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Basically repeating the same clickbait content that any tabloid has been repeating for a good year without questioning any of it. Considering that Uber's 10000

Basically repeating the same clickbait content that any tabloid has been repeating for a good year without questioning any of it. Considering that Uber's 10000 corporate employees are just people for whom a job at Uber sits on their resume next to a bunch of lines including all the other big tech companies, what are the chances they're all sex-crazed monsters? What does Occam's Razor say about the following two scenarios: - Massive conspiracy to amass all 10k predators under one roof, or - Some problems exist, company's a large and well known brand, hence relentless bashing sells clicks? This kind of mindless vitriol and happiness to throw out the baby with the bath water helps nobody, least of which the actual victims of harassment. Then again, I doubt the OP really cared anyways.

matt4077 9y ago
I'm not quite sure what your point is. Parts of your little tantrum seem to be an attempt to deny that any problem exists ("without questing any of it" / "relentless bashing sells clicks" (a conspiracy against Uber!). Other parts come straight from the 'alt-right' playbook, such as the completely hypothetical idea that "OP [didn't[ care anyway". I guess you just didn't remember the usual buzzword, i.e. "virtue signalling"? And although I do deserve all your scorn, because I am fundamentally certain that current Uber employees are by now co-conspiritors in Kalanick's little frathouse, I am somewhat surprised. Because the comment you're replying to was actually pretty light on accusations of that nature, and was making what I consider a pretty solid case that Uber is simply fucked financially (kinda like the cheap hookers their CXOs frequent when on business in Asia). Uber's long history of never finding any human too weak to casually stomp into the curb is mostly just contributing to the enjoyment of watching their slow demise. The first highlight was certainly how the Uber-Randians got the disruption kicked out of them by governments around the world showing them what "monopoly on violence" actually means. Now, we can watch as the paralysed corpse of Uber's upper management watches, helplessly, as Google slowly devours the entrails. And yes: considering that most any technical employee at this bro-themed sweatshop is (well: "was") employable almost anywhere makes them complicit in everything that went on. It's certainly possible that some Uberdonks didn't notice what was happening around them. But staying with the company is obviously tacit endorsement of everything that has come to light. I hope they have another two or three years of runway to suffer, at which point it'll be something like a Game of Thrones finale to see all those precious stock options go up in smoke when Uber goes Under. It used to be that people selling their soul to the devil at least were competent enough to make sure their partner was solvent.
- linkregister 9y ago
  I enjoyed your response to quirkyquark's comment. Your insults are creative and entertaining. The part about Google devouring the corpse of Uber's entrails was especially humorous. Are you having a bit of fun, or are you genuinely passionately against Uber? If you are in earnest, what is your personal connection to the Uber scandals? If in earnest, it seems a bit out of character from your previously dispassionate posts here on HN. Since you are a frequent poster here, this isn't the first time I have noticed your writing. Edit: after a second read, I'm finding it pretty unlikely you were being serious. I am not as good at discerning sarcasm on the internet as I should be.
  - matt4077 9y ago
    Thanks–it was indeed harsher than anything I would usually write. Mostly because I didn't actually expect anybody to ever read it, and because I thought I could bring some balance to the cosmos by giving them the sort of comment that their comment seemed to address :) I think I'm actually quite compassionate, and borderline aggressive in many of my comments. Uber always gets that treatment because they somehow managed to position themselves at exactly the confluence of number of seemingly disparate trends I find worrisome. Among them the loss of trust in institutions that are for the most part functioning better than they ever did in the past (media/government/science/etc.), the Ayn Rand-style glorification of individualism to the point of denying any legitimacy to the role of society ("I never voted for the constitution"), and this rather strange backlash against the empowerment of previously disadvantaged groups. I'm trying to argue these points with the lightest touch possible, especially that last one. But I'm actually quite scared by the changes I've seen in this community, and I'm both at a loss for how it happened and what to do about it, as well as fundamentally convinced that HN is among the places where the next generation finds their ideological bearings, and that it is among the few remaining rays of light that the current leadership in technology has a humanist bend. I'm pretty sure, for example, that Bill Gates' humanitarianism is the result of the culture he experienced in the tech community (because there's really no sign of it in his earlier writings etc). To think that the next generation could follow not in his footsteps, but in Kalanick's and Thiel's is scary, especially considering the growing power of technology... Anyway... On HN you'll never find anyone saying black skin makes you immoral, or that jews are secretly plotting...something. It just so happens that this community always finds extremely good reasons to defend this or that fundamental right (free speech, due process, investor protection, whatever) when these powers are used for the betterment of white male cis-STEM-dom. It's definitely not obvious, and I may have a somewhat myopic view. But I'd love to find some statistical method to surface these trends.

