Endama

This may be an unpopular thought here but it seems to me that these momazonians may seriously consider unionizing. If executives at major tech companies are not willing to meet the needs of their female workforce (both current and future) then it seems that collective bargaining would be an effective means of making their position more convincing.

The risk is that companies may increasingly try and avoid hiring more women in the future; but it could also be that employers, who want to seem more socially responsible, may take the financial hit and invest in the up-front-costs in order to get access to a larger labor pool.

Alex Stamos (former Chief Security Officer @ FB) recently released a series of tweets in response to the NYT article

https://twitter.com/alexstamos/status/1063150144865136640

Wow, this is close to what Scott Galloway has been predicting for the past few months [1]

[1]https://youtu.be/wLtLz4wQtOg

Twitter needs some kind of negative feedback mechanism to allow for the discovery algorithm to correct for the sentiment of users. A downvote, dislike, un-heart, something along those lines, would be a good signal to allow users to signify what kind of content they deem objectionable.

My read from the interview is that he is just had no patience for how Kara was conducting the interview. My point is that the dismissive attitude he expresses is kind of funny and impressive considering all the pressure he (and his companies) are under.

I think the thing that people really like about Elon Musk is that he just doesn't care about the interpersonal social status dynamics at play with his position in the world. If you look at the interview, he's very dismissive of Kara's questioning about how others perceive him:

Kara: What’s Twitter? Okay, let’s start with Twitter. I have an obsession with Twitter, too, and an addiction. What happens with you and Twitter?

Elon: Well, I tweet interesting things pretty much as they come to me, and probably with not much of a filter.

Kara: And why?

Elon: I find it entertaining. I think, “Oh, other people might find this entertaining.” Sometimes they do.

Kara: Just at night? What are you, at home you’re doing this?

Elon: Yeah. Mostly at home. I spend a lot less time on Twitter than people probably think. It’s like maybe 10-15 minutes or something.

Kara: Yeah, well people pay attention when you do that.

And then he continues on to legitimize his tone by showing his prowess in entrepreneurship and science:

Kara: Do you take criticism to heart correctly?

Elon: Yes.

Kara: Give me an example of something if you could.

Elon: How do you think rockets get to orbit?

Kara: That’s a fair point.

Elon: Not easily. Physics is very demanding. If you get it wrong, the rocket will blow up. Cars are very demanding. If you get it wrong, a car won’t work. Truth in engineering and science is extremely important.

Kara: Right. And therefore?

Elon: I have a strong interest in the truth.

Kara: All right. And you are —

Elon: Much more than journalists do.

I think people find this kind of backed-up braggadocio incredibly entertaining and exciting to watch, it makes Elon musk an irresistible personality to follow.

When it comes to the services/products, I agree with you, the general population certainly thinks they are great. However, how often have you heard of tech workers as being a positive thing for a city? How many times in TV shows / movies are tech workers seen as a boon? (e.g. Silicon Valley, Black Mirror, Searching) I'm not saying that this _necessarily_ means that literally everyone feels disdain towards the tech industry across all slices of society, I am arguing that the banner of disruption of being a good thing by definition, is misguided.

This article touches on an idea that I think many in the tech industry (myself included) continue to be myopic about: as disruptors we are held responsible for the negative social outcomes that we bestow upon society. I think many (not all) of us who work in software believe that the innovations we unleash, in-and-of themselves, make up for nearly any negative externality caused as consequence. We have brought services or experiences that have made life more convenient, faster, more accessible, etc.; that should be more than sufficient to legitimize our existence and effort.

Inside this framework, the driving factor is what Wired calls "techno-darwinism" the idea that software companies are "still standing post-disruption must have survived because they were the fittest". If you talk to people in SV, especially after the depression, the stereotype was that every startup was about to "change the world by becoming the [X] for [Y]" (Uber for cookies, AirBNB for laundry, etc.)

However, the outside world looks at us with disdain: they don't view our motivations as a desire for simple innovation or creativity, but outright greed and power. The folks that we have disrupted are often those who do not have the means to convert their labor to new industries; even when they do, those industries then get disrupted by some new actor.

Tech workers also have, stereotypically, been disdainful of government: it's too slow, too compromised/corrupt, too inefficient. However, engagement with the polity is the main vehicle by which the poor and disenfranchised are are able to find some kind of recourse for their lives, either by the ballot box or the ammo box.

I've been telling my non-tech friends recently that the great sin of our industry is not greed, its naivety and hubris.

They have a war room up to watch the current US elections. Same war room for the Brazilian elections.

[1]https://www.nytimes.com/2018/09/19/technology/facebook-elect... [2]https://gizmodo.com/hey-howd-that-facebook-war-room-fare-dur...

> Carolina Milanesi, an analyst at Creative Strategies in San Francisco, tweeted: "In a normal world this would mean Rubin is done, but tech has not just been forgiving, some tech sees little wrong with this.

