this week's political activity, discrediting Carly. Brought to you by all left leaning news sites, blogs, and now, Hacker's News.
Really guys, the first three sentences should have made this tripe obvious. Expect submission after submission that are purely political hidden under techy click bait titles. We need a new flag, "political"
While it may be a hit piece, everyone at HN already thought that Carly Fiorina is a bad leader and that her tenure at HP should be hung like a millstone around her neck, not touted as her #1 qualification. Democrats can read this and feel smug about the Republican primary shitshow. Republicans can read this and feel consternation that such a bad candidate has been gaining credibility in the primary.
I don't think this article is political. It's just anti-Fiorina. It's not making fun of people for supporting her. It's ringing an alarm bell for people outside of the tech world that Fiorina's signature achievement was tanking one of America's finest technology companies.
Seriously, this. HP used to have such a sterling reputation of innovative engineering and high quality products. It's really sad what she did to it, and pathetic how defensive and delusional Republicans are about any criticism of her, no matter how valid and well substantiated by the facts.
But when a political party has systematically driven away so many qualified women and minorities, they have to make do with the bottom-of-the-barrel dregs of token candidates that they have left, and pretend their naked emperors wear beautiful clothes.
Republicans should spend their energy cleaning up their own act, rather than attacking people for criticizing it.
Ms.Fiorina not only acknowledges her association with Silicon Valley, but tauts it, while name dropping SVs and CEOs. So, if anyone discusses her CEO-ship under Microscope, it becomes a political hit piece? Of course, her current presidential run and doing good in polls is getting this kind of attention, but this is not a he said - she said. The body of work is already laid there and the article does narrate a sequence of events which demonstrates her last stint as an Executive.
Setting aside all the political stuff, it's hard to see how this deal made any sense for HP. Apple got better distribution for their iPods, kept a competitor out of the market, and got their software installed on a ton of Windows computers. What did HP get other than a few bucks per iPod+HP sold?
If its any consolation to the HP folks, Apple did something similar with Motorola. The MOTO ROKR was intentionally crippled, and designed to fail. It was merely created to delay Motorola entering the media business on their own. Not that they would have been any more successful than HP had they tried on their own...
Rational people tend to be progressive and "left leaning" (by American standards; by world standards this country is a right-wing powder keg). The sheer idiocy of the American right is certainly relevant to hackers as an interesting and difficult problem, just like the housing situation in San Francisco or that malaria and Alzheimer's continue to exist.
I rarely take the time to comment on HN or submit content but I'm occasionally really tempted to earn enough karma that I can down-vote arrogant, condescending, asinine posts like this one. Neither side of the political spectrum has anything like a monopoly on "rational people" and "the sheer idiocy of [people who disagree with bitwize]" is not "relevant to hackers as an interesting and difficult problem."
Well... I am not agreeing that his comment was a bit cray. But isn't it common knowledge that generally more educated areas of the country are also more "progressive/left leaning"? Obviously there are exceptions, but even an intelligent man can cling to the wrong idea ;)
That is not true . At least in my experience . All the rational people I've ever met in my whole life was liberal and big chunk of them were disappointed in political system (which makes them out of spectrum in left side ).
For example even Noam Chomsky (which is far left in today US definition) prefer Obama (despite he knows Obama is just another politician who work for wall street instead of people ,but at least he is not going to put country in danger) to some crazy person at the other hand.
I was fairly disappointed when I saw that comment down voted in HN .
And I am from other country , I can see (in compare to my country) how exactly Right wing using deceive people with its control over money/media.
About the monopoly maybe your left wing is Clinton ( which don't have any monopoly on rational people , because all know she is clown of wall street) , but true left wing (like Lessig Lawrence / Bernie Sanders / etc ) completely have monopoly on rational people in compare to right side , specially academic people in human science branches.
Rational people tend to be rational. And rational people don't dismiss the views of others because they don't share them.
Well, rational people can and should dismiss the views of others because they don't share them... if they've taken the time to investigate the validity of those views. Isn't that the point of being rational?
> Well, rational people can and should dismiss the views of others because they don't share them... if they've taken the time to investigate the validity of those views.
You can only make that kind of a conclusion assuming two things:
1. Perfect information. You are aware of everything there is to know which might be tangential to the matter at hand.
2. Identical environment. You share the same exact circumstances as everyone else.
Neither #1 nor #2 are ever true.
You never know everything there is to know. Frequently, we know very little and more important, what little we know doesn't overlap with the knowledge of others. So every person has a little bit, never the entire picture, and we all have very different little bits.
We also don't exist in the same environment. We have vastly different backgrounds, circumstances, motivations, etc. which lead to wildly diverging self-interests.
When you dismiss the views of others because you don't share them, you're not being rational ... you're just being stupid.
You can only make that kind of a conclusion assuming two things:
1. Perfect information. You are aware of everything there is to know which might be tangential to the matter at hand.
Perfect information is not at all necessary for rational thought. There's a whole field of research about probabilistic reasoning that helps with that.
2. Identical environment. You share the same exact circumstances as everyone else.
That's really just a special case of point 1.
When you dismiss the views of others because you don't share them, you're not being rational ... you're just being stupid.
That's not what I said, either. I explicitly talked about investigating those views.
Suppose my friend comes up to me and says "Blue cars are more reliable than red cars." I inquire further as to how he came up with that statement, and he gives me nothing useful. "Its just my opinion / feeling / premonition / whatever."
Is it rational for me to believe my friend's statement? No, because there is no evidence.
Now suppose that one of the workers in the car factory hates the color red. And he's been subtly sabotaging those, and taking extra time to make sure the blue ones are better. There's that perfect information you're talking about that I'm missing.
However, even in that case, should I be believing my friend's statement about blue cars? No, because I don't have evidence, and neither did he. Until someone collects at least some evidence, it isn't reasonable for me to believe that blue cars are more reliable, because I don't have any basis in theory (that the color blue can actually affect mechanical reliability) or in practice (the statistics for the cars)... even though my friend's statement is actually true.
Rationality is a tool we use to discern truth from falseness. But we still have to do the work.
Please read carefully , He/She didn't say "rational people dismiss other people's view" he said "liberalism has monopoly on rational people".
Don't change the meaning of what he said.
Yes conservatives bad, progressives good. Except when it comes to tax policy, right? Because SV wouldn't exist at all if the investment returns were taxed at a 50%-80% rate. Then instead of looking for a 1000x unicorn, everyone would be hunting 5000x-10000x unicorns. Which are rarer still.
> Because SV wouldn't exist at all if the investment returns were taxed at a 50%-80% rate
I suggest looking up how long term capital gains work, and what top tax rates for cap gains have been in the past (hint: much higher than today—even under Reagan). No one has ever suggested taxing cap gains "at a 50%-80% rate".
Really guys, the first three sentences should have made this tripe obvious. Expect submission after submission that are purely political hidden under techy click bait titles. We need a new flag, "political"