You don't need to be the best there is, but you need to be proficient in both to be able to evaluate correctly what an expert is telling you and whether it's a fact, a well-funded professional opinion (out of many possible), or just plain BS.
It's not exactly like you don't need to spend every day in court as a lawyer, *and* spend every of your nights debugging as computer programmer. Knowing one discipline well enough to make it your main occupation while having a solid foot in the other is possible, sufficient, and necessary.
In the end, humans are not exactly insects; we *are* able to specialize in more than one thing, you know...
No, it's actually about high time somebody asked this question.
The devil is not not talking about it, but what you make of that information. If the answer is "no", and the commonly agreed upon consequence is that we stop curing, then that's a big problem.
But if the answer is "no", and the consequence is that we need to work towards making medical care a non-profit social enterprise, then that's a totally different pair of shoes.
In any case, whatever the answer and whichever way the debate about the consequences goes, it all begins with the answer.
(If you don't want the debate to make a turn for the most inhumane, then I guess you better be part of it early on instead of getting busy grinding your pitchfork just yet...)
Cool, now how many do we still need before Right becomes Wrong? Do we need to match the full million? Or maybe just about 150k, given that there are only 1/4 bn people in the US, give or take? (Maybe we could throw in a few targeted killings in the middle east, just for good measure? And a few more collateral killings, caused by the non-UN-sanctioned invasion of foreign states, like Iraq?)
How about we keep it at 1?
I'm not talking about 1 accidentally incarcerated person in a random prison, I'm talking about 1 willfully locked up person by a government that knows it shouldn't, because it's wrong by its own standards to do so. Otherwise our western "civilsation" isn't worth much more than the fancy toilet paper we use instead of leaves and sand.
Concerning the wrongfully imprisoned: USA has the highest rate in the world of people in jail, period. Now either China has more *wrongfully* imprisoned people, meaning most people in US prisons deserve to be locked up. This would mean USA produces the highest rate of crooks in the world. Or China and USA have just about the same rate of crooks as everywhere else, in which case USA has more wrongfully imprisoned people.
US has Guantanamo, and a couple of similar smaller camps all around the world (Romania for example). Counting all together, how much do you think we're falling behind that million? (And what if we add the wrongfully imprisoned into private penitentiaries by a broken plea-bargain justice system, are we getting close yet?...)
No?
So, according to the sense-of-proportion argument then, we're safe. Right? It is ok to run around incarcerating people, holding them as modern-age slaves, or torturing them, executing them without judicial oversight, as long as the other guys are doing it to even more people, right?
Not to excuse China here - I dont like what they're doing. But we're not the ones to hold them moral lessons about it, we're doing the same. If the west holds itself to a higher standard, it should actually try to meet that standard, but this is not how you do it.
This was the core of my argument: that China is the same villain as the US, and numbers nitpicking can't disarm that as long as the west is willfully, systematically and knowingly making the same principle mistakes.
China lives by completely different rules. They have no respect for freedom of speech or democracy, quite the opposite, and they don't care if other countries do
You're cherry picking.
There's no intrinsic value in the word "democracy" alone, it's value lies in what it entails: the fact that everyone gets to have their say in important decisions concerning the very fabric of their lives. If democracy is flawed to the point where unless you're rich, you've essentially been tricked out of your right to participate (as is the case for the US for example), then whatever value you had goes out the window.
Don't talk to me about "Freedom of speech" while you have people like Assange bullied and prosecuted for what they said. Taking dirty about government in a pub at the corner isn't that much of an achievement; that's something you can do in Russia or China, too, easily enough. It's when you're actually starting to reach somebody with your talk that you're in trouble - in China, Russia, and USA.
But I'm getting carried away.
More to the point, China tries, and in large parts succeeds better that the West, to not leave people behind to poverty, distress, hunger, cold. This is amazing given the situation they are in (far ovet 1bn people, most of them rural, all about to finally claim their due piece of modern age just about these years). The have different methods, many of those methods do suck. But at least they're succeeding in their goal.
