No, it's well known to everyone everywhere that trafficking drugs into Singapore will get you a death sentence. Those drugs destroy families, they absolutely destroy families.
It is not hard to write C. It is hard to write large safe multi-developer C programs with complex object lifetimes. But if you are just writing an inner loop in a CPython extension it is easy.
"For example slack is an incredibly successful product. But it seems like every week I encounter a new bug that makes it completely unusable for me, from taking seconds per character when typing to being completely unable to render messages. (Discord on the other hand has always been reliable and snappy despite, judging by my highly scientific googling, having 1/3rd as many employees. So it's not like chat apps are just intrinsically hard.) And yet slack's technical advice is popular and if I ran across it without having experienced the results myself it would probably seem compelling."
I really wouldn't judge the quality of some company's technical advice based on one person's experience with their UI. For almost any consumer software that gets mentioned here, you will find some people who love it and lots of others with gripes. And for e.g. Slack might have bad product/UI people but very good infra people. Better to look at TFA and judge it on its merits.
It isn't one person's experience with the UI. It is everyone's. If you don't think Slack is slow then you have forgotten what "slow" means. It is a chat program. It is incredibly simple. It is not doing anything complicated. We have gigabit internet, CPUs with multi-GHz clocks and high IPC rates, NVMe 4 SSDs that load data from disk almost instantly. It should open in milliseconds, not several seconds. That it ever takes a noticeable amount of time to do anything reveals deep flaws in Slack's engineering culture, because it shows they just don't care about performance at all.
If they had "good infra people" then their program wouldn't sit and spin for seconds, ever.
However, I think that there is a phenomenon that happens to a lot of tech products that is more general than what Doctorow is talking about. There is a certain type of person who is attracted to building a new thing, and there is a different type of person who is attracted to a thing that is already successful. Pioneers and Settlers, as a former colleague of mine described it. In the context of Internet services, pioneers care a lot about attracting users initially so they tend to dwell on every minor detail. Settlers care a lot about stability, so gradual degradation over time (e.g., in performance, in other measures of quality) is tolerable as long as its rate is controllable and well-understood.
I think that Doctorow's thesis is a special case of this where greed is the driving factor behind the gradual erosion of quality.
This is the Cory Doctorow sense of the word, is it not?
(Or, now that I notice your username, maybe you’re making an ironic joke, since complaining about the misuse of the word enshitification is a meme now?)
There isn't a way that it is incorrect. It just isn't. It is like asking "how is it incorrect to say Wubble Bubble Jibble Quibble." It is a bunch of words placed together to form nonsense. He didn't give any reasons to support any of what he said.
>There isn't a way that it is incorrect. It just isn't. It is like asking "how is it incorrect to say Wubble Bubble Jibble Quibble." It is a bunch of words placed together to form nonsense. He didn't give any reasons to support any of what he said.
well it's not his problem you don't know what the words mean. what he said is simply objective reality - your "argument" is essentially identical to disagreeing with someone saying "apples are not oranges" because you don't know what an apple or orange is and the person didn't give any reasons to show that apples are not oranges
It is an element of the original description of capitalism in which the system got its name (and it is the central element for which the system is named.)
(That description happens to be contained in a socialist critique of capitalism as an actual existing system, but the particular element described is not the cornerstone of socialism, which is, after all, a prescriptive system, and not merely a critique of capitalism. It is the cornerstone of capitalism as an actual existing system, though.)
There is no such thing as "capitalism". That is a smear-word created by socialists to mis-describe the "system" (which isn't a system at all) wherein people are able to freely trade with each other. Commerce isn't a system, it's a human activity that has existed for all of human history.
So yes it is a cornerstone of socialism to falsely claim that (evil, greedy, immoral) "capitalists" exist, who "acquire capital" and in doing so "acquire power" as opposed to the (noble and virtuous) workers who are actually the ones that generate all the value, but who suffer at the hands of the evil greedy capitalists who exploit them and steal all that value.
Somehow we're meant to believe that despite these noble and virtuous workers generating all the value and far-outnumbering the evil, greedy capitalists, that the fact they haven't revolted and changed the system is because they're so oppressed and powerless (even though apparently they generate all value? what?).
It's just an incoherent mess of ideological nonsense. It puts people into two categories, even though actually most people are in both categories. Everyone with retirement savings (vast majority of people) is a "capitalist" and everyone with a job (vast majority of people) is a "worker".
> That is a smear-word created by socialists to mis-describe the "system" (which isn't a system at all) wherein people are able to freely trade with each other.
No, its not, and the “not a system” you describe is neither what we call “capitalism”, nor anything that has ever existed. Restrictions and limits on trade exist in all real-world economic systems and conditions. “Capitalism”, is, at root, a particular structure of property rights.
> So yes it is a cornerstone of socialism to falsely claim that (evil, greedy, immoral) "capitalists" exist
People who own capital exist, and I never made the moral claim that you make. (Leaving aside whether it has anything to do with socialism or not.)
