I’ve noticed that the type of people to have problems with these kind of jobs - people who think this is some type of neocolonialism - can not appreciate the difference between real material poverty and metaphysical problems with watching some abusive content.
This person is earning a really competitive wage. She’s getting the power and independence to lead a materially good life. This will trump every other metaphysical concern you can have by watching these abusive videos.
Some one has to moderate these videos and it’s great that it’s someone poor who’s getting the opportunity.
I generally agree with the broader point you're making, but I also think there's nothing wrong with pointing out how messed up it is that that's the reality of the choice. The whole point of improving society is to eliminate this kind of dilemma
People who raise these concerns don't understand true poverty. They might have seen it during trips but don't really "grok" it. That's one place where the expression "First world problems" is relevant. Being able to pay for housing, food and some degree of safety is an immense improvement in life quality versus the previous state with poverty and no videos.
I agree with you but disagree with how you phrased your comment. They aren't being threatened, they were either born into poverty/starvation or went into poverty. In their perspective (or at least some of them), they view it as a sacrifice to lead their families into a better life.
I think it's perfectly reasonable to have distaste for farming out unpleasant work to poorer countries. But also I think it's perfectly reasonable to accept that it's a fact of life and realise that it's literally redirecting wealth from the richest companies in the world to some of the poorer people in the world.
I'm more bothered by the fact that once again an article focuses on the plight of an identity deemed oppressed rather than broader concern for working classes. All it does is sell it as pandering rather than exposing a genuine issue. And as usual from the post-modern left, dividing rather than uniting. The article's entire justification for this is the absolute cop-out: >Women form half or more of this workforce.
As another example, I read an article the other day complaining about an advertising campaign from a colossal multinational company replacing the "o"s in London tube stop names with "0.0"s. Why? Not because of excessive corporate encroachment into public spaces, but because it might be confusing for disabled people. Maybe it would be, but once again the broader problem of capitalist overreach is ignored in favour of identity. Corporate exploitation is fine as long as it doesn't impact people who aren't able white men
Watching this stuff all day can literally cause you to have lifelong PTSD. I want poor people to have enough money to provide for themselves, but this is exploitative - they should get paid a LOT more to do this kind of work, the same way someone who does something physically dangerous gets paid more for the risk.
Are you suggesting that the same people in India (the same woman) be employed but be paid, say, 2x her salary and the company would do it out of generosity (2x the market rate).
I think that it is grotesque to take some moral high ground while global companies are exploiting the most desperate workers that they can find. They don’t give a shit about poor people in India, they need people with marginal English language ability whom have little or no worker protections.
People will do what they have to do to survive. But this is hurting these people who long suffer long after the social media company’s contractor discards them.
What’s your alternative? The people in villages are struggling without jobs and they are poor. They don’t even have food to put on their plate.
They make irrational decisions - don’t send their kids to school, make them work in farms. They are mentally stunted because of low quality food. They vote for idiots which stall progress even more.
You show concern but what is the alternative? Ask the capitalists for even more money?
I'm not sure what you mean by 'metaphysical' here, but I get the impression that you're dismissively trivializing real psychological problems by using that word.
An improvement in material conditions does not straightforwardly make up for these problems. What if they cause the viewer to commit suicide, or be so distraught they can no longer continue to work? People who do this work tend not to be able to do it for very long.
You also seem to be evaluating this by taking the current order of things for granted, as if it were not possible for this kind of thing to not be necessary in the first place. Quite a stunted imagination.
_you_ don’t know what it means to be under material poverty.
Look up farmer suicides in India an you can understand how material poverty leads to even more suicides statistically.
These people don’t even have food to sustain. One of the biggest problems is that poor people in India have low IQ because they literally can’t afford food with vitamins.
Low IQ leads to irrational decisions, low productivity and they get equal vote so they vote in idiots that slow progress.
These jobs are the best deal for overall progress of India. Sure they have to struggle in the middle but at least they have good food on the plate. Some safety net to make long term decisions and vote for better leaders.
You wouldn’t get it. You would just show concern. But Indians have to deal with the problems.
_you_ don't seem to understand what I wrote, or are not attempting to genuinely respond to it. But you've demonstrated a certain thickheadedness, potentially willful, so I can't say I was expecting better.
They're suggesting that you listen to and address the points they made rather than simply rephrase your original viewpoint.
I'd suggest you try to understand that psychological problems are real and that you only get one brain. You may say "you don't understand poverty", but it equally sounds like you don't understand trauma and psychological issues. You only get one brain and life is about being happy. If you rise out of poverty, but you're less happy than you were, is that better? It sounds like it is for you as long as they stop voting for candidates you don't like. It's easy to not care about people's happiness if they don't vote for the candidates you like, right?
Can you address the point I made where farmers suicides happen because of material poverty?
If you saw that my main point was that metaphysical concerns of “trauma” and “psychological issues” are a non issue for people who don’t have food on their plate.
> If you rise out of poverty, but you're less happy than you were, is that better?
Who are you to suggest they are less happy than otherwise? They took that decision voluntarily. I’m also suggesting that it’s the best decision.
You seem to think you have a better alternative for those people. Pray tell me, what is it that you are suggesting? What would you have rather done if you were the poor mother in middle of nowhere India and you had 6 children with complete lack of material stability. You would have rejected it?
If it were me or my friends or family- I would have definitely taken the job or adviced my friends to take it.
> Who are you to suggest they are less happy than otherwise?
Who are you to assume they always are? Once again, you're just dismissing the problems away.
> They took that decision voluntarily.
As if nobody in the history of the world took a deal that turned out to be bad for them. A voluntary choice does not inherently imply that the choice made them better off.
Regardless, you've completely ignored the last sentence of my original reply, but I'll try to spell it out for you. The neocolonialist objection does not boil down to, take these women's jobs away and make people in the corporation's home country do it. It is primarily a critique of the society that benefits from or depends on labor its own members consider unacceptable or beneath them. It is inherently exploitative by that society's own standards, and retaining such an economy is either unsustainable or incentivizes the perpetuation of the conditions which allow it to exploit. In other words, the US has a vested interest in making sure some people are always poor and desperate enough to do the jobs it doesn't want to do.
You’ve ignored my point on material poverty leading to suicides again. This means you can’t appreciate that Indians suffer mostly from people lack of money than anything else.
> As if nobody in the history of the world took a deal that turned out to be bad for them. A voluntary choice does not inherently imply that the choice made them better off
I’m suggesting that it’s the best decision for them. They’ve clearly taken the decision so they also think the same. I asked you for alternatives, or what you could have rather done but you’ve not answered. Maybe consider that it’s the best option for them?
> In other words, the US has a vested interest in making sure some people are always poor and desperate enough to do the jobs it doesn't want to do.