Our methods suck no less, but we're failing big time, even at the easier goal of preserving a modern way of life.
The US has secret courts, gag orders, national security letters, prison camps outside of court's reach, and the largest per-person incarceration rate in the world.
Go on, make my day, tell me more about Hungary. I've been there. Recently.
From a western European perspective, neither is the US.
They've repeatedly attacked Europe economically - there's ample example, like the VW scandal (draconian fees & punishment against management by the US, but investigations are still sparse with respect to US manufacturers) and Monsanto/Bayer (funny how Monsanto's biochemistry suddenly became a problem, but only after they were bought up by a European company). Not to defend these companies, they fully deserve what befalls then; but the unilaterallity with which US authorities deal out punishment against foreign entities, opposed to domestic ones, is striking.
Then there are also a number of unequivocal statements from US administration, Trump for example, regarding "trade war with Europe".
So no, the US are definitely no more allies of Europe than China is.
And beyond ecinomics... well, if you're European, it's not like China is out to burn your home, rape your wife, kill your dog. They're on a different hemisphere for chrissake, there's noting to gain for them from indaving another, regardless of whether that's Europe or US. (FWIW, the only country that has a habit of doing that post-WW2, regularly, is the US.)
If you're the average west European, the only[*] thing China fights for is to sell you more stuff, cheaper than the rest (US or Europe). The only way you could equate this to a direct threat is if you still believe in trickle-down economy. And in that case, you're not only beyond any hope being saved; you also deserve the misery that comes your way.
-- [*] That, and to buy massive amounts of land all over Africa and eastern Europe away from local population. But that's not a problem that's (a) limited to China, (b) attributed to technological or military superiority, and (c) not easily fixable by a simple law of local government authorities, if you can convince your government that it's a problem.
If you're the average American (or European, for that matter), you're living paycheck to paycheck, your perspective of retiring at the end of your useful shelf life (~65, give or take) is practically zero, your children's chance of a useful education is degrading (...if you're European; it's already essentially zero of you're US), and the only perspective your offspring have in their life is to live through & possibly, maybe, try to clean up the mess the big winners of your generation are creating for all of us.
In that case, China is not your primary enemy. Your own government is, together (or better: led by?) those who Have. That's what you should be worrying about primarily.
It's the US that isn't prepared, not "the world". Civilised countries with a mentality not stuck in the early 20th century have retirement programs, medical insurance and a social welfare at least trying to offer a dignified retirement to everybody.
Or at least we try, and in details in which we don't succeed, we recognise that as a problem that's to be fixed.
Like communism, it was invented to ameliorate a desperate situation that existed previously, and like communism, it succeeded in that by having some of its good ideas incorporated into what was there before.
No, that's pretty much average as (dis)functionality goes. Every organisation beyond 3 people will have tendencies towards all kind of evil distractions and unconstructive, personal side-priorities.
The trick is to find a collective, self-correcting state of mind, process etc, to keep them from escalating and degenerating the organisation's core task.
So far you haven't put one single consistent argument into the discussion. All you've done was being an offensive imbecile getting pissed at the fact that I haven't articulated my point precisely to your expected wording. You could have instead pointing out what you believe to have been inconsistencies or inaccuracies, and I could have explained that was referring to the broad idea first and would be happy to flesh in details if asked politely. This could have helped to move forward a constructive discussion. Instead you've used the word "stupid" about an order of magnitude more often than the word "because" or anything to the same effect, and still haven't offered a viable alternative to my ideas.
Since this is the level you choose: you're an idiot and so is your donkey ball sucking mother. Enjoy stupidity with somebody else, my discussion with you is over.
Sunscreen protects you from sunburn, but not entirely from the UV damage
How does it do that?.... Blocking UVB. The blocking of UV is literally the scale for SPF.
