The way I look at it is this:

There is an entity that provides product/service and makes money. A lot of money. Like mind boggling sums of money. That entity has made a deal with a set of humans to give some of that money (which for the humans is very large and or at least hard to ignore) in exchange for their time and skills. The deal is mutual.

This entity is now changing the deal somewhat and the set of humans don’t like it. But not to the point of walking away from the deal. They are used to the money and walking away from it has severe repercussions that only some can absorb. Most can’t absorb. So these humans are doing what they can to alter the recently altered deal as much as possible.

The entity knows for the most part these humans have little to no leverage. There is an extremely rare (almost black swan event) chance that the entity could lose its leverage. The black swan event is that the almost entire set of humans that it made the deal with walks away from the deal. In other words the set of humans transforms from elements of a set in one homogeneous entity or at least behaves like one. Beside this the set of humans individually have very little real leverage. This letter which is from a subset of the original set of humans is an example of an attempt to become a relatively small entity.

Here is the kicker - the original entity is actually emergent entity that emerged from within the set of humans in the first place. Each human in the set has a weight and it’s unequal. And ultimately since from a set of humans multiple entities can emerge entities are simply the sum of weights of the humans that make up that subset. The entity with the most weight(not most humans) has the most leverage.

Does this situation really matter?? Especially since It’s just (largely) two entities and Given the number of entities that emerge and exist from the larger set of 7 or 8 billion humans?

Humans generally relate to other humans that Are like them. If you are a human who is part of a similar low leverage entity you will sympathize with the humans who don’t like the new deal. If you are a human part of a very high leverage entity you probably can’t sympathize with the low leverage entities as much. In the large scheme of things it really dosnt matter for us HN outsiders. And for those humans within meta all I will say is know which entity you are part and if you don’t like the leverage it has, keep working towards changing the situation you are in.

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titanomachy 10 hours ago | parent | next [-]

I wouldn’t put it past meta leadership to just fire the lot of them for daring to make a “demand” of their betters. The only thing that might restrain them is employment law, but they have good lawyers and might find a way around it.

And meta engineers will never bargain collectively. If you’ve spent time there you understand that it is some of the least fertile ground in the world for such ideas. Anyone who entertained thoughts of collectivism, or in fact anything beyond naked self-interest, has probably left some time ago.

	▲	quietthrow 10 hours ago \| parent [-]
		It’s that self interest is what got them to meta in the first place. These people are highly skilled and smart at what they do. They worked probably extremely hard for a large swath of their life to get where they are with meta. It’s one of those classic what got you here won’t get you there scenarios. Self interest has its limits (and so does collectivism). The real intelligence is in knowing when one has stoped working for you and when it’s working against you. Self interest / collectivism etc These are all just tools. We as humans are best when our indentity is that of a tools user (and not that of a single tool user - it’s possible and you may be rewarded for it well but it has its limits and it certainly confines what you can do has a human. It’s a limiting way to live at best )

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clapthewind 11 hours ago | parent | prev [-]

> almost entire set of humans that it made the deal with walks away from the deal

You missed mentioning a million new humans will gladly walk into the deal.

This is a list of 1600 people who should be alrady looking out because meta won't be after this signature.

	▲	quietthrow 10 hours ago \| parent [-]
		It’s implied in someways I would say. that’s why these folks creating any meaningful leverage is a black swan event. Say all of them walk away and meta can get a million new people it’s still a massive risk for the meta (entity) as they may never be able to recover fully. The million new people when band to gather will not form the same larger entity that was existing earlier that made a lot of money. They are not going to be productive day one or year one. What will emerge is a new entity and it could make even more money or even less money as things may never be the same. And that’s a large risk that Meta may or may not take. But without leverage created by banding together / complete solidarity Meta will never be forever to face the risk of it being transformed into a completely different entity that may or may not be as successful as it’s today. And that’s the power of leverage.