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Slate's Newly Unionized Writers and Editors Give OK to Strike

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Re: Slate's Newly Unionized Writers and Editors Give OK to Strike

#41
I'm very much irritated by how opposed HN seems to be to unions existing.

Not that I'm surprised at all. The "Hacker" in "Hacker News" never included the anticapitalist and anarchist tendencies that are normally associated with "Hacker" in Europe/Germany. But what should one expect from a site run by a VC fund.

Re: Slate's Newly Unionized Writers and Editors Give OK to Strike

#42

I'm very much irritated by how opposed HN seems to be to unions existing. Not that I'm surprised at all. The "Hacker" in "Hacker News" never included the anticapitalist and anarchist tendencies that are normally associated with "Hacker" in Europe/Germany. But what should one expect from a site run by a VC fund.

Being an anarchist and a capitalist are almost the same thing, no?

Re: Slate's Newly Unionized Writers and Editors Give OK to Strike

#43

I'm very much irritated by how opposed HN seems to be to unions existing. Not that I'm surprised at all. The "Hacker" in "Hacker News" never included the anticapitalist and anarchist tendencies that are normally associated with "Hacker" in Europe/Germany. But what should one expect from a site run by a VC fund.

There are plenty of those anarchist and anticapitalist types around, though. Watching the two groups fight it out is part of the fun of being here.

Re: Slate's Newly Unionized Writers and Editors Give OK to Strike

#44
post #42

I'm very much irritated by how opposed HN seems to be to unions existing. Not that I'm surprised at all. The "Hacker" in "Hacker News" never included the anticapitalist and anarchist tendencies that are normally associated with "Hacker" in Europe/Germany. But what should one expect from a site run by a VC fund.

Being an anarchist and a capitalist are almost the same thing, no?

Not really. Sort of hard to boil that one down into a HN comment, but there are a lot of forms of anarchism and honestly, anarcho-capitalism/voluntarism is probably the most naive political ideology I know.

Usually I define anarchism not as the removal of all authority, but the removal of all unjustifiable authority. From there unjustifiable depends on your moral compass.

(i'm a "commie" if you haven't caught on, anarcho-syndicalist if you want to google something)

Re: Slate's Newly Unionized Writers and Editors Give OK to Strike

#45

Interested to see how this plays out. I'm a Slate Plus member, mainly for the extra segment on the Slate Political Gabfest. Ironically, none of the three hosts of that show have worked at Slate in years, which is probably a large part of what makes it enjoyable. For reasons I'd be hard-pressed to explain, I listen to a number of other Slate podcasts, even though I often find them irritating. Most (but not all) Slate…

> like college bloggers writing an angry screed about how everything in the world is terrible.

In my country we seem to have this phenomenon for most of the established media, even more so with newer news outlets.

I think of this as a problem for our society, because the repercussions from the 'fourth-column' becoming this way are spilling over to the other three columns: E.g. once clearly differential political parties reshape their programs to align with what journalists want, lest for diminishing their attack surface. The result is a parliament with parties distinguishable by name only.

That creates huge vacuums in voter representation. Voters then turn to alternative news sources and political parties, which by their nature are more prone to be filled with/usurped by fringe extremists.

That in return leaves the repelled voters with increased attack surface and thus even less chance to participate in the democratic process, making them feel disenfranchised and ultimately not caring for what the "mainstream" says - even if it is good, correct and in their interest.

Edit: Regarding the strike itself, I'm not aware of the situation at Slate, but in general striking for me is an important tool of representation as well.

Re: Slate's Newly Unionized Writers and Editors Give OK to Strike

#46
post #43

I'm very much irritated by how opposed HN seems to be to unions existing. Not that I'm surprised at all. The "Hacker" in "Hacker News" never included the anticapitalist and anarchist tendencies that are normally associated with "Hacker" in Europe/Germany. But what should one expect from a site run by a VC fund.

There are plenty of those anarchist and anticapitalist types around, though. Watching the two groups fight it out is part of the fun of being here.

Honestly I should really just block comment pages on HN. They never fail to disappoint me.

Re: Slate's Newly Unionized Writers and Editors Give OK to Strike

#47
post #42

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Being an anarchist and a capitalist are almost the same thing, no?

Not really. Sort of hard to boil that one down into a HN comment, but there are a lot of forms of anarchism and honestly, anarcho-capitalism/voluntarism is probably the most naive political ideology I know. Usually I define anarchism not as the removal of all authority, but the removal of all unjustifiable authority. From there unjustifiable depends on your moral compass. (i'm a "commie" if you haven't caught on, ana…

That's the great thing about anarchism. As long as you include enough syllables, we can each have our own one.

Obviously, it all falls apart when you try to implement it but that's not realistically going to happen again. So there's no actual downside.

Re: Slate's Newly Unionized Writers and Editors Give OK to Strike

#48

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Not really. Sort of hard to boil that one down into a HN comment, but there are a lot of forms of anarchism and honestly, anarcho-capitalism/voluntarism is probably the most naive political ideology I know. Usually I define anarchism not as the removal of all authority, but the removal of all unjustifiable authority. From there unjustifiable depends on your moral compass. (i'm a "commie" if you haven't caught on, ana…

That's the great thing about anarchism. As long as you include enough syllables, we can each have our own one. Obviously, it all falls apart when you try to implement it but that's not realistically going to happen again. So there's no actual downside.

[flagged]

Re: Slate's Newly Unionized Writers and Editors Give OK to Strike

#49

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's the great thing about anarchism. As long as you include enough syllables, we can each have our own one. Obviously, it all falls apart when you try to implement it but that's not realistically going to happen again. So there's no actual downside.

[flagged]

Capitalism isn't falling apart but neither is it a panacea. There are better systems, by most humane measures. Scandinavian social democracy, for example, other than being extremely expensive has its merits.

But anarcho-syndicalism et al rely on a variation of the adage "there's no bugs in the application I haven't written yet".

Re: Slate's Newly Unionized Writers and Editors Give OK to Strike

#50
Seems reasonable. Unionism hasn't historically been very successful outside of monopolistic industries but digital media seems a good place to experiment.

Worst case it'll bankrupt a company that won't really be missed. Best case we find a sustainable model for digital media. If I were a betting hominid, I'd say the former is more likely than the latter but you never know.

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