I'm gonna leave this quote here form a study published Journal of Clinical Oncology (I don't have the exact paper, just managed to scrap together the quote from a newspaper article which, of course, didn't bother to give a citation):
"The data generated from the study by Green et al is not sufficiently convincing to justify acceptance by the medical community as proof or even reassurance that sunscreen use prevents melanoma. Prevention of overexposure to ultraviolet light should focus instead on avoidance and the use of clothing and broad-brimmed hats to provide protection from the sun. Sunscreen does prevent sunburn. Whether or not the use of sunscreen prevents melanoma remains unknown. The present study, well executed for testing nonmelanoma skin cancer, did not prove that sunscreen use prevents melanoma. Because of the false sense of security engendered by sunscreen use, it may actually increase the risk of melanoma."
This is not news. This kind of knowledge has been around since at least 10-15 years (that's the first time I got in contact with similar warnings). You should be able to google details yourself of you're interested.
Just put on a light shirt
What shirt? How do you chose? Shirts don't magically block UV. It's highly dependent on material, weave, colour, etc...
How about the same way you're selecting your sun cream, by reading the effing label?!...
Or be careful to spend just as much time in the sun as your skin naturally permits without getting burned
From the how to get skincancer 101 guide. This is the dumbest thing that has been suggested in the comments so far, and there have been some very dumb comments especially when browsing at -1.
Ok, so your alternative is to just spend the whole fscking day in the sun? Because hey, this magic cream makes eveything good? Really?!
Well, for starters, suncream doesn't block UV light, your skin does. Suncream just "enhances" the protection. It does so by aiding certain biochemical aspects, but not necessarily all, which form the natural UV barrier of your skin. Those aspects are strengthened nominally by a certain multiplicative factor (that's the F in SPF). But when you spend more time than your un-creamed skin can handle, everything that's not taken care of by the cream is massively overexposed.
That's from the undestanding sun protection 101 guide (and it's not even sarcastic).
Well, then don't buy a typical t-shirt. Buy one with a higher testing, e.g. from merino wool, or a synthetic wet-shirt. Rumor has it they come as highly rated as factor 50.
What's wrong with facial aging? Stop being a vain peacock and wear your age like you own it.
Yes, wearing a hat will leave you exposed to scattered UV light (*not* reflected unless you manage to sit with your face right in the bad angle of a mirroring surface) - about 2 orders of magnitude less intense than direct exposure, give or take.
Your body can manage that.
Unless, of course, you're one of the rare 1 in 10000 cases with a nasty case of allergy, skin pigmentation defect or whatever, in which case, of course, do whatever your doctor tells you. The coral reef will presumably be fine if se manage to reduce the sunblock by a factor of 10000...
It's not the lack of sunscreen that gives you cancer, it's the overdose of UV light.
Sunscreen protects you from sunburn, but not entirely from the UV damage. Just put on a light shirt and avoid direct exposure during midday hours. Also, go with the natural rhythm: your skin is more sensitive in the spring than in late summer, so adapt your timing. If you need to a spend long hours swimming at noon (like me), then put on a rash guard or wet shirt. Your skin has some built-in UV protection, and can even benefit from careful exposure. Just not enough to get you though a full day at the equator (if your white).
Do the experiment yourself: put on sunblock and spend the day in the sun; then wonder why your skin is still warm and itchy in the evening, despite "protection". Or be careful to spend just as much time in the sun as your skin naturally permits without getting burned, and feel the difference in the evening.
+1 IWishIHadModPoints.... your post, of course, will beg for "but then how do we deal with fake news propaganda attacks?", to which the answer is simple: education, explanation, and constant discussion with those who disagree.
Find out why they disagree. That gives clues to their fears and the roots of their stubbornness. Better education in the long term will help them (and us) to understand the value of real arguments.
