Certainly the "maximum big level" is something that reasonable people could disagree about, but I don't think a society is healthy when people can get as big as Zuckerberg, Musk, Altman, and Bezos have gotten.
Individuals should not have that much power. It's not healthy.
But I don't think you can limit people's wealth and not call it communism.
I think the real problem is abuse of power, not accumulation of it.
Power cannot be eliminated. It will either end up in the hand of politicians (who are genuinely more evil than tech bros) or remain in hands of wealth creators.
What we should do is focus of punishingpeople who abuse thier power.
Then the people who punish those in power will gain too much power.
The reality is our system is not compatible with the internet. Our system is made for a network with much lower density and clustering coefficient. When you crank these up with the internet, it creates power law distributions everywhere.
Complaining a few people have all the wealth when we have created a society with this massive power law distribution of wealth is just pointlessly stupid. Of course they do.
There is nothing really to figure out. The system isn't going to work long term.
I think most people are just in denial of this because they think there is a solution. No, what we are doing right now, communicating like this, is the problem itself.
Of course, if we stopped using the internet society would collapse too.
Somewhat similar to Paul Graham's essay _Inequality and Risk_[1]:
> I realize startups are not the main target of those who want to eliminate economic inequality. What they really dislike is the sort of wealth that becomes self-perpetuating through an alliance with power. ... But if you try to attack this type of wealth through economic policy, it's hard to hit without destroying startups as collateral damage.
> The problem here is not wealth, but corruption. So why not go after corruption?
This is a convenient cover because it allows people to convert a measurable and fairly concrete thing into a more vague and flexible thing. Suddenly, all somebody needs to do is make a claim that what they are doing isn't corruption and they are off the hook. They'll be hypothetical billionaires that are the problem, but never any actual action.
> But I don't think you can limit people's wealth and not call it communism.
In communism, an individual can not own any means of production - effectively 0% of the society's total capital. I don't think it follows that any non-communist system must permit any single individual to gain up to 100% of the society's wealth.
I don't know what the limit could look like or how to make it work, but societies commonly called capitalist already implement various brakes on free trade, from regulation to capital and immigration controls, subsidies, tariffs...
> But I don't think you can limit people's wealth and not call it communism.
Is that your actual objection? It sounds more like a smear by association.
Famously, the USA under Eisenhower had a top marginal tax rate of 90% on income over $200K - "merely" a few million dollars in modern-day money.
Was the Eisenhower administration Communist? If it wasn't, would it have become Communist if they had gone a bit further and added a marginal rate of 99% for income over oh, let's say $20M (a few hundred million dollars nowadays)?
I think if you traveled back in time and proposed such a bill, the reaction from folks like Senator McCarthy would not have been "that's Communism" but more likely "that's a ridiculous and useless bill, how could anyone ever accumulate that much personal wealth? It would be absurd".
Power can be diffused.
Wealth accumulation is power concentration. When it's legal to buy politicians then what is corruption? How can you go after corruption when those with power define what is corruption?
Concentrated power is corrupt, there's no power without the will to wield it. If you have more power than 99 percent of humans, they become insects for you.
One question is why communism is a problem. It is a problem because it is a totalitarian regime. I.e., a non-democratic government. I am not sure limiting peoples wealth is the actual problem with communism.
Sure, the real problem is the abuse of power. This is the nature of power, though. Give a person or an organization too much power and it will find a way to abuse it. In democratic government, the power of the government is limited by having three independent branches where, at the least, the laws are being made by representatives of the people. In democratic government there are some evil politicians but not too many. In the US the situation went completely off the rails and one of the parties completely deteriorated. I cannot help thinking that statements like 'politicians, who are genuinely more evil' are part of the problem. I.e., this became a self-fulfilling prophecy. The party where people tend to believe this turns out the consist of crooks, is maybe not that surprising.
'What we should do is focus of punishing people who abuse their power.'. Well, this presumes that there are institutions capable of doing this. For instance, a democratic government.
You can limit people's wealth and it's not communism. If it was communism then they wouldn't have any wealth at all. A limit would just be democratic capitalism with a limit. There's no rule in capitalism that says you can't be taxed, or that the taxes couldn't be designed to approach a wealth limit. It's an economic system, not an entire governmental and social handbook.
There are several faults with this reasoning. Capital attracts capital, and with too low of marginal taxes, it pools at the top, increasing wealth inequality, hurting the non-elite's ability to compete, and squeezes the middle class. To say marginal taxes is communism is just wrong.
Capital attracting capital is as natural as power corrupting people. Instead of hoping people play nice and punishing the few who get caught and hoping against nature, the better alternative is to set up systems that encourage healthy, competitive markets through sensible rules, regulations, and redistribution.
Edit: re the socialism/communism scarecrow, back when woman started wearing pants in the US, they called it socialist. That same logic is oft applied today.
> But I don't think you can limit people's wealth and not call it communism.
Of course you can. Those billionaires don't pay much taxes, but normal people do. And we don't call that communism.
> It will either end up in the hand of politicians (who are genuinely more evil than tech bros)
This is a very weird take. In a functioning democracy (which the US are not at the moment), politicians are elected to represent the people. If they are evil, we change them. Tech bros are not elected, period.
> What we should do is focus of punishingpeople who abuse thier power.
That's where you completely miss the problem: the problem is that when people get too powerful, we cannot punish them anymore.
Similar with companies: you have to prevent companies to become as big as the FAANGs before they do. Otherwise they become too powerful and do whatever they want.
> But I don't think you can limit people's wealth and not call it communism.
What is wrong with calling it communism? It's just a name.. You so much internalized "communism bad" that you look at a good idea and think it is bad because it reminds you something else that was implemented badly.
And by the way, you can also call it democratic socialism (democratic is really redundant).
> My thinking is... can you put this 100% on Sandberg? I mean, I get that the culture is bad, but there's two in this game. Maybe... turn off your phone for a day when you're giving birth?!
Sure, but you can look at this in one of two ways. One is the way you seem to be angling for, where we have an employee who is so disturbingly eager to please that she continues to do work at absurd times when no one should ever expect to be working. The other way is of an employee who has seen how her boss treats employees, and believes that her position, career, and livelihood would be in jeopardy if she wasn't working even in situations where no one should be expected to be working.
I think the second take is more likely. And even if we think it's bizarre that someone could get to the point where they believe that kind of devotion to their job is necessary, it's still alarming and raises red flags that a company culture could cause someone to get to the point that they'd feel that way.
I am inclined to agree with you but I do have a bit of nuance to add. Pretty sure this is not going to be a popular opinion but I think the second POV you present is apt but dependant on hierarchy level as well as each individual's drive to succeed.
From my understanding that incident happened while she was in a directorial position, not some IC level. At that level one has to constantly actively balance private life and work, no one will do it for you. I am all for supporting employees on all levels (and sure her superior could and should have done some things differently) but if your aspirations and perseverance get you to the point where you are flirting with the C suite, you should also be aware the you own your decisions now.
On the other hand, if you are that far in, that you are "flirting with the C suite", it is almost impossible not to have knowledge about you having joined a data gobbling sect/mafia, that will eat you up alive, if you upset them. So while she should have been aware that she makes her own decisions, she might also have been aware of what happens, if she does.
> while she should have been aware that she makes her own decisions, she might also have been aware of what happens, if she does.
I don't understand. In my world view, owning your decisions includes understanding the paths those decisions might lead to and finding your ~piece~peace with that.
This is a minor typo whose real intent was still understandable, you fixed it right away, and no one had replied yet. Adding the fake strike through and edit note makes your post a bit harder and more inconvenient to read with no advantage. You can just edit it in place, there would be no harm to it.
It sounds like one of the issues was that the C-Suite flirted with her
>Wynn-Williams also writes that Kaplan, as her boss, made inappropriate comments to her, including repeatedly asking where she was bleeding from after childbirth. She writes that, shortly after he called her sultry in front of other co-workers, Kaplan ground into her on a dance floor. She triggered an investigation into Kaplan and writes that she was “almost immediately” retaliated against with a cut in duties before eventually being fired. Wynn-Williams describes the investigation as a “farce.”
Woman-on-Woman violence in the workplace has to stop, instead of trying to constantly take each other down they need to be better allies to other women.
Especially true for those that aspire to be role models for successful women and write books about how to "Lean In".
