11.13.13
Liquidate your life in the sharing economy
The revolution of global networks is now in high gear developing those fabulous on-line bazaars where those with capital can leverage the desperation of the out-of-work or underemployed through the simple power of apps and smartphones. Obamacare will be a necessity in this new world, asserted NY Times columnist Tom Friedman over the weekend. This is because we’ll need subsidized healthcare when the winner-take-all national economy introduces almost everyone to pauperism.
As usual, Friedman was developing this wisdom in the best place in the world in the wart on the tip of Malaya known as Singapore (no link):
AT the recent New York Times forum in Singapore, Eleonora Sharef, a co-founder of HireArt, was explaining what new skills employers were seeking from job applicants, but she really got the audience’s attention when she mentioned that her search firm was recently told by one employer that it wouldn’t look at any applicant for a marketing job who didn’t have at least 2,000 Twitter followers …
For the masses of Americans, uncompetitive, unskilled and without a huge count of social media bootlicks, Obamacare will cushion the fall as they try to accumulate income by renting themselves and their possessions out to the upper class and their toadies at economy prices:
This could mean leveraging your skills through Task Rabbit, or your car through Uber, or your spare bedroom through AirBnB to add up to a middle-class income.
Since many, if not all, of the new poor and about to be so are renters, unless they sub-let, renting the extra bedroom may be hard. Or it may be out of the question because one is already living in a small space, perhaps something formerly called a big closet, with three or four others, not your family.
The only good thing about Friedman’s column was that the comments were uniformly unkind, many people now being wise to the frauds passed off as innovation in the sharing economy.
Today on Amazon’s Mechanical Turk, an hour of work netted not even a penny.
Three “human intelligence tasks” were returned when it was discovered they either required one to write an essay about one’s life or solve a very long series of word puzzles, taking at least an hour, delivered with threats that one better not cheat or no payment, a big fifty cents, would be rendered. Direct as well as veiled threats in job listings for work that pays a few dimes are common on Mechanical Turk.
More common tricks now used by a variety of American corporate and academic chiselers on Mechanical Turk include not describing exactly what the “human intelligence task” is until it is accepted. The reasoning here is recognition that even very desperate people won’t take some jobs because they are exceptionally losing propositions. And that by not describing such shit sandwiches, the worker can be enticed into accepting them. There is then a random chance the worker will complete the job rather than throw it back in the employer’s (requester’s) face.
Last week the Culture of Lickspittle trumpeted Google’s latest attempt to impoverish more masses of people by finely polishing the winner-take-all economy. The new thing is called Google Helpouts.
I excerpt from one of the many intelligence-insulting things written of it, a blurb entitled “The new killer app is a real human being”:
What’s really great about the expert help movement is what it does for the economy. Right now, there is an unknown number of people with enormous amounts to offer to the world, but no way to offer it. Retired people who spent a lifetime accumulating knowledge, for example, are living without income right now, just as people are out there wishing they could learn from somebody who knows.
People without good healthcare insurance and who can’t get to a doctor can get medical advice inexpensively.
Others who want to start a small business — say, a consulting company — can start with Helpouts, then grow their clientele into a full-fledged consultancy.
These new services connect the demand for help with the supply. Because it’s all online, each party can live anywhere. People in small towns can both get expert help and give it…
I don’t know about you, but I’m really loving this new trend.
Let’s dissect the claims of the moron.
“Right now, there is an unknown number of people with enormous amounts to offer to the world, but no way to offer it. Retired people who spent a lifetime accumulating knowledge, for example, are living without income right now, just as people are out there wishing they could learn from somebody who knows.”
If you are an old retired person, “without income,” it is unlikely you will be able to suddenly monetize yourself through high-definition on-demand video telepresence through Google’s Helpouts. In addition, everyone is still stuck with the same central problems of the winner-take-all environment created by Internet search. No one who isn’t in the top page of returns exists. No one without, say, “2,000 followers,” exists.
From destitute retiree to Google Helpout paid Internet consultant star makes a nice story, a fib to be passed off on fools. What manner of asshole believes Google will turn the economy into a paradise of paid video-advice giving free-lancing?
“People without good healthcare insurance and who can’t get to a doctor can get medical advice inexpensively,” continues the imbecile.
How does allegedly cheap medical advice, given in a Google Helpout, treat someone with throat cancer, who lacks insurance?
It’s not a theoretical question.
In yesterday’s New York Times, one read of many working poor people turned away from healthcare in the state of Georgia because they could not afford it.
To be cured of disease still requires a visit to the doctor’s office or a stay in the hospital, not Google technology.
“On a recent afternoon, Dr. Wade Fletcher, who practices at the hospital, thumbed through a stack of patient intake forms,” reads the Times. “The sections on payment contained the same refrain: No insurance. No money.”