Comment by geofft | Hacker News Reader

Comment by geofft | Hacker News Reader

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Yup. There are things in the world that are kinda bad, but worth imposing on people for the greater good of society (e.g., taxes, jury duty, bans on raw milk). There are things in the world that are really bad, and no amount of greater good justifies them. Harassment is one of them.

Part (but not all!) of the reason for this is that not every $150K/engineer is getting harassed, only some are, and some are doing the harassing, and in particular, those who are doing the harassing are, by all reports, not actually helping Uber's social mission effectively. If you're willing to sacrifice something about engineers to help Uber change the world for the better, sacrifice the people who take time out of their workday to proposition the people they manage, or who ignore their boss because they're trying to get themselves promoted, or who create and cancel projects to create the illusion of work, or who interpret people who sabotage their teammates as high performers. (And sacrifice them by firing them or better yet not hiring them, not by harassing them.)

This harassment calls to mind the most negative possible stereotypes of silicon valley tech bros. Misogynistic, rude, deeply unpleasant people to be around. The question is how did those people get into Uber in the first place, and why are they allowed to stay while all of their victims leave?

I don't give a fuck how much that woman was getting paid, it is not conditional on her receiving sexual harassment from her supervisors. It is conditional on her doing her goddamn job, and making people feel unsafe by directly propositioning them obviously interferes with that.

How do you decide which things are really bad, and no amount of greater good justifies them?

As a society, we've made the decision that traffic regulation, gun regulation or preventing the sale of loose cigarettes does justify the police gunning people down or choking them to death. (Note that after Eric Garner and Philando Castille, no one advocated eliminating the rules that got them killed.)

So why is an unpleasant work environment somehow one of those things that are unjustified no matter what?

Allow me to rephrase:

"So why is a hostile work environment somehow one of those things that are unjustified no matter what?"

Words matter.

Ok. Why is a hostile work environment unjustified no matter what, but strangling people to death in the pursuit of causes like cigarette regulation isn't?

This seems like a really strange argument to double down on. There is an overlap of people who discount harrassment based on salary, and people who discount fatal brutality by citing an unimportant crime. Instead it's the same outlook on how society should work that opposes both abuses. While people can choose to work harder on one problem, ranking them and deciding one should be ignored is a good tactic for insuring there isn't a critical mass of people fighting any injustice.

Furthermore, the type of people that want to invest in companies that decrease systemic racism and harassment experienced by their riders should also be concerned about similar problems at places closer to home. Framing these abuses as though they are not all different manifestations of failing to recognize other people's humanity on some level really undermines any progress.

I'm not making an argument, I'm merely questioning a philosophical claim I think is probably wrong.

Specifically, if you think (1) "There are things in the world that are really bad, and no amount of greater good justifies them. Harassment is one of them." but you also favor cigarette regulation, then you must implicitly think the inevitable shooting/strangling people/other violence is NOT one of those things that are "really bad and no amount of greater good justifies them".

Or alternatively, the stated principle (1) is not your real justification and merely a post-hoc rationalization.

I suspected the latter. But I was wrong - as it turns out geofft is internally consistent and also opposes cigarette regulation, firearm regulation, and all the other rules who's enforcement involves doing things that are "really bad and no amount of greater good justifies them". https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13725372

As you might imagine, I also disagree with society's implicit position in the cases you mention.

I don't. Nothing's changed, and nothing's been done to those officers. Society has implicitly accepted these actions as justified.

It's possible my statement was unclear: my disagreement was "Society, you are wrong," not "Your claim about society is wrong".

Regardless, this is whatabouttery. It's true that we have much more serious problems in the world than workplace harassment, like poverty and slavery and famine. That doesn't mean that the less serious problems aren't still problems.

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