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Comment by blindriver | Hacker News Reader

These guys spent a lot of effort making a really great implementation of sweatshop software. These two privileged kids really thought it was a great idea and honestly didn't think there was anything wrong about this at all. Objectively they did a great job from a technological perspective.

The fact it didn't cross their minds that maybe this is a bad idea to release in the US really shows the cultural difference between the West and other countries like India. There are plenty of things wrong with the US but blatant treating of lesser-privileged people like animals is something that isn't well tolerated here.

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I would hazard a guess that plenty of US companies (start with Amazon warehouses, move on to truck drivers) do very similar things, if not exactly the same.

I've noticed this in interactions between high caste and low cast Indians at my job. Many High caste Indians have a level of arrogance towards low cast Indians that would make a Goa'uld system lord embarrassed. They truly feel entitled to their subservience and cheap labor. It is remarkable. I'm not sure if anyone born and raised in the US has the same degree of entitlement. You would have to go back to slave plantation owners in the US South.

> Objectively they did a great job from a technological perspective.

It’s not clear to me that their software, actually does what it says… I feel like that wasn’t entirely clear from the demo. It’s not like a short demo proves much.

>The fact it didn't cross their minds that maybe this is a bad idea to release in the US really shows the cultural difference

They're YC-backed. Was there no one to advise them on the "cultural difference"?

> They're YC-backed. Was there no one to advise them on the "cultural difference"?

When they talk about money, the "cultural difference" doesn't matter. /s

That has been the criticism of YC of late. The “advise” part has been lacking.

> The fact it didn't cross their minds that maybe this is a bad idea to release in the US really shows the cultural difference between the West and other countries like India. There are plenty of things wrong with the US but blatant treating of lesser-privileged people like animals is something that isn't well tolerated here.

McDonalds and Amazon are American companies that micromanage workers - the only difference is that their software is inhouse. The next time you're at any fast-food drive through, have a look at the monitors they have up, you'll likely see a timer and stats about rate they are serving customers.

More broadly, Hell, mouse-jigglers became a thing, and most American retail outlets won't let their cashiers sit (no chairs!) - talk about treating workers like animals.

> These guys spent a lot of effort making a really great implementation of sweatshop software.

This is such a fallacy of "If it is evil, it must be competent". Did you actually look at the software? In no universe can you confidently infer that it's a "really great implementation", it's childish at best. You're just assuming it so you can make the rest of your argument.

Yeah, I’ll be honest the UI looks like it was churned out by Claude.

What kind of fallacy is that? I generally assume the opposite.

I'm only assuming its somewhat competence because it still got funded by Y Combinator in a pretty stiff time to make pitches.

When I went to India I was quite shocked how badly they treat each other. The killing people for marrying the wrong cast is maybe the worst of it but you see the attitude all the time. https://www.ndtv.com/india-news/gurugram-woman-22-killed-by-...

> There are plenty of things wrong with the US but blatant treating of lesser-privileged people like animals is something that isn't well tolerated here.

Eh, that's flattering, but there are many ways of treating lesser privileged people like animals that are socially acceptable in the US, e.g. homelessness, prison slave labor, healthcare, immigrants, the whole "tough on crime" schtick, just off the top of my head.

There are all for the most part special cases. Most people aren’t homeless, in prison, illegal immigrants, etc.

This is just what-about-ism.

Clearly what the person was talking about was how PEOPLE tend to treat others, in vast numbers, so that it’s common to be an offender and even more common to be on the receiving end.

There are not 100 million people in the US actively poorly treating 250 million others like cattle.

dismissing what is often the lowest income part of a country as a minority is a pretty useless tautology. Of course the poorest people are the poorest.

>There are not 100 million people in the US actively poorly treating 250 million others like cattle.

So it's okay when it's maybe 10,000 people treating 320 million others like cattle?

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