Shocking was finding out after the fact from my father who this guy was. While we worked together I had no idea he had worked with my father, I only knew he had worked for the same LARGE PETROLEUM COMPANY before he started at the company I worked for. There were many layoffs in the petroleum sector during this time and he wasn't the only person from the petroleum industry to come work for us.
It was quite chilling to realize this guy knew who my father was, who I was, and was mentally unstable enough to kill his whole family. He could have started with me.
I have met many self proclaimed "intellectuals" that are more than happy to prance off on a tangent, avoiding the subject at hand, vociferously counterattacking on a completely different issue, all because I left them the opportunity by not practicing conversational prophylactics.
I have noticed that this is the normal MO for people who have an agenda where their brain is supposed to be.
This seems to be more and more of the population. I am constantly in wonder of people who seem perfectly capable of thinking for themselves and yet continually choose to regurgitate an adopted agenda. The result is that no real communication occurs with them. They don't consider what the other person is saying. They just look for keywords and subjects that they can reply to with their agenda. Conversational prophylactics are designed to try to eliminate some of the opportunities for these sub-human robots to spew their agenda-speak.
What you just described is where I start to (against my better judgement) veer into support for zero-tolerance policies. If you have a policy you need to stand by it continuously, without fail, for managers, VP's, janitors, and everyone in between. The first slip in application tells your employees that your policies are without merit, merely lip service to doing the right thing, and that integrity and honesty are not core components of the company's management. From that point it's just a free-fall to the bottom of the ethical ladder as your culture has been undermined by your shortsighted mismanagement.
Interestingly enough, if you consistently apply good policies without regard to persons and positions you can be a complete fucking scumbag with shit for brains and your employees will think you a genius paragon of virtue. Just put the rules out there for everyone, starting day one, with frequent reminders. Then uphold those policies militantly.
If however, you have an HR department that covers for management, ignores employees complaints, doesn't even maintain it's own policies against harassment, and won't even allow for people to move departments when they are in jeopardy of being harassed by a superior they get what they deserve, which is a metric shit ton of bad press and eventual insolvency.
So Uber's HR department was quoted in the article stating they said it was his first time offense when it was not? Oh, maybe it was the CEO at a press conference? No? Was it the accused manager doing it then, in some cathartic confession of his guilt?
Oh, so the person who is throwing all this shade also gave this uncorroborated piece of evidence along with the others? Got it. How did you miss that there is no evidence of this being substantiated in fact?
I wonder about your ability to parse reality correctly.
Please understand that I am not in any way saying that harassment in the workplace is OK. What I am saying is that you just used hearsay to forward your position without revealing or even admitting to yourself that it was hearsay.
It is a huge problem. Hit on a supervisor in conversation. Lay it on thick. Get sexual in your tone and meaning. Then just wait for the texts to come from your boss with the same tone and meaning.
BINGO! You just won the sexual harassment lottery! If you think subordinates don't have power you are as stupid as the guy in the summary.
I am VERY married, but if I weren't and were looking for a fun partner I would eschew the workplace completely. There are too many crazy immature money hungry spiteful degenerates that will lie to you, set you up, and cash your ass in for a meal ticket without a second thought.
Agreed. However, one caveat presents itself, please don't shoot the messenger or blame the devil's advocate.
If these comments were sent subsequent to a verbal conversation between the two that included some kind of signaling that this subject matter would be acceptable...well, this would be a very different situation.
I am not saying this is what happened. I am not saying that if it is what happened it would not be incredibly stupid to fall for this. What I am pointing to is that there are a number of circumstances that could make this guy out to look quite a bit worse and more guilty than he actually is.
I am not defending him. Just remember that there are more than 2 sides to an issue. What you hear from the participants is definitely not the full truth.
One can hope that is the case now. I will relate a situation I was very close to at one of the VERY LARGE PETROLEUM companies that started with sexism and misogyny and ended in tragedy.
