Hacker News: gaur

New comment by gaur in "American Express will give all parents 20 weeks of paid leave"

gaur — Mon, 12 Dec 2016 22:20:11 +0000

A key point that I was making (and a point which your rewriting of my comment completely erases) is that parenthood can be planned ahead for (or avoided) to a much greater degree than other situations that require family leave. I could have made some anodyne choice of words that obscures this fact, but I didn't because I wanted to make the point that if we are giving people support for voluntarily taking on extra family burdens, then it's absolutely inexcusable that we don't extend the same support to people who have had similar burdens thrust upon them involuntarily.

New comment by gaur in "American Express will give all parents 20 weeks of paid leave"

gaur — Mon, 12 Dec 2016 19:54:39 +0000

Policies that encompass parental leave as well as more general family leave situations, obviously.

New comment by gaur in "American Express will give all parents 20 weeks of paid leave"

gaur — Mon, 12 Dec 2016 19:44:19 +0000

> I'm not sure why the solution should be to discontinue offering parental leave.

I'm not sure where you got the idea that I'm suggesting that solution. In fact, I explicitly said "I'm not saying parental leave is bad".

New comment by gaur in "American Express will give all parents 20 weeks of paid leave"

gaur — Mon, 12 Dec 2016 19:32:48 +0000

Yet again, people who have family responsibilities through no fault of their own (e.g., taking care of a sick parent or sibling) are ignored while companies fawn over people who (largely) choose to pop out more mouths to feed. I'm not saying parental leave is bad, but it's entirely eclipsed the other reasons why someone might need to take time off work to help family.

Saying "I want 20 weeks paid leave and $35,000 to provide hospice care for my brother" would probably result in derision and maybe a pink slip at many companies, even ones that have generous parental leave.

New comment by gaur in "Amazon workers sleeping in tents"

gaur — Sat, 10 Dec 2016 18:52:57 +0000

The Silicon Valley empathy vacuum strikes again.

New comment by gaur in "What makes Bach sound like Bach? New dataset teaches algorithms classical music"

gaur — Tue, 06 Dec 2016 00:55:49 +0000

How many of the lost hundred cantatas do you think contained new (unknown to us) music, as opposed to music that was parodied in a surviving cantata?

New comment by gaur in "Four Million Commutes Reveal New U.S. 'Megaregions'"

gaur — Sun, 04 Dec 2016 17:51:49 +0000

The creation of Maine from Massachusetts shows that there is a way to redraw the borders of a state already admitted to the union. It may not be an efficient or repeatable process, but evidently it can happen regardless of how many times you say "states, not provinces!".

New comment by gaur in "Software Engineering Internship Amazon Interview Experience"

gaur — Thu, 01 Dec 2016 03:47:58 +0000

> They don't actually care to collect any info about you beyond what you do during the test.

Allegedly.

New comment by gaur in "Silicon Valley Has an Empathy Vacuum"

gaur — Mon, 28 Nov 2016 23:58:05 +0000

A comment amounting to "that's how capitalism works, so tough shit!" is such a perfect example of the SV empathy vacuum that I almost think it must be satire.

New comment by gaur in "Stallman’s Law"

gaur — Mon, 28 Nov 2016 00:50:10 +0000

You've explicitly rewritten it as "if X, then maybe Y", exactly as I said.

"If corporations write the laws, then maybe they will restrict or mistreat their users." That's not a law.

New comment by gaur in "Stallman’s Law"

gaur — Mon, 28 Nov 2016 00:05:44 +0000

No, you can't just take a statement and call it a "law", even in a facetious sense.

Murphy's law, Betteridge's law, or other facetious laws are at least roughly formulated as "if X, then Y" (or sometimes "Y happens"), which mimics the structure of actual scientific laws. Stallman's statement is formulated as "if X, then maybe Y" (or "Y could happen").

New comment by gaur in "Breitbart news site blocked by ad exchange"

gaur — Sat, 26 Nov 2016 19:36:29 +0000

The post you replied to was talking about white supremacists, with no mention of Trump voters.

You are the one who brought up Trump voters at the first mention of alt-right white nationalists, which is ironic since you insist that the former has nothing to do with the latter.

New comment by gaur in "Breitbart news site blocked by ad exchange"

gaur — Sat, 26 Nov 2016 16:29:42 +0000

> Have to be careful with definitions.

OK, so let's spell it out explicitly. The term "alt-right" was created by Richard Spencer, who is often described as a white supremacist.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Richard_B._Spencer

> Spencer advocates for a white homeland for a "dispossessed white race" and calls for "peaceful ethnic cleansing" to halt the "deconstruction" of European culture.[16][22][23]

New comment by gaur in "Deleting the golang subreddit"

gaur — Fri, 25 Nov 2016 16:31:32 +0000

The reddit admins allow subreddits that loudly promote white supremacism. Comment editing is not the most pressing ethical failing of that site.

New comment by gaur in "Quit Social Media, Your Career May Depend on It"

gaur — Mon, 21 Nov 2016 06:28:05 +0000

Maybe for you this is some abstract problem for which you enjoy dreaming up an endless stream of meandering questions. For me it's a matter of "are the people above me in management going to fuck me over because of my sexuality?". And if I have evidence that they might, either they need to go or I need to go. And if I like my job, I'd rather it be them than me.

So for the sake of LGBT Mozilla employees, I'm glad Eich was shown the door. I'm not interested in entertaining a bunch of fluffy questions about heuristics, expression of opinion, what "purging" really means, or whatever. That's just noise.

New comment by gaur in "Quit Social Media, Your Career May Depend on It"

gaur — Sun, 20 Nov 2016 20:41:18 +0000

> Is there a better descriptor for what Eich was put through?

Yeah. He was given a taste of his own medicine with regard to what it feels like to be victimized.

New comment by gaur in "Quit Social Media, Your Career May Depend on It"

gaur — Sun, 20 Nov 2016 20:03:28 +0000

> You've now provided two examples: firing and voting.

Voting someone out of office is firing them. We're talking about firing.

New comment by gaur in "Quit Social Media, Your Career May Depend on It"

gaur — Sun, 20 Nov 2016 19:01:38 +0000

> there was nothing reprehensible at the time

Lots of people knew proposition 8 was reprehensible and protested accordingly. Eich chose not to listen.

> if we purge people based on their political opinions, why bother with democracy

Purging people based on political opinions is exactly how democracy is supposed to function. We regularly vote politicians out of office because of their political opinions. What other criterion should a democracy use to select leaders?

New comment by gaur in "Quit Social Media, Your Career May Depend on It"

gaur — Sun, 20 Nov 2016 18:55:09 +0000

> It's a form of cultural terrorism, where one's private ideas can get them killed.

49 people were massacred this year for going to a gay nightclub, but Eich was a victim of terrorism because he was fired? What are you smoking?

New comment by gaur in "Quit Social Media, Your Career May Depend on It"

gaur — Sun, 20 Nov 2016 18:20:40 +0000

> Brendan Eich, former CEO of Mozilla, fired for a donation,

Fired for a donation that supported enshrining discrimination in a state constitution. It was a good firing.

Support nasty causes, win nasty prizes.