Economics

Modern economics is infinitely bizarre. We all know it. I'm not here to prove it; I'm just here to provide one more example of it — and the example is as follows. You're an educated, middle-class professional: you've lived in a developed country your whole life; and now you've moved to a developing country. Your work is 99% carried out online, and your clients live all over the world. So you move to this less-affluent country, and you continue to work for your customers in the First World. Suddenly, your home is a dirt-cheap developing nation, and your income is in the way of formidable developed-nation currency. The result? Well, I'm no economist — so correct me if I'm wrong — but it would seem that the result must be a paradise existence, where you can live like a king and still spend next to nothing! Could this be the next big thing in employment, that we should expect to see happening over the next few years?

There are a great many people in this world — particularly in third-world countries — that spend their entire lives performing jobs that are dangerous, labour-intensive, unhealthy, and altogether better-suited for machines. I've often heard the argument that "it's better that they do what they do, than that they have no job at all". After visiting the hellish mines of Potosí in Bolivia, I disagree with this argument more strongly than ever. I'm now 100% convinced that it's better for jobs as atrocious as this to disappear from the face of the Earth; and that it's better for those affected to become unemployed and to face economic hardship in the short-term, while eventually finding newer and better jobs; than to continue in their doomed and unpleasant occupations forever.