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Request for Startups: News, Jobs, and Democracy

blog.ycombinator.com

161–170 of 406 posts

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

#161

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> corporate democracy that increases inequality "democracy" makes the sentence an oxymoron.

You're right. Corporate republicanism would have probably been more accurate.

"Corporate oligarchy" would be a less partisan way to say this.

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

#162
What do you think about a following evolution of the advertisement network idea that could support higher quality content creation?

A company Foo connects content creators, consumers and businesses.

Creators can join the 'Foo' network and display a short 'join the Foo to support this site' info on their pages without any other ads. Consumers can join the Foo network to have access to deals offered by businesses. Businesses can reach to the Foo network members offering discounts for their products.

A part of such discount is transfered to the consumer, giving an incentive to buy on the Foo network. A part goes to the content creators. After each purchases a consumer is asked to which creators the money should go. A small part from each transaction goes to Foo.

Unlike with ads network today, the user is in full control of which sites receive money from the user transactions, so the incentive to create useless clickbait sites is gone. Content also no longer needs to be cluttered with ads, because there is a separation between content consumption and business transactions that support the content.

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

#163
post #95

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

I wonder if they listen more to phone calls or letters if you're a donor. And if so, what kind of dollar amount makes your call 'matter'? I'd happily donate $5 to the local Republican congressman if he'd take my calls more seriously.

Five dollars? No. Just search for "[your representative's name] dinner event" and you can find the typical cost of access. For instance, my Rep has required 500 dollar contributions in the past. If you're actually interested, just call up the local party HQ and ask for the next event.

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

#164

I applied to Y combinator with an app that addressed both points raised under news section three years ago and didn't get accepted. Back then we were facing the same issues in Turkey. Ultimately, we had to close down the site because Turkish government was silencing every opposing voice. Funny how you guys are now thinking this is a big issue NOW.

Maybe the problem being addressed wasn't the reason for rejection.

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

#165

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Technology provides massive amounts of consumer surplus and deflation. What if we need less money and lower wages are actually fine? Edit: Do the people down-voting this actually think technology doesn't provide consumer surplus and deflation? Or do you have a problem with my question?

I downvoted you. My problem with what you said is that you acknowledged that technology creates surplus, but didn't acknowledge that many of the efficiency gains aren't going to the consumer, but to the owners of the company.

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

#166

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Silicon Valley is a great example of growing inequality. Most of the rewards go disproportionally to a select few at the top. That's a good thing: http://www.paulgraham.com/inequality.html "Decreasing economic inequality means taking money from the rich. Since risk and reward are equivalent, decreasing potential rewards automatically decreases people's appetite for risk. Startups are intrinsically risky. Without the…

Monetary rewards are far from the only rewards. Ability to effect change is a broader version of that reward: Elon Musk doesn't have as much money as Zuckerburg, but there's an argument to made that he's wealthier, since he's able to enact more/different change in the world. (Of course, Facebook has had such a ridiculously large effect on the world that argument is probably hard to win , but it illustrates what I'm t…

The way Elon was able to get into a position to affect the world was by acquiring a pile of money. It was a necessary first step. If you imagine a scenario where society enforces a cap on how rich someone is allowed to get, it's possible that Musk might not have passed the threshold of money needed to get into his current position.

More broadly, when a society won't let people become as rich as the market will let them, founders will tend to move elsewhere.

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

#167
post #139
post #34

Education should be on this list. The root of all these problems stem from a lack of effective education. 1) The current methods are highly ineffective for teaching By getting more effective at teaching children, and helping them to self educate, we get better informed citizens who can interpret news more accurately and effectively participate in democracy. 2) The current goals for education do not align with current…

We can start moving toward an education system that works once we agree on some core values. Someone else said that the goal of education is to produce factory workers. I disagree. I think the goal of education is to allow one teacher to effectively babysit up to 30 children at once. With both parents working, it simply isn't possible for them to give kids the attention they need to keep them healty and sane, let alo…

I've rewritten my comment three times so far ...

My wife and I are fortunate enough that she can be a stay at home mom. I grew up the same way. Were middle class, though increasingly probably slightly mid to upper these days. We don't need the babysitter, and want our kids to be educated, so that is the focus. We help them with homework, etc. We're lucky.

So from my perspective, having both parents working is the root issue. It's an economic necessity for probably 80+% of the country, which I suppose is really the root issue.

Ultimately it all boils down to resources, time and money, and there is never enough to go around. I don't have an answer for that :(

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

#168

The thing that is needed most is a laboratory of ideas for what will replace the neoliberal order. A corporate democracy that increases inequality and only panders to justice by gestures towards identity politics is seemingly over. What we're faced with now is either devolving into an Ethnic Nationalist state on par with Russia, or something entirely new that has yet to be described. What needs to be recaptured is a…

There are quite a few energetic people out there devoted to worker cooperatives and generally developing strategies for the democratization of wealth/capital. The nice part is it doesn't require electoral politicking or lawmaking, just a voluntary change in how people interact and associate economically.

http://democracycollaborative.org/

http://geo.coop

http://fair.coop

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

#169
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…

Silicon Valley is a great example of growing inequality. Most of the rewards go disproportionally to a select few at the top. That's a good thing: http://www.paulgraham.com/inequality.html "Decreasing economic inequality means taking money from the rich. Since risk and reward are equivalent, decreasing potential rewards automatically decreases people's appetite for risk. Startups are intrinsically risky. Without the…

Inequality as a driver of innovation is maybe arguable based on the idea of risk/reward. But what about, for example the CEO of any large bank or established corporation. Those people aren't taking any significant risk, but their compensation packages would indicate otherwise. The organization that concentrates wealth towards the top is already in place. They profit from the success of that organization, but in most cases the worst case for them if things go wrong is losing their job. Not losing their life savings, not ending up living on the street, etc. So since the risk is so low, there shouldn't be a need to incentivize people to such an extreme to do that work.

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

#170
post #34

Education should be on this list. The root of all these problems stem from a lack of effective education. 1) The current methods are highly ineffective for teaching By getting more effective at teaching children, and helping them to self educate, we get better informed citizens who can interpret news more accurately and effectively participate in democracy. 2) The current goals for education do not align with current…

For sure, but it's not like all other projects are being auto-rejected, I think YC will always be interested in forward-looking educational proposals. One other thing to bear in mind that educational is a multi-generational undertaking; every little helps, but short-term thinking brings you cheap PCs in schools one year and iPads the next. Long-term thinking requires a vision going out 25 years into the future and a plan to respond to and either incorporate or resist outside criticism, depending on how well founded it is.
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