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The comments in this whole thread point on a severe lack of understanding around labor laws and ethics. At the same time it attracts the archetypal free-market

The comments in this whole thread point on a severe lack of understanding around labor laws and ethics. At the same time it attracts the archetypal free-market laissez faire pseudo intellectual.

tablespoon 5y ago
I don't know what it is about software engineers, but it seems like there's a whole lot of them who seem to think you can learn everything you need to know about the world from one or two volumes of libertarian polemics.
- kristopolous 5y ago
  Tech culture is infested with Horatio Alger stories of supposedly hard work, grit and gumption leading to success and riches. When you get Sand Hill Road investors they constrict an origin story with you that follows this path. So luck and pre-existing family wealth and connections get written out of the stories of people like Musk, Gates, Zuckerberg, Bezos, you name it. The true believers get drawn into tech. Only after careful readings do you get to "wow this rich smart kid was incredibly lucky" Instead, all these things work together to promote an illusion of unbiased meritocracy where if you got a clever idea and work hard you'll make it. The rich, smart, and luck get scrubbed out and replaced with a "Flowering of New England" Protestant Work Ethic. For the more cynical people they go to the likes of Christensen, Geoffrey Moore, Drucker, Steve Blank, Ries & Trout, Blanchard, etc who are certainly not critical of free markets, labor or capitalism in any way. You walk away from them with a less trusting and more cut throat version of essentially the same story. So it's constantly reinforced which is why it's really not that surprising that programming has a lot of people who frankly believe in essentially free market magic, unfounded hogwash and other nonsense, it's the only thing on offer. The myth of fantastic riches that avail themself to those who struggle is essentially one of the most common narrative archetypes there is. It's thousands of years old, even the cornerstone of many religions.
awsthro00945 5y ago
Ironic, because the comment you are replying to is completely wrong. Labor laws are stupidly complicated and a single one liner from an HN comment is almost guaranteed to be wrong in some way. You shouldn't believe anything you read in an HN comments thread about them, on either side of the issue (including this one, because I'm probably wrong in some fashion too!)

The comments in this whole thread point on a severe lack of understanding around labor laws and ethics. At the same time it attracts the archetypal free-market laissez faire pseudo intellectual.

tablespoon 5y ago

I don't know what it is about software engineers, but it seems like there's a whole lot of them who seem to think you can learn everything you need to know about the world from one or two volumes of libertarian polemics.

kristopolous 5y ago
Tech culture is infested with Horatio Alger stories of supposedly hard work, grit and gumption leading to success and riches. When you get Sand Hill Road investors they constrict an origin story with you that follows this path. So luck and pre-existing family wealth and connections get written out of the stories of people like Musk, Gates, Zuckerberg, Bezos, you name it. The true believers get drawn into tech. Only after careful readings do you get to "wow this rich smart kid was incredibly lucky" Instead, all these things work together to promote an illusion of unbiased meritocracy where if you got a clever idea and work hard you'll make it. The rich, smart, and luck get scrubbed out and replaced with a "Flowering of New England" Protestant Work Ethic. For the more cynical people they go to the likes of Christensen, Geoffrey Moore, Drucker, Steve Blank, Ries & Trout, Blanchard, etc who are certainly not critical of free markets, labor or capitalism in any way. You walk away from them with a less trusting and more cut throat version of essentially the same story. So it's constantly reinforced which is why it's really not that surprising that programming has a lot of people who frankly believe in essentially free market magic, unfounded hogwash and other nonsense, it's the only thing on offer. The myth of fantastic riches that avail themself to those who struggle is essentially one of the most common narrative archetypes there is. It's thousands of years old, even the cornerstone of many religions.

awsthro00945 5y ago

Ironic, because the comment you are replying to is completely wrong. Labor laws are stupidly complicated and a single one liner from an HN comment is almost guaranteed to be wrong in some way. You shouldn't believe anything you read in an HN comments thread about them, on either side of the issue (including this one, because I'm probably wrong in some fashion too!)