amirmc

> ... but really, this comes down to what Google (et al) considers criminal incitement to violence,

We have courts and a legal process to decide such things. I find it strange and worrying that so many in this thread are happy to let a huge yet private and unaccountable entity have such power.

I didn't know Amazon did this. It'll make me think twice next time I purchase certain items.

After a quick search I found this: https://www.amazon.com/gp/help/customer/display.html?nodeId=...

Even though inventory tracked using the manufacturer barcode is commingled within the network, the source of the inventory is tracked by our fulfillment systems and is taken into consideration if inventory problems arise.

Given the article, it seems they're not completely sure what was sent where. It would seem that using the manufacturer barcodes in Amazon's network opens you up to an unexpected risk.

> I'd be curious to see how I could participate in the current environment.

It's the political process. Although many tech people I've met seem allergic to doing anything that seems like 'politics'.

> ... non-slaves produce more value than slaves,

Probably not to the slave owners, or anyone involved in the slave trade. They had little incentive to change.

Claiming that capitalism somehow spurs these things is the wrong way around. It can certainly benefit, but it's not the driver.

> In case you’re not familiar, a meritocracy is a political system where power is allocated to those with the most ability. In the case of Silicon Valley, this equates to “the best ideas win and the best people get promoted.”

IMHO the problem is that no-one, not even this article, actually defines what 'merit' means — so people fill it with their own (likely biased) opinions. Even in the above quote, 'best' is only defined after the fact — it's literally just the ones that survived (the article does mention this later on).

The meaning of 'merit' will probably be different for different companies, groups, etc. Hence it feels difficult to talk about any kind of 'meritocracy' without clarifying that meaning first. I suspect that would become it's own debate.

Edit: The interactive site called Parable of the Polygons would seem relevant to some of the points this article makes. http://ncase.me/polygons/

I think the above comment is somewhat orthogonal to getting paid. The issue is that the Apple App Store is the only marketplace (realistically).

For example, I try to avoid the Mac App Store and buy/download direct from the vendor, where possible. I can't do that on iOS.

> Unfortunately, researches and studies of personality statistics of vary large group of people(for example, behavior of an ethnic group) are very difficult and most importantly: they are politically incorrect, considered harmful and forbidden, as well as the conclusions will not be accepted by public.

Do you mean politically incorrect in China? Otherwise, I'd just call this kind of study Anthropology (of some form).

I think the point is that a lot was released in the manufacturing of those parts.

You've still not said anything about 'how boards work'.

You think that a board seat (the group that the CEO reports to) is a consolation prize? That makes no sense at all.

Why not turn that argument around to yourself?

You should know from ... the 1200+ days you've been around, the huge number of shut down notices in that time, the other posts here, and every single comment that's ever been made about how you should communicate with users, ... that the shutdown notice here isn't great.

> * ... would lead them necessarily to establish legal entities to prevent that spreading*

They already have multiple legal entities. And there are two different things being conflated here.

1. Info/data that was generated and pertains to people in one jurisdiction that just 'happens' to be shipped to a datacenter elsewhere, just because Google can. This seems to be the current story.

2. Info/data that was generated and pertains to people in one jurisdiction that a legal system in a different jurisdiction tries to claim rights to. This is also happening and has implications for service users, privacy law, etc.

When those datacenters are in your own jurisdiction, but the Global HQ of the company is in a different jurisdiction, then you have a problem. This is bigger than corporate vs individual interests.

What you're really saying in the first part of your comment is that there would need to be 'an independent google' for every jurisdiction. That isn't going to happen.

The current situation is a little different since:

"Each account holder resides in the United States, the crimes they are suspected of committing occurred solely in the United States, and the electronic data at issue was exchanged between persons located in the United States."

In this case it does seem reasonable that the company should comply.

This seems like an opportune moment to remind people about the Tyranny of Structurelessness article. If you haven't come across it before, it's definitely worth a read.

http://www.jofreeman.com/joreen/tyranny.htm

Yup, I think the same (although, unfortunately, I don't think the legal/regulatory system is equipped to handle it as they're made up of the same people).

