Context changed the use of language. If you know any foreign languages you know two words that are more or less the same carry a different meaning in context.
1,200 karma · joined June 12, 2023
There really aren't any hard problems anymore. Nothing really requires you to chew on it, deeply look into it, or attempt to truly understand it. Got a question? Go to wikipedia, or reddit, or whatever and get 1/4 of the actual knowledge. Enough to satisfy you. Have a problem? There's an app for that. Can't get something done? Probably some cheaply made tool to handle it.
Suppose you want to actually dig deep into something. Good luck, the body of knowledge is so large a PhD is really just table stakes. This leaves the true "innovators" to an ever-dwindling pool of people who can simultaneously afford and succeed in such a program. If you add entrepreneurship to "innovators" we see the same thing. Most "hard" problems people will pay money for are solved and the pool of these problems gets smaller every day. So what do you do? Start a business that caters to decadence.
Without any hard problems requiring solutions, and most "human" problems being solved, and most higher-level thinking permanently roadblocked by 1000 years of science, then we necessarily go to decadence. It's the same cycle most societies go through right until they collapse.
It's tired. H1Bs are gamed to the point of uselessness. Most companies internally post H1B job offerings so people are aware. I've yet to see one with a competitive salary. They are used to source cheaper labor and avoid paying actual Americans the fair wage they deserve. The last 15-20 years of tech has slowly seen the InfoSys-ization of the tech economy. I work with more contractors from Mexico, India, and Eastern Europe, and more H1Bs from India than literally anyone else. On my team I can count the number of Americans on one hand.
The program should be extremely limited. I am a fan of charging 2-3x the normal tax rate for H1Bs so companies have to actually justify hiring "talent you can't find in America". There are 300,000 unemployed tech workers. I find it hard to believe none fit the bill. Just that most won't take a 60% haircut for more work.
When you attach a literal degree to something being done "right" and not "demonstrated considerable improvement" you're going to get people that game the system. When you then make me pay $30,000 or more for a piece of paper you will get people that seek an edge. I did my fair share of underhanded tricks in school because I didnt want to pay another $1200 because I had to maintain a certain GPA to get where I wanted. This was over 15 years ago. Focus in the classes you care about, game the classes you don't. Its a tale as old as education itself.
Blame the OP's wife and the faculty and most universities for not only supporting but encouraging this behavior. If universities are for learning and improving the weight of grades shouldn't be career-determining and the cost should be commensurate to the expectation - both from the professor and the students.
I support remote work entirely and I don't want a job that makes me go to an office. I will however note that there were several times in my life I could go a month without seeing another person. It's hard to start hobbies, it's hard to make friends as you get older, etc. Even when remote work allegedly provides all this time to do so.
This post sounds tone deaf and unaware of the actual social problems most normal people have.
So far there have been zero murder convictions for the KNOWN abuses. Bleeding hearts will downvote this knowing full-well the truth is that they are lowering the bar to the point anyone can be euthanized for any reason. "Mental Health" is an awfully wide net and described specifically in the article which it appears no one has read.
Unfortunately, it seems HN suffers from this pseudo-fascist "Altruism". "Ending the incalculable suffering" was the same justification the Nazis used for their euthanasia program. Virtually the same words too. "Mental health" was a reason thousands upon thousands of children and adults were euthanized. Sorry, this position cannot be compromised with. Euthanasia inevitably leads to mass murder. Very progressive of us to repeat history.
While people should have autonomy over their lives we should not be legalizing assisting them. This is a path that is well-trodden. Many dictatorships have "mercifully euthanized" various sectors of people. It always starts out as the disabled, cancer-stricken, or unviable. Then it becomes a simple way to get rid of the people deemed to be a burden. Suddenly being depressed is a good way to get the needle. Can't perform your job well enough? Yep you guessed it, needle. Or I guess these days they've made sarco pods for the personalized gas chamber experience. This isn't even a slippery slope, we're watching it happen in real time as the bar for euthanasia continues to be lowered.
