This may be a good time to question whether all votes in a democracy should be weighed equally, and how technology can make a difference to solve the problems of modern democracy.
Most modern democracies are representative democracies with aspects of direct democracy (in the form of referendums) using some sort of voting system. I don't think there is anything wrong with the idea of a representative democracy, but that most problems arise from the way the voting system is commonly implemented.
As far as I know, all modern democracies implement their primary voting using votes with equal weight. Some democracies, like the United States, have a layer of indirection (the electoral college), but still their primary votes are all weighed equally. While all people should be equal in the eyes of the law and with regard to human rights, there are good arguments that political votes should not be equal. Even with an equal total say for all citizens, it should be possible to weigh different topics that they have a say in towards areas that they are best qualified to make decisions about.
Imagine a political system where all citizens get to vote on representative experts per subject, with an implementation similar to PageRank. People who are indicated to be more qualified for a subject through both historical metrics (previous votes) and objective metrics (qualifications like a degree or work experience) get a stronger vote on representatives for that subject. The elected representatives could either advise politicians (in a binding fashion) or make political decisions directly. This system could strongly reduce a large problem of current democracies that the Brexit vote highlights: all people get an equal say about all issues, regardless of their ability to make qualified judgments about those issues.
Of course there are significant problems with such a weighed voting system, primarily how to make a system that weighs each person's vote fairly and accurately, and who gets to decide how the voting system itself works. This is where modern technology could play a role: by designing a digital voting system that is simple to understand and transparent, so that it can be audited by average citizens. In order to work well, I think this system should be strongly based on the scientific method and should therefore evaluate empirical evidence, instead of emotional sentiments. Another important aspect would be to learn from history, instead of overlooking its lessons. This means the system should be strongly based on political systems that have been shown throughout history to work best, like democracy. It also means that the system should avoid the historical pitfalls of political systems, like concentrating power to a specific group of people.
It would be great to know whether HN thinks that such a system could be designed, or that these ideas are utopian and wont work.
edit: The article does state at the end that google will still modify OpenJDK for their own needs, but that still means that the vast majority of the implementation will be the same, so this seems to avoid most incompatibility issues.
I can't speak for the person you replied to, but I live in the Netherlands and here (and if I'm not mistaken in most of Europe) offering a pension plan is obligatory for companies in most sectors, including tech. Then again, our perspective on these things is quite different from for instance the USA, health insurance is not an option, it is obligatory.
Overreacting much? His summary of your comment actually got me interested enough to read the whole comment, which I would otherwise have never read (it's not exactly a unique story).
I would like to add some constructive criticism: it seems like you are idealizing your dad in this story (his team was really the only one in this really big company making any money), which is a very normal thing to do, but it is not needed to make your point. Also, you are dehumanizing "corporate people" by calling them psychopaths. They are not (usually) psychopaths, they have feelings and empathy, but are just very good at rationalizing those feelings away. I think it is important to recognize that they are no different from you or me, since that might prevent you from doing the same thing in the future.
Most modern democracies are representative democracies with aspects of direct democracy (in the form of referendums) using some sort of voting system. I don't think there is anything wrong with the idea of a representative democracy, but that most problems arise from the way the voting system is commonly implemented.
As far as I know, all modern democracies implement their primary voting using votes with equal weight. Some democracies, like the United States, have a layer of indirection (the electoral college), but still their primary votes are all weighed equally. While all people should be equal in the eyes of the law and with regard to human rights, there are good arguments that political votes should not be equal. Even with an equal total say for all citizens, it should be possible to weigh different topics that they have a say in towards areas that they are best qualified to make decisions about.
Imagine a political system where all citizens get to vote on representative experts per subject, with an implementation similar to PageRank. People who are indicated to be more qualified for a subject through both historical metrics (previous votes) and objective metrics (qualifications like a degree or work experience) get a stronger vote on representatives for that subject. The elected representatives could either advise politicians (in a binding fashion) or make political decisions directly. This system could strongly reduce a large problem of current democracies that the Brexit vote highlights: all people get an equal say about all issues, regardless of their ability to make qualified judgments about those issues.
Of course there are significant problems with such a weighed voting system, primarily how to make a system that weighs each person's vote fairly and accurately, and who gets to decide how the voting system itself works. This is where modern technology could play a role: by designing a digital voting system that is simple to understand and transparent, so that it can be audited by average citizens. In order to work well, I think this system should be strongly based on the scientific method and should therefore evaluate empirical evidence, instead of emotional sentiments. Another important aspect would be to learn from history, instead of overlooking its lessons. This means the system should be strongly based on political systems that have been shown throughout history to work best, like democracy. It also means that the system should avoid the historical pitfalls of political systems, like concentrating power to a specific group of people.
It would be great to know whether HN thinks that such a system could be designed, or that these ideas are utopian and wont work.