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Is my advice too mercenary?

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Re: Is my advice too mercenary?

#381

Post by rglullis »

kbenson wrote: post #374
rglullis wrote: post #372

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Correction, a time when companies didn't have an easy and clear path to global output. No, you don't get to change what I said to fit your worldview. The 70's and the 80's had tons of multinational companies that didn't treat their employees like cattle, and that treated each of their branches as its community. > We just view the past with rose-tinted glasses (...) If you want actual evidence of wrongdoing, it's tr…

> No, you don't get to change what I said to fit your worldview. The 70's and the 80's had tons of multinational companies that didn't treat their employees like cattle, and that treated each of their branches as its community. And were those companies acting as stewards of small communities, taking some of the role of local governments? If not I'm not sure how it applies. > It's curious why your cynicism doesn't cut…

> I will lay out my argument very clearly

I think I got it, but it still seems that you were talking past the point from OP.

You are trying to make some statement about how individuals have more power with functional democratic institutions vs the despotic-like nature of the "town company".

What OP seems to be getting at is the point how communities before had higher levels of inner trust, and how this relates with TFA.

In a time where things were not globalized and people actually knew and interact with their neighbors (instead of getting stuck on Hacker News talking with people on the different side of the planet), the idea of the "town company" as the institution that coordinated the society vs "the government" didn't matter so much, as long as there was some sense of community and high-trust.

It was this local community with insular trust that we lost with globalization, and this why it makes no sense to talk about "company loyalty" anymore.

Re: Is my advice too mercenary?

#382

Post by aperson_hello »

lovich wrote: post #377
kbenson wrote: post #376

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I read the comment you're replying to as saying it didn't actually destroy anything, it's just easy to infer that from what's visible in records (e.g. statistics). "Didn't actually destroy anything in practice" pretty clearly puts it as against the idea that it destroyed anything though, to my eyes.

That may be what they meant, but my interpretation of their full statement(including the part about the formalization of that unit) was that they didn’t have any family structure to begin with. The poster may have had a nuanced reason for saying that, but given the dog whistle and lack of any nuance actually stated by them, I don’t see a reason to assume as such

Not quite sure what the "dog whistle" was that you're referring to...please explain that!

The statistics show significantly lower marriage rates among black families (moreso correlated to poor families, in which black folks over-represent). The thing not shown in the statistics is the number of families where parents are together, but unmarried (and oftentimes reporting different addresses) because they get SIGNIFICANTLY more benefits that way. So...the family unit is there, but just not formalized. And people are just responding to the incentives in front of them.

Re: Is my advice too mercenary?

#383

Post by nebula8804 »

lotsofpulp wrote: post #365
LordDragonfang wrote: post #354

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Correct, that was what I was alluding to. There's lots of good reasons to move to such a system, and no good reasons to keep our current system. >Seeing as how that is not politically possibly Basically every other liberal democracy has taxpayer funded healthcare, and even many US states have successful programs. It's extraordinarily silly to call that impossible, or to call what we have now a "compromise" rather tha…

There literally was a compromise in 2009 during the passage of ACA that nixed the “public option” (taxpayer funded) healthcare in order to win the votes of necessary Senators to pass the bill. https://www.commonwealthfund.org/publications/newsletter-art... Seeing as how Republicans have zero interest in taxpayer funded healthcare, and they have held enough Senate seats to stymie any Democrat led effort for the past 2…

Seems like Texas will go blue as the population changes. They almost elected one in 2018. They may also flip North Carolina and Pennsylvania to permanent blue as well.

Re: Is my advice too mercenary?

#384

Post by kbenson »

darkerside wrote: post #379
kbenson wrote: post #366

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> The obvious difference is that the employees are free to change jobs at any time. Yes, they may need to move if there are literally no other jobs in town, but that's not an option serfs had in a fiefdom. You misunderstand my point, and possibly the discussion. If the company is large enough to be a majority employer in the area and much of the social works of the area are provided by the company, then regardless of…

> You misunderstand my point, and possibly the discussion. I'm not sure what that adds to your post besides to antagonize. I'd respectfully suggest rethinking that as an opener on future comments. I don't disagree with most of your post, and I don't think you seem to disagree with mine, preface aside. Yes, it's still difficult, but I think there is a world of difference between being under physical duress versus bein…

> I'm not sure what that adds to your post besides to antagonize. I'd respectfully suggest rethinking that as an opener on future comments.

Then you interpreted my statement as more harsh than I intended, and I'll own up to my side of that, so I apologize. I don't necessarily take it as an insult for someone to say I misunderstood their point (if my statement to them comes across as a non-sequitur, I expect something like that), not that I've misunderstood some of the conversation. Sometimes comments are building on the context of a few prior comments in the chain, and seeing just the last two or three gives a distorted view of the context in which the current argument is being made. I'm not saying that happened here, but it is a reason I generally don't consider that statement to be very aggressive, but honestly it depends on the state of mind of the person hearing it.

> I don't disagree with most of your post, and I don't think you seem to disagree with mine, preface aside. Yes, it's still difficult, but I think there is a world of difference between being under physical duress versus being very inconvenienced.

My point was about control. No simile is going to be perfect. There will obviously be differences to being a fief than being a citizen in a democracy where the local company controls a lot of the resources and services.

That said, perhaps fiefdom wasn't what I was going for. Perhaps a Duchy is more appropriate? I admit to not being confident enough in the structures to know whether colloquially one implies more specific behavior than the other which might confuse the point (whether or not that implication is accurate).

> Keeping the analogy, it's very inconvenient to change even a normal job, and we are held hostage with things like healthcare. That's fief like too. Scale matters.

