OOh I have a great connect for VFX if you need a sound engineer
836 karma · joined April 29, 2021
If you will not pay "women" to take care of "their children" rather than, say..."the future of society" or "our children" then women will not have a child.
And that is exactly what you're seeing happen. Women worked in all times. Every single time period you can think of. Population is dropping because
a/ we have rights as women and are outstripping men on every measurable term within just a couple generations of access
b/men are not stepping up to create something more equitable
Men have been offered the chance to step up and change the current (and yes its current, not a "natural state" of affairs) dynamic.
The idea that you're striking on is defining my life for me and quite frankly, with your benefit in first position.
That's not going to work.
According to a quick google and the census: || Approximately 3 in 4 Americans (or about 86%) live in a metropolitan statistical area (MSA), with the percentage of the U.S. population in these areas reaching an all-time high. As of 2024, nearly 294 million people—or about 86% of the total population—resided in a metro area, a trend that continues to grow.
If we think the wage differential will keep up in less populated areas, that is no longer occurring either. We do not live in a perfect capitalist system and many trades, activities and services are given benefits and protections for a variety of reasons.
There are other places - outside of the US - that have provided this tax credit. Its not shameful to learn from other countries and adopt things that are going well and are beneficial both to the freedom of people and the economy.
The thing is, its hard to have a product thats important to you and does cool things but also you don't rely on for anything crucial. Esp when its file storage.
1/ You haven't mentioned how that SAHM must get a cooking credit, healthcare, retirement or house management credit or anything else in the litany of jobs required outside of immediate childcare and costs incurred by simply existing as a woman. Just a voucher for the hours, I assume, at which childcare would be open and none of the other hours
2/ A SAHP (thats stay at home parent) should be incentivized by raising wages and allowing life to be more affordable but your argument seems to be very focused on "moms" and "capitalist enterprises" and does not consider the reality that when SAHMs were more economically viable, it was not viable for all families.
Are men "leaving their children and working all day"? Should we not pay them to stay home?
This view is either fully gendered or assumes that all families are made up of two people and one person's wages should support a family. Neither are the conversation on this table.
The conversation on this table is: Our current economy, in nearly every state and for every metro requires more than minimum wage to rent not own, an apt and live, not save for the future. Childcare has gone up 30% in the last few years alone and wages, as you have likely experienced, have not.
We cannot continue to expect people with choices to have children given this economic situation.
Trust me. You want people to continue having children, and you'd prefer them to be positive additions to society, for your own well-being in old age.
The trains are new. The wires etc they run on aren't. When there's funding to update those, the trains will run faster.
If this was done in the opposite way, we likely would still be working on infrastructure (it's a bigger project) and the trains would still not run faster cuz they would be old.
We need to hold the fourth estate to better account.
Software devs jobs getting less cushy is no biggie. We can afford to amp up the efficiency. Teachers jobs got "less cushy" -> not great for users/consumers or the ppl in those jobs. Doctors jobs got "less cushy" -> not great for users/consumers or the ppl in those jobs. Even waiters/ check-out staff, stockists jobs at restaurants, groceries and AMZ got "less cushy" -> not great for users/consumers or the ppl in those jobs. at least not when you need to call someone for help.
These things are not as disconnected as they seem. Businesses are in fact made up of people.
The amount of hierarchy and peer review is extensive and apprenticeship was core to my experience in multiple consultancies. One might say post-covid, in a pro-hybrid world, this has been hard. Still, as a new hire couldn't introduce myself to a group of clients without sharing my intro with the associate partner first and getting notes on my literal 3 sentence bio and then feedback afterwards. Every deck I've ever presented has been through multiple hands above and below me in the hierarchy. That 22 year old usually if not always has had a discussion, notes, notes reviewed, questions listed that need answers etc.
Seems wordy.
I'm not sure this is true. PE driven markets currently seem to cater to the break point. What is the absolute most I can charge until someone will walk away? If I break it into a subscription, or into pieces will I be able to charge even more than that break point because the buyer has not or cannot easily do the math? Maybe offer financing and take a cut there as well.