In the mid 90's my father became romantically involved with a woman at work who was employed as an executive assistant in another department. As their relationship evolved she confided in him that not only was she the recipient of unwanted advances from a certain employee in the sales department, but she had heard from other female employees that they have been harassed, fondled, and even sexually assaulted by this person. Apparently his favorite tactic was to offer to take a young lady to lunch. Then he would mention having left his wallet at home and that they would stop there for a moment to get it. He would invite the young woman inside and then assault her. Management's response to this had been to move this salesperson around the US, kind of like the Catholic church did with pedophiles in their employ. This salesperson was a "high performer" and made the company significant profits, and was protected by the HR department and managers from retaliation.
My father, having a firmly defined standard of fairness and an even more deeply entrenched allergy to injustice, decided to do something about this sexual predator. Over a period of almost 2 years he managed to use the internal electronic message board at the company to rally enough employees into speaking up and the man was eventually fired. In one of the craziest twists of fate ever this person ended up in my industry, working at my company as a salesperson. My father and I have the same exact name, sans the suffix so he had to know who I was.
He also knew one of my coworkers. A stout christian woman, deeply involved in one of the largest churches in our city, and she vouched for his upright character, his beautiful wife and children, and their wonderful christian character. Then after about 4 months on the job he decided he had had enough. He left work in the middle of the day and went home with a purpose. He first killed their 19 year old nanny. It was later learned he had been having an affair with her. Then he killed his two children, 20 months and 3 months, followed by his wife, aged 36. All of them were murdered by stabbing. The police described it as a "very brutal, violent scene, lots of blood."
After killing his family the scumbag in question stabbed himself, shot himself, and drank rat poison. When these methods of ending his life did not work he drove about 70 miles outside of town, parked his car on the side of the road, and stepped out in front of a 18 wheeler cruising down the freeway, thus ending his miserable life.
I can only imagine how this situation might have developed differently if only the company he worked for had not decided to protect this awful human being from the consequences he deserved. Maybe if he had been fired right away with the first offense he would not have progressed to where he killed his entire family and then offed himself.
Whatever the conditions were that eventually led to this, the initial seed of this problem was how he viewed people, especially women, around him. This was, I am sure, exacerbated by his company defending him. Maybe in his mind he thought he was entitled to do with women as he pleased. I don't know. Whatever the reasons are, I see this as a condemnation of sexist activity of this type, as it belies a lack of concern for and malice toward others that resulted in someone killing 4 people and then themselves.
So, I would recommend to anyone who encounters this kind of activity, report it immediately. Don't feel flattered. Get evidence. Remove that person from the workplace immediately and hopefully place them in prison. You are dealing with a predator who does not care for you one bit. They see you as an object that they deserve. Something they can take, use, and discard without a flicker of emotion. Your life could be at stake. Or, maybe the lives of a couple of innocent children.
Show me a subject that cannot be explained simply. Keep in mind that just because you or I are not smart enough or well versed enough to explain it simply does not imply that someone else cannot.
Also, just because something takes time and effort to explain doesn't mean it is not simple. For most complex subjects you need have certain prerequisite knowledge. Just because you have to explain other subjects to someone who is ignorant of them before you explain what you are wanting to ultimately describe doesn't mean you are not explaining the subject simply.
Then again, this is probably a biased situation for me. I routinely explain complex subjects to people who initially don't understand them because I crave stimulating conversation and many people don't understand the things I am talking about without some background. If you do not engage in this behavior frequently I can assume you do not possess this skill. Not a surprise. I have noticed that as most people acquire technical skill and learning in very complex subjects their ability to effectively communicate these subjects to other people who do not have similar backgrounds atrophies.
I would use as proof of the concept the appeal and phenomenon of Richard Feynman. He had a masterful knowledge of his subject AND could communicate things simply and eloquently to a wide audience. YMMV but I ascribe to this theory. It puts the onus of communicating clearly and effectively on the one who is communicating. It also implies that you are aware of the mental state and understanding of your audience, are flexible in your method of presentation, as well as committed to the understanding of the listener.
Socrates was able to induce absolute morons into solving complex mathematical equations as well as conversing on complex subjects of logic and philosophy, simply by asking questions.
Jargon, which are the communicative bits that contain the complex subjects humans describe, are composed of a background of knowledge acquired over time. This background of knowledge is composed of modules or vignettes. Their interactions and relationships to each other and the main subject are the basis of understanding the concept fully. Explaining these sub-units of the main subject simply and clearly is an exercise for the instructor and the difficulty of doing this is completely independent of the subject matter.
