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JohnWilcox

40 karma · joined August 21, 2018

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JohnWilcox··on Google’s constant product shutdowns are damaging its brand
It’s odd that Google/Alphabet doesn’t understand this basic negative feedback loop.

It has become apparent to me, even if you ignore the rot that has pervaded throughout the organization, which is manifesting itself in Search results.

JohnWilcox··on Farm bankruptcies on the rise according to new Fed report
Not just entrepreneurship, but even competition itself, in a world that has seen nothing but consolidation and centralization of power and wealth over the last 20+ years as ever fewer organizations have been gobbling up and devouring and squashing any notion of competition and entrepreneurship in its infancy. It is arguably the sole model of the technology sector, the pump and dump, setting a "startup" up to appear as appealing to one of the monopolistic behemoths or titans. It's even somewhat of a model in the smaller tech company sector as free money paid for by tax dollars is sloshing around and companies are consolidating and creating ever larger conglomerates that take ever more air our of the entrepreneurial landscape.

It's not healthy, and no matter what the consequences will be, I cannot envision an outcome where any of this leads to positive things. But maybe it's just my own "bias" that I have positive associations with not being a subject to a hive mind of centralized power and control.

JohnWilcox··on Helsinki to Begin Anonymous Recruiting
Does it really not bother anyone else that we are heading down a rather dystopian world of a kind of hyper-meritocracy that eschews with all other rights and privileges as it commoditizes humans to nothing but a function of their skills and abilities as put on paper, or even exhibited in practice?

It does not seem all that healthy to just dismiss and ignore and totally negate compounding value of cross-generational achievements and accomplishments ... that you are not better than the last widget you created compared to the next person you are compared in preparation for creation of the next widget.

Does anyone else realize this is really just a sneaky way of introducing the degenerate nature of communism into the equation? ... that your humanity means nothing if you are not a featureless and characterless humanoid with zero of your own "biases" that contributes to the hive mind collective. I really don't think people have thought this thing through and the ways in which it can go wildly out of control once edge cases start gripping.

So you are hiring totally blindly, without consideration for anything but merits ... it doesn't matter that you are a Native Fin and your competitor

None of that seems remotely healthy or sane to me, and really just smacks of the idealistic and self-deluding narrow view of the effete and decadent who live sheltered in a bubble, without any fear of their own replaceability (whether rightful or not), let alone possessing event the remotest understanding for the wider consequences of their actions and outcomes, even fore themselves, if that bubble were to burst.

This type of technocratic and authoritarian mentality that somehow you can inhumanely simply strip humans of their humanity in order to craft a perfect specimen of humans, ideally in their minds, a mixed master race devoid of "bias" and therefore devoid of their humanity; is really a rather detestable and clearly inhumane ideology by its inherent characteristics.

JohnWilcox··on Life on the Internet Is Hard When Your Last Name Is 'Butts'
I think the real problem that is totally overlooked is the whole authoritarian nature of this paternalism of monitoring people as to their "offensiveness". It's pure and unadulterated authoritarianism and controlling to declare yourself as the moral arbiter of what is and isn't offensive and what should and shouldn't be allowed. And no, it's not a matter of whether you CAN legally do so, it's a matter of whether you SHOULD be an authoritarian dictator.

How about giving people a choice instead of playing Little Lord Fauntleroy and controlling everyone's actions. How about just giving users the option to block "offensive" or even just possibly "offensive" names and terms and words, instead of going all paternalistic jerk.

It is something that has bothered me for a long while now, especially in places like Reddit, where the whole fundamental concept of the site was totally and utterly undermined by the authoritarian mod squad that makes the whole community voting/self-regulation a facade when it's not being used by the angry mob to metaphorically burn the witch that dared to say something that wasn't their favorite thing to hear.

JohnWilcox··on Conference call simulator
"...if you listen long enough." O__O That much conference call purgatory is not healthy