
The Minimum Wage Machine - sharkweek
http://blakefallconroy.com/18.html
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patio11
It's a wonderful piece. One wonders if the experience of the machine would
change much if it awarded 6 pennies a second, though. The purpose of the
performance is that the labor is soul-crushingly pointless, right? And that
anyone who turns the crank is _seen as_ engaged in soul-crushingly pointless
work, right? Those both strike me as true even if you're using my 1% Machine.

~~~
ctdonath
I could get thru a LOT of audiobooks while pulling that lever.

~~~
JulianMorrison
That's because the lever doesn't contain the shitty working conditions,
danger, pressure, back-to-back shifts, forced overtime, and the knowledge that
even that pitiful machine can be snatched away from you at the whim of
bastards, and society will blame it on you.

~~~
ctdonath
democraticunderground.com is thataway. This is ycombinator.com, where people
know they can improve their working conditions and get rich even if they are
in rough conditions. Grimy work, risks, pressure, 100 hour weeks (making
"overtime" laughable), and knowing it could/will all come crashing down - and
all with society blaming you - is what you make of it.

~~~
JulianMorrison
Imagine society as being like an array of arrays of humans. There's lots of
levels, but there's a clear trend where low numbered arrays are large and high
numbered arrays are small. Some of the arrays aren't full, and there's an
operation where you can swap up to the array above you if there's a gap. And
it's theoretically true for a number of swaps to carry you all the way up to
the very short arrays up top. But there is no particular operation to grow the
width of an array, in fact the high numbered ones have been getting more
cramped. So the trajectory of any one human might end right the top, and you
can guarantee some humans definitely will, but the _expected_ trajectory of a
human is stagnation in the low numbered arrays.

This should make you understand why the American Dream is a cruel and
manipulative lie on the population level, even as it's undeniably true on the
individual level.

Also note: the only thing meritocracy adds to the above is competition for the
level swaps. Assuming it works perfectly, it becomes a bubble sort, where the
humans with most merit semi-randomly bubble up into the highest numbered
arrays. _The arrays do not become larger._ And now you've told the people in
the low numbered arrays that they deserve all the crap they're getting.

~~~
pretoriusB
> _And now you've told the people in the low numbered arrays that they deserve
> all the crap they're getting._

Well, a privileged upper array member to feel that way is somewhat tolerable.

The worst for me is when some idiot from the lowest numbered arrays, by an
enormous combination of factors (which he mostly attributes to his "hard work"
and "effort"), jumps several levels up, and then assumes that everybody can do
it, and the other lower levels are just lazy slobs for not becoming rich
themselves...

~~~
JulianMorrison
Yeah. Although the thing that model warns is that _even if everybody was
perfect on merit_ \- smart, educated, adaptable, personable, hard working and
lucky - only the same percentage of them will rise. All merit gives you in
this rat race is first call on the opportunity to rise.

Of course this is an over-simplified model. In real life the stratification of
society is a bit flexible. A great many people could rise to CEO without
saturating the demand. But by no means everybody.

------
duncan_bayne
But what you don't see is the line of people outside the door, whose labour is
worth less than $7.25 per hour, but who can't find (legal) work because of the
minimum wage laws.

~~~
_delirium
That's the idealized assumption in a simple supply/demand, all-else-equal
model, but there's actually little empirical evidence that minimum wages, at
least at the level contemplated in the U.S., actually do have an impact on
unemployment in the world world, except on part-time work by teenagers. So
economists' consensus has weakened on that from what it was if you had polled
them 30-40 years ago.

One among many possible positive effects of higher minimum wages is to shift
the threshold at which it becomes profitable to upgrade low-tech processes to
computerized ones, which can modernize sectors of the economy, and create some
highly paid jobs [1]. Another positive effect is to redistribute more money to
people in the remaining low-end jobs. But economies are complex and full of
feedback loops, so those aren't really well established either.

[1] As an AI researcher, of course, this benefits me: humans undercutting us
is one of our top problems with deploying research in the real world.

~~~
magila
Well yeah, that's because most people who are making minimum wage are...
teenagers working part-time. At its current level the US minimum wage has very
little impact on anything, positive or negative. Very few jobs are worth so
little, and most of them are being worked by immigrants who get paid under-
the-table anyways.

~~~
sukuriant
Knowing a few people that make or have made approximately minimum wage for the
time I've known them, and seeing the age of people working at various low-end
jobs, I would like to see some statistics to compare to your statement to my
anecdotal evidence.

~~~
specialist
I'd also like to see underemployment / multiple job stats too.

All this talk about minimum wage, haven't seen mention of living wage.

