Live data from Hacker News

Mark in the Middle

theverge.com

531–540 of 603 posts

Re: Mark in the Middle

#531
post #234

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> The big complaint is about lack of snacks! Free food , including meals. If Facebook is anything like Google, some single people were literally using that for every meal and snack 5/7 days per week. It's tasty, nutritious food, and you don't have to prepare it or do dishes. Sure, an adult should be able to take care of this on their own, but this is a major perk, not just a box of granola bars on a shelf. It might c…

From what I've seen, I don't think $5K per year is a big chunk of a Facebook engineer's compensation. In any case, the bigger issue is that this situation exposes how utterly dependent these engineers are on their employer, not just for money but for basic life functionality. Only a tiny number of companies in the world offer this level of "service" to employees. What happens if and when they no longer work at Facebo…

> I don't think $5K per year is a big chunk of a Facebook engineer's compensation

Whether it's 10% of their compensation, any cut should be acknowledged.

You could feed yourself well, delicious and healthy food, 2000 wholesome calories a day, for 5 days a week. 20 days a month where you effectively don't have to buy groceries or eat out.

Food is a part of the compensation package at FB and other companies where money sloshes around in giant buckets.

> What happens if and when they no longer work at Facebook?

They get paid less. Plenty of people have left companies like FB et al for smaller companies where you have to buy your own lunch and they're fine. Not sure why you're so excited to pull a "kids these days" here.

Re: Mark in the Middle

#532
post #528

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think you are wrong. Almost all Americans want police reform for example.

'Want police reform' and, 'want leftist-espoused police reform' are two very different things. Just because the majority of a population support a given policy abstract doesn't mean that the gamut of their potential demands doesn't span the entirety of the political spectrum.

I don't really get your point. People need to vote and all of this pedantry will go away.

Re: Mark in the Middle

#533

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think there's a non-splippery-slope way to position the worldview you're describing that might be more palatable to the values of a worldview based on limiting discourse based on content. I believe the hardcore freedom of speech view has a few important underlying assumptions: 1) More information is better, and shining a light on something is better than trying to selectively hide it, because eventually the real tr…

It seems to me that you're still ignoring the tail risk of authoritarian control of the concept of truth, namely, gulags. It's a justified fear, since it's happened repeatedly in living memory, and is happening still: you're welcome to go hand out pamphlets about the June Fourth Incident on Tiananmen Square if you don't believe me. If you want to discount that risk, ignoring it or glossing it as some sort of slippery…

Aren't you ignoring the fact that actual authoritarians are using the lack of moderation in FB to spread misinformation and incite populism and take control? This has occurred in India, Sri Lanka, Myanmar, and I would argue currently occurring in the US.

I also used to be a free speech absolutist, but I'm not anymore since I realized that it doesn't actually result in the kind of educated discourse and debate where truth prevails (as libertarians seem to think it does) - it results in 8chan and QAnon. Human beings aren't rational, and are rife with cognitive biases towards bigotry and cruelty that can easily be hijacked by populists.

Re: Mark in the Middle

#534
post #249

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Sure, but then it shouldn't be allowed to hide behind Section 230.

For the 500 millionth time Section 230 does not say "censorship makes you a publisher". It says the exact opposite. An information service cannot be held liable for: "any action voluntarily taken in good faith to restrict access to or availability of material that the provider or user considers to be obscene, lewd, lascivious, filthy, excessively violent, harassing, or otherwise objectionable, whether or not such mat…

Then Section 230 needs to be revoked fully.

Re: Mark in the Middle

#535
post #531
post #234

Earlier quoted context omitted.

From what I've seen, I don't think $5K per year is a big chunk of a Facebook engineer's compensation. In any case, the bigger issue is that this situation exposes how utterly dependent these engineers are on their employer, not just for money but for basic life functionality. Only a tiny number of companies in the world offer this level of "service" to employees. What happens if and when they no longer work at Facebo…

> I don't think $5K per year is a big chunk of a Facebook engineer's compensation Whether it's 10% of their compensation, any cut should be acknowledged. You could feed yourself well, delicious and healthy food, 2000 wholesome calories a day, for 5 days a week. 20 days a month where you effectively don't have to buy groceries or eat out. Food is a part of the compensation package at FB and other companies where money…

> Not sure why you're so excited to pull a "kids these days" here.

I wouldn't say it's kids these days. Facebook employees are not representative of the wider public.

