Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

WeWork Will No Longer Let Employees Expense Any Kind of Meat

time.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

231–240 of 319 posts

Re: WeWork Will No Longer Let Employees Expense Any Kind of Meat

#231

Post by null000 »

munificent wrote: post #184
downandout wrote: post #180

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Serving food that doesn't happen to contain meat isn't forcing you to be vegetarian Sure it is. There will be situations where employees have no choice but to eat company-sponsored food. Mandatory working lunches, dinner with potential clients (I’d love for them to take me to dinner as a potential client/partner and tell me I can’t order a steak...), etc. In those situations, they are indeed “forcing you to be a vege…

That's a real stretch. If the company refused to pay for an escort, they aren't forcing me to be celibate. They aren't affecting my identity they are just choosing not to pay for a certain act .

That's just a completely disingenuous comparison. It's pretty normal for companies to pay for work-related food, just as it's pretty normal for you to pay for food you eat on your own time.

It's pretty not-normal for companies to pay for escorts, just like it's pretty not-normal for you to pay for escorts on your own time. Some people pay for escorts, but it's pretty well outside social norms, and I can't imagine a business situation requiring an escort anyway.

Re: WeWork Will No Longer Let Employees Expense Any Kind of Meat

#232

Post by shadunkle »

user5994461 wrote: post #66

It's obvious they are trying to save money, with the weirdest excuse they could find. Meat is the most expensive part of any meal.

Considering the magnitude of PR this has and will generate, any PR affects, whether positive or negative, will drastically dwarf any cost savings. If they are doing this out of purely self-interest, PR would be the primary concern, not cost.

Re: WeWork Will No Longer Let Employees Expense Any Kind of Meat

#234

Post by davidivadavid »

meowface wrote: post #187
prepend wrote: post #27

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What’s a good way for me to bet you $1000 that you’re wrong? This statement seems so interesting. What’s the basis for this thought process? Isn’t the trend for meat consumption to increase with wealth so as the world develops, more meat will be consumed. [0] [0] https://ourworldindata.org/meat-and-seafood-production-consu...

I'd be happy to take out a $100 bet, but I would probably want to lean towards the 100 year end of the prediction, and it's unlikely both of us will be alive in 100 years. >Isn’t the trend for meat consumption to increase with wealth so as the world develops, more meat will be consumed. Note I said "American companies", not companies around the world. I don't think my prediction will hold when applied to the entire w…

I eat meat and love it, but I don't think that's an unlikely scenario.

Re: WeWork Will No Longer Let Employees Expense Any Kind of Meat

#235

Post by curo »

downandout wrote: post #186
curo wrote: post #183

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Alright, you call false equivalence, I call petty fogging if you need your analogies to be perfect. So to make it a proper example: what if your employer had a job benefit to reimburse gas & electric car expenses to visit clients, and then later decided to stop reimbursing gas. Also, considering WeWork is taking this stance, if a WeWork boss takes you to a restaurant whose only vegetarian option is a garden salad, th…

Again, false equivalence. I’m not being forced to use either form of energy. However, as an employee at WeWork, there are situations where I would be forced to eat WeWork-sponsored meals, to which this policy applies. Edit: Since my comment no longer makes sense because you completely changed yours long after I replied to it (not a cool thing to do), I think your electric/gas car analogy would be extremely problemati…

I mentioned in my edit the reply button disappeared. I could have appended the edit instead of changing it inline. No ill will, just trying to refine my analogy as you kept insisting false equivalence (ultimately analogies aren't equivalent).

Re: WeWork Will No Longer Let Employees Expense Any Kind of Meat

#236

Post by null000 »

watwut wrote: post #124
prepend wrote: post #9

It’s nice that companies are releasing these types of policies publicly so peopl can choose whether to work there. It’s sometimes hard to get a good bead in company culture due to reporting bias of people there or who left. Stuff like this will help companies and workers find each other. I worked for a company for a while before I learned their expense policy was really frustrating. $40 max expenses and their headqua…

You expect the company to pay for your drinks? That sounds ridiculous to me and I am no abstinent.

It's pretty normal when traveling on business or especially going out as a team or a meal with clients. I've yet to have a job as a software engineer that hasn't, although there's usually an implicit or explicit cap.