There's been several cases that MAID has willfully disobeyed the law. Doctors not filing the correct paperwork, rushing patients, etc. We are already seeing the sprouts of a system that if allowed to continue will become a virtual Soylent Green.
Of course I'll be downvoted for this by the bleeding hearts but history has not been kind to people who allow this.
The ham radio licensing procedure in the US mostly focuses on this effect. Even though there's nothing conclusive I'd imagine there are other deleterious effects that aren't trivially measurable. If it can heat it up it can do other stuff too. Cooking your brain by standing too close to a high power transmission tower can't be good.
I'm an amateur extra, I would challenge any "scientist" laughing EMF dangers off to go find the nearest AM radio tower and spend 6 months in the transmission room for "science".
Without sarcasm, the studies I have found over the years ruled out cumulative effects (unlike ionizing radiation). They so far haven't been able to rule out various types of cancer, ALS, or other diseases caused by long-term exposure.
People want more value for more work. If I work 12 hours picking potatoes and have to give 3/4 of them "according to my need" I will refuse to work. If you create fake jobs like "bolt counter" to insure 100% employment so the means can justify the ends (as communism believes) you end up with a collapsing economic system.
The current iteration of late-stage capitalism is not capitalism _at large_. It's feudalism clever disguised as an egalitarian economic system. The solution to this is not communism, it's undoing 100 years of stock-market oriented business design. We don't know what "late-stage" communism looks like simply because a revolution occurs several hundred years before it reaches that point. Not even the premiere implementers of communism, the Russians, could keep their system.
It doesn't work. In any country, in any system, with any group of people larger than 4.
"Fat acceptance" is actually quite popular. It's not fringe. Fringe is being a furry. The entire medical field walks on egg shells because of so called "fatphobia".
2. Airbnb for public benches
3. Podcast that is only ads
These are the ideas I want to see
Unfortunately I need healthcare. An ACA plan cost me $1200/mo. over COVID when I was out of work for two months. It was a complete panic. Just mortgage, utilities, food, and healthcare was almost $3,500 a month. Throw in car insurance (because I'm American) and it was unsustainable. If there's one thing the ACA is - it's not affordable. A complete garbage program that has enabled health insurance companies to take our money by force.
I've realized there's no way I can do this. I missed my window when I was in college (because I was working - for healthcare). Now I'm condemned to suffer until I retire or die. A consummate worker drone shackled by literal bureaucratic bullshit.
This isn't a counter-example because chimps possess higher order thinking. Chimps have a distinct sense of fairness that is exhibited consistently even when engaged with their human counterparts.
It's the same for us. If laws didn't protect the haves from the have-nots nature would correct itself when the haves reach a certain level of inequality. When law and order breaks down it's very obvious this is nature. Try hoarding canned food in a food crisis. You'll very quickly find yourself in very real danger. Law, as it turns out, is a very unnatural thing.
The so-called "incel crisis" is a variation of this. It's only a crisis insofar as nature cannot correct itself. The 10%, approximately, of men that get the majority of the women on these apps face no real danger from the have-nots (coincidentally this "incel crisis" has prefaced major social upheaval since time immemorial).
The absurd pay difference between executives and the actual do-ers is yet another example.
At the end of the day the systems are put in place by "leaders" to subvert the hierarchy of needs. Nature can never correct itself, so we are doomed to simply suffer. Nature is brutal not because it wants to be but because it has to be. The only natural order is utilitarianism.
So far aside from cell phones and tablets nothing has worked right.
If you're careful there are so, so many harbor freight tools that likely come off the back of the same Chinese factory name brands do. Their "professional" line is about 50-70% less expensive and performs as well. The impact wrench is better than a Milwaukee, and their professional torque wrench comes within tolerance to a Snap-On.
For someone who doesn't need a QA cert for insurance/licensing reasons harbor freight is a miracle. Likely because it's the EXACT same stuff. Nothing is made in America anymore.
