselves, because they too enjoy the feeling of someone else coming in and taking care of a task that sometimes just feels like too much.
As a not so tidy person, I greatly appreciate the service they provide. Cleaning is hard for me for some reason. Always has been and probably always will be. I do it because I have to but I find...
As a not so tidy person, I greatly appreciate the service they provide. Cleaning is hard for me for some reason. Always has been and probably always will be. I do it because I have to but I find it mentally exhausting (specifically tidying up clutter-- I'm fine with vacuuming and dishes and the like) and I'd rather be spending that mental energy doing something else.
People don't think of it this way, but I think cleaning is a skill just like any other. While it's not a particularly "hard" skill to learn for most people, it is like any skill easier for some people than for others. It's also, notably, a necessary skill. Housecleaners provide value to those whose skill in that area is weaker.
Like most lower-income workers, housecleaners are underpaid for the value they provide to society, imo. Of course, even with their wage as low as it is, many can't afford one, but that's one of the inevitable consequences of our (unfortunately) dwindling middle class.
Yeah, they're definitely outside of my budget, but my goodness would they ever be a gift! A shitty bundle (unsubscribe! unsubscribe!) of mental and physical health problems mean I struggle a lot...
Yeah, they're definitely outside of my budget, but my goodness would they ever be a gift! A shitty bundle (unsubscribe! unsubscribe!) of mental and physical health problems mean I struggle a lot with keeping up with all the housekeeping. There's so damn much of it! And you just turn around to start something else and the stuff you swear you just did needs sound again!
Another data point: my partner and I have someone clean our house every two weeks, and pay her a fixed amount per visit that comes out to $40-50 per hour (in the midwest US). I mentally group this...
Another data point: my partner and I have someone clean our house every two weeks, and pay her a fixed amount per visit that comes out to $40-50 per hour (in the midwest US). I mentally group this into the category of "people who do house maintenance stuff I technically could do but really don't want to", with e.g. plumbers.
We were recently discussing whether we pay her enough. This was the rate she quoted us, we didn't make any attempt to negotiate it, and she hasn't expressed any displeasure with it, but we do kind of feel weird and bad for sitting around being lazy while she works. Somehow paying her more seems to worsen that effect though, in a "look at me I'm a lazy asshole" vs "look at me I'm a lazy rich asshole" sort of way? Not that that should matter.
This seems like a local optimum, for highly-paid non-management people like me. I'd feel extremely weird and bad if she was around more often. I certainly wouldn't want anything approaching full time, which would push it into "hiring servants" territory for me. But it also seems like it would worsen the problem further to not have her around, since I'd just be dumping that money into savings in the hope of retiring sooner.
As mentioned here, I think it's actually people who hire other people full-time (such that they become that person's boss) that give me "icky" vibes. I don't mind the idea of hiring nannies or...
As mentioned here, I think it's actually people who hire other people full-time (such that they become that person's boss) that give me "icky" vibes. I don't mind the idea of hiring nannies or housecleaners who work for multiple other families as well.
I know a couple of former nannies, and they functioned more like independent contractors who offered regular part-time tutoring and babysitting services to a few different clients. I am cool with that.
I'm from a society where full-time domestic help is common (and have employed full-time domestic helpers for the past fifteen years or so) and I still found this offputting from the perspective...
I'm from a society where full-time domestic help is common (and have employed full-time domestic helpers for the past fifteen years or so) and I still found this offputting from the perspective that this productivity grindset is toxic.
Growing up my parents would hire house cleaners, although not full time. I still think it's weird - and when an occasional friend pays for a house cleaner my only thought is "why don't you clean...
Growing up my parents would hire house cleaners, although not full time. I still think it's weird - and when an occasional friend pays for a house cleaner my only thought is "why don't you clean your own house?". Paying for someone else to do basic maintenance tasks in your life - laundry, cleaning, grocery shopping - is a line I don't want to cross.
Do you consider making food a basic maintenance task? How about growing it? If not, what's the difference? (I don't really have a position here, but am trying to understand yours.)
Do you consider making food a basic maintenance task? How about growing it? If not, what's the difference? (I don't really have a position here, but am trying to understand yours.)
I think it's a matter of whether someone ever does the task on their own. If someone never scrubs their own shower or never cooks food then, barring abnormal circumstances, I get the impression...
I think it's a matter of whether someone ever does the task on their own. If someone never scrubs their own shower or never cooks food then, barring abnormal circumstances, I get the impression they think the work is beneath them. And I do know people that just never do their own laundry, or only get a clean house by paying for it.
As for my parents, it's down to my mom being 5% hoarder, and both parents filling in the remainder with X% lazy and Y% wealthy.
Occasional housecleaning services don't bother me. I myself have hired one-off housecleaning services after moving out of rentals to make sure I get my deposit back, and I would consider getting...
Occasional housecleaning services don't bother me. I myself have hired one-off housecleaning services after moving out of rentals to make sure I get my deposit back, and I would consider getting it as a regular service for things I can't do myself (like deep clean the carpet or do an external clean the upstairs windows).
I guess I mean hiring a housecleaner more in the same sense that this article's writer hired people: He was their boss, not their customer.
It seems more like what the author of this blog admitted, which is they weren't sure if they made it clear what the duties of the job were. The job was called productivity assistant on his...
My theory is that, because of a combination of factors, this whole scheme has just about the most horrid optics possible. The desk setup? The condescension directed at his younger assistants? The constant (very personal) interaction over a period of 16 hours, 7 days a week ? A wealthy male hiring a female personal assistant? It feels... Overly familiar in an adult-to-adult way. It gives me skeevy vibes, while the other jobs don't. By comparison, nannies have a caregiver-to-child relationship (wholesome!), and housecleaners are often given privacy to focus on the task in isolation (less chance of a creepy relationship forming!). The working relationship between hirer and hiree is entirely different.
It seems more like what the author of this blog admitted, which is they weren't sure if they made it clear what the duties of the job were. The job was called productivity assistant on his craigslist post, yet it was really just a full-time housekeeper cook (which seems to be the term for someone that cooks and cleans or does other household chores) that has a side-task to check in with him every 30 minutes to ask him what he's working on.
The pay also does seem low for his area which contributes to the additional negative perception. If you look up housekeeper cooks in SF area, with his additional criteria, it does seem likely that the pay should be quite a bit higher than what he was paying. Additionally it also comes across bad (not sure of the more specific word I was trying to think of) that he mentioned the unreliability of some of the assistants considering how low his pay was and the temporary nature of the job, its not a surprise that people either might have something come up and wouldn't prioritize a $20/hr job or couldn't afford to pay for a car repair etc.
So to me, the primary issue with what he did was that he sort of misled about what the job was. He was making it seem more like it was all about sitting there watching him, which maybe that was one of the bigger benefits to him, but it was really just a minor task for the assistants and the main tasks had nothing to do with the title of the job. I get that what he was asking these people to do would be unusual to ask a housekeeper cook to do, but it doesn't seem like anything very specialized or particularly intensive and it basically just amounts to being present in his home and checking in on him which seems like a simple request that could be negotiated when hiring someone as a housekeeper cook.
You're right, he does admit to this! I think I might have missed that on first read. Still though, even if he had been clear in the posting, and even if some of the awkward ambiguity had been...
It seems more like what the author of this blog admitted, which is they weren't sure if they made it clear what the duties of the job were.
You're right, he does admit to this! I think I might have missed that on first read.
Next time I’ll also give my assistants a clearer outline of my expectations. I’ll set guidelines for how often they should check in with me, how they should check in with me, and what chores need to be done on what times/dates. During the experiment I half-assedly committed to checking in every 30 minutes through a 30 minute Pomodoro-esque method, but often I would forget to set a timer. Laying these details out upfront will also eliminate a lot of the awkward moments that I faced like having a hard time asking for them to do chores.
Next time I might clarify how much time I want them to spend on cooking, ask them to stick to making frozen meals, or hire someone for cooking separately.
Still though, even if he had been clear in the posting, and even if some of the awkward ambiguity had been alleviated, I get the sense that the post would have still rubbed folks the wrong way?
((Especially since he didn't really say much about the fairness/appropriateness of the wages, and I definitely agree that that's a pain point here.))
Yeah I'm sure, because posting about it draws attention and what's the audience for it? Most people don't have that luxury to hire people to be assistants for them 16 hours out of the day, so the...
Still though, even if he had been clear in the posting, and even if some of the awkward ambiguity had been alleviated, I get the sense that the post would have still rubbed folks the wrong way?
Yeah I'm sure, because posting about it draws attention and what's the audience for it? Most people don't have that luxury to hire people to be assistants for them 16 hours out of the day, so the people who are going to engage with this blog post have no benefit from this "experiment". I don't think others receive criticism directly when they're hiring housekeepers, maids, nannies etc. as because they aren't posting about it, essentially inviting criticism. They're not posting it as though it's an experiment to see how it makes their lives better or something, and if they did, they'd likely also get criticized. In that way, I don't think people being rubbed the wrong way is about the professions or who they're hiring to do what.
Where I'd say this differs is that there are some legitimate criticisms, not because he's flaunting his wealth or whatever, but because he misclassified a legitimate job, housekeepers or cooks etc. and he clearly has no experience doing this type of thing so he made mistakes in the process. If he had just gone to a professional service that already has the process set up for this and hires people or has a list of people who are engaged in that profession already then his experiment is more like "I asked my housekeeper to check in on me every once in awhile to keep me productive, here's the results", it looks a lot different than what he did.
And the wage. I don't know about others, but if you're in San Francisco and you're paying your housekeeper or nanny $20/hr, you're not a good person, you should be paying more. I actually think...
And the wage. I don't know about others, but if you're in San Francisco and you're paying your housekeeper or nanny $20/hr, you're not a good person, you should be paying more.
I actually think the professions are fine, they just need to be fairly compensated. And also agree the way in which the author went about this was icky.
'I need you to keep me accountable, oh also do my cooking and cleaning, and essentially be a maid/personal assistant' all for $20 an hour. This article was steeped in such an astonishing level of...
'I need you to keep me accountable, oh also do my cooking and cleaning, and essentially be a maid/personal assistant' all for $20 an hour.
This article was steeped in such an astonishing level of privilege that it was honestly difficult to finish reading. The author, seemingly oblivious to their own position of power, casually requested someone to not only keep them accountable but also to cook, clean, and essentially serve as a maid/personal assistant, all for a mere $20 an hour.
This tone-deaf request is reminiscent of the aristocracy of the past, who were completely unaware of the struggles faced by those not born into wealth and power. The author's unconscious arrogance and elitism are evident in their expectation that someone would willingly take on such a demanding role for such a meager wage.
In today's world, where the cost of living continues to rise and economic disparities are more apparent than ever, it is disheartening to see individuals who remain so detached from the realities faced by many.
The author's lack of empathy and understanding for those who may not have the luxury of such opportunities is a stark reminder of the ongoing struggle for social and economic equality.
Not at all surprising, considering this is the site cited on Wikipedia as spawning neoreaction, organized around so-called effective altruism, and fixated on transhumanism and the singularity....
Not at all surprising, considering this is the site cited on Wikipedia as spawning neoreaction, organized around so-called effective altruism, and fixated on transhumanism and the singularity. Lack of empathy and understanding for people of lower economic status and oblivious aristocratic privilege is its brand.
I almost didn't read this because I saw the website and really had to think if it was worth my time. It doesn't help that a lot of these types tend to write in an extremely long-winded, circuitous...
I almost didn't read this because I saw the website and really had to think if it was worth my time. It doesn't help that a lot of these types tend to write in an extremely long-winded, circuitous fashion with sentences structured with repetitive, redundant, and inessential words.
Although I have a strong distaste for effective altruism, these people do tend to come up with interesting things from time to time, so it's not good to reject what they have to say before taking the time to see what they're saying. And while I also found this experiment to be distasteful, it was at the very least an interesting read. It doesn't look like they were hurting anyone, either. Though I would have preferred if they could have kept them going for longer than a month.
While I understand that the community that surrounds it is a bit much, is there anything about the underlying concept that bothers you? Personally I quite like the underlying concept, which is...
Although I have a strong distaste for effective altruism
While I understand that the community that surrounds it is a bit much, is there anything about the underlying concept that bothers you? Personally I quite like the underlying concept, which is about maximizing our ability to help other people.
The bottom line is that no matter how insufferable they (the effective altruism crowd) are on a personal level, the goal of helping people is a noble one. If you're rich, the best way to do that is with money, if you're a programmer, the best way to do that is with the software you create, and if you're an academic the best way to do that is with your research. Could the community use a good knock in the head and perspective now and then? Yes, absolutely-- they sometimes get on my nerves too and I've had to leave their spaces at times to avoid tearing my hair out. But unless there's a good reason to think otherwise, I do believe the underlying intention behind effective altruism is worthy of respect, and I don't think it's a bad idea as a whole. Altruism with a smaller impact is important and worthy too, of course, but I don't see anything wrong with trying to maximize having a positive impact.
Surprisingly it's not the community. The movement is made up of multiple communities, so it's not like they're all the same people. It's the philosophy behind it that I disagree with. When it...
Surprisingly it's not the community. The movement is made up of multiple communities, so it's not like they're all the same people.
It's the philosophy behind it that I disagree with.
When it comes to social issues, I would describe myself as a utilitarian. But EA is a textbook real-world example of why utilitarianism can be bad when not balanced by other kinds of philosophy. The name doesn't seem to be completely correct, because altruism is often implied to be something you do because you empathize with someone, but EA requires you to ignore the people suffering around you because there are people around the world who are theoretically suffering more.
And to make things worse, EA is used as a way to make philanthropy "cheap". Bill Gates could be considered part of the EA movement, but in spite of the money he has given he remains one of the richest people in the world. Elon Musk and Jeff Bezos may or may not be completely on board with the philosophy, but are nonetheless lauded by the community. So in effect EA is a guise to get 'off the hook' in regards to the social expectation for them to spend real money on philanthropic causes. Though to be completely fair, rich people have other ways to do that as well.
If billionaires wanted to actually have the best hope of improving the lives of the people around them, the best thing they could do is to distribute the shares of their companies equally among the people who work for them or to turn them into co-ops if they are wholly-owned - at least in my opinion. But that would require them to relinquish control, so they'll never do that. But I'm going off on a tangent at this point.
If I want to be honest, it sounds like the trolley problem, and I don't think it's necessarily a bad idea to pull the lever, even though on an emotional level I'd prefer not to. The bottom line is...
EA requires you to ignore the people suffering around you because there are people around the world who are theoretically suffering more.
If I want to be honest, it sounds like the trolley problem, and I don't think it's necessarily a bad idea to pull the lever, even though on an emotional level I'd prefer not to. The bottom line is that if more people are helped by pulling the lever, then it's the choice I support.
I guess EA is by its nature in favor of pulling that lever, which not everyone agrees with.
I agree with you that it's abhorrent that billionaires use EA as an excuse not to do more to help, but I see that as a "them" problem and not a problem inherent to EA's philosophy.
The problem with that position is that the very existence of "them" is a problem that everyone else pays dearly for. Literally; they have that money because they extract their wealth from the...
The problem with that position is that the very existence of "them" is a problem that everyone else pays dearly for. Literally; they have that money because they extract their wealth from the masses.
I would specify that I mean this specifically about the rich EA folk, but to be perfectly honest I've never even heard of a working class person who practices EA.
The problem of thinking that they're pulling the lever in the trolly problem and helping the most people is that that's very much up to debate. One of the big problems with utilitarianism is the definition of what "happiness" is. Distributing malaria vaccines increases "happiness" in that there are less people dying. But there are an infinate number of definitions of "happiness" which that act either does not help or actually hinders. And more importantly the world is far more complex than people can model, so there's no way to know ahead of time what projects will actually increase happiness in the way they have defined it. What if, for instance, malaria vaccines ended up saving too many people's lives and that wrecked local economies or the extra food needed meant that there was mass starvation?