And once in a while we may find out that they were right and we were wrong... maybe just plain so, out maybe somewhere "deep below" but without being able to put their being-right in the right kind of words. (Intuition and gut feeling often do good jobs at extracting good conclusions from incomplete and partially faulty data, often better than logic.)
There's no shortcut to rooting out stupidity. Having an authority (state or otherwise) tell you what it is certainly isn't an option.
Others worked even more than you and still remained poor.
People tend to attribute success to their own efforts, and failure to "bad circumstance" or everybody else but themselves. But in fact both are wrong, it's both the same: part luck and chance, part hard work, part society and circumstance and everybody else.
So you worked hard *and* got lucky. (As did I.) Great, enjoy, and kudos to you, but that's no reason to be a schmug. Not everyone who's poor is so because they're lazy. Some worked even more than you, some nearly (or fully) killed themselves working, but lacked your luck. So they stayed poor, or worse: became ill, then poor, then remained ill, and will therefore remain poor regardless of what they do.
Be kind. That could have been you. (Or could become you, when your luck runs out.)
"Neurotic" as used in the memo is the opposite of poorly defined. It's one of the Big Five (see Wikipedia), a clearly defined axis in psychological personality analysis.
But you're not the only person to misunderstand this. In fact it seems to be one of the main reasons for all the shitstorm. Seems like everyone takes offence to a word they didn't understand the meaning of - now isn't that ironic for said engineer, getting fired because his audience is too uneducated...
Slashdot Mirror
You don't need to be the best there is, but you need to be proficient in both to be able to evaluate correctly what an expert is telling you and whether it's a fact, a well-funded professional opinion (out of many possible), or just plain BS.
It's not exactly like you don't need to spend every day in court as a lawyer, *and* spend every of your nights debugging as computer programmer. Knowing one discipline well enough to make it your main occupation while having a solid foot in the other is possible, sufficient, and necessary.
In the end, humans are not exactly insects; we *are* able to specialize in more than one thing, you know...
Captcha: manifold :-)
No, it's actually about high time somebody asked this question.
The devil is not not talking about it, but what you make
of that information. If the answer is "no", and the commonly agreed upon consequence
is that we stop curing, then that's a big problem.
But if the answer is "no", and the consequence is that we need
to work towards making medical care a non-profit social enterprise,
then that's a totally different pair of shoes.
In any case, whatever the answer and whichever way the debate
about the consequences goes, it all begins with the answer.
(If you don't want the debate to make a turn for the most inhumane,
then I guess you better be part of it early on instead of getting
busy grinding your pitchfork just yet...)
Cool, now how many do we still need before Right becomes Wrong? Do we need to match the full million? Or maybe just about 150k, given that there are only 1/4 bn people in the US, give or take? (Maybe we could throw in a few targeted killings in the middle east, just for good measure? And a few more collateral killings, caused by the non-UN-sanctioned invasion of foreign states, like Iraq?)
How about we keep it at 1?
I'm not talking about 1 accidentally incarcerated person in a random prison, I'm talking about 1 willfully locked up person by a government that knows it shouldn't, because it's wrong by its own standards to do so. Otherwise our western "civilsation" isn't worth much more than the fancy toilet paper we use instead of leaves and sand.
Concerning the wrongfully imprisoned: USA has the highest rate in the world of people in jail, period. Now either China has more *wrongfully* imprisoned people, meaning most people in US prisons deserve to be locked up. This would mean USA produces the highest rate of crooks in the world. Or China and USA have just about the same rate of crooks as everywhere else, in which case USA has more wrongfully imprisoned people.
Not sure which interpretation you'd prefer.
US has Guantanamo, and a couple of similar smaller camps all around the world (Romania for example). Counting all together, how much do you think we're falling behind that million? (And what if we add the wrongfully imprisoned into private penitentiaries by a broken plea-bargain justice system, are we getting close yet?...)
No?
So, according to the sense-of-proportion argument then, we're safe. Right? It is ok to run around incarcerating people, holding them as modern-age slaves, or torturing them, executing them without judicial oversight, as long as the other guys are doing it to even more people, right?
