This is practically impossible, however. The entire population of the Netherlands is only about twice the size of the entire US tech sector. That would mean dedicating half the population of the Netherlands to tech work to compete with the US. The reason why China and India are competetive is because those countries have similarly sized tech sectors as the US. A single European country cannot compete with the behemot…
That's why the Netherlands is in the EU, and the EU has a Sovereign Tech Fund for helping fund and organize the development of (mostly FOSS) non-US reliant technologies.
If you're talking about the STF that I'm thinking of, that's purely a German project.
Maybe it's a blessing in disguise, yes. But I wrote up here [0] about how sad this makes me feel. We've squandered a huge opportunity this past 20 years by allowing BigTech to emerge and basically destroy the good political agenda of the original (D)ARPA project. Sure it was hegemonic. Sure we screwed up with things like "Arab Spring". But I cannot stop feeling the Internet was the greatest tool of democracy and libe…
My personal perspective is that our (technology evangelists) mistake was constantly lowering the barrier to entry under the guise of removing "gatekeeping" abilities of entrenched players. This idea that technology would be this great equalizer, lifting everyone up together and spreading free access to information to everyone would somehow solve so many of our ills. The reality is that most people do not care enough…
How I see it digital literacy 1.0 was crude stimulus and not at all
disguised, to get globally competitive in the new microprocessor wave,
and in the late 70s and early 80s Japan, and to a lesser extent USA
were players at the time. BASIC for school kids was like cod liver oil
in the workhouse gruel. It made us strong. The "equaliser" worked out
well for the few, ones like me, maybe you. Digital literacy 2.0 is a
different project. It's to enable those two generations removed, who
natural tech users facing de-stimulus and social warehousing, what
that tech is really for and who really controls it. Keep at it.
Thanks for the effort, I appreciate it, but neither of those are actually calling for anyone to be guillotined. The first is a prediction of what could happen long in the future if certain behaviours continue to worsen and the latter is asking why guillotines aren't valid solutions. Both seem to have been delivered with tongues in cheek.
Have there been any comments suggesting CEOs "should be" guillotined as you claimed above?
This is practically impossible, however. The entire population of the Netherlands is only about twice the size of the entire US tech sector. That would mean dedicating half the population of the Netherlands to tech work to compete with the US. The reason why China and India are competetive is because those countries have similarly sized tech sectors as the US. A single European country cannot compete with the behemot…
Thanks for the effort, I appreciate it, but neither of those are actually calling for anyone to be guillotined. The first is a prediction of what could happen long in the future if certain behaviours continue to worsen and the latter is asking why guillotines aren't valid solutions. Both seem to have been delivered with tongues in cheek. Have there been any comments suggesting CEOs "should be" guillotined as you clai…
> Oh, it’s possible in Germany Of course. How do I fire an employee? That's right, I don't. Otherwise sure it's possible.
If you have a reason, just terminate the contract? That's how it works in pretty much all of the EU.
It’s not so easy in Germany when the company has 10+ employees. You need a process consisting of warnings, giving time to correct the behaviour and what not. There are cases where people who have been terminated for sexual misconduct or stealing have been ordered by the court to return to work.
Thanks for the effort, I appreciate it, but neither of those are actually calling for anyone to be guillotined. The first is a prediction of what could happen long in the future if certain behaviours continue to worsen and the latter is asking why guillotines aren't valid solutions. Both seem to have been delivered with tongues in cheek. Have there been any comments suggesting CEOs "should be" guillotined as you clai…
> Have there been any comments suggesting CEOs "should be" guillotined as you claimed above?
Fundamentally this is not a question of whether or not I can pull up specific comments that meet your interpretation of my original comment, it’s a question of whether or not Hacker News is permissive of narratives contrary to the interests of Bay Area technology executives. Here’s a few comments (some of them qualified: “I would never advocate for violence BUT…”) celebrating the murder of the United Healthcare CEO:
The moderation of this forum is incredibly permissive; the people who feel they are being censored are more often than not just getting flagged by the community for posting off-topic political rants that were never permitted here to begin with.
Oh, you can. You just need to provide a valid reason, that's all. Firing someone because they are stealing from the company, harassing a coworker, consistently underperforming, or because you're shutting down a business unit? Easy! Firing someone because it's a Tuesday, or because they got pregnant? Sorry, can't do that.
Collecting data in order to come up with a valid reason is prohibited. Like, impossible to fire a programmer if he only does a bare minimum and simply is not productive.
Unless you have a valid suspicion. However, you have to tell the employee he is under observation.