Without defining any of what that means, of course.

I think this is one of the core problems of humanity. People are driven mostly by feelings. I guess that works mostly okay on smaller scales or simpler worlds. Feeling like this field is better for grazing than that one is probably pretty harmless, and if your little 2000bce tribe dies out it’s not a global problem. But now we have very complex systems that affect millions of people, and idiots are still going “Well i just feel like shaking things up would be good”

This should surprise no one.

Anyone who thought “doge” was a good or even acceptable idea should not be allowed to participate in politics. Or play with small objects that may be a choking hazard.

A reasonable guess, but i think I (re-)read all of Pratchett as an adult and didn’t come across it

I read a fiction in high school about like the afterlife, and it mentioned the best English playwright wasn’t Shakespeare. It was some nobody who only showed his writing to his neighbor, but the neighbor was an asshole and told him it was trash. Don’t remember anything else about it but that stuck with me.

Sometimes they wear a hat or armband for easy recognition.

I did see a job post for a role that was just reviewing AI code. This is all terrible

Usually people talk about the pre tax cost.

I have a tinfoil hat theory that the taxes are kept like that to give people a recurring, low grade, anti-tax sentiment. There are a lot of crazy idiots that don’t want government to exist here, so by making people feel bad about paying taxes (instead of obscuring that by baking it into the listed price) they can win sympathy.

Social media was always kind of garbage, and the modern algorithmically sorted stuff is worse.

I’d rather just text my friends

Conservatism is entirely about protecting the in group and hurting the out group. That’s it. That’s the whole thing.

Thus, they are bad people. That’s how bad people behave.

When I worked an old job in the office, the game of telephone from the CEO down was so bad. People would get in their head that some things were MUST HAVE, but if I sneakily just asked the CEO directly he’d be like “no that’s not important”. But the designer thought he wanted it so she told the product lead it was important so our team product guy was told this was “straight from the top”.

And issues with communication are made worse when everything is pushed to text where nuance is lost and everything is archived which can be used against you.

There’s some truth to this, but also video chat is commonplace now. That can be recorded too, but so can anything. Some of my coworkers started using Signal for out of band communication even though zoom/slack said they didn’t retain any recordings.

If they can’t work remotely, they should be leveled up. Stop dragging everyone else down.

And again, if you can only communicate in person you’re probably bad at communicating in person, too, without realizing it. I think a lot of CEO types think they’re amazing because they walk into a room and everyone’s like “yeah boss got it that’s great feedback”, and they don’t realize they just said a bunch of garbage and people just agreed because he’s the boss.

It’s not in your job description.

I’ve noticed a lot of job offers say like “Other duties as required”

You are not going to outsmart the corporate lawyers.

The rich have class solidarity.

He would talk about how many people told him they were longing for the day when we could all be on-site again. I have no idea who those people were, because everyone I spoke to thought WFH was fantastic.

My old CEO would pull this bullshit, too. He’d say like “I’ve heard from people that [wild claim]”. The team was like 5 people it’s not like I couldn’t go ask people if they actually said that. I think it’s some sort of asshole-lying mechanism.

I really dislike that a handful of people who can’t get their shit together to communicate over zoom are dragging everyone else (and the environment) down.

I’d also wager that some of those people also communicate badly in person, but at least do communication shaped activities so it gets a pass.

Like at my old job, there’d be long meetings both in person and over zoom where nothing would be accomplished. The problem is not if we’re in the same room or not. It’s that people don’t know what the fuck they’re doing at any level of this task. They don’t understand the system, and they don’t know how to run a meeting. The few times I just seized control and ran it like a D&D session went better. eg: "It’s not your turn. Please wait to speak. That’s an interesting idea but the game we set out to play meeting is about [topic], so we’re going to stay on topic. No, the rules say you can’t do that that’s not an option in a web browser.

That worked fine in person and on zoom. The problem isn’t the medium. The problem is people.

In the US we have like no laws protecting labor. They’ll just tell you to go into the office, or fire you.

I mean that seems like it would be pretty effective.

I feel like the “I have to eat meat every day” people overlap a lot with the “I refuse to wear a mask” people. Are you thinking they’re largely different people?

Code reviews are important. Unfortunately, no-test-text guy convinced his whole team that he was right, and I wasn’t able to block it. I’d scheduled a meeting to try to get the wider org to adopt a more sensible standard, but then there was a mass layoff 🤷

The other guy with the bad messages is at a tiny startup where they’ve laid off almost everyone, and the other 2 guys don’t want to make waves. The CEO is big on “just ship it” (and also “why are there bugs in production? this is unacceptable!!”)

How is Nigel still alive and just walking around? Oh wait, he’s only 61? Fuck he’s going to be shitting in the pool for like 40 more years at this rate.

I think a lot about something I read years ago. It said something like, “Some people love their country the way a child loves a parent. The parent is the smartest and the best and perfect. Some people love their country the way an adult loves a peer. They see the strengths, the potential, but also the weaknesses and problems that need to be addressed.”

Conservatives are generally children. Driven largely by emotion with a very simple moral framework. Much like you will likely struggle to explain to a toddler that taking the other kid’s toys, screaming constantly, and shitting in the sandbox won’t make a lot of friends, explaining politics to a conservative is likely to be an ordeal. They don’t care. They have feelings and that is their reality.

It’s also kind of funny how conservatives are the ones who typically say “reality doesn’t care about your feelings”. Everything is projection.