FormhellFrom

energy research is typically publicly funded, no? With a profit motive, why would you even do anything besides the easiest and cheapest option of burning fossil fuels?

Fusion research, especially, is so pie-in-the-sky right now that I doubt any profit-motivated company would even touch it with a 10 foot pole.

Ok, then where does the meaning of a given word come from? It comes from somewhere. If not from consensus, then where?

this is all unfortunately very far from the original argument, which is that it takes no effort to just use whatever pronoun is asked for. It’s no different than when someone named Thomas says “please call me Tom.” Do you jump up on the table and start citing Bible verses about the perils of falsehoods, or do you just fucking call the guy Tom?

> You don’t get to redefine language and force your linguistic preferences on others. That’s not how language works.

you literally do and that’s literally how language works. You are free to disagree with these new definitions, and in turn people are free to show you the door, just like what occurred in the post above.

(What’s the alternative? Words are given a fixed definition at their conception? Who gives these definitions?)

Yes, but /how much/ was the client offering to pay? This whole situation screams of someone trying to get a cheap deal, then getting mad when the attempted victim wises up. (This is pretty typical with loud-and-proud small business types, IME)

Someone else pointed out that nowhere did he list how much he was going to pay this guy. Horror stories abound about companies using “take home” application tests to get work done for free, I think it’s somewhat reasonable for the applicant to be wary about this.

Damn, for all the huffing and puffing about “prima-Donnas”, it sure sounds like this guy couldn’t even follow a very reasonable request.

I really don’t see what’s wrong with an applicant saying “no”. Employers say “no” all the time! The paragraphs and paragraphs about small-business ownership and how you have to hustle and grind and have character seemed really odd to me. Your applicant didn’t want to do what you wanted them to do. Just move on?