Why The 99% Should Protest Against Y Combinator • Hacker News Board

Re: Why The 99% Should Protest Against Y Combinator

#91

Post by codeslush » Thu, Oct 13, 2011, 1:06 AM UTC

biznickman wrote: post #14

nostrademons wrote: post #7

Do you buy any food at all that is not grown by local organic farmers? If you do, chances are you have a much stronger business relationship with Monsanto than Paul Graham does. After all, you are directly giving money to a supermarket, which is giving it to a big agribusiness, which either is Monsanto or is a customer of Monsanto. All these evil things that Monsanto does? They're done with your money. Contrast that…

"If Monsanto's business practices bother you, factor that into your purchasing decisions. There are dozens of local organic farmers that would love to have your business. They usually charge more, because evil is efficient." You've hit the nail on the head and that's exactly what I say at the end of the post. I have a feeling most people didn't make it down that far. As for my own purchasing behavior (which isn't rel…

It seems relevant to me! ;-)

Re: Why The 99% Should Protest Against Y Combinator

#92

Post by frossie » Thu, Oct 13, 2011, 1:09 AM UTC

bmj wrote: post #42

Alex3917 wrote: post #24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"This 'voting with your dollars' thing is a bunch of bullshit." It's not all or nothing. If everyone would just subscribe to a CSA and buy the rest of their stuff from the grocery store then that alone would completely shift the face of food production in this country.

Agreed. Yes, consumers taking down Monsanto would be a rather large task, but that doesn't mean you can't do your best to support the other players (particularly those that might better fit your ethical framework). Money does very much talk in the U.S. (note how our political system works--donors and lobbyists)--it's just a matter of having enough of it (or, in the case of Monsanto, taking it away) to make a differen…

I think it is also difficult to remember all the victories of "voting with your money" because so many have been normalised. Hormones in meat? Dolphin-killing tuna fishing? Formula better than breast advertising? There are myriad examples where a minority voted with their dollars and shifted corporate practice.

Are you old enough to remember supermarkets with no organic/free-range products? No recycled products? No vegetarian versions of products? These are all things commonly available now that have been introduced in my lifetime as a supermarket shopper.

Yes, it sure would be better if the consumer did not have to fight evil with every purchasing decision (it leads to decision fatigue, if nothing else). It would be better if representational democracy (especially in the US) worked better at looking after collective interests. But voting with your money? It does work, and I would be surprised if the Internet has not amplified its effect even further.

Re: Why The 99% Should Protest Against Y Combinator

#93

Post by teaspoon » Thu, Oct 13, 2011, 1:10 AM UTC

run4yourlives wrote: post #32

nostrademons wrote: post #7

Do you buy any food at all that is not grown by local organic farmers? If you do, chances are you have a much stronger business relationship with Monsanto than Paul Graham does. After all, you are directly giving money to a supermarket, which is giving it to a big agribusiness, which either is Monsanto or is a customer of Monsanto. All these evil things that Monsanto does? They're done with your money. Contrast that…

I'm not a Monsanto fan at all, and actually called out pg on his comment, but you are 100% correct in your analysis of where the real source of "evil" comes from. That being said, the emergence of the organic food movement and such businesses such as Whole Foods goes to show that people are starting to adjust their spending habits. In an effort to support this, I'm sure you'd agree that the end consumer should be sup…

buy your milk in Canada - or anywhere else in the western world - where rBGH has been determined to be too dangerous to add to milk

rBGH isn't added to milk; it's injected into cows. The misconception that the milk itself necessarily contains rBGH is precisely the justification that Monsanto claims for restraining "rBGH free" labels. I don't think that's an adequate justification, though, and I agree with the thrust of your point.

Re: Why The 99% Should Protest Against Y Combinator

#94

Post by dillona » Thu, Oct 13, 2011, 1:21 AM UTC

Can we please leave this type of thing in /r/politics?

I come to HN to avoid reading anything about "the 99%"

Re: Why The 99% Should Protest Against Y Combinator

#95

Post by catch23 » Thu, Oct 13, 2011, 1:24 AM UTC

callmeed wrote: post #64

"now you know that Monsanto is hated. I mean deeply hated by people around the world" Go downtown and grab 20 random people. Ask them "what are your opinions on Monsanto?" I'd be willing to wager the most common response would be sone form of "who?" or "I don't know"

And the ones who know about Monsanto probably don't know that every visit to the grocery store is showing support to Monsanto.

