jimrhods23

"including Facebook’s sharing of data with the dark arts firm Cambridge Analytica—and ever-growing worries about the tech giants’ monopoly powers."

We only care about this because it helped Trump win the election. Ask yourself this: If this helped Hillary win, would you care? I'm guessing we wouldn't even be hearing about it now and anyone that mentioned it would be laughed at/silenced.

Our privacy always matters, regardless of the politics of the day. When a Democrat becomes president, these discussions will most likely go away.

Zuckerberg certainly doesn't care about your privacy. He only wants to please the masses so he can go back to ruling the world.

"There is also a third option, which would be just as momentous: workplace democracy. By which I mean, we should ensure that tech workplaces are governed in accord with basic democratic norms and ideals"

Why do tech workers need to have a union? They are paid more than most jobs in the world and can pick/choose where they work.

Unions will only limit the good employee's pay and allow the lazy/mediocre to take over. Not to mention making it impossible for a small company to survive, because of the regulations that are involved with unionization.

It's great for changing the landscape to mostly large companies and the government..which is what happens in Countries like Sweden and Norway...but terrible for people that want to start their own company.

"There's a cultural difference here. In a culture of collaboration that experience is simulated for the group to grow mutually."

So, to 'grow mutually', we need to use ideas that never work or will take the project down a path of failure? This does not foster growth or success.

I want the best ideas to win, if it's mine or from an inexperienced colleague.

"The difference is motivation of growth vs money."

You can try bad ideas on your own time If you are working on a project and being paid for it, I don't really know how it doesn't have some motivation for money.

"I never said I won't listen. I value people who focus on collaboration because I can trust they have a stake in our mutual growth. This is not a feeling rather a thought."

Teaching you the proper way is focusing on mutual growth, so you will be successful in future projects that might involve the same problem.

"No, I credit the people who create the bias around them in everyday interactions. Bottom line is that present day moments are not made up of stereotypes. People are responsible for their behaviors and attitudes."

So you don't want to be told what to do and you have no problem with a company ushering out more experienced developers and replacing them with ones that are cheaper and younger.

While people are responsible for their behaviors and attitudes, I can't imagine if you were in the same situation you wouldn't be resentful. This is because you are young. In 15-20 years, I think your attitude and outlook on life will be much different.

There is also evidence that the gender pay gap is due to other circumstances:

-women not negotiating what they are actually worth in terms of pay -women taking less risks and less demanding jobs after having children.

"Oppress my voice and project what they think I should be (super-ego acting like a child)"

I'm in my 40s and am managing a team of developers in their 20s. What may sound like oppression many times is a desire to not go down a path to failure that I can see from a mile away, but someone with less experience may not even understand.

My way isn't always correct either. If you can back something up with great supporting evidence, you win. I find that many people now don't feel they need to back anything up with evidence and any sort of criticism is seen as oppression.

"Interact with me like an individual and genuinely place interest in the mutual growth"

I feel like if you don't run into someone who fits this motive, you won't even listen to what they have to say because you feel like you are being oppressed.

"Threatened by my existence (ego in survival mode)"

You can thank companies that fire the people with experience and hire the youthful and cheap for this.

Don't accidentally delete the entire table because you left off a WHERE clause.

This is so simplistic. Yeah, it might be better if we had less cars on the road, but the US is very large and not that easy to traverse without cars.

Anyone can slap down some code and get something to marginally work from a tutorial they read online.

The skill (and subsequent value) comes in when priorities change, things need to be refactored, and you need an experienced developer to come up with a solution that works well.

"When you do your post-mortem, focus on actionable outcomes rather than placing blame. Because ultimately anyone can screw up at any time."

I disagree with this. You need to place some sort of blame and focus on actionable outcomes.

Anyone can make this mistake, but with important data, there are some people that really shouldn't be handling it and they need to know why, which is where the blame comes in. This is the only way to resolve the issue.

"I was once a tech lead of a team where the architect had been berating and criticizing a team member for weeks over something he thought should take a day"

As I've gotten more experience as a developer, I've realized that most tasks take longer than I used to estimate..usually because I want to come up with a long-term solution and not just hack something together with no testing.

"I'd argue that for easily digitized works, there's no such thing as scarcity."

Since AI can't create great pieces of art or digital works in a short amount of time, there still is scarcity.

Do you think if Uber suddenly was forced to make all of these drivers employees with benefits, that everyone would continue to have a job?

