Because the average activist has absolutely no way of forcing state legislatures to allocate funds and draw up plans for something they have no interest in. Voter ID laws do not currently solve a big problem, are not implemented in good faith, and fighting them is much more effective and realistic than asking for something that will not happen.
If we want voter ID laws, why not make it easier for everyone to get an ID first, and then enforce voter ID once that effort has succeeded?
Vote-faking is not a problem. Elderly people who have extreme difficulty obtaining an ID (that they otherwise do not need) is an actual, real life problem.
I find it odd you are so concerned about a non-problem but not concerned about the actual problem of eligible voters being actually disenfranchised.
So back to my first point: instead of making it easier for entities like the Russian government to subvert our Democracy, why not just make it easier for the Elderly to get IDs?
I also don't think that there are that many people that don't have IDs. I have seen absolutely no statistics on the topic, but I have seen multiple groups survey different parts of various cities and nobody had issues getting an ID. It's pretty much needed in almost any aspect of life.
You can't even get welfare or government assistance without some form of ID, so you can't tell me you can't get one to vote.
I don't know where to start. Your knowledge of these systems may not be broad enough to draw meaningful conclusions. For example, you can apply for and receive government services with only a Social Security card. A state-issued ID is not needed.
Millions of eligible voters do not have state-issued ID. Estimates put it at 10-20 million Americans. The primary utility of a state-issued ID is to drive on public roads and there are 10's of millions of Americans who do not drive on a regular basis.
The suggestion you make, that we should make it easier for people to get IDs, falls apart when we recognize that every state sets up their own system of issuing IDs. It would take a very strong federal law to bring states in line to the point where we could have confidence that every eligible voter in America could obtain an ID for free and regardless of individual circumstances.
As for Russia "subverting our Democracy", there is zero evidence that Russia or any other foreign entity used the lack of voter ID laws in some states to influence any elections.
Please read my comment again, I explained. There is a solution to make everyone happy, just make IDs universal first, and then once that is done, require ID for voting. There is no compelling reason to skip the first step, and many compelling reasons not to.
Make it the responsibility of the Federal Election Commission to track down every last citizen and issue them a voting ID card. Then, I agree. Right now the laws are not intended to improve election fairness, but rather exactly the opposite.
"One of my biggest disappointments with normies is the way they use technology. Rather than exploring the wonderful resources we have on the internet, they have allowed themselves to become internet cattle corralled into Facebook."
It's possible that 'normies' as you say just aren't capable of doing the things you mention, due to a lack of intelligence or the necessary skills that were never taught or never learned during important developmental years.
This is why getting low-pay and equity at a startup is a pipe dream. The investors or founders will find a way to squeeze you out while using your skills to make them rich.
Can't we just admit that Google has a left-leaning bias? It's so obvious in cases like this.
This is the scary part: if there is right-leaning bias, people are protesting in the streets. left-leaning bias? crickets and business as usual with many people even denying that this is even a problem.
Can't we admit that the only way a search engine can provide answers is to assume some answers must be right and others wrong? That is to say, Google must have an opinion or leaning about all things.
I'm going to have to disagree on the right-leaning bias. News organizations have more-or-less designated conservatives: Nicole D Wallace had that role at NBC, Jennifer Rubin at WaPo until recently, Marc A Thiessen now has that role. At least the Denver papers were the same until the Rocky Mountain News failed (I quit subscribing after that). Nobody cares, in fact, everybody likes it.
Also, I'm going to disagree in "cases like this". This particular case, autocomplete on "Clinton Body Count" is nothing more (if it even exists) than stopping auto-complete on a unproven, highly unlikely, conspiracy theory. You might as well bring up suppressing autocomplete on "Elders of Zion" or "illuminati world control".
Do you really not see the liberal bias with pretty much every single mainstream news organization in the US?
We are also no seeing a bias online because many sites will secretly shadow ban inconvenient comments that show disagreement with the current narrative...HN included.
Honestly, no I do not see a liberal bias. I do see a corporate bias: things like "can't raise taxes on corporations, they'll only pass it along to the consumer" get passed along without any question. "Can't raise taxes on the consumer, they'll only pass it along to their employers" - now that's considered laughable and weird.
I do see something akin to conservative bias. Conservative framing of every debatable issue occurs. Conservative writers get what amounts to affirmative action. By calling "liberal bias" on every report they don't like, Republicans have conditioned editors, reporters and fact checkers to merely repeat what Republicans say verbatim. No analysis, no context, no history. Democrats, on the other hand, what they say is totally up for shredding based on who, history and context.