Not to excuse China here - I dont like what they're doing. But we're not the ones to hold them moral lessons about it, we're doing the same. If the west holds itself to a higher standard, it should actually try to meet that standard, but this is not how you do it.
This was the core of my argument: that China is the same villain as the US, and numbers nitpicking can't disarm that as long as the west is willfully, systematically and knowingly making the same principle mistakes.
China lives by completely different rules. They have no respect for freedom of speech or democracy, quite the opposite, and they don't care if other countries do
You're cherry picking.
There's no intrinsic value in the word "democracy" alone, it's value lies in what it entails: the fact that everyone gets to have their say in important decisions concerning the very fabric of their lives. If democracy is flawed to the point where unless you're rich, you've essentially been tricked out of your right to participate (as is the case for the US for example), then whatever value you had goes out the window.
Don't talk to me about "Freedom of speech" while you have people like Assange bullied and prosecuted for what they said. Taking dirty about government in a pub at the corner isn't that much of an achievement; that's something you can do in Russia or China, too, easily enough. It's when you're actually starting to reach somebody with your talk that you're in trouble - in China, Russia, and USA.
But I'm getting carried away.
More to the point, China tries, and in large parts succeeds better that the West, to not leave people behind to poverty, distress, hunger, cold. This is amazing given the situation they are in (far ovet 1bn people, most of them rural, all about to finally claim their due piece of modern age just about these years). The have different methods, many of those methods do suck. But at least they're succeeding in their goal.
Our methods suck no less, but we're failing big time, even at the easier goal of preserving a modern way of life.
The US has secret courts, gag orders, national security letters, prison camps outside of court's reach, and the largest per-person incarceration rate in the world.
Go on, make my day, tell me more about Hungary. I've been there. Recently.
From a western European perspective, neither is the US.
They've repeatedly attacked Europe economically - there's ample example, like the VW scandal (draconian fees & punishment against management by the US, but investigations are still sparse with respect to US manufacturers) and Monsanto/Bayer (funny how Monsanto's biochemistry suddenly became a problem, but only after they were bought up by a European company). Not to defend these companies, they fully deserve what befalls then; but the unilaterallity with which US authorities deal out punishment against foreign entities, opposed to domestic ones, is striking.
Then there are also a number of unequivocal statements from US administration, Trump for example, regarding "trade war with Europe".
So no, the US are definitely no more allies of Europe than China is.
And beyond ecinomics... well, if you're European, it's not like China is out to burn your home, rape your wife, kill your dog. They're on a different hemisphere for chrissake, there's noting to gain for them from indaving another, regardless of whether that's Europe or US. (FWIW, the only country that has a habit of doing that post-WW2, regularly, is the US.)
If you're the average west European, the only[*] thing China fights for is to sell you more stuff, cheaper than the rest (US or Europe). The only way you could equate this to a direct threat is if you still believe in trickle-down economy. And in that case, you're not only beyond any hope being saved; you also deserve the misery that comes your way.
--
[*] That, and to buy massive amounts of land all over Africa and eastern Europe away from local population. But that's not a problem that's (a) limited to China, (b) attributed to technological or military superiority, and (c) not easily fixable by a simple law of local government authorities, if you can convince your government that it's a problem.
If you're the average American (or European, for that matter), you're living paycheck to paycheck, your perspective of retiring at the end of your useful shelf life (~65, give or take) is practically zero, your children's chance of a useful education is degrading (...if you're European; it's already essentially zero of you're US), and the only perspective your offspring have in their life is to live through & possibly, maybe, try to clean up the mess the big winners of your generation are creating for all of us.
In that case, China is not your primary enemy. Your own government is, together (or better: led by?) those who Have. That's what you should be worrying about primarily.
1. There most likely are "kill switches" in $USBRAND equipment.
2. ... That even close inspections miss.