I work at a pretty large tech company, the number of trainings I have had to go through regarding sexual harassment (especially lately) is impressive. I suspect that such standards may not be as common in small and mid sized companies? I think it is going to take pressure from the VC/funding side to draw clear lines in the sand that even the small guys need to abide by harassment rules.

Ah fair enough, thanks for the share!

My understanding is that the conditions inside of Tesla's manufacturing are brutal. I have friends who work on the production side and they effectively tell me corporate culture is driven by fear. I am definitely cheering Tesla on for global warming reasons but I worry that Musk is running a Faustian bargain that may bite him in the backside long term.

These numbers though are really exciting.

My understanding is that the conditions inside of Tesla's manufacturing are brutal. I have friends who work on the production side and they effectively tell me corporate culture is driven by fear. I am definitely cheering Tesla on for global warming reasons but I worry that Musk is running a Faustian bargain that may bite him in the backside long term.

These numbers though are encouraging.

I'm saying that if folks out there want robots to become more human-like, they need to be more human-like in intent as well as function. My original statement is effectively agreeing with you that people don't want robot buddies [right now].

Excuse my ignorance here, but couldn't we just create molds and pour concrete to create the same columns accent pieces? Surely there are technological advancements that have allowed us to mimic stonemasons?

I think robots have an uncanny-valley effect not just in aesthetics, but utility. For example, I actually really like my roomba because it only does one thing: it cleans my floor (when it doesn't get tangled in some cord). However, if there was a humanoid robot that can walk around and possibly knock over something or do something unexpected, I don't want that thing in my house. What prevents some hacker to compromise the robot and have it stab me in my sleep?

Another example is Alexa/Google Home. Some people love the convenience these in-home services provide, but others find the utility itself a liability: is this thing always listening to me and recording me in my home? The robots can do too much, they have too many functions and abilities, which makes me question the intent of the robot.

For robotics to really take off, I think there needs to be a kind of anthropomorphization that needs to happen: the utility of the robot must be high enough that I know that it understands my intention and can respond accordingly; that is to say, that I can have a relationship with my robot.

Is there a middle ground where new buildings could be made with old-school aesthetics? I understand there is a strange Ship of Theseus situation here, but it seems that if the aesthetics are the concern, there shouldn't be any reason why a larger capacity building could be built in the old style.

My understanding of Quantum Computers is that the first country to successfully develop quantum computers at scale will experience dominance in cryptography until other nation-state actors can catch up. Isn't quantum technology a national security threat then?

Seems we should be investing a tremendous amount into quantum computing research publicly.

I wonder how the economics of this project will work considering that China has really turned down the recyclables they accept for processing.

https://www.npr.org/sections/goatsandsoda/2018/06/28/6239729...

I think Sangermaine is right. While the example you gave is certainly, obviously, deleterious, what about countries where the work week is culturally < 40 hours per week? What about those who, on average, work 80+ hours. At what degree is it a "dysfunction". The decision of what is or is not a dysfunction is not as cut and dry as you assume because you are assuming the parameters by which such dysfunctions are determined are as universal as the claims of dysfunction themselves. This cannot be the case, it dismisses too many shades of gray by saying only the colors of black and white are "real" colors.

So I have two responses to your comment (which I thought was great btw).

1. I think your assessment of Confucianist culture correct, however, as a counter argument, I think that Western culture can sometimes under value the importance of duty as a facet of happiness. People, to some degree, need to feel useful to be happy. Whether its being useful enough to get a paycheck or to be able to fulfill the needs/wants of friends/family, it doesn't seem to me that the importance of duty is merely an artifact of E. Asian culture.

2. I actually think there is a third problem to the "immigration-fueled sociopolitical rifts" you describe. In my own personal experience, you can fully understand (and even appreciate) the cultural perspective of another and yet fully reject the impact said values have in your life. Understanding != acceptance. Just being you understand something cognitively does not mean that you are required to accept it as an acceptable element of your life emotionally or socially. In fact, when the situation is zero-sum (like you can only spend a certain amount of time either doing your own cultural thing or the cultural thing of another) choosing the other can signal a rejection of your own culture for that of the other, which may very well have some serious social consequences. I don't think the response of "let's just not choose to believe a particular perspective is correct" is effective enough.

Complete aside here, but this concept of Amae and hypocognition hit really close to home. My girlfriend is white and I am an E. Asian guy, we have completely different concepts of love and I suspect our unwillingness to compromise to the other's perspective is a kind of unwillingness to concede our cultural preference to the other.

For example, if I don't express enough words of affirmation or desire over a given period of time, she begins to worry that I no longer care for her and have lost interest. In fact, the opposite is true! In my culture, maintaining control of your own emotional expressions is considered polite and civil, emotional stability is the marker of a mature individual, especially when that stability is expressed in times where it is inconvenient for the individual to do so.

