Shoue
Joined 10 years ago
Joined 10 years ago
As a European I really hope we create an entirely separate homegrown tech sector, and fast.
I'm glad that TypeNix exists but it really should just be officially supported or even the default.
[0] https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2019/sep/12/nhs-hospita...
[1] https://archive.ph/UDtZo/again?url=https://www.ft.com/conten...
[2] https://www.opendemocracy.net/en/nhs-privatisation-health-so...
[3] https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/health-matters-ai...
[4] https://usa.streetsblog.org/2019/05/29/protect-yourself-sepa...
[5] https://digital.nhs.uk/news/2021/one-million-admissions-link...
But also, we are moving (slowly) in the direction you'd likely prefer: Norway and Germany are now doing supply chain due diligence[2]. Hopefully we continue moving in that direction so we can push the floor up and perverse human rights violations become more of a thing of the past.
[1] https://gfintegrity.org/press-release/new-report-on-unrecord...
[2] https://www.cambridge.org/core/journals/business-and-human-r...
> A 2013 report published by the UK Office for National Statistics showed that in the UK the rate of survival of cooperatives after five years was 80 percent compared with only 41 percent for all other enterprises.[5] A further study found that after ten years 44 percent of cooperatives were still in operation, compared with only 20 percent for all enterprises.
> A 2012 report published by The European Confederation of cooperatives and worker-owned enterprises active in industry and services showed that in France and Spain, worker cooperatives and social cooperatives "have been more resilient than conventional enterprises during the economic crisis".[47]
Source: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cooperative#Economic_stability
The claim that cooperatives act irrationally (and the implication that they're less efficient) requires some factual data to back that claim up, otherwise it's just that – an anecdotal claim. Here's academic data to dismiss those claims:
> Labor-managed firms are as productive as conventional firms, or more productive, in all industries, and use their inputs efficiently; but in several industries conventional firms would produce more with their current input levels if they organized production like labor-managed firms. On average overall, firms would produce more using the labor-managed firms’ industry-specific technologies. Labor-managed firms do not produce at inefficiently low scales
Source: Fakhfakh, F., Pérotin, V., & Gago, Mó. (2012). Productivity, Capital, and Labor in Labor-Managed and Conventional Firms: An Investigation on French Data. ILR Review, 65(4), 847–879. doi:10.1177/001979391206500404
Similar results were also found to hold in an older study by Craig and Pencavel in 1995.
Especially when you consider all the union busting tactics used by leadership at traditional businesses – how are you even supposed to form a union when they won't let you? Coops come at that from a different angle: you get democratic control, straight up. Don't like your leadership if you choose to structure the business that way? You can actually vote them out of their role.
Sure, but a startup using VC money to offer you something for free is very different from "I will personally volunteer to help you".
Also the entire point of sharing articles is that they're being read, so there isn't any way to avoid implying they're doing "self-promotion" – should people just stop writing and sharing articles?
Sometimes people aren't after some self-serving goal, and I think it's a little dangerous to think everyone is – charities exist. Cooperatives are more ethical businesses because they build democracy into their structure unlike traditional businesses, why would I assume whoever is talking about them isn't just hoping to see more of that in the world? Or do we reduce that to "that's just the author being selfish again"?
You mean the last paragraph where they _volunteer_ to have coaching sessions with people? "Selling" usually implies an exchange of money or an expectation of something in return, but there's no product here – the author is offering their time for free to help others start or join cooperatives. Is it fair to dismiss that as "being sold" something?
> [...] Additionally, "cooperative banks build up counter-cyclical buffers that function well in case of a crisis," and are less likely to lead members and clients towards a debt trap (p. 216). This is explained by their more democratic governance that reduces perverse incentives and subsequent contributions to economic bubbles.
> The cooperative banking sector had 20% market share of the European banking sector, but accounted for only 7 per cent of all the write-downs and losses between the third quarter of 2007 and first quarter of 2011. Cooperative banks were also over-represented in lending to small and medium-sized businesses in all of the 10 countries included in the report.
> [...] in France and Spain, worker cooperatives and social cooperatives "have been more resilient than conventional enterprises during the economic crisis".
> Public trust in credit unions stands at 60%, compared to 30% for big banks and small businesses are five times less likely to be dissatisfied with a credit union than with a big bank.
In other words, this behaviour doesn't happen everywhere. It's specific to certain types of businesses.
Paragraphs from here: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cooperative#Economic_stability
Glyphack's experience definitely mirrors my own and I just got diagnosed with ADHD this year and medication absolutely helps my focus.
If you're wondering if you have ADHD this is basically the pre-assessment GPs use in the UK (which then continues to triage and then a full assessment):
https://adhduk.co.uk/adult-adhd-screening-survey/