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dkokelley
If this piece is displayed publicly, such that anyone who is willing can work
for minimum wage, what sort of artful, philosophical statement would be made
when one enterprising individual attaches a solar powered motor to the crank?

~~~
ars
Why does it have to be solar powered?

~~~
dkokelley
Just to avoid complicating things with electricity costs. Maybe if you spliced
into a city power line you could also make a statement about reliance on
government subsidies.

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coopdog
Did I just.. appreciate modern art for the first time?

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ScotterC
Yes. Yes you did. Dubious whether to call it 'modern' however. That term in
the art world is super tricky. I might fall to contemporary - but that also
brings it's difficulties. If you want to be really wiley, you could call it
post-genre :)

~~~
derleth
> post-genre

Interesting name for a genre.

~~~
ScotterC
I always thought it was wonderfully ludicrous :)

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whatshisface
I feel sorry for people who have built their careers around the fine art of
crank turning, it is only a matter of time before their jobs are automated
away.

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grecy
I highly recommend the first episode of Morgan Spurlock's "30 Days" TV show
called "Minimum Wage"[1]

Morgan and his girlfriend try to live on minimum wage for a month in Ohio.
This is some of the best TV I have ever seen.

[1]
[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_30_Days_episodes#Season...](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_30_Days_episodes#Season_1:_2005)

~~~
chrisguitarguy
There's also a book in a similar vein called "Nickel and Dimed: On (Not)
Getting By in America" [1]. Fairly good read.

[1] <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nickel_and_Dimed>

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Kilimanjaro
I always wanted to ask these questions to a knowledgeable group of people:

\- What if there was a worldwide law about minimum wage at $7/hr?

\- How would world economies react?

\- Would it end poverty? destroy economies? ignite wars?

\- Who is responsible for not existing such a law?

Interesting links?

~~~
ctdonath
Money is not wealth. Money is just a convenient abstraction facilitating
barter. If you have little to barter, compelling the buyer to give you $7/hr
(or suitable unit equivalents) only serves to devalue what $7 represents. If
you legislate paying the gas station clerk $100/hr, soon a gallon of gas will
cost about $50.

Money just divides up the total value in an economy. Forcing people to trade
more wealth, however represented, for less value can only wreck an economy.

The economic law of supply and demand is responsible for not existing such a
law.

Links? news.ycombinator.com - it's all about the reality of creating wealth.

~~~
IheartApplesDix
Deabstraction of money doesn't really make your argument any clearer as it has
no bearing on the law of supply in demand except to make clear that it's
arbitrary and can be changed at any time.

Gas is a commodity so the price wouldn't fluctuate like that. At least not for
a long time and not for economic reasons other than greed. Of course, greed is
a natural market force, but it's not like that there would be a gas shortage
from everyone being able to afford to fill their 20 gallon tanks.

~~~
wnight
Who covers the difference between the $7/h gas station attendants currently
make, and the new $100/h? How do they do this without raising prices? Where
does the farmer buy gas so as not to have to raise the price of food to match?

~~~
IheartApplesDix
I was working under the assumption that the government would subsidize the
difference.

~~~
ctdonath
Correction: government would confiscate the difference from other hard working
people and encourage low-end workers to stay in those low-value jobs. Really
screws up the labor market: "why work harder? I'm getting $100/hr running a
cash register!"

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jiggy2011
If one were inclined to experiment, you could increase the payout of the
machine to above minimum wage but with a small chance on each crank rotation
that it would deliver a small electric shock.

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marshray
Does the machine withhold and file payroll taxes too?

~~~
IheartApplesDix
No, so it's being about 33% too generous. It should be depositing a coin every
7.5 seconds if my calculations are correct.

Just think about that for a second. 7.5 seconds is a long time to wait for a
penny, especially if you have to stand there running a crank the whole time,
I'd just build a shack in the forest and start eating tree bark and berries
instead.

~~~
svachalek
What are your calculations? Medicare & Social Security should be 7.65%,
federal income tax should be 10%, of which about half should fall under the
standard deduction (assuming they're working about 30 hours a week). What's
the rest?

~~~
marshray
Don't forget the employer matching 7.65% that they're obliged to hide from
you.

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mrtron
It should have gold coins in the top plexiglass but output pennies.

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ScotterC
That is great art! Really makes you think

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cmccabe
How about the armless, who can't turn the crank? Sounds like a job
discrimination case waiting to happen.

~~~
evv
There are lots of jobs armless people can't perform, and hence cannot be hired
for.

~~~
pacaro
Sometimes stated as "blind people can't be bus drivers", also known (in the
inverse) as a Bona Fide Occupational Qualification or BFOQ [1]

[1]
[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bona_fide_occupational_qualific...](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bona_fide_occupational_qualifications)