This shows clearly you have no idea what you are talking about. It’s mostly because of US that India has great IT jobs. It’s also because of products and services made in the US that we use in India that India enjoys some prosperity. Think of all the pharmaceutical innovations. Think of the internet, iPhones and everything. The USA has a massive part in reducing poverty in India.
What you are doing is clear: moral grandstanding without suggesting any clear alternative. It’s always nice to show easy empathy.
Your perspective is consistently too black and white. No one in this comment chain has once said that this should not be allowed. At most it's been said that paying poor people to take trauma is concerning. Your response has consistently been "How dare you say poor people shouldn't have these jobs? These jobs are great!". You're trying to make it black and you white, when it's neither.
If your argument was "These jobs probably will scar some people for life, and that's troubling, but I do think the overall gain in welfare will likely outweigh that", then no one reasonable would be arguing with you. As it is, you haven't bothered to include this nuance, or even once admit or consider that some people could be made worse off overall by these jobs, even if perhaps most aren't. It basically just sounds like you want to see fewer "low IQ" poor people and you aren't really bothered how they feel afterwards. I'll say again, exceedingly many people have all the things you said are required for happiness, and still aren't happy. And that is usually due to trauma, the very thing we're talking about.
> No one in this comment chain has once said that this should not be allowed. At most it's been said that paying poor people to take trauma is concerning
There's a commenter saying that they were forced to do it.
>Being able to force someone to do something is not justification for doing so. Further, it is ridiculous to try and label that as 'beneficial for everyone involved'. By the same token you can call outright slavery under threat of execution 'beneficial for everyone involved'. What tripe.
If I was in that position, and you gave me the choice to ritualistically mutilate myself for your amusement so my children could escape, I'd probably take it.
Your entire chain of argument is vacuous; devoid of any sense of empathy for your fellow humanity.
I show empathy which is why I’m happy that they have this job and can put food on their plate. You show fake empathy and fake concern by prioritising metaphysical needs.
Again, vacuous. You deride as 'metaphysical' what is psychological. But the health and well-being of
children too is a 'metaphysical' concern to the worker by this metric, and yet you call it up to
support yourself? Your argument is empty, hypocritical: there can be no substance to calling the one
metaphysical and the other physical, thereby dismissing all suffering.
If you're going to play the game you're playing, play it everywhere: their children don't matter, their
suffering doesn't matter, they don't matter.
The core of your argument is merely that if it is possible to force someone to do something, it is right
and proper. What a vile philosophy, to make what is detestable into that which is desirable.
At least have the grace to be ashamed and turn away, if you cannot stomach the taste but to replace it
with deception.
My point is that material needs are more important to people under poverty than metaphysical like feeling bad about watching abusive videos.
You agree that this job is necessary to be done. You agree that this is the best option they have and they are better off with it.
You would also do the same thing if you were in their position. You agree that this job exiting is overall beneficial for everyone involved.
Then what’s with the moral grandstanding? Yes it’s not ideal that someone has to do the job.
What point do you want to make other than virtue signalling?
Being able to force someone to do something is not justification for doing so. Further, it is ridiculous to try and label that as 'beneficial for everyone involved'. By the same token you can call outright slavery under threat of execution 'beneficial for everyone involved'. What tripe.
Repeatedly stating that it's 'better for them' because they have no choice is not the slam dunk you seem to think it is. The entire class of argument does not hold water; this line of reasoning will not convince me. It does not even slightly support your position.
I'd thank you to not put words in my mouth. You're wrong about them.
What point do I make other than virtue signaling? Mayhap read what you replied to, and you'll find it. But if you struggle still: your load-bearing use of 'metaphysical' is basically nonsense. I explained why already, why should I endlessly repeat myself?
> Being able to force someone to do something is not justification for doing so. Further, it is ridiculous to try and label that as 'beneficial for everyone involved'
He likely betrayed his real motivations a few comments back. He's annoyed about candidates getting elected by "low IQ" voters, and he wants them to get smarter by eating more so they can vote for the right people.
>What would you have rather done if you were the poor mother in middle of nowhere India and you had 6 children with complete lack of material stability. You would have rejected it?
There's a major inconsistency here. You're consistently claiming that other people don't understand poverty, and yet you essentially made the point that you're not poor ("those people have lower IQ"). So either you started off poor and then worked your way up via some route that's obviously not this job, or you haven't experienced it either, or you are actually poor and aren't doing this work. Which is it?
>Can you address the point I made where farmers suicides happen because of material poverty?
You haven't provided any evidence. If you can prove the suicide rate is higher for these farmers, you may have a point, but even then, the suicide rate does not necessarily have any bearing on the overall rate of happiness. It's possible that a bigger majority are happier farming, but a small minority are pushed more inexorably towards suicide. Perhaps that isn't true either. We simply don't know without evidence.
That's my basic point. You're making strong claims, but you quite clearly simply do not know and are deciding based on instinct and perhaps a vague desire to have your favoured political candidates get more votes. You haven't provided any justification whatsoever. "I think it's right", "maybe they commit suicide" and "they don't vote for people I prefer" are not justifications, they're guesses. As much as you may want me to ("Who are you to suggest they are less happy than otherwise?"). I have made no claims whatsoever, simply pointed out the lack of nuance using hypotheticals.
Having more money is very good. Psychological damage is very bad. Your point is that psychological damage doesn't matter and having more food is all that matters. Okay, so should you send your child off to fight for a warlord if it means they have more food? Please try to grasp that's there's nuance.
>If you saw that my main point was that metaphysical concerns of “trauma” and “psychological issues” are a non issue for people who don’t have food on their plate.
I've put this at the end because its beside the main point, but this sentence is just a barrel of conceptual misunderstandings. Trauma is a type of psychological issue, so "trauma and psychological issues" makes no sense without a prepended "other". Neither trauma nor psychological issues are metaphysical concerns. Metaphysical concerns are issues of first principles and deeper understandings of concepts. It's a branch of philosophy. If you don't believe me, Google it, or ask ChatGPT.
>There's a major inconsistency here. You're consistently claiming that other people don't understand poverty, and yet you essentially made the point that you're not poor ("those people have lower IQ"). So either you started off poor and then worked your way up via some route that's obviously not this job, or you haven't experienced it either, or you are actually poor and aren't doing this work. Which is it?
Have you considered that I have more knowledge of poverty, not because I have experienced it, but because I have spent time understanding it?
> You haven't provided any evidence. If you can prove the suicide rate is higher for these farmers, you may have a point, but even then, the suicide rate does not necessarily have any bearing on the overall rate of happiness. It's possible that a bigger majority are happier farming, but a small minority are pushed more inexorably towards suicide. Perhaps that isn't true either. We simply don't know without evidence.
You didn't understand the point I was trying to make.
Lets make it clear here: people are either unhappy because of material poverty like lack of money/food or because of higher level needs like love, safety and in this case - not watching abusive videos (so ridiculous that I even have to compare this).
