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Comment by mancerayder | Hacker News Reader

Our CEOs are happily, gleefully, boasting about how we're replaceable. That sort of stuff causes pitchforks to rise up in other countries.

We Americans are hard-working sheep, and we deserve all the motivational Corpspeak we have to suffer through on LinkedIn posts.

I've worked in this industry (tech) a very long time, and in every job I have peers that boast about off hours work.

We get what we deserve.

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We don't deserve that, at least I don't feel like I do. I don't identify with "hard-working sheep" and everyone else, I identify with setting an example around transparency, honesty and dignity. There's a famous post about dignity written by someone who said something along the lines of "We have allowed being in the worker class in American become inherently undignified" and I think its more along that line: the very high up leaders and bourgeoise class have modeled unaccountable, abusive leadership and so the leaders we interact with model that as well to us, and then when many other people dont speak up and I do, I and maybe even you find ourself on the current side of the minority wishing others were as vocal about things.

Well here's my invitation: rather than resign about how everyones weak and a sheep, take on the perspective of voicing what you want and what you are doing about it and feel free to share about about how even if you've experienced bad things you would rather want to experience goods things. Maybe things could change if you focused on what you actually want over complaining about what you don't?

I have much of your perspective already and trust me, I propagandize it in person.

At the same time like everyone else here I need jobs to pay the bills, and in every job I'm faced with these workaholic types who believe "this is not a 9 to 5 job" is a great motto. You'll find many of these people here, too.

I try to be too useful to fire. But when I was younger places I worked at had brutal on-call situations and limited time off. One place had 15 days of PTO per year, and that included sick days.

Lol I have 18 right now and that's after years of having none

I want all social media to be banned. Until that happens - nothing else matters...

What I am doing about it - I do not use social media apps of any kind (since 2017), do not allow my offspring to be on social media, trying to convince my wife she should do the same (she is on facebook still because of marketplace), and absolutely ridicule anyone that uses social media (in a fun way)...

Love that. Lol the losers on social media need to do something more productive (and I guess I count, since hacker news is like sometimes social media, look at some of the posts out here! haha).

In all seriousness though, I have gone through similar and eventually got back on social media more intentionally as the benefits of it are nice to have (if the cons can be overcome). wish we had a better system to just use social media for us to get what we want though and I wish some agents like open claw could just get us the positives, only.

Is Hacker News not social media?

Its not, its a forum. The distinction is if there is an algorithm picking what you see (social media) verses everyone seeing the same thing (a forum).

The term "social media" predates the use of algorithms picking what you see, so that cannot be the definition.

Um, no...there was always an algorithm. It just used to use your "friend list" and used to have a lot less to pick from. But it was always there. I get the feeling you were 5 when this was happening.

If you're going to call that an algorithm, then the posts that HN displays is an algorithm too.

it is a forum perhaps, I don’t consider it social media although would not argue too hard with someone who does

It totally is.

What is lacking for it to be social media (IMO). - no direct messaging (lacking social aspect) - no media (text only) - no phone app - no ads - no influencers - no company feeding you algorithmic shit to make you buy shit - not evil :)

The problem is that there is no incentive, because if you take the average set of behavior of a human, nowhere in that set is the willingness to go against the grain to to what is morally right versus what is currently "socially acceptable".

For example, taking a stand against Tesla, when you go buy one right now, you really don't feel any sort of general animosity from people, even though its morally not the right thing to do.

My one vacation to Paris I was very concerned about the protests/near riots, things being set on fire, and garbage piled high because of strikes I saw on television.

But we ended up having a great time. Got used to the piles of garbage, and the fires and protests were scheduled in advance so easily avoided. And I gained an appreciation for the willingness of French workers to stand up for themselves.

> appreciation for the willingness of French workers to stand up for themselves

I wonder if you still have that view when your car is one of the hundreds that typically get set on fire during protests.

Rioting and the government caving for a minority out of fear of violence is the most undemocratic possible and does not fit in 21th century society. I’m happy to grow up north of France where minorities don’t torch the town when the democratically appointed representatives decide on something they don’t like.

You forgot the part where the French government (who doesn't control their currency) is going bankrupt. Some simple reforms would fix this problem but when they are considered, the crazies start burning down Paris. Its actually amazingly sad to watch.

Correct. It is sad when the government is unable to execute a solid financial recovery plan out of fear of a violent minority.

Rioting is undemocratic…

Yeah, I guess we ARE hard-working sheep and get what we deserve…

Yes, it is? When the majority wants something different than you, forcing the government to your will by violence, is not a very democratic process.

You have a deep misunderstanding of American civil unrest.

> Our CEOs are happily, gleefully, boasting about how we're replaceable.

This exactly, and especially in the tech industry there's so much "If you're not doing this right now you're going to be unemployed in 5 years" nonsense about AI being peddled, mainly by people who couldn't code their way out of a paper bag.

> and we deserve all the motivational Corpspeak we have to suffer through on LinkedIn posts.

> We get what we deserve.

Why? You don't actually justify this reasoning in your post.

I did, but let me hammer home the point: when you try to restore balance in a corporate settings, your peers, not management, are the ones self-promoting how much they work.

I've worked in many environments where I came up against workaholic co-workers who pulled everyone down with them into weekend work and extra effort.

So yes, deserved.

This is not senior management versus us, it's us versus us, that's the American way.

I believe their justification is on the first sentence

> That sort of stuff causes pitchforks to rise up in other countries.

(Not that I agree)

Your countrymen applauded putting chains on foreign workers that were told by their company to build a factory in your country. Your union representative were giddy. You absolutely deserve corpo-speak, that's the least you deserve.

I'm sure you can find some exceptions, but I don't remember anyone who celebrated that or thought it was remotely good policy. Assuming you're talking about the Hyundai plant in Georgia.

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