I am sorry, but this attitude is sexist. My allies are those I can relate to, those which I can cooperate with. I don't pick my allies based on gender, and nor should you. And you shouldn't coerce anyone into forming alliances based on gender. It is the person that matters, not their gender or race or whatever other random attribute.
Its sexism all the way down - Sandberg would not have done that to a male subordinate (who's wife was giving birth) and a male boss would not have done that to Wynn-Williams.
Women should not discriminate against women in the workplace because they are women.
I'm not sure whether men are truly better on average, or women are just on average more conditioned by our societies not to do so or even if, to do so in a manner that isn't effective.
Unlearning ~2 decades of upbringing, education, expectations, some of that from religion, etc when entering the workforce could be pretty hard and significantly affect any statistics around this.
I don’t think anyone reasonably thinks that’s what the poster was saying. Presumably the violence is in creating the type of work environment where you are so oppressed or manipulated that you feel immense pressure to reply in that situation.
If you’re checking your work email and replying to it during labour, I somehow doubt you feel like you were being “asked” and respected as a human being.
But I don’t know the full story from all parties, and I get the feeling you don’t either. I wasn’t judging this particular case in my previous reply, merely pointing out that violence can take many forms and we shouldn’t narrow our thinking of what it means to do harm.
I agree for something like a McDonalds employee or even entry level software engineer but this is a senior managerial role at Facebook. Nobody needs to do this job. Unless your spending is out of control you do not need this income. So if it comes with unreasonable demands, I don’t really care. There are problems worth caring about and this ain’t one of them.
What the leadership does will be mirrored down to the grunt. I have never lead a multi billion dollars corporation but from my view if your team can discard someone easily, they can also bear not having that person around for two weeks. Or a year.
Honestly I feel that father and mothers getting back from a years parental leave usually comes back with better focus.
In an alternative version of reality, she would be so distracted, that she failed to give birth and the child died as a consequence of her being completely absorbed in a toxic work culture. That alternative version of reality would be completely believable, and probably many would not be more surprised than now reading this news. This tells us all we need to know about FB.
> The other way is of an employee who has seen how her boss treats employees, and believes that her position, career, and livelihood would be in jeopardy if she wasn't working even in situations where no one should be expected to be working.
Honestly, they need to grow a pair
This kind of pressure (might) have worked for me if I was just out of university and such. But with experience you get to learn your boundaries
You're a top-level executive and you're afraid of being let go by such a silly thing? They can't wait 2 or 3 days for "top level bullet points"? Seems like they depend on you more than you depend on them
Big companies tend to develop cult dynamics. This is not an exaggeration, but a consequence of how humans tend to operate in large amounts. And I'd wager that in the case of Silicon Valley tech companies, this is also something that they embrace and nurture. I don't think this is a controversial take at all, and rather obvious.
She was probably not "afraid of being let go" (fired), but had convinced herself that it was of the utmost importance to have this level of committment. The book probably reads similar to those books of someone who leaves their church or cult.
They tend to have cult dynamics because the people who subscribe to the cult dynamics are the ones who get promoted. If you’re happy to just make a living as a software engineer instead of trying to propel your way up the ladder of the world’s richest companies then you can live very happily and comfortably.
Yes, but this is not the people they'll hire for this kind of job. They're looking for the batshit crazy that will do this kind of stuff. This is the reason for the psychological profile they do in lieu of interview, when hiring managers.
Not sure why you’re getting downvoted. These cowards are ruining workplaces everywhere by having no backbone and subjecting their subordinates to the whims of psychopathic leaders.
Edit: it’s OK Meta employees. The best time to quit was years ago, the second best time is today.
Not really surprised. It's good to have more people talking about how these people act out of the public eye. But all of this makes me a little less optimistic, and just reminds me that powerful people are rarely held accountable for all the messed up stuff they do.
I've been using Linux for a good 25 years. In that time, I've gone from having to tinker endlessly to get things working in a basic manner on a desktop machine, to running on a laptop with essentially no tinkering, and fewer issues cropping up than most of my Windows- and macOS-using friends complain about.
Sure, if you require a piece of software that can't run on Linux, then you're stuck wherever you are. Otherwise? ::shrug::
The author's thoughts don't make sense, though. He's expecting a locked-down tablet appliance to suit the same needs and use cases as a laptop running a general-purpose OS. Or at best, he's not expecting that, but is at least complaining about it, which feels a little pointless.
