Hacker Newsnew | past | comments | ask | show | jobs | submit | Ancalagon's commentslogin

Is it more fair to call it anti-intellectualism? I'm neither conservative nor being snarky, honest question.

In my opinion, anti-intellectualism is the cause of antivax, and commonly goes along with conservatism, but isn't the same thing as conservatism.

Until recently, antivax was largely a liberal form of anti-intellectualism. It was a reaction against large pharmaceutical companies.

It didn't really become a conservative position until COVID. It's mostly an anti-progressive thing, but builds on existing populist conservative anti-science attitudes. (Conservative doesn't always mean anti-science, but populist versions of it will inevitably tend that way.)


The problem is calling it anti-intellectualism implies that one can be conservative in "right" ways. And in modern times, being conservative in "right" ways means you are basically a liberal.

The whole idea of conservatism is that certain people in a population are going to have "non desirable" qualities, and the best thing would be if those people just "went away", but realistically you can't advocate for that, so you have to do mental gymnastics and say "those people should just work to become better, or get punished".


You think they’ve not made upgrades in 70 years?

1984 but real. Can we just speedrun Fahrenheit 451 already? Just rip that bandaid off I don’t want my kids living through that…


Are your kids on Tiktok?


ABAB: All Billionaires Are Bad

-written by chatgpt

not chatgpt but it is mostly AI. The one hated by Trump right now. But you are right. Bad move on my side. (this is not AI)

I agree with this take. The AI is producing tons of debt still, we will see if that pattern holds or if people automate that part into the agents as well.

Literally the worst administration possible during the AI singularity :).

Seems to be very much by design. I would call it an "artificial singularity" though. It's not the real thing, just advertise to make it sort of look like one to the plebs.

Just wondering, have you been unemployed for 6+ mos before?

Everyone is an atheist until the plane starts crashing.

Don’t knock me for deciding “deathbed repentance” is a decent plan.

/s

Maybe it’s just my background, but I’m starting to feel that a lot of people in the tech industry have never learned empathy.


> I’m starting to feel that a lot of people in the tech industry have never learned empathy

I see you haven't visited the absolute delight that is team blind or you would have figured this out already.


I took one look at it, realized it was a cesspool and noped out.

replace tech industry with hn and you’ll be spot on.

why not both?

Most people in tech still think people who are getting laid off deserve it and that they themselves are immune to it. People won’t change until they experience it first hand.

One of the highest leverage events you can have in life is being laid off early in career. Really hammers home the importance of living below means.

Not really, no. I was underemployed for 6+ months at the start of my career, but it's easier to take whatever is available at that point. I did some data entry and then first tier ops desk restart the server when the light turns red stuff, before I got a "real job". Doing that mid career and keeping a good attitude would be difficult.

But I would think 5 months paid time before you have to go on state unemployment is significantly better than the WARN act minimum of 60 days of notice or pay or the alternative of a campaign to raise attrition. Looks like recent google/meta layoffs are 4 months, so it's 25% better than that. I always thought I wanted to get a package, but I recognize that I would probably not have been happy if it happened.


Being let go from a job sucks.

So does being dumped from a relationship. You might not be able to find another relationship in 6+ months. But I don't think people would seriously propose that people should therefore not be able to leave a relationship.


great analogy dude. Totally relevant.

Thanks!

A lot of people would focus on the many obvious differences, and use those to deflect attention from the important similarity I was highlighting: That they are both things that ought to exist only so long as both parties want them to.


I know they might sound superficially similar, if you're 12 years old, so let me breakdown a little bit why your analogy is a bad one.

Relationships are between two people, not between a human and a public entity like a company.

My partner doesn't have extremely disproportionate leverage over me, if tomorrow I leave – company will chug along just fine, if I'm laid off tomorrow – I might lose my home, relationship, well-being, never recover from the layoff (meaning I won't contribute back to economy and go on well-fare, and potentially start a revolution if there are millions of me) or ultimately die.

I know it's a difficult concept for 20 year old tech-bros who sucked VC money with the milk of their mother to grasp, but money does dry out. You might think you're invincible right now and that it's you and companies against them (lazy, stupid coworkers), but you're the same cattle to them as the rest of us. As you can see by the topic of the thread.

Back to the analogy: Main goal of a company is to produce value for society, not making money for VCs. It's a difficult pill to swallow, I know, tech bros been taught for decades that job security, health insurance, taxes, value creation – all of those are commie concepts aimed to undermine our God given right to make money, and we – temporary embarrassed millionaires – need to fight it with every ounce of our existence by working 60 hours a week.

Labor IS the main input that turns capital + IP into products and services. Without those people Block would be nowhere near the current position it is in. But when business is strong, though, VCs and C level get obscene bonuses while employee compensation stays flat. Go figure.

I could go on and on, talk about tax reliefs [0], that countries and companies exist for people and not the other way around, but this should be enough to understand that THIS IS NOTHING LIKE A RELATIONSHIP WITH A HUMAN BEING.

[0] https://www.irs.gov/credits-deductions/businesses?utm_source...


> My partner doesn't have extremely disproportionate leverage over me

This is the most... hinged... thing you said. I totally agree that bargaining power is usually far more skewed in the employment case. I think unequal bargaining power is the root of much unfairness in the world, and that the only way to really counteract this is through organising, i.e., unionisation. It's far from a panacea, mind you.

With all that said: Fundamentally, I don't think that an employer should be obligated to employ someone indefinitely. If you do: Think about whether regulations enforcing this would make an employer more likely, or less likely, to hire someone they are on the fence about.


You do realize that having a girlfriend actually doesn't pay for your rent, food and medication?

Everybody realises this. That said, a huge number of people around the world are financially dependent on their partner. (One of the main goals of feminism has been to normalise relationships where this is not the case.)

The fundamental question is: Should employers be obligated to employ the people they hire forever?


Exit interview with a pile of rocks.

> Claude Code periodically likes to do that in my test environment as well, and is only hampered by the grim reality that even after being trained on the sum total of human knowledge, it still can't figure out how the hell the AWS CLI parameters and arguments work together. Neither can I. This is probably fine.

I'm dying, this is so spot on. Trying to get claude to give me the correct AWS CLI commands is like pulling teeth.


Guidelines | FAQ | Lists | API | Security | Legal | Apply to YC | Contact

Search: