Hacker News Reader

wbronitskyon Kickstarter employees vote to unionize

There is no point in having a conversation if you are going to continue to assert points without any evidence or arguments to back them up. We understand that you look down on this unionization and don't believe that these workers should have the rights that they think they should. You made your point.

Good day.

wbronitskyon Kickstarter employees vote to unionize

These are bold assertions with no evidence. We do understand that you don't think these people are entitled to a union, nor are they entitled to live where they want and have the respect they think they deserve. Yet you have not said why. It would seem that Kickstarter employees, the ones with the most information here, do disagree with you though.

wbronitskyon Kickstarter employees vote to unionize

It seems like this would be solved by you not going to work for Kickstarter.

Maybe people other than you have problems you cannot see or understand.

wbronitskyon Kickstarter employees vote to unionize

I'm always amazed that when people ask for dignity, respect and the ability to have agency in their own life, other people feel the need to put those people down, call them "spoiled" and assert that life is just fine for everyone, thank you.

What I usually can't figure out is "why". Do you own a company? Are you part of management? Do you think that life should stay as it is and not get better for everyone?

Genuinely curious.

wbronitskyon What Do We Want History to Do to Us?

Does all art I enjoy have to hang on my wall?

I no longer see any reason to continue this conversation; you're just trying to attack me.

wbronitskyon What Do We Want History to Do to Us?

I like Kara Walker's art. Quite a bit actually.

wbronitskyon California’s housing crisis: how a bureaucrat pushed to build

FWIW, Personal anecdote:

My parents bought a house on the Peninsula in the SF Bay Area for $500k in 2000 and it is now worth at least $2m.

wbronitskyon What Do We Want History to Do to Us?

Not only does the article directly address your criticism, but Zadie Smith, the author, is no white leftist.

We do understand that you do not like Walker's art, and seem to be trying to make others feel bad for liking it. Maybe we can just critique the art itself?

On what authority do you define art for all of us? Why does your definition of art have to be all of our definition?

wbronitskyon DHS plans urgently needed to address identified challenges before 2020 elections [pdf]

Yes, as my posting history clearly indicates, I'm a schill for voting rights and equal representation.

wbronitskyon DHS plans urgently needed to address identified challenges before 2020 elections [pdf]

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Voter_ID_laws_in_the_United_St...

This is not a difficult topic, nor is it a very nuanced one; voter ID laws in the United States are and have been overwhelmingly racist. The answers to your questions are very much easily at hand, and we don't need to argue in ignorance. I understand it can be frustrating to see evidence that you are unprepared for; yet in order to have substantive conversations, we must be ready for such evidence, and consider it when it is present.

wbronitskyon DHS plans urgently needed to address identified challenges before 2020 elections [pdf]

Do we have any evidence that non-citizens voting is an actual problem, or are you just spreading FUD?

The GP has linked some well sourced articles about how voter ID laws have been used for primarily racist purposes in the US. Do you have any evidence that supports another narrative?

wbronitskyon I Was Google’s Head of International Relations

> But you don't get to call someone out for being prejudiced when they are literally following the advice given to them by specialists who are trying to promote diversity and inclusion.

Wait, why not? Why is this appeal to authority iron clad? Why is this authority better than any other? If I claim to be a "specialist[] who [is] trying to promote diversity" and I am doing bigoted things, where does that leave my authority?

I don't believe defending an appeal to authority by asserting that your authority is correct is a sound line of reasoning.

wbronitskyon The Two Kinds of Moderate

The original post was edited completely to make my previous post read as nonsense

wbronitskyon Shopify CEO says long hours aren't necessary for success

It is absolutely debatable. Moreover, why would you post something on a public forum like this that wasn’t debatable? This rhetoric is a bit lazy and baity.

wbronitskyon The Basic Problem of Democracy (1919)

I’m very curious as to how you define “work[ing]” in the context of a currently operating government. It would seem that democracies all over the world “work” for quite a few more people by ratio than other forms of government.

I’m also quite curious as to if you have alternatives; it’s all well and good to bash democracy, especially in the current moment, but are there better realistic alternatives? Are you advocating for revolution?

wbronitskyon The Two Kinds of Moderate

I think you have conflated PGs blog with HN. They are firmly separate entities

wbronitskyon The Two Kinds of Moderate

In what way is Hillary Clinton a Marxist? That seems like a pretty outlandish statement directed towards someone with so much money and power

wbronitskyon Teen Marijuana Vaping Soars, Displacing Other Habits

What have you been reading? Can you share some of that data with us so we can come to a common understanding? I was under the impression that this was not a fact, just a supposition; I would love to be enlightened!

wbronitskyon Teen Marijuana Vaping Soars, Displacing Other Habits

I doubt the data source can tell us this information. It asks students what drugs they have taken at what intervals, and does not seek to address the "why." Hence the pearl clutching by the NYT to provide the "why" for us.