Do you genuinely want to challenge me in claiming that people are more unhappy by watching abusive videos than because of material poverty? Really?
>Having more money is very good. Psychological damage is very bad. Your point is that psychological damage doesn't matter and having more food is all that matters. Okay, so should you send your child off to fight for a warlord if it means they have more food? Please try to grasp that's there's nuance.
Yes I would? The actual equivalent here is that the child does not have other means of earning and would go hungry. And that fighting for the warlord is overall good for the society. In that case its obvious. Are you this naive to not understand that this is _exactly_ why you have an army in your country? Why do you think people become soldiers? You are so naive and stick to moral grandstanding that you have not even grasped why people work.
I have asked you the third (I think) time now. What would you rather do if you were in the woman's situation? You have conveniently ignored it.
Pray tell me, what is the best choice for the woman to make? I have made it clear that I would have done the same thing. I actually think there's a reason why you ignored this question. By answering it, you would clearly admit that
1. this is the best choice she can take
2. this job has to be done by someone anyway so its net benefit to society
3. this means the overall story is a net positive for everyone and your moral grandstanding has no place here
>Have you considered that I have more knowledge of poverty, not because I have experienced it, but because I have spent time understanding it?
If this is true, you haven't shown any evidence of it.
>Lets make it clear here: people are either unhappy because of material poverty like lack of money/food or because of higher level needs like love, safety and in this case - not watching abusive videos (so ridiculous that I even have to compare this).
Again you're making a value judgment and not providing any evidence besides saying it's true. Happiness is far more complex than this, and exceedingly many people who do have all the things you just stated are still unhappy, and very very often that's due to trauma.
>Do you genuinely want to challenge me in claiming that people are more unhappy by watching abusive videos than because of material poverty? Really?
My friend, you are consistently failing to understand nuance. This isn't a contest, no one is "challenging" you. Maybe what you said here is true, maybe it isn't, let's discuss the "why"s and the justifications and the evidence, but all you seem to be able to do is say "this is true and it's true because I say it's true, and also maybe suicides but with no evidence".
>Yes I would? ... 3. this means the overall story is a net positive for everyone and your moral grandstanding has no place here
This entire section boils down to an argument that could equally made for slavery. Well if they have a roof over their head and food, why not have slavery? At least they're not starving, right?
The funny thing is that there's absolutely nothing unjustifiable about your position. I actually genuinely don't disagree that people should be able to have these jobs. I'm bringing all this up because your justifications and motivations are completely immoral and illogical. Of course I would take the choice to do this job, but equally I would take the choice of slavery if it stopped me from starving. That doesn't make it right or a good thing for society.
>This entire section boils down to an argument that could equally made for slavery. Well if they have a roof over their head and food, why not have slavery? At least they're not starving, right?
What's the alternative? This is the 6th time I'm asking this. Without answering this question, you are playing rhetorical games.
This is obviously a flippant comment that shouldn't be taken seriously. But the loss of LiveLeak seems like the loss of the journalism that the Internet was supposed to bring. There were a lot of odd things posted on there with some unneeded commentary but it was a place that would post unfiltered content that other places were scared to post. A lot of it was disgusting that I wouldn't watch, but it's weird to think that the Internet is censored now in a way where it's hard to even find it.
You can find areas of propaganda where site rule breaking will be allowed if it serves the interest of the owner, but you really have to seek it out. It's even weirder that the latest generation is self censoring common words so they can show up on sites like TikTok. Billionaires buying newspapers to censor seems less strange but sadly something I also didn't expect.
This is not new. The British boast of banning slavery but they will never tell you about their invention of bonded labour. They imported bonded labour to South Africa, Guyana and other parts of their empire.
Now companies can use the Internet to keep the labour remote. Doesn't even require a degree.
When I was in my 20s I worked for a well-known global telco. In our office, we had a group of people whose literal job was watching streaming porn from around the world all day. They had walls of screens running simultaneously.
Those streams were customers. Our people’s job was to monitor the streams for video and audio quality issues. When I would tell my friends that I worked with guys who’s literal job was watching porn on a sofa all day, they thought it must be the best job in the world.
But when I talked to the guys that actually had the job, they said it was a terribly boring chore. Even worse, they said you quickly become so desensitized that it bled over into their non-work life in a negative way. Almost everyone that had that job eventually grew to hate it.
These kinds of jobs have always existed. To some extent someone needs to do it. While we may be outsourcing it now, there is a long history of paying people in the US to do it.
It's a well compensated job vs local opportunities but feels like it should be an extravagantly compensated job vs local opportunities. Someone has to do it, but also somewhere along the continuum of doing factory garment work for $100 and deep sea welding for $100k, it feels like this should be closer to latter.
Seems like kind of job that needs physical filtering. Onboard bunch of candidates, measure their vitals, find low responders to abusive stimulus, hire them. I'm sure there's some poorly replicated psych study done on 1st years to draw from.
I see a contradiction. If they are not responsive, their psyche is safe and there are no reasons for them to be compensated much more than minimum wage workers.
"Safer" - I think essentially filtering for 1-2% of population high on sociopathy / anti social spectrum. Doesn't mean they're immune, just better equipped for job cognitively. I surmise compensation goes up when weeding out 98% of population.
All right, the twist. They may hire Tantric Buddhists or Shaivites. Some of them even pay to meditate on stuff like that, and will be happy to do the practice and get paid for it.
How do humans with very little exposure to grotesque violence or extreme content universally label such content so well? This is not graduate level data that needs labeling.
What is missing in an AI model for it to intuitively understand what content is extreme from very few labeled sample in training?
Eww. Like 19th c. children in dangerous factories, abusing poor people's mental health sifting through the Global North's cavalcade of depravity. There must exist more productive and honest uses of people's time, and some jobs shouldn't be done for any amount of money. Some jobs done risky ways shouldn't be done by human beings at all in dangerous manners (coal mining without safety equipment, loom maintenance while running, carrying sulfur chunks out of active volcanoes) because they lower us all. "But they're making money" is not a good enough excuse because that's a false choice as there infinitely other activities, and any number of safer activities or similar tasks done with meaningful precautions are needed, desirable, and could be done instead.
> Murmu, 26, is a content moderator for a global technology company, logging on from her village in India’s Jharkhand state
> With just four months left on her contract, which pays about £260 a month
Earning US$350/mo working remotely in a village in one of the poorest states in India is an extremely competitive given that the alternative would be spending 12 hours sewing fast fashion for Zara earning US$130-150/mo [0], doing bit piece ag labor for around US$100/mo and participating in MGNREGA for US$50/mo, become a housewife, or become a Naxalite/Maoist insurgent to earn a couple thousand dollars when surrendering [1].