In the end, "happiness" is subjective for each individual, and therefore the only "true" EA is to directly give funds to those who are miserable so that they can achieve happiness in the way that best suits them.
Of course, you can feel free to disagree with me still. That's the fun thing about philosophy: everyone's wrong! The rules are made up and the points don't matter! :P
I think you made good points here-- the one point that I disagree with is that we should give money to miserable people. There are too many miserable people who are rich. I'm more in favor of the...
I think you made good points here-- the one point that I disagree with is that we should give money to miserable people. There are too many miserable people who are rich. I'm more in favor of the more classic "give poor people money" method, since poverty does cause misery in many people (it's just that in rich miserable people there's obviously some other cause).
If it were up to me, I would straight up enact wealth redistribution, and if I were rich I wouldn't stay rich for very long because I'd give too much of my money away.
That being said, in absence of a good measure of what is "good," number of deaths prevented seems as good a metric as any. They've got to choose something, you know? And while I like your idea and thought process and I would personally do something different, I can't say I find the act of preventing malaria deaths to be a particularly bad thing.
Oh no, please don't get me wrong, I'm certainly not advocating for people to die of malaria! Eliminating malaria is a noble task no matter how you put it, and my adverse effects were entirely...
Oh no, please don't get me wrong, I'm certainly not advocating for people to die of malaria! Eliminating malaria is a noble task no matter how you put it, and my adverse effects were entirely meant as a hypothetical.
I agree with you that hanging on to money that you don't require (i.e., being rich) is not ethical. However, I disagree with the idea that the most ethical way for someone with high income...
I agree with you that hanging on to money that you don't require (i.e., being rich) is not ethical.
However, I disagree with the idea that the most ethical way for someone with high income potential to live is to avoid making income and instead disperse that income to their employees. If we imagine a world where this was the norm for would-be rich people, we would still observe an overwhelming concentration of wealth into wealthier populations and depletion of wealth from poorer populations, due to the fact that high-revenue companies exist primarily in wealthy locations. We would still see San Francisco booming while Haitians starve. (Likewise, if it were the norm for rich people to focus on lesser forms of suffering that they regularly see, rather than ignore it for greater forms of suffering that they don't regularly see, we would observe wealth circulating primarily amongst the wealthy.)
I would rather see wealthy people make their full income, and then feed that income into alleviating suffering as effectively as possible (which does mean focusing on issues like malaria, birth control access, etc., in the most poverty-stricken locations on earth). However, this would need to be done for real. They would set themselves a personal expenditure cap that offers a lifestyle no better than middle class (no mansions, no yachts, no garages full of cars, etc.), and then donate or reinvest absolutely everything they make above that. I would consider this far more ethical than paying their already well-paid employees with more shares.
The motivation for putting resources into aid around the world is because it is theoretically possible to have a more significant impact. Degree of suffering doesn't factor in. People who have...
EA requires you to ignore the people suffering around you because there are people around the world who are theoretically suffering more
The motivation for putting resources into aid around the world is because it is theoretically possible to have a more significant impact. Degree of suffering doesn't factor in.
People who have less may cost less to help, tend to live in places where costs are lower, and may be suffering from something easily and inexpensively treatable with first world resources.
Yes, that is the reasoning behind EA, but my comment was about why I disagree with it. What are you trying to say? Did you find something in my comment you disagree with?
Yes, that is the reasoning behind EA, but my comment was about why I disagree with it. What are you trying to say? Did you find something in my comment you disagree with?
Yes, I think you mistook it as helping those "theoretically suffering more", but that is not correct. It is about "theoretically helping more". I believe there is a difference, even if they...
Yes, I think you mistook it as helping those "theoretically suffering more", but that is not correct. It is about "theoretically helping more". I believe there is a difference, even if they sometimes happen to look alike.
Edit: "theoretically helping more", and then attempting to measure it so the next effort will be "theoretically more help than previously". Hence the "Effective". This isn't related to your comment, just thought I should clarify the goal.
There’s the phrase “effective altruism” which is benign and maybe admirable, and then there is the community, which has almost nothing to do with the phrase. All they do is write AI fanfic under...
There’s the phrase “effective altruism” which is benign and maybe admirable, and then there is the community, which has almost nothing to do with the phrase. All they do is write AI fanfic under the guise of being “researchers” despite not have any qualifications or doing actual research.
Also, their views on helping anybody in the third world are kind of repellent.
Lol I know. I've been around those spaces. They're almost a charicature of what would happen if you put all the most socially inept white male software engineers from Southern California in a room...
All they do is write AI fanfic under the guise of being “researchers” despite not have any qualifications or doing actual research.
Lol I know. I've been around those spaces. They're almost a charicature of what would happen if you put all the most socially inept white male software engineers from Southern California in a room together and let them talk about whatever they want. Except as it seems to often turn out, reality is satire and satire is reality-- you don't need a charicature because reality does a good enough job presenting the absurdity.
Perhaps I'm being a bit harsh. But we all know there's a "type" that engages with the community. I have in the past tried to engage but had to leave after I got shouted at after sharing my experience as to what it's like being a human with a second X chromosome in STEM. The person who yelled at me said I was making an "argument" in bad faith. I said that was impossible because I wasn't making any argument (really, I wasn't). What I was doing was sharing a personal experience.
Anyway, point is it's toxic and I get it. Also I'm a grad student and research in a field adjacent to AI and while I wasn't a grad student yet back when I engaged with that community (I can't believe it was that long ago) the more I learn the more that I realize it is common for people to talk out of their ass so I feel you on the whole "pretending to be researchers" thing they have going on. I mean, I myself am far from a good researcher (I am still learning, after all) but the the reality is that if most of the community had something useful to add, they'd be publishing (this isn't to say none of them do-- some in the community are actual academics in the field-- but they are the minority).
I think a lot of the negativity comes from the way you wrote about being rich as if it was a occupation like programmer or educator (I’m not saying you did this erroneously or to aggravate, you’re...
I think a lot of the negativity comes from the way you wrote about being rich as if it was a occupation like programmer or educator (I’m not saying you did this erroneously or to aggravate, you’re not wrong). Privilege is an easy thing to be angry about.
Is there negativity towards my post? There are no downvotes like there are on reddit and the responses seem pretty neutral to me, so I'm wondering if I'm missing something.
Is there negativity towards my post? There are no downvotes like there are on reddit and the responses seem pretty neutral to me, so I'm wondering if I'm missing something.
Oh no! I apologize for making you feel that way. I meant the negativity you were talking about in your comment. I was pretty sure I was phrasing that in a terrible way but hoped that I was wrong.
Oh no! I apologize for making you feel that way. I meant the negativity you were talking about in your comment. I was pretty sure I was phrasing that in a terrible way but hoped that I was wrong.
It doesn't help that a lot of these types tend to write in an extremely long-winded, circuitous fashion with sentences structured with repetitive, redundant, and inessential words.
What does it say about me that that's the way I wrote when I was on no medications? I think it's genetic, or at least learned from my early environment. My dad literally talks that way.
What does it say about me that that's the way I wrote when I was on no medications?
I think it's genetic, or at least learned from my early environment. My dad literally talks that way.
Neurodivergence runs in families, and a lot of previous generations weren't aware that they might have been ND. So it's very possible that it's both for genetic and "nurture" reasons
Neurodivergence runs in families, and a lot of previous generations weren't aware that they might have been ND. So it's very possible that it's both for genetic and "nurture" reasons
Probably nothing. I remember when I was in middle school I thought I needed to use the fanciest two dollar words I knew in order to get a good grade. The result was me adding all kinds of fluff...
Probably nothing. I remember when I was in middle school I thought I needed to use the fanciest two dollar words I knew in order to get a good grade. The result was me adding all kinds of fluff just to fit in a specific "fancy" word.
I'm still a terrible writer, but when I read things now I tend to notice when people don't get to their point quickly, and are more interested in flexing their writing muscles, I just get irritated and stop reading.
I was also way more likely to go off on wild tangents, and repeat myself when I was on ADD meds.
I love a lot of the ideas of transhumanism and the singularity, but it's disappointing that so many of the people also atracted to it are there purely for the potential of exploitation. It's...
I love a lot of the ideas of transhumanism and the singularity, but it's disappointing that so many of the people also atracted to it are there purely for the potential of exploitation. It's really turned me off to the whole idea as I really don't want to live in a dystopian future where the majority only exist to serve the near immortal few.
I don't know. An incredibly simple job with no prerequisites, where you can even work your other job while working, for more than minimum wage? Feels like he was being reasonable.
I don't know. An incredibly simple job with no prerequisites, where you can even work your other job while working, for more than minimum wage? Feels like he was being reasonable.
The author of the post is in Mission District, San Francisco, CA. The median rent there, according to Zillow, is nearly $3000/mo for a one bedroom apartment. Just to cover rent and nothing else,...
The author of the post is in Mission District, San Francisco, CA. The median rent there, according to Zillow, is nearly $3000/mo for a one bedroom apartment. Just to cover rent and nothing else, you would need to make over $17/hr, 8 hours a day, 5 days a week (40 hours a week). That's only to cover rent, nothing else. You want food? Have a car? Need to go to the doctor? A mobile phone is practically a requirement these days. Internet too.
If we conservatively assume $4000/mo for all baseline expenses, you would need to make over $23/hr just to get by, ie the minimum wage necessary to survive in the neighborhood where the author lives.
A living wage would be something that allows you to do a bit more than just scape by, ie a wage the allows you to experience life rather than just survive it. I would argue you're looking at at least $25/hr for a living wage, although in SF it's probably more like $30+/hr.
And to be clear: From its inception, the minimum wage is intended to be a living wage. One that allows a basic, but more than just stubstanant life, for one earner to provide for a family of at...
And to be clear: From its inception, the minimum wage is intended to be a living wage. One that allows a basic, but more than just stubstanant life, for one earner to provide for a family of at least 4. These days in the USA, that should cover:
Rent/mortgage and utilities for at least a 3 BR
The above should be inclusive of savings for future home purchase or maintainence of that home.
Transportation (in the USA that mostly means a car)
Quality food and clothes for 4 adults
At least one family outing per week, like a dinner or movie
Enough leftover after that to be able to build savings to buy other luxuries and weather emergencies.
In my neck of the woods, that means the wage would need to be on the order of $30/hr (to account for taxes). And I'm living in New Jersey, not the Bay Area. That's more akin to the current median income, which is quite telling of the current state of affairs.
The twisting of minimum wage into "It'll maybe cover rent for a 1BR and some food" is a distortion over time which insures the persistent need for 2-income households and fosters the idea of an underclass that should be forced to work full time for below a living wage.
Could you provide a source that provides some historical context of the minimum wage? I make low six figures in a mid-cost of living city and I can't afford the standard of living you describe. A...
Could you provide a source that provides some historical context of the minimum wage? I make low six figures in a mid-cost of living city and I can't afford the standard of living you describe. A quick Google search suggests that I'm right around the 90th percentile for individual income in the US. Surely there must be dramatically more context, or are you really suggesting the the minimum wage should be that high?
$30/hr is about $50,000-$60,000 (depending how you count it) annually, which is median individual income. Median household income is on the order of $110,000 IIRC. So to be completely comparable...
$30/hr is about $50,000-$60,000 (depending how you count it) annually, which is median individual income. Median household income is on the order of $110,000 IIRC. So to be completely comparable to yesteryear (when minimum wage was formed), when a single earner was expected to provide for a family, yes that sounds about right.
The Fair Labor Standards Act set a minimum wage of twenty-five cents per hour, with a series of scheduled increases to raise it to forty cents by 1945. It also established a maximum work week of forty-four hours, to be reduced gradually to forty hours by 1940; employers who wanted their employees to work beyond that were forced to pay 50 percent more (“time and a half for overtime”). Finally, the law prohibited the employment of children under sixteen years of age.
$0.40/hour in 1945 is about $8 in 2023...but that's not the whole story.
In 1940, you could buy a high-end, brand new house for well under $5,000. That's about 6 year's of minimum wage.
In 2023, an average brand new low-end house is going to cost closer to $300,000. Or about 18 years of minimum wage. For a low-end house these days.
So to reach housing parity alone, you're looking at $24 an hour. Harvard tuition 1949 was $600. Harvard tuition in 2023: $53,000. Less than 1 year of minimum wage vs more than 3 years.
In the first 30+ years of the existence of minimum wage, it was completely viable to save up enough to buy a home and send your kid to college on a minimum wage.
Maybe? I'd boast about getting a relatively easy job that pays well. As long as we're going to have rich people, we're going to have people whose main jobs are to provide them with luxury goods...
Is that a job you'd willingly boast about to your friends?
Maybe? I'd boast about getting a relatively easy job that pays well. As long as we're going to have rich people, we're going to have people whose main jobs are to provide them with luxury goods and services. I don't see how this is much worse than any of those other jobs.
The average salary for a personal assistant in San Franciso is closer to $30 an hour. And they're not expected to cook or clean usually either. The average rate for a house cleaner in San...
The average salary for a personal assistant in San Franciso is closer to $30 an hour. And they're not expected to cook or clean usually either. The average rate for a house cleaner in San Francisco is $23/h and personal chefs usually cost $30-$40/hr.
I don't really follow. Several people did take on the role for the offered wage. What opportunity are you referring to? The author did write I want to acknowledge that I’m privileged to be able to...
The author's unconscious arrogance and elitism are evident in their expectation that someone would willingly take on such a demanding role for such a meager wage.
I don't really follow. Several people did take on the role for the offered wage.
The author's lack of empathy and understanding for those who may not have the luxury of such opportunities is a stark reminder of the ongoing struggle for social and economic equality.
What opportunity are you referring to?
The author did write I want to acknowledge that I’m privileged to be able to do this experiment and it’s not for everyone, but obviously that's a very rote acknowledgement of privilege and not a real discussion of it. That said: the author wasn't telling everybody that they should go and do this, so I suppose I'm just not sure to what extent the author should have discussed their privilege.
I get the sense that one answer might be "the author shouldn't have done this at all," but I don't see what is so harmful about offering X opportunity for Y wage. He was offering a temporary position, not a real career, so it's more like babysitting than a corporate job.
IDK, maybe you're reading too much into it. He paid for a service which was in no way demeaning or immoral, and I have no reason to believe he was insensitive or a bad boss. From an ethics...
IDK, maybe you're reading too much into it. He paid for a service which was in no way demeaning or immoral, and I have no reason to believe he was insensitive or a bad boss. From an ethics standpoint, how's that any different from hiring the services of a regular personal assistant? Or a coach? Or a personal trainer?
Also, what's so bad about being a maid? Or a personal assistant? Those are real jobs people have, and not necessarily exploitative. It all depends on the values, desires, and expectations of the person taking the job, as well as the compensation and working conditions.
People working these jobs are often very practical and may see things differently than you.
He essentially paid people 20 USD an hour to do their own work at his house, briefly interrupted by chores. I would take this job, and I'm not being humorous or hypothetical. I would literally take this job.
And it's not like he humiliated someone into cooking for him, it was all in the job application so if that makes you uncomfortable simply don't apply.
To what extent is your disgust informed by your own prejudices?
tbh I'd take this job, and sort of pity the person doing the hiring. Here's this dude, working from home in the Mission in a tech job (judging by the stacked ultrawides & his need to remind us...
tbh I'd take this job, and sort of pity the person doing the hiring.
Here's this dude, working from home in the Mission in a tech job (judging by the stacked ultrawides & his need to remind us that he's taking a UI/UX course between blog posts). He does yoga and works in a t-shirt. He can subcontract his chores for $20/hr. His photo looks like somebody in their 30s. Sounds nice?
