After the pandemic, we can’t go back to sleep (2020) • Hacker News Board

Re: After the pandemic, we can’t go back to sleep (2020)

#221

Post by vinceguidry » Fri, Oct 22, 2021, 6:32 PM UTC

iammisc wrote: post #218

vinceguidry wrote: post #214

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's... pretty laughable. A worker-owned business would get together to determine what an acceptable and transparent comp scheme would be. Instead the drivers rebel all the time against corporate's intransigent and blatantly-exploitative shenanigans. Hint: it's not because the company sees its workforce as people. If you think there's a viable way to get from here to there, well, I think I can get Bezos to sell you…

> Instead the drivers rebel all the time against corporate's intransigent and blatantly-exploitative shenanigans. Hint: it's not because the company sees its workforce as people. For what it's worth, it's not like co-ops are immune to this criticism. For example, Winco had a case a while ago where employees were claiming that they were being mistreated. In a worker co-op with sufficient numbers of members, no individ…

> I've seen worker co-ops pop up in my own town.

And I wish them everlasting health and wealth. Can we please stop pretending Uber is some kind of glorious pioneer? They pioneered an industry whose very foundation is eroding the social contract. That some people are now turning around and setting up proper collectives doesn't suddenly mean now that Uber was a good thing. It's not, it's horrible, otherwise we wouldn't have the raft of alternatives, some better than others. And all of these alternatives have to compete on the open market with Uber, who enjoys the competitive advantage of exploitative economics. Let that sink in. Worsening the social contract doesn't in any way make things better, market economics will always drive a race to the bottom until people just can't stand it anymore. This is why labor norms are enforced by laws and not by us.

> So sick of being gaslit by people who think I'm some privileged WASP kid

Please don't put words in my mouth. The logic was simple. We don't care about Uber drivers, not nearly as much as we should, because higher rates means more money paid by us. We benefit directly from the tech industry who gives us services that are cheaper not because technology makes them cheaper, but because they exploit workers harder. Every time you take an uber, you participate in this exploitative economy. If you don't take uber, bully for you, you're not participating, at least not in this particular way. If I have to take an Uber, I always tip $5 or more, that's how I deal with the quandary.

You took that and turned it into purported gaslighting. I have no idea who you are, this isn't personal. You're obviously not a leftist because you rail against standard leftist platform points. I suppose you're a libertarian then. You tell me, not that it really matters for the purposes of this discussion, that's more meta-commentary.

Re: After the pandemic, we can’t go back to sleep (2020)

#222

Post by kkjjkgjjgg » Fri, Oct 22, 2021, 6:32 PM UTC

c54 wrote: post #114

kkjjkgjjgg wrote: post #102

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What do you mean by the 40h work week as an example? Example for what? It was an idea by Ford, but I guess then the unions jumped on it? Who is forcing you to work 40h? I personally don't do that. You are free to negotiate your own contracts.

Sure! The work week and similar working legislation is a form of negotiating for one’s own contracts. It’s just that people got together and negotiated for their contracts in a group, and then wrote down that rule so that we don’t have to go on strike like they did. It’s all part of the history of people getting together to negotiate for their own contracts, worth reading about: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Histor…

People getting together to negotiate is not incompatible with capitalism. It is actually forming monopolies, which socialists usually try to make illegal.

So I am still not sure what that example is supposed to demonstrate?

Re: After the pandemic, we can’t go back to sleep (2020)

#223

Post by freeflight » Fri, Oct 22, 2021, 6:40 PM UTC

sleepysysadmin wrote: post #47

freeflight wrote: post #31

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I concur, there's nothing "communistic" about the idea of full employment, if anything it strikes me as something rather capitalistic in its nature: Full employment would mean there's an oversupply of labor, which means labor would be dirt cheap and easily replaceable. That would be the dream for anybody trying to exploit others labor for their own gains, something that's generally seen as a very capitalistic mindset…

>I concur, there's nothing "communistic" about the idea of full employment, if anything it strikes me as something rather capitalistic in its nature: Full employment would mean there's an oversupply of labor, which means labor would be dirt cheap and easily replaceable. There have been nobel prizes on labour participation rate and unemployment rates. The reality is that you have so much population, you have requireme…

> Mostly political prisoners, you can't say anything negative about the government.

Have you ever heard about the US UNICORE program [0]? In some US prisons participation in UNICORE is mandatory for parole review and sometimes even part of the course to pre-release for prisoners.

The UNICORE program consists of inmates manufacturing equipment for the US military for a pay that no free human being would ever accept for the work.

Now, imagine you are somebody who opposes the US military, who's aware of the MIC, and thus part of your political convictions is not supporting an expansionist and aggressive military.