matt4077 9y ago

I'm not quite sure what your point is. Parts of your little tantrum seem to be an attempt to deny that any problem exists ("without questing any of it" / "relentless bashing sells clicks" (a conspiracy against Uber!). Other parts come straight from the 'alt-right' playbook, such as the completely hypothetical idea that "OP [didn't[ care anyway". I guess you just didn't remember the usual buzzword, i.e. "virtue signalling"? And although I do deserve all your scorn, because I am fundamentally certain that current Uber employees are by now co-conspiritors in Kalanick's little frathouse, I am somewhat surprised. Because the comment you're replying to was actually pretty light on accusations of that nature, and was making what I consider a pretty solid case that Uber is simply fucked financially (kinda like the cheap hookers their CXOs frequent when on business in Asia). Uber's long history of never finding any human too weak to casually stomp into the curb is mostly just contributing to the enjoyment of watching their slow demise. The first highlight was certainly how the Uber-Randians got the disruption kicked out of them by governments around the world showing them what "monopoly on violence" actually means. Now, we can watch as the paralysed corpse of Uber's upper management watches, helplessly, as Google slowly devours the entrails. And yes: considering that most any technical employee at this bro-themed sweatshop is (well: "was") employable almost anywhere makes them complicit in everything that went on. It's certainly possible that some Uberdonks didn't notice what was happening around them. But staying with the company is obviously tacit endorsement of everything that has come to light. I hope they have another two or three years of runway to suffer, at which point it'll be something like a Game of Thrones finale to see all those precious stock options go up in smoke when Uber goes Under. It used to be that people selling their soul to the devil at least were competent enough to make sure their partner was solvent.

linkregister 9y ago
I enjoyed your response to quirkyquark's comment. Your insults are creative and entertaining. The part about Google devouring the corpse of Uber's entrails was especially humorous. Are you having a bit of fun, or are you genuinely passionately against Uber? If you are in earnest, what is your personal connection to the Uber scandals? If in earnest, it seems a bit out of character from your previously dispassionate posts here on HN. Since you are a frequent poster here, this isn't the first time I have noticed your writing. Edit: after a second read, I'm finding it pretty unlikely you were being serious. I am not as good at discerning sarcasm on the internet as I should be.
- matt4077 9y ago
  Thanks–it was indeed harsher than anything I would usually write. Mostly because I didn't actually expect anybody to ever read it, and because I thought I could bring some balance to the cosmos by giving them the sort of comment that their comment seemed to address :) I think I'm actually quite compassionate, and borderline aggressive in many of my comments. Uber always gets that treatment because they somehow managed to position themselves at exactly the confluence of number of seemingly disparate trends I find worrisome. Among them the loss of trust in institutions that are for the most part functioning better than they ever did in the past (media/government/science/etc.), the Ayn Rand-style glorification of individualism to the point of denying any legitimacy to the role of society ("I never voted for the constitution"), and this rather strange backlash against the empowerment of previously disadvantaged groups. I'm trying to argue these points with the lightest touch possible, especially that last one. But I'm actually quite scared by the changes I've seen in this community, and I'm both at a loss for how it happened and what to do about it, as well as fundamentally convinced that HN is among the places where the next generation finds their ideological bearings, and that it is among the few remaining rays of light that the current leadership in technology has a humanist bend. I'm pretty sure, for example, that Bill Gates' humanitarianism is the result of the culture he experienced in the tech community (because there's really no sign of it in his earlier writings etc). To think that the next generation could follow not in his footsteps, but in Kalanick's and Thiel's is scary, especially considering the growing power of technology... Anyway... On HN you'll never find anyone saying black skin makes you immoral, or that jews are secretly plotting...something. It just so happens that this community always finds extremely good reasons to defend this or that fundamental right (free speech, due process, investor protection, whatever) when these powers are used for the betterment of white male cis-STEM-dom. It's definitely not obvious, and I may have a somewhat myopic view. But I'd love to find some statistical method to surface these trends.