red_blobs

"One thing that bugs me is that people think trigger warnings are to make sure people don't get offended. Being triggered is not the same thing as being offended. Being triggered is about having a fucking panic attack, hyperventilating, feeling like you're having a heart attack and you're about to die."

If this is your normal behavior when a person mentions something undesirable, you need help and should probably get some professional counseling before enrolling in a university.

My problem is that we are catering to people with mental illnesses and making it difficult for anyone to accomplish anything without 'triggering' someone.

Life is tough, brutal, and ugly. It's doing a huge disservice to our youth to not give them the tools to properly cope with it.

Should they never travel abroad where trigger warnings and safe spaces will never be a thing? I traveled around Asia for 2 years when I was younger, and racism and bigotry are pretty normal occurrence.

It's also pretty apparent that it's now being used as a way to silence opposing viewpoints.

If I told you that gun control, atheists, and feminists trigger me, should any speech related to these on campus be banned?

I think one of the strangest things about the new generation is that unlike previous generations, they are actually fighting for more segregation, not less. Even the official BLM political site wants black-only establishments. You have groups that are self-segregating based on race and gender..yet scream for more diversity.

This is not my idea of diversity or freedom.

Universities used to be about the freedom of expression, thought, and open discussions. You can no longer have any kind of discussion if it veers away from the current narrative of the day.

Just reading through your handbook:

"We determine what proportion of the surplus is reinvested into the co-op, what proportion is directed to socially beneficial projects outside of Loomio, and what proportion is distributed to co-op members. Being a member makes you eligible to receive the distribution, but does not mean any distribution will necessarily be made."

So you have all of the responsibilities of an owner, but you may or may not even get any distribution of the overall profits, if the company sells.

These decisions are also above the heads of the members. This means it's technically not 'worker-owned'.

"Members are the ultimate decision-makers for Loomio. While we often delegate decision-making, such as to diretors, coordinators, and leaders of work areas, all mandate traces back to the members."

Another important aspect to owning anything, is being able to make a decision. It seems most decisions are delegated to a directory/coordinator, which isn't much different than having a manager/boss above you.

This isn't much different than a standard corporate setup in a startup, with the hopes that your small percentage of the company will pay out.

I look at actions rather than words and although you call it 'worker owned', the details in your handbook don't really portray this.

We have more free time now than we've had in all of history and most people just don't use that free time for creative endeavors.

"Kurzweil is proof that passion produces productivity, as is almost every prolific artist, writer, musician and entrepreneur"

I think Kirzweil giving our society too much credit. To be an artist, writer, musician, or an entrepreneur, it takes a mix of discipline and intelligence. The vast majority of the population would rather sit in front of their television (or now, computer) and watch reality TV than spend 8 hours a day writing, learning music, or working on a business.

"Automation allows for the possibility of exactly this type of diversification of interests, without the violence and upheaval usually associated with the attempts to get there."

I'm wondering how this will be accomplished. Automation isn't AI and If I'm putting all of my passion into making a living, it's pretty likely the person that is chasing their passion will be paid for by the fruits of my labor. At some point, more and more people like me will either stop and the system will break down or rebel, which will result in violence.

"The Internet has already democratized information, allowing many to become experts in fields in which they have no formal education or training"

I argue the opposite: It's made many people think they are 'experts in the field' when reality is much different.

"The future of technology may allow for each of us to become masters in many fields, expanding the abilities of our bodies and our minds."

We have so much free education (many ivy league schools have free online classes), the Internet is free in nearly every library in every city in the US, yet I don't see an increase in experts or intelligence.

"Just imagine a world where that output is expanded exponentially."

This would only be reality if we created smarter-than-human AI or some sort of bran implant.

"It absolutely is scary to imagine being sick even with insurance. Without insurance, forget about it"

Hospitals are required to take care of you, even if you have no insurance in the US. If you get a bill you cannot afford, you can negotiate a much lower rate with the hospital (I have done this and my family members have also done this).

