The masses are just extraordinarily ignorant when it comes to politics, largely because the media has shoveled down this erroneous notion that Communism = Soviet style fascism, and Socialism = capitalism with a strong government and nanny state.
710 karma · joined May 1, 2017
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qX0c60Ldwgs
#Yang2020
Your comment almost reads like satire. The whole point of the article was to show the dystopian insanity of what a society hell-bent on competition at all costs looks like. High school kids in school 14 hours/day competing against each other for limited slots at top schools, and then competing against each other for limited slots at companies where they work 14 hours/day for low wages. Life satisfaction ranked among the worst and suicide rates the highest in the world. Blatant discrimination on physical attractiveness (hence highest rates of plastic surgery) and parental occupations is icing on the cake.
And you're concerned that addressing these issues might make the economy less competitive? That mindset is exactly the problem this article is trying to highlight.
We completely neglect happiness, and maybe we're all competing for the wrong things.
Open to alternative solutions than UBI, but I don't see anything else that's going to have a significant impact on fixing South Korea's situation.
UBI might be "socialist" in the sense that it is a redistribution of wealth, but it would still be within a capitalist system. Free markets, private property ownership, and employment would still exist. The difference now would be that working for an employer and being a wage slave would become an option, rather than something you need to do to not be in poverty.
Dependence on government is not ideal, but neither is their system. Most critics of UBI fail to offer superior alternatives.
I created http://www.ceilingbuster.com/ to try to remedy this, but I never wrote a script to automatically scrape listings and thus it hasn't been updated in months
The solution isn't regulation because that only addresses a symptom without addressing the root cause. The only solution is to remove the employee's dependence on their employer (eg. universal basic income).
I totally agree with reforming our tax system away from income taxes and towards a land value tax, carbon taxes, and other Pigovian taxes. Or at least we can start taxing capital gains at the same or a higher rate than income taxes.
It's not merely about the decision to relocate, it's the indifference towards the engineers and viewing them as dispensable minions who are lucky to have the privilege of working for this company, often without the equity and earnings potential of early employees. Treating your workers as disposable pawns is a sure-fire way to generate disillusionment and cause valuable engineers to leave.
Nothing against the CEO. He's an extremely friendly and approachable person. Most people just fear questioning authority and power, and the CEO in a modern day corporation is revered similar to a king in a monarchy. It's always been like that at every company I've worked for.
At the end of the day, the "subordinates" are the ones actually doing the far majority of the work, and they far outnumber the managers. I don't see why the workers shouldn't at least have a seat at the table when the decisions are being debated that would affect them. Often the managers are so removed from the work that they lack a lot of the insights from the front lines.
The most common rebuttal I hear when I bring this up is, like you said, "too many people makes things inefficient". Bullshit. Sure a decision ultimately needs to be made, but there's no reason one shouldn't be allowed to provide input.
And in my experience, I do think it's more about people wanting to feel powerful, and fear of losing this power (eg. like the other commenter who mentioned fear of "power inversion"). The people in power are generally the most sycophantic, and thus have the least interest in interacting with or relinquishing power to subordinates because it doesn't personally benefit their position of power or ladder-climbing question.
If a bunch of executives make a bad decision, then "oh well, there's no way we could've known". If a bunch of executives make a bad decision after a meeting with subordinates who questioned their decision, then it makes the executives look bad and threatens their judgement and position of authority. So from a selfish perspective, it's better to keep the minions out.
The saddest realization I've had working at companies is how power-hungry people are, how little respect the people in power often have for those "below" them, and how important politics is even in a field like engineering that you'd expect to be meritocratic. Sweeping decisions are often made in a small room of a few "higher-ups" without any input or regard for those "below" them. Providing counter-arguments that question the decisions of the executive caste is often seen as a threat (how dare you question your leader?). The shy and humble rockstar coder who kicks ass gets little recognition while the smooth-talking sycophant gets accolades and climbs the ladder.
Corporations are authoritarian tyrannies with strict hierarchies. America was founded on the principles of democracy, but we tolerate tyranny in our workplace. The only way to change this is to remove the asymmetric dependency of the employee on the employer (eg. UBI).
As an outsider not well-versed in this topic, my guess is that the root cause here is hopelessness, struggle, and boredom caused by poverty and unemployment.
The solution then would be to employ people and give them a sense of purpose, or at least get them out of poverty.
I'm a huge proponent of a universal basic income (UBI), though I'm not sure that a UBI would fix this problem. Thus it seems as if some sort of government jobs program may be necessary. Giving people meaningful well-paying jobs in science and technology would do wonders in getting people off these ridiculous addictions.
My job as a software engineer is not particularly meaningful or fulfilling in the grand scheme of things. But it pays well, which will at some point allow me to retire and work on something meaningful to myself and society.
America needs to admit that it's no longer the bastion of innovation that it once was (I say this as an American. If anyone doesn't believe me, just take a trip to East Asia). Americans are complacent and fine with not having the cutting edge (not to mention our failing infrastructure).
I wish there was a way to change this attitude, but it feels like most people are too busy working and paying off their student debt. If every American had to fly to Tokyo or Seoul for a week, I think we'd put up less with our failing infrastructure. Or maybe this "Everyone for themselves, it's someone else's problem" greed mindset is too ingrained in our DNA.
