281–290 of 394 posts
Earlier quoted context omitted.
I guess I have the advantage of starting out with close to a decade of low wages doing something that I enjoy ;)... I'm definitely attracted to billboard tech wages -- but I really could get by pretty comfortably with half were I building something I had faith in.
The premise that NGOs need tech more than they need money is shaky at best.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Yes, evil capitalism. You know, don't want to think you actually think that. Perhaps you meant, "fight the negative outcomes sometimes found in capitalist societies."
Honestly the idea that capitalism itself systematically causes inequality is not a crazy thing to believe. You obviously don't agree and that's fine, but it's not the case that every smart person believes the "negative outcomes found in capitalist societies" can be resolved without a fundamental change in the underlying system.
Inequality causes capitalism. Liberty allows inequality. Those "negative outcomes" come from inequality, not capitalism. Fighting capitalism is a workaround. It's an appealing workaround because the "underlying system" is centralized, and inequality is not.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Agree that he's done a ton of good with his charitable giving, but point is that he bettered humanity (probably even more than his charity) even before that with Windows (giving the masses an easier way to interact with computers, allowing individuals and companies to create other valuable things in turn), the whole software not hardware paradigm (led to rapid development in terms of the type of programs and function…
Disagree strongly. By killing Netscape he set back the computer industry by a decade or more. If Gates hadn't used anti-competitive tactics, and he had just accepted, say, a 60% share for Windows, we would have reached where we are much quicker. We benefit immensely from the presence today of multiple strong operating systems, Windows, Android, iOS, MacOS, Linux, and Chrome are all great offerings that force the othe…
2. I'm sure Microsoft's competitive tactics had something to do with it, but it also sounds like Netscape had it's own problems: https://www.quora.com/Why-did-Netscape-lose-ground-to-IE
I have posted this before, countless times, but techies who want to volunteer their skills and knowledge to advance the democratic process should think about joining the PROGRESSIVE CODERS NETWORK[0]. They are a non-profit that helps organize and direct volunteer coders, programmers, designers into open-source political projects. They are about connecting and facilitating projects, not dictating what projects should…
Party neutral? They list MoveOn as a key partner: https://github.com/ProgressiveCoders/functions/issues/196 This document clearly states the organisation is founded by Berine Sanders supporters: https://docs.google.com/document/d/1P8iL3kTWO0Y9aYe8lndcUWTJ... And they built something called the "Resistance Calendar", containing events like: https://tockify.com/resistance.calendar/detail/384/149523120... I mean for the…
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Because long experience tells me that it is inherently hard to see and measure the disasters you prevented. This makes it incredibly hard to feel like you are accomplishing anything and harder still to convince other people you are actually adding value. Y2K was supposed to be a global meltdown. There were people who prepped for that like a coming apocalypse. It was prevented and many people remember it as "Ha! Can y…
Sorry to hear about your experience, but you make a very salient point and I also agree that you made an enlightened (if hard earned) decision regarding the best thing you could do for your children. In my experience there are thousands of people doing the hard work day in and day out, quietly holding the line. It's a constant effort and constant tension, but for those who won't settle for anything less than revoluti…
I also have a serious medical condition and have gotten off all drugs. I am routinely told I am crazy, making that up, it is a tall tale, my success is because my condition is mild, it is wild coincidence...etc etc...and I cannot possibly actually know anything useful. People who don't think I am straight up crazy and have acted on my suggestions have said things to me like "I fed my child like you suggested and they are in the ER less, but they aren't taking fewer drugs." What they mean is the child still needs the same maintenance drugs. They completely miss the fact that fewer ER visits means fewer antibiotics and other drugs, thus fewer ER visits means their child is taking fewer drugs.