Yet he's so unable to stay on task that he hires an office structure for himself, in miniature, in his house. Evidently he needs a boss to literally watch over his shoulder while he works. Jesus.
Obviously this is just something homie did for a concept blog post, but the story he's telling makes it hard to congratulate him on his innovation. WFH is supposed to get rid of the manager nagging you for TPS reports. If a manager is what the author needs, why not just go back to the office and save himself the money he's now spent on proxy supervisors?
All this guy did was pay some randos to sit in his home office like scarecrows so he wouldn't open Twitter for a few weeks. (edit: and pissed away $5k that could have gone into an IRA or something) It's deeply silly, but like you said I'd take the money and run.
Imagine working for him. He's obviously comfortable with using tracking software (as he discusses in the piece) and thinks that "productivity" - which he has shown means butt in the seat with eyes...
Yet he's so unable to stay on task that he hires an office structure for himself, in miniature, in his house. Evidently he needs a boss to literally watch over his shoulder while he works. Jesus.
Imagine working for him. He's obviously comfortable with using tracking software (as he discusses in the piece) and thinks that "productivity" - which he has shown means butt in the seat with eyes on the screen - is tantamount to success. He also strives for productivity 16 hours of every. The folks I pity are his employees and I hope all potential hires get the opportunity to read this blog before accepting an offer.
I think it's not necessarily pitiable. He's defined his own metric of value and is experimenting with strategies to achieve it. He may not necessarily be a butts-in-the-seat boss: he seems to like...
I think it's not necessarily pitiable. He's defined his own metric of value and is experimenting with strategies to achieve it. He may not necessarily be a butts-in-the-seat boss: he seems to like unconventional experimentation.
I personally would never do this. But I think it is thought-provoking that he has chosen such an extreme, Nathan-Fielder-esque way to go about it.
Many of us have great dreams and goals, if not necessarily in our own work. Maybe it is to finally set up our first art show, to write that book, to be a better friend or parent or lover, to bootstrap our own dream video game like ConcernedApe did with Stardew Valley. But the modern landscape is determined to steal our attention and willpower through mindless entertainment.
I think that the valuable take away from this extreme, Nathan-Fielder-esque experiment is that there is value in defining what we value and then having an external source of accountability.
So, the author has done a useful thing here - he's effectively set an economic value for parenthood. Who, after all, has a duty to make sure responsibilities are attended, hygiene and self-care...
Exemplary
So, the author has done a useful thing here - he's effectively set an economic value for parenthood. Who, after all, has a duty to make sure responsibilities are attended, hygiene and self-care are practiced, who cooks, cleans, and maintains your living arrangements? Who teaches you self-discipline, and hovers watchfully to make sure you're not getting in trouble? Parents.
So a self-indulgent, privileged man-child finds that he can't effectively keep himself on task? He tried out hiring himself a rotating cast of parents, and found it helped him. Shame he didn't take the necessary lessons from the exercise, or have the insight to realize that's what he was doing.
I love the "parents" take on this arrangement! I hadn't even thought of that angle. That gives this arrangement a whole new twist. However, if you're right that he's put a value on parenthood......
I love the "parents" take on this arrangement! I hadn't even thought of that angle. That gives this arrangement a whole new twist.
However, if you're right that he's put a value on parenthood... is $20/hour the right value for that? It seems a bit low to me.
It's definitely a hot take. But one of the things that's always struck me about the self-made man mythos, and the solitary Ayn Rand-inspired "10x" entrepreneurial warriors of tech industry, is how...
It's definitely a hot take. But one of the things that's always struck me about the self-made man mythos, and the solitary Ayn Rand-inspired "10x" entrepreneurial warriors of tech industry, is how thoroughly divorced they are from any sense of the value provided by the families and societies which they've started in.
That $88 was a post experiment review based on the data he gathered of his own increases in profit. That $88 now becomes the maximum break even and $20 becomes 'entry level', setting essentially...
That $88 was a post experiment review based on the data he gathered of his own increases in profit. That $88 now becomes the maximum break even and $20 becomes 'entry level', setting essentially payscale bounds if he were to continue this.
Oh I know it was post-experiment, it's just interesting to see it so clearly quantified how much more value he extracted from their labor compared to how much he paid them.
Oh I know it was post-experiment, it's just interesting to see it so clearly quantified how much more value he extracted from their labor compared to how much he paid them.
I understand this is not the point of the article, so I apologise for honing in on this, but I cannot help but remark on the cost of this experiment. Sometimes I feel like I live on a different...
I understand this is not the point of the article, so I apologise for honing in on this, but I cannot help but remark on the cost of this experiment. Sometimes I feel like I live on a different planet to other people. I am a Software Developer in the UK. I feel like I earn reasonably well, but I am not remotely close being so much as near the gravity well of affording something like this (he budgeted $10k for the month). It really highlights the striking difference in disposable income people have (and I appreciate that I, as a European IT worker am of course this same distant star to someone working in a developing country).
Having gotten that out of the way, the article was actually really interesting to read. I feel that something like what he did would only be sustainable for a very short amount of time before burnout did kick in - and even that would partly be due to the novelty of the experiment carrying you for part of it.
This has been my experience with pretty much all the rich people I know. When I was in high school I had a math teacher who had, for some time (maybe 10-15 years), been a vice president for...
Exemplary
And I think that, contrary to the tacit acknowledgement of it, the author only partly grasps the idea of that privilege.
This has been my experience with pretty much all the rich people I know.
When I was in high school I had a math teacher who had, for some time (maybe 10-15 years), been a vice president for Goldman-Sachs. Some googling leads me to believe he likely made about $7-8 million dollars in bonuses every year (about $10 million or so adjusted for inflation) while working there (for reference as to where his level wealth was/is).
Anyway-- I grew up in an upper-middle class town that was considered "rich." My family made around $50-55k in the year 2000 which adjusted for inflation would be about $90-95k today and we were considered "lower-income" families by the standards of the neighborhood. For reference, current median family income is about $150k and I'd say overall wealth in the town (adjusted for inflation) is about the same as it was 20 years ago.
Anyway, this is all to say that some of us were solidly middle class, some were solidly upper-middle class, and some, like my teacher (who lived in town) were rich.
About my teacher: he was a very good math teacher, he was inspiring, and he motivated me and encouraged me in ways other teachers usually didn't. And, like me, he was both socially and economically liberal (this was in 2008 before the Democratic party split from just a moderately-left "liberal" branch to a moderately-left branch and a further left "progressive" branch, the latter of which I identify more with these days, but it was the pre-Bernie era and "liberal" was a good enough descriptor for anyone on the left at that time). This was a plus for me because I liked engaging in politics. 2008 was before the country went to crazy-town, so you could still at the time talk to people across the political spectrum without things getting heated, and it was the year of Obama's election when everyone (on the left, at least) was full of hope for a brighter future. It was a different time.
Speaking of a different time, I promise I have a point, and it has everything to do with the 2008. Y'all remember what happened in 2008, right? My friend's parents were losing their jobs left and right. We were seniors in high school, so certainly none of us had any chance of landing a job and our siblings who were graduating college with degrees they were promised would get them good paying jobs were instead stuck moving back home and working retail. We were hurting. And I'll never forget-- this teacher was explaining to us the causes behind the recession and he stopped and said "but don't worry, no one in a town like this is going to suffer from the recession." By "town like this," he meant a relatively wealthy, upper-middle class one like the one we lived in.
I was floored. Yes we were wealthy. But most of our families still had to fucking work for a living. Did he not realize that my best friends' families were now struggling to pay their mortgages? That their parents couldn't help them with college like they originally planned to and now they'd have to take out large loans?
I mean, first world problems, for sure-- we're lucky our parents even had mortgages they could struggle to pay and that we had college acceptances to take out loans for. But the future was clearly a brighter one before the crash than after. And he had the audacity to think we we weren't affected by the crash? My brother went through a long period of depression because he couldn't find a job despite being a 4.0 student. As far as he was concerned, he made all the "right" choices in life and followed all the "rules" and still got the short end of the stick. We were taught that if you followed all the rules and made all the right choices you were more or less guaranteed a decent paying job. Especially if you came from a town like ours, with all the resources and educational quality you'd need.
But it turns out that upper-middle class is still middle class who are still people who need to work for a living and even this group suffers in a recession. And my millionaire teacher simply did not see the privilege he had as a millionaire compared to people who needed to work for a living. He was just plain blind to it.
It baffled me because he seemed to be empathic in every other way, but he was straight up clueless when it came to money. There were other circumstances (many of them, actually) where he demonstrated his inability to recognize what a dollar was worth to "slightly wealthier than normal" people. The bottom line is that $150k is much, much closer to the poverty line than $10 million is, and despite the fact that he was an Ivy educated Goldman-Sachs exec and math teacher, he just didn't seem to "get" it.
From what I can gather, the author is the CEO of Metaphor, a machine learning startup in the Bay Area. I think the comments about privilege, however, are missing the point and its promise. The...
From what I can gather, the author is the CEO of Metaphor, a machine learning startup in the Bay Area.
I think the comments about privilege, however, are missing the point and its promise.
The author acknowledges that he is privileged in being able to afford the experiment. The author paid a fair wage for work that had a minimal workload. Most of us in the developed world are privileged to afford education, healthcare, therapy or counsel, and so on to some degree — inconceivable luxuries for most humans for most of human history, but now considered essential for us to thrive and achieve our full potential as individuals.
It is also a fact in our world that some individuals are hyper-productive — or, to better frame it, are positioned to be many times more productive than others. If someone is in a valuable enough of a position, it is logical for them to have support staff that enable them to thrive in that position.
The point is that the effects of accountability are powerful... yet underrated and little thought about. An external observer helped the author increase his productivity (as he defined it for himself) threefold. This strategy could be generalized outside of work to managing and achieving one's own personal goals.
Looking into the future:
With the advent of LLMs and the experiments around Agents, it is possible to imagine an imminent near future where personal AI coaches and assistants can serve as observers, accessible and affordable to all, that can help us identify our goals and work better toward them, whether they lie in the realm of work or life.
Fair wage? The median rent where the author lives is $3000/mo. If you add up all other monthly expenses on top of that, $20/hr is not fair wages. Not in that area. And the argument of "get a...
Fair wage? The median rent where the author lives is $3000/mo. If you add up all other monthly expenses on top of that, $20/hr is not fair wages. Not in that area. And the argument of "get a roommate" doesn't impact the concept of "fair wage". No one should be forced to live with others, if they don't want to, simply to survive. That isn't fairness, that's capitalism.
Also, I'll need sources on lofty claims such as
Most of us in the developed world are privileged to afford education, healthcare, therapy or counsel, and so on to some degree
From what I can see with a like bit of searching:
Nearly 44% of Americans struggle to afford healthcare. That's worse than almost every other first world country in the world.
77% of adults say that college would be difficult or impossible to afford.
The average student can only afford 24% of 4-year colleges, meaning 76% of all American colleges are too expensive for the average student.
America ranks horrifically low in global education metrics relative to our economic wealth.
America similarly ranks horrifically low in global healthcare metrics relative to our economic wealth.
Maybe other "developed" countries give their citizens reasonable access to these things, but not the country where the author and his "help" are from.
Most people who work in San Francisco don't need to live there, though. Transit in the Bay Area is quite good and there are cheaper places that are not too far away. $20/hour is not great for the...
Most people who work in San Francisco don't need to live there, though. Transit in the Bay Area is quite good and there are cheaper places that are not too far away.
$20/hour is not great for the Bay Area, but it is not terrible either.
It is terrible. "You don't have to live in SF to work there" is a terrible argument. The trains are shit (I know from 6 years of personal experience) and Bart has been declining steadily. If you...
It is terrible. "You don't have to live in SF to work there" is a terrible argument. The trains are shit (I know from 6 years of personal experience) and Bart has been declining steadily. If you take a car in, you're basically doing nothing for the commute (maybe a podcast or something) and those drives are typically an hour or longer each way. But most employers don't pay you for the commute. So instead of an actual 8 hour work day, it's more like 10 hours or longer. If any of these people were making such a commute then they were getting paid more like $16/hr or less.
And I don't want to hear about commute times obviously not being work; if you do something you would otherwise not do, specifically in order to fulfill the duties of your job, that's part of you doing your work. People should get paid for their commute.
But even if they had no commute, $20/hr in the bay area is a low wage. I know from experience how bad that little pay is in that area.
Would a person's improvement in productivity have a more positive impact on society than if each of those 5 people that were hired and went out and did something more productive instead?...
It is also a fact in our world that some individuals are hyper-productive — or, to better frame it, are positioned to be many times more productive than others. If someone is in a valuable enough of a position, it is logical for them to have support staff that enable them to thrive in that position.
Would a person's improvement in productivity have a more positive impact on society than if each of those 5 people that were hired and went out and did something more productive instead? Personally, I highly doubt it. We need more social workers and teachers-- instead of helping one software engineer marginally improve, people who choose careers such as teaching or social work can help software engineers of the future (and others) maintain the mental and academic health they need to achieve their dreams. Wouldn't those 5 people becoming teachers or social workers help more people than they would watching over over some guy gently reminding him to do his work when the reality is that he's more than capable of doing that on his own any way?
Is that actually a fair wage for the Bay area? I live way out in the boonies, and that's approximately the pay people get for unskilled work out of high school around here.
The author paid a fair wage for work that had a minimal workload.
Is that actually a fair wage for the Bay area? I live way out in the boonies, and that's approximately the pay people get for unskilled work out of high school around here.
Can you explain why a paid personal servant is bad? We all have a limited number of hours in the day, this position provides more of them to the employer. I don’t see how this is different from...
Can you explain why a paid personal servant is bad? We all have a limited number of hours in the day, this position provides more of them to the employer. I don’t see how this is different from any other kind of employee that performs tasks so that the employer doesn’t have to personally perform them.
Hey friend, I'm specifically responding to you because I know you and I both have ADHD. What if this article's experiment gathered enough results to say, hey, many many folks who struggle can...
Hey friend, I'm specifically responding to you because I know you and I both have ADHD.
What if this article's experiment gathered enough results to say, hey, many many folks who struggle can become far more productive members of society of they had help, and then that turns into equitable access to personal assistance for everyone?
We know many jobs are automated away but this is an excellent chance to give real humans meaningful work.
I said meaningful. Yes.
Jobs that pay humans to click on hydrants and tell them not to talk about it, are harmful. Jobs where someone helps someone less abled to achieve more, can be very rewarding.
I know for myself, if I had to take a daily pill to stay alive, despite wanting to live, I will be dead in a month, tops. If a service was available to me, whether I was rich or poor, I would use it to live. It could be, the government's takes $1 from me, and the equivalent of $1 from this guy, and that pooled amount of money pays for you to call me every morning at 8 and chat with me while I take my pill. I take it and tell you thank you have a great day and you hang up knowing I'm not dying today.
I can imagine folks who have good kids calling them to remind them for health things. What about folks with no kids, how come they have to suffer alone? Maybe we shouldn't moneize everything and certainly I would hate this as yet another subscription service for the rich. But it could also be a good social service that provides actual value. I know I wouldn't have dropped out of school if they paid teaching assistants enough to give me a call every day and helped me pack my school bag and reminded me of due days and gently suggest I start projects instead of procrastinate. Folks who have involved and loving parents and working brains got through school. I stayed up all night reading through the etymology dictionary instead of writing my essay.
If we can make sure folks who have deficient brains and lack of social network for small valuable things like this that we can't every single day rely on friends and family for, can function better, we'd see way more innovation and productivity and well read and informed people.
If it's set up as an equitable service and a respected profession, is that okay? Is it the way this article is phrased and how it's not equitable and in fact widens the gap that makes this so awful to everyone here?
