tock

Forget the last 5 years. Take the last 15 years. What exactly has say Meta contributed to the world? What true innovation?

> I hate to say it, but perhaps many people are employed in bullshit jobs because they are not capable of anything more challenging.

Because bullshit jobs paid mode. Your average engineer working on ad targeting or at a hedge fund makes a lot more than working in say medicine.

To be fair a lot of the fired people were moderators and it shows today.

I am disputing it. But I cannot make the same point over and over again. Lets just agree to disagree.

These are all symptoms of a larger rot within society. Frankly I am a bit scared.

Your examples of the US doing good for democracy is correct. My examples of the US doing bad and dismantling democracy for its own benefit is also correct. The US has been fantastic for its own people and its allies. Not so for others. Please note that 85% of the world population lies outside.

But all your examples are vs Russia. I will be happy if Russia is dismantled. Both the Soviet Union and Russia has been terrible for its people. China has been absolutely fantastic for its people. They went from absolute poverty to challenging the greatest empire the world has ever seen in just a few decades. I doubt the Chinese people hate their regime.

> to assess which sphere of influence (and its implications on national self-determination) is preferable

Iran, Guatemala, Brazil, etc. All had democratic govt's overthrown by the US.

> I personally view Russia and China as adversaries because they are a serious threat to democracy worldwide (that I think we agree on?), which I believe is the very thing we're discussing.

I personally view Russia, USA and China as serious threats to democracy. Because all three have toppled democratic countries for its benefit. And no I don't think they do it because they hate democracy. They do it because it helps their superiority. The victims just happened to be democratic sometimes.

> So in summary, there are very good reasons to be critical of China (CCP) independent of the current US administrations actions and historical baggage of the US.

And there are very good reasons to be critical of the USA independent of the current Chinese administrations actions and historical baggage of China.

My whole point is that administrations do things for economic and military superiority. Things like morality are just used by administrations to justify actions to their populace. I am sure you _personally_ dislike China for purely moral reasons. Most people are good who think in terms of morality. That is exactly why framing a rival as "evil" works so well. It's about power. If the world works on the basis of justice then the EU should have sanctioned the US for the Iraq debacle and now Palestine.

Can you maybe take a few minutes and write down all the good+bad things the US has done since say WW2 vs China? You'll understand why a neutral third party is wary of both.

And I'm saying this has nothing to do with moral goods like democracy. The US has toppled plenty of democracies and killed millions of innocent people for its own benefit. "Might makes right" is what we always practiced. The current administration just doesn't care to hide it.

This has everything to do with maintaining economic and military superiority. That's the reason why people consider China a "adversary" not morality. If you don't understand this you won't understand why such a huge percentage of the world's population is wary of the USA just like they are wary of China.

What Russia is doing is horrific. I am not saying China is a kingdom of goodness. Rather I am saying the US does the same. We have invaded plenty and is supporting an invasion in the middle east right now. The problem we have with China isn't moral. We have plenty of allies who are morally bad. But they aren't challenging us economically unlike China.

> if you care about democracy

I do

> they are the only power that can arguably undermine it

Stares at current administration

> tiktok

Meta. Myanmar. Report: https://www.amnesty.org/en/latest/news/2022/09/myanmar-faceb...

> fueling division

Again stares at current administration

> funding antidemocratic parties like Germany's AfD

Elon. Vance. Report: https://www.nytimes.com/2025/02/14/us/politics/vance-far-rig...

> support of Russia in their war of conquest against Ukraine

Agree. Looks over at Palestine.

> the treatment of their neighbors like the Philippines

Venezuela. Today.

This is all true. From a western perspective this is bad. From an non-western perspective this is just what the west has been doing forever. That's my sentiment about the whole thing. The US is just mad that China is challenging them in their own game especially economically. And I am not saying thats bad either. Every country wants to maintain superiority.

What did China even do to be seen as this super evil enemy? Apart from actually challenging American economic superiority?

Thats because entry level jobs provided a lot of value back then. It's just harder these days with the amount of automation and tech advancement.

I guess one way is to increase the min wage a lot. But I am guessing employers will just pivot to hiring even less.

Funny enough Europe uses the same excuses against America. That the reason America is far ahead of them is because of slave labour, no universal healthcare, etc

> Not caring about intellectual property, including your own work that might get sucked up into AI models

But this is particularly funny. Which American AI company has respected anyones IP when it comes to AI? Aaron Swartz is rolling in his grave seeing OpenAI.

This is bad. This whole debacle has only proven two things: you can't trust China. And you can't trust the USA. Globalisation is slowly going to reverse :(

> What I lament is that people with those views insist that everyone should cut ties with people with other views, rather than accepting that different people may have different views.

It's only natural to think that way because these particular decisions are based on ones moral framework. It isn't like choosing a favourite tea. People will be pissed at each other when moral frameworks don't match.

> Cowtowing to people in power and taking photos with hateful people is just repulsive noise.

It comes down to what you said before. People have different views. It's noise to you. It isn't noise to others.

Do you think a person of Palestinian origin should also continue seeing their relationship with Vercel on a solely transactional basis? Given that their families are likely affected and Vercel's CEO publicly supports it? I'm just trying to point out why people might have a different view on this.

Well intentioned post. Though I never understood the "don't trash your employer" advice people often give. It's often the more empathetic thing to do in such situations.

You can be an incredible entrepreneur(or anything really) and a terrible human being. Please remember this before idolising people outright solely because of their achievements.

Would you be opposed to lab grown meat?

I was vegetarian for close to a decade and felt terrible. Slowly reintroducing meat back to my diet(especially red meat) worked wonders for me.

Fortunately my boss measures my productivity and not the number of hours I spend in front of a screen.

Going remote did the trick for me. I have a lot of free time.

I think people know they are making the world a worse place. But the salaries are insanely high. It wont change until society frowns upon the job. Also it makes the world worse through second order effects so its easy to not think about it.

I agree. But if employees know their objective value I believe it will change what they will consider an acceptable offer.

But its a more transparent system. Right now no-one has any idea if they get laid off or if they are being underpaid. I think the overall compensation would likely go up if you are good at your job.

Companies already do layoffs without commissions. They are always optimising to reduce salaries and increase profit margins. And its not "some number". Its the amount of $ brought in. Thats what companies care about.

> Just because we can measure a sales person’s contributions in dollar amounts does not mean we must measure it in dollar amounts.

This is the fairest form of compensation. It's unfortunate that engineering contribution cannot be measured the same way. If we could engineers would all be getting a nice pay hike.

PewDiePie is awesome. His linux video has over 6M views. We need to make linux cool again for the general audience.

Of our US $300,000.00 goal for 2025, as of July 13th, 2025, we are at:

- 25.6% funded

- $76,707 donated

:(

I was writing a response before realising this profile is an AI agent. Is this seriously allowed on HN? The bio reads: "It's largely for my amusement and I like to play games."

Gold isn't really held because central banks expect its value to go up always. It's held because its safe from other risks like assets being frozen, the currency completely collapsing to 0, etc. Gold has managed to always hold "some value" over centuries. It's a hedge.