He can get what he wants by buying a new Mac, as he suggests. It's not like what he wants doesn't exist. He's just complaining that some other random product doesn't do what he wants, even though it's not designed to. Pointless.
It is designed to, though. That's the thing. The line is arbitrarily drawn at not getting CLI/root access to your iPad.
His point is that over the years, Apple has blurred that line a lot. You can use keyboards and mice. You can do all your daily computing on an iPad - email, spreadsheets, YouTube, whatever.
But it's still locked down, for whatever reason, despite being a perfectly capable computer that doesn't necessarily need to be.
It's honestly really obvious what he's saying. iPads have changed over the last 5 or so years, and people on HN clearly haven't used one in a while. The author isn't _wrong_.
Apple spends all this effort to blur the lines between personal computer and a device you can compute on, and it mildly tricks users who don't necessarily realise there's a difference between the computer and the tablet, especially amongst younger generations who grew up on tablets ("iPad kids").
> It is designed to, though. That's the thing. The line is arbitrarily drawn at not getting CLI/root access to your iPad.
An XBox's hardware is designed to run general purpose Windows software.
However, it's been clear for a decade that Microsoft is selling the XBox as a game playing appliance, and has no intention of allowing you to run general purpose Windows software on it.
If you choose to buy an appliance instead of a computer, that's your call.
You gain ease of use and freedom from having to manage device complexity, but lose the ability to do whatever you want.
Just because it's commonplace doesn't make it any less hostile to users. The tradeoff argument is legitimate, but it would be easy enough to have a yolo-mode button somewhere that voids the warranty and unshackles the user.
This is why I prefer Android. Google is evil, sure, but at least they don't treat me like a child. If I want to take one of their devices and shoot myself in the foot with it, that's fine with them (and thanks to nix-on-droid, there's plenty of ammo for such adventures).
> Just because it's commonplace doesn't make it any less hostile to users.
Sure, game consoles are user-hostile. They're also great for playing games, and they tend to "just work" with less configuration and customization than a typical gaming PC.
Less configuration tends to mean fewer problems and easier tech support, but the primary business reason game consoles are locked town is to make it harder to play unlicensed commercial games on them.
It seems you're advocating for the benefits of having a door when the objection is to locking the door.
By all means have a some kind of verified/sealed mode and refuse to support anything that's not in that mode--but there are negative consequences to normalizing a lack of control over the technology that people interact with.
Take the crowd strike incident for instance. Millions of people unable to do jobs that they're relied upon to do, and we can't even hold them accountable for that because it turns out they were never in control of their tools in the first place--locked out of the section necessary to carry out the repair.
You wouldn't tolerate a screwdriver that refused to be used to pry open a paint can. I don't see how it should be any different with a phone. I want to be able to rely on users of tools--not vendors of tools--to do things, and I can't. Not because the people are authentically incompetent, but because some vendor has made a dumb decision about what they're now not allowed to do.
Crowdstrike is software that IT departments install in an attempt to mitigate the security threats that come hand in hand with having the freedom to shoot yourself in the foot.
In thus case, it was Crowdstrike that shot them in the foot.
Managing complexity has a cost that some people don't want to be bothered with.
They are allowed to choose an appliance instead of a PC, even if you would make a different choice.
> but the primary business reason game consoles are locked town is to make it harder to play unlicensed commercial games on them.
Which is user-hostile. The user bought the hardware, so they should be allowed to play whatever they please. Hiding the true cost of the hardware by inflating game prices using licensing fees is monopolistic and an attempt at misleading the consumer.
This is the exact same business model as printer companies reducing the price of printers by inflating the price of printer cartridges and locking down the ability to use third-party ones. It is unbelievable to see people on a site called "Hacker News" defending that business model.
> The notion that consumers shouldn't be allowed to make decisions that are different than your own... THAT is user hostile.
Having the choice is fine, but if there's no way to opt-out then it's not a choice. While far from perfect the Xbox One is a good example of the video game platform that offers an opt-out. And it works, it is one of the most secure gaming consoles on the market and yet it still offers consumers the ability to create their own game software for it.