3. Back doors are already being used for data snooping.
4. The rollout of 5G wireless networks will make everything worse.
5. US firms will ship tech to countries wherever the fuck they want regardless of anything else.
6. $USBRAND isn't immune to US government influence, period.
I fail to see a problem with Huawei in particular.
You mean, like, putting US military bases all over the world including ther fscking foregarden?
Or sustaining something north of 50.000 NGOs in their country?
I'm no fan of russinas, but their generals sure seem pretty relaxed to me, given the circumstances. More so than the US generals anyway.
Yeah, back in the day we used to call that "being a selfish a***hole".
Case in point, it's not illegal, but pretty much the definition of immoral.
It's the US that isn't prepared, not "the world". Civilised countries with a mentality not stuck in the early 20th century have retirement programs, medical insurance and a social welfare at least trying to offer a dignified retirement to everybody.
Or at least we try, and in details in which we don't succeed, we recognise that as a problem that's to be fixed.
Like communism, it was invented to ameliorate a desperate situation that existed previously, and like communism, it succeeded in that by having some of its good ideas incorporated into what was there before.
No, that's pretty much average as (dis)functionality goes. Every organisation beyond 3 people will have tendencies towards all kind of evil distractions and unconstructive, personal side-priorities.
The trick is to find a collective, self-correcting state of mind, process etc, to keep them from escalating and degenerating the organisation's core task.
Hey, better idea: let's allocate billions to mass surveillance, economic wars and derailing 3rd world states instead!
So far you haven't put one single consistent argument into the discussion. All you've done was being an offensive imbecile getting pissed at the fact that I haven't articulated my point precisely to your expected wording. You could have instead pointing out what you believe to have been inconsistencies or inaccuracies, and I could have explained that was referring to the broad idea first and would be happy to flesh in details if asked politely. This could have helped to move forward a constructive discussion. Instead you've used the word "stupid" about an order of magnitude more often than the word "because" or anything to the same effect, and still haven't offered a viable alternative to my ideas.
Since this is the level you choose: you're an idiot and so is your donkey ball sucking mother. Enjoy stupidity with somebody else, my discussion with you is over.
... and everybody knows that shirts are only ever made of cotton, right? Or what exactly is your point?
Sunscreen protects you from sunburn, but not entirely from the UV damage
How does it do that? .... Blocking UVB. The blocking of UV is literally the scale for SPF.
I'm gonna leave this quote here form a study published Journal of Clinical Oncology (I don't have the exact paper, just managed to scrap together the quote from a newspaper article which, of course, didn't bother to give a citation):
"The data generated from the study by Green et al is not sufficiently convincing to justify acceptance by the medical community as proof or even reassurance that sunscreen use prevents melanoma. Prevention of overexposure to ultraviolet light should focus instead on avoidance and the use of clothing and broad-brimmed hats to provide protection from the sun. Sunscreen does prevent sunburn. Whether or not the use of sunscreen prevents melanoma remains unknown. The present study, well executed for testing nonmelanoma skin cancer, did not prove that sunscreen use prevents melanoma. Because of the false sense of security engendered by sunscreen use, it may actually increase the risk of melanoma."
This is not news. This kind of knowledge has been around since at least 10-15 years (that's the first time I got in contact with similar warnings). You should be able to google details yourself of you're interested.
Just put on a light shirt
What shirt? How do you chose? Shirts don't magically block UV. It's highly dependent on material, weave, colour, etc...
How about the same way you're selecting your sun cream, by reading the effing label?!...
Or be careful to spend just as much time in the sun as your skin naturally permits without getting burned
From the how to get skincancer 101 guide. This is the dumbest thing that has been suggested in the comments so far, and there have been some very dumb comments especially when browsing at -1.
Ok, so your alternative is to just spend the whole fscking day in the sun? Because hey, this magic cream makes eveything good? Really?!