I feel like my whole life would have been very different if I had gotten help like this as a child and young adult, and I feel very sad that it's being treated as a joke, a moral deficiency and trivial nonsense or something despicable and dismissed completely here.
Actually there is a service around where I live that will come and pick up your dog poop. I don’t really see this as dehumanizing though, it’s just supply and demand. I don’t quite see how this...
But what about someone being rich enough to hire someone to follow their dogs around and scoop of their shit whenever they take a shit.
Actually there is a service around where I live that will come and pick up your dog poop. I don’t really see this as dehumanizing though, it’s just supply and demand.
meaningless work
I don’t quite see how this work is meaningless. It has a measurable productivity effect, didn’t it?
Sure, there are plenty of service jobs, but they serve everyone.
Is this the main issue? Are butlers and private chefs equally bad?
I think this is down to whether you feel responsible for helping the people around you - and whether you're actively doing anything about that. If you do feel that responsibility, which I think is...
I think this is down to whether you feel responsible for helping the people around you - and whether you're actively doing anything about that. If you do feel that responsibility, which I think is a good thing, and you're not doing much, then being around someone and directly supporting the kind of wage economics that are part of poverty will make you feel bad. But you might think instead that you are in a vacuum, and you are wealthy independent of any external system. Then the person you pay $20/hour to apply social pressure is someone you're helping. It's not a terrible job and they are likely making more than they would otherwise due to your employment.
Personally, I would never want to employ someone who is getting paid less than a living wage. I'd go so far as to pay a receptionist a $150k salary in the bay area.
A lot of comments on that article at LessWrong seem nicer and more thoughtful than the ones here. Makes us look like Reddit. Maybe we could learn something from them?
A lot of comments on that article at LessWrong seem nicer and more thoughtful than the ones here. Makes us look like Reddit. Maybe we could learn something from them?
Maybe the people who already read his blog, and have stayed subscribed to his writings, have opinions and worldviews which are aligned with his (hence the regular reading of his blog), but we're...
Maybe the people who already read his blog, and have stayed subscribed to his writings, have opinions and worldviews which are aligned with his (hence the regular reading of his blog), but we're not that self-selected group of people who think like he does.
I think the difference in responses here is due to the types of folks each site draws in? LessWrong attracts the sort of logical, rationalTM folk who aim to quantify and impose structure onto the...
I think the difference in responses here is due to the types of folks each site draws in? LessWrong attracts the sort of logical, rationalTM folk who aim to quantify and impose structure onto the messy, complicated, human aspects of life. To them, I imagine it's easier to focus on the productivity charts and statistics than it is to consider the interpersonal dynamics at play here. They put themselves in the shoes of the author, thinking about what they themselves can gain?
On the contrary, I imagine the folks on Tildes are much more tuned to focus on what it might feel like to be on the other side of the exchange. And to me, that point of view feels... Icky as all heck to think about. It's harder to come at this topic in a neutral, measured way when the icky bits are infused into the very core of the experiment? It strikes a nerve!
So, I'm not entirely sure that we should be celebrating the inoffensive niceness of the LessWrong comments, when one of the reasons for the niceness is a blindness to the unpleasant elements of the post? Still though, +1 for aiming for fewer kneejerky Reddit-like responses!
There’s definitely an ickiness to the guy’s post when viewed with a human-focused lens, but I also get a bit of a different kind of ickiness from some of the comments here that feel like they’re...
Exemplary
There’s definitely an ickiness to the guy’s post when viewed with a human-focused lens, but I also get a bit of a different kind of ickiness from some of the comments here that feel like they’re also missing that guy’s humanness a bit. Yeah, guy is wealthy and out of touch, but he’s also far from evil and his missteps clearly come from a lack of understanding rather than malice or greed.
I felt bad for the guy when I read the article, because I think he probably faces some struggles in his life on account of his lack of social understanding and self-awareness. The way he wrote about his experiences reminded me of some of the people I know who are on the autism spectrum and have difficulty navigating social situations that are obvious to everyone else. I’m not trying to make an armchair diagnosis or anything — I’m just noting that, whatever the reason, his clear lack of any social grace was a familiar contour to me, and it made me want to meet his words with some extra patience and charity rather than harsh judgment.
There definitely is a larger conversation to be had about privilege and wages and labor and all of that, and I don’t want to take away from people who are discussing that front. Again, that is a big part of what makes his post have that ickiness in the first place, but I think we could do without calling the guy names or making fun of his out-of-touchness.
It's interesting that you mention this! By comparison, folks elsewhere in the thread (myself included) have been attributing his lack of social grace almost entirely to ignorance stemming from his...
The way he wrote about his experiences reminded me of some of the people I know who are on the autism spectrum and have difficulty navigating social situations that are obvious to everyone else.
It's interesting that you mention this! By comparison, folks elsewhere in the thread (myself included) have been attributing his lack of social grace almost entirely to ignorance stemming from his wealth and background. It's interesting how privilege can spark contempt for behaviors that would otherwise be given patience in other contexts.
I briefly mentioned in my other comment that disabled folks can get caught in the crossfire when discussing similar actions taken by folks in more privileged positions. What you've pointed out feels like it might be in the same vein?
Definitely agreed. It’s entirely possible that he acts the way he does fully on account of his privilege, but I don’t think we can know that with certainty. I get why people are responding to that...
Exemplary
Definitely agreed. It’s entirely possible that he acts the way he does fully on account of his privilege, but I don’t think we can know that with certainty. I get why people are responding to that aspect, because it pinged for me too.
But the other thing that pinged for me was that there was an atypicality to the whole experiment as well as the way he talks about it that reminded me of some people I know. For them, navigating “obvious” social waters is challenging because they’re working with a different set of instrumentation and cues than everybody else. They’ve had to deal with a lot of people on the outside looking in who meet their behavior with ridicule, which is particularly harmful because, from their perspective, they’re doing the best that they can, and maybe they’d do a better job if people tried to understand their perspective rather than mock it.
If his tone had been different, or the way he had written about things had been different, it would have been easier for me to dismiss the guy’s poor navigation of those waters. But he struck me as someone who, honestly and earnestly, believed he was doing the best that he could. There is something to be said for the insulating effects of privilege here, which I don’t think we can fully disentangle either. Part of looking at the situation from a human lens means looking at not just him but his impact on others as well, and I think his impact is where there are definitely some valid criticisms to be made. In general though, I still think his impact is relatively minor, especially when we consider it on the wider backdrop of “the harmful behaviors of the rich”.
But getting back to what you were expressing, if we ignore the particulars of this guy for a second, dunking on someone’s out-of-touchness or atypicality in general tends to have knock-on effects for others who share similar characteristics. You phrased it well with “disabled folks can get caught in the crossfire” given how a lot of disabilities can impact social functioning.
I think that this is a good opportunity to bring up the concept of steelmanning. Exposing ourselves and our ideas on the internet exposes a vast attack surface. We are ridden with cracks,...
I think that this is a good opportunity to bring up the concept of steelmanning.
A steel man argument (or steelmanning) is the opposite of a straw man argument. Steelmanning is the practice of addressing the strongest form of the other person's argument, even if it's not the one they presented.
Exposing ourselves and our ideas on the internet exposes a vast attack surface. We are ridden with cracks, imperfections, and inconsistencies. I get the sense that many people on niche Internet forums like Tildes and Lesswrong alike tend to be neurodivergent. Being charitable to one another's ideas fosters a culture where we can feel safe and respected being vulnerable and... unorthodox.
It reminds me of this, the reception to which was somewhat similar in tone, though the specifics are of course different, and the subject in that case seemed more reflective and self-aware.
It reminds me of this, the reception to which was somewhat similar in tone, though the specifics are of course different, and the subject in that case seemed more reflective and self-aware.
Let's start with the person who called the blogger a "fucking wanker"! But, even the comments here that don't contain outright insults like that, are still very uncharitable towards the blogger. I...
I'm not sure who you mean that comment toward.
Let's start with the person who called the blogger a "fucking wanker"! But, even the comments here that don't contain outright insults like that, are still very uncharitable towards the blogger. I totally agree with the negative sentiment toward him (obviously), but I'm also aware that most people commenting here are not being nice, even if they're avoiding insults.
I mean, it shouldn't be too surprising that many of the people who use this website are overly hostile towards rich people. The only things that ever made this place different from Reddit are that...
I mean, it shouldn't be too surprising that many of the people who use this website are overly hostile towards rich people. The only things that ever made this place different from Reddit are that most people here are predisposed to agree with each other on most topics, and that the mods are very strict.
And this post pretty much removes both of those differences. Its very much opposed to what most people on this website think, so it starts a lot of disagreements and attacks. And since the mods agree with the criticisms of the rich people they're not really going to enforce the rules as strictly as if users were criticizing some group that they liked.
Please mark any comments that you feel cross a line with the Malice label. Tildes doesn’t have content moderators as of yet, so labels are our way of escalating situations to the admin who is...
Please mark any comments that you feel cross a line with the Malice label. Tildes doesn’t have content moderators as of yet, so labels are our way of escalating situations to the admin who is currently the only person who can remove comments and lock topics. He relies on us to notify him since he obviously can’t read everything here on his own.
Also, I’m trying to be as helpful as possible when I say this and don’t intend it in a mean way at all, but you might want to consider that your post is also kind of falling into the same reddit-y pattern? You’re making some pretty big negative generalizations and assumptions about everyone here, including at least one that is based on incorrect information (our current moderation system).
As a note, please also do use the other Offtopic / Joke / Noise labels, too. The Offtopic and Joke labels will move threads down and the Noise label will collapse threads once applied by enough...
As a note, please also do use the other Offtopic / Joke / Noise labels, too. The Offtopic and Joke labels will move threads down and the Noise label will collapse threads once applied by enough (two?) users.
So this person is like a 3rd connection to me, that is, one of my friends knows him, not super well but he does know him. If it makes any of you feel better we did viciously (metaphorically) make...
So this person is like a 3rd connection to me, that is, one of my friends knows him, not super well but he does know him. If it makes any of you feel better we did viciously (metaphorically) make fun of him for this.
I don’t think it was particularly abusive to the participants, there’s a reason they took up a shady Craigslist post. It pays better than work study at Berkeley did and is even easier.
But this feels mostly performative imo. The point of doing this is to be weird and eye catching, and it did work, this got a bunch of attention.
So, I'm glad you mentioned the personal connection. The guy know it's crazy too I'm really struggling to understand the hate here. The guy has tried his way and using tools and whatnot; he knows...
So, I'm glad you mentioned the personal connection.
I decided it was time to try the nuclear option
The guy know it's crazy too
I would do in one day what previously took me a whole week.
I'm really struggling to understand the hate here.
The guy has tried his way and using tools and whatnot; he knows he's being excessive and privileged; he got great results.
If we didn't know about glasses, and someone hires another person to read to them, do we make fun of them? Hearing aid person? How about mobility assistance? Why do we draw the line on neuro assistance and group it as a moral failing?
As someone who struggles with life long ADHD, I always say that if I need to take ONE pill a day every day to live, I will be for sure dead in a month, probably closer to two weeks. Is that a moral failing? Why aren't I just trying harder? Haven't I heard that from every single disappointed teacher who felt sad at my wasted potential?
It makes me sad that people in this thread have such little empathy for OP. We should all be so lucky to have brains that can stay on task and get things done, but why is it so hard to believe some of us are trying harder and still failing ?
When I say I mean in a teasing type of way. If you learned that someone you knew paid $20/hr to people to stare at him for hours on end so that they can work 16 hours a day, how could you not...
When I say
we did viciously (metaphorically) make fun of him for this
I mean in a teasing type of way. If you learned that someone you knew paid $20/hr to people to stare at him for hours on end so that they can work 16 hours a day, how could you not tease them?
Unlike some of the other commenters, I don't think what he did was an affront to humanity or anything. What he paid for what the assistants did was more than fine, even in the bay area. I was paid $18/hr by the UC Berkeley library system to do more work than they did, also in the Bay Area. Likely many of them are students, or otherwise the kind of people that are looking for part time work, and a part time job where you do nothing most of the time and can use devices is ultimately a sweet gig.
I just think it was goofy and probably performative. It's not like he has below average attention, it was just that he wanted to work for almost every hour of his life, which understandably becomes difficult.
I think ultimately it's a combination of a) his goal is a bit goofy, the sheer amount of work he wants to do is beyond the pale b) his method of getting to his goal, the "nuclear option", is also goofy.
To clarify the title: the author hired 5 people sequentially, not parallelly. This is an offbeat but interesting experiment. :) For me, it raises an interesting point that it's really difficult...
All in all, I feel comfortable saying this experiment tripled my productivity, especially since I didn’t even track reading, dancing, and playing sports.
To clarify the title: the author hired 5 people sequentially, not parallelly.
This is an offbeat but interesting experiment. :) For me, it raises an interesting point that it's really difficult for individuals to self-coach, self-police their impulses. And the value that parents, coaches, teachers, and secretaries provide in guidance and motivation is tremendous.
I'm being immediately judgemental but the work they did sounds like busy work. Like they wrote a bunch of things that sound productive but are pretty surface level tasks. Maybe they omitted some...
I'm being immediately judgemental but the work they did sounds like busy work.
Like they wrote a bunch of things that sound productive but are pretty surface level tasks. Maybe they omitted some of the more important work but it seems like they basically wrote blog posts. This doesn't strike me as deep work that was important enough to warrant this kind of obsession with productivity.
That's a thing I've seen a few times in the LW/rationalist community (which I'm not part of, but I find fascinating as an outsider). I treat it as an interesting cultural thing. It's unusual, for...
That's a thing I've seen a few times in the LW/rationalist community (which I'm not part of, but I find fascinating as an outsider).
I treat it as an interesting cultural thing. It's unusual, for sure, but it's not immoral in any obvious way, and probably less offputting if you're the target audience.
I'm gonna go against the grain a bit here. At my college, there's a program somewhat similar to this experiment. Last semester, I met with my "assistant" (who was just another college student...
I'm gonna go against the grain a bit here. At my college, there's a program somewhat similar to this experiment.
Last semester, I met with my "assistant" (who was just another college student making like $16/hr) for around 3 hours a week. It was split up into a 1 hour meeting earlier in the week, and a two hour meeting later on. I would use the one hour meeting as a time to go over all the work I had been assigned in the past few days, and plan out a schedule for doing that work. The two hour meeting later in the week was just "coworking time", where my "assistant" would basically breathe down my neck to keep me on task. My assistant would also do regular check-ins with me via text when we weren't meeting.
I cannot overstate how much this program helped me. I went from regularly turning in assignments late and barely staying afloat to actually being on top of my work. It genuinely changed how I look at myself as a student, and how my ADHD affects me as a person and the kind of supports that I need.
I think that what you did was fine and helpful! The other student was basically an accountability partner for you. Crucially, it was just a few hours per week and you were not the employer. The...
I think that what you did was fine and helpful! The other student was basically an accountability partner for you. Crucially, it was just a few hours per week and you were not the employer.
The experiment this guy did had him as the employer, keeping someone around for the entire day, for a month, to breathe down his neck... and also do his chores. That creates a weird dynamic and borders on obsessive.
Aside from all the ethical, philosophical, and privilege arguments I would just like to say that: This is my personal fucking nightmare. Having someone look over my shoulders for sixteen hours a...
Aside from all the ethical, philosophical, and privilege arguments I would just like to say that:
This is my personal fucking nightmare. Having someone look over my shoulders for sixteen hours a day is my definition of hell. Who did I piss off for this punishment?
Is being productive for sixteen hours a day even desirable? I wouldn't want to be, nor should anyone. Work is not that important.
It doesn't even work. It's fine during an experiment that lasts a month but it isn't sustainable whatsoever. Dude mentions wanting to fix this from the top down, but he fixed nothing. He simply introduced an external factor. It's the same bandaid fix as any other productivity tool.