I will never buy another XPS. For all of apple's faults, with the exception of the 2018 model pros, I have never had much of a problem.
Look, when you're barking orders at the guys in the trenches who, understandably in fear for their jobs, do the stupid "business-smart" thing, then it is entirely the fault of management.
I can't tell you how many times just in the last year I've been blamed-by-proxy for doing something that was decreed upon me by some moron in a corner office. Everything is an emergency, everything needs to be done yesterday, everything is changing all the time because King Shit and his merry band of boot-licking middle managers decide it should be.
Software engineers, especially ones with significant experience, are almost surely more right than middle managers. "Shouldn't we consider this case?" is almost always met with some parable about "overengineering" and followed up by a healthy dose of "that's not AGILE". I have grown so tired of this and thanks to the massive crater in job mobility most of us just do as we are told.
It's the power imbalance. In this light, all blame should fall on the manager unless it can be explicitly shown to be developer problems. The addage "those who can, do, and those who can't, teach" applies equally to management.
When it's my f@#$U neck on the line and the only option to keep my job is do the stupid thing you can bet I'll do the stupid thing. Thank god there's no malpractice law in software.
Poor you - only one of our jobs is getting shipped overseas.
It's gonna take a while before they're back to normal again. I've heard so many "office of government efficiency" jokes in the last week I am tired of it too. But, in their defense if all you hear is how this administration is going to be the fourth reich (lol), destroy the country (lol), introduce fascism (lol), kill people (lol), etc you're going to react in a sarcastic way to anything you can grasp onto.
Though tbf, again, "office of government efficiency" seems like an oxymoron.
Coincidentally this also happens with developers in unfamiliar territory.
An insurance company sells options contracts. We call it healthcare. It is , aside from a few small differences, the same as a put or a call.
An insurance company's day-to-day operation is indistinguishable from a derivatives hedge desk. Insurance companies absolutely take massive bets. These are managed by re-insurers.
You need several hours of relatively strenuous exercise per week. Walking around the neighborhood, or your house, or whatever has diminishing returns. You need to steadily increase load to continue to see results. The body is incredibly good at adapting. People will read your statement and walk around their house twice, sit down, and not move for the rest of the night.
It follows the same pattern as people whining and crying saying they're going to seek asylum in Canada. While a fringe minority did it once again was just an eye-grabbing headline. This type of nonsense has happened, as far as I can remember, since Bush in 2004. Every time a Republican gets into power the tankies make wild, public, performances and then proceed to do absolutely nothing, ever.
So, in conclusion "you" won't do anything - at all. Life will go on like normal. Just like 2016, and just like 2020. Turn off the TV.
When you grow up in a system that taught you from birth that you are a problem, a demon, a "danger", uncontrollable, etc you'd understand. When you've watched men be destroyed by the lop-sided family court system and divorce law, or have no sexual freedom when it comes to whether or not you want a child you'd understand. Masculinity of any flavor is demonized unless it caters specifically to "raising women up". Men occupy the most dangerous jobs, die earlier, and suffer the most in terms of suicide and lack of proper mental health resources, and are forced into a draft because of their gender. Is this equality you can stand for?
I'm offended the left preaches "equality" but doesn't actually believe it. I am personally tired of it. I am tired of feeling like a demon for simply existing. I am tired of having to uphold obligations that formerly had benefits, but now have at best negative benefit. At the very least with the right-wing I know exactly what I'm getting.
This isn't "me, me, me" it's ~50% of the population being actively railroaded literally from kindergarten to death by far left policy swinging the pendulum all the way to the other side of inequality.
> Women still face rampant discrimination
Is that why they are leading men on almost every happiness, work, and school metric? Or are the men suffering because "patriarchy hurts men too" or whatever nonsense they say now. I can tell you "the patriarchy" isn't the reason men are dropping out of society. Not by a long shot.
We have relevant examples of discrimination against men today. Trump voters are vile, white, male, homophobes and sexists. This is the message our boys are hearing. Does it sound appealing to anyone but a consummate masochist? If leftists continue to drive a wedge between the genders the R's will continue to win.