Yes. And I think adding power to this structure to reinforce those problems rather than a structure you have more control over which might alleviate them is the rational choice. I'm honestly surprised and confused that so many people are against that in this discussion.

Re: Is my advice too mercenary?

#385

Post by kbenson »

rglullis wrote: post #381
kbenson wrote: post #374

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> No, you don't get to change what I said to fit your worldview. The 70's and the 80's had tons of multinational companies that didn't treat their employees like cattle, and that treated each of their branches as its community. And were those companies acting as stewards of small communities, taking some of the role of local governments? If not I'm not sure how it applies. > It's curious why your cynicism doesn't cut…

> I will lay out my argument very clearly I think I got it, but it still seems that you were talking past the point from OP. You are trying to make some statement about how individuals have more power with functional democratic institutions vs the despotic-like nature of the "town company". What OP seems to be getting at is the point how communities before had higher levels of inner trust, and how this relates with T…

My whole point rests on the assertion that things are not static. Explicitly stated as companies changing from benevolent to less so, or politicians going from working for the people to against them. Implicitly, I expected this to be applied to other things as well, and I think it should be applied to things such as inner trust in communities.

You cannot expect the current conditions to persist indefinitely. Ceding what power you have to control parts of that, or even just to control tools which themselves affect that (such as politicians), just because right now things are good and you trust your community and the companies in it is a losing strategy.

Even back in the past when people had much more trust that a company would not treat them badly, any actions to make that the status quo (by weakening methods which those people had active input and ways to influence) was a bad choice, but possibly a less understood one.

Additionally, my response to rmason was meant less as a rebuttal, and more as an aside to do with the entire concept that relying on a company was ever a good idea, regardless of whether it often turned out okay for people during a certain time period. Not all replies are counters directly to what was stated, even if we are sometimes primed to view them that way. I didn't view myself as rebutting someone when I wrote that, but instead exploring the idea of why relying on a company was always a bad idea.

Re: Is my advice too mercenary?

#386

Post by lovich »

aperson_hello wrote: post #382
lovich wrote: post #377

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That may be what they meant, but my interpretation of their full statement(including the part about the formalization of that unit) was that they didn’t have any family structure to begin with. The poster may have had a nuanced reason for saying that, but given the dog whistle and lack of any nuance actually stated by them, I don’t see a reason to assume as such

Not quite sure what the "dog whistle" was that you're referring to...please explain that! The statistics show significantly lower marriage rates among black families (moreso correlated to poor families, in which black folks over-represent). The thing not shown in the statistics is the number of families where parents are together, but unmarried (and oftentimes reporting different addresses) because they get SIGNIFICA…

That explanation doesn’t have a dog whistle, but implying that a family structure doesn’t exist in any manner in the black community is the dog whistle that it seems you inadvertently triggered

Re: Is my advice too mercenary?

#387

Post by darkerside »

kbenson wrote: post #384
darkerside wrote: post #379

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> You misunderstand my point, and possibly the discussion. I'm not sure what that adds to your post besides to antagonize. I'd respectfully suggest rethinking that as an opener on future comments. I don't disagree with most of your post, and I don't think you seem to disagree with mine, preface aside. Yes, it's still difficult, but I think there is a world of difference between being under physical duress versus bein…

> I'm not sure what that adds to your post besides to antagonize. I'd respectfully suggest rethinking that as an opener on future comments. Then you interpreted my statement as more harsh than I intended, and I'll own up to my side of that, so I apologize. I don't necessarily take it as an insult for someone to say I misunderstood their point (if my statement to them comes across as a non-sequitur, I expect something…

Any time you think somebody is misunderstanding the discussion, pause a moment and consider that perhaps they have understood it, just in a different way from you. There are always multiple interpretations possible. A statement like the one you made assumes yours is the only right one.

Re: Is my advice too mercenary?

#388

Post by formerkrogemp »

beepbooptheory wrote: post #163

Small aside, reading all these conversations: I just think a lot of static gets injected into these discussions about wage/employers/comp on HN because a large majority of the commenters here are either currently business owners, or founders, or trying to be either of those. But there is also a huge contingent of people who do regular waged labor here, whether FAANG or freelance. Beyond any political differences, I t…

I've been aware of that while reading this site for years as "waged regular labor." I don't think the perspective is the same at all. The audience isn't the startup focused audience it once was in 2011, but has broadened quite a bit.

Re: Is my advice too mercenary?

#390

Post by JustLurking2022 »

ALittleLight wrote: post #352
JustLurking2022 wrote: post #116

Earlier quoted context omitted.

While that's true on an individual basis, I recently left a large company to join a FAANG and, as it turns out, so did quite a few other top performers shortly before me. By the time I left, there were definitely very senior folks asking questions about how to retain talent. I didn't even dislike the job - but the offers from FAANG were a good bit higher and came with some nice perks, so I'd actually think of going b…

I wonder about the "worth paying" thing. As an example, I worked at a FAANG company for about 10 years and every project I worked on flopped, was cancelled, or wound up being a net cost. In some sense, the real dollars and cents sense, I wasn't worth anything and yet was paid quite a lot. My impression is that the FAANG companies have a relatively small part of the company that makes them insane amounts of money (e.g…

I don't entirely disagree with the premise but, knowing that there are companies with money printing machines paying top dollar, rationale talented people will all leave those other industries that don't pay up for ones that do (regardless of whether it is deserved or not). In my experience in other industries, the 80/20 rule applies in that 20 percent of technology employees deliver 80% of the value, but the pay is not well differentiated. In my estimation, many companies could fire half their tech employees, give the rest a big raise and come out more productive.
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