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Comment by karaterobot | Hacker News Reader

> Imagine you had a dog...

Imagine that instead of a dog, it's an adult who makes their own choices and gets paid money, and who signed a contract where the terms of employment were spelled out very clearly..

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A better analogy would be: imagine that you hired a gardener. And you were paying them every week to mow your lawn. But one day you thought, "hey I'm paying $100 for this guy to mow my lawn, but I could do it myself in an hour". And you told the gardener "your services are no longer needed" and started to mow your lawn yourself.

First would have to blow sunshine up the ass of the gardener, about how “we are a family and humans are our greatest resource.” ;-)

> a contract where the terms of employment were spelled out very clearly

I was with you until that part. Do people exist who can imagine that?

Imagine it was a contract where the only two options were "eat" or "not eat"

Nobody wants to really take responsibility of humans being able to eat.

That’s the view of someone who is lucky to have many choices. Many people, in fact I suspect most people, pretty much have to accept what they’re offered because they don’t really have other choices.

For some of the people in these layoffs it will be accurate to say they could have made different choices, and for others it won’t be.

the outside dog doesn't fight back. and neither do the dogs still inside. They all deserve it.

Companies respond to consequences.

And imagine you told that dog how much you loved it and how important it was to you, but only paid attention to it when it was misbehaving, fed it recalled Chinese dog food and avoided taking it to the vet, then decided to put it down the second it needed any expensive care. All the while telling your friends what a dog lover you are, and what a great relationship you have with your dog.

And imagine still, that instead of a dog, it was an adult, and you shake hands agreeing to hire their skills in exchange for regular payment, but when their skills are someday no longer required or adequate, and that day will come, the payments will cease and they will have to peddle their skills elsewhere.

That is totally valid for the fraction of companies that treat each piece of work as a transaction with terms agreed upon beforehand, and don't try to wheedle extra work/crunch effort with nebulous promises or talk of "loyalty" then deliver a sad token while enriching shareholders and executives.

I might be able to get on board with your ideology if your ideal was the norm and the second case the exception, but it's quite the reverse.

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