wslack

And when it is tried, somewhere, the results then add to the momentum. Local dynamics will always be a little chaotic and that's ok.

Legal incentives against better internal communication/coordination create so much inefficiency. The legal system should focus on outcomes more than internal comms.

No other administration has used the "supply chain risk" designation against an American company. This is unprecedented.

By that logic we should expect all governments to regress to totalitarianism, which hasn’t happened, and isn’t what’s happening here.

The question isn’t if some would attempt these behaviors, but rather if we and our democratic structures empower those people or fail to constrain them.

I think aggregators are useful to tell us what actually moved voters in a campaign - the swings are visible even if baseline error is not.

It's free as long as Cash.app wants to maintain it. I'd rather there'd be no incentive to complicate the tax code such that many people need to hire accountants to figure it out.

We know that. The mainstream discussion, use, and personification of LLMs does not suggest that.

Then lawmakers should change the law, instead of a private actor asserting that their need overrides others' rights.

It should do that, because it's still not actually an intelligence. It's a tool that is figuring out what to say in response that sounds intelligent - and will often succeed!

There's an incentive problem here because litigation is so expensive. If the fine is large enough, it becomes more and more worth it for the company to fight it in court - and therefore more expensive to the regulatory agency's legal budget. The only folks who benefit from it going to court are private lawyers.

Whereas, settling meets the company's incentives (eliminating uncertainty), meets the regulator's incentives (bad behavior is stopped locally). The moral hazard created by making fraud seem less risky (because the punishments aren't that bad) is born by the public.

The solution here would be to limit the possible legal shenanigans that companies can use to increase the cost of taking a case to trial.

The author of this is presenting their view and you have hours of content to watch about this if you want to dig into it. One problem is that "lab leak," as Peter says, means a bunch of amalgamated theories. It's hard to discuss this without going through in depth, which is what this debate tried to do.

> is it fine to work on open source projects at Meta, or is it bad because Meta is bad?

I think OP would say its better to work on open source at Meta than closed source at Meta, and we should celebrate someone being paid to write open source. We can also condemn their specific employer while not denigrating their open source compensation.

re your second point, looking at this thread, "what is open source" is taking up a lot of the brainspace.

Representatives have elections to determine how long they can serve; career civil servants have strong protections against firing but the downside is a challenging hiring process that can be very slow.

USDS's willingness to use term hires makes hiring folks in easier, in addition to ensuring that the office doesn't become stagnant.

> we let them post an RFP that basically says do this thing in this amount of time for this amount of money with payment after we get the “thing” in time.

These exist; they are called "firm fixed price" contracts. You still have to write the contract correctly to be outcomes focused, and that can be hard when you don't know until building/testing if you are building the right thing.[1]

1: https://derisking-guide.18f.gov/federal-field-guide/deciding...

Serving at USDS, posting personally. The biggest thing with the gov is the requirements on usajobs are always explained specifically so you know exactly what is needed.

Beyond that, you'll want to show in your resume how you've delivered successfully and ideally in challenging circumstances, because working in the gov can be challenging. It will really vary depending on the job and agency.

The pay cap is set in law, but you need people sufficiently invested in the mission to forgo a higher possible salary, which isn't possible for everyone (especially folks who might have to support their parents).

FWIW both DC and SF top out at 183,500 now.

> the biggest is that you need skilled people in the government who can review bids and oversee work

It's also very isolating to be the "one person" who knows the subject area. Having teams of folks is much more sustainable.

> I do think an overhaul of the civilian service is worth exploring.

There are decades of reports and proposals about this. Unfortunately, we keep learning the same lessons over and over.

Current USDSer here posting personally. I hear this and you aren't alone. It's not a decision specifically about USDS, more about the entire White House staff and federal law.

As someone who does this sort of work (but posting personally, not officially), you're 100% right. There are groups of already-networked folks you can join like USDS or 18F that are already connected to the problems. The post reminds me of some of the stuff you might see in gov, though I've never seen someone save money and be punished like this.

I don't think climate action controls majorities in many countries.

It's the "permanent" bit. Being an asylee or refugee isn't necessarily a permanent status - like if your home country gets out of a civil war or a coup leader ends the coup and goes into exile, you no longer need to fear for your life if you go back.

> If you are a refugee, you are required by law to apply for permanent resident status 1 year after being admitted to the United States in refugee status. If you are an asylee, you are not required to apply for permanent resident status after being granted asylum for 1 year.

Got it - so the scientific community's reaction (trying to replicate) was ok but the initial authors messed up with their pre-print? That's fair.

> the government we have is what the founders warned about and did their best to prevent/delay.

Can you say more about that? They warned against faction but political parties developed pretty quickly and had the harmful effects Hamilton warned against.

Defined here as linked from a study footnote, for things like advocating for violence against civilians: https://transparency.fb.com/policies/community-standards/dan...

Fair. I was one of those consultants (experts in software being implemented by the local team), though, and - specifically with teams that needed more help and interventions - going onsite was hugely valuable. I'm not saying remote is impossible, but I got much more done when I could sit with people 1-on-1 and build relationships/see what they didn't know to show me.

I don't know if that's fair. Consultants were flying "on site" for meetings at expense to clients for decades (for hotels, meals, etc) and the money was worth it, because being in person is, for some people, is more efficient for some forms of collaboration. I feel like we're having battles about the "best" way when they are just different - and the market will show the results.

It's not that she's been given notice many times; its that she's continued to take actions that threaten the health of the community - which have led to those notices.

What do you make of the history of corporate actions that led to unions in the first place?