Comment by lsc | Hacker News Reader

Comment by lsc | Hacker News Reader

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so... it is better to watch your friends continue to work in the sandwich shop than to hire them to work on a tech project at below market (but above sandwich shop) wages?

I dono about you, but I'd rather be "used" and get the job with opportunities for advancement (and higher wages) I can count several people who were in this position who now make a good bit more money than I do.

edit: to be clear, I don't think I'm better than people I've hired. I am more confident, to be sure, but that's something other people value. I don't value confidence very much at all ( I have perhaps more of that than I'd like. But other people eat it up, so why not?)

Nearly all my friends are smarter than I am. (I'm not saying that people who are more intelligent are /better people,/ but it's a better standard than money.) and besides that, no competent manager hires people who are not better than he is (or who can not shortly be made better than he is.)

Hell, even if you keep score with money, several of the people who have worked for me in the past now make more than I do, and a few make more money than I would be able to make if I was working for someone else.

You're missing the point. Both you and Sebastian are tragically self-centered. You shouldn't even be entertaining the thoughts you're having, if you had an ounce of decency.

Friends treat each other as equals even when they aren't. This is a lesson I've had to learn and seeing the flip-side, I'm damned glad I did.

I'll take humility and genuine friendship. Blogging crassly about how great I am and how hard it is to be so much better than the people I know is obscene.

If you lack the discretion and discernment to recognize the vulgarity of this, then we have no common ground and can leave it at that.

Would my actions be "tragically self-centered" or "crass" if I did the same to people I did not know previously? Are you saying that hiring people and turning a profit from their labor is inherently evil? or is that only so when there is a pre-existing relationship?

edit: moved this from another comment of mine, as it really is a response to the "crass and vulgar" statement:

I'll be the first to admit that I'm not as refined as most people here. You could certainly call me vulgar, in most senses of the word. I certainly lack good breeding and taste. I never went to college.[1] Hell, I spent half my childhood in a mobile home park.

But I don't see what's wrong with offering someone a better job than they had before, even if that someone is friend or family, even if I turn a profit on the deal.

[1]I am both proud and ashamed that I didn't go to college. Proud, because I am able to earn a middle-class salary without going to school, but also ashamed because to be truthful, I didn't go because I couldn't cut it. My math is pretty abysmal, and there's no way I have the willpower to hold down a full-time job /and/ do homework, and that is something to be ashamed about.

Nope.

>Nope.

Do you believe that you can not have a friendship when there are economic factors at play? That is an understandable belief, though I disagree, and if you believe that, the rest of what you said makes sense; in your mind I would be throwing away a friendship when I hired a friend. Of course, that's not what I believe, but that would explain our disagreement.

Luke,

Alnayyir isn't criticizing your desire to hire a friend. He is saying that the entire topic is judgmental and crass since it starts from an assumption of superiority over others. And I respectfully agree.

If the defining quality of friendship is wishing the best for others, it is hardly an act of friendship to think about one's friends in this fashion ("how can I dump them", "how can I exploit them"). The very possibility is paradoxical: how could a genuinely good person do anything but help his friends to the utmost of his ability? It is your conflating friendship with other dynamics that is being criticized, not your giving someone a job.

This is wholly accurate.

Thank you, I didn't have the patience to sway someone who seemed hell-bent on misinterpreting what I was saying.

> how could a genuinely good person possibly wish to stop helping others, or not help them to the utmost of his ability?

The point I was attempting to make was that quite often, helping those who are not as good as you are at making money can be profitable for all involved. Hell, even from a "help the most people" point of view, finding a job with a path for advancement for a person is doing a lot more good than giving them resources. Even avoiding the issue of the recipient's self-worth, if I give away resources, I will eventually run out, but if I make money off helping people? that scales.

Perhaps what I should have said was: "If you feel that your friends are holding you back, you are doing it wrong."

the thing of it is, I believe statements like "person x is better than person y" are largely without content without context. I mean, if we are talking about money, you can say "Person X is better at making money than Person Y" and that makes sense, or "person X is better at lifting weights than person Y" or even "person X is better at writing essays without coming off like an arrogant asshole than person Y" -

I don't know if it was the authors intent or not, but I read this essay as "I am better at making money than my friends, and this is causing some of my relationships to end."

    Friends treat each other as equals even 
    when they aren't. This is a lesson I've 
    had to learn and seeing the flip-side, 
    I'm damned glad I did.

I can see how you might have that criticism about the linked article, but where in lsc's post did he ever write or imply that he isn't treating his friends as equals?

I assume from this - one of the earlier comments by lsc:

    Having poor friends is /incredibly useful/ - need help moving but don't want to reciprocate? call up your highschool buddy who works at home depot. He'll be happy to help you out for a few bucks.

Though to be fair, it depends on what both of them mean by friend.

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