I understand working conditions in the US sucks and I hold no bones about fixing them. The union is an infinite tool that will not stop at fixing engineering conditions. It has the ability to own the industry. That is not an outcome I want to see, I'd prefer to give 50% of my salary to whoever wants it than have a union tell me how to run what I do.
For the sole reason of trying to replace Steam as the dominant store platform on PC. Epic isn't just doing this out of the goodness of their hearts. This will not continue once Epic achieves their goal of buying their way into being the middleman between developers and gamers.
Were they to compete with Steam properly they would crush Steam's store feature set. The Epic store is still under-developed compared to Steam by a lot. Regardless of their perceived intent the entire point is that the little guy is being rewarded and the system works even if it appears 'evil'.
No we don't, that is called slavery.
"Were they forced to work? Yes and no. What happened if they decided not to work? Weeeeell... if they were rich, nothing. If they were poor, they would have died."
Hasn't that always been true of society, across all government models (or lack thereof)? At best, you don't have the rich that don't need to work... but what are the situations where the vast majority don't need to work (as far back as hunting/gathering).
I was downvoted, why?
You know what whatever. I know better than to ask HN moderation for any sort of transparency or any dedication to actually fostering discussion vs just reinforcing the particularly awful groupthink that dominates this place.
I've posted thousands of comments explaining HN moderation—probably tens of thousands, in fact—so I'll have to differ with you on it lacking "any sort of transparency". What would you like to know?
What are the actual rules? You are the most arbitrary and least transparent mod I've ever dealt with. You wield the word "unsubstantive" as a cudgel. You seemingly only hold the goal of stifling discussion that might be against the accepted HN positions. The result is board that yes, does mostly lack flame wars. It's also bland and processed and almost impossible to contribute to, and I lay the blame on that squarely on you. The very poor downvote system does not help. Restricting downvotes to high karma users just lets a handful of people dominate discussion.
> "wage slavery not being much better" is an empty cliché
7 million+ working poor. Millions more one unexpected expense away from financial ruin. "empty cliche".
Also could explain to me why this
> > We live at the absolute _extreme_ of capital power over labor power.
is fine. This response
> No we don't, that is called slavery.
is fine.
But my post reaches the bar of unsubstantive flamebait.
I can take a crack at replying to your question about those specific comments though. A comment that said only "We live at the absolute _extreme_ of capital power over labor power" would be lame and unsubstantive, but https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=21983921 went on to say other things that made for a thoughtful comment, though the generic ideological topic (unions-good-or-bad) is a bad one for HN. I don't see why we would moderate a comment like that.
The reply "No we don't, that is called slavery." is lame and pedantic, but I wouldn't call it flamebait. That is the contrarian dynamic which can't resist pointing out a logical flaw in something somebody said. HN has this all over the place, as does everywhere else ("someone is wrong on the internet"...) They are low-quality comments but they don't typically start flamewars unless there is some other baity element in there.
You, on the other hand, have been posting obviously flamebaity and ideological battle comments as well as fuming about "groupthink" and "wrongthink" and downvoting and how awful everything here is. You might find HN less "impossible to contribute to" if you took its intended spirit to heart. You could start with trying for thoughtful conversation and assuming good faith, as well as the rest of what https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html ask.
and instead of reflecting on that for a minute you will continue on in exactly the same manner.
I was able to contribute to this site for years without issue before you came along. I find the moderation here now arbitrary, heavy handed, and pretty extremely biased.
> You, on the other hand, have been posting obviously flamebaity and ideological battle comments as well as fuming about "groupthink" and "wrongthink" and downvoting and how awful everything here is
Having and expressing any sort of ideology is against the rules. Great thanks.
Higher karma users have the ability to downvote. They use that to enforce their ideology. Anything that goes against the grain too much immediately gets downvoted and flagged. You personally described the my comment on wage slavery being bad as an "empty cliche". That's not condescending low effort flamebait?
You are so entrenched in your own ideology you can't even tell how deep you've gone. Just completely impossible to reason with.
When people go on about how badly they were treated on HN, but omit any verifiable details, I call such comments linkless martyrs [1]. Without links, readers have no way to make up their minds for themselves [2]. The past pattern has been that such claims are greatly exaggerated, leave out critical details, or are made up. Sob stories and tales of injustice are easy to produce, but looking at what actually happened reveals otherwise.
Perhaps your case is the exception? If so, you can easily prove it with links that show how you were posting like this "for years without issue before you came along". pg was 10x quicker to ban accounts than we are, so my bet is that what you're saying is false.
1. https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=false&qu...
2. https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=false&qu...
> I call such comments linkless martyrs
You take pride in coining cute little phrases like that?
> If so, you can easily prove it with links that show how you were posting like this "for years without issue before you came along".
I really have no interest in playing your games at this point. I explained myself, you dismissed everything I said and seem to have zero interest in an honest conversation. Instead you'd rather pick a line and jerk yourself off about what a way with words you have.
> "wage slavery not being much better" is an empty cliché
Still haven't explained how that isn't unsubstantive flamebait. Smug jerk.
Exactly what I expected.
Well of course they were. High karma users get to decide what is allowed on HN.
It's a pretty bad system.
The downvoting system on this site is a really broken by design sort of feature. It's entirely just a manner to ensure the groupthink stays on track.
The #1 problem in most cities is too many people are making too much money and it’s driving housing prices through the roof.
The demand for skilled labor is astronomical. I would not call that absolute extreme power of capital over labor.
In fact, they play to the already ridiculously anti-union sentiment that the vast majority of Americans (this article is about America, apologies if you are foreign) hold.
Unions can go way too far, and they can do harm, but the overwhelming majority of Americans live so far away from that point that it's not even a fruitful discussion to be having.