this post was submitted on 20 Jun 2024
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Big brain tech dude got yet another clueless take over at HackerNews etc? Here's the place to vent. Orange site, VC foolishness, all welcome.

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[–] [email protected] 14 points 5 months ago* (last edited 5 months ago) (3 children)

I started reading the part with students wondering how to afford a lawyer and I was like, wait, isn't that specifically what a class-action is supposed to allieviate?

Because students signed away their rights to a class action lawsuit as part of their enrollment agreement...

HOW THE FUCK IS THIS LEGAL. HOW IS THE USA A REAL PLACE WHERE PEOPLE LIVE. WHAT THE FUCK.

[–] [email protected] 13 points 5 months ago (1 children)

If it makes you feel better, it costs an average of $18,865 for an uninsured American to give birth to a healthy baby, and a tenth of the country is uninsured.

I mean, it doesn't make me feel better, because I live here. But you don't, so YMMV. Or I suppose YKMV, in metric, because the US still uses imperial measurements for everything, because we're too good for real numbers. USA! USA!

[–] [email protected] 14 points 5 months ago (1 children)

Why would other humans being miserable make me happy, I'm not Peter Thiel.

[–] [email protected] 13 points 5 months ago

Sorry, I’m American, I’ve forgotten how normal human empathy works. I’ve heard that in some places society isn’t entirely driven by spite but I think that’s a myth.

[–] [email protected] 10 points 5 months ago

HOW THE FUCK IS THIS LEGAL. HOW IS THE USA A REAL PLACE WHERE PEOPLE LIVE. WHAT THE FUCK.

here's a fun one for you: because US empire is as US empire does, it does not stop at living there. there are many modes of interaction that will subject you to the same type of shit

in ...almost every one of the contracts I've had with US entities, there were at minimum included binding arbitration clauses, and often more

such a fucking diseased hellhole

[–] [email protected] 9 points 5 months ago* (last edited 5 months ago) (1 children)

Im reading the article and im baffled. In a way which comes back to your 'HOW IS THE USA A REAL PLACE' thing.

I'm at the 'try out an engineer for four weeks' part, and am I missing something? Isn't this normal with jobs? That there is a month of tryout period? Are they just bragging about it being unpaid? How is that impressive? (It isn't like it is free for the hiring company anyway even if they don't have to pay the first month, programming famously being a non-stacking process where training and managing people into a new team is quite costly, vs hiring more people to lay bricks, a process where you can just hire more people if you want it to go faster).

[–] [email protected] 10 points 5 months ago (1 children)

Isn’t this normal with jobs? That there is a month of tryout period?

I have never found this to be normal with jobs, no. But in the US, most employment is at-will, so you can be fired without cause at any time.

(I've encountered probation windows where benefits don't kick in for 3-6 months, and that's hideous in a country without single payer health care, but never a tryout period.)

[–] [email protected] 4 points 5 months ago

Yeah I can't find the proper dutch word for it in my mind (and even then I would need to find a translation) but the concept of 'you can be let go/quit in the first month without any notice' seems to me to be a normal thing (which at-will fits into, but also probation periods etc), like I doubt it is a thing at higher end jobs, and it is more of a hire a McDonalds tillworker (which is not to say this is unskilled work btw, there certainly is a difference in quality of somebody doing that work for a month vs years).

So for me the only real benefit of this offer seemed to me the price. Which is just such a weird thing to compete on with tech workers. (And I would think that the businesses interested in this offer would also be of lesser quality). To me the whole action just signals 'our students are mostly of low quality, here is a sieve to filter out the good ones'. Which is why I was baffled.