jollybean

Remove diplomatic status for anyone involved in such activities, put oversight on the diplomacy, make a big international public stink out of it (this matters), share intel with other governments and create a working body to root out this, implement local programs so that schools/companies etc. are aware that this happens and should report it, consider other forms of action.

But all of that would be pretty hard in the current geopolitical situation, there would be a huge price to pay.

Australia was slapped with huge trade war in the order of billions for pointing out that China was lying about COVID origins.

I don't think it's simplistic and certainly not orientalist, as it has nothing to do with anything Asian or Oriental specifically.

That the CCP is an 'enormous and complex system with many debates within' doesn't matter if the party speaks very directly and coherently, and the party is very tightly controlled and of course they have all of the power.

The degree of centralization of authority by Xi is unlike we've seen since Mao, and due to universal power of technology, you could say 'more power than any leader in history'.

Xi very quickly and arbitrarily grabbed the nations top tech leaders off of the street. Literally disappeared. He imposed aggressive governmental oversight and controls over those organizations (and others) including government ownership, board seats, CCP members as staffers for internal oversight, censorship requirements, etc. etc.. It's unthinkable outside China, in any normal kind of country.

If any 'outside' leader speaks up against China - be it a Dean, or Prime Minster - the CCP will respond assertively and quickly.

When China does some questionable or malign act - where is the response? Who should respond? Is anyone powerful enough to respond? Can there be a coordinated action?

As the Australian political leadership spoke up against Chinese lies over COVID origins, they were slapped with billions in trade damages, and was attacked in a number of indirect ways. Were Australia to have acted in concert and direct cohesion with USA, EU and UK on that, and were policy and actions to be aligned, it would be a different story.

There's nothing comparable to Xi outside of China (in any normal country - I won't say 'western' country because it goes way beyond that), not even Putin.

The US does not threaten to kill or arbitrarily imprison family members of those they wish to extradite, and does not clandestinely do even remotely such things with US citizens unless there are huge issues of national security, aka a US Passport Holder running a terrorist camp in some place, plotting to blow up buildings.

The moral equivalence argument with China is tiring, and it's actually part of their horrible communications strategy.

The equivalent would be: 'nobody' US citizen 'Joe Smith', living in Paris, mocks Joe Biden on Facebook. As a result, FBI in USA threatens family with prison for arbitrary reasons with fabricated evidence, and clandestinely threatens US citizen in Paris to come home and 'face justice'.

So please.

It's conspiratorial and misrepresentation to talk about this - to the point of it being a lie.

If a very rich American went to South America for a decade and then bombed a building in Rio, he would have 'financial relationship' to the US via a number of investments. It doesn't mean that it has anything to do with US foreign policy, the government, or anything.

Osama Bin Laden was a member of a big, sprawling, super rich Oligarchic family in Saudi. Obviously, there were dealings, and obviously some Saudis probably funded some things here and there. Just like a Texan Evangelical Oil Billionaire might fund Christian Schools in Peru, which may even be good schools. But the charity run by a guy with ties to 'American Rio Bomber'.

Everything at that level is intertwined, it's not sufficient to suggest that proves anything.

The 'State' of Saudis is 'mostly a good actor to the outside world, even if they are bad in many ways internally. They allow the free flow of oil at market prices, 'per the deal' and don't align with China, Russia, or some other crazy state, and they are not trying to invade Iran or get nukes (though there are backup plans). And they play nice with Israel, not directly trying to start a war with them, or 'create' one between them and Israel. Most of their vast holdings are invested reasonably.Also, in the 'war on terror' which is actually a financial network and intelligence war, they have been playing 'on the right side' - as 'terrorists' are more dangerous to them than the US anyhow. So that's kind of what we can expect from them. In 100 years, hopefully things will be a bit better.

It should not be surprising at all - you are 'allowed' to do what you have the power to do and get away with.