Even people who have it clear in their mind that A prevented B have difficulty measuring the things that have not happened. They still mentally minimize the value of the accomplishment. It takes real and significant effort to try to quantify in a meaningful way that "We prevented X amount of catastrophe with our work." It is much easier to see lives saved by an ambulance than lives saved by the local gym or the local organic grocer.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
I couldn't disagree more. There's a lot of jobs that add little to no value. In a fictional efficient market economy that conforms to neoclassical assumptions, sure, every job is value adding. But does anyone believe that that is the world we live in? It's comforting to think that just going to work and doing your job is actually contributing to something, but I just don't see how that can be generally true and defin…
"It's comforting to think that just going to work and doing your job is actually contributing to something, but I just don't see how that can be generally true..." I can't imagine how it would NOT be true. Say you buy something from the store. Presumably you're getting more value from it than it costs, if you weren't, you wouldn't buy it. Same with a company. If an employee provides more value than their salary, it m…
On the second point: this could happen a variety of way. For example, shareholder value is destroyed when there are positive returns, but those returns are worse than what could be realized from equivalently risky positions. Another way of thinking about this is that the return on capital is less than the cost of capital, resulting in a net negative return. Another way this could happen is if shareholder returns follow a power law where only a handful of companies (e.g. Amazon) create outsized positive risk-adjusted returns whereas most companies generate negative returns or positive returns at an unnecessarily high risk level.
So, yeah, just because someone pays you doesn't imply you're actually doing something worthwhile.
This is kind of personal for me because I spent way too many years under the mistaken belief that just because I was getting paid I was doing something worthwhile. I would hope others avoid the mistake I made.
Although it sounds like they are working on some important issues, I'm not sure I'd want to work for an organization who posts racially targeted messages -- which presumably they think are ok with some races filled into the blanks, but not others. https://twitter.com/JazmynLatimer/status/864585574581059584 It seems like non-racist messaging would be a better approach!
A little history-and-context-free, are we? First, this is the text of the tweet in question: "Any black or brown engineers wanna work at Code for America on criminal justice? Come code to keep people out of jail, it's worth it." Your assumption that the poster is not OK with non black/brown engineers is an assumption. I'd add, your comment is context-free and somewhat disingenuous, considering that we live in a socie…
Who follows you on Twitter? Do you have a big black/brown following there, or is it mostly white people? If it's mostly white people then you should just accept that's a white marketing channel, and don't go trying to find black folks there.
Now ask yourself: what parts of the Code For America community are substantially black? Do you have teams that have better representation? Do you do events that have better representation? You can reach out there, without even mentioning race, and get a higher probability of black applicants. Just send an email "We're hiring programmers of all experience levels! Please forward this to friends/post on Facebook/etc!" You'll get some good white applicants in there too! Great! Hire them! But hopefully it's a better racial mix than whatever you're getting with your existing marketing channels.
If you're a pretty white organization, you might have to look further. Look at your city. Where do black folks congregate? Where do latin american folks congregate? Go to those places, and again, just do regular marketing. Not "Any brown folks want to work for us on prison stuff?" but "Anyone want to work with us on the wide array of activities we do?"
Maybe they don't even care about prison reform. Frankly, that is a little racist. Lots of black people don't. Maybe they like your mission, they care about voter turnout or something, but they're happy to apply for a job in the accounting department.
Now you've got 1 more person of color on your team, that will make all of your future job marketing activities work better.
Please be careful here, affirmative action is not a straightforward concept, and it's easy to alienate both white people AND people of color. There's a right way to do it and many very wrong ways to do it.
Feel free to email me if you need someone to bounce ideas off of.
Although it sounds like they are working on some important issues, I'm not sure I'd want to work for an organization who posts racially targeted messages -- which presumably they think are ok with some races filled into the blanks, but not others. https://twitter.com/JazmynLatimer/status/864585574581059584 It seems like non-racist messaging would be a better approach!
https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html
We detached this flagged subthread from https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=14376783.
Have you noticed the word "encyclopedia" at the end of the sentence? Now try to imagine Samuel L. Jackson screaming "English, m *? Do you speak it?".