One thing that struck me about this article is the obsession with productivity that I find revolting more than anythig else in it. This person seems to be addicted to productivity - he says he...
One thing that struck me about this article is the obsession with productivity that I find revolting more than anythig else in it. This person seems to be addicted to productivity - he says he craves more of it. I find it very hard to not judge such attitude - as much as I try not to, I feel really uncomfortable around productivity-obsessed people.
It's hard to explain to me, but I find this approach completely dehumanizing. It sounds to me like it's basically requiring one to justify their existence by constantly producing something. Just existing and/or living your life is not productive. Relaxation is not productive. Sleep is not productive. Lunch breaks are not productive. You have to do less of that, and be more productive! Hanging out with friends is not productive unless they teach you something. Don't even think of watching TV or reading a book that doesn't contribute to the growth of your net value...
I work with people like that and I find it/them incredibly said. I fully realize this is due to me looking at them from my personal high horse, and that they might judge me playing my video games with a similar level of disgust. I try to keep my biases in check and understand that everyone is different, but at the same time I am concerned that one day my current company decides to use these productivity-o-holics against everyone else: "Bob is working 18-hour days, why can't you?". Hasn't happend yet, but it has in one of my previous worplaces, which is the main reason I'm so judgmental and afraid of a "live and let live" approach...
Apologies for going on a tangent - guess I found the premise of the article much more jarring than its contents, and it nade me write this diatribe only loosely related to it...
He hired 5 people, at $20 an hour, to make sure he's productive? Unless the increased productivity is worth more than $100 an hour, he's losing money on the deal. That doesn't sound productive at all.
He hired 5 people, at $20 an hour, to make sure he's productive?
Unless the increased productivity is worth more than $100 an hour, he's losing money on the deal. That doesn't sound productive at all.
I understand why you want to say this, and I have my own thoughts on the author, but I also think it goes against the spirit of the site here to call someone a “fucking wanker”. The points in the...
Can I say "he's a fucking wanker" here? Who cares. I'm going to say it anyway: he's a fucking wanker.
I understand why you want to say this, and I have my own thoughts on the author, but I also think it goes against the spirit of the site here to call someone a “fucking wanker”. The points in the rest of your comment would actually be made better without the name-calling, IMO. It takes away from the rest of what you have to say.
OTOH, not calling people out for their bad behavior lets them wiggle out of it being bad behavior. Especially when its an author of a blog bragging about their wankerishness. There's a fine line...
OTOH, not calling people out for their bad behavior lets them wiggle out of it being bad behavior.
Especially when its an author of a blog bragging about their wankerishness.
There's a fine line to be drawn there, to be sure.
I have mixed feelings on callouts (ironic, given my comment above!), but I think if we’re going to do it, I’d prefer we name the behavior rather than name-call. It’s more valuable to see “he’s...
I have mixed feelings on callouts (ironic, given my comment above!), but I think if we’re going to do it, I’d prefer we name the behavior rather than name-call. It’s more valuable to see “he’s being self-indulgent/egocentric/inconsiderate” than “he’s a wanker”. It’s entirely possible to criticize the guy without using pejoratives, and it has the added benefit of being more precise.
And my stance honestly isn’t about this particular guy or the specifics of the situation at all. I simply don’t want Tildes to be the kind of place where we call other people wankers or the like, even if they’re someone who might “deserve” the title. Name-calling is one of those get-people-fired-up methods of discourse that has eroded a lot of discussions elsewhere online, and it’s important to me that Tildes avoid falling into that same pattern.
How is this different to hiring a private tutor or any other kind of 1:1 assistance? Blogging about it is weird and having such an obsession with productivity is weird. But hiring someone to help...
How is this different to hiring a private tutor or any other kind of 1:1 assistance?
Blogging about it is weird and having such an obsession with productivity is weird. But hiring someone to help you seems completely fine.
It's at a significantly lower wage than you'd pay a private tutor or any other kind of 1:1 assistance where he lives, for one. But also it's the blogging about it. Also I'm personally offended by...
It's at a significantly lower wage than you'd pay a private tutor or any other kind of 1:1 assistance where he lives, for one. But also it's the blogging about it. Also I'm personally offended by how shitty the chair he gave them is.
Honestly, I'm more triggered by his arrogant dismissal of Rachel than what he did. It's just that they're both coming from the same place: his arrogance that he knows better, and possibly is...
Honestly, I'm more triggered by his arrogant dismissal of Rachel than what he did. It's just that they're both coming from the same place: his arrogance that he knows better, and possibly is better, than other people.
I'm a big believer in the idea that the journey is just as important as the destination - especially if the journey is going to take a decade or more! And more cliches: "live each day as if it...
I'm a big believer in the idea that the journey is just as important as the destination - especially if the journey is going to take a decade or more! And more cliches: "live each day as if it were your last", "nobody on their death bed ever regretted not spending more time at work", "stop along the way and smell the roses".
I've learned that our plans for life don't always go how we intended. Sometimes, that can be a good thing, but sometimes it can be a bad thing. If life goes bad, you don't want to think about how you spent the last decade working for a future that now can't happen.
One thing I think worth interrogating here is why an article like this triggers such revulsion, but professions like nannying or housecleaning feel more easy to accept.
In both cases, someone comes to your house and fulfills a household role on your behalf. In both cases, the tasks being offloaded are things that mature adults are (perhaps unfairly) expected to do entirely on their own (cooking, cleaning, time management... parenting, even?). In both cases, hiring someone to do this work is a privilege afforded only to folks with quite a bit of disposal income. Yet, the scenario in this article feels so much worse. Why?
My theory is that, because of a combination of factors, this whole scheme has just about the most horrid optics possible. The desk setup? The condescension directed at his younger assistants? The constant (very personal) interaction over a period of 16 hours, 7 days a week ? A wealthy male hiring a female personal assistant? It feels... Overly familiar in an adult-to-adult way. It gives me skeevy vibes, while the other jobs don't. By comparison, nannies have a caregiver-to-child relationship (wholesome!), and housecleaners are often given privacy to focus on the task in isolation (less chance of a creepy relationship forming!). The working relationship between hirer and hiree is entirely different.
I mostly just wanted to point this out because a lot of the criticisms leveled at this post (privilege, entitlement) could in theory be leveled at people who have the audacity to hire others to do their housework and parenting for them, too. (The horror!) But, I don't think the act of exchanging money for personal labor is the true offense here?
(Tangent, but I mean, there's a whole separate conversation to be had about e.g. disabled folks hiring others to take care of tasks they don't have the capacity or ability for. But again, that has way better optics! There's an actual life-or-death need there, which isn't present in this blog post. Yet I've still seen disabled folk online get caught in the crossfire when discussing the ethics of hiring folks to take care of personal labor. Not good! But, I digress, aha.)
All together, I really think it comes down to just... The uniquely nauseating way this person went about his experiment, more so than the role in a vacuum.
I think there are a few layers of why this feels so icky.
He's in the mission district, ground zero for gentrification and inequity in San Francisco, pushing a pretty inequitable idea. In my mind that, plus the premise here, is enough.
He's pushing the incredibly problematic premise that "productivity" is the end all be all. This is toxic work culture. He is the CEO, he sets the culture for his company.
He's taking advantage of a deregulated work environment driven by companies like the one he is at the helm of. I'd be surprised if anyone defending his "fair wage" earns anywhere near the minimum wage.
I think part of that may come down to what feels familiar. If you are used to nannies and housecleaners, it may not be off putting to read an article about hiring them.
Within my social circle (even amongst friends who could afford it), hiring a nanny or a regular housecleaner falls very much into "icky" territory. On an intellectual level, I can't say that there is anything wrong with it. However, on a more personal level, I would probably feel uncomfortable associating with someone who did due to the strongly negative cultural associations I've acquired throughout my life.
My line in the sand for 'too much inequality' is when one person earns enough money to hire another person full time.
"Full time" are the key words here. I know many middle and even some lower-middle income folk who have hired a housecleaner to come and clean for an hour or two once or twice a month. That's not "icky"-- that's being adult enough to realize that maybe you need some help and then putting aside a little bit of money in the budget to get that help.
Hire a housecleaner to come every day? That's a bit much-- chances are your house doesn't even need to be the level of clean that would require a housekeeper every day. Would it be nice to have an immaculately clean house? Sure. But that housecleaner makes a more positive impact when they help a larger variety of people to keep their shit together rather than just a few people looking to "perfect" their living space.
I'm one of those folks. Disabled partner + full-time job + ADHD + depression + not being great at the tasks... It was worth the money, it just took time for me to get over the mental hurdle.
I've honestly been inching closer to making the call for many of the same reasons. What was your experience like, if you don't mind my asking?
It's honestly been great. We used a local agency and while we often get the same person, it does rotate occasionally. There's zero shame/judgement from them for our place being messier than I think it should be and we had them come every 2 weeks. We tipped well, and our usual person got tipped with ribeyes cut off a prime rib once (we got really lucky and got one out of the flash food for cheap). When we moved after my partner was hospitalized, we paid them to do a move out clean. Apparently they told our person the apt was now vacant and she started crying because she thought my partner passed away. She's really great and once were moved in fully we'll set them up again, I hope, if we can still afford them! (Wheelchair vans are expensive AF)
Sweet, thanks! I'll have to start looking for a local place myself. Good luck with the van, and I hope you guys adjust well!
I think that's probably what it comes down to for me as well. It's too close to a servant-master relationship, and it brings income disparity into sharp focus.
There are plenty service roles that don't bother me in the least, but I think it's because they serve many different people, are often in the same class as people they serve (if not higher), and they could realistically afford the same services that they offer: tradespeople can hire tradespeople, lawyers can hire lawyers, waiters can eat at restaurants, cashiers can go shopping, construction workers can buy houses, etc.
But someone's full-time housecleaner can't afford to hire a their own full-time housecleaner because it would eat their entire income.
I am not in the least bothered by people who pay for weekly housecleaning services or for a regular nanny to watch their kids a couple hours after school. Such a housecleaner and such a nanny absolutely could afford the services they offer, and so the employer-employee relationship doesn't feel quite so classist.
Coming from a society in which full time, live in help is normal for middle class families, I think this really just comes down to what you're culturally used to.
Interesting! Thanks for sharing your perspective.
Where I'm coming from, my partner has worked as a (EDIT: non-full time) nanny for a specific family over the course of many years? And, AFAIK she loved the experience and formed a very deep connection with the family and especially the child she took care of.
So, I think that's why I might have a better impression of that role? Not from the perspective of the hirer, but from the perspective of the person being hired. But, maybe I should have a deeper conversation with my partner about exactly how she felt towards the family and their financial ability to hire her.
I've known several housekeepers, and they get immense satisfaction from helping people that need it (and they're usually much nicer than the people who don't!) A rather extreme version of this is https://m.youtube.com/@Aurikatariina - she cleans houses that are full of trash, insects, rot, and worse, all in an effort to help lift up the people living in it and help them through a really bad time in their lives. I love that she always respects the privacy of her clients, as far too many "do good" channels use the people's names/faces/emotional reactions to garner more views.
One thing I've heard many housekeepers say is that yes, they would absolutely hire a housekeeper themselves, because they too enjoy the feeling of someone else coming in and taking care of a task that sometimes just feels like too much.
As a not so tidy person, I greatly appreciate the service they provide. Cleaning is hard for me for some reason. Always has been and probably always will be. I do it because I have to but I find it mentally exhausting (specifically tidying up clutter-- I'm fine with vacuuming and dishes and the like) and I'd rather be spending that mental energy doing something else.
People don't think of it this way, but I think cleaning is a skill just like any other. While it's not a particularly "hard" skill to learn for most people, it is like any skill easier for some people than for others. It's also, notably, a necessary skill. Housecleaners provide value to those whose skill in that area is weaker.
Like most lower-income workers, housecleaners are underpaid for the value they provide to society, imo. Of course, even with their wage as low as it is, many can't afford one, but that's one of the inevitable consequences of our (unfortunately) dwindling middle class.
Yeah, they're definitely outside of my budget, but my goodness would they ever be a gift! A shitty bundle (unsubscribe! unsubscribe!) of mental and physical health problems mean I struggle a lot with keeping up with all the housekeeping. There's so damn much of it! And you just turn around to start something else and the stuff you swear you just did needs sound again!
Another data point: my partner and I have someone clean our house every two weeks, and pay her a fixed amount per visit that comes out to $40-50 per hour (in the midwest US). I mentally group this into the category of "people who do house maintenance stuff I technically could do but really don't want to", with e.g. plumbers.
We were recently discussing whether we pay her enough. This was the rate she quoted us, we didn't make any attempt to negotiate it, and she hasn't expressed any displeasure with it, but we do kind of feel weird and bad for sitting around being lazy while she works. Somehow paying her more seems to worsen that effect though, in a "look at me I'm a lazy asshole" vs "look at me I'm a lazy rich asshole" sort of way? Not that that should matter.
This seems like a local optimum, for highly-paid non-management people like me. I'd feel extremely weird and bad if she was around more often. I certainly wouldn't want anything approaching full time, which would push it into "hiring servants" territory for me. But it also seems like it would worsen the problem further to not have her around, since I'd just be dumping that money into savings in the hope of retiring sooner.
I don't know. Ethics under capitalism is hard.
As mentioned here, I think it's actually people who hire other people full-time (such that they become that person's boss) that give me "icky" vibes. I don't mind the idea of hiring nannies or housecleaners who work for multiple other families as well.
I know a couple of former nannies, and they functioned more like independent contractors who offered regular part-time tutoring and babysitting services to a few different clients. I am cool with that.
I'm from a society where full-time domestic help is common (and have employed full-time domestic helpers for the past fifteen years or so) and I still found this offputting from the perspective that this productivity grindset is toxic.
Growing up my parents would hire house cleaners, although not full time. I still think it's weird - and when an occasional friend pays for a house cleaner my only thought is "why don't you clean your own house?". Paying for someone else to do basic maintenance tasks in your life - laundry, cleaning, grocery shopping - is a line I don't want to cross.
Do you consider making food a basic maintenance task? How about growing it? If not, what's the difference? (I don't really have a position here, but am trying to understand yours.)
I think it's a matter of whether someone ever does the task on their own. If someone never scrubs their own shower or never cooks food then, barring abnormal circumstances, I get the impression they think the work is beneath them. And I do know people that just never do their own laundry, or only get a clean house by paying for it.
As for my parents, it's down to my mom being 5% hoarder, and both parents filling in the remainder with X% lazy and Y% wealthy.
Occasional housecleaning services don't bother me. I myself have hired one-off housecleaning services after moving out of rentals to make sure I get my deposit back, and I would consider getting it as a regular service for things I can't do myself (like deep clean the carpet or do an external clean the upstairs windows).
I guess I mean hiring a housecleaner more in the same sense that this article's writer hired people: He was their boss, not their customer.
It seems more like what the author of this blog admitted, which is they weren't sure if they made it clear what the duties of the job were. The job was called productivity assistant on his craigslist post, yet it was really just a full-time housekeeper cook (which seems to be the term for someone that cooks and cleans or does other household chores) that has a side-task to check in with him every 30 minutes to ask him what he's working on.
The pay also does seem low for his area which contributes to the additional negative perception. If you look up housekeeper cooks in SF area, with his additional criteria, it does seem likely that the pay should be quite a bit higher than what he was paying. Additionally it also comes across bad (not sure of the more specific word I was trying to think of) that he mentioned the unreliability of some of the assistants considering how low his pay was and the temporary nature of the job, its not a surprise that people either might have something come up and wouldn't prioritize a $20/hr job or couldn't afford to pay for a car repair etc.