Well, for starters, suncream doesn't block UV light, your skin does. Suncream just "enhances" the protection. It does so by aiding certain biochemical aspects, but not necessarily all, which form the natural UV barrier of your skin. Those aspects are strengthened nominally by a certain multiplicative factor (that's the F in SPF). But when you spend more time than your un-creamed skin can handle, everything that's not taken care of by the cream is massively overexposed.
That's from the undestanding sun protection 101 guide (and it's not even sarcastic).
But whatever. Your opinion, your skin.
Well, then don't buy a typical t-shirt. Buy one with a higher testing, e.g. from merino wool, or a synthetic wet-shirt. Rumor has it they come as highly rated as factor 50.
What's wrong with facial aging? Stop being a vain peacock and wear your age like you own it.
Yes, wearing a hat will leave you exposed to scattered UV light (*not* reflected unless you manage to sit with your face right in the bad angle of a mirroring surface) - about 2 orders of magnitude less intense than direct exposure, give or take.
Your body can manage that.
Unless, of course, you're one of the rare 1 in 10000 cases with a nasty case of allergy, skin pigmentation defect or whatever, in which case, of course, do whatever your doctor tells you. The coral reef will presumably be fine if se manage to reduce the sunblock by a factor of 10000...
It's not the lack of sunscreen that gives you cancer, it's the overdose of UV light.
Sunscreen protects you from sunburn, but not entirely from the UV damage. Just put on a light shirt and avoid direct exposure during midday hours. Also, go with the natural rhythm: your skin is more sensitive in the spring than in late summer, so adapt your timing. If you need to a spend long hours swimming at noon (like me), then put on a rash guard or wet shirt. Your skin has some built-in UV protection, and can even benefit from careful exposure. Just not enough to get you though a full day at the equator (if your white).
Do the experiment yourself: put on sunblock and spend the day in the sun; then wonder why your skin is still warm and itchy in the evening, despite "protection". Or be careful to spend just as much time in the sun as your skin naturally permits without getting burned, and feel the difference in the evening.
+1 IWishIHadModPoints. ... your post, of course, will beg for "but then how do we deal with fake news propaganda attacks?", to which the answer is simple: education, explanation, and constant discussion with those who disagree.
Find out why they disagree. That gives clues to their fears and the roots of their stubbornness. Better education in the long term will help them (and us) to understand the value of real arguments.
And once in a while we may find out that they were right and we were wrong... maybe just plain so, out maybe somewhere "deep below" but without being able to put their being-right in the right kind of words. (Intuition and gut feeling often do good jobs at extracting good conclusions from incomplete and partially faulty data, often better than logic.)
There's no shortcut to rooting out stupidity. Having an authority (state or otherwise) tell you what it is certainly isn't an option.
You got lucky.
Others worked even more than you and still remained poor.
People tend to attribute success to their own efforts, and failure to "bad circumstance" or everybody else but themselves. But in fact both are wrong, it's both the same: part luck and chance, part hard work, part society and circumstance and everybody else.
So you worked hard *and* got lucky. (As did I.) Great, enjoy, and kudos to you, but that's no reason to be a schmug. Not everyone who's poor is so because they're lazy. Some worked even more than you, some nearly (or fully) killed themselves working, but lacked your luck. So they stayed poor, or worse: became ill, then poor, then remained ill, and will therefore remain poor regardless of what they do.
Be kind. That could have been you. (Or could become you, when your luck runs out.)
Slashdot, that's not what the memo said.
You can agree with the memo or you can't, but at least get the f$#@ing facts straight.
"Neurotic" as used in the memo is the opposite of poorly defined. It's one of the Big Five (see Wikipedia), a clearly defined axis in psychological personality analysis.
But you're not the only person to misunderstand this. In fact it seems to be one of the main reasons for all the shitstorm. Seems like everyone takes offence to a word they didn't understand the meaning of - now isn't that ironic for said engineer, getting fired because his audience is too uneducated...