Hacker News Reader

Comment by vector_spaces | Hacker News Reader

For the record I am with you and OP in the sense that I personally would struggle with such proximity. But the reality is that even if you do what I did and give up quite a bit of salary in exchange for something so mundane as the same work in a public university-run health system, you can still often follow the money to some ugly places that are not as far away as you'd like. Regarding startups, the ones like yours are probably the best one can realistically hope for, ideological inclinations of the founders aside

View on HN

I totally agree with you. The problem is bigger than tech. Is it capitalism? I was historically not anti-capitalist but it's hard not to lean in that direction now. I feel like the issue is somehow bigger than even that though. If we were living under communism, the same people would probably be in charge. There's something about consolidation and centralization of power and access to resources being fungible through ideologies that makes this possible. Maybe it's the existence of "states" that is the problem (i.e. a monopoly on violence).

I sure have been thinking a lot about this recently as Gaza was the ultimate manifestation of where this can go. I actually think there's a movement to bring that type of violence to places like the US. Flock and fascism are steps in that direction imo.

> The problem is bigger than tech. Is it capitalism?

The underlying problem is that power and wealth causes people to believe themselves above others to a degree proportional to how much more power and wealth they have relative to those considered below them.

Unfortunately, we've seen unprecedented concentration of wealth occur, so it should come as no surprise that those who are running things exhibit very little humanity towards others.

Congrats on rediscovering Anarchism from first principles. Hierarchy begets hierarchy. As long you have a society where some people can coerce others into acting for the master's benefit and against their own, you end up on a ratchet. Power accumulates, leading to more coercion, leading to more power. Such systems select for individuals who are the most feverishly driven to amass power at any cost and put them in the position to seize more.

The world separates cleanly into those of us who could never knowingly and freely take any money from any fascist and those who would point out the generous meal plan bestowed upon the camp guards.

"Quite a bit of salary" like

I have never been in the situation of knowingly taking salary from any fascist and would never tolerate it. I've left jobs I needed over this. My "walking away" was more about wanting to work on stuff in my day job that felt somewhat more worthwhile and tangibly useful to humanity

I was working for someone who startled me with a revealed preference, and it's more common than you think. Kick the tires on any boss or employer

Reply on news.ycombinator.com