Facebook, along with the military industrial complex is among the places I wouldn't work for any amount of money. Privacy is a human right and Facebook is by far the worst human rights violator and enabler in this respect. Their behaviour is clearly evil, exploitative of human nature and at least for some people using facebook decreases their overall well-being and mental health. People like this https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=94s0yYECeR8 are clearly intelligent, articulate and competent, yet they are working on a product that is explicitly designed to be addictive and create an echo chamber, as he nicely explains in the talk (if you are curious how click-bait is formalised go to ~34min).
Ask HN: What do Facebook employees think about their company?
61–70 of 99 posts
Re: Ask HN: What do Facebook employees think about their company?
#62So far no Facebook employee has answered this thread (unless they did so between the lines). Considering that Facebook has 25k employees, this must mean they have some very harsh policy on keeping quiet. Either that, or a strong culture that brainwashes them to actually believe they are working towards the naive mission of connecting the world. Or all of the above.
Re: Ask HN: What do Facebook employees think about their company?
#63Earlier quoted context omitted.
There is nothing wrong in telling what do you feel about something when you are asked. And there is no problem in expressing an unpopular opinion on HN as you can sign-up anonymously at any time and just share whatever thoughts you want.
To play devil's advocate, in an arena where all comments are ordered by votes, the unpopular opinion would simply be downvoted to oblivion and not seen anyway. Why would someone with a contentious opinion go to the bother?
Many (not the majority but still many) people scroll straight to the bottom to see what happens to be there after reading the top comments and also quick-read the comments in the middle (as there actually are many valuable comments on HN).
Anyway, hesitating to say something is not always the best idea, maybe it ought to be said aloud while everybody hesitates.
Re: Ask HN: What do Facebook employees think about their company?
#64Earlier quoted context omitted.
This thread is exactly what I'm talking about. Making fun of "the other side" through strawmen and irony will earn you social points among people with the same views, of course. meanwhile, people that you make fun of will think before venting their opinions the next time among you or on this platform in general. What it will not accomplish, though, is changing anybody's minds. Just make the forum more of an echo cham…
You were talking about people who work at Palantir and Uber. They are in a position of power relative to 99% of the population. These are not the “forgotten men” of Trumpist rhetoric. Making fun of their self-victimization is not bullying either. Do you really think Palantir employees are a group that needs to be protected from semianonymous Internet comments?
I regret using the word "bullying" in my comment now. I do think that it is a correct word, but it's not what I wanted to argue about, and it completely derailed the conversation to a realm of value judgements.
Can we talk about it without value judgements whatsoever, please? I don't think that we'll come to terms about who's a victim, who needs protection, and so on - but most of all, I think that these questions are inconsequential and boring.
What I'm interested are the objective things that we can agree on regardless our political stances. So, I want to ask my question again: do you think that your comments help your political cause in any way?
Re: Ask HN: What do Facebook employees think about their company?
#65So far no Facebook employee has answered this thread (unless they did so between the lines). Considering that Facebook has 25k employees, this must mean they have some very harsh policy on keeping quiet. Either that, or a strong culture that brainwashes them to actually believe they are working towards the naive mission of connecting the world. Or all of the above.
It's a losing proposition whatever they say. It's unsurprising there are no comments.
Re: Ask HN: What do Facebook employees think about their company?
#66Facebook employees and tech workers in general have a much wider spectrum of opinions that what echo chambers like HN allow. I personally know a lot of Facebook, Apple and Microsoft employees who voted Trump. Palantir employees who are very proud about their jobs and believe that they're making a positive impact on the world. Uber employees who believe that they're engaged in a good fight against regulation and burea…
There is nothing wrong in telling what do you feel about something when you are asked. And there is no problem in expressing an unpopular opinion on HN as you can sign-up anonymously at any time and just share whatever thoughts you want.
> And there is no problem in expressing an unpopular opinion on HN as you can sign-up anonymously at any time and just share whatever thoughts you want.
People are social creatures, programmed to respond to approval and disapproval from others. This includes replies as well as votes. It's irrational, but that's who we are.
Now, try registering an alternative account on HN and write political comments, polite, articulated, and reasonable, from a conservative point of view. What do you think the response will be like? Will you feel encouraged to proceed, or will you feel (emphasis on "feel", as these things are emotional and not rational) that you'd rather not continue with your point of view?
Re: Ask HN: What do Facebook employees think about their company?
#67I fail to get an answer about, "How a founder of a company would fail to think that what would happen to this humongous data which his company is collecting if landed in wrong hands?" Maybe he is noble soul leading his company now and tomorrow he would be shown door and someone creepy comes to lead.
I think Fb would be known in history as a major data provider to AI bullshit acts.
Re: Ask HN: What do Facebook employees think about their company?
#68Earlier quoted context omitted.
> My personal opinion is that the problem is not so much with Facebook but with the legislation. Corporations like Facebook are there to make profit within the rules defined by society. This holds true as long as those corporations do not influence what the law looks like (i.e. they are the results of a democratic process). The question is whether that is the case for Facebook.
It is also important for industry to inform the public about how certain legislation impacts them, their products and the quality/quantity of jobs.
Yes, that's what makes this a difficult problem. You don't want to ban companies from influencing legislation, but then you also can't say they were just playing by the rules, and that they did not influence the rules not being tougher on them.
Re: Ask HN: What do Facebook employees think about their company?
#69Earlier quoted context omitted.
"will no longer redistribute the wealth to the workers, as capitalism has done for the last few hundred years" It appears that we have vastly different opinions on how capitalism works. Capitalism needs to be coerced by laws into giving back to the workers (taxes on companies etc.) and more often than not, companies try to circumnavigate these laws.
Right, that's why no one ever gets a raise without coercion. Companies would never compete to establish the price of labor without coercion. Similarly, this is why no basketball players make more than $100,000... after all, why would any company ever pay someone more than unless they were being forced?
You might have had a chance at making an argument if the first and only laborer you exemplified wasn't "basketball player".
Re: Ask HN: What do Facebook employees think about their company?
#70Earlier quoted context omitted.
Right, that's why no one ever gets a raise without coercion. Companies would never compete to establish the price of labor without coercion. Similarly, this is why no basketball players make more than $100,000... after all, why would any company ever pay someone more than unless they were being forced?
You might have had a chance at making an argument if the first and only laborer you exemplified wasn't "basketball player".
Okay, babygoat, you're not familiar with Harvard philosopher Robert Nozick, which is the allusion here. Granted it's an obscure one... but one many who have been introduced to this question (wage and price controls) academically would be familiar.
Nozick made a classic argument about how naive concepts of social justice are incompatible with a system in which everyday economic transactions made by free will can be honored. He used the wealth of Wilt Chamberlain as an example (although his argument was actually concerned with wage ceilings, the same thinking applies to wage floors).
You can insert the words "for example" before "basketball player," or fill in another profession if you need this to be an argument. I wasn't really trying to make one, because the burden of argument isn't on me.
When someone claims that capitalism requires coercion in order to pay high salaries, the burden is on them to explain why so many high salaries exist, sans coercion, under capitalism. Or why wages have generally been higher in capitalist countries.
Another problem with wage floors (coercing higher wages) is that -- to the extent they are effective -- they inevitably create surpluses. For example, requiring every fast food worker to be paid $30 an hour would create a shortage of fast food (by the economic definition). Requiring every programmer to be paid $200,000 would create a shortage of programming.