Re: WeWork Will No Longer Let Employees Expense Any Kind of Meat

#237

Post by natrik »

ravitation wrote: post #220
curo wrote: post #169

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It never started. The employee's wages can be used however they please.

Why are other forms of compensation (e.g. covering business expenses, or insurance) not equivalent to wages? That is his point.

What if you don't consider it as compensation, but as an expense.

ie. Working for X company will net me $150k in wages, however I will have to pay for my own meat meals, insurance, etc. I probably won't work here. Even though the company pays for only economy class flights and requires me to take one every 3 months.

Re: WeWork Will No Longer Let Employees Expense Any Kind of Meat

#238

Post by tombert »

perl4ever wrote: post #208
tombert wrote: post #55

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't know that I fully agree with the parent's logic (despite the fact that I actually am a vegetarian), but I think the rationale to his argument is that humans are able to survive without meat (unlike cats, lions, or tigers), and we also have the ability to realize that we are able to avoid meat. Cats, bears, and tigers really don't have the mental faculties to know good or bad, or right and wrong, but we do (at…

Non vegetarians everywhere demonstrably don't have the ability or "mental faculties" to see that eating meat is wrong, any more than lions and tigers and bears do. It's like someone saying everyone has the ability to accept God or Jesus. No, we don't. And it's a touchy subject, because zealots tend to next infer that someone isn't fully human if they don't share fundamental beliefs or axioms.

Again, not saying that I fully agree, I'm just trying to explain the perspective.

Re: WeWork Will No Longer Let Employees Expense Any Kind of Meat

#239

Post by shadunkle »

qubax wrote: post #226

If this is what a founder of WeWork is focusing on, I can't wait til they IPO so I can short it. I doubt this company survives the next recession. As for livestock vs vegetation being better or worse for the environment, it isn't a contest. Farming is many times worse for the environment than raising animals. Has any of these useless journalists, CEOs and crazy vegans ever stepped on a farm? Do they understand what i…

Currently the number one cause of Amazon rainforest loss is cattle ranching.

Animal agriculture is worse for the environment than plant agriculture. There are numerous studies to support this, here's one, [1].

It is true that animal products at times use land that cannot be well utilized for most plants. But many studies, such as [2], show that this land is unnecessary to feed the world. A vegan diet uses the least amount of land, and excess land can either be utilized for other purposes or returned to nature. Of course there are certain parts of the world which have different capacities to grow different foods, so what I have written is true as a general rule it is not true of literally every location.

It is also true that a vegan diet does kill animals. Though, it kills the fewest animals, even considering field mice and insects killed in the farming process. See [3].

[1] Livestock's Long Shadow - http://www.fao.org/docrep/010/a0701e/a0701e00.HTM

[2] Carrying capacity of U.S. agricultural land: Ten diet scenarios - https://www.elementascience.org/articles/10.12952/journal.el...

[3] Number of Animals Killed to Produce One Million Calories in Eight Food Categories - http://www.animalvisuals.org/projects/data/1mc/

Re: WeWork Will No Longer Let Employees Expense Any Kind of Meat

#240

Post by teaneedz »

qubax wrote: post #226

If this is what a founder of WeWork is focusing on, I can't wait til they IPO so I can short it. I doubt this company survives the next recession. As for livestock vs vegetation being better or worse for the environment, it isn't a contest. Farming is many times worse for the environment than raising animals. Has any of these useless journalists, CEOs and crazy vegans ever stepped on a farm? Do they understand what i…

Your rant is missing lots of facts my friend.

Most vegans by definition are ethically against the abuse of today's scaled animal agriculture farming techniques. This isn't a perfect world, but most people are either unaware or choose to be disconnected from how farm animals are regularly abused. All lives matter, but come on, let's not discredit the routine torture taking place on such animals.

It's not sustainable and is ethically wrong to most people who come face to face with it.

Defending animal agriculture is outdated and simply on the wrong side of history. Any online search can pull up why more people are looking into vegetarianism and why demand is increasing for vegan options.

Anyone can try and defend scaled animal agriculture, but the world is moving speedily beyond that.

Post reply on HN