6 ms·

The article is a badly written opinion piece that meanders through various topics, but your critique of it is beating a strawman. It's not making the "you can'

by avar 9y ago

The article is a badly written opinion piece that meanders through various topics, but your critique of it is beating a strawman. It's not making the "you can't win" argument that tech companies should be critiqued whether or not they build housing. Rather, it's that they're supposedly constructing "company towns" in the sense that the housing stock they build won't be for sale, and presumably only rented to employees. If you get fired you also get evicted. Furthermore they'll own the nearby retail space as well. Will an Oculus competitor be for sale in the Facebook-owned chain of stores? Will someone trying to organize a Facebook union be allowed to use the meeting spaces at the Facebook town hall?

deleted 9y ago
[deleted]
humanrebar 9y ago
> If you get fired you also get evicted. If you get fired, you basically lose your healthcare, which in many cases is much worse. Though quite a number of Americans seem fine with that arrangement for some reason.
- TrickyRick 9y ago
  If I'm a healthy individual then the risk that I need my healthcare insurance are low (But it has a big impact on my economy if I do need it). However the risk that I need some form of housing is 100% and the impact of not having it is huge which to me makes it a bigger risk. However YMMV depending on your situation.
  - jrimbault 9y ago
    >If I'm a healthy individual I don't think I know any family without a member of it having some kind of medical condition. (bad turn of phrase, but do I get the point across ?)
    - ryanbrunner 9y ago
      I think the point is while losing healthcare insurance is absolutely a big problem, it's often not an immediate problem - there's a decent chance that a typical Facebook employee doesn't currently have a pressing need for healthcare, and even if they do, there's a decent chance they'll find new employment and be covered relatively quickly. On the other hand, being evicted from your home is going to affect everyone, and there's no avoiding the upheaval - you're forced to find new housing in a famously overpriced market at the exact moment that you just lost your job.
  - humanrebar 9y ago
    That sounds like a case for health insurance. Just, you know, insurance. Not an account with a healthcare company with a subscription model (close to what the U.S. has now).
  - Spooky23 9y ago
    Circumstances change quickly. I'm married, things happened, and we ended up having a baby. Due to various circumstances beyond our control. That cost $100k. As a healthy guy in my 20's, I suffered an injury through no fault of my own that led to me needing a serious back surgery. Net cost -> $250k. Rolling the dice on something that fundamentally life altering, and expecting society to pick up the tab for the consequences of your risk management is bullshit. It is a good illustration of why you can't treat healthcare as a market driven thing unless you're willing to drop the moral obligation to preserve human life (and expect the providers to "absorb" it).
    - greedo 9y ago
      So you had a baby due to circumstances beyond your control? And you had an injury, again through no fault of your own? And the sum of those are over $350K. Who is responsible for your health? I'd argue that the baby is entirely on you, and $100K for a delivery is insane unless you had incredible complications. And if the back injury wasn't your fault, you could seek redress from whom is responsible. If it's work related, then work should pay. If it's an accident, then whomever is negligent should pay. Unfortunately, no one wants to take responsibility, and expects "society" to make an individual whole after a loss.