> It's just an incoherent mess of ideological nonsense. It puts people into two categories, even though actually most people are in both categories
Actually, the socialist description of the structrue of capitalism does not have two categories; it recognizes a continuum of conditions, in which there are three main broad classes useful for discussion: those whose support is predominantly from renting out labor (proletariat/working class), those whose support has significant contributions from both labor and capital, as by applying their own labor to their own capital, though there are other patterns (petit bourgeois/middle class), and those whose support is predominantly through capital to which rented labor is applied (haut bourgeois/capitalist class).
You were promoting the socialist narrative, that is premised on the claim that free market exchange whereby a worker sells his labor is not in fact a free market exchange as a result of alleged duress the "system"—enacted by an alleged conspiracy of capitalists—subjects the worker to. That's why you used the word "acquire" instead of "create" to describe the capitalist's acquisition of capital. By framing the worker as the creator of capital, you are trying to lend credence to the Marxist narrative that the act of profiting from employed labor is expropriation of the surplus value generated by the worker.
When you buy stocks, you are in fact directing resources, in the form of goods/services, into building a company, which is a form of capital.
This effect is the ultimate outcome of a long chain of reactions that originates with the exchange of your money for the seller's stock. If you had spent your surplus income buying consumer goods instead of the stock, that chain of reactions—and the outcome of new capital they produce—wouldn't have happened.
Where does that return come from? It doesn't materialize from thin air. That money was generated by a laborer before it was shuffled to the various shareholders.
It comes from directing resources to generating capital. Those resources will be some combination of goods and services bought from others or provided by the investor themselves.
I already pointed out how the definition "collusion" doesn't fit most union agreements. You have not shown there is collusion. Instead, you double down and say it's a cartel.
> A cartel is a group of independent market participants who collude with each other in order to improve their profits and dominate the market.
If there is no collusion, there is no cartel.
Where is the collusion?
If 7-11 and Coca-Cola reach an agreement for Coca-Cola be the sole cola supplier to 7-11 in exchange for a reduced price, that is not collusion, that is not a cartel, that is not anti-competitive.
Yet if 7-11 and labor organization reach an agreement that the labor organization be the sole supplier of a certain type of labor, that is collusion, a cartel, and anti-competitive?
If employers refuse to negotiate with employees individually, and set a fixed maximum price for labour, that is clearly unlawful, collusive, cartel behaviour. If they enforced this by refusing to honour their contracts and refusing to pay employees or give them work, this would also be unlawful.
If employees do the same then the left pretends it is normal.
Note that unions had to be made legal by legislative fiat. At common law, unions were illegal associations in restraint of trade.
Words - what do they mean? Maybe your comments are a collusive act. Maybe you and I have formed a cartel together. I don't know. If only there were some way to learn what how words are commonly used. Words? Words? What are words?
> If employers refuse to negotiate with employees individually, and set a fixed maximum price for labour, that is clearly unlawful, collusive, cartel behaviour.
Even if we accept your (cringe?) example, you must surely notice that you are using "employer" here to mean a collective, abstract economic entity, and not the people in the company who can make decisions about the employees in the company.
If the managers at the same company set a fixed maximum price for labor, and refuse to negotiate with employees individually, that's considered standard practice.
By your logic then, if employees at the same company set a fixed maximum price for labor, and refuse to negotiate with employers individually, that should also be fine.
So your complaint isn't about unions per se, but about multi-corporation unions.
In any case, if unions are "clearly unlawful", what law do they break?
While we can point to the law Apple, Google, Intel and Adobe broke in their illegal non-compete collusion.
If you can't point to a law being broken, it's not unlawful. (That's one of those cringe definition things, I know.)
> "The left pretends it is normal"
How do you know they are pretending? Do you pretend that women suffrage is normal?
How long does it take for something to become normal? Recognized, legal unions in the US have been around for longer than the nationwide right for women to vote.
What does left/right have to do with it? When President Reagan, famed for not being on the left, declare:
"By outlawing Solidarity, a free trade organization to which an overwhelming majority of Polish workers and farmers belong, they have made it clear that they never had any intention of restoring one of the most elemental human rights — the right to belong to a free trade union."
was he pretending too? If he meant it, when did the right start pretending?
> Note that unions had to be made legal by legislative fiat.
Let's examine this proposition, and set aside for now the cringe question of what "fiat" means.
Corporations were made legal by legislative fiat. You don't seem to have a problem with incorporated corporations, or with limited liability, so why would you have a problem with unions?
What legislative fiat do you refer to? In the US, the intrinsic legality of unions under the Constitution was established by Commonwealth v. Hunt (1842), which would be from the judicial system, not legislative.
That case directly addresses common law, and points out how earlier cases usually involved a union doing something illegal, like The King v. Journeymen Tailors of Cambridge, 8 Mod. 10 where the tailors wanted to raise "wages above the rate fixed by a general act of parliament. It was therefore a conspiracy to violate a general statute law".
It give a working definition of conspiracy (how cringe!)
