[HN Gopher] A city experiments with paying people not to be anno...
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A city experiments with paying people not to be annoying
Author : hhs
Score : 22 points
Date : 2022-12-20 22:02 UTC (58 minutes ago)
(HTM) web link (www.economist.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (www.economist.com)
| bfeynman wrote:
| This is embarrassing for the economist. The premise here is based
| on laughable stat they make hundreds per day, which is definitely
| not true. It's also just illegal, so any valid replacement of
| time is a worthy gain, but you can't just pay people to sit
| around.
| zqfuz wrote:
| Call it what it is: blackmail.
| LarryMullins wrote:
| Extortion. "Squeegy kids" use the implicit threat of violence
| against you or your car to extort payment from drivers. The
| "service" they provide is worse than worthless, they make your
| car filthy. They're an absolute menace.
|
| I don't see why cities should have to resort to paying them
| off. They surely violate numerous laws with their scheme,
| anything from doing business without a license to jaywalking.
| But of course to enforce such laws you need cops to chase them
| down and arrest them in broad daylight, which risks bad optics
| for the city if the cops get too overzealous. Still, better
| policing is the correct answer.
|
| I seriously doubt paying them off even _could_ work. Why would
| they not take the payment then do it anyway? You 'd still need
| cops to arrest them to know which didn't stay true to the
| agreement.
| merpnderp wrote:
| I can't imagine in living in a place where people can just ran
| out, spit on your windshield, rub it around with a cloth, then
| demand money and if you don't pay up you might get shot. What
| insane people vote for this?
| ablatt89 wrote:
| Lol paying people not to wild out, insanity. Wildin' out is cool
| to many, being bad is cool and sexy. People will wild out and
| break any agreements regardless.
| linksnapzz wrote:
| You'd think this would be common enough knowledge, but...then
| you'd not be writing for the Economist.
| protastus wrote:
| This is clickbait. The _anonymous_ author wants to make you
| angry, and it starts with the headline. The article is shallow
| and provides no insight into what the program looks like.
|
| If the author gave a shit about actual reporting, they'd provide
| context about other programs that tried similar things, and their
| results. How are the kids held accountable? What type of training
| is offered? Is there a pipeline into internships and employment?
| nonrandomstring wrote:
| Money is a powerful incentive, but there's a creepy taboo around
| it's use to solve social problems.
|
| For example, we have very poor engagement in some universities I
| teach at and I've suggested simply _paying_ the students to
| attend classes.
|
| Of course the chancellors, denes and other jumped-up
| administrators think I'm as mad as a box of frogs. But it's they
| who are utterly stuck in a tiny world-view, prisoners of
| preconceptions.
| flutas wrote:
| > For example, we have very poor engagement in some
| universities I teach at and I've suggested simply paying the
| students to attend classes.
|
| > Of course the chancellors, denes and other jumped-up
| administrators think I'm as mad as a box of frogs. But it's
| they who are utterly stuck in a tiny world-view, prisoners of
| preconceptions.
|
| Would be an interesting experiment to say the least.
|
| Charge $X (tuition), every day they show up to class refund $Y
| (something like $20?), and then at the end of the semester
| refund an additional amount based on final grade (a = $Z
| ($500?), b = $Z-250, etc.)
|
| Basically make it so that good students get a discount compared
| to 'bad' students, but I feel like this would probably go up
| against some legal issues somewhere.
| eloff wrote:
| When the good students are Asians and the bad students are
| minorities, I can see this being canceled pretty quickly as
| being a racist policy. It makes sense to my engineer's brain
| though. Why wouldn't you want a meritocracy.
| flutas wrote:
| > I can see this being canceled pretty quickly as being a
| racist policy.
|
| That's where my first thought went to as well, basically it
| being nuked from orbit due to racial bias.
|
| Second thought was it would probably be really bad PR and
| spun as "THIS COLLEGE IS BUYING GRADES!"
| nine_k wrote:
| OTOH stipends based in academic excellence do exist, all the
| way to balancing off your tuition.
|
| They are few and far between though, for rare star
| performers, not a program that covers every student.
| xenonite wrote:
| Paying students for classroom attendance is standard for
| military universities. You may try to speak to professors
| there. I heard it yields quite a difference in performance of
| average students.
| ur-whale wrote:
| https://archive.ph/TIVLP
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