Keep in mind: the skill set for communicating complex ideas to other people is quite different from the one used to work with those subjects on a daily basis. Just because you can perform tensor calculus doesn't mean you can communicate to another human how to do it. In fact, most people who are good at doing something very technical are incredibly poor communicators and teachers with those who are uninitiated in those fields. They will want someone to have a broad basic knowledge of that field before they can instruct them. You can see this on this website, on technical help forums, etc.
Reference materials on not truly knowing something until you teach someone else how to do it. This is similar.
I believe in Panspermia, with one caveat. It is a prophetic belief. Life, rare or not, begets life. It is incumbent on us to spread it everywhere we can, as we have not yet observed it elsewhere.
It's just the way this universe is. The whole thing. At every level we can observe the pieces of the universe interact relentlessly with the space and other pieces of the universe. That is life. That we call the stuff on earth life and what is on mars not-life is merely due to the myopic lens of human vision.
It brings to mind the immortal words of a quantum physicist I once met. I referred to the double slit experiment and asked his opinion as to why the single photon makes a diffraction pattern when it has nothing else (observable) to interact with. He replied with a depth of certitude and fundamental conviction that preachers and popes wish they could posses, and said simply "oh, it just does that." No dwelling on the mysteriousness of quantum phenomena, no postulating his preferred reasoning for the effect. Nope, "It just does that" is sufficient in and of itself, just like that single photon passing through two places at once and interfering with itself.
That's how the universe is with life. It just does that.
You look at humans and see consciousness. I look at humans and see life. I see no difference between the two. Life is consciousness, and vice versa.
You experience consciousness as the ability to think, to say to yourself, "this is why I am doing this." Sadly, the FMRI machine, transcranial magnets, and some modern science experiments have shown that consciousness is just a side effect, a plausible explanation of our actions fed to the conscious mind by the real workhorse of human action and thought, the non-verbal parts of the brain. For instance, say you decide to move your arm. TOO LATE! Your brain started sending the signal before you consciously thought if it, before you decided, before you thought. Then thought is merely the reflected afterimage of non-conscious/non-verbal modules of the brain, the part of the brain that thinks it is the motivator, the initiator of action when in reality it is merely the translator of actions and thoughts into verbally accessible structures and experiential sensory phenomena. It is almost as if consciousness is just the "seminal memory," an altered version of events that gives the verbal part of the brain an understanding of what has just happened in terms it can relate to, but which actually deviate quite strikingly from actual reality.
Seeing thought and consciousness as the illusion they are, realizing that the actual human experience of life is inaccessible to the verbal mind, and therefore not able to be experienced truthfully, and that every verbalization of experience is fundamentally flawed with the untruths inherent in our experience of reality as "thinking beings" with "consciousness" becomes a little disorienting. Better to take the observation of "life" and "consciousness" outside the organism which we have proven has issues (massive ones!) with internal consistency, objectivity of experience, and even cause and effect.
From outside we see a complex system, reacting to the environment based on a system of internal rules. We call it life. It has movement, structure, and seeming purpose. An issue arises though. This is is in many ways functionally indistinguishable from the levels of complexity we see expressed from sub atomic particles, to atoms, to molecules, to cells, and to other organisms. This thing we call life is made up of the things we call not-alive, and yet, when observed very closely, these not-alive things seem to behave much like life does. The molecules have movement, structure, and seeming purpose. When introduced to other molecules they seem to take action, operating in these actions according to a set of internal rules. Even their constituent parts are the same, having movement, structure, and seeming purpose. They operate according to a set of internal rules and seem to take actions when introduced into an environment with other similar scale parts.
This is a fundamental truth of our universe. There is a fractal arrangement of interactivity, structure, and purpose from the incredibly micro sized up to the macro size. Everywhere we can observe, and at every scale. Some would say this complexity has reach it's pinnacle in the human form. That our intelligence and consciousness is the top of the scale.
I call that arrogance. Hubris if you will. We would be as aware of the levels of organization, structure, and seeming purpose above us as enzymes are aware of cells, as heart cells are of the horse they inhabit.