Polls historically lean left and many Trump voters are afraid of retribution and do not talk about their vote. I am one of them - to everyone I told them I'm voting for Kamala. Mostly because I don't want my car tires slashed, job lost, or house or family harmed. Then I walked into the polling both and voted R straight down the ticket. The 2020 riots have shown the left is capable of great violence and the mass media shaming people and placing them into buckets of "racist", "sexist", etc will make polls be decidedly wrong. This is once again a demonstration of the total lack of accountability the left has.
>but you're presented with a few and told that these are the only ones you need to care about.
I don't care about the rest of the world. I care only about myself and my family. If this is controversial to you I'm sorry. I have no intention to be a "good global citizen". I have found the idea to be abhorrent. What goes on some far off land I don't need to care about. I don't need to be constantly aware of every nuance of every microcosm of society. If it works for my family and me I vote for it - simple.
> I think Fox News, right wing talk radio, and right leaning podcasts are the core problem
MSNBC, CNN, NYT, TYT (which should've been demonetized like infowars) have been lying to the public for 8 years. Nearly everything they've said hasn't come to pass and it's primarily just Op-Eds disguised as news. "Anonymous sources" once again providing misinformation and incitements of violence that very clearly had a hand in creating the two failed assassination attempts. There is no nuance, at least no more nuance than Fox or NewsMax, and to say so reveals your own hardlined biases.
Fact of the matter is most abortions are elective. It is, in fact, about unwanted children. It is however a shame actual health risks are lumped in - mostly due to marketing.
This is simple economics.
1. She's one of the least liked candidates in history. The Democrats haven't run a real "change" candidate that could cross the aisles since Obama. Hillary was already widely disliked and sank herself with the "deplorables" comment. Kamala did exactly the same with "Nazis, Fascists, Dictators, White Supremacists, etc". It's all I heard and it came to a point I started feeling attacked exclusively for my race. It was difficult at this point to listen to what little policy she actually had: most of it sounded exactly like the last 4 years. To put the cherry on top she also couldn't even poll well among her own constituents until Biden bowed out and she was decreed the pick by the DNC.
2. The top polling issues were immigration and the economy. Neither issue Kamala really addressed outside of some feel-good statements like free money for homes and somehow passing a price cap on groceries. She made no statement no immigration and even went so far as to say she wouldn't change anything from the last 4 years. Trump on the other hand did very well laser targeting these issues and pulled moderates and even democrats as a "lesser of two evils".
3. The constant bleeting on about felonies, "rapist", etc made it seem to most average Americans that the court cases were simply lawfare designed to punish Americans for not voting for Hillary. Trump in this case was just a sacrificial goat.
4. The weaponization of the FBI against parents protesting school board meetings, the seemingly intense focus on so-called "right wing violence" even after living through the George Floyd riots, etc was distasteful to a lot pro-police Americans.
5. The media is decidedly left-to-far-left leaning. What this means is the majority of major news outlets, Youtube, Twitch, TikTok, Music, Movies, etc all preach "the message". This oversaturation of the progressive message, paired with many moderate Americans thinking progressivism has gone too far, likely contributed to it. Further, it likely contributed to lower Democrat turnout as they were already claiming victory in August.
6. You can't salvage a campaign by having movie and music stars endorse you when the average consumption of this media is at historical lows. You can't salvage a campaign by bringing Obama out as The Closer.
7. And finally for me, the strong "pro-women" policies are distasteful for me. Not because I hate women, but because there's decades of data showing our school system, government, and policies are failing young boys. I cannot in good conscious vote for a candidate who will not do anything to help men's issues at this point. I can't vote for a candidate who wants to enshrine gender-specific constitutional changes. Particularly, evening the playing field for boys in school, removing affirmative action, and instituting an equal "male abortion" rule that will help tip the family courts back to even. If we want equality we should strive for true equality. I want true equality.