"Without attempting to review and reconcile all the cases, we are of opinion, that as a general description, though perhaps not a precise and accurate definition, a conspiracy must be a combination of two or more persons, by some concerted action, to accomplish some criminal or unlawful purpose, or to accomplish some purpose, not in itself criminal or unlawful, by criminal or unlawful means. We use the terms criminal or unlawful, because it is manifest that many acts are unlawful, which are not punishable by indictment or other public prosecution; and yet there is no doubt, we think, that a combination by numbers to do them would be an unlawful conspiracy, and punishable by indictment."
and later concludes that unions are legal, so long as they use legal methods:
"We think, therefore, that associations may be entered into, the object of which is to adopt measures that may have a tendency to impoverish another, that is, to diminish his gains and profits, and yet so far from being criminal or unlawful, the object may be highly meritorious and public spirited. The legality of such an association will therefore depend upon the means to be used for its accomplishment. If it is to be carried into effect by fair or honorable and lawful means, it is, to say the least, innocent; if by falsehood or force, it may be stamped with the character of conspiracy."
You'll note the strong contrast between that legal decision and the viewpoint you espouse.
I imagine you might now claim that unions were made legal through judicial fiat. Shrug. Then your issue is with how laws are created, not unions. You like laws which protect capital, but not ones which protect labor. Got it.
None of your bizarre rant has anything to do with what we were discussing. As always, people like you drag out discussions on minor asides and random disputes about word choices rather than focusing on the actual issue being discussed.
If you cannot see that unions are price-fixing conspiracies then you can only be described as wilfully blind. Where you claim that it is just the same as multiple hiring managers working for the same firm.. It just boggles the mind.
Maybe it needs to be spelt out really simply for you: a union is not a firm. You don't hire a union. You hire employees. Unions do not want you to hire non-union employees and would make doing so illegal if they could. Unions want to "represent" an entire industry. They do not want competition.
So don't go round claiming it is just like a firm with multiple employees. That is nonsense.
We've banned this account for repeatedly breaking the site guidelines. Please don't do that!
If you don't want to be banned, you're welcome to email hn@ycombinator.com and give us reason to believe that you'll follow the rules in the future. They're here: https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html.
Usually we warn people before banning them, and often many times, but sometimes an account has been breaking the site guidelines so badly and so frequently that we just ban them. When I scrolled through your comment history I saw so many cases of this that you fell into the latter category.
> If you cannot see that unions are price-fixing conspiracies
Of course I do not. It doesn't meet the definition of conspiracy, and back in 1842 Commonwealth v. Hunt established that unions were not a conspiracy, in the context of common law, and even addressed and dismissed your "price-fixing" argument - in text I already quoted. The courts since then have never determined that unions are a conspiracy, and that's with judges from the left and right.
My "bizarre rant" contains the materials to support my answer to exactly the topic you addressed.
I don't know why you willfully ignore the last 180 years of history.
You are the one who eschews definitions, but that doesn't mean you can redefine well-understood terms without expecting general confusion.
The claim that unions couldn't exist without active government intervention is a claim I've only heard from ill-informed libertarians who view everything through a very ideological lens. Your responses are not dissuading me that you fall into that category.
You have yet to point to any external source which supports your arguments. I have pointed to primary sources demonstrating that your specific claims are invalid and your understanding suspect.
You make other claims like "the left pretends it is normal" without attempting to explain why your ideologically extreme viewpoint is correct, or meaningful, much less explain how the right - start with Reagan - is any different.
> So don't go round claiming it is just like a firm with multiple employees. That is nonsense.
I did not. Are you referring to my comment at https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=37274569 were I wrote "If it makes you feel better, think of the union as a co-op owned labor provider who made a multi-year contract with a company as the exclusive provider of a certain type of labor. Would that be "collusion"?"
That was meant to show how union "collusion" could be implemented in a corporation model, leading to similar economic results for the co-op owners, but demonstrably not seen as a collusion when done by companies like Adecco.
I did claim that you confused the abstract concept of "employer" with the concrete concept of "employee", leading to a failure in your analogy. It means you see a company as a distinct economic entity (created by government fiat) from the managers who make employer decisions. By analogy, a union is a distinct economic entity (yes, supported by government fiat) from the employees.
A union is not a firm, and claiming so would be counter to centuries of history dating back to the medieval guild era.
You can't tax your way to wealth. Taxing the rich more won't make the quality of life of the average person better. The rich already pay the OVERWHELMING majority of tax.
The rich wouldn’t be rich without poorer people. Also I’m a bit dubious about your statement, it goes against what I can quickly search for but I would gladly be proven wrong.
"High-Income Taxpayers Paid the Majority of Federal Income Taxes. In 2020, the bottom half of taxpayers earned 10.2 percent of total AGI and paid 2.3 percent of all federal individual income taxes. The top 1 percent earned 22.2 percent of total AGI and paid 42.3 percent of all federal income taxes."
In New Zealand, about 12% of individuals pay about 50% of personal income tax, and the top 3% pay about a quarter. That doesn't take into account the amount they are taxed indirectly through GST or through company tax on companies they own shares in.