Content moderation means interacting with extremely depressing and horrid content, but someone needs to do it, and once models get good enough we would start seeing articles about how "all the good 100% remote first jobs with no barrier to entry" are being automated to oblivion.
Yes it sucks, but the alternative is becoming a migrant worker or working in light manufacturing where QoL is worse. Heck, we used to see similar articles about Chinese workers for Apple barely 14 years ago in then equally poor Sichuan [2], but you don't see those kinds of articles anymore.
Development takes time and the fact that US$350/mo remote data annotation and content moderation jobs are now penetrating into villages in what used to be the Naxalite/Maoist/Red Corridor where bombings and gun battles were a part of normal life just 10 years ago [3] is a massive step up developmentally - it means that there is robust enough internet, literacy, banking, and public services penetration for the seeds for a services economy to form.
Edit: Thanks for the downvotes westerners - my family is from these kinds of villages in India and Vietnam. The alternatives are extremely bleak - especially for a tribal woman like Ms Murmu at the bottom of the social and patriarchal hierarchy.
> I see few people coming from Jharkhand and working as waitresses in my state
Ststistically, a young Santali woman from rural Jharkhand would most likely end up working in West Bengal, Maharashtra, or Karnataka [0] according to Jharkhand's Migration Survey.
> Also, your first link mentions Bihar not Jharkhand
Because HDI and developmental indicators remain roughly comparable in both states. Salaries in Bihar are comparable to salaries for similar roles in Jharkhand, Eastern UP, or Northern portions of West Bengal.
>>given that the alternative would be spending 12 hours sewing fast ...
That is the best case scenario. Mostly women roll beedis(a kind of needle sized cigar) on which you get like 1 paise per 10 rolls or something like that. Or worse do assorted labor chores which can really sap one's soul real fast.
Even with all that women actually have it a lot better than men. Men literally die and are reborn every day in most parts of India.
Just drive 30 kms North of Bangalore, and you will see abject poverty scenes. People scavenging bovine dung for fuel, children with flies, no clothing. The ever present scene is always that of an elderly person with pencil thin legs wearing shorts he likely is wearing since a decade with nothing but boiled rice and salt water+turmeric to eat daily. 8 - 10 hr power cuts are the norm, that is if you can afford electricity at all. Most health care is either entirely absent, or you have to travel to the nearest metro and hope you don't die out of hunger getting treatment there. I could go on but that is life here.
£260 a month is actually great for some place like this.
The alternatives in these kinds of villages in rural Jharkhand's tribal and red corridor are literally
1.) bit-piece agriculture work for the local landlord who will never pay salaries on time because he has the power
2.) migrate to the nearest big city (in this case Ranchi, Dhanbad, or Patna) and work at a factory for 12 hours a week with the exact same risks
3.) get married off
4.) join a Maoist outfit in order to surrender and get government rehabilitation benefits.
And all of this is assuming the men (and it's always men) who they are reporting to are not lecherous abusers which is a very real risk in these kinds of jobs for women in Ms Murmu's status.
Like out of all the bad options, this is the least bad one - especially in an area that was a warzone barely a decade ago.
I don't think anyone is disputing that this job is terrible, it clearly is. The counter argument is that many other jobs are also terrible, and it's not clear whether you can really stack rank them and this one is at the bottom of the pole.
The counter counter argument is that we all talking here know what manual job or not getting paid feels like. But we don't know what it does to you if you have a job where you must watch humans hurt/torture/rape other humans day in day out.
we know what work feels like. Maybe it's better maybe it's worse. But we don't know personally and have no intuition about THIS kind of stuff.
I feel like I'm taking crazy pills here. Am I just too old? What do you mean, people on this forum have no intuition about what watching gore videos online is like? About watching hours of ordinary porn (as the article also mentioned)?
That's more likely to be within the experience of a HackerNews user than serious manual labor.
So can working in the unorganized sector in the heart of the Red Corridor. Like this is literally one of the least developed parts of one of the least developed states in India.
A tribal woman like Murmu who is clearly living in the Red Corridor districts (based on surname and geographic location) doesn't have any better choice.
Yes content moderation introduces you to horrid content, but the alternatives give the very real risk of physical and sexual violence.
That's false. We expect that jobs are growing at both ends of the income distribution with AI [0][1] - yes there are a ton of data annotators and content moderators now, but literally the overwhelming majority of us also expect to see an expansion in standard SWE and SWE adjacent roles with AI/ML vibe coding becoming the norm.
The reason you are facing job losses right now is because Joe in Cary who learnt to code at a bootcamp can't justify being paid $180k a year when I can hire Jan for $90k in Karlin [2] or Jamila for $60k in Koramangla [3] while maintaining equivalent performance and output. Having a president pass an executive order to distract from the Gold Card announcement [4] also played a role [5] just like we warned would happen.
I’ve noticed that the type of people to have problems with these kind of jobs - people who think this is some type of neocolonialism - can not appreciate the difference between real material poverty and metaphysical problems with watching some abusive content.
This person is earning a really competitive wage. She’s getting the power and independence to lead a materially good life. This will trump every other metaphysical concern you can have by watching these abusive videos.
Some one has to moderate these videos and it’s great that it’s someone poor who’s getting the opportunity.
I generally agree with the broader point you're making, but I also think there's nothing wrong with pointing out how messed up it is that that's the reality of the choice. The whole point of improving society is to eliminate this kind of dilemma
It’s messed up that this has to be done. But overall positive change.
Why does it have to be done?
Laws, primarily.
There's also a lot of content that companies don't want to host or show to their users in general.
That poor people get the worst of the jobs? What’s the alternative?
Who says this particular job is a necessary one?
What’s your alternative?
Maybe social media for this content isn’t sustainable or wise?
Maybe social media of the kind which creates this problem isn't sustainable or wise.
You're talking about making the internet as a whole a view-only experience where all content is curated and made by trusted gatekeepers.
As long as a website allows user generated content, there will be this need to moderate it
People who raise these concerns don't understand true poverty. They might have seen it during trips but don't really "grok" it. That's one place where the expression "First world problems" is relevant. Being able to pay for housing, food and some degree of safety is an immense improvement in life quality versus the previous state with poverty and no videos.
Maybe it's that we don't think people should be threatened with starvation to force them to perform degrading labor.
Maybe we can hold hands in a circle and sing Kumbaya.
That would be as helpful as these vacuous takes.
I agree with you but disagree with how you phrased your comment. They aren't being threatened, they were either born into poverty/starvation or went into poverty. In their perspective (or at least some of them), they view it as a sacrifice to lead their families into a better life.
They aren’t being threatened. They are already starving and this is giving them an opportunity out.
I think it's perfectly reasonable to have distaste for farming out unpleasant work to poorer countries. But also I think it's perfectly reasonable to accept that it's a fact of life and realise that it's literally redirecting wealth from the richest companies in the world to some of the poorer people in the world.