The earlier comment implied that there was some form of cost/benefit analysis being undertaken, which is is what I was disagreeing with. The current situation reminds me more of learned helplessness [1], in which people are effectively powerless.

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Learned_helplessness

> "There's a third possibility, which is that people are rationally aware..."

I agree that this possibility exists but I also think it's a tiny minority of people online. There's enough info out there to demonstrate that people aren't rationally aware of many things (although they may believe they are).

In the current example, I'd bet that most folks don't even understand how much info they reveal online and what can be inferred about them. The very reason the house analogy exists is because it's tangible and 'real-world' but it's not really a fair comparison. If people had the option to live in a fortress, that still had windows and easy access for approved people, and didn't look too different, they'd likely take it. Such options either don't exist or are too expensive.

> By the same argument you can predict that everything will fail and be right most of the time.

Yes, exactly. It's worth reminding people that for every success there are many unheard of failures.

I find it lazy when people claim "They said that about <example>", as if that's actually a counterpoint (it isn't).

Sure, we can point to exceptions after the fact. That doesn't mean every company is going to follow those trajectories. In other words, criticism is still valid.

I love this! If I'm ever in a position to accept an award I'm going to steal this opening. It's certainly more entertaining than the affected humility we see.

Of course, even this approach will have its own shelf life — meaning that, if used widely, it will also become a parody of itself.

I agree with your comment. The new title seems to be taken from the article itself though (as opposed to just made up by someone).

"Using these three measures of supervisor competence, we found that employees are far happier when they are led by people with deep expertise in the core activity of the business."

> "I didn't realize how thick of a skin I have due to my arts background."

Unfortunately, I think this says more about the programmers today and the culture they expect, rather than your resilience.

(that's not meant to imply that you're not resilient, by the way).

> People spend years at medical school or law school to become a doctor or lawyer.

True, but both of those are professions. Qualifications that you carry irrespective of your employer. Being 'a Google engineer' is not the same thing, although people might like to imagine it is.

> I think the disadvantages can be solved by non-pure functional languages, and that there is a lot to gain for new programming languages in this area.

We don't necessarily need new languages for this. There are already pragmatic languages out there, for example, OCaml [1] (and if the syntax is off-putting there's ReasonML [2] from Facebook). I'm sure there are other examples too.

[1] http://ocaml.org

[2] http://facebook.github.io/reason/

> ... you shouldn't allow yourself to become dependent upon said service continuing to work.

This is easy to say but can be difficult in practice. Even if they did provide a phone number, there's still no guarantee.

Any business is going to have to depend on multiple individual providers, any one of whom could inadvertently shut you down. Your bank, your energy supplier, etc. Trying to mitigate for such scenarios is near impossible as a small business. It's worth remembering the flip side of the current story. This individual was able to sustain their family and two employees from this business. That's impressive. That an innocuous change on one device can have such a negative impact, with no warning, is a heinous oversight on Amazon's part.

The community efforts are largely volunteer-driven by many people who also have day jobs (including me). Indeed, things could be better but given how much does get done, I'm willing to cut them some slack.

As others have mentioned, what you've described is survivorship bias and it's prevalent in many places. I found the following to be an excellent and very readable article on the topic.

https://youarenotsosmart.com/2013/05/23/survivorship-bias/

> ... as the first trying to bring science in food science...

I'm pretty sure food science and studies of nutrition have been around a lot longer than Soylent.

Also, I see no reason why they should be cut any slack. It's not just a webapp that experiences downtime. When this goes wrong people get hurt.

When you're deep into the tech it's difficult to see beyond. You get used the rough edges and even grow to like and appreciate them.

It can take a fresh pair of eyes to look at things and see a different way forward, and then be bold enough to try. This usually involves stripping away features to make things more simple. That's not always a popular choice in engineering circles.

In technology, it's especially tricky to think about the 'average user' when you're surrounded by other technologists.

My trainer was certified by the people who make and sell the course/questionnaire. She made it clear that this was the official position.

So, no, she was not a doofus.

When I did this test, the trainer was pretty clear that it's not meant to be a 'spectrum'. You're either an E or an I and that was that. The only one they claimed might be a spectrum was P to J.