Earlier quoted context omitted.
Nit picked, I suppose. Regardless of the word I used (maybe it's my mistake), my overall point does not change that tech unions will depress wages for high earners.
> Nit picked, I suppose. It's not a nitpick. There are some industries and jobs where employees truly are fungible. There's never going to be a security guard or Starbucks barista or janitor who does such an amazing job that they're able to negotiate significantly higher wages than their peers because of how much value they deliver. "Software developer" is not that kind of job, at least not right now. > my overall po…
United Wizards of the Coast
161–170 of 226 posts
Re: United Wizards of the Coast
#162Earlier quoted context omitted.
The point of a union is not prevent layoffs and role reduction in force. It is to make sure that the company has done its absolute best to find another solution to the problem (that they're trying to solve with layoffs) and ensures that the company is accountable for all their decisions.
This just limits hiring in the first place as we see in European branches of (generally, American) tech companies. And regardless, what solutions can be found by the union?
As for what solutions union provide - I have already explained. They exist to protect workers' interests. They do not exist to solve company's problems. That is the job of the company.
Re: United Wizards of the Coast
#163Earlier quoted context omitted.
There was an era about 10-15 years long where that was true but modern cards often fall back on very loose language that they tighten up with rulings prior or sometimes after release. See the language behind the "Prepared" key word in the newest set for a striking example.
I don't think Prepared is ambiguous at all. It has its meaning defined in the CR (722) and every card that uses it has either a clear trigger condition or the "enters prepared" replacement effect. It's just a new designation and there are plenty of those already, including ones that are 10+ years old (Renowned, Monstrous, Level Up).
I have no idea what rule 722 has to do with prepared.
Re: United Wizards of the Coast
#164Back when Arena was first announced, there was an interesting line in their write-up: https://magic.wizards.com/en/news/feature/everything-you-nee... >We've created an all-new Games Rules Engine (GRE) that uses sophisticated machine learning that can read any card we can dream up for Magic. That means the shackles are off for our industry-leading designers to build and create cards and in-depth gameplay around new me…
I assume the wording in this letter is referring to using LLMs to generate slop as creative assets like images and music.
Re: United Wizards of the Coast
#165Earlier quoted context omitted.
The Arena card engine is based on CLIPS [1] and not modern LLM-based tools. Magic cards are written in a very constrained language (usually called "card templating") that lends itself very well to machine-parseability. [1]: https://www.clipsrules.net/
There was an era about 10-15 years long where that was true but modern cards often fall back on very loose language that they tighten up with rulings prior or sometimes after release. See the language behind the "Prepared" key word in the newest set for a striking example.
Re: United Wizards of the Coast
#166Earlier quoted context omitted.
I think on the contrary somewhat If everyone at a game developer goes on strike, there is basically no amount of outsourcing or scab labour that can replace them. This is actually probably true of basically all software Just refusing to share passwords into key systems would be enough to significantly halt any attempt to bring on an entirely new development team
Yes but what happens? The video game is not maintained or released. Society doesnt care that much. It's not critical and there are millions of alternatives.
I would be a lot less shocked if Hasbro sends in the Pinkertons to do some "persuasion" in the coming weeks and months:
https://www.dicebreaker.com/categories/trading-card-game/new...
Re: United Wizards of the Coast
#167This is a cancer that needs to be addressed as quickly as possible by firing them all. It is a toxic ideologically that should not be allowed to permeate. >Layoff Protections Businesses need the ability to layoff employees when markets change and projects are no longer viable. >Remote Work Protections Data has shown proven benefits of in person time and in a competitive environment such as gaming every advantage matt…
> Layoff Protections Companies often expect employees to give advance notice of termination of employment, but employers do not feel beholden to their employees to reciprocate. This is unreasonable. > Remote Work Protections Many companies showed improved productivity when people were given flexibility. Claims to the contrary are often not backed up by actual data outside of cherry-picked results chosen by those in m…
Companies often expect employees to give advance
notice of termination of employment, but employers
do not feel beholden to their employees to
reciprocate. This is unreasonable.