"Quitting her job meant she could spend more time with her daughter and offset some of her childcare expenses, but it also required her to make lifestyle changes"

There are many women that have this same sentiment. Which is why there will always be a pay disparity. I don't think it's a bad thing, but it's not related to sexism or women intentionally getting paid less.

It feels weird that I have to argue for safety and the scientific process in a forum for supposed intelligent people.

It's very anti-intellectual.

It might not work because it hasn't been completely tested. The human is the test and people may die during the testing process.

Why should anyone go to jail over this? The startup was just testing it out and the person was willing to take the risk. They might not have even known that it would kill the patient.

When a patient dies, the family will most likely try to sue the company that created the treatment. What company would ever take a risk like this?

The bright side is that the human testers in China will lead to better care in the rest of the world.

With the amount of lawsuits in the US for people that are willingly harming themselves or abusing drugs: Cigarette companies still getting sued for smokers dying of cancer..even though it's been known for 50 years that it causes cancer and Big Pharma getting sued for the Opiod crises means that this will never happen here until we have major tort reform and an assurance that a company can't be sued in any court if someone dies as a result of taking untested treatments.

"It's clear that the current approach to develop new treatments/drugs that requires billions and years or even decades of tests is not fast enough for many people"

It takes years of testing because the risk if health or death is too great. It's foolish to think that allowing anyone to be a human guinea pig for untested/unfinished treatments will result in any less deaths or suffering from a terminal illness.

"You set up a strawman and destroy it without answering any of my questions; this seems like arguing in bad faith."

I gave you a scenario that is very possible without some sort of regulations. We have regulations in place because experimental drugs can kill people without proper oversight.

China is not known for having a good track record in terms of regulations or caring about the life of a human being. Many people still won't buy baby formula to this day because of the lead scare a few years back.

"I hope you are never stricken with a life-threatening illness that cannot be treated with our artificially limited set of legally available interventions."

You are too emotional to have an actual discussion about this.

I love VSCode. I switched over last year and it's by far the best editor I've used in a long time.

The plugin system is great too.

Let's say I'm a startup with a new idea for a treatment. I don't really have the funding to actually go through the proper testing and I decide to use humans to test my new ideas. All of the patients in my trial die a horrible death (much worse than going through cancer) in the process. In fact, there was no chance it would have ever worked.

Are you okay with these consequences? Regulations are in place for a reason. While I do think we need to loosen some of the regulations in the US, having no regulations, like what is describe in this article, will bring forth companies that have no business selling drug treatments and literally getting away with murder.

What a horrible idea. Clinical trials with no oversight or regulation of patients that may or may not even know the consequences.

"It may seem strange for a bookstore chain to be developing and selling artisanal soup bowls and organic cotton baby onesies. But Indigo’s approach seems not only novel but crucial to its success and longevity"

This is the Amazon model. Start with books and move onto other items. Great for them, but not novel or innovative.

"As unfair as it may have been for out-of-state retailers to avoid the sales tax burden"

This article blames the retailers, but they are just going to be a pass through. The consumer will be paying more.

Taxes imply I'm getting services from the government. If I'm a retailer with a warehouse in Ohio, what service is the government of California paying for? This sounds like a money grab to me.

It also requires small retailers to know the tax code of any state that requires this, which is ridiculous.

I think it's a great idea. But, it's pretty obvious from the people testing it out that it has some major flaws.

If it's such a great way to make money, why did you stop?

These sorts of articles seem to be primers for a socialist government and a scary reminder that there is no utopian fantasy.

So the answer to a crumbling system (because this is what happens with most socialist systems) is that we kick out the old people? really?

Exactly. It will become very difficult to get away with murder in the future because they can now link familial DNA.

Good luck. China owns Hong Kong. Since the mainland gets to decide who runs in major elections, there is only an illusion of independence.

You can replace 'gig economy' with 'contractor'. The idea of contracting has been around for many years before Uber and Lyft and is different than the worker rights you get when you are a full-time employee.

I also don't see it replacing anything. Every company isn't going the gig route. It's just not practical.

"They were not employees and so had no health insurance, workers’ compensation protections, employer contributions to Social Security and payroll taxes, paid time off, family leave protections, discrimination protections, or unemployment insurance benefits"

This was never part of the deal. I don't get any of this selling my items on Ebay either.