      - lawrenceyan 9y ago
        How do you feel about people with debilitating genetic diseases/disorders? Through no fault of their own other than being born into this world, and no health care provider wants to anything to do with them. They are guaranteed money losers, and if insurance companies didn’t have to deal with pesky regulations, they would happily find and drop these patients. I make no judgements on your moral character, but to follow your philosophy requires a fundamental acceptance that certain human life has less intrinsic value than other human life.
        greedo 9y ago
        I have no issue with society picking up after people who truly have catastrophic illnesses (though that's really what health insurance SHOULD be, not the way it is currently.) My issue is with people expecting society to pay for health care that's not catastrophic nor "accidental." If I choose to have a child, I should expect to pay for it. My partner and I had to have IVF, and we paid for it.
- deleted 9y ago
  [deleted]
- emodendroket 9y ago
  OK but that doesn't make it positive or neutral to move even further in that direction.
  - humanrebar 9y ago
    Agreed. I was lamenting that it is seen as an essential part of the employer/employee relationship when the employer-as-landlord proposition seems so foreign and troubling. I thought drawing the connection would make people rethink the normal feelings we have about the American healthcare system.
    - emodendroket 9y ago
      Well, sure, I would like to see healthcare decoupled from jobs as well -- and frankly I'd think the startup lovers here would support it too, given that healthcare is actually a big barrier to entrepreneurship.
- jsjohnst 9y ago
  > If you get fired, you basically lose your healthcare Not in the US, at least not for 18 months anyway. It’s called COBRA and is available to anyone with work provided insurance.
  - jschwartzi 9y ago
    Anyone with work provided insurance who can also afford the group rate the company pays.
    - Spivak 9y ago
      Which is basically saying that when you lose your job they stop paying you.
      - humanrebar 9y ago
        It's a bit different because it's a hidden expense when it comes to budgeting. Six months expenses looks different if sometimes you emergency fund needs to cover CORBA that changes over time in a way that is transparent to you. If it all came out of your accounts, you could literally measure expenses and judicially tweak from there.
        jsjohnst 9y ago
        > you could literally measure expenses I haven't worked for a company, Fortune 50 to small startup, in the past 20 years that provided medical insurance and didn't provide the employer covered cost data in an easy place for access on demand.
      - jschwartzi 9y ago
        And that COBRA is not as free as people make it sound. In fact it's more expensive. I pay $3.00/month for the group policy at work, but when I get fired I will also lose the company's payments to the plan on my behalf. So my expenses actually go up as a result of trying to take advantage of COBRA. Whereas if I were paying for my own policy, I would be aware of what it costs and would be paying the same price for insurance regardless of my employment status.
deleted 9y ago
[deleted]
michaelbuckbee 9y ago
This is some William Gibson level stuff - in some of his stories the protagonists would be fixers who were hired to extract people from their companies they worked for.
- Bartweiss 9y ago
  I have been thinking about this with the Anthony Levandowski case. How long does it take before someone has expertise valuable enough to go full Count Zero and extract them outside the reach of legal consequences? It's basically the approach Samuel Slater took, and I keep expecting to see it repeated today in either AI or biotech.