I'm more bothered by the fact that once again an article focuses on the plight of an identity deemed oppressed rather than broader concern for working classes. All it does is sell it as pandering rather than exposing a genuine issue. And as usual from the post-modern left, dividing rather than uniting. The article's entire justification for this is the absolute cop-out: >Women form half or more of this workforce.
As another example, I read an article the other day complaining about an advertising campaign from a colossal multinational company replacing the "o"s in London tube stop names with "0.0"s. Why? Not because of excessive corporate encroachment into public spaces, but because it might be confusing for disabled people. Maybe it would be, but once again the broader problem of capitalist overreach is ignored in favour of identity. Corporate exploitation is fine as long as it doesn't impact people who aren't able white men
Watching this stuff all day can literally cause you to have lifelong PTSD. I want poor people to have enough money to provide for themselves, but this is exploitative - they should get paid a LOT more to do this kind of work, the same way someone who does something physically dangerous gets paid more for the risk.
Are you suggesting that the same people in India (the same woman) be employed but be paid, say, 2x her salary and the company would do it out of generosity (2x the market rate).
I think that it is grotesque to take some moral high ground while global companies are exploiting the most desperate workers that they can find. They don’t give a shit about poor people in India, they need people with marginal English language ability whom have little or no worker protections.
People will do what they have to do to survive. But this is hurting these people who long suffer long after the social media company’s contractor discards them.
They might also be doing it for the sake of a better future for their children, not just for themselves.
What’s your alternative? The people in villages are struggling without jobs and they are poor. They don’t even have food to put on their plate.
They make irrational decisions - don’t send their kids to school, make them work in farms. They are mentally stunted because of low quality food. They vote for idiots which stall progress even more.
You show concern but what is the alternative? Ask the capitalists for even more money?
I'm not sure what you mean by 'metaphysical' here, but I get the impression that you're dismissively trivializing real psychological problems by using that word.
An improvement in material conditions does not straightforwardly make up for these problems. What if they cause the viewer to commit suicide, or be so distraught they can no longer continue to work? People who do this work tend not to be able to do it for very long.
You also seem to be evaluating this by taking the current order of things for granted, as if it were not possible for this kind of thing to not be necessary in the first place. Quite a stunted imagination.
_you_ don’t know what it means to be under material poverty.
Look up farmer suicides in India an you can understand how material poverty leads to even more suicides statistically.
These people don’t even have food to sustain. One of the biggest problems is that poor people in India have low IQ because they literally can’t afford food with vitamins.
Low IQ leads to irrational decisions, low productivity and they get equal vote so they vote in idiots that slow progress.
These jobs are the best deal for overall progress of India. Sure they have to struggle in the middle but at least they have good food on the plate. Some safety net to make long term decisions and vote for better leaders.
You wouldn’t get it. You would just show concern. But Indians have to deal with the problems.
_you_ don't seem to understand what I wrote, or are not attempting to genuinely respond to it. But you've demonstrated a certain thickheadedness, potentially willful, so I can't say I was expecting better.
Sure, what alternative are you suggesting?
They're suggesting that you listen to and address the points they made rather than simply rephrase your original viewpoint.
I'd suggest you try to understand that psychological problems are real and that you only get one brain. You may say "you don't understand poverty", but it equally sounds like you don't understand trauma and psychological issues. You only get one brain and life is about being happy. If you rise out of poverty, but you're less happy than you were, is that better? It sounds like it is for you as long as they stop voting for candidates you don't like. It's easy to not care about people's happiness if they don't vote for the candidates you like, right?
Can you address the point I made where farmers suicides happen because of material poverty?
If you saw that my main point was that metaphysical concerns of “trauma” and “psychological issues” are a non issue for people who don’t have food on their plate.
> If you rise out of poverty, but you're less happy than you were, is that better?
Who are you to suggest they are less happy than otherwise? They took that decision voluntarily. I’m also suggesting that it’s the best decision.
You seem to think you have a better alternative for those people. Pray tell me, what is it that you are suggesting? What would you have rather done if you were the poor mother in middle of nowhere India and you had 6 children with complete lack of material stability. You would have rejected it?
If it were me or my friends or family- I would have definitely taken the job or adviced my friends to take it.
> Who are you to suggest they are less happy than otherwise?
Who are you to assume they always are? Once again, you're just dismissing the problems away.
> They took that decision voluntarily.
As if nobody in the history of the world took a deal that turned out to be bad for them. A voluntary choice does not inherently imply that the choice made them better off.
Regardless, you've completely ignored the last sentence of my original reply, but I'll try to spell it out for you. The neocolonialist objection does not boil down to, take these women's jobs away and make people in the corporation's home country do it. It is primarily a critique of the society that benefits from or depends on labor its own members consider unacceptable or beneath them. It is inherently exploitative by that society's own standards, and retaining such an economy is either unsustainable or incentivizes the perpetuation of the conditions which allow it to exploit. In other words, the US has a vested interest in making sure some people are always poor and desperate enough to do the jobs it doesn't want to do.
You’ve ignored my point on material poverty leading to suicides again. This means you can’t appreciate that Indians suffer mostly from people lack of money than anything else.
> As if nobody in the history of the world took a deal that turned out to be bad for them. A voluntary choice does not inherently imply that the choice made them better off
I’m suggesting that it’s the best decision for them. They’ve clearly taken the decision so they also think the same. I asked you for alternatives, or what you could have rather done but you’ve not answered. Maybe consider that it’s the best option for them?
> In other words, the US has a vested interest in making sure some people are always poor and desperate enough to do the jobs it doesn't want to do.
This shows clearly you have no idea what you are talking about. It’s mostly because of US that India has great IT jobs. It’s also because of products and services made in the US that we use in India that India enjoys some prosperity. Think of all the pharmaceutical innovations. Think of the internet, iPhones and everything. The USA has a massive part in reducing poverty in India.
What you are doing is clear: moral grandstanding without suggesting any clear alternative. It’s always nice to show easy empathy.
Your perspective is consistently too black and white. No one in this comment chain has once said that this should not be allowed. At most it's been said that paying poor people to take trauma is concerning. Your response has consistently been "How dare you say poor people shouldn't have these jobs? These jobs are great!". You're trying to make it black and you white, when it's neither.
If your argument was "These jobs probably will scar some people for life, and that's troubling, but I do think the overall gain in welfare will likely outweigh that", then no one reasonable would be arguing with you. As it is, you haven't bothered to include this nuance, or even once admit or consider that some people could be made worse off overall by these jobs, even if perhaps most aren't. It basically just sounds like you want to see fewer "low IQ" poor people and you aren't really bothered how they feel afterwards. I'll say again, exceedingly many people have all the things you said are required for happiness, and still aren't happy. And that is usually due to trauma, the very thing we're talking about.
