Hacker News Reader

Comment by game_the0ry | Hacker News Reader

Recently, Kentucky had similar problems with algos and tech, but with bus routes. [1] And here I was thinking it was just an American problem.

Infuriating that children and education are being used as cash cows for the corrupt and incompetent - promise efficiency for the kids and system, deliver absolute shit for everyone, except the execs who got paid. Fucking evil.

[1] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=37121138

View on HN

You see it everywhere indeed.

Where I live, schools are starting to force everyone to buy or rent specific laptops from specific companies. The less financially-abled can't buy a good second hand laptop for cheap, the ones who can pay for them are scammed by high prices and shitty hardware. The company running the show is happy though, of course.

Find the individuals who signed that contract, organize parent protests at their private homes.

I don’t think it’s a good thing to frighten people because you disagree with a policy they were a part of. There are other ways than harassing individuals for their role in public service.

I guess I won't see you on the picket line then.

I’m happy to picket, which is generally done at the place of work. What does an angry mob yelling at their children and accosting them at home accomplish?

If you change "peaceful protest" to "frighten people" and "corrupt giveaway to private company from parents' pockets" to "public service", then your position indeed sounds very reasonable.

Ask yourself - who should they protest? It was not "teachers" that failed them, or "the school", or "the school system" - it was the specific people who made the deal that parents can only purchase computers from a single private company.

Showing up at peoples houses is a direct threat to them as individuals and their family. Their place of work is elsewhere. Your perception of how they do their job is just that, but it is still public service - that’s the definition of working for a public entity. If it is corrupt, then sue them. We have laws covering corruption already that don’t require intimidation by mobs.

To your continued edits: they should protest the school administration at the school administration building, or the schools, sue them in court, etc. But leave them and their families alone.

Then showing up at their workplace is a direct threat to them as workers and their colleagues. And please stop conflating "peaceful protest of the contract signers" with "angry mob accosting children". Otherwise I will conflate "laptops from specific company" with "spyware-ridden laptops that pry into children's private lives and snoop on their conversations, selling that data to advertisers, future employers, and storing it indefinitely so it may be subpoena'd by the police".

I’m talking about how people feel where people protest outside their homes. When it’s at work they feel like they’re in some context where it’s appropriate and is related to their work, and they enjoy a certain amount of anonymity.

When people show at their homes and are protesting, it becomes deeply personal, and exposes their family who is not involved as targets.

Listen, I feel like you don’t get how people can feel intimidated by strangers protesting in front of their personal and individual home, their site of their sanctum and a private place of safety for them and their family. How in that context what would otherwise be protestors now feels like an angry mob. That’s ok you don’t, I guess, but I would suggest sitting back and thinking empathetically about the difference between our work milieu and our home milieu, and how you cross a line that divides these worlds when you protest their work at their home.

To your continued edits:

Please do conflate those. I am not in favor of the laptops or how they’re requisitioned. I’m saying don’t show up at peoples private homes to make your political points. It’s scary stuff that crosses a line. You might not see that, but I hope you can see how others might.

Please don’t encourage this. Last year, multiple Dutch politicians were threatened at their homes by protestors wielding torches, with some leaving politics out of fear for their families.

If you want to use your right to protest, do so without threatening people’s life and family.

https://nos.nl/artikel/2434583-politici-voelen-zich-onveilig...

protests are meaningless if they don't disturb.

Or, maybe if you’re a politician, don’t do actions that will cause people you represent to threaten violence against you. Just a thought.

Somehow it is only a small part of the political spectrum whose voters have felt the need to resort to such actions.

Assuming you’re familiar with Dutch politics, I’m sure I don’t need to spell out which part and what percentage of Dutch voters they represent.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com