> Nobody ever leaves the BPO willingly – there’s nothing else to do. She sees her ex-colleagues when she’s on her way to work, hawking vegetables on the market or trying to sell popcorn by the side of the road. If there were other opportunities, people would seize them. She just has to keep her head down, hit her targets, and make sure that whatever happens, she doesn’t get laid off.
And this is the kicker: it's all very well for us to wring our hands about how their conditions could be better, but people are voluntarily choosing to do jobs like this because it's still better than the alternatives. Staring at video footage for 8 hours a day to get paid a dollar an hour sucks, but it sucks less than walking around in a traffic jam in the African sun, trying to hawk bags of popcorn to drivers and constantly risking getting run over with no certainty of getting paid.
I’m also not sure what’s the problem. We’ve been doing globalization for decades and it sounds like they pay market rate for office jobs where not many (office) jobs exist. Manufacturing has been much worse of a work environment and we seem to have gotten over that collectively
They don’t know that. I knew a guy who was into this kind of gore, and some of those images stuck with me for weeks. Most people have no idea how brutal and repulsive it can be until they start seeing them.
The ethics of content moderation are indeed tricky, but I'm specifically referring to the other case presented, where they're just watching footage of cars driving around all day.
Don’t you think it’s kind of crazy that we are on the brink of understanding some fundamental things about cognition and what we seem to be most interested in are hotel bookings and product recommendations?
Pity or what have you aside this is a massive L no matter how you take it
The things we think we'll learn about cognition will only benefit a few people. Rhe rest of us still have to live our lives, if we can, pretty much the same as we always have.
I honestly think African workers should continue to get “exploited” like this. This is the exact same way China got exploited and that let them bootstrap their entire roaring economy. Not to mention, hawking at intersections isn’t as bad as it gets in some parts of Africa. Literally dying of hunger is a possibility too.
Corruption, people are less educated, possibly more prone to violence etc. Still, I believe it will lead to a more developed economy than they have right now.
Yeah. Look at all the benefits of colonization in African countries. Look at the great job we are doing. Giving them money to alienate themselves looking at the shit we produce. Such a great advancement for humanity. Thanks lord for bringing civilization to the savages
You can read by yourself, Africa has leaders beyond the warlords the west make "partnerships" to steal resources. Ask them and illuminate yourself.
'The exit came as the trio shifted away from former colonial ruler France, with Tiani calling for the new bloc to become a "community far removed from the stranglehold of foreign powers." '
Not great to link a wiki covering many other countries outside of Africa without specifying What exactly your point is. I read it and none of it surprised me.
You do realize a great deal of the US meddling was prompted by USSR/Russian meddling, right? I’m not giving the US a pass by saying that, but the Cold War and threat of nuclear annihilation is a backdrop to many of these events.
I'm also not going to ignore the issues the countries within Africa deal with that have nothing to do with their past of imperialism or colonialism. I could point to India as a country that reformed into a modern successful nation post colonialism. Nor ought we ignore the vast amounts of financial aid given so often to these countries. It’s a tangled difficult problem.
What about the last 60 years free of colonial rule connects to the current state today? Do you think these corporate interests stem from Kenya’s Building Bridges Initiative?
I ask because I recently listened to a podcast about China’s Belt and Road Initiative winding down in Africa. I was surprised to hear this because they had committed to a large infusion of capital with some future trade partnerships (tens of billions at least). It was set to be a massive boon for much of Africa after the US reduced its economic aid in the region. Their reasoning was (economic woes in China aside), they found too much was unstable, specifically legislatively and socially. Permits and licenses drug out where most of the time it was difficult to know which official was in charge of which responsibilities. Also, they would build a facility that would be repeatedly attacked and destroyed by warlords in the area. I believe they said it was common to lose workers to independent gangs.
Just wondering if you could expand on what you said so I can connect the same dots. I’m not understanding your critique.
No doubt the impact of Europe on Africa has hurt but are brining jobs to Africa a bad thing? At this point Africa probably receives more harm from its own residents than outside influences.
Nobody said anything about savages. Please don’t bring negativity into a conversation.
And this is the kicker: it's all very well for us to wring our hands about how their conditions could be better, but people are voluntarily choosing to do jobs like this because it's still better than the alternatives. Staring at video footage for 8 hours a day to get paid a dollar an hour sucks, but it sucks less than walking around in a traffic jam in the African sun, trying to hawk bags of popcorn to drivers and constantly risking getting run over with no certainty of getting paid.