> No one in this comment chain has once said that this should not be allowed. At most it's been said that paying poor people to take trauma is concerning
There's a commenter saying that they were forced to do it.
>Being able to force someone to do something is not justification for doing so. Further, it is ridiculous to try and label that as 'beneficial for everyone involved'. By the same token you can call outright slavery under threat of execution 'beneficial for everyone involved'. What tripe.
If I was in that position, and you gave me the choice to ritualistically mutilate myself for your amusement so my children could escape, I'd probably take it.
Your entire chain of argument is vacuous; devoid of any sense of empathy for your fellow humanity.
I show empathy which is why I’m happy that they have this job and can put food on their plate. You show fake empathy and fake concern by prioritising metaphysical needs.
Again, vacuous. You deride as 'metaphysical' what is psychological. But the health and well-being of children too is a 'metaphysical' concern to the worker by this metric, and yet you call it up to support yourself? Your argument is empty, hypocritical: there can be no substance to calling the one metaphysical and the other physical, thereby dismissing all suffering.
If you're going to play the game you're playing, play it everywhere: their children don't matter, their suffering doesn't matter, they don't matter.
The core of your argument is merely that if it is possible to force someone to do something, it is right and proper. What a vile philosophy, to make what is detestable into that which is desirable.
At least have the grace to be ashamed and turn away, if you cannot stomach the taste but to replace it with deception.
My point is that material needs are more important to people under poverty than metaphysical like feeling bad about watching abusive videos.
You agree that this job is necessary to be done. You agree that this is the best option they have and they are better off with it. You would also do the same thing if you were in their position. You agree that this job exiting is overall beneficial for everyone involved.
Then what’s with the moral grandstanding? Yes it’s not ideal that someone has to do the job.
What point do you want to make other than virtue signalling?
Being able to force someone to do something is not justification for doing so. Further, it is ridiculous to try and label that as 'beneficial for everyone involved'. By the same token you can call outright slavery under threat of execution 'beneficial for everyone involved'. What tripe.
Repeatedly stating that it's 'better for them' because they have no choice is not the slam dunk you seem to think it is. The entire class of argument does not hold water; this line of reasoning will not convince me. It does not even slightly support your position.
I'd thank you to not put words in my mouth. You're wrong about them.
What point do I make other than virtue signaling? Mayhap read what you replied to, and you'll find it. But if you struggle still: your load-bearing use of 'metaphysical' is basically nonsense. I explained why already, why should I endlessly repeat myself?
> Being able to force someone to do something is not justification for doing so. Further, it is ridiculous to try and label that as 'beneficial for everyone involved'
Who's forced here?
He likely betrayed his real motivations a few comments back. He's annoyed about candidates getting elected by "low IQ" voters, and he wants them to get smarter by eating more so they can vote for the right people.
can you answer this specific question: what would you have done differently if you were in their position? You’ve avoided answering this.
>What would you have rather done if you were the poor mother in middle of nowhere India and you had 6 children with complete lack of material stability. You would have rejected it?
There's a major inconsistency here. You're consistently claiming that other people don't understand poverty, and yet you essentially made the point that you're not poor ("those people have lower IQ"). So either you started off poor and then worked your way up via some route that's obviously not this job, or you haven't experienced it either, or you are actually poor and aren't doing this work. Which is it?
>Can you address the point I made where farmers suicides happen because of material poverty?
You haven't provided any evidence. If you can prove the suicide rate is higher for these farmers, you may have a point, but even then, the suicide rate does not necessarily have any bearing on the overall rate of happiness. It's possible that a bigger majority are happier farming, but a small minority are pushed more inexorably towards suicide. Perhaps that isn't true either. We simply don't know without evidence.
That's my basic point. You're making strong claims, but you quite clearly simply do not know and are deciding based on instinct and perhaps a vague desire to have your favoured political candidates get more votes. You haven't provided any justification whatsoever. "I think it's right", "maybe they commit suicide" and "they don't vote for people I prefer" are not justifications, they're guesses. As much as you may want me to ("Who are you to suggest they are less happy than otherwise?"). I have made no claims whatsoever, simply pointed out the lack of nuance using hypotheticals.
Having more money is very good. Psychological damage is very bad. Your point is that psychological damage doesn't matter and having more food is all that matters. Okay, so should you send your child off to fight for a warlord if it means they have more food? Please try to grasp that's there's nuance.
>If you saw that my main point was that metaphysical concerns of “trauma” and “psychological issues” are a non issue for people who don’t have food on their plate.
I've put this at the end because its beside the main point, but this sentence is just a barrel of conceptual misunderstandings. Trauma is a type of psychological issue, so "trauma and psychological issues" makes no sense without a prepended "other". Neither trauma nor psychological issues are metaphysical concerns. Metaphysical concerns are issues of first principles and deeper understandings of concepts. It's a branch of philosophy. If you don't believe me, Google it, or ask ChatGPT.
>There's a major inconsistency here. You're consistently claiming that other people don't understand poverty, and yet you essentially made the point that you're not poor ("those people have lower IQ"). So either you started off poor and then worked your way up via some route that's obviously not this job, or you haven't experienced it either, or you are actually poor and aren't doing this work. Which is it?
Have you considered that I have more knowledge of poverty, not because I have experienced it, but because I have spent time understanding it?
> You haven't provided any evidence. If you can prove the suicide rate is higher for these farmers, you may have a point, but even then, the suicide rate does not necessarily have any bearing on the overall rate of happiness. It's possible that a bigger majority are happier farming, but a small minority are pushed more inexorably towards suicide. Perhaps that isn't true either. We simply don't know without evidence.
You didn't understand the point I was trying to make.
Lets make it clear here: people are either unhappy because of material poverty like lack of money/food or because of higher level needs like love, safety and in this case - not watching abusive videos (so ridiculous that I even have to compare this).
Do you genuinely want to challenge me in claiming that people are more unhappy by watching abusive videos than because of material poverty? Really?
>Having more money is very good. Psychological damage is very bad. Your point is that psychological damage doesn't matter and having more food is all that matters. Okay, so should you send your child off to fight for a warlord if it means they have more food? Please try to grasp that's there's nuance.
Yes I would? The actual equivalent here is that the child does not have other means of earning and would go hungry. And that fighting for the warlord is overall good for the society. In that case its obvious. Are you this naive to not understand that this is _exactly_ why you have an army in your country? Why do you think people become soldiers? You are so naive and stick to moral grandstanding that you have not even grasped why people work.
I have asked you the third (I think) time now. What would you rather do if you were in the woman's situation? You have conveniently ignored it.
Pray tell me, what is the best choice for the woman to make? I have made it clear that I would have done the same thing. I actually think there's a reason why you ignored this question. By answering it, you would clearly admit that
1. this is the best choice she can take
2. this job has to be done by someone anyway so its net benefit to society
3. this means the overall story is a net positive for everyone and your moral grandstanding has no place here
>Have you considered that I have more knowledge of poverty, not because I have experienced it, but because I have spent time understanding it?
