I think I fundamentally dislike the topic of this submission, but I've got a piece of juicy gossip. (It's the kind of thing that you think everyone knows until you realize that you might be one of a relative few privy to the secret):
The world, and by extension the tech industry, is largely comprised of good people trying to do the right thing and make the people around them happy.
> so you disagree with the fundamental economic notion that people act in their rational self-interest, exploiting those around them?
Not sure about the original commenter, but yes - strongly.
American culture is tied up with this idea of individualism, probably because it aligns well with capitalism and the idea of social mobility.
I think there is a selective pressure for cooperation and it's probably why humans are one of the most social animals. The species is more likely to survive working together than in each individual's own self interest. I'd suspect in earlier/more tribal human times people within the group that did not cooperate for the benefit of the group would have faced social consequences as a result.
While you may get scale issues or tragedy of the commons situations when the entirety of the group is not known or seen I think these cases are more the outliers rather than the norm. Maybe it's because human communication scales poorly for larger systems (could be still optimized for smaller tribal kind of groups).
No idea if any of this is true, but I've always had an issue with the generic economic assumption. There's some irony that if you look at the market it's hardly rational - massive swings based on emotion and speculation, not unlike everything else.
That's not asking for "whistle blower"s, that's asking for gossip.
I would ask that you change the content of the thread, but really I think this type of thread has no place on HN. Anything you'd have to blow a whistle on should go to A) the authorities or B) a proper journalist.
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[ 2.4 ms ] story [ 25.3 ms ] threadThe world, and by extension the tech industry, is largely comprised of good people trying to do the right thing and make the people around them happy.
Not sure about the original commenter, but yes - strongly.
American culture is tied up with this idea of individualism, probably because it aligns well with capitalism and the idea of social mobility.
I think there is a selective pressure for cooperation and it's probably why humans are one of the most social animals. The species is more likely to survive working together than in each individual's own self interest. I'd suspect in earlier/more tribal human times people within the group that did not cooperate for the benefit of the group would have faced social consequences as a result.
While you may get scale issues or tragedy of the commons situations when the entirety of the group is not known or seen I think these cases are more the outliers rather than the norm. Maybe it's because human communication scales poorly for larger systems (could be still optimized for smaller tribal kind of groups).
No idea if any of this is true, but I've always had an issue with the generic economic assumption. There's some irony that if you look at the market it's hardly rational - massive swings based on emotion and speculation, not unlike everything else.
That's not asking for "whistle blower"s, that's asking for gossip.
I would ask that you change the content of the thread, but really I think this type of thread has no place on HN. Anything you'd have to blow a whistle on should go to A) the authorities or B) a proper journalist.