Either way, we have no clue as to the harm that vaping causes us; we are rather certain of the harm alcohol, cigarettes and hard drugs cause us. The numbers in TFA are still pretty bad: ~17% of these kids have vaped THC in the past month where as ~50% had drank alcohol. Even if this was a tradeoff, it seems like a good one at this point.

wbronitskyon Teen Marijuana Vaping Soars, Displacing Other Habits

The article starts with something that is, by most accounts, harm reduction among teenagers: “Teenagers are drinking less alcohol, smoking fewer cigarettes and trying fewer hard drugs, new federal survey data shows. But these public health gains have been offset by a sharp increase in vaping of marijuana and nicotine..." The statistics, unused in this article, are quite clear: alcohol, tobacco and hard drugs more harmful to personal and societal health than marijuana.

But then the NYT proceeds to whip up some nonsense about how harmful vaping marijuana is, staring, and really ending, as we have no clue how harmful this behavior is, with a quote: “'This is a very, very worrisome trend..."

This is fear mongering, pure and simple.

wbronitskyon Google Gives Feds 1,500 Phone Locations in Unprecedented ‘Geofence’ Search

While I do agree with you generally, I'm not sure there is much you can do if a governmental body wants you for some reason. I always find Mickens to have the best explanation here:

Threat: The Mossad doing Mossad things with your email account Solution: Magical amulets? Fake your own death, move into a submarine? YOU’RE STILL GONNA BE MOSSAD’ED UPON

http://scholar.harvard.edu/files/mickens/files/thisworldofou...

wbronitskyon Away Fires CEO Steph Korey After Months-Long Search for Her Replacement

Wow, thats an incredible statement to not be backed up with any sources.

I vehemently disagree; racism is at its worst when groups who are institutionally powerful use racism to oppress groups with relatively little institutional power. To assert otherwise is to be willfully blind to the lived experiences of people who are oppressed, at best. I won't go into what it suggests at worst.

wbronitskyon Socialism is incompatible with human nature

Is this the commentary we bring to HN now? A snide remark followed by baseless claims, without evidence, nuance or anything to add to the discussion? All precipitated by a piece of flamebait which claims that an entire political philosophy is bunk because one instance of it isn't working to the author's satisfaction?

We can do better.

wbronitskyon The Great Cannon has been deployed again

Calling the interning of over 1 million people an attempt at unification is blatant astroturfing and is wildly and viciously wrong.

wbronitskyon Dating While Dying

How is it not productive? Just because your position is that obituaries should be paywalled, doesn't mean we all agree. Why is it that because you hold a different opinion, we aren't allowed to discuss it?

wbronitskyon Clear backpacks, monitored emails: U.S. students under constant surveillance

What does you comment have to do with teaching Nihilism in schools? Why does it matter that people are also discussing this elsewhere?

I don’t understand how this is a response to my post, rather than that thing where people put their hand up to ask a question and then just state their position instead.

wbronitskyon Clear backpacks, monitored emails: U.S. students under constant surveillance

This is a complete straw man. We are not discussing how many guns the Swiss have in absolute, not are we talking about how that could affect school shootings in the US. If we want to discuss the numbers, devices like ratios will serve us much better.

wbronitskyon Clear backpacks, monitored emails: U.S. students under constant surveillance

Can you explain who is teaching nihilism to whom and where? In school, while I did not have a clear backpack and quite obviously had internet monitoring on someone else’s network, I was never, not once, taught nihilism. In fact, in my education through grade 12, most everything was filtered through a compassionate lens.

It’s not like I was taught that the Holocaust will happen again because humans are inherently bad and such everything is meaningless; instead it was that if we seek the goodness in the world we can prevent something like that happening again. Furthermore, if we were taught anything about nihilism, it would be that the Nazis used it to justify mass murder, which we were taught is the worst thing ever, because it is. Just my experience

wbronitskyon Drive drunk twice in Quebec, get ignition breathalyzer for life

Driving drunk is something we should have absolutely 0 tolerance for in 2019. It is nearly never mandatory, except possibly in a disaster, and should be punished according to the externalities it causes. In this case that is death, which is non-reversable.

I, for one, find this to be a barely passable minimum punishment for two DUIs

wbronitskyon The Real Class War

I'm not saying this argument is incorrect, but I think it is complicated by the fact that teachers are public employees.

The article mostly touches on private industry and the economics reaped within that sphere. Your argument is salient, but there is probably room for both the argument in TFA and this one.