China speaks with one voice, Xi, everyone else a thousand voices. US has 10 000 people at least who make up the power of Xi. President, senator, CEO, senior bureaucrat, judge, heads of NGOs, Universities, police, military etc. all 'put in one group and coordinated with an ambitious 50 year plan' in the West. Even in a single country.

Europe, N. America, Japan, Korea, Australia have to partner with 'everyone else' in a comprehensive way to stand up to this. Trans Pacific was a big opportunity that Trump didn't have the foresight to grasp - he wanted to have 'unipolar power' in a world where the US just does not have the leverage it did after WW2 and no amount of 'wishing' or even exceptional leadership will change that. US could 'solve all it's problems' and it would still be the reality that % of global GDP would be declining because other nations are 'coming on line'.

Oddly, a panacea of 'other voices' may serve to counterbalance. Even if they are acting in self interest, to the extent they are not overrun by China, their own voices add up to something. We are seeing the beginning of that in Africa, with their stance on the Ukraine issue. While they should definitely be taking a more assertive stance via Russia, the fact they are where they are (and partly due to the fact Russia is their 'breadbasket') is an indication of coherent self interest on some level.

I don't think it's cause for world wide alarm, but there needs to be a plan.

It's common, in the open, and Western Governments are too afraid to do anything material about it. That tells you who has power.

It's bad.

I object to the 're-write as function'.

Functions come with abstraction overhead. You don't know who will consume them, so you may have to put up type checks, null checks other BS.

Also - functions split up the logic all over the place, it's confusing.

I think what we need are 'nested functions' which serve to kind of create a scope pushed to the stack - with an implicit 'return' - which we can then 'collapse' in the GUI etc..

I mean, it's purely cosmetic from a CS point of view, but it might help to organize things a bit better and hand off abstractions in long function implementations.

Huge projects with 1 or 2 line functions drive me crazy - you have to constantly jump around all over place to figure out what's going on. I actually believe it's a historic anti-pattern.

I make functions when we need 1) used in different places 2) meaningful abstraction.

Otherwise, well documented longer functions for me.

The value you add is not a function of how cool or curious your work is. Try to derive some satisfaction out of the fact you are doing something needed and useful and that your 'micro contributions' matter probably to a lot of people.

Also, take a vacation for a bit it helps to add perspective.

Finally, if you get thrust into a crap situation, you'll learn to count your blessings quickly.

Is anyone bothered by the consistent lack of YC/PG's ability to coherently articulate all of these lessons pedagogically?

Almost all of their advice, even Siebel, is in the negative: 'don't do this' etc.

Siebel does give specific advice, and it's great, but a bit ad-hoc.

Even if startups are counter-intuitive, there should be a way to write this book, with 'How To' lessons, even if it's very 'case based'.

There are enough examples of YC companies that they could grab 10 examples for each specific foray, to demonstrate what works, what does not and why.

There's enough experience and data that someone should be able to write the high level rules, and then discuss a ton of field-level tactics that work for things like brand, direct sales, communications, marketing etc. etc..

I think this is not so good advice even in 2022.

A lot of disagreements are arbitrary, emotional, lacking context, moreover, in any organization of human beings, public disagreements can amount to populism, narratives which doesn't help team cohesion. Depending on the issue of course.

To the extent that people are there to do their jobs and manage others, there's legitimacy in that authority, which comes with generally a wider and at least different purview.

Being a good player means respecting that reality.

The advice in the article is decent in helping people untie a bit of common issues from gripes, lack of perspective etc. and I would add strongly that one should probably take the disagreement in 'private' and not make it a public ordeal.

Most managers, when approached reasonably, will be good with at least the point of contention, if not resolving to the best outcome.

I wish everyone had the opportunity to manage others, and do so at least 2 layers up - it's an alternative universe up there and it's really, really hard. I think 'Director' is probably the hardest job in the company in many ways.

The calculus for most things is just different. Optimization in every corner is usually not the objective, and strategic issues start to enter in the decision making in a material way.

With that experience, people would be able to put things in context a lot better, which is a big challenge actually for front line people who often over or under appreciate the magnitude of the issue they're dealing with.