So to me, the primary issue with what he did was that he sort of misled about what the job was. He was making it seem more like it was all about sitting there watching him, which maybe that was one of the bigger benefits to him, but it was really just a minor task for the assistants and the main tasks had nothing to do with the title of the job. I get that what he was asking these people to do would be unusual to ask a housekeeper cook to do, but it doesn't seem like anything very specialized or particularly intensive and it basically just amounts to being present in his home and checking in on him which seems like a simple request that could be negotiated when hiring someone as a housekeeper cook.
You're right, he does admit to this! I think I might have missed that on first read.
Still though, even if he had been clear in the posting, and even if some of the awkward ambiguity had been alleviated, I get the sense that the post would have still rubbed folks the wrong way?
((Especially since he didn't really say much about the fairness/appropriateness of the wages, and I definitely agree that that's a pain point here.))
Yeah I'm sure, because posting about it draws attention and what's the audience for it? Most people don't have that luxury to hire people to be assistants for them 16 hours out of the day, so the people who are going to engage with this blog post have no benefit from this "experiment". I don't think others receive criticism directly when they're hiring housekeepers, maids, nannies etc. as because they aren't posting about it, essentially inviting criticism. They're not posting it as though it's an experiment to see how it makes their lives better or something, and if they did, they'd likely also get criticized. In that way, I don't think people being rubbed the wrong way is about the professions or who they're hiring to do what.
Where I'd say this differs is that there are some legitimate criticisms, not because he's flaunting his wealth or whatever, but because he misclassified a legitimate job, housekeepers or cooks etc. and he clearly has no experience doing this type of thing so he made mistakes in the process. If he had just gone to a professional service that already has the process set up for this and hires people or has a list of people who are engaged in that profession already then his experiment is more like "I asked my housekeeper to check in on me every once in awhile to keep me productive, here's the results", it looks a lot different than what he did.
And the wage. I don't know about others, but if you're in San Francisco and you're paying your housekeeper or nanny $20/hr, you're not a good person, you should be paying more.
I actually think the professions are fine, they just need to be fairly compensated. And also agree the way in which the author went about this was icky.
'I need you to keep me accountable, oh also do my cooking and cleaning, and essentially be a maid/personal assistant' all for $20 an hour.
This article was steeped in such an astonishing level of privilege that it was honestly difficult to finish reading. The author, seemingly oblivious to their own position of power, casually requested someone to not only keep them accountable but also to cook, clean, and essentially serve as a maid/personal assistant, all for a mere $20 an hour.
This tone-deaf request is reminiscent of the aristocracy of the past, who were completely unaware of the struggles faced by those not born into wealth and power. The author's unconscious arrogance and elitism are evident in their expectation that someone would willingly take on such a demanding role for such a meager wage.
In today's world, where the cost of living continues to rise and economic disparities are more apparent than ever, it is disheartening to see individuals who remain so detached from the realities faced by many.
The author's lack of empathy and understanding for those who may not have the luxury of such opportunities is a stark reminder of the ongoing struggle for social and economic equality.
Not at all surprising, considering this is the site cited on Wikipedia as spawning neoreaction, organized around so-called effective altruism, and fixated on transhumanism and the singularity. Lack of empathy and understanding for people of lower economic status and oblivious aristocratic privilege is its brand.
I almost didn't read this because I saw the website and really had to think if it was worth my time. It doesn't help that a lot of these types tend to write in an extremely long-winded, circuitous fashion with sentences structured with repetitive, redundant, and inessential words.
Although I have a strong distaste for effective altruism, these people do tend to come up with interesting things from time to time, so it's not good to reject what they have to say before taking the time to see what they're saying. And while I also found this experiment to be distasteful, it was at the very least an interesting read. It doesn't look like they were hurting anyone, either. Though I would have preferred if they could have kept them going for longer than a month.
While I understand that the community that surrounds it is a bit much, is there anything about the underlying concept that bothers you? Personally I quite like the underlying concept, which is about maximizing our ability to help other people.
The bottom line is that no matter how insufferable they (the effective altruism crowd) are on a personal level, the goal of helping people is a noble one. If you're rich, the best way to do that is with money, if you're a programmer, the best way to do that is with the software you create, and if you're an academic the best way to do that is with your research. Could the community use a good knock in the head and perspective now and then? Yes, absolutely-- they sometimes get on my nerves too and I've had to leave their spaces at times to avoid tearing my hair out. But unless there's a good reason to think otherwise, I do believe the underlying intention behind effective altruism is worthy of respect, and I don't think it's a bad idea as a whole. Altruism with a smaller impact is important and worthy too, of course, but I don't see anything wrong with trying to maximize having a positive impact.
Surprisingly it's not the community. The movement is made up of multiple communities, so it's not like they're all the same people.
It's the philosophy behind it that I disagree with.
When it comes to social issues, I would describe myself as a utilitarian. But EA is a textbook real-world example of why utilitarianism can be bad when not balanced by other kinds of philosophy. The name doesn't seem to be completely correct, because altruism is often implied to be something you do because you empathize with someone, but EA requires you to ignore the people suffering around you because there are people around the world who are theoretically suffering more.
And to make things worse, EA is used as a way to make philanthropy "cheap". Bill Gates could be considered part of the EA movement, but in spite of the money he has given he remains one of the richest people in the world. Elon Musk and Jeff Bezos may or may not be completely on board with the philosophy, but are nonetheless lauded by the community. So in effect EA is a guise to get 'off the hook' in regards to the social expectation for them to spend real money on philanthropic causes. Though to be completely fair, rich people have other ways to do that as well.
If billionaires wanted to actually have the best hope of improving the lives of the people around them, the best thing they could do is to distribute the shares of their companies equally among the people who work for them or to turn them into co-ops if they are wholly-owned - at least in my opinion. But that would require them to relinquish control, so they'll never do that. But I'm going off on a tangent at this point.
If I want to be honest, it sounds like the trolley problem, and I don't think it's necessarily a bad idea to pull the lever, even though on an emotional level I'd prefer not to. The bottom line is that if more people are helped by pulling the lever, then it's the choice I support.
I guess EA is by its nature in favor of pulling that lever, which not everyone agrees with.
I agree with you that it's abhorrent that billionaires use EA as an excuse not to do more to help, but I see that as a "them" problem and not a problem inherent to EA's philosophy.
The problem with that position is that the very existence of "them" is a problem that everyone else pays dearly for. Literally; they have that money because they extract their wealth from the masses.
I would specify that I mean this specifically about the rich EA folk, but to be perfectly honest I've never even heard of a working class person who practices EA.
The problem of thinking that they're pulling the lever in the trolly problem and helping the most people is that that's very much up to debate. One of the big problems with utilitarianism is the definition of what "happiness" is. Distributing malaria vaccines increases "happiness" in that there are less people dying. But there are an infinate number of definitions of "happiness" which that act either does not help or actually hinders. And more importantly the world is far more complex than people can model, so there's no way to know ahead of time what projects will actually increase happiness in the way they have defined it. What if, for instance, malaria vaccines ended up saving too many people's lives and that wrecked local economies or the extra food needed meant that there was mass starvation?
In the end, "happiness" is subjective for each individual, and therefore the only "true" EA is to directly give funds to those who are miserable so that they can achieve happiness in the way that best suits them.
Of course, you can feel free to disagree with me still. That's the fun thing about philosophy: everyone's wrong! The rules are made up and the points don't matter! :P
I think you made good points here-- the one point that I disagree with is that we should give money to miserable people. There are too many miserable people who are rich. I'm more in favor of the more classic "give poor people money" method, since poverty does cause misery in many people (it's just that in rich miserable people there's obviously some other cause).
If it were up to me, I would straight up enact wealth redistribution, and if I were rich I wouldn't stay rich for very long because I'd give too much of my money away.
That being said, in absence of a good measure of what is "good," number of deaths prevented seems as good a metric as any. They've got to choose something, you know? And while I like your idea and thought process and I would personally do something different, I can't say I find the act of preventing malaria deaths to be a particularly bad thing.
Oh no, please don't get me wrong, I'm certainly not advocating for people to die of malaria! Eliminating malaria is a noble task no matter how you put it, and my adverse effects were entirely meant as a hypothetical.
I would use "quality-adjusted life years" (QALYs), which are still subjective, but better than just death/life imo.
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC317370/#:~:text=QALYs%20are%20therefore%20expressed%20in,0.5%20Utility)%20%5B8%5D.
I agree with you that hanging on to money that you don't require (i.e., being rich) is not ethical.
However, I disagree with the idea that the most ethical way for someone with high income potential to live is to avoid making income and instead disperse that income to their employees. If we imagine a world where this was the norm for would-be rich people, we would still observe an overwhelming concentration of wealth into wealthier populations and depletion of wealth from poorer populations, due to the fact that high-revenue companies exist primarily in wealthy locations. We would still see San Francisco booming while Haitians starve. (Likewise, if it were the norm for rich people to focus on lesser forms of suffering that they regularly see, rather than ignore it for greater forms of suffering that they don't regularly see, we would observe wealth circulating primarily amongst the wealthy.)
I would rather see wealthy people make their full income, and then feed that income into alleviating suffering as effectively as possible (which does mean focusing on issues like malaria, birth control access, etc., in the most poverty-stricken locations on earth). However, this would need to be done for real. They would set themselves a personal expenditure cap that offers a lifestyle no better than middle class (no mansions, no yachts, no garages full of cars, etc.), and then donate or reinvest absolutely everything they make above that. I would consider this far more ethical than paying their already well-paid employees with more shares.
The motivation for putting resources into aid around the world is because it is theoretically possible to have a more significant impact. Degree of suffering doesn't factor in.
People who have less may cost less to help, tend to live in places where costs are lower, and may be suffering from something easily and inexpensively treatable with first world resources.
Yes, that is the reasoning behind EA, but my comment was about why I disagree with it. What are you trying to say? Did you find something in my comment you disagree with?
Yes, I think you mistook it as helping those "theoretically suffering more", but that is not correct. It is about "theoretically helping more". I believe there is a difference, even if they sometimes happen to look alike.
Edit: "theoretically helping more", and then attempting to measure it so the next effort will be "theoretically more help than previously". Hence the "Effective". This isn't related to your comment, just thought I should clarify the goal.
There’s the phrase “effective altruism” which is benign and maybe admirable, and then there is the community, which has almost nothing to do with the phrase. All they do is write AI fanfic under the guise of being “researchers” despite not have any qualifications or doing actual research.
Also, their views on helping anybody in the third world are kind of repellent.
Lol I know. I've been around those spaces. They're almost a charicature of what would happen if you put all the most socially inept white male software engineers from Southern California in a room together and let them talk about whatever they want. Except as it seems to often turn out, reality is satire and satire is reality-- you don't need a charicature because reality does a good enough job presenting the absurdity.
Perhaps I'm being a bit harsh. But we all know there's a "type" that engages with the community. I have in the past tried to engage but had to leave after I got shouted at after sharing my experience as to what it's like being a human with a second X chromosome in STEM. The person who yelled at me said I was making an "argument" in bad faith. I said that was impossible because I wasn't making any argument (really, I wasn't). What I was doing was sharing a personal experience.
Anyway, point is it's toxic and I get it. Also I'm a grad student and research in a field adjacent to AI and while I wasn't a grad student yet back when I engaged with that community (I can't believe it was that long ago) the more I learn the more that I realize it is common for people to talk out of their ass so I feel you on the whole "pretending to be researchers" thing they have going on. I mean, I myself am far from a good researcher (I am still learning, after all) but the the reality is that if most of the community had something useful to add, they'd be publishing (this isn't to say none of them do-- some in the community are actual academics in the field-- but they are the minority).
I think a lot of the negativity comes from the way you wrote about being rich as if it was a occupation like programmer or educator (I’m not saying you did this erroneously or to aggravate, you’re not wrong). Privilege is an easy thing to be angry about.
Is there negativity towards my post? There are no downvotes like there are on reddit and the responses seem pretty neutral to me, so I'm wondering if I'm missing something.
Oh no! I apologize for making you feel that way. I meant the negativity you were talking about in your comment. I was pretty sure I was phrasing that in a terrible way but hoped that I was wrong.
Psst. That's all the Adderall they're taking...
What does it say about me that that's the way I wrote when I was on no medications?
I think it's genetic, or at least learned from my early environment. My dad literally talks that way.
Neurodivergence runs in families, and a lot of previous generations weren't aware that they might have been ND. So it's very possible that it's both for genetic and "nurture" reasons
Probably nothing. I remember when I was in middle school I thought I needed to use the fanciest two dollar words I knew in order to get a good grade. The result was me adding all kinds of fluff just to fit in a specific "fancy" word.
I'm still a terrible writer, but when I read things now I tend to notice when people don't get to their point quickly, and are more interested in flexing their writing muscles, I just get irritated and stop reading.
I was also way more likely to go off on wild tangents, and repeat myself when I was on ADD meds.
I love a lot of the ideas of transhumanism and the singularity, but it's disappointing that so many of the people also atracted to it are there purely for the potential of exploitation. It's really turned me off to the whole idea as I really don't want to live in a dystopian future where the majority only exist to serve the near immortal few.
I don't know. An incredibly simple job with no prerequisites, where you can even work your other job while working, for more than minimum wage? Feels like he was being reasonable.
Minimum wage is well below a living wage. Depending on where they live, 20$/h is also below a living wage.
What does living wage mean? Doesn’t seem like they are dying.
The author of the post is in Mission District, San Francisco, CA. The median rent there, according to Zillow, is nearly $3000/mo for a one bedroom apartment. Just to cover rent and nothing else, you would need to make over $17/hr, 8 hours a day, 5 days a week (40 hours a week). That's only to cover rent, nothing else. You want food? Have a car? Need to go to the doctor? A mobile phone is practically a requirement these days. Internet too.
If we conservatively assume $4000/mo for all baseline expenses, you would need to make over $23/hr just to get by, ie the minimum wage necessary to survive in the neighborhood where the author lives.
A living wage would be something that allows you to do a bit more than just scape by, ie a wage the allows you to experience life rather than just survive it. I would argue you're looking at at least $25/hr for a living wage, although in SF it's probably more like $30+/hr.
And to be clear: From its inception, the minimum wage is intended to be a living wage. One that allows a basic, but more than just stubstanant life, for one earner to provide for a family of at least 4. These days in the USA, that should cover:
In my neck of the woods, that means the wage would need to be on the order of $30/hr (to account for taxes). And I'm living in New Jersey, not the Bay Area. That's more akin to the current median income, which is quite telling of the current state of affairs.
The twisting of minimum wage into "It'll maybe cover rent for a 1BR and some food" is a distortion over time which insures the persistent need for 2-income households and fosters the idea of an underclass that should be forced to work full time for below a living wage.
Could you provide a source that provides some historical context of the minimum wage? I make low six figures in a mid-cost of living city and I can't afford the standard of living you describe. A quick Google search suggests that I'm right around the 90th percentile for individual income in the US. Surely there must be dramatically more context, or are you really suggesting the the minimum wage should be that high?
$30/hr is about $50,000-$60,000 (depending how you count it) annually, which is median individual income. Median household income is on the order of $110,000 IIRC. So to be completely comparable to yesteryear (when minimum wage was formed), when a single earner was expected to provide for a family, yes that sounds about right.
$0.40/hour in 1945 is about $8 in 2023...but that's not the whole story.
In 1940, you could buy a high-end, brand new house for well under $5,000. That's about 6 year's of minimum wage.
In 2023, an average brand new low-end house is going to cost closer to $300,000. Or about 18 years of minimum wage. For a low-end house these days.
So to reach housing parity alone, you're looking at $24 an hour. Harvard tuition 1949 was $600. Harvard tuition in 2023: $53,000. Less than 1 year of minimum wage vs more than 3 years.
In the first 30+ years of the existence of minimum wage, it was completely viable to save up enough to buy a home and send your kid to college on a minimum wage.
