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

Things That Happen in Silicon Valley and Also the Soviet Union

twitter.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

151–160 of 252 posts

Re: Things That Happen in Silicon Valley and Also the Soviet Union

#151

Post by njoro »

zug_zug wrote: post #12

"- being told you are constructing utopia while the system crumbles around you" This is the one that resonated with me. Obviously "the system" as a whole isn't objectively crumbling by traditional measures like GDP, but there were things that could give that feeling: Homeless sleeping in the subway and on the main streets, the smells, crime so rampant it's basically ignored (my car was broken into > 5 times), working…

The situation in the Bay Area is the default for cities with high inequality. You can go to Hong Kong, Bangkok or Cape Town and find a variation of the same. Even Zurich at one point.

Re: Things That Happen in Silicon Valley and Also the Soviet Union

#152

Post by [deleted] »

ryandrake wrote: post #96
arethuza wrote: post #31

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Possibly because large corporation do internally have a form of central planning - usually using Oracle Hyperion (which Google appears to use).... :-) Edit: I based my guess about Google using Hyperion for their financial planning based on the job adverts....

I’ve always found it ironic that the purest examples of communist style central economic planning are found within capitalist corporations. Raise your hand if your company’s budget, hiring, and other resource deployment is done democratically, through a vote.

[deleted]

Re: Things That Happen in Silicon Valley and Also the Soviet Union

#153

Post by sctb »

manno23 wrote: post #106
Kalium wrote: post #89

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You're absolutely right! Tech has made things worse! With that said, it might be worth discussing where the blame for the problem that has been made worse might lie. To aggravate an underlying problem, one has to already exist. So let's talk about that problem, and its causes, rather than casting aspersions on every group who contributed marginally after the fact - that's a very long list, and it's not even a useful…

This is so passive aggressive iycould only have been written by a woman. Sorry comrade, just joking, I know there are no such thing women!!

If you decide you'd like to comment according to the guidelines, please email us at hn@ycombinator.com. Until then we've banned the account.

https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html

Re: Things That Happen in Silicon Valley and Also the Soviet Union

#154

Post by maxxxxx »

AnimalMuppet wrote: post #138
AlexandrB wrote: post #65

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> So true. The USA is viewed worse than China, Russia or Saudi Arabia. I think this is a reaction to the perceived hypocrisy of the US. Like any country, the US has a complex history as well as a variety of cultural and political issues that need addressing. However the US also consistently and loudly bills itself as "The Greatest Country on Earth". I think this contradiction fuels a lot of hyperbole about how bad th…

But "The Greatest Country on Earth" does not mean "no flaws" or even "no hypocrisy". It may even mean "the flaws are more openly acknowledged" - that can be part of greatness, in fact. Now, if you want to argue that somewhere else is in fact better, that could be valid, but it's a different argument.

The whole idea that one country is the best is already ridiculous. There are plenty of countries that are well run and all have positives and negatives. I don't think to makes sense to pick a "best" country between the US, Canada and most European countries. They all can be good places to live.

Living in the US I definitely don't like that a lot of people here think that the US is the greatest nation on Earth. It's a mindset that blocks the country from learning from others and I think is doing a lot of damage (see health care and conditions for the poor). Interestingly people who have that mindset often never have been in another country for an extended time. The only thing they know is the US.

Re: Things That Happen in Silicon Valley and Also the Soviet Union

#155

Post by bepotts »

KirinDave wrote: post #148
bepotts wrote: post #110

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This isn't true at all. The EU is just now starting to think about self defense because of Trump. Trump's insurgence is putting into question the US-led world order and NATO alliances. Without the US, NATO is functionally useless. The EU is under the security blanket of the US, whether it likes to believe it or not. Hell, most of those countries pay less than 2 percent of their budgets towards their own defense, and…

It is true that the EU has worked with NATO. However, it's not clear that America needs all the military force it has since a lot of it is quite cleary force projecting on economic adversaries. Suggesting the EU "needed" this is a bit misleading. And I say this as an American exasperated at our refusal to reduce force projection on foreign nations.

The EU definitely "needed" it. Aside from France and the UK, EU countries are pathetic militarily.

NATO was originally formed to be a defense alliance of democratic countries against communism and Russia. Russia, while a threat to the United States, poses more of a threat to Europe (for geographic reasons) than to the United States.