If this is true, you haven't shown any evidence of it.
>Lets make it clear here: people are either unhappy because of material poverty like lack of money/food or because of higher level needs like love, safety and in this case - not watching abusive videos (so ridiculous that I even have to compare this).
Again you're making a value judgment and not providing any evidence besides saying it's true. Happiness is far more complex than this, and exceedingly many people who do have all the things you just stated are still unhappy, and very very often that's due to trauma.
>Do you genuinely want to challenge me in claiming that people are more unhappy by watching abusive videos than because of material poverty? Really?
My friend, you are consistently failing to understand nuance. This isn't a contest, no one is "challenging" you. Maybe what you said here is true, maybe it isn't, let's discuss the "why"s and the justifications and the evidence, but all you seem to be able to do is say "this is true and it's true because I say it's true, and also maybe suicides but with no evidence".
>Yes I would? ... 3. this means the overall story is a net positive for everyone and your moral grandstanding has no place here
This entire section boils down to an argument that could equally made for slavery. Well if they have a roof over their head and food, why not have slavery? At least they're not starving, right?
The funny thing is that there's absolutely nothing unjustifiable about your position. I actually genuinely don't disagree that people should be able to have these jobs. I'm bringing all this up because your justifications and motivations are completely immoral and illogical. Of course I would take the choice to do this job, but equally I would take the choice of slavery if it stopped me from starving. That doesn't make it right or a good thing for society.
>This entire section boils down to an argument that could equally made for slavery. Well if they have a roof over their head and food, why not have slavery? At least they're not starving, right?
What's the alternative? This is the 6th time I'm asking this. Without answering this question, you are playing rhetorical games.
I remember watching this kind of content for free on Liveleak back in the day.
Maybe they should get edgy teenagers to do the content classification rather than third-world rural women with minimal media exposure.
This is obviously a flippant comment that shouldn't be taken seriously. But the loss of LiveLeak seems like the loss of the journalism that the Internet was supposed to bring. There were a lot of odd things posted on there with some unneeded commentary but it was a place that would post unfiltered content that other places were scared to post. A lot of it was disgusting that I wouldn't watch, but it's weird to think that the Internet is censored now in a way where it's hard to even find it.
You can find areas of propaganda where site rule breaking will be allowed if it serves the interest of the owner, but you really have to seek it out. It's even weirder that the latest generation is self censoring common words so they can show up on sites like TikTok. Billionaires buying newspapers to censor seems less strange but sadly something I also didn't expect.
Blame Visa and Mastercard and the puritanical-when-it's-convenient media
This is an absolutely horrific thing to make a person do. I see comments that say "well someone needs to do it." Then why not volunteer?
They are volunteering! They need the money.
Yes, also this region was ravaged my violent communists (Maoists) not so long ago. So they have very few opportunities.
Who is making them work this job?
Mr Poverty and Ms Hunger
This is not new. The British boast of banning slavery but they will never tell you about their invention of bonded labour. They imported bonded labour to South Africa, Guyana and other parts of their empire.
Now companies can use the Internet to keep the labour remote. Doesn't even require a degree.
Do you not think a person who is literally in poverty and who is actually hungry needs the job?
Of course. And since they truly need it, we may as well make it as cheap and abusive as possible, right?
They should be paid a premium above market rate? Why? Generosity?
Where did I say that? I'm explaining to the parent poster.
She can quit anytime she wants, let's not compare this to indentured servitude, Sanjay.
This is a consequence of communism and big government of India.
Subtle argumentation is not one of your strengths, Leo.
When I was in my 20s I worked for a well-known global telco. In our office, we had a group of people whose literal job was watching streaming porn from around the world all day. They had walls of screens running simultaneously.
Those streams were customers. Our people’s job was to monitor the streams for video and audio quality issues. When I would tell my friends that I worked with guys who’s literal job was watching porn on a sofa all day, they thought it must be the best job in the world.
But when I talked to the guys that actually had the job, they said it was a terribly boring chore. Even worse, they said you quickly become so desensitized that it bled over into their non-work life in a negative way. Almost everyone that had that job eventually grew to hate it.
These kinds of jobs have always existed. To some extent someone needs to do it. While we may be outsourcing it now, there is a long history of paying people in the US to do it.
It's a well compensated job vs local opportunities but feels like it should be an extravagantly compensated job vs local opportunities. Someone has to do it, but also somewhere along the continuum of doing factory garment work for $100 and deep sea welding for $100k, it feels like this should be closer to latter.
Seems like kind of job that needs physical filtering. Onboard bunch of candidates, measure their vitals, find low responders to abusive stimulus, hire them. I'm sure there's some poorly replicated psych study done on 1st years to draw from.
I see a contradiction. If they are not responsive, their psyche is safe and there are no reasons for them to be compensated much more than minimum wage workers.
"Safer" - I think essentially filtering for 1-2% of population high on sociopathy / anti social spectrum. Doesn't mean they're immune, just better equipped for job cognitively. I surmise compensation goes up when weeding out 98% of population.
All right, the twist. They may hire Tantric Buddhists or Shaivites. Some of them even pay to meditate on stuff like that, and will be happy to do the practice and get paid for it.
Oh, wait, India?
I'll get started on the business plan boss!
How do humans with very little exposure to grotesque violence or extreme content universally label such content so well? This is not graduate level data that needs labeling.
What is missing in an AI model for it to intuitively understand what content is extreme from very few labeled sample in training?
A finely tuned set of heuristic triggers for fear, horror, disgust, etc. You might as well ask why pain is so painful.
> Sometimes, when I’m with my partner, I feel like a stranger in my own body. I want closeness, but my mind keeps pulling away.
Dissociation. A classic sign of trauma and PTSD.
Eww. Like 19th c. children in dangerous factories, abusing poor people's mental health sifting through the Global North's cavalcade of depravity. There must exist more productive and honest uses of people's time, and some jobs shouldn't be done for any amount of money. Some jobs done risky ways shouldn't be done by human beings at all in dangerous manners (coal mining without safety equipment, loom maintenance while running, carrying sulfur chunks out of active volcanoes) because they lower us all. "But they're making money" is not a good enough excuse because that's a false choice as there infinitely other activities, and any number of safer activities or similar tasks done with meaningful precautions are needed, desirable, and could be done instead.
> Murmu, 26, is a content moderator for a global technology company, logging on from her village in India’s Jharkhand state
> With just four months left on her contract, which pays about £260 a month
Earning US$350/mo working remotely in a village in one of the poorest states in India is an extremely competitive given that the alternative would be spending 12 hours sewing fast fashion for Zara earning US$130-150/mo [0], doing bit piece ag labor for around US$100/mo and participating in MGNREGA for US$50/mo, become a housewife, or become a Naxalite/Maoist insurgent to earn a couple thousand dollars when surrendering [1].