In a nutshell, it means an income that can support all of one's needs in the first two tiers of Maslow's hierarchy. That isn't $20/hr in SF.
Maybe? I'd boast about getting a relatively easy job that pays well. As long as we're going to have rich people, we're going to have people whose main jobs are to provide them with luxury goods and services. I don't see how this is much worse than any of those other jobs.
Oh hey, I think we identified the solution!
The average salary for a personal assistant in San Franciso is closer to $30 an hour. And they're not expected to cook or clean usually either. The average rate for a house cleaner in San Francisco is $23/h and personal chefs usually cost $30-$40/hr.
Where did you find that $23/hr number for a housecleaner? I'm near SF, paying $50/hr for mine, and the last one was $40/hr and much less reliable.
Oh I just did a quick Google, so your experience is probably more valuable.
I don't really follow. Several people did take on the role for the offered wage.
What opportunity are you referring to?
The author did write I want to acknowledge that I’m privileged to be able to do this experiment and it’s not for everyone, but obviously that's a very rote acknowledgement of privilege and not a real discussion of it. That said: the author wasn't telling everybody that they should go and do this, so I suppose I'm just not sure to what extent the author should have discussed their privilege.
I get the sense that one answer might be "the author shouldn't have done this at all," but I don't see what is so harmful about offering X opportunity for Y wage. He was offering a temporary position, not a real career, so it's more like babysitting than a corporate job.
IDK, maybe you're reading too much into it. He paid for a service which was in no way demeaning or immoral, and I have no reason to believe he was insensitive or a bad boss. From an ethics standpoint, how's that any different from hiring the services of a regular personal assistant? Or a coach? Or a personal trainer?
Also, what's so bad about being a maid? Or a personal assistant? Those are real jobs people have, and not necessarily exploitative. It all depends on the values, desires, and expectations of the person taking the job, as well as the compensation and working conditions.
People working these jobs are often very practical and may see things differently than you.
He essentially paid people 20 USD an hour to do their own work at his house, briefly interrupted by chores. I would take this job, and I'm not being humorous or hypothetical. I would literally take this job.
And it's not like he humiliated someone into cooking for him, it was all in the job application so if that makes you uncomfortable simply don't apply.
To what extent is your disgust informed by your own prejudices?
tbh I'd take this job, and sort of pity the person doing the hiring.
Here's this dude, working from home in the Mission in a tech job (judging by the stacked ultrawides & his need to remind us that he's taking a UI/UX course between blog posts). He does yoga and works in a t-shirt. He can subcontract his chores for $20/hr. His photo looks like somebody in their 30s. Sounds nice?
Yet he's so unable to stay on task that he hires an office structure for himself, in miniature, in his house. Evidently he needs a boss to literally watch over his shoulder while he works. Jesus.
Obviously this is just something homie did for a concept blog post, but the story he's telling makes it hard to congratulate him on his innovation. WFH is supposed to get rid of the manager nagging you for TPS reports. If a manager is what the author needs, why not just go back to the office and save himself the money he's now spent on proxy supervisors?
All this guy did was pay some randos to sit in his home office like scarecrows so he wouldn't open Twitter for a few weeks. (edit: and pissed away $5k that could have gone into an IRA or something) It's deeply silly, but like you said I'd take the money and run.
Imagine working for him. He's obviously comfortable with using tracking software (as he discusses in the piece) and thinks that "productivity" - which he has shown means butt in the seat with eyes on the screen - is tantamount to success. He also strives for productivity 16 hours of every. The folks I pity are his employees and I hope all potential hires get the opportunity to read this blog before accepting an offer.
I think it's not necessarily pitiable. He's defined his own metric of value and is experimenting with strategies to achieve it. He may not necessarily be a butts-in-the-seat boss: he seems to like unconventional experimentation.
I personally would never do this. But I think it is thought-provoking that he has chosen such an extreme, Nathan-Fielder-esque way to go about it.
Many of us have great dreams and goals, if not necessarily in our own work. Maybe it is to finally set up our first art show, to write that book, to be a better friend or parent or lover, to bootstrap our own dream video game like ConcernedApe did with Stardew Valley. But the modern landscape is determined to steal our attention and willpower through mindless entertainment.
I think that the valuable take away from this extreme, Nathan-Fielder-esque experiment is that there is value in defining what we value and then having an external source of accountability.
The issue, IMHO, is he horribly underpaid for the services provided.
In San Fran-fucking-cisco no less
So, the author has done a useful thing here - he's effectively set an economic value for parenthood. Who, after all, has a duty to make sure responsibilities are attended, hygiene and self-care are practiced, who cooks, cleans, and maintains your living arrangements? Who teaches you self-discipline, and hovers watchfully to make sure you're not getting in trouble? Parents.
So a self-indulgent, privileged man-child finds that he can't effectively keep himself on task? He tried out hiring himself a rotating cast of parents, and found it helped him. Shame he didn't take the necessary lessons from the exercise, or have the insight to realize that's what he was doing.
I love the "parents" take on this arrangement! I hadn't even thought of that angle. That gives this arrangement a whole new twist.
However, if you're right that he's put a value on parenthood... is $20/hour the right value for that? It seems a bit low to me.
It's definitely a hot take. But one of the things that's always struck me about the self-made man mythos, and the solitary Ayn Rand-inspired "10x" entrepreneurial warriors of tech industry, is how thoroughly divorced they are from any sense of the value provided by the families and societies which they've started in.
You'll note that he considered it potentially worth $88/hr in increased productivity, despite him paying the assistant less than a quarter of that.
That $88 was a post experiment review based on the data he gathered of his own increases in profit. That $88 now becomes the maximum break even and $20 becomes 'entry level', setting essentially payscale bounds if he were to continue this.
Oh I know it was post-experiment, it's just interesting to see it so clearly quantified how much more value he extracted from their labor compared to how much he paid them.
He could have just worked from an office!
I understand this is not the point of the article, so I apologise for honing in on this, but I cannot help but remark on the cost of this experiment. Sometimes I feel like I live on a different planet to other people. I am a Software Developer in the UK. I feel like I earn reasonably well, but I am not remotely close being so much as near the gravity well of affording something like this (he budgeted $10k for the month). It really highlights the striking difference in disposable income people have (and I appreciate that I, as a European IT worker am of course this same distant star to someone working in a developing country).
Having gotten that out of the way, the article was actually really interesting to read. I feel that something like what he did would only be sustainable for a very short amount of time before burnout did kick in - and even that would partly be due to the novelty of the experiment carrying you for part of it.
This has been my experience with pretty much all the rich people I know.
When I was in high school I had a math teacher who had, for some time (maybe 10-15 years), been a vice president for Goldman-Sachs. Some googling leads me to believe he likely made about $7-8 million dollars in bonuses every year (about $10 million or so adjusted for inflation) while working there (for reference as to where his level wealth was/is).
Anyway-- I grew up in an upper-middle class town that was considered "rich." My family made around $50-55k in the year 2000 which adjusted for inflation would be about $90-95k today and we were considered "lower-income" families by the standards of the neighborhood. For reference, current median family income is about $150k and I'd say overall wealth in the town (adjusted for inflation) is about the same as it was 20 years ago.
Anyway, this is all to say that some of us were solidly middle class, some were solidly upper-middle class, and some, like my teacher (who lived in town) were rich.
About my teacher: he was a very good math teacher, he was inspiring, and he motivated me and encouraged me in ways other teachers usually didn't. And, like me, he was both socially and economically liberal (this was in 2008 before the Democratic party split from just a moderately-left "liberal" branch to a moderately-left branch and a further left "progressive" branch, the latter of which I identify more with these days, but it was the pre-Bernie era and "liberal" was a good enough descriptor for anyone on the left at that time). This was a plus for me because I liked engaging in politics. 2008 was before the country went to crazy-town, so you could still at the time talk to people across the political spectrum without things getting heated, and it was the year of Obama's election when everyone (on the left, at least) was full of hope for a brighter future. It was a different time.
Speaking of a different time, I promise I have a point, and it has everything to do with the 2008. Y'all remember what happened in 2008, right? My friend's parents were losing their jobs left and right. We were seniors in high school, so certainly none of us had any chance of landing a job and our siblings who were graduating college with degrees they were promised would get them good paying jobs were instead stuck moving back home and working retail. We were hurting. And I'll never forget-- this teacher was explaining to us the causes behind the recession and he stopped and said "but don't worry, no one in a town like this is going to suffer from the recession." By "town like this," he meant a relatively wealthy, upper-middle class one like the one we lived in.
I was floored. Yes we were wealthy. But most of our families still had to fucking work for a living. Did he not realize that my best friends' families were now struggling to pay their mortgages? That their parents couldn't help them with college like they originally planned to and now they'd have to take out large loans?
I mean, first world problems, for sure-- we're lucky our parents even had mortgages they could struggle to pay and that we had college acceptances to take out loans for. But the future was clearly a brighter one before the crash than after. And he had the audacity to think we we weren't affected by the crash? My brother went through a long period of depression because he couldn't find a job despite being a 4.0 student. As far as he was concerned, he made all the "right" choices in life and followed all the "rules" and still got the short end of the stick. We were taught that if you followed all the rules and made all the right choices you were more or less guaranteed a decent paying job. Especially if you came from a town like ours, with all the resources and educational quality you'd need.
But it turns out that upper-middle class is still middle class who are still people who need to work for a living and even this group suffers in a recession. And my millionaire teacher simply did not see the privilege he had as a millionaire compared to people who needed to work for a living. He was just plain blind to it.
It baffled me because he seemed to be empathic in every other way, but he was straight up clueless when it came to money. There were other circumstances (many of them, actually) where he demonstrated his inability to recognize what a dollar was worth to "slightly wealthier than normal" people. The bottom line is that $150k is much, much closer to the poverty line than $10 million is, and despite the fact that he was an Ivy educated Goldman-Sachs exec and math teacher, he just didn't seem to "get" it.
From what I can gather, the author is the CEO of Metaphor, a machine learning startup in the Bay Area.
I think the comments about privilege, however, are missing the point and its promise.
The author acknowledges that he is privileged in being able to afford the experiment. The author paid a fair wage for work that had a minimal workload. Most of us in the developed world are privileged to afford education, healthcare, therapy or counsel, and so on to some degree — inconceivable luxuries for most humans for most of human history, but now considered essential for us to thrive and achieve our full potential as individuals.
It is also a fact in our world that some individuals are hyper-productive — or, to better frame it, are positioned to be many times more productive than others. If someone is in a valuable enough of a position, it is logical for them to have support staff that enable them to thrive in that position.
The point is that the effects of accountability are powerful... yet underrated and little thought about. An external observer helped the author increase his productivity (as he defined it for himself) threefold. This strategy could be generalized outside of work to managing and achieving one's own personal goals.
Looking into the future:
With the advent of LLMs and the experiments around Agents, it is possible to imagine an imminent near future where personal AI coaches and assistants can serve as observers, accessible and affordable to all, that can help us identify our goals and work better toward them, whether they lie in the realm of work or life.
Fair wage? The median rent where the author lives is $3000/mo. If you add up all other monthly expenses on top of that, $20/hr is not fair wages. Not in that area. And the argument of "get a roommate" doesn't impact the concept of "fair wage". No one should be forced to live with others, if they don't want to, simply to survive. That isn't fairness, that's capitalism.
Also, I'll need sources on lofty claims such as
From what I can see with a like bit of searching:
Maybe other "developed" countries give their citizens reasonable access to these things, but not the country where the author and his "help" are from.
Most people who work in San Francisco don't need to live there, though. Transit in the Bay Area is quite good and there are cheaper places that are not too far away.
$20/hour is not great for the Bay Area, but it is not terrible either.
It is terrible. "You don't have to live in SF to work there" is a terrible argument. The trains are shit (I know from 6 years of personal experience) and Bart has been declining steadily. If you take a car in, you're basically doing nothing for the commute (maybe a podcast or something) and those drives are typically an hour or longer each way. But most employers don't pay you for the commute. So instead of an actual 8 hour work day, it's more like 10 hours or longer. If any of these people were making such a commute then they were getting paid more like $16/hr or less.
And I don't want to hear about commute times obviously not being work; if you do something you would otherwise not do, specifically in order to fulfill the duties of your job, that's part of you doing your work. People should get paid for their commute.
But even if they had no commute, $20/hr in the bay area is a low wage. I know from experience how bad that little pay is in that area.
But it is a fair wage because they agreed to it!
(That’s sarcasm in case it wasn’t obvious.)
Would a person's improvement in productivity have a more positive impact on society than if each of those 5 people that were hired and went out and did something more productive instead? Personally, I highly doubt it. We need more social workers and teachers-- instead of helping one software engineer marginally improve, people who choose careers such as teaching or social work can help software engineers of the future (and others) maintain the mental and academic health they need to achieve their dreams. Wouldn't those 5 people becoming teachers or social workers help more people than they would watching over over some guy gently reminding him to do his work when the reality is that he's more than capable of doing that on his own any way?
The whole thing is absurd, if you ask me.
Is that actually a fair wage for the Bay area? I live way out in the boonies, and that's approximately the pay people get for unskilled work out of high school around here.
It's nowhere near a fair wage for that area. It can cost upwards of $2k a month for a bedroom in a shared house in that neighborhood.
He’s the “CEO” of a “startup” now it seems but he was just a random SWE at Facebook when he did this experiment.
Can you explain why a paid personal servant is bad? We all have a limited number of hours in the day, this position provides more of them to the employer. I don’t see how this is different from any other kind of employee that performs tasks so that the employer doesn’t have to personally perform them.
Hey friend, I'm specifically responding to you because I know you and I both have ADHD.
What if this article's experiment gathered enough results to say, hey, many many folks who struggle can become far more productive members of society of they had help, and then that turns into equitable access to personal assistance for everyone?
We know many jobs are automated away but this is an excellent chance to give real humans meaningful work.
I said meaningful. Yes.
Jobs that pay humans to click on hydrants and tell them not to talk about it, are harmful. Jobs where someone helps someone less abled to achieve more, can be very rewarding.
I know for myself, if I had to take a daily pill to stay alive, despite wanting to live, I will be dead in a month, tops. If a service was available to me, whether I was rich or poor, I would use it to live. It could be, the government's takes $1 from me, and the equivalent of $1 from this guy, and that pooled amount of money pays for you to call me every morning at 8 and chat with me while I take my pill. I take it and tell you thank you have a great day and you hang up knowing I'm not dying today.
I can imagine folks who have good kids calling them to remind them for health things. What about folks with no kids, how come they have to suffer alone? Maybe we shouldn't moneize everything and certainly I would hate this as yet another subscription service for the rich. But it could also be a good social service that provides actual value. I know I wouldn't have dropped out of school if they paid teaching assistants enough to give me a call every day and helped me pack my school bag and reminded me of due days and gently suggest I start projects instead of procrastinate. Folks who have involved and loving parents and working brains got through school. I stayed up all night reading through the etymology dictionary instead of writing my essay.
If we can make sure folks who have deficient brains and lack of social network for small valuable things like this that we can't every single day rely on friends and family for, can function better, we'd see way more innovation and productivity and well read and informed people.
If it's set up as an equitable service and a respected profession, is that okay? Is it the way this article is phrased and how it's not equitable and in fact widens the gap that makes this so awful to everyone here?
I feel like my whole life would have been very different if I had gotten help like this as a child and young adult, and I feel very sad that it's being treated as a joke, a moral deficiency and trivial nonsense or something despicable and dismissed completely here.
Actually there is a service around where I live that will come and pick up your dog poop. I don’t really see this as dehumanizing though, it’s just supply and demand.
I don’t quite see how this work is meaningless. It has a measurable productivity effect, didn’t it?