I am not making a moral argument, but it is far more sophisticated than "those who can afford it" and so, this is then not really about affording it, rather its about restructuring what the category should cost socially speaking and pushing that even further. This is happening in a large number of sectors at the same time.
I think, definitely. I also think there are several knock-on effects that might take the better part of a generation, if not two, to adjust.
Yes - given a small number of rights that frankly we should have always had - women have found all kinds of representation in education, salaries and diverse paths in life. Paths not previously open to us and pursued at tremendously high cost.
But population decline frankly is occurring because society is uninterested in changing its relationship with child bearing and child rearing. Men have limited interested in stepping up, women are doing work at home, work at work, work in society. Corporations have less interested in flexibility where women are near continuously penalized or held back. Even in a "progressive" presidency there were more CEOs named John than women CEOs. There's disinterest even when the next generation of workers is on the line and the government...well they are actively moving to unwind the rights we've won.
In consulting you tend to encounter this a lot given that its the largest visible symptom of a lot of root problems such as: 1/ no owner 2/ unaligned priorities 3/ a lot of fear or lack of ownership mentality
Generally I push for an agenda and an owner of each topic (or all topics) and a recap, preferably in a transparent location like confluence. Given all the synthesis tools in the market, synthesis has gotten easier.
I also generally push to have leadership realize how costly each meeting is and encourage people to excuse themselves from meetings if they are not: owners, influencers, stakeholders.
There are certainly conveniences - world changing improvements - but I dont think the majority ever defined or was asked what they were willing to trade. I dont think EULAs and buried opt-outs or binding arbitration across a product portfolio was what they had in mind.
Learning how to use a screwdriver helps even when the electric is out, the internet is offline, etc. etc. Learning cursive may not be as immediately helpful but we have all come to accept that developing more neural pathways is important and "smooth brain" is bad
The most important part, the part that not enough people are talking about is
"The price of my (blue) milk went up. They blamed it on inflation, on innovations they've made in bottlecap technology. The blue milk now comes in a very fancy new (and very blue) package. But I knew the truth. The company that made blue food coloring had made it almost completely flavorless, and once all the food distributors got used to including it, the price had skyrocketed."
Yes, I can get chicago, new york, italian, or tokyo style pizza from my phone, in about an hour in a city that is none of those places. Still even my weekends include work. A strong effort in high school, college, grad school and at my jobs has led to fairly regular weekend work and working after putting the LOs down for bedtime, not connecting or socializing.
The answer isn't fewer rights. Its more.
Cost of goods is lower, overhead is lower in software than in all the items you mentioned and VCs starve out other players by reducing their costs, capturing the market and increasing cost once captured.
The skills that leave: arguments, analysis, language, creativity often seem abstract and primarily if not exclusively sourced in our minds
Cramming schemes
TMobile - 2014 The FTC sued Tmobile alleging it knowingly kept 30–40% of fraudulent charges Tmobile settled for $90 million: at least $67.5M refunded to consumers, $18M to states/AGs, and $4.5M to the FCC
AT&T: $105 million for unauthorized premium SMS billing
Dodd‑Frank’s Durbin Amendment (2010): Congress required the Federal Reserve to cap debit‑card swipe (interchange) fees—typically a few cents—forcing banks to drop excessive micropayments to retailers. Because previously they were. And it was resulting in millions
State Attorneys General vs. Marriott (2021–2022) Hidden “resort fees” tacked onto hotel bills—$10–$35 per night. The Pennsylvania AG and coalition sued; Marriott settled and began disclosing mandatory fees upfront
Walmart: $45 million settlement no admission of guilt, but Walmart agreed to compensate shoppers who bought specified items from October 19, 2018, to January 19, 2024 for a max of $500 even though they knew they were overcharging customers
WholeFoods had a similar case, purposefully misweighing items
The list goes on and on.
The question on the table is: why pursue $3 for not getting the thing you ordered. Is it fair? Does it matter?
Based on continuous corporate fraud, I would say not calling it out will make it worse.