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Comment by adamsea | Hacker News Reader

For sure. But right now we're in an era of change. Should addressing the existential threat of climate change be a goal for every company, or not? That's one example.

The Expensify CEO believed that democracy itself was on the line in the 2020 election, and that supporting democracy was relevant to the company's goal.

We can disagree with him but I respect him for exercising his judgement about the situation.

EDIT: I'd like to add, IMHO, workers should have more control over their own labor and see more of the profits of their labor, so, actually I'd like to see companies evolve to become less hierarchial institutions and thus decide priorities in a more democratic / consensus-based fashion.

I don't know how we'd do this. But I know we collectively are smart enough to figure out how to get closer than we are now : ).

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see more of the profits of their labor

If you look at wage income as a share of (wage income + corporate profits) it hovers between 85% and 90%. How much higher do you think it needs to go?

See some relevant charts here: https://taxfoundation.org/walkthrough-gross-domestic-income

I agree 100% politics should be a part of any company. I’d like to see time set aside to educate employees about their 2nd amendment rights and maybe the company can do a dollar for dollar match on NRA donations?

Oh wait, you meant you want to see your politics supported in the workplace. Not politics in general.

Google, which is not known as a bastion of right-wing thought, will indeed match dollar-for-dollar donations to the NRA. Up to a threshold, just like it does for any other charity.

NRA isn't a charity. Do they do it for political organizations, or just charities?

Are you sure? It was my understanding that Google only matches donations to 501(c)(3) organizations.

The NRA Foundation is a 501(c)(3) non-profit organization that raises and donates money to outdoors groups and others such as ROTC programs, 4-H and Boy Scouts.

The NRA Foundation is a separate organization from the NRA. Obviously a related one, but the distinction is important because 501(c)(3) organizations can’t do political campaigning.

Even many on the left don’t agree that climate change is an “existential threat.” https://www.aei.org/economics/the-case-for-one-billion-ameri...

“Science” does not agree that climate change is an “existential threat.” https://www.mcall.com/opinion/mc-opi-climate-change-existent...

> Such talk has scared many young people. Shortly after the 2016 presidential election, a young Clinton volunteer named Zach was upset the Democrats failed to beat Trump. According to cbsnews.com, at a meeting of the Democratic National Committee, Zach yelled at a senior official: “You and your friends will die of old age and I’m going to die from climate change. You and your friends let this happen, which is going to cut 40 years off my life expectancy.”

> Do scientists agree with Zach? The federal government’s Fourth National Climate Assessment was released last November. Hundreds of scientists from 13 government agencies compiled the 1,500-page report. It finds no existential threat from climate change. Zach is likely to have a long life.

Fires, hurricanes, extreme heat, and drought are made more frequent & severe by climate change, and they certainly kill people. Climate change also disrupts food systems and will cause civil war and mass migrations. Millions will need to migrate just from coastal flooding, which I'd imagine will cause plenty of geopolitical strife and ultimately lead to many deaths.

"Existential threat" in my mind means humanity itself is threatened. The species will likely survive but millions if not billions will die due to climate change.

Current projections of the effect of an RCP 8.5 scenario (a “do nothing” approach) suggest severe impacts to the Florida and gulf coasts, creating significant migrations inland. But the projected GDP hit will be an estimated 5%—i.e. losing a few years of growth.

It will be bad and disruptive and many people will die. But based on what we know about the “science” it’s not going to be “existential.” For example the wildfires on the west coast killed 35-40 people. We could have a dozen of those a year and it wouldn’t threaten the existence of humanity or really even civilization as we know it.

> more frequent & severe

If you don't quantify that, it's meaningless in relation to somebody's life expectancy.

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