Workers can leave their jobs with no notice period at all and suffer no legal consequences. The traditional two weeks notice period is a courtesy and not legally required. Meanwhile, employers often have extensive legal limitations on how many workers they can fire at a time (for example, because of the WARN act). It may be impossible to fire some workers (for example, those on disability leave). It's traditional for employers to pay severance to employees that are fired or laid off, and this may sometimes be legally required.Nobody can force a worker to work, but an employer is often forced to employ someone they'd rather not. Maybe sometimes this makes sense, but it's actually the exact opposite of what you're trying to claim.
Many companies showed improved productivity when
people were given flexibility. Claims to the contrary
are often not backed up by actual data outside of
cherry-picked results chosen by those in managerial
positions.
If remove work is so productive, then management should choose remote work without any coercion. If you want more benefits, then just be honest and don't make claims that you know better than management about what is productive. MTG is a creative endeavor, and its output is
protected by copyright. Copyright is, so far
(thankfully), only enforceable when the media
is produced by humans. Protections against the
use of generative AI are not only good for
workers' long-term productivity, but also
for legal purposes
Copyright applies to works that are partially produced by AI and partially produced by humans. Refusing to use the tools that everyone else is using to be more productive is just going to make companies into dinosaurs. I think maybe you should stop licking boots and
start understanding why any of our society works
today at all.
The union is also a corporation, which makes profit for its officers. Maybe you should stop licking its boots? As a hint, every protection you have
ever enjoyed (40-hour work weeks, pensions or retirement
funds, health insurance guarantees, mandatory paid time
off, health and safety regulations, and so on) was paid
for in blood by someone a company decided was not more
important than profit. Unions are a fundamental capability
by workers to ensure their own safety. Shockingly, I think
it more reasonable to rely on the interpretations of those
working in these jobs who want to unionize than some random
person online who thinks "no wait, but think of the poor
endangered company! :("
I'm not a member of any union. The protections I enjoy are because of the law, which applies to everyone, and because of the economic situation. If the economic situation changes, I will be fired no matter what unions or governments do, the same way saddle-makers were after the rise of the automobile.Re: United Wizards of the Coast
#168Earlier quoted context omitted.
This just limits hiring in the first place as we see in European branches of (generally, American) tech companies. And regardless, what solutions can be found by the union?
It does not limit hiring in any way. As for what solutions union provide - I have already explained. They exist to protect workers' interests. They do not exist to solve company's problems. That is the job of the company.
You said "It is to make sure that the company has done its absolute best to find another solution to the problem," and I am asking, what solutions have unions "made sure" that the companies have done instead of layoffs? I am looking for concrete examples as I often hear this claim but I'm not sure what a union can do if the solution is layoffs, so my question is, what other solutions are there?
Re: United Wizards of the Coast
#169Earlier quoted context omitted.
I don't think Prepared is ambiguous at all. It has its meaning defined in the CR (722) and every card that uses it has either a clear trigger condition or the "enters prepared" replacement effect. It's just a new designation and there are plenty of those already, including ones that are 10+ years old (Renowned, Monstrous, Level Up).
Well there was a huge discussion on what it means amongst judges. On plain reading it does not do what it states it does. Start just with the phrase "its spell" - those words are entirely undefined until getting into the rulings, and don't mean what they mean in other contexts. It makes no mention of the prior rules that it sort of hacks into this either. I have no idea what rule 722 has to do with prepared.
Rule 722 is the rule for "Preparation Cards", so I fail to see how it could not be relevant.
The text "its spell" only occur in reminder text, which is not rules text and would not be included in template language.
Re: United Wizards of the Coast
#170Earlier quoted context omitted.
This thread is filled with so many anti-union takes that you have to wonder if they are paid bots. If you assume that most of the crowd that visits this website works in tech or tech-adjacent fields, how can you be against an entity whose main objective is to safeguard and work for your interests over your employers? Unfathomable that people are willing to do so much against their own best interests. Or...they are bo…
I don't think they're bots, since I've seen the sentiment on HN for a long time. Instead, it reminds me of the idea of people seeing themselves as "temporarily embarrassed millionaires". If you see yourself as being part of the capital class in the future and think strong unions hurt the capital class, one might be against them.