Is this the main issue? Are butlers and private chefs equally bad?
I think this is down to whether you feel responsible for helping the people around you - and whether you're actively doing anything about that. If you do feel that responsibility, which I think is a good thing, and you're not doing much, then being around someone and directly supporting the kind of wage economics that are part of poverty will make you feel bad. But you might think instead that you are in a vacuum, and you are wealthy independent of any external system. Then the person you pay $20/hour to apply social pressure is someone you're helping. It's not a terrible job and they are likely making more than they would otherwise due to your employment.
Personally, I would never want to employ someone who is getting paid less than a living wage. I'd go so far as to pay a receptionist a $150k salary in the bay area.
I believe it’s more the flippancy and “for teh contents” aspect. The livelihood of one person is a silly goof blog post for another.
So if say, this were a full time salaried job that didn’t exist to make blog posts you would be more ok with it?
Shit, presumably your access to healthcare makes you a distant star to all Americans, including the guy who wrote this fluff.
A lot of comments on that article at LessWrong seem nicer and more thoughtful than the ones here. Makes us look like Reddit. Maybe we could learn something from them?
Maybe the people who already read his blog, and have stayed subscribed to his writings, have opinions and worldviews which are aligned with his (hence the regular reading of his blog), but we're not that self-selected group of people who think like he does.
I think the difference in responses here is due to the types of folks each site draws in? LessWrong attracts the sort of logical, rationalTM folk who aim to quantify and impose structure onto the messy, complicated, human aspects of life. To them, I imagine it's easier to focus on the productivity charts and statistics than it is to consider the interpersonal dynamics at play here. They put themselves in the shoes of the author, thinking about what they themselves can gain?
On the contrary, I imagine the folks on Tildes are much more tuned to focus on what it might feel like to be on the other side of the exchange. And to me, that point of view feels... Icky as all heck to think about. It's harder to come at this topic in a neutral, measured way when the icky bits are infused into the very core of the experiment? It strikes a nerve!
So, I'm not entirely sure that we should be celebrating the inoffensive niceness of the LessWrong comments, when one of the reasons for the niceness is a blindness to the unpleasant elements of the post? Still though, +1 for aiming for fewer kneejerky Reddit-like responses!
There’s definitely an ickiness to the guy’s post when viewed with a human-focused lens, but I also get a bit of a different kind of ickiness from some of the comments here that feel like they’re also missing that guy’s humanness a bit. Yeah, guy is wealthy and out of touch, but he’s also far from evil and his missteps clearly come from a lack of understanding rather than malice or greed.
I felt bad for the guy when I read the article, because I think he probably faces some struggles in his life on account of his lack of social understanding and self-awareness. The way he wrote about his experiences reminded me of some of the people I know who are on the autism spectrum and have difficulty navigating social situations that are obvious to everyone else. I’m not trying to make an armchair diagnosis or anything — I’m just noting that, whatever the reason, his clear lack of any social grace was a familiar contour to me, and it made me want to meet his words with some extra patience and charity rather than harsh judgment.
There definitely is a larger conversation to be had about privilege and wages and labor and all of that, and I don’t want to take away from people who are discussing that front. Again, that is a big part of what makes his post have that ickiness in the first place, but I think we could do without calling the guy names or making fun of his out-of-touchness.
It's interesting that you mention this! By comparison, folks elsewhere in the thread (myself included) have been attributing his lack of social grace almost entirely to ignorance stemming from his wealth and background. It's interesting how privilege can spark contempt for behaviors that would otherwise be given patience in other contexts.
I briefly mentioned in my other comment that disabled folks can get caught in the crossfire when discussing similar actions taken by folks in more privileged positions. What you've pointed out feels like it might be in the same vein?
Definitely agreed. It’s entirely possible that he acts the way he does fully on account of his privilege, but I don’t think we can know that with certainty. I get why people are responding to that aspect, because it pinged for me too.
But the other thing that pinged for me was that there was an atypicality to the whole experiment as well as the way he talks about it that reminded me of some people I know. For them, navigating “obvious” social waters is challenging because they’re working with a different set of instrumentation and cues than everybody else. They’ve had to deal with a lot of people on the outside looking in who meet their behavior with ridicule, which is particularly harmful because, from their perspective, they’re doing the best that they can, and maybe they’d do a better job if people tried to understand their perspective rather than mock it.
If his tone had been different, or the way he had written about things had been different, it would have been easier for me to dismiss the guy’s poor navigation of those waters. But he struck me as someone who, honestly and earnestly, believed he was doing the best that he could. There is something to be said for the insulating effects of privilege here, which I don’t think we can fully disentangle either. Part of looking at the situation from a human lens means looking at not just him but his impact on others as well, and I think his impact is where there are definitely some valid criticisms to be made. In general though, I still think his impact is relatively minor, especially when we consider it on the wider backdrop of “the harmful behaviors of the rich”.
But getting back to what you were expressing, if we ignore the particulars of this guy for a second, dunking on someone’s out-of-touchness or atypicality in general tends to have knock-on effects for others who share similar characteristics. You phrased it well with “disabled folks can get caught in the crossfire” given how a lot of disabilities can impact social functioning.
I think that this is a good opportunity to bring up the concept of steelmanning.
Exposing ourselves and our ideas on the internet exposes a vast attack surface. We are ridden with cracks, imperfections, and inconsistencies. I get the sense that many people on niche Internet forums like Tildes and Lesswrong alike tend to be neurodivergent. Being charitable to one another's ideas fosters a culture where we can feel safe and respected being vulnerable and... unorthodox.
Damnit, kfwyre, you've done it again. Thanks for writing this. Always here for a charitable take from you!
It reminds me of this, the reception to which was somewhat similar in tone, though the specifics are of course different, and the subject in that case seemed more reflective and self-aware.
Let's start with the person who called the blogger a "fucking wanker"! But, even the comments here that don't contain outright insults like that, are still very uncharitable towards the blogger. I totally agree with the negative sentiment toward him (obviously), but I'm also aware that most people commenting here are not being nice, even if they're avoiding insults.
I mean, it shouldn't be too surprising that many of the people who use this website are overly hostile towards rich people. The only things that ever made this place different from Reddit are that most people here are predisposed to agree with each other on most topics, and that the mods are very strict.
And this post pretty much removes both of those differences. Its very much opposed to what most people on this website think, so it starts a lot of disagreements and attacks. And since the mods agree with the criticisms of the rich people they're not really going to enforce the rules as strictly as if users were criticizing some group that they liked.
Please mark any comments that you feel cross a line with the
Malicelabel. Tildes doesn’t have content moderators as of yet, so labels are our way of escalating situations to the admin who is currently the only person who can remove comments and lock topics. He relies on us to notify him since he obviously can’t read everything here on his own.Also, I’m trying to be as helpful as possible when I say this and don’t intend it in a mean way at all, but you might want to consider that your post is also kind of falling into the same reddit-y pattern? You’re making some pretty big negative generalizations and assumptions about everyone here, including at least one that is based on incorrect information (our current moderation system).
As a note, please also do use the other Offtopic / Joke / Noise labels, too. The Offtopic and Joke labels will move threads down and the Noise label will collapse threads once applied by enough (two?) users.
So this person is like a 3rd connection to me, that is, one of my friends knows him, not super well but he does know him. If it makes any of you feel better we did viciously (metaphorically) make fun of him for this.
I don’t think it was particularly abusive to the participants, there’s a reason they took up a shady Craigslist post. It pays better than work study at Berkeley did and is even easier.
But this feels mostly performative imo. The point of doing this is to be weird and eye catching, and it did work, this got a bunch of attention.
So, I'm glad you mentioned the personal connection.
The guy know it's crazy too
I'm really struggling to understand the hate here.
The guy has tried his way and using tools and whatnot; he knows he's being excessive and privileged; he got great results.
If we didn't know about glasses, and someone hires another person to read to them, do we make fun of them? Hearing aid person? How about mobility assistance? Why do we draw the line on neuro assistance and group it as a moral failing?
As someone who struggles with life long ADHD, I always say that if I need to take ONE pill a day every day to live, I will be for sure dead in a month, probably closer to two weeks. Is that a moral failing? Why aren't I just trying harder? Haven't I heard that from every single disappointed teacher who felt sad at my wasted potential?
It makes me sad that people in this thread have such little empathy for OP. We should all be so lucky to have brains that can stay on task and get things done, but why is it so hard to believe some of us are trying harder and still failing ?
When I say
I mean in a teasing type of way. If you learned that someone you knew paid $20/hr to people to stare at him for hours on end so that they can work 16 hours a day, how could you not tease them?
Unlike some of the other commenters, I don't think what he did was an affront to humanity or anything. What he paid for what the assistants did was more than fine, even in the bay area. I was paid $18/hr by the UC Berkeley library system to do more work than they did, also in the Bay Area. Likely many of them are students, or otherwise the kind of people that are looking for part time work, and a part time job where you do nothing most of the time and can use devices is ultimately a sweet gig.
I just think it was goofy and probably performative. It's not like he has below average attention, it was just that he wanted to work for almost every hour of his life, which understandably becomes difficult.
I think ultimately it's a combination of a) his goal is a bit goofy, the sheer amount of work he wants to do is beyond the pale b) his method of getting to his goal, the "nuclear option", is also goofy.
To clarify the title: the author hired 5 people sequentially, not parallelly.
This is an offbeat but interesting experiment. :) For me, it raises an interesting point that it's really difficult for individuals to self-coach, self-police their impulses. And the value that parents, coaches, teachers, and secretaries provide in guidance and motivation is tremendous.
I'm being immediately judgemental but the work they did sounds like busy work.
Like they wrote a bunch of things that sound productive but are pretty surface level tasks. Maybe they omitted some of the more important work but it seems like they basically wrote blog posts. This doesn't strike me as deep work that was important enough to warrant this kind of obsession with productivity.
Also his site has a google form asking women to sign up to date him. Maybe this is a some techno SF thing but that's a redflag: wtf is this https://docs.google.com/forms/d/e/1FAIpQLSfPlfNOm8PuyG05F4_W6DY_Zj4BPTLW6k_xX7fKDLmW4IFNgg/viewform
I think it’s really weird, but is it a red flag?
That's a thing I've seen a few times in the LW/rationalist community (which I'm not part of, but I find fascinating as an outsider).
I treat it as an interesting cultural thing. It's unusual, for sure, but it's not immoral in any obvious way, and probably less offputting if you're the target audience.
I'm gonna go against the grain a bit here. At my college, there's a program somewhat similar to this experiment.
Last semester, I met with my "assistant" (who was just another college student making like $16/hr) for around 3 hours a week. It was split up into a 1 hour meeting earlier in the week, and a two hour meeting later on. I would use the one hour meeting as a time to go over all the work I had been assigned in the past few days, and plan out a schedule for doing that work. The two hour meeting later in the week was just "coworking time", where my "assistant" would basically breathe down my neck to keep me on task. My assistant would also do regular check-ins with me via text when we weren't meeting.
I cannot overstate how much this program helped me. I went from regularly turning in assignments late and barely staying afloat to actually being on top of my work. It genuinely changed how I look at myself as a student, and how my ADHD affects me as a person and the kind of supports that I need.
I think that what you did was fine and helpful! The other student was basically an accountability partner for you. Crucially, it was just a few hours per week and you were not the employer.
The experiment this guy did had him as the employer, keeping someone around for the entire day, for a month, to breathe down his neck... and also do his chores. That creates a weird dynamic and borders on obsessive.
Aside from all the ethical, philosophical, and privilege arguments I would just like to say that:
This is my personal fucking nightmare. Having someone look over my shoulders for sixteen hours a day is my definition of hell. Who did I piss off for this punishment?
Is being productive for sixteen hours a day even desirable? I wouldn't want to be, nor should anyone. Work is not that important.
It doesn't even work. It's fine during an experiment that lasts a month but it isn't sustainable whatsoever. Dude mentions wanting to fix this from the top down, but he fixed nothing. He simply introduced an external factor. It's the same bandaid fix as any other productivity tool.
One thing that struck me about this article is the obsession with productivity that I find revolting more than anythig else in it. This person seems to be addicted to productivity - he says he craves more of it. I find it very hard to not judge such attitude - as much as I try not to, I feel really uncomfortable around productivity-obsessed people.
It's hard to explain to me, but I find this approach completely dehumanizing. It sounds to me like it's basically requiring one to justify their existence by constantly producing something. Just existing and/or living your life is not productive. Relaxation is not productive. Sleep is not productive. Lunch breaks are not productive. You have to do less of that, and be more productive! Hanging out with friends is not productive unless they teach you something. Don't even think of watching TV or reading a book that doesn't contribute to the growth of your net value...
I work with people like that and I find it/them incredibly said. I fully realize this is due to me looking at them from my personal high horse, and that they might judge me playing my video games with a similar level of disgust. I try to keep my biases in check and understand that everyone is different, but at the same time I am concerned that one day my current company decides to use these productivity-o-holics against everyone else: "Bob is working 18-hour days, why can't you?". Hasn't happend yet, but it has in one of my previous worplaces, which is the main reason I'm so judgmental and afraid of a "live and let live" approach...
Apologies for going on a tangent - guess I found the premise of the article much more jarring than its contents, and it nade me write this diatribe only loosely related to it...
He hired 5 people, at $20 an hour, to make sure he's productive?
Unless the increased productivity is worth more than $100 an hour, he's losing money on the deal. That doesn't sound productive at all.
I felt visceral embarrassment for the author of this article. Extremely uncomfortable read.
I understand why you want to say this, and I have my own thoughts on the author, but I also think it goes against the spirit of the site here to call someone a “fucking wanker”. The points in the rest of your comment would actually be made better without the name-calling, IMO. It takes away from the rest of what you have to say.
OTOH, not calling people out for their bad behavior lets them wiggle out of it being bad behavior.
Especially when its an author of a blog bragging about their wankerishness.
There's a fine line to be drawn there, to be sure.
I have mixed feelings on callouts (ironic, given my comment above!), but I think if we’re going to do it, I’d prefer we name the behavior rather than name-call. It’s more valuable to see “he’s being self-indulgent/egocentric/inconsiderate” than “he’s a wanker”. It’s entirely possible to criticize the guy without using pejoratives, and it has the added benefit of being more precise.
And my stance honestly isn’t about this particular guy or the specifics of the situation at all. I simply don’t want Tildes to be the kind of place where we call other people wankers or the like, even if they’re someone who might “deserve” the title. Name-calling is one of those get-people-fired-up methods of discourse that has eroded a lot of discussions elsewhere online, and it’s important to me that Tildes avoid falling into that same pattern.
I'll agree to that!
How is this different to hiring a private tutor or any other kind of 1:1 assistance?
Blogging about it is weird and having such an obsession with productivity is weird. But hiring someone to help you seems completely fine.
It's at a significantly lower wage than you'd pay a private tutor or any other kind of 1:1 assistance where he lives, for one. But also it's the blogging about it. Also I'm personally offended by how shitty the chair he gave them is.
Yeah I immediately noticed that, he sits on a herman miller chair (I have the same one) and they get a shitty wooden kitchen table dining chair.
Honestly, I'm more triggered by his arrogant dismissal of Rachel than what he did. It's just that they're both coming from the same place: his arrogance that he knows better, and possibly is better, than other people.
Maybe if you do it for your entire lifetime, but if you do it when you're young and retire early it can work out pretty well.
I'm a big believer in the idea that the journey is just as important as the destination - especially if the journey is going to take a decade or more! And more cliches: "live each day as if it were your last", "nobody on their death bed ever regretted not spending more time at work", "stop along the way and smell the roses".
I've learned that our plans for life don't always go how we intended. Sometimes, that can be a good thing, but sometimes it can be a bad thing. If life goes bad, you don't want to think about how you spent the last decade working for a future that now can't happen.