While money weren't useless, being close to right people was absolutely necessary prerequisite. Also, one couldn't earn enough money simply by good engineering anyway. So the arguments stands.
It's not the point. They lived better than others because of their loyalty (or sometimes, simply proximity) to "dear leaders", not because of their outstanding skills.
>And you're building a strawman with GDPR supporters, I don't think anybody said that nobody would ever try to abuse it.
I don't think the accusation is fair. All discussions I saw here about GDPR contained the line where opponents were raising the issues of trust to authorities, and supporters dismissing them.
>And yet we regulate swear words and nude imagery on broadcast television
Maybe the reasonable answer is that you shouldn't, especially in the face of rapidly changing technology, which nowadays gives us huge choice of what to look at. The example of outdated censorship doesn't make a valid argument for more restrictions.
because the US is better at marketing an idealized (and false) version of its culture to the world than other countries
Of course, not. US became a top destination in a very simple fashion which doesn't involve neither culture, no marketing: your cousin/friend goes to US, and writes back that there are jobs, and food/clothing is relatively cheap, and you think "aha!", and you are the next. And at some moment the whole community comes to the same realization, and now parents prepare their kids for emigration for better life. And it works even in countries where governments are very hostile to Americans, and promote the idea that US is the capitalist hell :-)
It's still an absolutely monocultural view. Indeed, in anglophone cultures "professional" = more formal, and restrained. In many other places it works like that: professional community means reduced social distance means LESS strict mode of communication, then you would use with people at a bus stop. Personally, I think in some cases it really makes sense to accept a compromise set of rules when communicating internationally, but they must be flexible, dynamic, as much informal as possible, not punishing, and not hindering efficiency. And swearing Linus could be quite within such a compromise. Btw, no formal CoC I ever read represent a compromise, and all efforts to enforce industry-wide CoC is obviously goes against the very idea of compromise.
It's easier than you think. Probably in all cultures there's an implicit quotient of seriousness applied to angry words (from 1 - "Literal meaning" to 0 - "Absolutely doesn't mean it"), depending on context. In many cultures it quickly decreases as social distance between participants of communication gets shorter. E.g. I wouldn't call a random guy "fucking moron", but I can do it within my circle of friends, and nobody would be offended. In many cultures working within a team means entering much closer relations then Corporate Standard (tm) presumes, and here's more: professional communities considered to be a sort of brother/sisterhoods with reduced social distance within. Do you see the point now?
I can relate to this, although for me it feels rather comical than offensive:
I find the phrase "I am
excited" used in almost every business announcement to be offensive, because it is not genuine, nor does it indicate what type of excitement is being felt - excitement merely means an elevated state of emotions, could be good, could be bad
Did you really read the text to the end? "Verbal assault" doesn't have a universal meaning, politeness is VERY culture-dependent, and in modern IT everybody is forced to accept US corporate standard which I'm not even sure is universal for the majority of Americans, and often perceived as grossly insincere, and restrictive to the point it's practically abusive by people raised in other cultures.
I agree, we can probably reduce tensions in society by some redistribution. But there's an important point to which too many people are blind: you cannot do it without limits. As more and more of the bone is taken away for "sharing", tensions start to grow again just from other side. And economic motivation is more, and more distorted leaving less bones for all.
Having no ability to read your mind, I cannot tell of you are trying to invent an alternative meaning of my comment to beat a strawman, or you are really a great poet.
In most countries where it exists "social housing" is a synonym of "depressive, unsafe space, continuously destroyed by its inhabitants". Probably, this approach solves some problems, but creates new ones at the same time.
Whole "West" is full of cultural differences, despite the internet is not broken. Actually, there are more well-preserved cultural differences between TN, and NY in States than between most places in Russia (except maybe Tuva, and other poorly connected regions in Siberia, and Arctic) due to centralist, paternalist, and chauvinistic policies of Moscow internet haters.
That's how democracy works everywhere. Majority within voting part of society decides who will rule, and it's ok because non-voting part doesn't care. Also, every election is a fair of promises. This gov't at least partially fulfilled theirs, no wonder their voting base is the largest.
This is weird statement. Majority doesn't care too much about political ideologies in Poland as in any other country. Meanwhile the ruling party still gets more voters than any other.
Those buildings are literally falling apart, no wonder "regular people" can afford to live there. You seem not to realize that your romantic feelings towards this backwardness is only possible because you come there as a rich (compared to locals) tourist, not as restricted in your rights as they are.
It's not true. Socialism can go well (and is going well) with many sorts of other *isms, simply by re-definition, or making compromises for "greater good". Soviet Union had some semi-hidden policies which broke its own pledges, but it also had a lot of official manifestations, which apparently weren't seen as uncomfortable. E.g. Soviet anthem mentioned "great Russia" in the first stanza. Official Kremlin guard was selected on a combination of ideological, and racial features. And, believe me, I can continue with this for a long time.
German monarchy yielded a lot to socialist demands to avoid revolution. This concessions, of course, made German Empire more socialist country then many people believe.
It's oversimplification. Socialists and communists also struggled with each other. Communists actually labelled social-democrats as "fascists" for some time. Nevertheless, they have a lot in common (used to have even more in those times) - I don't think someone could argue with that. With communists/socialists national socialists shared their contempt to "outdated society", capitalist democracy ("plutocracy"), and they competed for attention of poor, and disappointed, and all embraced strict regulations. It's really depends on what you see as a core part of socialism, but similarities are plenty, both in goals and methods. That's why, for example, Zhelyu Zhelev's historical research on fascism was prohibited across all socialist countries as it was too easy to see parallels.