280 karma · joined December 16, 2020
Automating what we know is a dangerous policy should not be treated as lightly as you’ve put it just because you are bored of people quoting 1984 to you.
Have you considered the reason they are quoting it more and more lately might be because real life has been getting closer and closer to it?
No one thinks they are getting away with anything but you. I don't get why you are so mad most people don't consider not knowing the salary beforehand a reason not to go on an interview. Not posting the salary on the job ad has never been the reason a position has been left unfilled.
That's like, your opinion. Millions of people go on job interviews everyday without first knowing the salary offered and in fact in most meetings the salary is the last thing discussed.
The fact that you needed to say that says a lot. While describing most cities of the world, most third world country cities of the world, you would never even mention the word feces, much less defend its presence on the streets.
That is why, even if you know who to lobby you can't get a meeting, but they meet everyday. You don't know who to bribe to get a meeting. And on and on.
That is what I wrote, yes. AT&T knew who to "lobby". That is information asymmetry.
I know it is completely anathema to suggest something like this on HN these days as the socialist wave completely took it over and the mere suggestion that people have the freedom to not buy something if they don't think it fits within their world view instead of trying to force everyone using the state and the courts to cater specifically to them is now considered a sin, but...
You said it yourself, you have a laptop with the exact same chip that lets you do all the things you want, and then you have the iPad that doesn't...why don't you buy the laptop instead? Surely if enough people feel the way you do Apple would get the message.
> Or maybe a company is on top because of their execution.
I already explained that part.
Asymmetry of information is what got you to the top. You know more than your competition, more on a productive process, on consumer behavior, on business partners, on leveraging financial avenues, on political "contributions", on questionable use of insider information, etc.
And Information is what keeps you at the top: knowing who to "lobby" to create convenient regulation that hurts your competition the most, is the most effective way monopolies use to stay that way.
Monopolies are not monopolies in the abstract, they have to fight everyday to keep being a monopoly and they do that by leveraging information asymmetry.
And the reason is because when you are looking for a job other things are more important than knowing the salary even before you apply or they seriously consider you.
Everyone does whatever they can get away with, and the moment we accept that everything becomes clear. They are all trying to benefit themselves, just as you are by trying to learn some information before the other party feel the need to share it with you.
Yes, and yes.
Paypal is superior to a github repo, but that doesn't mean they can't do the same job. Twitter is superior to an email chain, in most situations, but that doesn't mean it can't do the same job.
Concrete is superior to wood, that doesn't mean you cannot build houses out of wood. You could theoretically build a payments system on top of github, it might not be as efficient but it'll work.
And secondly and most importantly, the government should not decide what products are allowed to be traded: Governments should lift all bans on products currently banned, all drugs, all books, all music, all banned clothing, etc.
The US didn't invent physics, didn't invent gunpowder, oil, math, textiles, ROCKETS, etc. But they did "acquire" them all, somehow.
> China runs the largest IP theft program in the world.
Most IP has been given to them by "businessmen" trying to gain and edge and betting wrong. That is not theft, if anything, is stupidity. To the degree China has stolen trade secrets, do you really think no other country has a corporate spy program? Do you not know who the biggest ip "thief" in the world is?
> because the law leaves lots of room for things to happen inside its boundaries.
Then we are not a nation of laws, because the room is there for a reason. Judges and juries are there for a reason, to decide how much room is necessary as we cannot police thought, and we shouldn't try.
> And again, the original point is not about good or bad, but that this is not new. You got excluded in corporate places for the wrong thoughts (if you shared them too loudly) before people went on and on about "safe spaces". It just was different things. And as such I find complaints about them being some new horrible thing unconvincing.
Why are you fine with lgbtq being excluded from jobs? You can't have it both ways, two wrongs don't make a right. The law should be the bar, the only bar, not mob anger.
Since...always? That is what diversity means, aren't you employed? Diversity is not only about what you look like, or the color of your skin, and it doesn't mean to throw a tantrum every time your feelings get hurt either in case you weren't aware.
> We'll know when Silicon Valley culture has been sufficiently reformed when an asshole getting fired isn't treated to a barrage of laments about "slippery slopes", "cancel culture" or "damn SWJs".
In that you are correct, that is the bottom of the slope.
If it's his viewpoints people have a problem with, as seems to be the case by the ample evidence directly from the people demanding his job citing the contents of his book even before having spent one day with the guy, then his actions were not ever in question.
So again I ask you in faint hopes you don't keep evading the question, are we a nation ruled by laws or a nation ruled by mob?
Is the US a nation of laws or a nation ruled by mob?
But in a way is also refreshing, we are near the bottom (or nearer), corporations have real stakes, they need to generate real profits so unlike college campuses where the performance of a university doesn't really matter, a company like Apple has very little room for underperforming, and the minute revenue starts to drop they'll realize it's not healthy for a company to cater to the woke mob and hopefully begin reversing course. Let's just hope not much damage is done before that.
Society decides its morals, not I, certainly not you.
You misunderstand. They of course converge, there is no other alternative but for society to be a reflection of their individuals. You don't like the answer so you pretend what they converge into is not worthy somehow because it doesn't adhere to some high societal morality standard which by the way just so happen to be the morality you ascribe to, which is of course nonsense.
> I take that as a compliment because one of the things I aspire to is to not get dissolved in the blind allegiance to achievement and excess positivity.
> It usually gets unnoticed but when people excessively project themselves to achievements and future growth; they turn into massive narcissists. And I am not using that in the pejorative sense; they lose a grounded sense of themselves.
Oh the irony.
Three very resources rich regions. They are exploiting their natural resources to compensate for their (relative) low productivity.
> When 8 hour work days were introduced was there some sort of sharp drop in productivity or innovation or standard of living? Or when the work week was shortened to 5 days from 6 days? I don't think so.
Yes there was a drop, if you consider everything relevant. When the 8 hour work day was introduced new workers were still being added to the workforce. Almost half the population in productive age joined the work force in the later part of the 20th century alone and women were for the most part not working when the 5 day work week became a thing for example. Individually the work hours came down, but as a whole we work much much more today.
But we don't have that luxury now, we don't have an untapped work force to lean against. And of course, the elephant in the room: our declining and aging population. Fewer and fewer working adults will have to provide for an increasingly large number of retirees.
The situation particularly in the west is dire. Pension funds are at very high risk of collapsing almost everywhere and the solution will not be to work less. Maybe, because politicians are politicians, the 4 day work week will be a thing, but retirement will creep into the 70s, it's already being proposed in some countries.
Increases in leisure time will be only on paper, done only in exchange for votes.
That is of course not true. Individually curated means synchronized with others as no individual exists in a vacuum; it feeds on others, on the environment, on history, and others feed on the individual, and the environment is modified by the individual, and history written by it. That it is free to evaluate its own future path is not the same as not being also part of something else, much less not take into account the something else.
Achievement in itself is, unparadoxically, and achievement. That you don't agree with it says more about your synchronicity with the rest of society than the opposite.
And how can you, or anyone, guarantee something like that? The standard of living we have, however imbalanced it might be, is a byproduct of fierce competition.
To guarantee any kind of basic standard of living, specially one without even more fierce competition, the only alternatives are: a much much lower standard of living, much lower, or, a much much intense exploitation of natural resources. Pick your poison, as they are both catastrophic, and there is no third option.