Then, approaching the 'disagreement' comes from a different perspective.

For most of my career, I would have said I wouldn't want to have my manager's job, it's just way too much fuss. Not only that, my experience in management has fundamentally changed how I hire people - 'getting along' in grey situations, where nobody is ever really going to always get their way, people are smart and passionate etc. is hard (for most) and a valuable skill. And personalities are different as well, some people are 'disagreeable' but that doesn't even mean they are 'disagreeing' with you even when it seems like they are! Figuring out how to do it while getting along is 1/2 the job.

I think the biggest issue not mentioned is to not do it in public.

Public arguments can be perceived as a threat to power even if the disagreement is fully benign on both sides, it's hard to argue in the commons.

Better to do it in private.

More often than not, tow the company/managers line in public.

It's really, really hard to manage and having dissent which could appear to be arbitrary (even if it's not) is hard.

In other words, 'in the commons' it's populism, 'in private' it can be authentic, so take it to the office.

For every 'issue raised' people in power have 5x of that to deal with one layer up, 25x two layers up and 100x 3 layers up.

It's a steep pyramid and one of the hardest things for people to do is put their concerns in context.

People tend to both under and overestimate the proportionality of their issue.

People in power may be better communicators but they are generally much more busy having to contend with this stuff.

You can still read and write printed script and cursive.

And if you had to do it for more than 3 days, your skills would be back.

Golden age was Silicon i.e. Intel, Silver age was Internet i.e. Google, Bronze age was Social Media / Mobile Apps / SaaS.

We're now into some kind of 'common age' which I think will be different than before because we're likely going to be more distributed.

Tech is the new 'Banking' where all the kids to go to get guaranteed payouts so you'll see the culture change. It already has. No place for hippies and surfers anymore.

That was never a commonly accepted form of writing, which is a material difference.

I think over 18 years of education it's reasonable to teach kids both forms of writing.

There is no lack of curriculum space.

Most things we learn we forget. Writing is one of those neat thing we keep forever.

Companies web sites are private property, they should be able to do as they please as long as their policies are consistent.

At some point, some services cross into the threshold of 'public good' - in which case probably a hint more regulation should apply.

But otherwise, the '1st Amendment' which basically indicates the government should 'stay out of it' is on the side of Big Corp. not government.

We subconciously make associations, and this works on everyone.

In magazines, advertisers might want to know what article is facing their ad. Or which show their commercial would be on.

And advertisers are very cautious of being associated with things they do not like.

And there has always been content that most advertisers have not wanted to go near. Porn, being the easiest example.

This is not pop psychology it's real stuff.

Advertisers were making such 'demands' since the dawn of advertising nothing is new here.

It doesn't matter whether it's in person, or in messaging.

It's perfectly acceptable for a manager, and not remotely 'lacking in manner or courtesy' for a manager to say 'Can we chat later at 1?'.

I've been working for 25 years in 4 countries, I don't know a person who would think otherwise.

The individual here is perfectly within their rights to 'feel anxiety' in any given situation, bu they lack the emotional maturity to recognize their special condition.

It is not a normal human emotion to have anxiety because your manager asks to chat, which should be frankly a very common occurrence.

I completely and fundamentally disagree with your 'if you ask around people will agree with this'.

If you ask the question as 'do you find it problematic or anxiety inducing or lacking in courtesy when your manager asks to chat later without context' - then you've 'led' the answer and might likely create some kind of intellectualized rhetorical response.

But - if you actually observe people in any workplace, collect myriads of messages, and then ask them after the fact to identify when their managers were 'not courteous' without highlighting this specific issue, it will not pop up unsolicited.

It's total bullshit rhetorical nonsense.

If your manager says 'Hey can we chat after lunch?' - you say 'sure' (unless you can't) and then that's that. It's utterly normal.

The line of thinking that you assume anyone's grievances are immediately legitimate is ... 'bad'.

People whine and cry about any number of things, we have to be conscientious about what constitutes a reasonable grievance.

