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WeWork Will No Longer Let Employees Expense Any Kind of Meat

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Re: WeWork Will No Longer Let Employees Expense Any Kind of Meat

#271

Post by thedevilslawyer »

ravitation wrote: post #228
mreome wrote: post #222

While I don't think this "forces" a vegetarian diet on the employees, it is placing the employees in a situation where their company is promoting a particular ideology/lifestyle/diet through financial motivation. Dining is generally reimbursed during business travel due to the (often significant) increased cost of having to exclusively dine out, so the option for the employee is to eat vegetarian or accept additional…

In this case exacerbated by the fact that said lifestyle or ideological change involves one of the bare necessities (since all of the "equivalent" examples I've seen do not).

"> bare necessities"

That's highly debatable. A good part of the world lives completely fine even without this bare necessity.

Re: WeWork Will No Longer Let Employees Expense Any Kind of Meat

#272

Post by wu-ikkyu »

shadunkle wrote: post #247
wu-ikkyu wrote: post #125

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>not harming sentient creatures Plants are sentient creatures

Our current scientific understanding in no way leads to such a conclusion. However, even considering the hypothetical that plants are sentient, eating plants actually causes the least harm seeing as livestock are not very efficient converters of plants to meat.

>Our current scientific understanding in no way leads to such a conclusion.

False:

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Plant_perception_(physiology...

https://asknature.org/strategy/leaves-signal-presence-of-pre...

>eating plants actually causes the least harm seeing as livestock are not very efficient converters of plants to meat.

Let's continue this facile logic to it's conclusion: if animals are causing so much "harm", why shouldn't we kill them to prevent them from "harming" so much?

Re: WeWork Will No Longer Let Employees Expense Any Kind of Meat

#273

Post by mreome »

thedevilslawyer wrote: post #271
ravitation wrote: post #228

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In this case exacerbated by the fact that said lifestyle or ideological change involves one of the bare necessities (since all of the "equivalent" examples I've seen do not).

"> bare necessities" That's highly debatable. A good part of the world lives completely fine even without this bare necessity.

The bare necessity here is food in general. An employee has to eat when on business trips, so they can't a avoid the issue. They either have to accept the financial loss, or accept the dietary change.

There are of course alternatives to eating meat, but the real question is whether it's appropriate for a business to use financial disincentivis (effective pay reductions) to encourage lifestyle/idealogy change in their employees.

Re: WeWork Will No Longer Let Employees Expense Any Kind of Meat

#274

Post by wu-ikkyu »

ahelwer wrote: post #86
riku_iki wrote: post #46

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> If you care at all about moral justifications for your own actions, eating meat is an extremely difficult position to defend. Let's do it gradually, first move to eating beef: less killed lives per lb of meat. From another hand if we reduce demand, those chickens will not even been born..

Oh man, the moral status of possible future entities is like a singularity of very weird conclusions. I would avoid it.

Then why do you concern yourself so much with past entities?

Re: WeWork Will No Longer Let Employees Expense Any Kind of Meat

#275

Post by mreome »

pera wrote: post #249
mreome wrote: post #222

While I don't think this "forces" a vegetarian diet on the employees, it is placing the employees in a situation where their company is promoting a particular ideology/lifestyle/diet through financial motivation. Dining is generally reimbursed during business travel due to the (often significant) increased cost of having to exclusively dine out, so the option for the employee is to eat vegetarian or accept additional…

If the "monetary incentive" is, in other words, to provide something for free to every employee then I don't see any inherent problem. What I do think is an actual problem is making an employee pay for any potential extra expenses during a business trip.

I agree. I think there is only really an issue when it is a monetary 'disincentive', i.e. it's a situation where the employee is effectively being paid less then what was expected based on the work-pay agreement (both in terms of actual contract and social/industry norms). If it's a monetary 'incentive' then it's adding something in addition to what was expected.

Also, it's an even bigger issue when the scale of the disincentive is largely a result of decisions outside the employees control. An employee often has limited control over when and how long a business trip may last.

Basically, encouraging people with an additional 'perk' seems reasonable to me, but encouraging them with what amounts to a 'fine' is not.

Re: WeWork Will No Longer Let Employees Expense Any Kind of Meat

#276

Post by teaneedz »

downandout wrote: post #160
poulsbohemian wrote: post #84

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Love your profile message, you pretty much nailed what's going on with HN. Just keep posting, it's the only way to improve things.

It’s definitely getting more and more extreme around here. The fact that this article made it to the front page, and is generally being viewed as a good thing in the comments section, doesn’t say good things about where HN is headed.

Actually you should expect the trend to continue. More consumers are demanding vegetarian and vegan options. Restaurants are selling out of new plant-based burgers and are being encouraged by industry magazines to offer vegan options. Demand is speaking pretty clearly in fact. What was once fringe is rapidly scaling. Nice to actually see the world moving forward in a good direction on this.

Re: WeWork Will No Longer Let Employees Expense Any Kind of Meat

#277

Post by teaneedz »

ChickeNES wrote: post #216
teaneedz wrote: post #64

It's funny to observe the criticism on a technical forum that should be in tune with the data. WeWork is setting a policy that is on the right side of history—for animals and the environment. I didn't see a lot of criticism on Starbucks straw decision. However, when the cost is a sacrifice closer to home, even when logic doesn't support the whining, so many try to find fault with a company decision that is net positi…

>I didn't see a lot of criticism on Starbucks straw decision. There's been plenty https://www.cnn.com/2018/07/11/opinions/starbucks-plastic-dr...

Ok I see one article here that I still disagree with. Starbucks says they will work on this scenario and what prevents one from bringing their own straw if it's a disability issue? I think a solution here is possible while still protecting the environment and animals.

Re: WeWork Will No Longer Let Employees Expense Any Kind of Meat

#278

Post by dang »

prepend wrote: post #155
myWindoonn wrote: post #108

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There's a site that will help you do this: https://longbets.org/faq/ The downside is that you won't get your money. It'll go to charity. But you'll be able to prove your point to your great-great-grandkids!

It will treat them to either a nice hamburger or veggie burger.

Could you please stop posting unsubstantive comments to Hacker News?

Re: WeWork Will No Longer Let Employees Expense Any Kind of Meat

#279

Post by teaneedz »

alanwatts wrote: post #85
elsyms wrote: post #38

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Definitely not. The common justification for this is that we, as the most intelligent species on the planet, have developed a moral conscience. As such, it is unconscionable that we support the literal mass murder and ill-treatment of billions of animals each year when there are alternatives that require no suffering and no death.

>it is unconscionable that we support the literal mass murder and ill-treatment of billions of animals each year when there are alternatives that require no suffering and no death. There are ways to put down animals which require no suffering. And no, there are no alternatives to death. Plants are living things too. Why is it okay to murder a plant but not an animal?

https://mercyforanimals.org/heres-why-youre-wrong-when-you-s...

Re: WeWork Will No Longer Let Employees Expense Any Kind of Meat

#280

Post by candiodari »

kozikow wrote: post #14

I and a few of my past co-workers have been suspecting that the facilities team in a big tech company I used to work for had an evil genius plan to reduce costs: 1. Pick the most popular snack (e.g. nachos) 2. Replace it with less tasty alternative (e.g. kale chips) "for your health" 3. Consumption is a few times smaller 4. The company can claim they take better care of their workers and no one can accuse them of bei…

You forgot:

6. Fire the engineer pointing out that the pay of even one member of the finance team during this 2-month project would have paid for nachos for the whole company for 10 years.

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