Re: Things That Happen in Silicon Valley and Also the Soviet Union

#156

Post by closeparen »

timr wrote: post #113
nerfhammer wrote: post #82

Earlier quoted context omitted.

job growth is supposed to be a good thing...

Job growth is a good thing only if it benefits the people who live in a place before said growth occurs. Otherwise, you're incentivized to just keep shifting high-paid populations around and calling it success.

Silicon Vally collects graduates from all over the world. That doesn’t mean they were employed (or were going to be employed) locally. It’s genuine growth, not geographic shuffling, but it’s growh that benefits the employable rather than the correctly located.

Re: Things That Happen in Silicon Valley and Also the Soviet Union

#157

Post by coolspot »

> - living five adults to a two room apartment

> - 'totally not illegal taxi' taxis by private citizens moonlighting to make ends meet

> - the plight of the working class is discussed mainly by people who do no work

> - the currency most people are talking about is fake and worthless

So true it hurts.

> - mandatory workplace political education

Is it really a thing?

Re: Things That Happen in Silicon Valley and Also the Soviet Union

#158

Post by s73v3r_ »

woah wrote: post #23
zug_zug wrote: post #12

"- being told you are constructing utopia while the system crumbles around you" This is the one that resonated with me. Obviously "the system" as a whole isn't objectively crumbling by traditional measures like GDP, but there were things that could give that feeling: Homeless sleeping in the subway and on the main streets, the smells, crime so rampant it's basically ignored (my car was broken into > 5 times), working…

As a contractor for startups in SF for 6 years and now a founder for 1, I have found the opposite of what you have about business relationships. The homeless problem is not caused by the tech industry, it is caused by the homeowners who have been blocking apartment building construction in 90% of the city for 50 years.

It's not caused by the tech industry, but I'd say the tech industry exacerbates it.

Re: Things That Happen in Silicon Valley and Also the Soviet Union

#159

Post by maxxxxx »

neuland wrote: post #62
shadowtree wrote: post #48

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A good test is your view on the 2nd Iraq War. For background, as facts matter: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Iraq_War "After 9/11, the Bush Administration national security team actively debated an invasion of Iraq. On the day of the attacks, Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld asked his aides for: "best info fast. Judge whether good enough hit Saddam Hussein at same time. Not only Osama bin Laden."[72] President Bu…

I'm not really sure how the 2nd Iraq War is a testament to American evil. It sounds to me like you're saying the invasion was unjustified? But, is there really anyone who thought Saddam was a good guy? He was very obviously a brutal dictator. So, at the very least there's one fewer of those around. Sure, WMD turned out to be a total fabrication and the Iraq War ended up being a misguided attempt at democracy building…

I don't think evil is the right term. Arrogant is a better one. I think they really believed that the people in Iraq were waiting for the the US to liberate them and would become loyal allies immediately.

Re: Things That Happen in Silicon Valley and Also the Soviet Union

#160

Post by 394549 »

toomanybeersies wrote: post #21
21 wrote: post #7

> the United States as a whole is depicted as evil by default So true. The USA is viewed worse than China, Russia or Saudi Arabia. I also see a lot of it on HN.

I think the argument is that the USA is a democracy (at least more so than the others), and therefore it's fair to criticise the USA as a whole (i.e. the citizens of the USA) for the failures of the US Government. A friend of mine made the same comment recently in regards to condemning human rights abuses in Israel. You can condemn until your face is blue the human rights violations in Iran, but there's not a lot the…

> A friend of mine made the same comment recently in regards to condemning human rights abuses in Israel. You can condemn until your face is blue the human rights violations in Iran, but there's not a lot the Iranian population can do about it. Israel is a democracy, and therefore (at least in theory) the government represents the people.

The problem with that line of thinking is that it twists perceptions, which can and does lead people to believe falsehoods. Harm can come when those falsehoods are acted upon (for voting, policy, activism, etc.).

To use a little hyperbole: if you focus on condemning democracies for human rights abuses and ignore (to various degrees) the worse abuses of non-democracies, you may end up just delegitimizing democracy in the eyes of many, because you've created the impression that democracies are the bad guys and are the main human rights violators.

Post reply on HN