I run my own business and so I need to pay for myself and my spouses healthcare. Obamacare actually made things worse for me. It doubled my costs (which was promised not to happen) and I was forced out of an otherwise great plan.

Getting sick is not even an issue. Medication is fairly inexpensive and if I have major surgery, I will only be out a couple thousand (the cost of a laptop).

I have many relatives in Canada and the only reason the system works there is because it borders the US. They get all of their regular care paid for by their taxes and the middle class drive over the border and get major surgery done.

The waiting lines are pretty long for most major surgeries and many older people die before they actually get it. The government there continues to promote getting checkups for specific diseases and disorders later and later in life because they don't have the facilities to get it done in a timely fashion for everyone.

NHS isn't the panacea everyone makes it out to be. There are no free lunches and when it comes down to it, a finite resource like healthcare has to have a filter/limiter. Since the majority of government run services are not that efficient and will not be able to keep up with demand or technology, it's much better to have a free-market/private care solution.

I agree with the sentiment of your post. We need to get rid of the bloated government-supported insurance companies and let the free market decide the price of everything..and offer a form of insurance to the poorest.

"Maybe you think she has to wait her turn, or brush up on her soft skills and work better with others, or that she simply needs more experience"

This happens to EVERYONE, not just women. I worked at many companies in my career doing the work of my superiors and kissing their ass, while getting paid at a lower pay-grade and not getting promoted. This is how the game is played. If you want it changed, start your own company and change it for everyone, not just women.

"Despite this woman’s outstanding contributions, you haven’t promoted her or given her a raise. It’s not fair and you know it."

I don't really see any actual statistical evidence that shows this happening at a greater level (or an alarming level) to women.

"You’ve talked a big talk about mentoring and development opportunities, but when push comes to shove, you give her the less glamorous work, the “maybe next time” speech, the completed plan decided in a separate meeting without her, because it was just easier and perhaps you think she won’t make as much of a fuss about it."

Did she actually deserve a raise? Put her time in? Have the experience? Lately, it seems many people attribute the -isms when they don't get their way and want power and control over another.

"She’s no fool. She’s taking classes outside of work, maybe with company support, but often paid out of her own pocket. She’s got side projects where she’s developing new skills and learning how to lead, because outside the company walls there’s no one who can hold her back. She’s got a network and she knows what her friends at other companies make and she has thought about what she might do if her paycheck were 20%, 30%, or 50% bigger."

There are plenty of bad companies that don't recognize good talent. This isn't related to sexism. Finding a better job might be your best option.

"And pay her what she’s worth, with a title to match. After all, she’s grown more in the last six months than some of your team have grown in the last six years."

This isn't how it works. Regardless of the person, you need to put your time in before getting promoted. You can learn lots, but there are many things you just need to experience...and this takes time.

"Fail to do these things and she will leave, probably after a big project wraps up because even in the end, she’s still responsible"

So, because she didn't get a major raise after completing a project after 6 months, she's going to leave? I've worked and managed at many, many places (and now own my own business) and I don't think I would want to hire anyone with this entitlement attitude.

"This article is inspired by the struggles I have heard from many talented, ambitious women who do amazing work that is as good and often better than the men around them"

OFTEN better than the men around them? Can we please not encourage blatant sexism in an article that is supposed to be against sexism? So..many...logical..fallacies.

"These issues are often worse for women of color."

Proof? I also wish we had more statistics and facts and less emotion and hearsay. Come on HN!, we are all about intellectualism...and this article is the antithesis of that!!

"It can be downplaying of the ideas and contributions of women, comments like “she can be abrasive”"

Some people are 'abrasive' and need to change their attitude at work. A friend of a friend of mine was called 'abrasive'. She just got out of college and interviewed at a place and told the interviewer that the job was beneath her and she knew more than them. She just graduated from college and had only intern experience. It was well deserved.

"Well-intentioned men and women may still unintentionally reinforce patriarchal patterns and devalue women."