Content moderation means interacting with extremely depressing and horrid content, but someone needs to do it, and once models get good enough we would start seeing articles about how "all the good 100% remote first jobs with no barrier to entry" are being automated to oblivion.
Yes it sucks, but the alternative is becoming a migrant worker or working in light manufacturing where QoL is worse. Heck, we used to see similar articles about Chinese workers for Apple barely 14 years ago in then equally poor Sichuan [2], but you don't see those kinds of articles anymore.
Development takes time and the fact that US$350/mo remote data annotation and content moderation jobs are now penetrating into villages in what used to be the Naxalite/Maoist/Red Corridor where bombings and gun battles were a part of normal life just 10 years ago [3] is a massive step up developmentally - it means that there is robust enough internet, literacy, banking, and public services penetration for the seeds for a services economy to form.
Edit: Thanks for the downvotes westerners - my family is from these kinds of villages in India and Vietnam. The alternatives are extremely bleak - especially for a tribal woman like Ms Murmu at the bottom of the social and patriarchal hierarchy.
[0] - https://theprint.in/ground-reports/industries-finally-return...
[1] - https://www.thehansindia.com/news/national/18-yr-old-maoist-...
[2] - https://www.nytimes.com/2012/01/26/business/ieconomy-apples-...
[3] - https://www.newindianexpress.com/nation/2016/Nov/23/six-maoi...
I see few people coming from Jharkhand and working as waitresses in my state.
Also, your first link mentions Bihar not Jharkhand.
> I see few people coming from Jharkhand and working as waitresses in my state
Ststistically, a young Santali woman from rural Jharkhand would most likely end up working in West Bengal, Maharashtra, or Karnataka [0] according to Jharkhand's Migration Survey.
> Also, your first link mentions Bihar not Jharkhand
Because HDI and developmental indicators remain roughly comparable in both states. Salaries in Bihar are comparable to salaries for similar roles in Jharkhand, Eastern UP, or Northern portions of West Bengal.
[0] - https://iimad.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/05/salx20170525s-i...
>>given that the alternative would be spending 12 hours sewing fast ...
That is the best case scenario. Mostly women roll beedis(a kind of needle sized cigar) on which you get like 1 paise per 10 rolls or something like that. Or worse do assorted labor chores which can really sap one's soul real fast.
Even with all that women actually have it a lot better than men. Men literally die and are reborn every day in most parts of India.
Just drive 30 kms North of Bangalore, and you will see abject poverty scenes. People scavenging bovine dung for fuel, children with flies, no clothing. The ever present scene is always that of an elderly person with pencil thin legs wearing shorts he likely is wearing since a decade with nothing but boiled rice and salt water+turmeric to eat daily. 8 - 10 hr power cuts are the norm, that is if you can afford electricity at all. Most health care is either entirely absent, or you have to travel to the nearest metro and hope you don't die out of hunger getting treatment there. I could go on but that is life here.
£260 a month is actually great for some place like this.
Yeah what’s the alternative to moderation…no moderation?
There is an argument.
but maybe you have an idea of how manual labor feels (people always do some of it) but no idea how this type of horror feels and what it does.
The alternatives in these kinds of villages in rural Jharkhand's tribal and red corridor are literally
1.) bit-piece agriculture work for the local landlord who will never pay salaries on time because he has the power
2.) migrate to the nearest big city (in this case Ranchi, Dhanbad, or Patna) and work at a factory for 12 hours a week with the exact same risks
3.) get married off
4.) join a Maoist outfit in order to surrender and get government rehabilitation benefits.
And all of this is assuming the men (and it's always men) who they are reporting to are not lecherous abusers which is a very real risk in these kinds of jobs for women in Ms Murmu's status.
Like out of all the bad options, this is the least bad one - especially in an area that was a warzone barely a decade ago.
> this is the least bad one
not that I wish this on anyone but you would change your mind very quickly if you had to do this job for just one hour. it can fuck you up for life
I don't think anyone is disputing that this job is terrible, it clearly is. The counter argument is that many other jobs are also terrible, and it's not clear whether you can really stack rank them and this one is at the bottom of the pole.
The counter counter argument is that we all talking here know what manual job or not getting paid feels like. But we don't know what it does to you if you have a job where you must watch humans hurt/torture/rape other humans day in day out.
we know what work feels like. Maybe it's better maybe it's worse. But we don't know personally and have no intuition about THIS kind of stuff.
I feel like I'm taking crazy pills here. Am I just too old? What do you mean, people on this forum have no intuition about what watching gore videos online is like? About watching hours of ordinary porn (as the article also mentioned)?
That's more likely to be within the experience of a HackerNews user than serious manual labor.
I mean literally what I wrote.
> people on this forum have no intuition about what watching gore videos online is like
as a job day in day out no they don't
(also abuse is not gore which can be consensual)
(also HN is mostly men aka people who statistically are performers of abuse not receivers of abuse so adjust accordingly)
This is utterly ridiculous. The majority of teens I knew watched a few hours of LiveLeak at some point and turned out fine.
So can working in the unorganized sector in the heart of the Red Corridor. Like this is literally one of the least developed parts of one of the least developed states in India.
A tribal woman like Murmu who is clearly living in the Red Corridor districts (based on surname and geographic location) doesn't have any better choice.
Yes content moderation introduces you to horrid content, but the alternatives give the very real risk of physical and sexual violence.
When VCs and investors keep saying 'There will be new jobs', they never tell you exactly what they are - on purpose.
Now we know that it is actually being a data labeller, AI tutor and content moderator, but in very low wage countries such as in India.
This is the post-AGI reality. 'Abundance', but not for you.
That's false. We expect that jobs are growing at both ends of the income distribution with AI [0][1] - yes there are a ton of data annotators and content moderators now, but literally the overwhelming majority of us also expect to see an expansion in standard SWE and SWE adjacent roles with AI/ML vibe coding becoming the norm.
The reason you are facing job losses right now is because Joe in Cary who learnt to code at a bootcamp can't justify being paid $180k a year when I can hire Jan for $90k in Karlin [2] or Jamila for $60k in Koramangla [3] while maintaining equivalent performance and output. Having a president pass an executive order to distract from the Gold Card announcement [4] also played a role [5] just like we warned would happen.
[0] - https://www.ft.com/content/267037e8-a71f-4025-acca-f441fe712...
[1] - https://www.ft.com/content/d6fdc04f-85cf-4358-a686-298c3de0e...
[2] - https://www.levels.fyi/t/software-engineer/locations/prague-...
[3] - https://www.levels.fyi/t/software-engineer/locations/greater...
[4] - https://www.pbs.org/newshour/politics/trump-signs-proclamati...
[5] - https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2026-02-03/alphabet-...
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