Hacker News Reader

Comment by nebula8804 | Hacker News Reader

This is a great idea! A while back I had an idea to maybe scrape Linkedin(or download one of their numerous dumps) to help "track" executive movement from company to company and set alerts if I use products from the new company so I can have a heads up before they inevitably turn to shit. Alternatively, I was also looking to expand this to when companies get bought out by those vulture capital "management" firms as they will start to squeeze costs. The Hackers of the 90s dreamed about software being an equalizing force between the powerful and the powerless...well this is one area that can definitely help(at least in the short term).

Your idea sounds like something that independent journalism can pick up or some non profit organization that exposes these kinds of things. Of course I'm sure someone will go after them sooner or later.

View on HN

Can’t wait for the social credit score determining people’s career prospects!

People must be held accountable for their actions; if it cannot be through self-governance, their reputation must meet needs.

Take them to court. File a grievance. But opening individuals to ruin by internet trolls for lulz, or worse making everyone’s life dictated by collaborative filtering - there’s no good to come of it. Human lives aren’t like product reviews. Scarlet lettering people isn’t a good idea - maybe it works for some, but there will be a lot of innocent people destroyed along the way. Or, people who made unethical decisions at some point in their life and realized their mistake and have reformed. A society of perpetual punishment isn’t a humane society, especially without any review or recourse just anonymous voting.

There's often a big gap between things that constitute a crime, tort, or breach of contract and things that would make me disinclined to do business with a person. I'd like to know if the founder of a startup has a bait-and-switch habit before I decide to rely on their product, for example.

The court system has decided that individuals aren’t liable for their actions taken on behalf of a company, but the company is. But a company is merely a temporary arrangement of people! It can be dissolved and reformed any number of times with any number of names with only marginal annoyance. The corporation is the end of responsibility.

Who arbitrates the fairness of such a system? Does anyone get a chance at redemption? One of the reasons for the corporate veil is to lives aren’t destroyed except for the most egregious behavior. For sensitive professions they’re licensed with review processes that aren’t as steep to get at the principals. But I would rather the world allow assholes to be sure we don’t plow under the innocent or close the door to reform in a human life.

What exactly does "being held accountable" mean? I hear this a lot and this statement seems empty

In this instance, it appears to mean making it possible to purchasers to be aware of past business decisions made by people in positions of authority at companies that they are considering doing business with so that they can make an informed decision.

Making unethical business decisions that negatively impact customers is a bit different from jaywalking.

We have courts of law that determine fact, and if the behavior isn’t criminal, we have civil courts as well. For professionals we have ethics boards and censuring processes. But do we really want to set up a system where people vote people out of their careers with no review or process? How do you prevent this from being abused? Or worse expanding beyond the original remit to more facets of life? There’s a reason we have reasoned institutions handle these sorts of things rather than the lynch mob. How long until internet trolls use these tools to take down people that go against their politics, or ruin random people for lulz?

Well, the system could be entirely individualized. Not like an ad blocker where you download a list of neer-do-well urls curated by unknown people.

I didn't have such a draconian interpretation of the idea. I don't know where you got "lynch mob", "ruin[ing] random people" and "social credit score" from it to be honest. Quite a dramatic take.

Individuals and companies knowing more information about the professional history of the people they're doing business with is always better.

I know you didn’t. But any such idea should be constructed game theoretically with 4chan on the other side. “Blind for humans” would destroy lives. And it doesn’t give people a chance at redemption in their career. I’ve had low points in my career I wouldn’t want to follow me any more than they do already. When you’ve done something for 40+ years you’ll have run the entire gamut of human experience, good, bad, and ugly. In these sorts of things only the ugly gets memorialized.

I assumed we were talking exclusively about executives, not rank-and-file. I also assumed we were talking about poor business decisions rather than personal ones.

I get your point though - I'm just more inclined to believe this would be used for good, rather than evil. I also agree that people should have a chance at redemption.

I think you might be over-stating the effect this would have. Most people won't care. And if Elon Musk is any indication, having a bad reputation only hurts so much if the offering is compelling (eg. Space-X, Tesla). Both of those are huge successes despite Elon having a questionable reputation personally and professionally.

Note - I'm making no judgement here - I'm just talking about the consensus opinion on Elon as I see it.

The direction that it's coming from matters

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sousveillance

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nosedive_(Black_Mirror)

Oh no, accountability!

Some companies already do a credit check on you during hiring, even if you're not handling money. It's already here and three private companies get all the say. It also disproportionately affects low earners, who are also more likely to have bad credit due to the nature of the cycle of poverty.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com