Our first gods were the sun, earth, moon. If they are the next scale up, who is to say they don't speak the cosmic language of large bodies, expressed in magnetism and gravity, emission spectra and absorption, or forces we cannot yet detect in the dark spectrum? What would they converse about?
Yeah that last part is pretty woo, but would we even know the difference if it were true?
Why? Nothing ever did this before. There have been innumerable extinction events drastically worse for the biosphere than any of the most dire predictions of global warming. The Earth will be fine in a couple of million years, one way or another.
Consider: if it weren't for repeated global disasters that wiped out most of the species on the planet humans would not exist.
If you hang out with physicists, cosmologists, or astrophysicists and/or read what they write you can easily pick up this terminology. Also, and more likely, if you read lots of hard science fiction novels (not that god dammed space opera shit!) you will pick up this reference.
I have never encountered any other usage of "order of magnitude" besides a power of 10 (an order of magnitude larger/smaller; you're off by 2 orders of mag) or a label of a power of 10 (23rd order of magnitude = 10x23.) Maybe that is because I am a total science nerd. I am curious where it would be used differently. Thank you for the reference to other usage not as referenced above. I now need to look this up to find out where I could be misinterpreted if I use this term.
In many people 0.02 is not an active dosage, neither impairing nor affecting the imbiber's skill at driving or even lubricating their social inhibitions. But yes, x10 that amount is totally fucked up.
The unions that brought us the 5 day work week and the 8 hour work week are not the same as the unions that are around today. The people, the organization, the politics, and the intention of unions have changed since then.
Not saying unions are bad by any stretch of the imagination. Just saying that things are different now.
Getting a job to expose violations is a morally defensible act. Violations are happening, laws are broken, they need to be brought out into the open. Disclosure is the objective. Openness and resolution is the result.
Getting a job specifically to influence people to do something that might or might not be in their best interests, while secretly being paid to do so, is not a morally defensible act. Someone telling you how they feel and someone delivering a paid speech are two different things, even if the message is exactly the same.
In the first example the mole is there to expose corruption. In the second, the mole is there as an agent of corruption.
How you can equate the two things is really beyond me.
The question is this: Do the other workers and the company know this guy is being paid to agitate for a union?
If so, no foul.
If not, well there is a reason why commercials have to indicate when someone is a "paid spokesperson." If they don't disclose right up front to both workers and management they are being paid to do this their message is tainted. Quid pro quo has already happened and their message cannot be conceived as honest, especially considering the exchange of funds was clandestine. It doesn't matter what the person thinks about the union itself, whether or not it is good for the company. They are already compromised by bribery. Their judgement is irrelevant. All that matters in the moral question is disclosure. Do all of the pertinent people have full disclosure of the interests of the involved persons, especially the spokespeople?
Plain and simple, look at it like this:
Joe talked to you a few days ago and convinced you to join the pro-union side. You then talked to 5 people, close friends you have worked with for years, and got them to vote for the union. Then you learned that Joe hired on specifically to get people to vote for the union. He got paid $20,000 dollars to do this. Do you feel like you were duped? Do you feel like you duped those other 5 people?
Of course you do.
Look, I'm pro-worker, without a doubt. The problem is unions and management can be both beneficial and detrimental to workers. When they start using outside resources to manipulate the workers this is more dis-empowerment of the workers. It undermines the whole idea of unionizing, which is power to the worker, not power to the union or the company.
If the majority of people in the company don't want unionization then there shouldn't be a union. In the same way, if the majority of the workers want to unionize that should happen. What shouldn't happen is coercion through threats or specific incentives paid under the table to influence the vote.
If a union starts adding paid bodies to the workforce at the company specifically to push a union vote over a certain threshold that is not representative of the desires of the workers there.
Similarly, what if Musk was secretly paying bonuses for people to vote against the union? You would have a total shit fit, I am sure, and it would be justified. It is the same thing. When it comes to unions the rights and interests of the workers should be protected, both from the employer and sadly, also from the unions.
It is difficult for people with a political bias that requires they conform to a narrative to put that aside and examine the world though a scientific lens, like evolutionary biology or some such. They cannot be unfaithful to their party even if the facts directly contradict what they have been told by their leaders and cohorts. This is merely one example of why I consider people who label themselves according to other people's terms, especially political labels, as mentally compromised.
