111–120 of 231 posts
[flagged]
It's a requirement to reach the levels they have reached. Someone with empathy would get enough money to take care of their family (maybe even for multiple generations) and then be satisfied and focus on reducing the suffering of others instead of running up the score on net worth
Earlier quoted context omitted.
>think some good evidence for this is that Ken Olsen, by most accounts, was a saint and he owned DEC You're right that the money itself does not cause it but what mattered with people like Olsen was that he had a Scandinavian background and was born in the 1920s. 'Saint' is a telling description because people like him came out of a, not necessarily explicit but still functioning culturally Christian environment with…
if the US of all places isn't a culturally christian environment I don't know what is
Earlier quoted context omitted.
We almost certainly have opposing ideological views, but something I said a lot during this era (that I'm happy to see you hinting at) was that if you come into office as a progressive prosecutor without any plan to deal with the people in your office or in law enforcement who aren't on board, then that's really the more immediate failure. You can't just say, "I would have been successful if not for my detractors," b…
I mean, you have basically no control over law enforcement if they decide to arbitrarily slow down arrests or protest your leadership. This has been one of the more consistent issues in American politics and you can see it when the police union doesn't get their way they have a huge tantrum and make things worse for everyone involved. This isn't really a statement on Boudin did or did not do since I don't have that k…
Earlier quoted context omitted.
>> in order to make it to a billion dollars you need to consistently exploit people and absolutely refuse to use your power to help others in any significant way. I would categorically disagree with your statement. Jeff Bezos Elon Musk Bill Gates Mark Zuckerberg All billionaires. All have created one (or multiple in Musk's case) products that have greatly benefitted society in numerous ways. The Gates Foundation has…
That reply is utterly baffling. We can set aside Bezos and Musk, but the exploitative actions of Zuckerberg and especially Gates are extremely well documented.
The Chesa Boudin DA "misrepresentations" document, linked towards the end of this story, is weak, bordering on Trumpian. It highlights as "misrepresentations" cases where Boudin simply disagrees with Lim about a statement of opinion (whether his office was suitable forthcoming, organized, or deflecting). At one point it accuses Lim of "violating HIPAA", which is not a thing† (HIPAA constrains covered entities, not re…
Huh, I went through a similar journey in New York, starting as an advocate of criminal-justice reform and then getting fed up with the incompetence.
And while I wouldn't say ideological inflexibility is ideology per se, one of the contributors to ineffectiveness I saw in New York was a simultaneous inability to tolerate competent people with even slightly-divergent viewpoints (and there were a lot of red lines–I don't know what multidimensional beast could thread them), or, alternatively, an inability to fire or beach clearly-incompetent people because they were part of a priority community. (Read "community" broadly. It might be an identity. It was more often whatever union or local progressive club the person cropped up through.)
Earlier quoted context omitted.
That's a pretty depressing worldview. Children playing in the park aren't being political. It's possible to just exist sometimes.
>Children playing in the park aren't being political I can assure you they absolutely are. Of course there isn't a well defined elected government here, but 'social politics' between children are absolutely occurring. Things like looks, material goods, clothes, ability to take care of themselves, etc all affect how they interact with each other and who is popular and gets to take the lead/be bullies/etc. HN posters c…
What children? What park? The presence of a park pre-supposes a political society that has prioritized parks, the budget to enact those priorities, and the space to do so. Any one of those can spiral into its own political microcosm.
How is that park maintained? Is there a special kids area of the park? Is it "for kids" or is it "The kids area", implying that kids aren't allowed in the rest of the park? Are the children not allowed in the park after a certain time - and who decides that time, and why? Sometimes the park is used for town events, but can get rented out. Who decides that?
Complexity is inherent, from the atoms to the galaxies. Any rejection of that is just plugging your ears, willfully or not.
[flagged]
Way too broad a brush to paint with. If we want to retain any sort of liberal democracy we need to stop with the rhetoric that "if you're not as far in X direction as I am, you must be on the other side". Its destroying the democratic party.
I'm a staunch democrat, and this is just sad to see. Progressive and centrist should both be able to coexist. We should be able to call out ineffective policies within our own movement without being called far right radicals.
The Chesa Boudin DA "misrepresentations" document, linked towards the end of this story, is weak, bordering on Trumpian. It highlights as "misrepresentations" cases where Boudin simply disagrees with Lim about a statement of opinion (whether his office was suitable forthcoming, organized, or deflecting). At one point it accuses Lim of "violating HIPAA", which is not a thing† (HIPAA constrains covered entities, not re…
> I've watched outsider-y progressives get elected into prosecutor roles and then fail their constituencies Political achievement via moral/ethical/legal means does not work. We expect a single person with extremely limited power to assume a relatively minor position in government, then somehow defeat incredibly wealthy organized opponents, in addition to solving complex logistical and social issues, and to do all th…
No, we expect them to do like one thing right without bungling the basics. The track record of the pre-pandemic era wave of progressive prosecutors was some combination of doing absolutely jack shit in the first category and/or being asked for table stakes on the latter and swallowing their chips.
I've come to be convinced that having a huge amount of money causes some kind of mental breakage, a need to control other people that is unhealthy for everyone it touches. I don't mind everyone having or expressing an opinion, even opinions I disagree with, but when someone uses their disproportionate wealth and influence to spread misinformation and disrupt and dismantle democratic systems it crosses a line. It take…
Earlier quoted context omitted.
>> in order to make it to a billion dollars you need to consistently exploit people and absolutely refuse to use your power to help others in any significant way. I would categorically disagree with your statement. Jeff Bezos Elon Musk Bill Gates Mark Zuckerberg All billionaires. All have created one (or multiple in Musk's case) products that have greatly benefitted society in numerous ways. The Gates Foundation has…
That reply is utterly baffling. We can set aside Bezos and Musk, but the exploitative actions of Zuckerberg and especially Gates are extremely well documented.