I wish you would have mentioned 'patriarchal' at the beginning of the article, so I wouldn't have to waste my time. But alas, I can't get that time back.

Corporate life is tough and not always fair, but it has nothing to do with sexism on a systemic level. All of these complaints have been happening to men for many years. It sounds like now that women are becoming more of a part of corporate life, they are finding out how shitty and soul-sucking it can be.

This is actually why I started my own company.

Edit: I also checked out some of the links at the bottom of the article (which I won't name here). It's one of the most excluding jobs sites I have ever seen.

I hope one day we can have inclusivity for all, instead of this backward 1950s thinking where one group is accepted and the rest are turned away.

It sounds like people want digital safe spaces and don't want to hear any dissenting opinions on Twitter. This isn't how the real world works.

Anyone posting death threats and other threats of bodily harm should definitely be banned from Twitter.

However, I've read through many of the accounts in question in this article (and other outspoken community leaders) and what the they actually want is to punish people with opposing viewpoints by banning them from social media.

To me, it's pretty ironic because this same community expects love, compassion, and acceptance while at the same time hating, bullying, and silencing even the slightest hint of discord.

Facebook and social networks have done more damage than good to our society. We have gone from a court system with facts and evidence to digital lynch mobs that base guilt and innocence on feelings and emotions.

At first, I just ignored the foolishness I would see on my Facebook feeds, but it has now started to become part of the fabric of our culture. The power-mongers and greedy politicians are also using all of this to grow their base.

I feel like we have actually devolved as a society. It's one of the reasons why 100% democracy is a bad idea.

Mark Zuckerberg may not have wanted to start a company, but now he's one of the richest people in the world. He has also ensured his family wealth for many more generations by starting a trust that will not be subjected to the death tax.

If you read 'Hatching Twitter', you will get a better idea of Mark Zuckerberg: He thinks he is akin to a Roman Emperor and even named his daughter 'Maxima'. This is only one example, but other people that have done extensive business with Mark have said the same thing.

If you want to blame someone, blame the corrupt government that spends billions on the Olympic games instead of feeding their own people.

Yes, because this is going to actually help our current political situation in any way...

I don't think it will be the death of the search box. I don't want 10 people yelling into their voice-activated device while I'm trying to do research at the library.

Is this really a surprise to anyone? Government historically has no incentive to save money, because if they do, they will get less money the next time around.

I worked for a nonprofit organization based on government funding for almost a decade and this is exactly how the industry (anything based on funding from the government) works. We were told to buy the most expensive of everything and if we had a surplus, we had to spend (and many times waste) the rest.

This is why we need to have less government involved in our economy, not more.

"That's on them, and every time you feel oppressed by "political correctness" a dozen or more people are feeling like they can participate safely for the first time."

So you oppress hundreds and thousands for their personal beliefs in exchange for a dozen or more people to feel better? This isn't my idea of freedom.

What we really need next is political diversity: Companies should be required to hire people with diverse political opinions.

It would never happen because it doesn't extend and enhance the left-leaning narratives that are destroying society with emotion, mob-rule, bullying, and lies and completely disregarding statistics and facts.

"It's not hard to do good technical work, but apparently it's quite difficult for these particular white men to manage without funding/advocating/practicing bigotry and sexism"

Eich isn't sexist nor a bigot. Just because you don't agree with gay marriage doesn't mean you hate all gays and/or are bigoted towards them. I find it ironic that you have prejudice against an entire group of people while at the same time making the argument that we need to be less prejudice.

I also remember reading Facebook during this time: The amount of bigoted comments and bullying toward anyone religious was astounding..and nobody lost their job over it.

It's because it's not really about freedom, it's about taking power and control and oppressing another group of people.

I went around Asia for a year as a digital nomad. It was fun for awhile, but quickly became tiresome. It's great to have a home/apartment you can call your own and Internet is sketchy in many parts of the world.