They will sell out the truth to defend a lie that furthers a cause that cares nothing for them. This behavior is completely illogical, self destructive, and fundamentally divisive and I cannot begin to fathom why someone would do this.
Slashdot Mirror
Shocking was finding out after the fact from my father who this guy was. While we worked together I had no idea he had worked with my father, I only knew he had worked for the same LARGE PETROLEUM COMPANY before he started at the company I worked for. There were many layoffs in the petroleum sector during this time and he wasn't the only person from the petroleum industry to come work for us.
It was quite chilling to realize this guy knew who my father was, who I was, and was mentally unstable enough to kill his whole family. He could have started with me.
Experience has taught me to be cautious.
I have met many self proclaimed "intellectuals" that are more than happy to prance off on a tangent, avoiding the subject at hand, vociferously counterattacking on a completely different issue, all because I left them the opportunity by not practicing conversational prophylactics.
I have noticed that this is the normal MO for people who have an agenda where their brain is supposed to be.
This seems to be more and more of the population. I am constantly in wonder of people who seem perfectly capable of thinking for themselves and yet continually choose to regurgitate an adopted agenda. The result is that no real communication occurs with them. They don't consider what the other person is saying. They just look for keywords and subjects that they can reply to with their agenda. Conversational prophylactics are designed to try to eliminate some of the opportunities for these sub-human robots to spew their agenda-speak.
What you just described is where I start to (against my better judgement) veer into support for zero-tolerance policies. If you have a policy you need to stand by it continuously, without fail, for managers, VP's, janitors, and everyone in between. The first slip in application tells your employees that your policies are without merit, merely lip service to doing the right thing, and that integrity and honesty are not core components of the company's management. From that point it's just a free-fall to the bottom of the ethical ladder as your culture has been undermined by your shortsighted mismanagement.
Interestingly enough, if you consistently apply good policies without regard to persons and positions you can be a complete fucking scumbag with shit for brains and your employees will think you a genius paragon of virtue. Just put the rules out there for everyone, starting day one, with frequent reminders. Then uphold those policies militantly.
If however, you have an HR department that covers for management, ignores employees complaints, doesn't even maintain it's own policies against harassment, and won't even allow for people to move departments when they are in jeopardy of being harassed by a superior they get what they deserve, which is a metric shit ton of bad press and eventual insolvency.
So Uber's HR department was quoted in the article stating they said it was his first time offense when it was not? Oh, maybe it was the CEO at a press conference? No? Was it the accused manager doing it then, in some cathartic confession of his guilt?
Oh, so the person who is throwing all this shade also gave this uncorroborated piece of evidence along with the others? Got it. How did you miss that there is no evidence of this being substantiated in fact?
I wonder about your ability to parse reality correctly.
Please understand that I am not in any way saying that harassment in the workplace is OK. What I am saying is that you just used hearsay to forward your position without revealing or even admitting to yourself that it was hearsay.
It is a huge problem. Hit on a supervisor in conversation. Lay it on thick. Get sexual in your tone and meaning. Then just wait for the texts to come from your boss with the same tone and meaning.
BINGO! You just won the sexual harassment lottery! If you think subordinates don't have power you are as stupid as the guy in the summary.
I am VERY married, but if I weren't and were looking for a fun partner I would eschew the workplace completely. There are too many crazy immature money hungry spiteful degenerates that will lie to you, set you up, and cash your ass in for a meal ticket without a second thought.
Agreed. However, one caveat presents itself, please don't shoot the messenger or blame the devil's advocate.
If these comments were sent subsequent to a verbal conversation between the two that included some kind of signaling that this subject matter would be acceptable...well, this would be a very different situation.
I am not saying this is what happened. I am not saying that if it is what happened it would not be incredibly stupid to fall for this. What I am pointing to is that there are a number of circumstances that could make this guy out to look quite a bit worse and more guilty than he actually is.
I am not defending him. Just remember that there are more than 2 sides to an issue. What you hear from the participants is definitely not the full truth.