The question that really made me shake my head wasn't the one about food but rather "Can we build a quarantined Facebook city? Like, buying an island and all of us working there?"

Re: Mark in the Middle

#536
post #105

Earlier quoted context omitted.

An article from four days ago: How Boomer Parenting Fueled Millennial Burnout -- https://www.theatlantic.com/family/archive/2020/09/anne-hele... The initial bit of the interview in the article: > Anne Helen Petersen: There are two major factors. The first is conceiving of children as mini-adults—trying to cultivate behaviors, postures, and skills that are associated with adults, like being able to carry on conversati…

> The first is conceiving of children as mini-adults Or it's opposite. Children recently get so overprotected (eg they no longer can go walk in the forest alone for example), so when they reach 20, they are still children mentally, they cannot stand for themselves, and they expect protection from employee, government, society even when they hear something offensive (which is a lot).

I'm 40 and have worked with plenty of people in their early 20s, one engineer who joined my company at 19. They seem completely well adjusted, smart, eager to grow and learn, and the only distinct difference I notice which maybe could moonlight as seeing them as annoying is that they ask for raises, are demanding, and know what they deserve and won't deal with bullshit.

Those are great features, and I've learned so much from the younger people I work with that I really don't get this "entitled child-like millenial/zennial" meme that keeps going on.

This doesn't seem to be a problem in tech, maybe it's in other more mainstream industries?

Re: Mark in the Middle

#537
post #534

Earlier quoted context omitted.

For the 500 millionth time Section 230 does not say "censorship makes you a publisher". It says the exact opposite. An information service cannot be held liable for: "any action voluntarily taken in good faith to restrict access to or availability of material that the provider or user considers to be obscene, lewd, lascivious, filthy, excessively violent, harassing, or otherwise objectionable, whether or not such mat…

Then Section 230 needs to be revoked fully.

Be careful what you wish for.

Without the safe harbor, activists could flood 2A message boards with "guns evil, ban them all" spam and the mods could do nothing to stop them lest they lose Section 230 protections. Trolls could harass users on religious or parenting forums or support groups for cancer, grief, PTSD, or addiction. Practically any Internet message board would become unusable.

Re: Mark in the Middle

#538
post #528

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think you are wrong. Almost all Americans want police reform for example.

'Want police reform' and, 'want leftist-espoused police reform' are two very different things. Just because the majority of a population support a given policy abstract doesn't mean that the gamut of their potential demands doesn't span the entirety of the political spectrum.

> 'Want police reform' and, 'want leftist-espoused police reform' are two very different things.

Not really. The reform that most Americans want is premised on the belief that racism and violence against African Americans are systemic issues in policing which need drastic measures to solve at best, or a complete dismantling of the system at worst.

The right either refuses to accept that such problems exist, dismissing them as fabrications by the left, or justifies them on the basis that African Americans are endemically violent and lawless, and deserve the brutal treatment and suspicion they receive.

The only 'reforms' the right wants are to give the police more guns and for them to not be held back against certain "problem" demographics by "political correctness," but the reform most Americans want is entirely leftist in its assumptions and goals.

Re: Mark in the Middle

#539
post #509

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> With the goal of allies gaining power. That is fundamentally different than Russian's initial goal of simply knocking the US out of their superpower role Why do you think Russia is trying to knock the US out of its superpower of its superpower role? They’re not doing it just to be petty.

Who said they were doing it to be petty? They are doing it because we have a hostile relationship, not because they want to eventually be allies. There is a fundamental difference between let's interfere with this country to install a friendly government and let's interfere with this country so it rips itself apart .

Can you please explain the difference you’re talking about from the standpoint of a working class citizen of Iran in 1953 or of Chile in 1973?

Re: Mark in the Middle

#540
post #539
post #509

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Who said they were doing it to be petty? They are doing it because we have a hostile relationship, not because they want to eventually be allies. There is a fundamental difference between let's interfere with this country to install a friendly government and let's interfere with this country so it rips itself apart .

Can you please explain the difference you’re talking about from the standpoint of a working class citizen of Iran in 1953 or of Chile in 1973?

The people of Iran and Chile were collateral damage of the US. Our government did not care one way or another about them.

The people of the US are the primary target of Russia. Their government is actively trying to do us harm.

It is indifference versus malice. This isn't a defense of US foreign policy. We have a history of doing awful things. It is simply recognizing differences between the two countries approaches and noting that the fears that initially sparked this tangent match up nearly perfectly with Russia's goals and actions.

Post reply on HN