Most of the time people aren't stupid, if they care about where they are spending their money they aren't buying devices on the split of a second and complaining later.
People aren't stupid but there is no way to escape this bussiness model unless you go to PC. And the PC is only begrudgingly still an open platform. If something is ever going to successfully replace the PC it will be a walled garden as well.
I am appalled by how easily people dismiss the importance of open platforms as insecure and inconvenient. How will people ever learn technical skills if all the technology they own is locked down and glued shut?
He says in the article that "But even if I could somehow get macOS running on my iPad Pro, would that resolve this tension? I don't think so. A tablet lacks a keyboard and trackpad and even if I buy models designed for the iPad, tablets are all about push, poke, and drag."
So in the end, even if he could get CLI/Root access to his iPad it wouldn't matter anyway because of their perceived quality of the iPad accessory peripherals, that are built into the Macbook.
So he should just buy a damn Macbook. He wants an iPad that runs MacOS and has a quality keyboard and trackpad, so buy the product that has all of those things built in and don't complain you can't jerry rig the iPad to do the same.
This topic comes up a lot when Apple release a device with the “pro” label.
So sure it contains an M2, but it’s also a fanless device that combines its entire componentry, including the screen, into a package that is just a few mm thick. On top of that it also has a much smaller battery.
That kind of heat envelope makes it suitable for burst work, but poor for enduring workloads. Unlike the Mac it’s not going to allow limitless multitasking while exporting video and other processor heavy tasks. This hardware limitation is recognised in the types of software that the device runs competently.
So I partly blame Apple’s marketing, but I also think caveat emptor - why would the buyer assume that all of these other Mac shapes and sizes exist if they can actually all be squeezed into a 5mm thick enclosure.
> But it's still locked down, for whatever reason, despite being a perfectly capable computer that doesn't necessarily need to be.
Consider that some people (and I guarantee you that they vastly outnumber the "my iPad should run macOS/Linux and be a full laptop-equivalent" crowd, probably by several orders of magnitude) may want a locked down perfectly capable computer if it means they don't have to waste their time and brain energy on dealing with things outside of their goal.
Your concept of designed is very different from mine. The iPad is capable of providing a shell interface, but it is clearly not designed to. It is designed to provide a secure media consumption experience. There is nothing arbitrary (from a mass consumer security perspective) about not providing a shell. Providing a shell makes it much easier for bad actors to dupe unsophisticated users.
My understanding is that the post is essentially a complaint about deceptive marketing.
iPads are marketed as capable of "doing all the things you love", how it's "so versatile it's up to any task" and so on - leading to perception that it's like a computer, except in a different form factor. While, in reality, of course it's not.
Personally, I never found any subjectively meaningful use case for iPads except for portable media consumption (aka watching movies on the Porcelain Throne, and even then it's not a great option as it lacks multi-user support). Every time Apple announces a new one, I have this feeling of cognitive dissonance between what the device actually is and how it's marketed.
(I'm sure there are lots of good use cases for iPad - just nothing I personally need or care about. Aka "I'm not in the target market")
Apple is marketing to everyone and not just the HN crowd. For many people their phone is their only computing device and for them an iPad is likely a big upgrade. When I have to proof photos or do a bunch of office type work, an iPad has become my goto device. When I'm programming, not so much. But I don't think that's a big secret to this crowd.
I agree overall, but I don't think it's a secret to anyone, except, possibly, for people new to iPads, who haven't researched about what it really is.
YMMV, but I don't find this situation funny or deserving a sarcastic remark. What happened is that a person had seen an ad for a device with very good hardware specs that they cannot use because it doesn't work for them software- and policy-wise, and they're unhappy about it. I can understand if that person would make fun of their unhappiness (a perfectly valid way to handle the discomfort), but I wouldn't make fun of them as a bystander.
I think it's perfectly natural and expected to voice discontent if you saw an ad but the product wasn't a good fit for you and ad failed to disclose it (for obvious reasons, but still creating a conflict of interest). Especially because Apple is marketing to everyone, including software developers.
Are you telling me people use computers for different reasons?
No I won’t believe it. My specific workflow is all that is important and if that doesn’t fit to every form factor of device out there, then the manufacturer of that device is a fraud who is deliberately trying to spite me.
