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I'm very much irritated by how opposed HN seems to be to unions existing. Not that I'm surprised at all. The "Hacker" in "Hacker News" never included the antic

I'm very much irritated by how opposed HN seems to be to unions existing. Not that I'm surprised at all. The "Hacker" in "Hacker News" never included the anticapitalist and anarchist tendencies that are normally associated with "Hacker" in Europe/Germany. But what should one expect from a site run by a VC fund.

mruts 8y ago
Being an anarchist and a capitalist are almost the same thing, no?
- sascha_sl 8y ago
  Not really. Sort of hard to boil that one down into a HN comment, but there are a lot of forms of anarchism and honestly, anarcho-capitalism/voluntarism is probably the most naive political ideology I know. Usually I define anarchism not as the removal of all authority, but the removal of all unjustifiable authority. From there unjustifiable depends on your moral compass. (i'm a "commie" if you haven't caught on, anarcho-syndicalist if you want to google something)
  - lucozade 8y ago
    That's the great thing about anarchism. As long as you include enough syllables, we can each have our own one. Obviously, it all falls apart when you try to implement it but that's not realistically going to happen again. So there's no actual downside.
    - sascha_sl 8y ago
      Capitalism is totally never falling apart and works great just look at how well our society is doing. God damn I love it when people work all day and still can't afford rent because of gentrification. I love all the bullshit jobs that don't need to exist but do anyway. Damn isn't it great that someone can work 12 hours a day so you can have slightly more diversity in the goods you can buy. Damn this capitalism thing is working out great.
      - lucozade 8y ago
        Capitalism isn't falling apart but neither is it a panacea. There are better systems, by most humane measures. Scandinavian social democracy, for example, other than being extremely expensive has its merits. But anarcho-syndicalism et al rely on a variation of the adage "there's no bugs in the application I haven't written yet".
      - mruts 8y ago
        I live in Tanzania and I think you lack perspective. Many people here would appreciate any home at all that isn’t made of mud and shit. There are price controls on grain and export bans in order to make things “cheap”. The result? People are hungry, some are starving. Businesses can’t function due to the high taxes. Farms are closing down because they can’t turn a profit. The country is falling apart. I came the from the US, and it has completely reframed by perspective. People desperately want capitalism: they want cheap phones, they want cheap food, they want the government to stop exploiting them in the name of “social good.” The only people in the world who want socialism are those who are already in rich capitalist countries. They can’t appreciate what capitalism has delivered for them because they have nothing to compare it to. Capitalism delivers and is by far the most optimal system (and also the only stable system). We talk about “the poor” in the developed world. But the poor in the US would be in the top 1% over here. If you don’t think that capitalism has helped everyone, I think you might be misinformed.
        sascha_sl 8y ago
        You omitted the part where first world countries exploit everyone else for resources and cheap labor. Especially Africa. There's a reason China is investing into basic infrastructure there. Capitalism does not work in isolation. I don't know anything about policy decisions and local resources in Tanzania, so I can't comment on specifics, but socialism doesn't really work in less developed countries. Look at pre-soviet Russia. The only reason the soviet union was ever a world power was their authoritarian but rapid by-all-means industrialization (aka "Stalinism"). It also doesn't work well in total isolation; the DPRK is doing much worse than East Germany ever did because they lack natural resources and soviet support is gone.
krapp 8y ago
There are plenty of those anarchist and anticapitalist types around, though. Watching the two groups fight it out is part of the fun of being here.
- sascha_sl 8y ago
  Honestly I should really just block comment pages on HN. They never fail to disappoint me.
ryanwaggoner 8y ago
I’m not anti-unions. If employees want to band together and negotiate as a group, that seems fair. Public sector unions are a little different to me, but let’s avoid that landmine, shall we? The biggest thing I object to here is their demand that Slate force every employee to fund the union, regardless of whether they want to. That’s ridiculous. Why are your ideas so weak that you have to force people to support them? And yes, I’m aware of the free rider problem. Still unconvinced that compulsory dues are justified.

mruts 8y ago

Being an anarchist and a capitalist are almost the same thing, no?

sascha_sl 8y ago
Not really. Sort of hard to boil that one down into a HN comment, but there are a lot of forms of anarchism and honestly, anarcho-capitalism/voluntarism is probably the most naive political ideology I know. Usually I define anarchism not as the removal of all authority, but the removal of all unjustifiable authority. From there unjustifiable depends on your moral compass. (i'm a "commie" if you haven't caught on, anarcho-syndicalist if you want to google something)
- lucozade 8y ago
  That's the great thing about anarchism. As long as you include enough syllables, we can each have our own one. Obviously, it all falls apart when you try to implement it but that's not realistically going to happen again. So there's no actual downside.
  - sascha_sl 8y ago
    Capitalism is totally never falling apart and works great just look at how well our society is doing. God damn I love it when people work all day and still can't afford rent because of gentrification. I love all the bullshit jobs that don't need to exist but do anyway. Damn isn't it great that someone can work 12 hours a day so you can have slightly more diversity in the goods you can buy. Damn this capitalism thing is working out great.
    - lucozade 8y ago
      Capitalism isn't falling apart but neither is it a panacea. There are better systems, by most humane measures. Scandinavian social democracy, for example, other than being extremely expensive has its merits. But anarcho-syndicalism et al rely on a variation of the adage "there's no bugs in the application I haven't written yet".
    - mruts 8y ago
      I live in Tanzania and I think you lack perspective. Many people here would appreciate any home at all that isn’t made of mud and shit. There are price controls on grain and export bans in order to make things “cheap”. The result? People are hungry, some are starving. Businesses can’t function due to the high taxes. Farms are closing down because they can’t turn a profit. The country is falling apart. I came the from the US, and it has completely reframed by perspective. People desperately want capitalism: they want cheap phones, they want cheap food, they want the government to stop exploiting them in the name of “social good.” The only people in the world who want socialism are those who are already in rich capitalist countries. They can’t appreciate what capitalism has delivered for them because they have nothing to compare it to. Capitalism delivers and is by far the most optimal system (and also the only stable system). We talk about “the poor” in the developed world. But the poor in the US would be in the top 1% over here. If you don’t think that capitalism has helped everyone, I think you might be misinformed.
      - sascha_sl 8y ago
        You omitted the part where first world countries exploit everyone else for resources and cheap labor. Especially Africa. There's a reason China is investing into basic infrastructure there. Capitalism does not work in isolation. I don't know anything about policy decisions and local resources in Tanzania, so I can't comment on specifics, but socialism doesn't really work in less developed countries. Look at pre-soviet Russia. The only reason the soviet union was ever a world power was their authoritarian but rapid by-all-means industrialization (aka "Stalinism"). It also doesn't work well in total isolation; the DPRK is doing much worse than East Germany ever did because they lack natural resources and soviet support is gone.

krapp 8y ago

There are plenty of those anarchist and anticapitalist types around, though. Watching the two groups fight it out is part of the fun of being here.

sascha_sl 8y ago
Honestly I should really just block comment pages on HN. They never fail to disappoint me.

ryanwaggoner 8y ago

I’m not anti-unions. If employees want to band together and negotiate as a group, that seems fair. Public sector unions are a little different to me, but let’s avoid that landmine, shall we? The biggest thing I object to here is their demand that Slate force every employee to fund the union, regardless of whether they want to. That’s ridiculous. Why are your ideas so weak that you have to force people to support them? And yes, I’m aware of the free rider problem. Still unconvinced that compulsory dues are justified.