What do you think is gonna be the outcome there? Exactly, people who will stick to their political convictions will be denied a way to be released early, and sometimes even released at all. Something that has been going on for literally decades, yet US Americans will gladly regurgitate the claim how "There are no political prisoners in the US!". [1]

> You only get about 1lb of meat a month. Literally I will eat 1 month's of food in a single meal.

That's not something to brag about, particularly when looking at what lengths US producers go to get the "meat" even cheaper, involving such tasty sounding additives like "pink slime", which is just rotten meat freshened up with ammonia or feeding the livestock questionable additives like Ractopamine.

None of that is good or a reason to brag about, particularly as the US beef sector is heavily subsidized by the US government, so it's not even a good example for a "free market" [2].

> Why does communism(or whatever name) always seem to come with full employment and government slaves in gulags?

It doesn't [3], but when you decide to label anything "communism" you don't like, while then projecting problems the US has on those places, it's no surprise that you end up seeing "communism" everywhere.

While ignoring realities that don't fit into your definition. Case in point: The country with the most and biggest gulags, some of them even privately owned and operated, locking up people at higher rates than any other place, is not Japan, Cuba or Greece, it's still the United States of America [4].

[0] https://www.bop.gov/inmates/custody_and_care/unicor_about.js...

[1] https://digitalcommons.law.yale.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?arti...

[2] https://plantbasednews.org/lifestyle/animal-food-industry-ta...

[3] https://www.theguardian.com/world/2013/oct/20/marinaleda-spa...

[4] https://eji.org/news/united-states-still-has-highest-incarce...

Re: After the pandemic, we can’t go back to sleep (2020)

#224

Post by mdp2021 » Fri, Oct 22, 2021, 6:51 PM UTC

moistly wrote: post #201

mdp2021 wrote: post #191

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Upvote and downvote do not work that way at HN and should not be interpreted that way without analysis. Here it is not about how you feel: it is about whether you make sense. Experience mostly reflects the principle (some noise must be expected).

Your claim is fallacious. It is not rooted in any formal study of HN voters or voting outcomes. It is just a story HN members tell themselves to feel special. Reality is, HN is like every other social media platform, and feelings deeply influence voting around here. IMO it is obvious.

There is little need for formal studies. HN is very surely different from «other social media platform[s]»: you must have never been on Reddit or YT, to provide examples of diametrically opposite places. A quick look at information density and "where the uttering came from" (say, above the neck, below the hips or other guts) should clearly show a massive, radical difference. That feelings influence voting, in terms of "hear, hear" or "thank you", is not undesirable: it is still agreement on reasoning. Expression of disagreement through downvoting is limited already through a technical limitation, which also contributes to indicate the form. Some foolish snipers (hitting without leaving any justification) are around: bad apples are not curbed, also because it apparently is not a mission for HN to create an optimal system of moderation and debate.

In fact, there are several shortcomings to adopt HN as a model for moderation and debate - it was evidently not the objective. But civilization wise, there is no comparison with many other places.

By the way:

> a story HN members tell themselves to feel special

Please. Accusing others to have unclean grounds in their evaluations, gratuitously? And, when one is "special", it is not out of some free membership that confirmation comes.

Re: After the pandemic, we can’t go back to sleep (2020)

#225

Post by wefarrell » Fri, Oct 22, 2021, 6:54 PM UTC

commandlinefan wrote: post #101

wefarrell wrote: post #78

Earlier quoted context omitted.

At the very least we need Federally mandated sick days. My mother caught COVID at the beginning of March of 2020 from a coworker who knew her husband had it but continued to come into work out of fear of losing her job. It's crazy that it would happen again during the next pandemic. Meanwhile 20 years after 9/11 we're still taking off our shoes to get on airplanes.

> out of fear of losing her job Wait, are you saying she was actually threatened with being fired if she didn't come in sick or that she just thought that she might be? If the latter, no federal mandate would change that - I get sick days, but I feel weird taking them, like I'm getting a black mark on my employment record that will come back to haunt me later. No law can change that, that's just how our society (curr…

A law would dissuade corporate cultures that punish workers for taking sick days. It would pave the way for class action lawsuits against companies where this type of thing is a pattern.

Re: After the pandemic, we can’t go back to sleep (2020)

#226

Post by freeflight » Fri, Oct 22, 2021, 6:56 PM UTC

t-3 wrote: post #103

freeflight wrote: post #29

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> ok, then what of the cryptocurrency drug markets? those were created by govt? Indirectly yes, right now one of their biggest selling points is not being in the legal realm of government regulated markets. If the government were to legalize drugs/endorse crypto that dynamic would heavily change, the black variants of these markets would lose quite a big part of their appeal and thus the demand for them and ultimatel…

> There has to be some form of authority enforcing rules, or else you end up with a very anarchistic form of "market" where everything goes. That "everything" ranges from mundanities, like making a "business model" out of cheating people, to selling people like property because when there's a buyer, who has the right the stop me from selling? Your anarchy already exists, and they fight with lawyers to decide the winn…

> Your anarchy already exists

I never disputed that, but there's a difference between embracing it as a "true market" vs setting the kinds of limits that governments can set and enforce.

