Hacker News new | ask | show | jobs
by Alex3917 3048 days ago
Yeah but both of those are just marketing postures that don’t really have anything to do with the underlying realities of their respective industries.
2 comments

It's necessary to establish a policy before you can enforce it.

You can't argue about exceptions if you don't fundamentally support the legitimacy of the policy, either.

"First, do no harm" is a policy statement. Once you accept it, you can make arguments about tradeoffs (pain management, amputation, chemotherapy, abortion), but without having a policy statement, there's no argument being made, just a free-for-all mess.

> without having a policy statement, there's no argument being made, just a free-for-all mess.

Given that medical treatments are the second or third leading cause of death in the U.S., how much good is the policy statement really doing?

I think it speaks well to start ups, VC culture and silicon valley as a whole actually. It is a bit posture-y but feel its accurate.