> then the manufacturer of that device is a fraud who is deliberately trying to spite me
That's a weird conclusion, even for a sarcastic remark.
Is it a fraud - is the marketing deceptive? Possibly, yes, I personally believe it can be said so. I think it could be the case because it fails to mention the nuance that iPads aren't a good device for certain tasks. If an ad says "for everyone" without any asterisks and small print to it, it's valid to complain that this is not true. It could be the norm, but it doesn't change the fact that there's a gap that may affect uninformed person's decision making towards purchasing the device that is not a good fit for them. I mean, anecdotally that's what happened to the author after all.
Is it a deliberate fraud, though? I haven't been in a room when that ad was discussed, so I cannot possibly tell. I'm not versed in marketing, but I believe I've heard that it's quite a common practice to not include any negativity (aka "when or why you wouldn't want our product?") from marketing materials, for the money doesn't smell. I have respect to the people and companies that do so, for I perceive it as a signal they respect me (aka not wasting my time researching). But whenever it was actually discussed and dismissed ("Should we mention if developers should rather get a Mac? Nah, we want them to buy an iPad too, even if it's useless to them!") or if the idea haven't even been mentioned (e.g. if it's simply not a thing in Apple culture) is unknown to me.
Are they trying to spite anyone? I don't have any evidence that suggests so, so I find it highly unlikely. While Apple has different system of beliefs and values, drastically different from some freedom-loving software crowds, I don't think I've seen signs of any significant deliberate hatred towards those who don't share their values, or willingness to make their lives worse somehow. There could've been some less than great attitudes (but my memory fails me here, I only have a vague idea that I might've possibly heard or read something that didn't resonate well with me), but I don't recall anything seriously hateful.
All this said, I would love for us all have more discussion about ethics in marketing. Honest, open, and ideally without any sarcastic remarks (for they rarely help and frequently discourage civilized discussion).
"He's expecting a locked-down tablet appliance to suit the same needs and use cases as a laptop running a general-purpose OS."
Which is a perfectly valid complaint since it doesn't need to be locked down. It's an entirely artificial limitation. An iPad pro is like selling a Ferrari that can only turn left at 30mph.
I don't understand the "buy something else" mentality. Freedom of computing on hardware you own used to be core to the tech community, but I guess it's now cooler to side with monopolists.
An iPad doesn't have the thermals of a laptop. They are not the same device.
People who want root on everything and a command line are a tiny minority of the population.
Most users don't even know what root is. They don't want to know. It doesn't interest them. They don't find it a limitation because command line computing is something they're actively indifferent to.
Having a powerful engine (for burst computing) changes nothing. They still don't care. They want something that runs CapCut or whatever, and that's the extent of their interest in technology.
Zig is a much simpler language than Rust. I'm a big Rust fan, but Rust is not even close to a drop-in replacement for C. It has a steep learning curve, and often requires thinking about and architecting your program much differently from how you might if you were using C.
For a C programmer, learning and becoming productive in Zig should be a much easier proposition than doing the same for Rust. You're not going to get the same safety guarantees you'd get with Rust, but the world is full of trade offs, and this is just one of them.
> All that security in Rust is only needed if there is a danger of hacks compromising the system.
It's not just about security, it's about reliability too. If my program crashes because of a use-after-free or null pointer dereference, I'm going to be pissed off even if there aren't security implications.
I prefer Rust to C for all sorts of projects, even those that will never sit in front of a network.
Long compile times with Rust don't really bother me that much. If it's someone else's program that I just want to build and run for myself, the one-time hit of building it isn't a big deal. I can be patient.
If it's something I'm actively developing, the compile is incremental, so it doesn't take that long.
What does often take longer than I'd like is linking. I need to look into those tricks where you build all the infrequently-changing bits (like third-party dependent crates) into a shared library, and then linking is very quick. For debug builds, this could speed up my development cycle quite a bit.
Can't help but agree, as much as I prefer Rust over C.
On the other hand, C definitely goes too far in to the opposite extreme. I am very tired of reinventing wheels in C because integrating third-party dependencies is even more annoying than writing and maintaining my own versions of common routines.
The article's phrasing was a bit murky, but I read that to mean that Obama called after or around the 2016 election, while he was still president.
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