afarrell

If something is dangerous, that does not justify making it worse.

What questions would you ask to decide if someone is a trustworthy steward of that technology?

It is wise and responsible for people to exercise caution for the impact of their work. When someone is impatient with you acting responsibility, you need not join them in their folly.

One goal of this is maintaining social cohesion between groups of people who can be immediately distinguished in combat. The visible existence of middle-class and upper-class Black families presents a lower-middle-class black teenager (or any teenager) with a choice:

A. Spend a lot of time and effort growing into someone with the skills and social access to be a part of one of those middle-class (or with luck upper-class) families.

B. Spend a moderate amount of time and effort maintaining a position in the lower-middle-class.

C. Spend a small amount of time and effort to fall into what socialists call the lumpenproletariat.

D. Spend an enormous amount of time and effort to gather a group of conscientious and industrious peers to form a new militant group which seeks to take power, trusting them to be rational enough to act effectively and loyal enough not to betray your cause.

E. Join an established militant group.

Why does Microsoft care? Microsoft wants to sell services to various governments, who want to maintain monopsony power on recruiting those who choose path E.

They also want tax revenue from those who choose path A. They also don't want to spend tax revenue on the messes left behind by those who choose path C or D.

I've long had an idea for an app that helped you be a better boyfriend/husband by helping you plan dates and find good ideas for dates in your city like museums, great restaurants, concerts, etc.

Yes, and governments prefer technology reduces the cost of legal compliance.

A new scientific truth triumphs via the death of the ego attachments to the less precise truth. Sometimes that requires bodily death.

The government would also want such a system to conform to anti-money-laundering and sanctions regulations.

What would you say to her about this if the most important thing was the long-term health of the relationship?

Healthy relationships rely on mutual trust and mutual understanding.

If you are on this site, I imagine that your ability to be fully present in your job as you practice your craft is important to you. If you're talking about your girlfriend, I imagine that your ability to not be worrying about project timeline delays outside of work hours so you can be fully present with her outside of work hours is important to both of you. I imagine that it is important for you to have a relationship where you trust her to understand you and you trust her not to jump to a conclusion that you are an asshole.

I imagine those things are more important to you than the awkwardness, discomfort, and risk that comes with asking her to have a real serious conversation where you start by saying the things that matter to you.

It is worth having a system like this. It is also worth having a shared understanding of what constitutes an emergency.

As a GoCardless shareholder? Happy that will nudge people towards direct debit.

True. I’m being oversensitive to the risk of someone else taking things personally.

Or be kind yet direct by admitting your own need.

“Hey Bob, I need to trust that when I open a PR of yours to review, that the SQL is not going to need a high decree of scrutiny. I’ve seen some bad habits that I’m willing to explain specifically, but first I need to hear that you’re willing to spend time to improve up your SQL skills or mindset.”

You are right that we have a responsibility to be willing to risk another person’s feelings and our own social ostracism in order to speak the truth. I have failed in that responsibility before. I was motivated by seeking a guarantee that I would not harm the relationship. However, second-guessing people’s responses and speaking to protect other people’s egos led to the hell you describe.

Yet if I hear that someone “can’t take a joke”, I’d first wonder if they are jokes which demean the relationship between the listener and either the joker or the company.

I still think I have a responsibility to choose my words with care — care for the mutual trust and respect which constitute a healthy working relationship. The times when I failed to give someone clear constructive feedback, I failed to respect the other person’s emotional maturity. The times when I failed to speak an unpleasant truth directly, I failed to equip them with the knowledge to be trustworthy. The times when I failed to risk escalating a conflict, I failed to defend the constitution of the relationship.

Because we do not have the energy not inclination to enforce a universal visual language on others.

What are the advantages of me being scared? I am so far removed from the situation that spending my attention on it would have no positive change for me or anyone else.

I can draw out a 2x2 matrix:

A1. Worry, then die of radiation burns next month.

B1. Relax, then die of radiation burns next month.

A2. Worry, then die of cardiac arrest in 40 years.

B2. Relax, then die of cardiac arrest in 55 years.

I’ll choose options B1 or B2 please.

OP asked a direct question. It is not patronizing to answer that question from experience.

I stand corrected. It would be good to make things like this more widely known.

What are the means by which a team of 150 can make progress over two years towards that goal?

Such a team can work on improving EC technology. It cannot meaningfully make progress on reconfiguring a city like Houston or Los Angeles or San Francisco.

Large problems need to be solved in pieces if they are to be solved at all. Anything else is boiling the ocean.

One cause of this is that we as a community have not properly shouldered the responsibility to teach good estimation skills to new engineers. It is a skill I likely now need to be able to teach —- though I still need to learn it myself.

Also: well-rounded citizens are able to contribute their labor to the social cohesion and physical infrastructure of their communities. Careers are part of civic participation.

I have heard good things about David Graeber’s book “Debt: the first 5000 years.”

A Nigerian and a Florida Man walk into a bar. They order drinks and nachos and have a reasonable conversation that concludes in a legitimate business deal.

> Society looks down on people who take breaks, which seems crazy.

If this is your perception, I would recommend changing the the things you let influence you. What you claim is the opinion of society is just that slice of society you're paying attention to...and it sounds like its not a healthy influence on you.

If Ben Franklin decided that he didn't want to spend his ink publishing someone's newspaper column, who would have forced him to reverse his ban?

If I try to see the millennial generation as a single decision-maker, I’d say it looks an awful lot like someone with multiple personalities.

Solving this problem requires solving coordination problems. Solving coordination problems requires creating a sense of community where people are motivated to act beyond their self interest. Collective motivation at that level requires symbolism and ceremony tapping into the deepest familial affections of the human heart.

The royal family will beat you at that game. You might choose to play a different one.

Who will be willing to pay for it?

Not satire. If you think you should resist your tendency towards sycophancy, then you are free to let that guide your own life.

Others will do otherwise.

Parliament.