There is such a thing as objectivity.

I've worked in 4 countries over 25 years and never would have I have seen someone make a legitimate concern over 'being asked to chat later'.

Can I empathize with someone who feels that way? Sure, it's not outrageous, but that person would have to have the self awareness to recognize that it's their issue, and that they likely ought not to bother other people about their problems. I'm sure any decent manager would 'not do it' if asked, at the same time, it's definitely 'an ask'.

This is not an issue of undue pressure or harassment on the part of a manger, not even close.

Adults in the workplace have a minimum responsibility regarding their disposition include emotional maturity, among other things.

This one is not even nuanced. There's no 'workplace problem' here whatsoever.

Thanks to Julie for this; but I'm still a bit confused.

Does anyone share a suspicion that these myriad of anachronisms and bits of weirdness creates unnecessary complexity that swim through the system like a goblin in the machine? And that, if with 20/20 hindsight we just simplified things a bit, that many of our systems would be much more resilient and easy to manage?

I feel that we hacked the internet together, and in the impending rush to build more and more on top of it, we just resigned ourselves to the mess.

None of this (well, most of it) should be inherently hard. If we 'did it with foreknowledge' I wonder if all of these IT level networking issues would be pedantic, i.e. something you read a few quick docs and away you go. Everyone an expert pretty quick.

Merely looking at the options for my DSL device, my god man, even after all these years in tech, I'm still a bit bewildered.

Even at the consumer level, if I go over to someone else's house, I can't 'change the channel'. No idea what I'm watching, or the abstractions behind how it got to the TV.

I'm not projecting, and not making it political.

Maybe it's you that are possibly projecting here, by assuming that because I referenced a political convention, that I'm making it political.

(EDIT: Yes, I did write 'political'. It's totally my fault. I didn't mean to write that word. I meant to use a different term, 'political' came out and I didn't edit it. My bad. I meant to infer a 'social posture')

That ultra empathetic posture, to the point of literally debilitating the conference itself - is just something that happened at that conference, which happened to be a Socialist Convention. It doesn't have anything to do with socialism. Even if it does, by the way, seem to be a part of elements of communication of 'that side' - it likely just has more to do with personality types, because it's obviously not political.

If you want to see the video yourself it's here [1].

And by the way - this video is just a snapshot, there's much more hilarity floating out there.

And finally I don't really think "Can we chat?" has much to do with 'remote culture' or 'remote work' ... I know my manager would often walk by my cube and say the same thing. Perhaps more frequent, but not really an element of culture.

It's also perfectly reasonable.

I wish I knew how to describe the variation of anxiety that this might arise, or what to do about it (meditation? CBT?) , but I don't suggest it's anyone's problem but the person who is made anxious.

I know for myself, after hearing it the 1st time, I wouldn't be anxious the second time or later. It's just an opportunity to talk.

[1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bHRxu3XrsHg

Of course it is. The fact that they would write an article about it and don't have the self awareness to recognize they have a problem - but worse - the number of people on HN that seem to think there is a material problem in behaviour of the manager is a bit shocking.

It's ridiculous. It's not even a 1 out of 10 in terms of inappropriateness, it's fully a 0. It's 100% within the preoperative of anyone frankly to say "hey, can we chat for 10 at lunch?"

Anyone who has difficulty with this should seek a bit of help, and those implying there is something wrong ... they have a different problem entirely, I don't know how to describe it.

My grandparents were born on farms without electricity or plumbing (common for the area), no public healthcare, retirement, social assistance, unemployment, radio, refrigeration, TV, barely any cars. etc.. They were kind and generous people but also resilient and self assured. They literally wouldn't understand the author's concern. It would have to be spelled out to them. They would be empathetic (it's in their character) but wouldn't think anything other than the author has some kind of issue.

Complaining about "Can we chat?" as some kind of 'unreasonable thing' is getting absurd.