"Sometimes, this gig work also requires an initial outlay of capital. (My own neighbor just traded in her old vehicle for a new car, taking on thousands of dollars in debt so that she can make extra money driving for Lyft."

So no actual research before diving in and buying a new car? Not a smart move and not Lyft's problem.

"Platform algorithms are designed to downgrade those who aren’t always available, making it ever-harder to pick up gigs"

As a Lyft customer, would it make sense to have someone pick me up that may not even be there? That would be a horrible customer experience.

"Uber, for example, offers email communications to drivers, a service that is not nearly as responsive as the taxi cab dispatcher, say"

Was this article written by the Taxicab unions? You can regulate and force companies like Lyft to make all of the drivers employees, pay them a good wage, and give them benefits. But, this will cut the workforce significantly because the bar will be much higher to become a driver. Many of the people driving now will be out of work.

“The disruption offered by the sharing economy is simply a hustle.”

It really depends on your goals. The gig economy allows more people to make less money. Just like any market, there will be a small percentage making the most money, some in the middle, and some making a small amount.

Do you think the workers now would rather make a little bit of money or none? Assuming every current worker will just be converted to a full time employee with benefits is not realistic.

Remote work is also a good option if you want to work on a side business/other project. At minimum, you save your commute time, which can be used for so many other things.

"expected to work lots of unpaid overtime"

A great thing about contracting is that you are paid for every hour you work. It has more risks (less stability than a full-time job), but it definitely can give you a better life balance, if you want it.

Companies are also less likely to give you overtime if they need to pay for it. Most of the time, I have to get overtime approved.

It really depends on your goals. Working for FAANG is good for some developers, because they want the prestige, you can make really good money, and you get to work on some really cool software. I don't care about any of that. I just want to make a living while I'm working on my next business.

The business is my goal.

"What I want is a remote dev job where I close tickets. That is, one where the gig really is cash for functioning solution that meets spec, code standards, and QA. My ideal world would be where I log in somewhere, pull a respectably specified ticket with clear acceptance criteria, and then pull request myself to at least a modest quality of life. Does anyone know of any remote work where the hassle is just engineering related? I will specify that I am not interested in simply transitioning the interpersonal bullshit to a Skype-based model, so team-intensive remote work won't suit this requirement. My greatest thanks for any insightful thoughts or resources you guys can provide."

I have been contracting for the last 10 years and I have a contract like this now. It's great, I've been completing tons of work for the company, but it's not the norm.

I report directly to the CTO of the company and talk to him almost daily. I have no daily standups and almost no meetings. Everything is as needed. IE: If we need to meet with someone in the company. we schedule a short meeting. Everything else is through our main ticketing system.

"pull a respectably specified ticket with clear acceptance criteria, and then pull request myself to at least a modest quality of life"

If you want a better quality of life, choose companies that don't rely on software as their main source of income and have been in business at least 5 years. I usually only choose companies that utilize software, but the main product is not the software itself.

My motive is that I have side businesses that I also run during the day.

Consulting companies are probably the worst in terms of work/life balance. I worked for a consulting company that had hundreds of clients and multiple projects all going on at the same time. The pressure was crazy.

They originally hired me to get a project done in 3 months (down from the original estimate of 1 year). When I started working on it, they told me I had 7 weeks and pushed me every day until it was done. Luckily, I was able to figure out some better ways of completing the required tasks and got it done in time.

As far as pull a "respectably specified ticket" goes, this might be difficult. Most of the time, people don't know exactly what they want and part of your job (unless it's a very large company with a layer in between you) is to decode someone's request and translate it to software. It will almost never be as easy as seeing a ticket with perfect requirements.

But it really does sound like you should be contracting. You won't need to be part of any gatherings or useless meetings, because a company is paying you hourly.

Most people, in general, really don't care about privacy. If they did, I wouldn't see many people willingly share photos of their kids, the party they had two days ago, or the opinion of their asshole boss.

I also find it hypocritical that we are cracking down on privacy now due to Trump's usage of a company that was able to get user data by breaking Facebook's ToS.

Obama did the exact same thing during his campaign and I saw article after article (especially in the tech community) about how this was the future of campaigning and he was some kind of tech genius.

There were no fines for Facebook and Obama got praised and not vilified for doing the same thing. When I see double-standards like this, it really makes me think that it's some sort of political weapon as opposed to actually giving a shit about privacy or the well-being of Facebook's users.