131–140 of 422 posts
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Agreed. So many articles and discussions these days about how everyone is so lonely and isolated. The article seems to want to imply this system is kind of a bad thing, or at least weird, but I have trouble seeing anything but good things in it.
It’s awesome when you’re single, not so appealing once you start a family.
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> What is all this wealth and automation and productivity growth for, then? Why, more wealth and automation and productivity growth to no end of course.
I know all of these things sound nice. But in the real world a lot of businesses aren't making the kind of profit that allows workers to just take time off and not generate any revenue for the company. Sure there are some that could pull it off. But most small businesses aren't making that kind of profit. Unless you are assuming workers are supposed to take unpaid time off. But then how are they going to afford to ta…
It always feels that way in a small business, but then all of a sudden a key employee needs to take a three month medical leave and somehow the business survives.
You just have to plan well, and I'm sure there will be devoted employees who answer the odd emergency email during their sabbatical.
It's fascinating how the ideology of Marxism–Leninism (Communism) today is more popular than ever among young people in former capitalist heartlands like the US, Canada and UK. A simple European-style welfare state with universal healthcare is all you need to satisfy 90% of people but the elites in the US and the UK refuse to provide that.
I think Euro-socialism is what most of those kids want, whether they are aware of putting it in those terms or not. The culture wars seem to dictate that there are huge contingents of tankies among the youth, but that doesn't really seem to be the case on the ground (i.e. not on Twitter). The DSA, the biggest, by far, left-org in the US appears, at least to me, to be pushing a platform indistinguishable from a Euro m…
Happy May Day! Here's a Twitter thread [0] that has excerpts/paraphrases from an old Soviet pamphlet called "How Soviet Workers Spend Their Leisure." (rolled up version [1]) You can find a scanned version of the pamphlet here [2]. There were many of these pamphlets published. One day I will scan them and post them. There was one on Waterways & Transport in the USSR, one about Soviet theater, one about the food indust…
Did the Soviet government actually follow the Constitution of The USSR? I believe it also mentioned freedom of expression, freedom of religion and freedom of assembly, all of which seemed to be ignored.
Even within the US, we talk a big game but - have you ever felt it wise to "exercise free speech" with law enforcement?
So yeah, it's complicated.
It's fascinating how the ideology of Marxism–Leninism (Communism) today is more popular than ever among young people in former capitalist heartlands like the US, Canada and UK. A simple European-style welfare state with universal healthcare is all you need to satisfy 90% of people but the elites in the US and the UK refuse to provide that.
Its only popular as an aesthetic. On both left and right, most politically inclined people don't have the reasoning skills to talk about politics effectively, nor would the actually enjoy living under their hypothetical best system of government.
Most political discourse is used as a signal to show what kind of person you are in conversation. And generally, there is a trend of people who basically have nothing of value to demonstrate about themselves attaching their identity to politics as a way of giving their life purpose.
>simple European-style welfare state with universal healthcare
You make it sound very simple. Its not. It sure would be nice to have if you could just will it into existence, but with realistic means, the amount of issues that you would have solve for, given the people doing the solving, its not guaranteed to turn out well. Id rather see EU adopt a more competitive business strategy and immigration policies to attract money and workers so that anyone wanting to benefit from the EU policies can immigrate easier.
Growing up in USSR, my mother would take us for a summer in some mountains/vacation destination and work there as a guide. One time in Kandalaksha gulf in White Sea near Murmansk she was a wilderness guide for a few rounds of tourists from elsewhere in Soviet Union for a 8 day hiking in mountains/sailing on the White Sea trip. We had such wide range of people - from experienced outdoors people to the elderly pensione…
There is so much amazing beauty in the world, including the largest country on the planet, Russia - and then especially areas in China, which I would LOVE to visit, but the governments of each country kinda suck, so its not a place I'll likely go (imagine mtn biking through some of the amazing landscapes of either) With that said, I'd love to hear Lex Fridman's opinion on all of this.
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Huh. Is that not common vernacular where you're from?
> Huh. Is that not common vernacular where you're from? I don’t know about the parent commenter, but I am of the opinion that regardless of how common an abbreviation is, it should always be expanded, unless the circumstances prevent you from doing that. Here, in Hacker News, submissions must have a title with maximum 80 characters, but look at this: 30 characters -> Workers of the World, Take PTO 46 characters -> Wo…
[0]: https://developer.mozilla.org/en-US/docs/Web/HTML/Element/ab...
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There is so much amazing beauty in the world, including the largest country on the planet, Russia - and then especially areas in China, which I would LOVE to visit, but the governments of each country kinda suck, so its not a place I'll likely go (imagine mtn biking through some of the amazing landscapes of either) With that said, I'd love to hear Lex Fridman's opinion on all of this.
It's not difficult to visit China (except that you'll probably have to apply for a visa, but Chinese people have to do that to visit Western countries too). You won't experience much about the government while there. Police aren't really that present in public. Border control is like any other country. The only issue you're likely to run into is the Great Firewall, for which you can just install a VPN before arriving…
Sigh, that's not always easy with many of the people here with "unlimited PTO" without guaranteed minimums. Most of the unlimited clauses are based on manager approval. The base HR justification for unlimited PTO is to not have to pay out unused PTO when they leave. Naturally, it sounds good on face, but leads to less PTO taken due to inherent worries of "how much is too much", lack of manager approval, and the like.…
20 + 10 = one full calendar month (that's 6 business weeks) of work. You're asking for more than six weeks per year where you can just get paid for not working. Sure, there's plenty of holistic value-add to being a well rested, happy employee, but if the difference for your happiness and well-being is somewhere above having six weeks of paid vacation (plus assumed sick days as needed for actual sicknesses) and gettin…
Personally, I get 6 weeks + national holidays + 2 family days here in Denmark.
>It encouraged workers to vacation with groups of relative strangers as opposed to their friends and families. This can actually work out well. I experienced something similar in the US while on vacation. I was traveling with someone from Glenwood Springs, CO to Denver, CO via Amtrak. We went to the dining car for lunch an since there were two of us and space is at a premium, the Amtrak policy was to seat us with one…
My wife and I went on a cruise once when we were still dating, and it was one of the ones where they assign you a table to eat. Since we were a young couple, they assumed we were newlyweds and seated us with a bunch of other newlyweds. It was fun to hear all their stories (one was a Mormon couple who had just had a very traditional Mormon wedding for example). Then 1/2 way through the cruise they switched it up and we ended up at a table with a large family from rural Oregon, who were sad at the lack of meat on the menu. Normally at home they would sit on the back porch with rifles and shoot animals that would walk by and then eat them. Which was just a really interesting thing to learn about, given that we had always been city folk.
And on another trip we stayed at a small place in Costa Rica that offered local tours each day as a planned activity. We ended up touring with a bunch of other Americans that were staying at the same place. Connected with them on Facebook and we're all still connected to this day, occasionally commenting on each other's posts.
In fact two of them were a young couple like us who were just dating and also traveling with their parents. We both ended up having kids around the same time and have even met up with them when we were in their home town.