It depends on the nature of the work as to whether it is an ideal goal or not. If it is dehumanizing work, or perhaps even the fate of a paraplegic child to have their only career option being a "robot waiter" in a cafe, maybe there's a problem with that. Being "better off" is not only measured in terms of having wealth or a stable place to live (indeed with the same argument one could argue that slavery is justified because the slaves are "better off" living under a master rather than dying on the streets), it is also measured in life choice freedom and happiness.
What of paraplegics as restaurant managers, for instance? A related point from the Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy page on Affirmative Action[0]:
>Many factories and businesses prior to 1964, especially in the South, had in place overtly discriminatory policies and rules. For example, a company’s policy might have openly relegated African-Americans to the maintenance department and channeled whites into operations, sales, and management departments, where the pay and opportunities for advancement were far better. If, after passage of the Civil Rights Act, the company willingly abandoned its openly segregative policy, it could still carry forward the effects of its past segregation through other already-existing facially neutral rules. For example, a company policy that required workers to give up their seniority in one department if they transferred to another would have locked in place older African-American maintenance workers as effectively as the company’s own prior segregative rule that made them ineligible to transfer at all. Consequently, courts began striking down facially neutral rules that carried through the effects of an employer’s past discrimination, regardless of the original intent or provenance of the rules.
>If it is dehumanizing work [...] maybe there's a problem with that
You're comparing a reality I am welcoming (disabled people being able to do something) with a possible future reality that I would welcome even more (the elimination of disability), along with a little bit of an even better future that might be even further away (the elimination of menial labor and the intellectual liberation of humanity). Sure, let's intellectually liberate humanity, but you aren't going to accomplish that by telling disabled people that they can't remote-operate commercial robots because you would rather them be intellectually liberated instead.
I never proposed that such work should be disallowed, I offered a critique of promoting such schemes while ignoring the qualitative aspects of life which are very important, even to the disabled. So there are two possibilities to be weighed up here: firstly, the current situation in that there are fewer jobs for the disabled, who need to be supported through state assistance, but such an arrangement may offer more time to pursue intellectual liberation, and secondly a possible future in which the disabled must adopt some jobs like being robot waiters or live in poverty. If the question is related to social programs then I argue this is not at all a false dichotomy.
It's curious I'm being downvoted in my original comment for arguing for a more human approach to jobs and labour in society.
On HN, one is not supposed to comment on being downvoted:
"Please don't comment about the voting on comments. It never does any good, and it makes boring reading."
Past attempts to exclude political discussion from HN reflect a belief that, somehow, what Silicon Valley does can be fully understood without recourse to political thought.
The reality is that the HN community harbours readers with a wide range of political views, and those readers can downvote people with whom they disagree with total impunity. It's not good for the quality of debate, to say the least.
What of paraplegics as restaurant managers, for instance? A related point from the Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy page on Affirmative Action[0]:
>Many factories and businesses prior to 1964, especially in the South, had in place overtly discriminatory policies and rules. For example, a company’s policy might have openly relegated African-Americans to the maintenance department and channeled whites into operations, sales, and management departments, where the pay and opportunities for advancement were far better. If, after passage of the Civil Rights Act, the company willingly abandoned its openly segregative policy, it could still carry forward the effects of its past segregation through other already-existing facially neutral rules. For example, a company policy that required workers to give up their seniority in one department if they transferred to another would have locked in place older African-American maintenance workers as effectively as the company’s own prior segregative rule that made them ineligible to transfer at all. Consequently, courts began striking down facially neutral rules that carried through the effects of an employer’s past discrimination, regardless of the original intent or provenance of the rules.
[0] https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/affirmative-action/