Because contrary to your claim;

> Government enables this kind of trickery.

There is no "trickery" going on and equating the modern day state of things, with let's for example 200 years ago, it's very easy to show how things have gotten all around better.

Selling people used to be a very wide-spread, and even government endorsed, practice. Now it's generally considered very bad thing to do and criminalized by most nations.

Sure, that does not mean it completely stopped, but claiming it only exists because governments regulate it, is just backwards logic that makes no sense: The practice of slavery was there first, it's regulation and ultimately criminalization were acts of regulation that could never have happened without some form of authority enforcing them.

Re: After the pandemic, we can’t go back to sleep (2020)

#227

Post by dragonelite » Fri, Oct 22, 2021, 7:11 PM UTC

throw0101a wrote: post #36

dragonelite wrote: post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It has definitely changed my view on what money is and how it came to be. And how political money really is, like a king can say from now one 1 gold coin equals 11 silver coins etc. Another one is the book "And forgive them their debts" by Michael Hudson talking about ancient debt jubilee in the middle east. If i'm not mistaken one of the sources for debt: the first 5000 years book.

> It has definitely changed my view on what money is and how it came to be. You may be interested in Money: The True Story of a Made-Up Thing by Jacob Goldstein (of NPR's Planet Money ). * https://bookshop.org/books/money-the-true-story-of-a-made-up...

Thanks for the tip I will put it on my ever growing reading list.

Re: After the pandemic, we can’t go back to sleep (2020)

#228

Post by moistly » Fri, Oct 22, 2021, 7:37 PM UTC

mdp2021 wrote: post #224

moistly wrote: post #201

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Your claim is fallacious. It is not rooted in any formal study of HN voters or voting outcomes. It is just a story HN members tell themselves to feel special. Reality is, HN is like every other social media platform, and feelings deeply influence voting around here. IMO it is obvious.

There is little need for formal studies. HN is very surely different from «other social media platform[s]»: you must have never been on Reddit or YT, to provide examples of diametrically opposite places. A quick look at information density and "where the uttering came from" (say, above the neck, below the hips or other guts) should clearly show a massive, radical difference. That feelings influence voting, in terms o…

Whatever you gotta tell yourself, I guess. Feel special!

Re: After the pandemic, we can’t go back to sleep (2020)

#229

Post by mdp2021 » Fri, Oct 22, 2021, 7:46 PM UTC

moistly wrote: post #228

mdp2021 wrote: post #224

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There is little need for formal studies. HN is very surely different from «other social media platform[s]»: you must have never been on Reddit or YT, to provide examples of diametrically opposite places. A quick look at information density and "where the uttering came from" (say, above the neck, below the hips or other guts) should clearly show a massive, radical difference. That feelings influence voting, in terms o…

Whatever you gotta tell yourself, I guess. Feel special!

Our individual CVs, skills and perks are none of your business. In fact, back to the point, HN is very surely different from other places because this comment of yours has no whatsoever place here. That you afford to utter it confirms your misunderstanding of the place: you must have not read the guidelines properly, nor have verified them vis-a-vis the actual threads.

Re: After the pandemic, we can’t go back to sleep (2020)

#230

Post by mdp2021 » Fri, Oct 22, 2021, 7:59 PM UTC

dang wrote: post #215

glogla wrote: post #163

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Based on what gets up and downvoted, most of people on HN are ancap or fascists. I guess it makes sense - startups are gold rush, VC's are the ones giving away shovels for portion of gold should there be any, and founders are people who either found gold or believe they will. I wonder if most of people have political outlook like this. If they do, it is both sad and comforting, because then the humanity is doomed to…

> most of people on HN are ancap or fascists This sort of generalization is notoriously unreliable and subject to cognitive bias. People are far more likely to notice what they dislike, and to weight it more heavily. This produces false feelings of generality: https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=true&que... https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=true&que... That's why users with opposing…

Since we are here, Daniel, and also with reference to something I wrote nearby: I think the guidelines should be augmented, in terms of "downvoting without justification should be frowned upon". Otherwise, some would be tempted to just downvote something because they "feel differently": posts are not polls ("how many like strawberry, how many dislike it"). In general, downvoting should be accompanied by posting the underlying reasons - it should take posts evidently inconsistent with the purpose (cheap cheer, cheap joke etc.) to be exceptionally downvoted silently.

I understand HN is pretty conservative in terms of structure and rules, but I believe this should be a general norm that would be consistent with the spirit of the site (intellectuality and promotion of meaningful posts), and beneficial if made explicit.