Re: Why The 99% Should Protest Against Y Combinator

#96

Post by guelo » Thu, Oct 13, 2011, 1:35 AM UTC

nostrademons wrote: post #7

Do you buy any food at all that is not grown by local organic farmers? If you do, chances are you have a much stronger business relationship with Monsanto than Paul Graham does. After all, you are directly giving money to a supermarket, which is giving it to a big agribusiness, which either is Monsanto or is a customer of Monsanto. All these evil things that Monsanto does? They're done with your money. Contrast that…

People are mad at the whole system, there is the smell of revolution in the air, people are tired of excuses and rationalizations. Whether you agree with it or not a savvy business should be aware of this and tread carefully.

Re: Why The 99% Should Protest Against Y Combinator

#97

Post by megablast » Thu, Oct 13, 2011, 1:48 AM UTC

staunch wrote: post #58

lwat wrote: post #33

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Apple don't put out press releases saying 'We're proud to be working with Monsanto'

They would if they were an early stage startup and just got their first big order.

Then they would not be Apple. They would be cloudant.

Re: Why The 99% Should Protest Against Y Combinator

#98

Post by tlogan » Thu, Oct 13, 2011, 1:51 AM UTC

chadp wrote: post #89

tlogan wrote: post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Exactly. Consumers are now choosing products and which companies to support based on values they see that company (and companies' leadership) stands for. The older generation maybe don't see that but it is clear trend: your story as a company must match what your customer's world view. So this Cloudant news just show that their values don't match world view of majority developers / hackers / libertarians and as resul…

Who are you to speak on the behalf of the MAJORITY of hackers, developers and libertarians?

I was not trying to say that it the fact. Actually, I should not mentioned developers - because that is very broad term.

The observation from different blogs and posts is that business practices of company in question is not well received by hackers community. Now the key question here is what is modern definition of "hacker".

I claim that our society (at least online society) seems to define hacker as a person who has values which are not compatible with business practices of certain companies.

Re: Why The 99% Should Protest Against Y Combinator

#99

Post by wanorris » Thu, Oct 13, 2011, 1:59 AM UTC

dcaranda wrote: post #79

Paul Graham's response is two things... disappointing and misleading. What makes his response disappointing is that this is a great, old debate. Cloudant is developing potentially breakthrough technology ("Our founders first devised our open-source platform BigCouch while at MIT, working on Large Hadron Collider experiments generating millions of data points per second from the collision of atomic particles") to perf…

Paul Graham is a really smart guy who has helped a lot of great startups, but that doesn't mean he's always right. He responded to a really incendiary post attacking a company he's trying to help succeed with a response that wasn't as carefully considered as it might have been.

If the original post had been of the form "It's a shame they're working with Monsanto because", then I expect he would either not have replied, or would have made a more measured response, but with a similar substance: when you have a startup that you're serious about growing, you sell to whoever you have to in order to keep the business moving forward. I'm not sure whether I entirely agree with that sentiment, but it's not that surprising for a pragmatic, fairly apolitical libertarian.

There are only two things that are disappointing at all: that he seemed like he was trying to slam the door on the debate, and that he disagrees with you. The former happened because he made a cranky response, while the latter can only be disappointing if you naturally expect someone as smart and likable as pg to agree with you on things like that.

I would say that this warrants taking a deep breath and relaxing first, then responding calmly and carefully.

Re: Why The 99% Should Protest Against Y Combinator

#100

Post by dlss » Thu, Oct 13, 2011, 2:39 AM UTC

andylei wrote: post #69

dlss wrote: post #40

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This post being at the top worries me more than the post PG replied to :-/ 1. You seem to think that consuming a GMO is a riskless way to save money. Consider reading "Assessment of the food safety issues related to genetically modified foods" by Kuiper et al. or similar to understand how scientists currently asses risks for GMO food, and then the history of any substance later discovered to be harmful to humans (I r…

> ... and have an increased risk for all sorts of disease. See #1. What odds do you give that GMOs do not cause an increase in disease? In light of that number being non-zero, would you like to take back this statement? GMOs, herbicides, and pesticides have saved hundreds of millions of lives from death by famine. Current levels of food production are not possible with GMOs. > GMO race, as the potential benefit is so…

Right. This is the argument popularized by Penn & Teller in their GMO Bullshit episode.

1. My $3/meal was for US eaters. Remember that locally grown crops in 3rd world countries cost much less, as the cost of human time and land is lower there.

2. Ignoring #1 (ie. if we're looking at the choice between dying and eating GMO food), then of course eating GMO is the lesser of all evils.

3. GMO isn't the only way to produce enough food for the world. Better storage and transport tech would go a long way. There is also the agri-skyscraper concepts, but I'm sure you've seen those.

4. Even using GMO food, and producing enough to feed the planet, we still have lots of hungry people for reasons other than production capacity. See http://www.worldhunger.org/articles/Learn/world%20hunger%20f...