111–120 of 378 posts
“These are some of the most sincere, honest, and heroic people I’ve ever met.” Yeah, I think we’re too hard as a nation on ex-cons. But they’re not heroes because they went through self-imposed hardships (and almost always at the expense of someone innocent). And they’re certainly among the lower rungs of honesty by categorization. Nowhere near the top. If this sounds harsh, just act their victims.
There are many, many victimless crimes that people are unreasonably incarcerated for.
When I think of the great people I met from our batch, you’re at the top of the list. Your passion and gratitude were contagious. I was always rooting for you and I will continue to do so. That letter you wrote to the entire batch at the culmination of our YC experience remains one of the great missives I’ve received. You’re top shelf, sir!
Onward! Steven
When I announced the launch of 70 Million Jobs on HN back in 2017, it proved to be one of the most widely read and discussed posts ever on the site. I was totally blown away. Once again, I am struck by the incredibly sensitive and supportive tenor of the reactions to my news here. For some context, besides having a criminal record, I was/am a solo founder who somehow talked his way into Y Comb. Perhaps most surprisin…
Earlier quoted context omitted.
I had a conversation with an HR friend of mine recently. According to her, she is inundated with fake requests for unemployment from people that never worked at her employer. Or people join, then quit promptly and apply for unemployment. This is in California. I would think the state would have protections against this type of thing, but maybe not.
You have to be "unemployed through no fault of your own" to be eligible for unemployment. https://edd.ca.gov/en/unemployment/eligibility/
I think they are so overwhelmed at EDD that her request was just pushed along through the process. There are so many stories of fraud at EDD that you have to wonder how much time the claims processors are spending on each application.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
I manage IT for an office and one of our hires said they got covid, took a month to join, and then when she showed up her manager decided to move her desk. I think maybe I got the desktop and a monitor moved before I was told to stop because she just quit. I can think of maybe 3 people in my office that have stayed for over a year, none on bad terms, just hopping jobs.
This seems like it relates a lot to the bizarre structure of hiring and salaries. You need to get any job and then any other employer will offer you a ~20% better one but no one will match inflation the next year let alone give you what they would offer if you worked somewhere else.
If I'm reading this right, there's an immense amount of unemployment fraud suppressing ex-convict workforce re-entry.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
The Great Resignation is curious, if I could speculate maybe it was the pandemic bailout and markets bubble (crypto too) making people think "I've got money now!". Now that everything is tumbling down, I wonder if people will start returning to work. Except now most businesses have seemingly stopped hiring yet again (even retail/hospitality?), so I guess whichever way it goes, OP is in trouble.
how large was the "pandemic bailout"? it looked like two checks from the govt and Was this enough to make a large number of people stop working, even now into mid-2022? I really feel like the impact of several thousand dollars would be gone after a year, at most. yet many businesses near me are still under staffed and having trouble hiring.
You're forgetting the child tax credit as well, which was effectively a monthly stimulus check for many, and student loan forbearance, which nets out to something like $10B/month in increased consumer spending power
“These are some of the most sincere, honest, and heroic people I’ve ever met.” Yeah, I think we’re too hard as a nation on ex-cons. But they’re not heroes because they went through self-imposed hardships (and almost always at the expense of someone innocent). And they’re certainly among the lower rungs of honesty by categorization. Nowhere near the top. If this sounds harsh, just act their victims.
The hardships aren't self-imposed, our justice system is specifically and intentionally retributive, imposing punishment for its own sake rather than imposing consequences with the goal of rehabilitation. And we're talking here of additional ad-hoc social punishments beyond the terms of the sentence that make finding a job harder.
The level of personal discipline it takes to get released and stay "good" on probation is far beyond what we expect from workers in general and almost certainly stricter than either of us requires for ourselves. The level of humility and, frankly, debasement it takes to find a willing employer with a felony conviction is if not heroic at least saintly.
“These are some of the most sincere, honest, and heroic people I’ve ever met.” Yeah, I think we’re too hard as a nation on ex-cons. But they’re not heroes because they went through self-imposed hardships (and almost always at the expense of someone innocent). And they’re certainly among the lower rungs of honesty by categorization. Nowhere near the top. If this sounds harsh, just act their victims.
It's nothing like that. The justice system is a machine that chews people up, and spits out convicts, and it operates with impunity precisely because of ignorant views like yours. Getting arrested or convicted is like winning a shit lottery, and all you need to win is to be around a cop having a bad day. Since very few people are "winners", so the knowledge of the real system is minimized, and the knowledgeable ones are marginalized and ignored because they are, after all, convicts.
People break the law and do so with impunity all day long. In fact, they get paid well to do it. Your typical family law attorney should be arrested, tried and convicted, and they've destroyed countless families, harmed countless children. But they are pillars of the community. So just because someone got punished by these corrupt people doesn't make them evil, it makes them unlucky.
(In fairness I'd estimate that 90% of arrests/convictions/plea deals are straightforward, valid and basically fair, and those convicts often are repeat offenders, low intelligence, struggling with addiction and mental health. They deserve a chance too, but it's the 10% who get swept up for breaking no law, or breaking needlessly punitive laws, that I particularly feel for. You know, the Aaron Swartz's of the world.)
Earlier quoted context omitted.
The Great Resignation is curious, if I could speculate maybe it was the pandemic bailout and markets bubble (crypto too) making people think "I've got money now!". Now that everything is tumbling down, I wonder if people will start returning to work. Except now most businesses have seemingly stopped hiring yet again (even retail/hospitality?), so I guess whichever way it goes, OP is in trouble.
how large was the "pandemic bailout"? it looked like two checks from the govt and Was this enough to make a large number of people stop working, even now into mid-2022? I really feel like the impact of several thousand dollars would be gone after a year, at most. yet many businesses near me are still under staffed and having trouble hiring.
1. Older people taking retirement early when the pandemic hit.
2. People in service/public-facing industries leaving for jobs that could be done remotely, or going back to school.
3. Several hundred thousand working age people dying from COVID.