I find the idea of "shadow bans" laughable. I get downvoted and argued with all the time. My opinions are not popular: you are arguing with me about something you take as gospel, and I think is totally false right now. I've never been "shadow banned". I know that HN does something like that, mostly for people who just disrupt conversations. But here's some news: getting argued with because your opinions are poorly formed, poorly stated or even false on the face of them is not bias, and downvotes are not shadow bans.
Would Facebook take seriously an anti-liberal bias accusation? I don't think so. There's actually incentive for Facebook and other companies to "do something" about accusation of liberal bias, but very little to no incentive to take (currently non-existent) accusations of conservative-bias seriously.
If that's the case, 99% will be booted off the platform and they will have to meet certain numbers of visitors and engagement every month, or lose their job..which is what unionizing means.
If I were google, I would also get control of their users (they would now be the companys) and youtubers will no longer be able move to any other platform while working for Google.
You can't expect the freedom of running your own business with none of the restrictions of a job.
I never understood the need to take away the ability for someone to truly run their own business and have freedoms and restrict it down to a corporate job, by law.
If you run a business and your solvency depends on the existence of another, larger business, you're not as independent as the title of 'business owner' alludes.
How many HN posts have we seen over the years of businesses based on Amazon, Twitter, Apple getting blown the fuck up because the mothership restricted an API, copied their project or changed a ToS?
I'm not putting in an opinion on anything else in your post except the supposed 'freedom' of youtubers et al. Okay maybe one more thing. I like seeing alternative viewpoints, and yours is a rare one on HN. I like to champion alternative viewpoints whenever I see them, especially when they're voted white for no reason. It's hard to go to bat for you on this though, since you're for retaliation against a bunch of people who dare try and organize around their shared pain points. I just can't do it this time!
Unionizing is like a mini revolution. I was always confused about anti unionism when I was in school, because unions seem as american as it gets (in the 7th grade social studies definition of 'America).
Democracy in the workplace? Hell yeah! Fighting against a power that exploits you without representation? That's boston-tea-party as shit. Shame there's no way to talk about things like this with someone who disagrees without it devolving into 'modern discourse'.
"If you run a business and your solvency depends on the existence of another, larger business, you're not as independent as the title of 'business owner' alludes."
My point is that Youtubers can start their own sites and go elsewhere if they get tired of a large company controlling their content.
Unionization usually means they will now need to be paid a 'fair wage' and benefits..and your relationship changes to more of an employee..with more restrictions on what you can do.
Youtube also won't pay everyone as an employee and less people will be able to actually make money on the platform due to these restrictions.
"I like seeing alternative viewpoints"
This is is kind of crazy when you think about it: Independent business is now considered an 'alternative viewpoint' here on HN..a site dedicated to hackers, startups, and the tech business.
My guess is that the majority here work for large companies and really don't care about (or have even tried) running a business/startup.
"Since you're for retaliation against a bunch of people who dare try and organize around their shared pain points. I just can't do it this time!"
I'm not for retaliation, I'm just pointing out the unintended consequences.
"Fighting against a power that exploits you without representation? That's boston-tea-party as shit"
Everything isn't deserving of a 'revolution'. If so, I would have started a revolution against HN years ago. I can't even have intellectual discussions, without scared users down voting my comments..because someone might be convinced of a different view point.
"My point is that Youtubers can start their own sites and go elsewhere if they get tired of a large company controlling their content."
I don't fault people who try that, nor do I fault anyone who tries to stay and fight. In many ways, Google "owns the well". It makes sense to me that the economics of the situation for some makes staying and organizing the easier course of action. Taking on Youtube as a competitor.. building a website, attracting advertisers, etc. Especially doing all this while making cat videos, now for no money, seems like a tough play.
You'd have to have some systemic luxuries, and lots of grit to take on the risk of such a feat. I wish anyone who tries the best of luck.
"Unionization usually means they will now need to be paid a 'fair wage' and benefits..and your relationship changes to more of an employee..with more restrictions on what you can do."
You're already restricted to whatever rules of the road Google sets, by fiat. 99.999% of Content creators who work with google have ZERO negotiating power right now. They can, and do change the rules at anytime. Companies can submit fraudulent DMCA takedowns depriving these small business owners their revenue during its most important period. You can appeal, but it doesn't undo the damage to your revenue even if you win.
