> I don't think he has a particularly persuasive rebuttal to the argument that it's not honorable or productive to publicly shame someone who's asking to wash your car window for $1.
That's a losing argument because it's a strawman anyway. Nobody's really offering to wash a car, outside of a bad analogy.
In want of a rebuttal, I offer the following:
It's not the sole responsibility of random software people receiving these dubious-at-best reports to address the problems caused by late-stage capitalism that put people in desperate situations to where they would need to resort to such behavior. There are probably a lot more political solutions to prevent people from being desperate. There's probably a side-discussion to have about what is the best tactic to help the most people in a given situation, and how software people can do their part, but it's ultimately a bigger problem than any of us.
Further, even if we waved a magic wand and fixed the very real human suffering that goes into the analogous case, that might get rid of the $1 window washers (because it's a thankless thing people do out of desperation), but it's less likely to eliminate what Troy is calling beg bounties. The reason is that the incentives for the latter are different than extreme poverty and homelessness; there's an element of fame-seeking and point-collecting on top of it. The platforms are gamified, you see.
In that regards, I would argue that it is more honorable to publicly shame the beg bounty crowd than someone who's asking to wash your car for $1. However, that just establishes the inequality, not the delta. I don't think I could convince anyone that it's totally honorable, just more honorable.
That's a losing argument because it's a strawman anyway. Nobody's really offering to wash a car, outside of a bad analogy.
In want of a rebuttal, I offer the following:
It's not the sole responsibility of random software people receiving these dubious-at-best reports to address the problems caused by late-stage capitalism that put people in desperate situations to where they would need to resort to such behavior. There are probably a lot more political solutions to prevent people from being desperate. There's probably a side-discussion to have about what is the best tactic to help the most people in a given situation, and how software people can do their part, but it's ultimately a bigger problem than any of us.
Further, even if we waved a magic wand and fixed the very real human suffering that goes into the analogous case, that might get rid of the $1 window washers (because it's a thankless thing people do out of desperation), but it's less likely to eliminate what Troy is calling beg bounties. The reason is that the incentives for the latter are different than extreme poverty and homelessness; there's an element of fame-seeking and point-collecting on top of it. The platforms are gamified, you see.
In that regards, I would argue that it is more honorable to publicly shame the beg bounty crowd than someone who's asking to wash your car for $1. However, that just establishes the inequality, not the delta. I don't think I could convince anyone that it's totally honorable, just more honorable.