dxdenton

Agreed

Can you offer a substantial rebuttal? Or are you in the same camp as the OP whose opinions are axioms that are above questioning or debate?

What is your definition of fascist? If it includes dictatorial control of the economy, suppression of dissenting opinions, and aggressive persecution of political opposition, Id have an easier time arguing modern progressives are fascists. Off the top of my head.

* Effectively shutting down large swathes of the US economy during COVID, while allowing "essential" business to remain open. Where "essential" is arbitrarily determined based on the state governors political leanings.

* Biden-Harris admin strongly encouraging (ie strong-arming) social media companies to suppress what they deemed "disinformantion".

* Progressive state AGs using legal loopholes and technicalities to prosecute Trump, aka Lawfare. For example, a fraud case for overvaluing real estate properties. A fraud case with no victims that resulted in a $450 million judgment? The textbook definition of excessive fines as defined by the 8th amendment.

* Progressives stated goal to pack the Supreme Court, effectively neutering an entire branch of government. Thereby, consolidating power in the remaining two branches.

You believe people who don't consider Trump a fascist are delusional (close to half the electorate, if we believe the polls)? What actions or policies has Trump implemented that fit under that definition? In short, Trump being a fascist is not self-evident: It is your (and many others) strongly held opinion. One that is rarely backed by more than shallow progressive talking points.

Yes, a good manager shields the team from distractions and lets them focus. I know I sound anti-mgr but I’m not. I’ve had some rly good one who gave us autonomy, trusted us, but also held us accountable. It seems most managers don’t subscribe to the servant leadership philosophy, but are prone to the dictator style (ie team members are subordinates whose role is to implement the (not shared) vision.

I agree, it was a calculated risk. Without getting into the deets I was confident it wouldn’t introduce any major issues. In fact NOT upgrading had resulted in problems that affected production a few weeks prior. Would I recommend a junior engineer yolo it? Of course not. But I’d also warn junior engineers to always keep a healthy skepticism when they are told “No, this cannot be done.”

> There’s always a way to get housekeeping items approved…

Yes, at a functional software shop, upgrades and maintenance are not considered stretch items. I did my best to make the case from a technical (bug fixes and features), business (vendor X won’t support us on this version), and customer (customer wouldn’t be happy if they knew we were running version X) standpoint. However, at a dysfunctional software shop, none of those factors matter (or they don’t matter as much).

When there is a lot to do and you are understaffed the highest priority things are usually obvious. For instance, we keep getting repeated requests for X from dev, let’s automate it or make it self-service. Software X is severely out of date and preventing us (or dev) from implementing X, let’s upgrade it.

We were assigned a manager. Who immediately tried to bring in his folks from a prior job (they weren’t a good fit), force us to adopt his preferred tools (with no consideration for our skills and tech stack investment), and took over daily standup, which exceeded 30 minutes in the regular for a four person team.

If said teammate decides to follow through on his idea without your explicit permission, transfer him to another team ASAP (without his approval). No teammate can show initiative, self-direction, or autonomy. Furthermore, every piece of work must be represented in JIRA and every team member must report on it —- daily.

This happened to me recently. Yes, I’m a little salty about it. Although it’s probably for the better, as this guy is no longer my manager. For the record, my super-great-idea was upgrading some 5+ year old software that was giving us and the devs a lot of headaches. I was told it could not be done, and it would be replaced by The Next Great Thing, which would take 6-8 months of engineering. I upgraded the thing in a day (in dev) just to prove that it could be done. Despite praises from my teammates (and devs) I had undermined The Manager. Although I know he wanted to, he could not berate or yell or force me to rollback —- imagine telling dev we are rolling back to a five year old version. In any case, ten years in and I’ve learned that the manager is a hard cap on the productivity of a team. The most productive team I’ve been on did not have a manager. We didn’t need a JIRA board or a roadmap or someone to help us plan or prioritize. We simply got our work done. Imagine that.

Your first paragraph laments the expansion of government control and surveillance triggered by 9/11 (which I agree with), but in your next, you use pejoratives to identify people who choose not to get a vaccine or engage in hygiene theater. How would you classify the bully tactics being used by the current administration to coerce citizens into getting a vaccine? This is yet another example of government control and overreach. In this case, gov't is violating personal health (rather than privacy), and the justification is "public health" instead of "homeland security".

> Anti-vaxxers and anti-maskers exist precisely because of 9-11.

This statement is non-sense. I'm old enough to remember 9/11. I lived closed enough to watch the smoke rising from the towers. I assure you, my choice to not get the C19 vaccine (and refusal to wear a mask) have nothing to do with the events of 9/11.

The term "anti-vaxxer" is derogatory, and is being used as a demeaning caricature. I don't fit your stereotype. I am not getting the C19 vaccine. That does not mean I am against all vaccinations. A person can believe in the effectiveness of vaccines, and decide against getting THIS vaccine (imagine that). Terms like "anti-vaxxer" are used to demonize those (such as myself) who have decided not to get the C19 vaccine. I guess classifying people as "anti-vaxxer" helps people like you justify calling them "literally stupid."

> We have literally produced idiots across the US because of a horrible educational system. They can’t think critically because they don’t have to. So 20 years of this, and you have a large percentage of the population that are literally stupid and can’t think critically.

I wholeheartedly agree with this sentiment. The irony is that, based on your comments, you'd consider me "literally stupid", and I would say your critical thinking are severely lacking.

> They would rather die than take a vaccine or wear a mask.

I can assure you that if contracting COVID-19 meant certain death, the government would not have to spend millions on propaganda to convince people to get the C19 vaccine. Contracting C19 does not imply certain death: I know this first-hand, anecdotally, and it is backed by statistics published by the CDC (for whatever those are worth these days). In other words, for the overwhelming majority of the population C19 is no worse than the flu. For those with pre-existing health conditions, the risks are greater and the vaccine is a godsend. I won't address the mask fallacy. If you want to wear a mask, by all means. I am not one to pull a binky out of a child's mouth -- whatever it takes to get people to get out and live their lives.

The fact that you jump to the conclusion that "everyone who does not get vaccinated or wear a mask is stupid" does not reflect well on your critical thinking skills. As I've explained above, there are legitimate reasons for not getting the vaccine. Maybe a better approach is to give others the benefit of the doubt, and attempt to engage in meaningful conversation? We likely won't agree on everything, but maybe I'd convince you that people who decide against the C19 are not all "literally stupid".