So your argument is that this person has no rights to know who this person who is scamming startup employees is and that the "reasonable" action they should take is to offer $100k.
You can't seriously believe this makes sense, right?
I cannot quite fathom the confusion of ideas that results in your comment here.
What does a "right" to know something mean? Apparently you think that kelukelugames has the right to force Penny Kim to make public statements that would put her at the risk of a major lawsuit. Can kelukelugames compel this of everyone who has a bad employer experience? By what mechanism is the right enforced? What are the penalties if kelukelugames right to know is not enforced?
As far as I'm concerned, the only rights involved here are Penny Kim's rights to privacy and freedom of association. She was not obligated to publish this. Doing so was difficult and puts her at risk. It was a gift. I think it's ungracious to look at a gift and say, "YOU OWE ME MORE!"
If you would like people to publish more things like this, especially to the extent of naming names, then I think the best approach is to reduce the risk to whistleblowers. One way to do that is to create a legal defense fund large enough to handle a lawsuit over the naming of names. My guess is that $100k is about the minimum for that.
"Apparently you think that kelukelugames has the right to force Penny Kim to make public statements that would put her at the risk of a major lawsuit. Can kelukelugames compel this of everyone who has a bad employer experience? By what mechanism is the right enforced? What are the penalties if kelukelugames right to know is not enforced?"
Wait so is it that you don't understand my point or that you literally are making up my point? I never even made the slightest implication I believe any of that and you made up this entire system of beliefs for me. This is insane. Stop.
"I think it's ungracious to look at a gift and say, "YOU OWE ME MORE!""
Oh hey, another thing I didn't do! Fun! But yeah, you're right, this is unreasonable! You know what is reasonable though? Anyone who even dare ask a question should be forced to pay a six figure some because some guy on the internet said so and really that is it.
I'll let you get back to mocking behaviors you made up in other sub comments. Thanks for your contribution.
When you say, "X has a right to Y", a reasonable interpretation of that is, "Someone(Z) is punished if X is denied access to Y".
For example, I could say I have a right to structurally secure buildings. If the floor of the mall falls apart underneath me, I can sue them for damages for not obeying the building code. If the mall's owners refuse to pay, the police will storm their house to extract payment(and if they resist, they could be shot). The police could end up shooting someone to enforce this right.
When you say, "This commenter has a right to Penny's information", a reasonable interpretation is, "Penny or any other person declining to support this right and provide this information will be punished or hurt in some way."
It's specifically that word "right" that you used that's in question. It makes me think of "enforcement", and I don't consider the right you described to be worthy of enforcement.
You all seem to have this super bizarre belief that I was forcing someone to divulge information by saying I believed they should do it? Do you actually believe that or is this just a convenient thing to nit over?
Those are how rights work: through obligation and enforcement. A right to know is a positive right [1], which means other people are compelled to provide it for you. E.g., I have a legal right to know the financials of publicly traded companies. If a company fails to honor my right, the SEC will come after them. First with lawyers, then with people with guns.
> Oh hey, another thing I didn't do!
I was referring to the behavior I was originally objecting to. But I'm not sure you didn't do that, because your point on "rights" seems to imply that Penny Kim is obligated to do more.
If you would like to make clear what you actually meant, I'd be glad to read it.
Seriously, is there a single shred of your being that believe that I was compelling this stranger to provide information...?
We both know that you can't believe that, so why are you arguing your point as if you do...? What offends you so much that some stranger on the internet said that it was right for this information to be out in the open? Are you just completely desperate to argue with a stranger over nothing and change the topic to argue semantics? Maybe try reddit?
A bunch of people were complaining about Penny's not naming names. I pointed out that she didn't do it for a reason. For her to do so could be very costly. I said that if people really wanted her to talk, they should offer to share in the costs by putting together a legal defense fund.
You then responded by saying I couldn't be serious, and talking about "this person" (presumably kelukelugames) and whether I thought they had "no rights to know" more.
Assuming you were serious, I expanded on what an actual "right to know" would mean, showing that the idea has significant implementation problems. If you meant something else, you could have cleared that up by saying what you did mean.
> What offends you so much that some stranger on the internet said that it was right
The reason I objected is that when people take a gift and are immediately critical that the gift was not larger, it discourages the giving of gifts. If we want more whistleblowers, we must make sure their experience of whistleblowing is a positive one. If all they hear is, "Y U NO GIVE MOAR", that is not a positive experience.
I think it's particularly important here because this instant entitlement is a perennial problem for open source project maintainers.
Does that make my motivations clearer?
> Are you just completely desperate to argue with a stranger
Pal, you are the one who responded to me, and you did it with a lot of attitude. The person I was responding to thought my point was reasonable. You appear to be the only one excited for an argument here.
"The reason I objected is that when people take a gift and are immediately critical that the gift was not larger, it discourages the giving of gifts. If we want more whistleblowers, we must make sure their experience of whistleblowing is a positive one. If all they hear is, "Y U NO GIVE MOAR", that is not a positive experience.
I think it's particularly important here because this instant entitlement is a perennial problem for open source project maintainers."
So basically you have a bunch of reasons why you're upset about this but none have even a remote relationship to the topic at hand? Because you feel open source software maintainers have a certain problem, by logical extension we must be facing the exact same thing in this totally different situation.
That you cannot see the relationship is not proof of no relationship, especially given your repeated struggles understanding my posts. And even if there were no relationship, my fondness for whistleblowers would have been enough to motivate the comment.
Just to be clear, your offer is this ex-employee possibly gets to pay a $x00k legal bill for your convenience, right?
Read about, eg, what happened to Mother Jones when a billionaire sued them. It's easy for one person with more money than the other to impose huge costs in our legal system.
I guess I'll give a non sarcastic reply even though I didn't think it would be necessary to give your obviously rhetorical, snark question that had no connection to reality:
"Just to be clear, your offer is this ex-employee possibly gets to pay a $x00k legal bill for your convenience, right?"
nah you're right, we should all be generous and give all YOUR money and things away. not our stuff though, we wanna keep those. let's just give away YOUR money.
I know that this is hackernews and being super obtuse and snarky trumps logic at all times, but uhhhh, where exactly do you believe I implied other people should be giving their money away?
You appear to believe that Penny Kim should have named names. That would have increased her risk of a lawsuit. Lawsuits are expensive. Ergo, if you argue for her naming names, you believe she should be willing to spend a lot of money on what you want.
Exactly. It strikes me as the same sort of entitlement dynamic that so many open source project maintainers face. "You gave me a free thing? Well it's wrong and you should give me a much better free thing. For free!"
I don't mind people wanting things. We all want things. But I think it's a problem when that crosses the line into expectation or demand.
Where exactly do you believe I "demanded" anything? I simply mocked YOUR demand (funny how this ended in me getting criticized for being demanding...) if someone dare even ask who these founders are, they must give her a six figure sum...
I did not in fact demand anything. I said explained a way that people could make whistleblowers more comfortable if they really wanted more information public.
Okay, great. Thanks for the contribution in telling anyone that if they want to know information they should offer a stranger six figures. Great contribution. I was clearly wrong.
You can't seriously believe this makes sense, right?