by avar 9y ago

deleted 9y ago

[deleted]

humanrebar 9y ago

> If you get fired you also get evicted. If you get fired, you basically lose your healthcare, which in many cases is much worse. Though quite a number of Americans seem fine with that arrangement for some reason.

TrickyRick 9y ago
If I'm a healthy individual then the risk that I need my healthcare insurance are low (But it has a big impact on my economy if I do need it). However the risk that I need some form of housing is 100% and the impact of not having it is huge which to me makes it a bigger risk. However YMMV depending on your situation.
- jrimbault 9y ago
  >If I'm a healthy individual I don't think I know any family without a member of it having some kind of medical condition. (bad turn of phrase, but do I get the point across ?)
  - ryanbrunner 9y ago
    I think the point is while losing healthcare insurance is absolutely a big problem, it's often not an immediate problem - there's a decent chance that a typical Facebook employee doesn't currently have a pressing need for healthcare, and even if they do, there's a decent chance they'll find new employment and be covered relatively quickly. On the other hand, being evicted from your home is going to affect everyone, and there's no avoiding the upheaval - you're forced to find new housing in a famously overpriced market at the exact moment that you just lost your job.
- humanrebar 9y ago
  That sounds like a case for health insurance. Just, you know, insurance. Not an account with a healthcare company with a subscription model (close to what the U.S. has now).
- Spooky23 9y ago
  Circumstances change quickly. I'm married, things happened, and we ended up having a baby. Due to various circumstances beyond our control. That cost $100k. As a healthy guy in my 20's, I suffered an injury through no fault of my own that led to me needing a serious back surgery. Net cost -> $250k. Rolling the dice on something that fundamentally life altering, and expecting society to pick up the tab for the consequences of your risk management is bullshit. It is a good illustration of why you can't treat healthcare as a market driven thing unless you're willing to drop the moral obligation to preserve human life (and expect the providers to "absorb" it).
  - greedo 9y ago
    So you had a baby due to circumstances beyond your control? And you had an injury, again through no fault of your own? And the sum of those are over $350K. Who is responsible for your health? I'd argue that the baby is entirely on you, and $100K for a delivery is insane unless you had incredible complications. And if the back injury wasn't your fault, you could seek redress from whom is responsible. If it's work related, then work should pay. If it's an accident, then whomever is negligent should pay. Unfortunately, no one wants to take responsibility, and expects "society" to make an individual whole after a loss.
    - lawrenceyan 9y ago
      How do you feel about people with debilitating genetic diseases/disorders? Through no fault of their own other than being born into this world, and no health care provider wants to anything to do with them. They are guaranteed money losers, and if insurance companies didn’t have to deal with pesky regulations, they would happily find and drop these patients. I make no judgements on your moral character, but to follow your philosophy requires a fundamental acceptance that certain human life has less intrinsic value than other human life.
      - greedo 9y ago
        I have no issue with society picking up after people who truly have catastrophic illnesses (though that's really what health insurance SHOULD be, not the way it is currently.) My issue is with people expecting society to pay for health care that's not catastrophic nor "accidental." If I choose to have a child, I should expect to pay for it. My partner and I had to have IVF, and we paid for it.
deleted 9y ago
[deleted]
emodendroket 9y ago
OK but that doesn't make it positive or neutral to move even further in that direction.
- humanrebar 9y ago
  Agreed. I was lamenting that it is seen as an essential part of the employer/employee relationship when the employer-as-landlord proposition seems so foreign and troubling. I thought drawing the connection would make people rethink the normal feelings we have about the American healthcare system.
  - emodendroket 9y ago
    Well, sure, I would like to see healthcare decoupled from jobs as well -- and frankly I'd think the startup lovers here would support it too, given that healthcare is actually a big barrier to entrepreneurship.
jsjohnst 9y ago
> If you get fired, you basically lose your healthcare Not in the US, at least not for 18 months anyway. It’s called COBRA and is available to anyone with work provided insurance.
- jschwartzi 9y ago
  Anyone with work provided insurance who can also afford the group rate the company pays.
  - Spivak 9y ago
    Which is basically saying that when you lose your job they stop paying you.
    - humanrebar 9y ago
      It's a bit different because it's a hidden expense when it comes to budgeting. Six months expenses looks different if sometimes you emergency fund needs to cover CORBA that changes over time in a way that is transparent to you. If it all came out of your accounts, you could literally measure expenses and judicially tweak from there.
      - jsjohnst 9y ago
        > you could literally measure expenses I haven't worked for a company, Fortune 50 to small startup, in the past 20 years that provided medical insurance and didn't provide the employer covered cost data in an easy place for access on demand.
    - jschwartzi 9y ago
      And that COBRA is not as free as people make it sound. In fact it's more expensive. I pay $3.00/month for the group policy at work, but when I get fired I will also lose the company's payments to the plan on my behalf. So my expenses actually go up as a result of trying to take advantage of COBRA. Whereas if I were paying for my own policy, I would be aware of what it costs and would be paying the same price for insurance regardless of my employment status.

deleted 9y ago

[deleted]

michaelbuckbee 9y ago

This is some William Gibson level stuff - in some of his stories the protagonists would be fixers who were hired to extract people from their companies they worked for.

Bartweiss 9y ago
I have been thinking about this with the Anthony Levandowski case. How long does it take before someone has expertise valuable enough to go full Count Zero and extract them outside the reach of legal consequences? It's basically the approach Samuel Slater took, and I keep expecting to see it repeated today in either AI or biotech.