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Voluntary exchange is not a moral system. A free market doesn't have morals.
My prediction: "The version number finally equals Pi. No more changes to the software are possible, because it's now perfect."
The tl;dr version: Large consulting companies often tell their clients what they want to hear, which more or less negates the point of consultants but can often pay better. There are ethical concerns here. I like the story, but the article itself has way too many metaphors that cloud the point. Or maybe I'm just too used to having all my stories condensed into 140 characters...
There was another important point: a guy new to the consulting business and with no significant amount of relevant training or support wound up being marketed as an expert and became the senior person on each project he joined. I've seen this in action, both from the client side (management brought in absurdly highly paid consultants to back up what they wanted when their own people wouldn't support it) and the other…
Something that leaped out at me: "I believe that voluntary exchange is not just a good method of incentivizing people to provide their labor and talents to society, but a robust moral system". Voluntary exchange is not a moral system. A free market doesn't have morals.
I wonder how many children get sent to college by dads like that.
Something that leaped out at me: "I believe that voluntary exchange is not just a good method of incentivizing people to provide their labor and talents to society, but a robust moral system". Voluntary exchange is not a moral system. A free market doesn't have morals.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Theory_of_Moral_Sentiments
in 1759, pondering the issue of why people behave morally when they could simply guard their own self-interest. As Smith pondered the issue more, he wrote An Inquiry into the Nature and Causes of the Wealth of Nations
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Wealth_of_Nations
in which he discussed how free-market trade provides incentives to moral behavior. EVERYONE who is well educated should recognize this quotation:
"But man has almost constant occasion for the help of his brethren, and it is in vain for him to expect it from their benevolence only. He will be more likely to prevail if he can interest their self-love in his favour, and shew them that it is for their own advantage to do for him what he requires of them. Whoever offers to another a bargain of any kind, proposes to do this. Give me that which I want, and you shall have this which you want, is the meaning of every such offer; and it is in this manner that we obtain from one another the far greater part of those good offices which we stand in need of. It is not from the benevolence of the butcher the brewer, or the baker that we expect our dinner, but from their regard to their own interest. We address ourselves, not to their humanity, but to their self-love, and never talk to them of our own necessities, but of their advantages."
In other words, society can be structured so that people will help you or other people who need help while looking out for number 1.
Hayek
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Friedrich_von_Hayek
is good author on contrasting economic systems, showing how they can be actively immoral.
Isn't the headline offer he's talking about, which he goes into at the end, really just a very standard clause in a layoff agreement?
No, it really isn't. Not at any of the small businesses I ever worked for, where the guys at the top probably decide these things themselves. Not at a very, very large business I worked for, where the guys at the top probably didn't know the name of anyone in my building and everything was done by HR and Legal automatons. And not at any medium sized businesses I have ever worked for, either. The only time an agreemen…
Bottom line, I think it's much more likely that he's misinterpreted the document than that they're trying to silence him.
What are they afraid of, that he'll reveal big consultancies tell clients what they want to hear? That's not really a news flash, is it?
I couldn’t sleep at night. I’d fill up a bathtub and scream into it. Eh, what? Do (normal) people do this? Is it because it absorbs the sounds or something?
Maybe he meant that he got into the bathtub and then screamed underwater?
Maybe he needed to scream out loud to bring a bit of relief to his abused up moral.