People above are commenting 'what kind of stressful world we must live in' - I think the complete opposite: we have reached a threshold of material abundance and prosperity such that the most vague, imperceptible form of nuance in communication is now worthy of demarcation. Only extremely privileged and wealthy people could afford to go on about someone asking them 'if they have time to chat'.

The manager's behaviour is absolutely appropriate, and not impolite.

Also, someone with antisocial anxieties like this probably would have difficulty with that kind of confrontation.

It gets bad when people with odd anxieties project them onto everyone around them.

There's an entire social (edit:changed that word from 'political' which I didn't mean to say) orientation around this.

See the hilarious 2019 Socialist Convention where they talk about people clapping as 'harm' or wearing perfume as 'aggressive' or taking a particular tone as 'oppressive', etc.

"Hey, can we chat!" is now "Triggering" etc.. ?

We're really going to be dragged aside by HR now because "Hey, can we chat?"

Yeah ... no.

I think it's up to the author to seek help.

I don't deny they have an issue, but I'm wary that it's mostly theirs to contend with.

There's not much of a story here.

He's making it a non-profit effectively, so he's not going to be personally getting income, and therefore no tax.

That the family controls the non-profit is one thing, but they're not going to financially benefit from it in a significant way.

I mean, their airfare and hotels are going to be paid forever though ...

This is just taxes in a straight forward way: profit/income = tax, otherwise not. His kids aren't getting the assets, so no generational tax.

It's just straightforward as one should expect it to be for the most part.

They keep talking about technology but the primary issue here is social phenomenon, these are memes.

Cryto Kittes -> Beanie Babies -> Cabbage Patch Dolls

Cryto itself is like an ideological movement, a bit akin to the heady utopian populism of socialism in the start of the last century.

No, integrity was there before the legal system.

My grandfather used to do business out of his wallet with cash and handshakes. He would do deals with farmers to make things in his workshop, and then get paid in pigs/parts of cows 6 months later. Farmers in particular are extremely reliable and credible people.

People in agrarian areas didn't move around much and personal integrity was definitely a kind of currency.

When you're dealing with industrial level trade and commerce, esp. with far flung traders and investors - yes, you're right.

And you're right to point out the relationship on some level.

But ultimately, Crypto is not going to add integrity to the system, and, integrity is essential.

"Smart contracts allow for certain types of commercial transactions to be conducted without the existence of a reliable judicial system, which transactions would otherwise be too risky to undertake. This incremental improvement will have a material impact on people's lives."

No - they do not.

The naming of these things are a total misrepresentation.

Contracts can only exist within the context of a Judical system, otherwise, they're not really contracts.

No businesses on planet earth are going to allow their businesses to be managed outside the auspices of some kind of judicial oversight, and especially not in things that cannot be undone.

The world is full of accidents, misinterpretations.

Every situation we see a 'smart contract' there is probably room for a market maker, and/or just some kind of simple software that 'implements' a regular contact.

We should, but the problem is consumers want the protections offered by PayPal and VISA who do fraud analysis and can clawback money etc. etc..

There's definitely a space for 'digital cash', for sure, but consumers will prefer the former.

When it comes to money, there are just deeply inherent issues of dealing with fraud, spam, goods not delivered etc. etc.. which adds significant overhead to the whole system.

Most people playing above-above board don't have a problem.

Usually in these cases, it's because something semi-shady is being sold, and it usually contravenes one of the T&Cs of Stripe.

The OP here didn't tell us what line of business they were in.

Crypto is the 'least good' solution for people in regimes with crap currency.

There are at least a dozen 'very solid' currencies that people anywhere should be able to transact in, notably the USD.

All of which you 'own'.

If there are helpful things they can do, 'digital' currencies, especially USD, (one that is not mess) would be imminently useful.

If you thought the 'petro dollar' was a big thing wait until the 'digital dollar' and entire economies de facto switch to USD.

Except when you can't and you must undo a transaction, and if you can't, you can't use it.

Like for example in the world of finance, where you have to be able to backtrack.

Meaning such 'contracts' are least useful for things like, well, 'currency' and 'stores of value' ... hmm ...