Most of the people you come in contact with will not be conducive to getting any kind of work done or anything that takes discipline. If you aren't careful, you will get sucked into this lifestyle and it will become very difficult to achieve any of your goals.

Our friend group has a 'people pleaser' and it's fine, most of the time. However, it has become a nightmare (and nearly destroyed our group) because when there is a person that needs to be kicked out of our group for lying/being manipulating/terrible behavior, this person defends them to the end and treats us like the bad guy.

Passive aggression also accompanies 'people pleaser', because the person generally doesn't ever want to tell you what they really want or feel. It's extremely frustrating to deal with a person that behaves like this.

This sounds great, until the tyranny of the masses decides to accept something terrible.

Pure Democracy doesn't work, as evident by the social mobs we now have on Twitter and Facebook over half-truths, non-science, and rumors.

I certainly don't want important things decided this way.

My Cousin's son is borderline-autistic and antisocial. He loves Anime and I see him and his friends regularly posting sexist, bullying, and other horrible comments on Facebook (including many 4chan Memes).

Many people use this as proof that the tech industry and men are sexist. In reality, it's mostly the work of teenagers with too much time on their hand and mentally ill individuals.

I wish we could stop lumping in an entire industry and gender for the actions of a few that may not even be in the industry at all.

I've noticed that the latest trend about men vs women have evolved from 'men and women are equal' to showing that there are actual differences between the two sexes.

If we care so much about the STEM gender gap, why not other majors as well?

http://www.randalolson.com/2014/06/14/percentage-of-bachelor...

1) Health Professions (85% women): nursing assistant, veterinary assistant, dental assistant, etc.

2) Public Administration (82% women): social work, public policy, etc.

3) Education (79% women): pre-K, K-12, higher education, etc.

4) Psychology (77% women): cognitive psychology, clinical psychology, etc.

5) a majority of Biology degrees in 2012 (58%) were earned by women

These majors are dominated by women, many paying more than some of the other STEM majors. So why aren't we changing these as well to be more accommodating towards men?

More women than men graduate from college on average:

http://fortune.com/2013/03/27/boys-vs-girls-whats-behind-the...

Shouldn't we be figuring how how to change this to make it more equal?

My problem with all of these articles and the entire movement is that the goal isn't to make things equal, it's a power-grab to allow one group to completely dominate the other.

I'm waiting for someone to suggest we either get rid of Calculus as a requirement altogether or reduce it's difficulty to make it more 'fair'. This is exactly what has started happening in our military.

Whether people like it (or would like to believe it), it works because it doesn't allow the tyranny of the masses. It doesn't give everyone a voice, which means better comments and content for all.

The title seems very derogatory and the article seems like a hit-piece, when they mention that he's a Trump supporter.

How about also mention that the Google founders are investing just as much money in an anti-aging cure:

http://www.digitaljournal.com/life/health/google-founders-in...

I'm not that surprised. Silicon valley CEOs (and many large companies like Apple) love Hillary because she is going to help them bring more H1B workers into the country and undercut the wages of our engineers and workers.

..and of course, we can't forget the connection with Eric Schmidt:

http://qz.com/520652/groundwork-eric-schmidt-startup-working...

I have nothing against H1Bs, if they are paid the same wages as Americans. But undercutting our current engineers will reduce the wages of everyone and bring more money into the pockets of greedy CEOs and less money into the pockets of the worker.

These practices will only further create wealth inequality between the 1% and the 99%.

"why Donald Trump is successfully playing on fear and nationalism"

Bernie Sanders tried to pit the 1% against the 99%. This is also playing on fears and attempting to squash a minority through mob rule. Hillary is doing the exact same thing and now bringing the middle class into the mix by creating government programs that will reduce the middle class even further through taxes and regulations. California is a perfect example of this sort of governing: there is almost no middle class. You have the rich and the poor.

When I visit SF, I see more people on the streets/homeless than anywhere in the country.

