Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Request for Startups: News, Jobs, and Democracy

blog.ycombinator.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

81–90 of 406 posts

Re: Request for Startups: News, Jobs, and Democracy

#81

Post by baursak »

ihsw wrote: post #78
baursak wrote: post #46

Democracy can be improved by having democracy in the workplace. Modern corporations are run like totalitarian, authoritarian regimes with top-down orders being barked down. If you disobey, you're out. People in Western democracies are no longer putting up with non-democratic control of their political institutions, but are completely oblivious to non-democratic control of their economic institutions and are perfectly…

I would never work at a company structured like this and if you're implying we impose rules on companies to operate like democracies then that's even more dangerous than Trump.

Do you mind expanding on why it's even more dangerous than Trump?

Re: Request for Startups: News, Jobs, and Democracy

#82

Post by TeMPOraL »

alphonsegaston wrote: post #76
TeMPOraL wrote: post #60

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> What needs to be recaptured is a vision of the future based on science, health, the arts, and shared prosperity. And it has to be described in actionable political terms. We need a Star Trek: TNG for the (pun not intended) next generation... If someone is willing to start a movement that wants to create United Fedration of Planets, count me in.

Right I agree. The command and control framework of the Star Trek universe will be unpalatable to American biases, so it would have to be something more networked along the lines of the federalism we already have. But given our technology, building a more directly democratic system of feedback should be possible. Trump's success is using Twitter to transform himself into a disruptive avatar of his supporters. The nex…

I wasn't really even thinking about "command and control framework". More about the culture of Star Trek universe - "the future based on science, health, the arts, and shared prosperity", where people respect science, competence, teamwork and humanitarian values.

One thing I always loved about Star Trek worldview is that characters in the show always believe people they meet are competent at what they do, instead of assuming that they're working with morons. Ditto for the bureaucracy of the UFP - it's assumed competent until proven otherwise; not like in our world, where the government is always assumed idiotic by default.

Re: Request for Startups: News, Jobs, and Democracy

#84

Post by baursak »

TeMPOraL wrote: post #73
baursak wrote: post #46

Democracy can be improved by having democracy in the workplace. Modern corporations are run like totalitarian, authoritarian regimes with top-down orders being barked down. If you disobey, you're out. People in Western democracies are no longer putting up with non-democratic control of their political institutions, but are completely oblivious to non-democratic control of their economic institutions and are perfectly…

You don't have democracy in the workplace because democracy is inefficient . A company that expends great amount of money and resources on constant political shifting and backstabbing, and that can't present an unified vision on the market will soon get outcompeted by one that has its shit together. We can tolerate authoritarian regimes in companies, because they're small (relative to countries) and compete in a heav…

> A company that expends great amount of money and resources on constant political shifting and backstabbing, and that can't present an unified vision on the market will soon get outcompeted by one that has its shit together.

That already happens anyway. You don't need to have a democratically governed workplace for constant political shifting and backstabbing to occur.

> If you want to leave or they fire you, you can generally find a new workplace.

Which will also be non-democratically governed, so that doesn't work.

> because too much efficiency in a country will make many, many people very miserable.

Can't you make the same argument at organization level? I'm sure many Amazon warehouse workers would agree.

Re: Request for Startups: News, Jobs, and Democracy

#85

Post by alva »

volkadav wrote: post #72
alva wrote: post #44

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It is totally false to say Trump has enacted a law to ban people from entering the US based on their religion. Totally false. Is it true that Rudy Giulani has said this. It also true Trump has said in the past he wants a Muslim ban. It is also true that many people believe this action is a step in the direction of a Muslim Ban. But this is not a Muslim Ban at this stage and presenting it as such is a lie and misleadi…

He's instituted a ban based on ethnic origin from countries that are majority-Muslim (for that reason), has in the past called for a Muslim ban, and the architect of the ban has said it's a Muslim ban. If it walks like a duck, quacks like a duck, and in a feat of amazing linguistic ability for a waterfowl looks you dead in the eye and says "I'M A DUCK!" what are we supposed to call it, a giraffe? To engage with pedan…

I think your analysis of the situation is likely correct and I condemn it.

I still believe the mainstream news should Clearly separate the cold hard facts from analysis and opinion.

Re: Request for Startups: News, Jobs, and Democracy

#86

Post by diminoten »

I realize this is incredibly naive of me, but I've always thought that there must be something unskilled or lightly trained laborers can do that would scale infinitely and reliably for the company hiring them, something that had to be done in the area for which it provided the service (to prevent the global market from driving price down).

The gig economy stuff is interesting, but it's still somewhat limited, and at least partially physical. I am thinking more like M Turk but... somehow localized. Not sure, maybe I'm sniffing up the wrong tree, I dunno.

Re: Request for Startups: News, Jobs, and Democracy

#87

Post by dukeluke »

chipgap98 wrote: post #74
maxxxxx wrote: post #47

I am a little ambivalent about this. On the one hand the intent is probably good but on the other hand companies like YC and Silicon Valley are drivers of a lot of developments that led to the current situation. - Silicon Valley is a great example of growing inequality. Most of the rewards go disproportionally to a select few at the top - A lot of VC companies are killing a lot of previously relatively stable jobs. U…

I don't think we can halt progress just because it negatively impacts some people. At the same time you are right that it is "not only a force for good" and there are things that can be done to mitigate that negativity. I think this is an appeal to entrepreneurs do to just that

When "progress" continually lowers wages of the lower class and concentrates power to fewer and fewer people, I think the way of doing things needs to be reevaluated.

Re: Request for Startups: News, Jobs, and Democracy

#88

Post by rjkaplan »

chipgap98 wrote: post #74
maxxxxx wrote: post #47

I am a little ambivalent about this. On the one hand the intent is probably good but on the other hand companies like YC and Silicon Valley are drivers of a lot of developments that led to the current situation. - Silicon Valley is a great example of growing inequality. Most of the rewards go disproportionally to a select few at the top - A lot of VC companies are killing a lot of previously relatively stable jobs. U…

I don't think we can halt progress just because it negatively impacts some people. At the same time you are right that it is "not only a force for good" and there are things that can be done to mitigate that negativity. I think this is an appeal to entrepreneurs do to just that

That depends on how you define progress.

Just to play devil's advocate: what if you define progress as "that stuff" that will increase the general well-being of the greatest number of people over the next 20 years? With that definition, does technology-powered automation still count as progress?

Re: Request for Startups: News, Jobs, and Democracy

#89

Post by mynameishere »

saosebastiao wrote: post #43
tptacek wrote: post #30

A category of applications that I'd like to see YC helping along are those things that could help ordinary people run for office. The things off the top of my head I can see technology helping with: * Leveraging social networking to generate social permission for people to stand for office, which I think is the most important obstacle facing people who might consider running --- far more so than money. * Using techno…

> Using technology to bypass the expensive outreach vectors traditional candidates are stuck with. This is a huge frustration of mine. It is nearly impossible to get the attention of politicians unless I'm willing to spend a vast amount of my time on the phone, because they don't pay attention to email, social media, etc. It would be awesome to have a social media platform that is dedicated to political communication…

It is nearly impossible to get the attention of politicians unless I'm willing to spend a vast amount of my time on the phone

I almost hate to reveal this "secret" since I thought it was pretty well-known, but if you contribute to your Representative's campaign, there's a pretty good chance you can get a one-on-one or at least attendance to a dinner event. This is much easier with state politicians.

Post reply on HN