It's a pretty simple problem with a pretty simple solution. The problem is that local city councils have restricted the freedom to build through excessive zoning laws and regulations in order to increase housing prices for their own private investment benefit.
The solution is to relinquish them of this self-interested tyrant-like overbearing power and set these policies on the national level - basically how Japan does it. The more localized the power, the more self-interest is going to favor a minority of private individuals at the expense of society.
Some takeaways:
* Our economic system claims to reward "work", but the reality is that it rewards ownership and extracting economic rents.
* Increasing value does not necessitate that being the result of one's "work". For example, land values rising are the result of other peoples' work (eg. neighboring properties, government policies, general economy). The landowner is compensated through the labor of others.
* Economic rents aren't taxed enough ("The business pays property taxes, but they average about $15 per house, per month – minuscule compared to the rent we make.")
* Labor is taxed too high relative to capital gains
* "Luck" plays a huge factor, and luck and hard work aren't mutually exclusive. If I'm born into a poor family in a ghetto, naturally I'm going to have less opportunities than being in an upper class family with enough funds to perpetually support me (eg. Mark Zuckerberg, Bill Gates)
* We need a Universal Basic Income, ideally funded by taxes on economic rent (eg. land value tax)
Our economic system is like a big game of monopoly where all the properties are already owned. You start off with whatever money/property you inherit from your parents, and have to work yourself up. Meanwhile, the rentiers are profiting off the backs of the laborers without doing anything. Sure it's possible to add "properties" to the board (ie. starting businesses), but that doesn't scale.
At least Monopoly had a UBI in the form of the $200 you get every time you pass "Go".
* It's possible that garbage collectors as a whole create more "value" than Oprah Winfrey. The difference is that the value created by garbage collectors is dispersed amongst millions of garbagemen and other people, while Oprah Winfrey gets to keep most of her value.
* There's an oversupply of people willing and able to pick up garbage relative to the supply of jobs. This puts downward pressure on the wages, ensuring that the compensation for their work is less than the true value generated.
> I've never seen men, as a group, encounter the obstacles I've seen many female peers discuss
Though since we're on the topic - I can't speak for your specific anecdotes, but I'll say this: men may not face obstacles to the same extent of women, but they definitely face their own obstacles, and sexism against men even in this industry is a thing.
Affirmative action and hiring quotas are reverse discrimination. Being a women in this field gives you a leg up in terms of university admission to competitive CS programs and employment at competitive firms. Recruiters are often female and discriminate in favor of women. (I've experienced this numerous times firsthand). For your friends who were actually sexually harassed, the mere accusation alone is often enough to get co-workers fired and have their reputations ruined (see Adria Richards dongle joke).
So yes, females unfortunately face a huge set of obstacles, but they also face a huge set of advantages that shouldn't be overlooked. This victim mentality needs to stop at some point.
> Magerko, 51, is not afraid to flaunt her wealth, sending a message to her workers that they too can get rich working construction. Wearing a diamond cross necklace, a Gucci belt, and a white shirt emblazoned with the company logo, she visited a rural Pennsylvania store recently in a white Mercedes. “I want people who work for me to retire in their 50s and own their own boats,” she says.
So essentially, the best way to achieve the American Dream is to inherit a successful business from your parents.
Capitalism is sort of like a pyramid scheme - The owner(s) at the top reaping all the benefits, while everyone else is plumbing away in hope of the "American Dream".
"If you're going to kill yourself, at least do it for a cause so that it can help the world and isn't completely in vain"
I was clearly referring to the betterment of humanity.
Depression is within one's control, and this attitude of classifying it as a disease only keeps people feeling helplessly depressed and enriches the pockets of doctors and pharmaceuticals companies. My other comment in this thread: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=14655648
Depression is not outside of your control. This encouragement of that kind of thinking classifying it as a "disease" is what keeps people depressed (and makes doctors money).
Was reading a book by a now successful guy who was suicidal all throughout his teenage years. He said that feeling suicidal was one of the best things to happen to him because it gave him this risk-taking attitude to just make the bold moves to turn his life around, because if things didn't work out, he could always kill himself.
Honestly it's unfortunate that this is considered too touchy a topic to talk about. We'd have less suicides if we could openly talk about it, and maybe you're committing the sin that you're accusing me of.
That being said, do not commit suicide. Happiness is a choice, and you should chose it.
I actively avoid the subways as much as possible, especially in the summer when the stations are uncomfortably hot/humid. I mostly walk, ride Citibike, or take Uber/Lyft. Luckily I'm able to do this because I live reasonably close to my office in Manhattan.
Uber Pool has been a godsend because it's so cheap. I can often Uber to/from the office for about $.50 more than the price of a subway side. Granted traffic in the city is horrible so it's not all sunshine and rainbows - my Uber Pool today from midtown east to west of Penn Station took absurdly long due to standstill traffic, but at $2.03 I'm not complaining, and I'll take any excuse to avoid the subways.
https://www.nytimes.com/2017/02/12/nyregion/subway-complaint...
https://www.nytimes.com/2017/06/05/nyregion/subway-delays.ht...
https://www.nytimes.com/2017/05/31/nyregion/why-is-subway-se...
https://www.governor.ny.gov/news/governor-cuomo-challenges-m...