sankho

A small site I made which randomly displays organizations that are or help those under threat in the USA in 2017 and beyond.

Basically, I got so frustrated watching the news all the time, I wanted something as close to an easy button in terms of listing ways I can support groups that need our help.

Github is here, open to contributions and group additions: https://github.com/sankho/HelpSaveTheUSA

By coincidence I made a site to direct people to various charities on HN when this post came up - it went nowhere of course.

If you're looking for an option to support other charities w/o feeling like you're actually just buttressing a corporation's branding --> https://helpsavetheusa.com/

The only point you offer that relates to your actual argument is the author of the article is the CEO of kickstarter, so his promotion of less monolithic industries is ultimately self serving given that he profits off them - which is an interesting one but I'd contest that with the history and focus of kickstarter and their lack of employing any monopoly strategy.

By limiting entries to simple projects, not allowing anything purely political / fundraising driven, Kickstarter allowed for a vast sea of other crowdfunding sites to exist without ever threatening to take them or their market share over, despite Kickstarter being the site that popularized the crowfunding concept. The opposite of say, Uber's domination strategy, or a lot of other companies for that matter.

So... if I trust any company to express themselves without being self serving, it would be Kickstarter, for the reason that they had an opportunity to be the only major crowdfunding site, and chose not to based on what the founders wanted the company to be about.

"And making sure everyone's making at least $1.25 a day isn't the end of the fight either. The world's median income is still only $3 to $4 a day. By comparison, the poverty line in the US for a family of four is $16.61 per person per day. Once under-$1.25-a-day poverty is eradicated, the world needs to set about eradicating under-$15-a-day poverty, which will be a substantially harder task."

But... there's an abundance of internet quotes like "No other editor stands next to vim" (see parent comment), so I wanted to make sure the reader didn't think I was proselytizing.

So to be accurate, YOU don't give a flying fuck, anonymous account guy.

But, thanks for your opinion and in the future hopefully I'll write something that you like as well.

My point being that with software development, even in an office, you'll still have to deal with lack of motivation and missing deadlines, and will never feel totally accomplished here. Working locations become a correlation, not a causation.

You don't provide an argument for why working in an office provides what you are claiming remote workers to lack, nor do you provide evidence to backup your claim that remote workers are more replaceable.

> But at some point... the way you'll make value is by enabling others to build software; reading body language, detecting issues in a team; or negotiating; or motivating; or selling; etc.

If you can't do this through verbal communication and hangouts, maybe you should work on your communication skills as a manager - sometimes listening to the words people say is more reliable than making assumptions based on body positioning. On the flip side, maybe you should focus your hiring efforts on developers with strong communication skills, and enforce an evaluation period w/ new developers to see if they can meet the mustard in terms of remote communicating. Good developers don't communicate passively; they use their words and this can be assessed by good managers.

This is somewhat buried in the copy but... does it help to assuage that concern at all?

I'm hoping for that last category, those users will be easy to find in a search given that the focus is on skillset.

The basic idea is to help tech talent control their identity & ascertain critical job details like pay & location info before starting the interview process. So far basically just a signup to gauge interest.

Hoping to get feedback from the tech community on the concept, so I thought: "Why not Show HN?" (side note, I put this on Show HN and I'm pretty sure it's not appropriate as an email signup so I reposted).

Would really appreciate any thoughts you all have!

The basic idea is to help tech talent control their identity & ascertain critical job details like pay & location info before starting the interview process.

Hoping to get feedback from the tech community on the concept, so I thought: "Why not Show HN?"

Would really appreciate any thoughts you all have!

Reading takes more time for me to understand what your product does than looking at pictures.

That said, I'm glad the Venn diagram of ignorant gamers and racists have a lot of people in common.

My lack of notable open source contributions kind of makes me self conscious; hopefully I can get over that one day!

Taking the money crowd funded means you can accept no other form of donations.

Just a thought, not related to We The Lobby, but perhaps a future project?

We agree the concept is somewhat abusrd, but... maybe just the fact that we resorted to making this a real thing will be enough of a wake up call to congress. Maybe.

In the vein of the Onion article, I hope you've been watching the hilarity of Colbert's super PAC.

we are using stripe.com as a our payment processor, and they allow exactly what you've stipulated.

We'd love to have an extended chat about this - mind reaching out at contact@wethelobby.com?

Lobbying firms are in fact by law transparent about their finances - but we will also draft agreements with any partners demanding transparency and analysis of any financial data be updated on the site, available to the public.

On top of this, we are setting up a system to update users on the activities of the lobbyists, where they will disclose what they've been up to.

As for "backroom deals" and the like - if you research lobbying, you'll find it's not quite as shady as it's made out to be. It's just controlled by one small portion of the population, which owns a majority of the wealth. We The Lobby wishes to balance that.

We don't feel that lobbying is inherently evil - it is just unbalanced and mis-guided. We wish to cast an example of how lobbying can be positive, as well as provide an argument for it's need to be regulated and more closely watched.

The general constituency of a democracy should not have to pool money just to be heard by it's government, but the current lack of regulations over gov't lobbying have forced the hand of the people.

At this point, it simply is what it is.

It's not what lobbyists do that make you call them pigs - it's the fact that they are eating from the troughs of corporations.

Let's we the people feed them individually so they'll fight for us instead. Maybe then, one day, we can do something about the troughs.