I'm personally sick of the media (also shown in the DNC leaked emails) destroying anyone that doesn't go along with the current narrative of the day and all of the social media sites running with it as if these are facts.

Even expressing a dissenting opinion usually means: bullying, personal attacks, and finally silencing. I can't tell you how many people have been banned from Twitter and Facebook in the last couple of months for merely going against the opinions of the founders. Is this what we want in a free society?

Do I want Trump for president? No. But I want a stop to the madness. I wish we could actually have someone more moderate as a presidential candidate because I have views from both political sides.

Of course this works. So does a VPN back to the US. However, I shouldn't have to jump through all of these hoops for the freedom of information.

Anyone who claims China is 'free' should try living there for at least a year. It will open your eyes to the reality of the situation. It also makes you appreciate the freedoms we have in the US.

Any city in China shouldn't even be counted in this study. The books are filtered through the government and you are only allowed to read what is 'approved'.

I lived there for 5+ years and as an avid reader, it was infuriating.

As far as I know, the emails have not been disputed. They aren't doctored and are what actually was sent. This is factual information that does make the DNC look bad, because frankly, it was really bad.

"Dismiss evidence that makes Trump look bad out of hand"

What evidence? This is what I'm talking about. There are claims that it's the Russian government with no actual facts besides a trail that ends at a sordid VPN service.

There are plenty of other things that Trump says to make him look bad, I don't need even more evidence based on hearsay and opinion.

If we let things like this go on, a Sanders candidate will never have a future. If someone is bad, let the facts speak for themselves.

We have no proof any of these hacks were orchestrated by the Russian government. The 'security experts' have traced it back to a Russian VPN service, of which someone could have hacked and make themselves look like they were coming out of Russia.

It disturbs me that so many intelligent people in the IT community know this and stay silent because it makes Trump look bad.

Not to mention the fact that the content of the emails shows major collusion between the DNC and the mainstream media.

I feel like the facts have gone out the window when it comes to destroying someone you dislike.

Can't we have any non-partisan media nowadays?

I'm really sick of this position that if you don't agree with my political views, you are a crazy lunatic racist and are not worth of that opinion (So much so, you will be silenced and ignored).

It's the reason our nation is so divided. Do you think when a group of people are ignored, ridiculed, silenced, and in many cases fired from their job for merely having an opinion, that they are just going to sit there and do nothing when the group primarily doing the oppressing is going to get even more power over their lives?

The DNC email leaks made it even worse. It proves that the DNC has been colluding with the mainstream media to attack all of their political opponents, which now just happens to be Bernie Sanders. People are outraged, but were not outraged when it happened to someone they dislike (I seriously doubt this is the first time this happened). We need to protect the freedoms of all, not just the people we like..or we will eventually have no freedom at all.

I've been watching as much of the Democratic convention as I can stomach. My problem is that instead of spending time explaining to me why I need to vote for Hillary, it's a cavalcade of panderers, terrible comedians, and people making fun of Trump. Not my idea of intelligent discourse.

Don't get me wrong, Trump is just as bad. But the group that claims to be more intelligent seems to be putting on a show for the lowest common denominator.

I think the main thing I take away from all of these leaks is the fact that the main stream media conspires against political opponents of the DNC pretty regularly.

The Republicans have been saying this for years, but nobody really seemed to care when it was foretold that eventually, it will come around to you.

Now when those same evil people ruined the career of Bernie Sanders, many take notice.

The moral of the story is that even if you don't agree with a groups' political views, they still the same respect and freedoms as the group you align yourself with.

Twitter has been censoring right-leaning political figures for the past few years. Is it any surprise that leaked emails, which makes many Democrats in the DNC look bad, would be censored as well?

Many people really don't care about censorship..until their point-of-view is marginalized, ignored, and silenced.

Normally, I would say it's just desserts, but it just shows many people's sad view of 'freedom'

The bullying and violence from anti-trump supporters has really shown me the true colors of many people.

why not tell me why I should vote for Hillary instead of these crackpot Trump theories.