These are dirty tricks! Those affected should maximize their voice to do something about it, in my opinion.
"This is is kind of crazy when you think about it: Independent business is now considered an 'alternative viewpoint' here on HN..a site dedicated to hackers, startups, and the tech business."
It's alternative to put 'independent business' contingent on employees never organizing. Businesses can make partnerships, why not employees?
"My guess is that the majority here work for large companies and really don't care about (or have even tried) running a business/startup."
I've worked for a few startups. We weren't aggrieved anywhere close enough to consider Unionization. We were all well paid, treated well, and close enough to management that they listened to concerns as we brought them up.
I wish I had some stats on how many startups are brought low by unions, I bet it's a vanishingly small number. If you consider unions to be a response to be corrective feedback from aggrieved employees, some of these hypothetical blown up startups probably should have gone under.
Honestly, I've only ever associated unions as responses against sufficiently-large-to-be-dehumanizing companies. Maybe it is a problem? I'm open to the possibility even though I would be surprised.
"Everything isn't deserving of a 'revolution'."
Those rebels decide what deserves rebellion, power dynamics decide if they succeed, I bet most don't. Treat your people better to make it harder for them to justify the risks of unionizing, imo.
> If you run a business and your solvency depends on the existence of another, larger business, you're not as independent as the title of 'business owner' alludes.
99.9% of businesses in the United States depend on the existence of their power utility to operate.
I guess they aren't independent businesses, either.
But the rest of your point is salient. I too, am baffled by how many of the greatest advocates of democracy seem to have been brainwashed into resisting democracy in the workplace.
That's one of the reasons power utilities are regulated by the government.
Yes, every organization is dependent on other organizations. That's why it's so important to be thoughtful about how those organizations are structured and what their incentives are. It's not the being dependent on an organization that's a problem, it's being dependent on an organization that has little regulation, whose goal is to make as much money as possible, and who thinks of your organization as a cost sink.
People tend to get into this mindset that businesses and government are fundamentally different, but their both just social institutions with their sometimes different sometimes similar rules and incentives.
> I too, am baffled by how many of the greatest advocates of democracy seem to have been brainwashed into resisting democracy in the workplace.
The owners of those workplaces have spent decades and millions of dollars creating propandanda to do that brainwashing.
> If that's the case, 99% will be booted off the platform and they will have to meet certain numbers of visitors and engagement every month, or lose their job..which is what unionizing means.
Youtube already does this to some degree in the form of changing their monetization requirements over time.
I'm all for giving more collective bargaining power to the creators. Youtube provides the infrastructure to connect creators to users, but I think over time we've seen them begin to take advantage of this in a way that is not fair to individual creators.
I would rather liken this to running a soap making company, but the governmental society where you do your soap making keeps changing what ingredients are legal on an arbitrary basis, causing you to need to recreate your product constantly, much to the chagrin of your customers. It makes much more sense for you and your fellow bath products producers to bind together and have a sit down with the government on everyone's behalf.
>I never understood the need to take away the ability for someone to truly run their own business and have freedoms and restrict it down to a corporate job, by law.
They obviously feel that it balances in their favor, in the sense that as of right now they are unable to "truly run their own business" while they are at the whims of monetization and censorship policies that seemingly change on a dime, with no recourse. On top of the copyright issues plaguing creators - they must think that unionizing will give them bargaining power to start to rectify these issues.
The important question, which according to the article the union won't disclose, is how many people are included in "they". Is this something that Youtubers in general are rallying behind, or is IG Metall just trying to bully Youtube and advance its own interests?
All unions bully large corporations to advance their own interests. The auto unions, for instance, had leaders that were getting multi-million dollar bonuses for decades..and probably still to this day.
I had daily standups at my last job and I dreaded them every day. It was mostly pointless.
The main problem is that I would have to take time out of my day, many times in the middle of a coding session, to have a 30/1 hour meeting where we could have mostly given the same information in the form of a simple slack message.
Since these standups were in the middle of the afternoon, I almost never actually got back into coding the rest of the day.
Now, I have no regularly scheduled meetings. Everything is as-needed and it's great.
I also noticed that business people love early morning standups and developers love mid-afternoon standups.
Because we didn't have the technology and ability to lookup DNA as cheaply or easily 20+ years ago. I expect unsolved crime to continue to go down as our technology gets better.