However, from her perspective, that approach is repressive, "befuddling and Machiavellian to a Western mind". Perhaps cultural perspectives, combined with hypocognition, inevitably cause different cultures to be inclined towards conflict toward one another?

Isn't there an argument here to build more incinerator-style power plants to manage the garbage buildup (esp. in urban centers?) To my knowledge, lots of European/Asian developed nations are already doing this with acceptable (i.e. low) environmental impact.

Can someone more knowledgable comment on this?

Teacher friends of mine talk to me about how their job is next to impossible. The curriculum in the schools is basically perpetually 12 years behind, students today are just now being taught stuff that the market is now responding to but the fundamentals that are needed for those skills should have been introduced years prior.

Educators are effectively trying to project 12 years out and try and guess what the market will demand so that they can provide the minimum skills necessary to provide a modicum of middle-class life.

I feel like Apple is making similar mistakes that Microsoft made a few decades back, its walled garden has become so ubiquitous that they assume that there isn't any trimming that needs to be done. Specifically,Macs are basically the only FreeBSD-based machine with a consumer-friendly interface (ironically this may no longer be true once Windows gets first-party linux support).

However, issues like these make me resentful that my day-to-day is dependent on OSX. I hope that some other competitor really steps into the currently (admittedly slim) hole in the market that is growing between professional users and the average Macbook user.

EDIT: corrected my mistake about linux!

  For example, I do think figuring out compensation
  structures is really important and something the 
  CEO should spend time on. And it’s something that 
  most CEOs don’t.

This. I've been a part of three startups and in all three, the CEO didn't take compensation seriously. In today's economy, you can't sit on your hands and assume that 3-5% annual pay raises and the promise of future stock payouts will keep talent in-house, year over year, when the big guys are pushing the pay bar higher and higher.

For example, in my last job, 3 years of startup caused my annual pay as an iOS dev in the Bay to drop ~30k below the average for someone of my tenure. I loved the company, but I couldn't justify the loss in income, especially with housing prices being what they are. CEOs should consider compensation as critical to their company health.

I feel that America is in the midst of a new gilded age; instead of Standard Oil, we have Amazon.

Like the late 1920s, we saw losses in purchasing power of the average American, the collection of wealth among the top 1%, and disruption of our civic spaces as a result. I think the thing that many Americans aren't aware of was just how violent that time in US history was[1].

The US economy isn't just about how comfortable the average US citizen is, it is also a measure of how much cushion there is in our society between us being frustrated looking at a job board and being angry and armed in the streets. The teachers strikes in Oklahoma, Florida, and W. Virginia are showing the rise of Unions (much like in the gilded age as well). Protest and civic engagement must be our response, we should take signs like the wealth of Bezos as a cautionary tale, rather than something to simply marvel at.

[1]https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ludlow_Massacre

[1]https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_Matewan

[1]https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1920_Alabama_coal_strike

[1]https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_Blair_Mountain

My coalescing point is that I see Facebook pulling back out of the news space as choosing to not play the game at all, that it is not a battle that they necessarily want to play because of the moral quagmire I outlined above. I don't think that this is a good choice because it doesn't engage with useful questions but just kicks the can down the road for another company, maybe even another generation, to deal with.

Thank you for bringing up how confusing my point was, really appreciate it. :)

For example, it could be the case than in a given country, a news article in which the son of a prominent CEO does something socially embarrassing relative to that culture (perhaps he didn't get into a top university and instead attends a community college) which causes enough public outcry that he resigns. Is it right for Twitter, Facebook, etc. to push up comments and reactions, via machine learning algorithms or whatever, that bias more towards western (read: American) values about what is considered social outrage?

Conversely, what if ideas about corruption are treated differently in different countries. If it is the case that it is socially expected/accepted to pay officials for certain services, is it right for a western tech company to promote comments/content that show dissent and value western values over the local ones?

I don't know if this is necessarily the right thing to do, I understand that Facebook (and others) were really effectively weaponized by malicious foreign actors, but conceding by not participating in journalism feels wrong to me.

This is indicative of a larger question that I think we, as the tech industry, need to really ask ourselves: to what degree are the platforms responsible for fixing the ills of the connections between users. Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, Snapchat, etc. are all Western businesses operating at international scales. Is it "right" for them to impose western approaches to journalism, "truth", civic engagement, digital literacy, etc. to the rest of the world?

If the answer is yes, we must come to the realization that these platforms cannot be impartial, if the answer is no, we must accept that we, as an industry, are going to complicit in the systematic harm of societies and must accept that as table stakes.

Now I don't think this is necessarily a zero-sum situation, Salesforce probably doesn't have the same kind of civic obligations that FB, Twitter, Google have; but the clear lines of engagement in the spectrum of SAAS companies needs to be discussed.