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Tech Workers Backing Candidates Looking to Break Up Their Employers

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Re: Tech Workers Backing Candidates Looking to Break Up Their Employers

#191

Post by buboard »

bobbytherobot wrote: post #121

A decade of working in Bay Area tech meant watching kids of rich parents get rich off dubious business plans by creating a startup in San Francisco while their parents buy them a house, pay their expenses and tap into their networks for seed funding all the while the company loses money for over a decade while they become millionaires from selling shares during rounds of fundraising. Then I go for the big guy where t…

> build useful software for people and live a nice life.

You left us hanging. How will you do this?

Re: Tech Workers Backing Candidates Looking to Break Up Their Employers

#192

Post by perl4ever »

esotericn wrote: post #31

This is only surprising if you subscribe strictly to Sinclair's quote: "It is difficult to get a man to understand something, when his salary depends on his not understanding it." In reality, many many people work at jobs that they don't believe in. I personally haven't been able to hack it - I'm too stubborn to keep my mouth shut at appropriate times. But ultimately, people can and will vote against "their own self…

I think that's missing the point that should be obvious that people, including you, are simply misidentifying "self-interest" as if a person was an abstraction of an employee.

Every person has many interests. You have an interest in a salary, but you can still get a different job if necessary. You have an interest in staying out of prison that probably overrides doing what your boss says. You have an interest in your retirement savings, but you also have an interest in clean water. Nobody wants a company to poison the river in their town just to get 0.1% more of a dividend. Often people claim that others behave in this way, but it's absurd.

The peculiar mental state people seem to be in when talking politics is that they think they have an identity as a member of a class, rather than a human being that belongs to many classes at the same time.

I guess people talk about intersectionality, but I think that is a way to compartmentalize being human as a special thing special people do on special occasions.

Re: Tech Workers Backing Candidates Looking to Break Up Their Employers

#193

Post by kingbirdy »

alfalfasprout wrote: post #168

One thing I've definitely noticed is the culture of fear in tech about not appearing "progressive enough". Given that tech workers, especially in the bay area tend to come from fairly privileged backgrounds with relative financial stability and also live in safer areas they tend to underestimate the importance of reducing crime and maintaining a strong economy. This definitely provides a "psychological safety net" th…

Why do you think trust-busting precludes reducing crime and maintaining a strong economy?

Re: Tech Workers Backing Candidates Looking to Break Up Their Employers

#194

Post by buboard »

vidarh wrote: post #41
sedeki wrote: post #2

Can someone explain why SV tech workers are more left-wing to me as an outsider? I always thought these tech workers were more libertarian.

Libertarianism started on the far left - The "original libertarian", the anarcho-communist Joseph Dejacque, attacked Proudhon, the "original anarchist" for being a "moderate anarchist, liberal, but not libertarian" for his regressive views on women. Right-libertarianism was an attempt to unite the libertarian parts of the left with socially liberal elements on the right against authoritarian ideologies; their main di…

the term "Libertarianism" was leftist in the 19th century. Nowadays it refers to laisez-faire capitalism and the austrian school. Get on with the times people

Re: Tech Workers Backing Candidates Looking to Break Up Their Employers

#195

Post by perl4ever »

esotericn wrote: post #102
xen2xen1 wrote: post #79

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The quote is highly contingent on one thing, that a man's salary is hard to replace. For most of humanity, it is. I'd wager if you work at a FANNG company you don't view it that way. Hard to get quite as much, maybe, but getting some making $250k to move to $200k a year is much, much different than someone moving from $45 a year to $30k a year, or $25k a year.

I don't think you can generalize that much. Personally none of that stuff mattered once I earned more than like, twice minimum wage. Nowhere near $200K. Maybe that's a US thing, since you guys have so much tied up in work (health insurance etc). I just think about having enough money to get by and help people around me, employment fits around that, not the other way around. Sure, people who are actually earning biscu…

"Sure, people who are actually earning biscuits as a wage are basically slaves"

That is really an odd thing to say, even if people say it constantly as though it were obvious. What do you think the turnover is at minimum wage jobs? When you last went looking for one, how many different employers did you apply for? How far did you have to go to fill out applications for a bunch?

Re: Tech Workers Backing Candidates Looking to Break Up Their Employers

#196

Post by option »

zepto wrote: post #182
fmajid wrote: post #160

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Structural separation: you can't run a search engine and at the same time services that are the subject of it. For Amazon, you can't run the marketplace and at the same time sell own-brand (AmazonBasics) products. For Apple you can't run the app store and also sell apps. It's in Warren's program, although of course the devil is in the details. Lina Khan is the thought leader on these issues (I am sure there are other…

This is a completely destructive plan that will enable international competitors who aren’t subject to it to simply take the tech industry away from the US.

A lot of people just don’t get it. The US is the most powerful country in the word because of its technology and economy. Losing that will pretty much mean that others (likely non-democracies) will rule the world

Re: Tech Workers Backing Candidates Looking to Break Up Their Employers

#197

Post by zepto »

g00gler wrote: post #169
option wrote: post #157

Earlier quoted context omitted.

you do understand that ad network pays for search engine, right? And operating systems isn’t exactly a profit generator either...

You can also say the search engine and operating system drive the ad network. Google the search engine could charge an ad network a lot for the right to show sponsored results and provide analytics. Android/Chrome could charge a lot for user data, analytics, have their own mobile ad network and app store. Android could also start charging a licensing fee to vendors Etc etc

How does any of this help anyone?

It seems like it just creates a lot of inefficiency.

Re: Tech Workers Backing Candidates Looking to Break Up Their Employers

#198

Post by perl4ever »

alfalfasprout wrote: post #168

One thing I've definitely noticed is the culture of fear in tech about not appearing "progressive enough". Given that tech workers, especially in the bay area tend to come from fairly privileged backgrounds with relative financial stability and also live in safer areas they tend to underestimate the importance of reducing crime and maintaining a strong economy. This definitely provides a "psychological safety net" th…

Your stereotype seems directly opposite to the one of tech workers being right-leaning libertarians. If people opposite to you on the political spectrum hate them for opposite reasons, maybe people just envy the money and influence they have and everything else is an excuse.

Re: Tech Workers Backing Candidates Looking to Break Up Their Employers

#199

Post by cannaceo »

zepto wrote: post #182
fmajid wrote: post #160

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Structural separation: you can't run a search engine and at the same time services that are the subject of it. For Amazon, you can't run the marketplace and at the same time sell own-brand (AmazonBasics) products. For Apple you can't run the app store and also sell apps. It's in Warren's program, although of course the devil is in the details. Lina Khan is the thought leader on these issues (I am sure there are other…

This is a completely destructive plan that will enable international competitors who aren’t subject to it to simply take the tech industry away from the US.

It's pure insanity. In many parts of the world there is no divide between government and business. That's what these companies are competing against.

Re: Tech Workers Backing Candidates Looking to Break Up Their Employers

#200

Post by zepto »

option wrote: post #196
zepto wrote: post #182

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is a completely destructive plan that will enable international competitors who aren’t subject to it to simply take the tech industry away from the US.

A lot of people just don’t get it. The US is the most powerful country in the word because of its technology and economy. Losing that will pretty much mean that others (likely non-democracies) will rule the world

100% agreed - it’s completely bizarre that people don’t see this.
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