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Comment by anonporridge | Hacker News Reader

Then frankly, we would probably fall to level of innovation that modern Europe is known for.

This reminds me of Louis CK's line "you can achieve great things when you don't give a shit about people".

Is the cost worth it? Do I want fair conditions and a good work balance, or do I want to brag about something that made my employer's shareholders really proud? Is the pay worth it if I can't miss a day of work to tend to more important matters?

I run a website for immigrants in Germany. I have to spend a lot of words explaining that it's okay to take sick days, that you won't lose your insurance if you lose your job, and other things that Europeans take for granted.

> you can achieve great things when you don't give a shit about people

I think this is a completely wrong take from the armchair philosophers.

You actually can't do great things when you treat people like shit. The people who actually do great things strike the right balance between applying pressure and requiring excellence and treating people well. The results of purely treating people like slaves is mediocre.

Even the pyramids were built by well paid craftsmen, not slaves as is commonly believed.

Maybe it's not meant to be taken literally. I read it as, "You can achieve great things when you loosen your system of ethics and are okay with a net increase in human suffering."

> Even the pyramids were built by well paid craftsmen, not slaves as is commonly believed.

Half right. It's currently believed that the bulk of the workers were lots and lots of paid laborers. Not craftsmen. That would be expensive!

https://www.britannica.com/video/226777/did-enslaved-people-...

A typical software engineer in Germany earns about €60-80k.

More than enough to save money for retirement, travel the world enjoying 30 days vacations, own a cars, buy enough hardware, fancy house,....

After a certain value is for show off only, or maybe lit cigars with burning notes.

And 6 weeks off, unlimited sick days, and a generous notice period. Health insurance and unemployment insurance are a given. There's no explaining how much more relaxed work culture is in Germany.

Is life better in every respect? No. But there's a lot more to life than earning potential.

> There's no explaining how much more relaxed work culture is in Germany.

Is that supposed to be something positive? Why would you want a relaxed work culture if you like your job?

I like my job even more when it's a smaller part of my life

It's also a balance between having new companies that can start up with lower overheard and fewer jobs concentrated among larger companies that can afford it.

The only companies that treat their employees poorly are those that have people lined up to work for them. The employees must think the tradeoff is worth it.

Employees should be able to choose a company with stability and lower pay or higher pay and less stability. The other option is to take the high pay job and pay for additional private insurance to cover what your employer will not. The people who want stability shouldn't force it on the people who are comfortable without it.

Europe isn't good at building massive tech companies. But its hard to say Europe is not a leader in scientific and technological innovation.

Just in tech, Europe developed ARM chips, ASML lithography machines, and DeepMind's AI breakthroughs. These underpin a few trillion dollars of global economic activity.

> Europe isn't good at building massive tech companies.

Which is a good thing. Massive tech companies are a negative thing, not a positive thing.

It's a mixed bag. Only sheer scale allowed Apple to pour in a huge amount of money into their M chips, probably the most important consumer-facing innovation on desktops in the past 5 years.

Industry doesn't need slave labour, with people happy for any goodie their feudal lord feels like giving, for innovation.

It's not about slave labor, although all job dependent people are wage slaves even in a union.

It's about labor market flexibility. https://www.investopedia.com/terms/l/labor-market-flexibilit...

Overly strong labor unions make the entire economy less nimble in rapidly changing environments.

I rather take my European IT union, thank you.

No need for gig economy "flexibility ", making rich millionaires.

The US has higher salaries than Europe, way higher, so calling it slave labor is rich. Wish people would understand that just because Europe does something doesn’t make it the right way to do things. As far as reality shows, the US system is the most innovative and the European one is definitely not.

Some lucky people have higher salary than in Europe, while others have to beg Red Cross to take care of them, while living between pay checks.

Wrong. Median disposable income is higher on average across all occupations. Software engineer income is significantly higher. The top 10% in the US is not even fathomable in Europe.

Work to live, not live to work.

https://www.salvationarmyusa.org/usn/

As opposed to Europe, which is known to not have homeless or poor people.

At least those are supported by national social healthcare.

Ok, two things: first, America’s lock on innovation is already waning, so it would be dangerous to think we’ll continue to compete globally solely by out innovating other regions.

Secondly, I strongly doubt shitty labor laws have been the secret formula behind the success.

There's much more surrounding the USA's innovation engine than treating employees like shit. Perhaps would be good to look at what's working and what's not instead of just assuming that better protection for workers, which are the ones directly and literally creating the value, would cause a catastrophe.

Or please direct me to some literature supporting your opinion.

Edit: Page 19 here [0] would directly question your assumption.

[0] https://www.wipo.int/edocs/pubdocs/en/wipo-pub-2000-2023-en-...

I could do without a significant amount of what constitutes "innovation" in the US.

"Innovation" has become a straight-up fetish in the US tech sector, and that fetish is increasingly a cause of a great deal of harm.

It sucks that people will screech about vague bullshit like innovation whenever we try to make working here suck less.

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