One can hope that is the case now. I will relate a situation I was very close to at one of the VERY LARGE PETROLEUM companies that started with sexism and misogyny and ended in tragedy.
In the mid 90's my father became romantically involved with a woman at work who was employed as an executive assistant in another department. As their relationship evolved she confided in him that not only was she the recipient of unwanted advances from a certain employee in the sales department, but she had heard from other female employees that they have been harassed, fondled, and even sexually assaulted by this person. Apparently his favorite tactic was to offer to take a young lady to lunch. Then he would mention having left his wallet at home and that they would stop there for a moment to get it. He would invite the young woman inside and then assault her. Management's response to this had been to move this salesperson around the US, kind of like the Catholic church did with pedophiles in their employ. This salesperson was a "high performer" and made the company significant profits, and was protected by the HR department and managers from retaliation.
My father, having a firmly defined standard of fairness and an even more deeply entrenched allergy to injustice, decided to do something about this sexual predator. Over a period of almost 2 years he managed to use the internal electronic message board at the company to rally enough employees into speaking up and the man was eventually fired. In one of the craziest twists of fate ever this person ended up in my industry, working at my company as a salesperson. My father and I have the same exact name, sans the suffix so he had to know who I was.
He also knew one of my coworkers. A stout christian woman, deeply involved in one of the largest churches in our city, and she vouched for his upright character, his beautiful wife and children, and their wonderful christian character. Then after about 4 months on the job he decided he had had enough. He left work in the middle of the day and went home with a purpose. He first killed their 19 year old nanny. It was later learned he had been having an affair with her. Then he killed his two children, 20 months and 3 months, followed by his wife, aged 36. All of them were murdered by stabbing. The police described it as a "very brutal, violent scene, lots of blood."
After killing his family the scumbag in question stabbed himself, shot himself, and drank rat poison. When these methods of ending his life did not work he drove about 70 miles outside of town, parked his car on the side of the road, and stepped out in front of a 18 wheeler cruising down the freeway, thus ending his miserable life.
I can only imagine how this situation might have developed differently if only the company he worked for had not decided to protect this awful human being from the consequences he deserved. Maybe if he had been fired right away with the first offense he would not have progressed to where he killed his entire family and then offed himself.
Whatever the conditions were that eventually led to this, the initial seed of this problem was how he viewed people, especially women, around him. This was, I am sure, exacerbated by his company defending him. Maybe in his mind he thought he was entitled to do with women as he pleased. I don't know. Whatever the reasons are, I see this as a condemnation of sexist activity of this type, as it belies a lack of concern for and malice toward others that resulted in someone killing 4 people and then themselves.
So, I would recommend to anyone who encounters this kind of activity, report it immediately. Don't feel flattered. Get evidence. Remove that person from the workplace immediately and hopefully place them in prison. You are dealing with a predator who does not care for you one bit. They see you as an object that they deserve. Something they can take, use, and discard without a flicker of emotion. Your life could be at stake. Or, maybe the lives of a couple of innocent children.
I request proof.
Show me a subject that cannot be explained simply. Keep in mind that just because you or I are not smart enough or well versed enough to explain it simply does not imply that someone else cannot.
Also, just because something takes time and effort to explain doesn't mean it is not simple. For most complex subjects you need have certain prerequisite knowledge. Just because you have to explain other subjects to someone who is ignorant of them before you explain what you are wanting to ultimately describe doesn't mean you are not explaining the subject simply.
Then again, this is probably a biased situation for me. I routinely explain complex subjects to people who initially don't understand them because I crave stimulating conversation and many people don't understand the things I am talking about without some background. If you do not engage in this behavior frequently I can assume you do not possess this skill. Not a surprise. I have noticed that as most people acquire technical skill and learning in very complex subjects their ability to effectively communicate these subjects to other people who do not have similar backgrounds atrophies.
I would use as proof of the concept the appeal and phenomenon of Richard Feynman. He had a masterful knowledge of his subject AND could communicate things simply and eloquently to a wide audience. YMMV but I ascribe to this theory. It puts the onus of communicating clearly and effectively on the one who is communicating. It also implies that you are aware of the mental state and understanding of your audience, are flexible in your method of presentation, as well as committed to the understanding of the listener.
Socrates was able to induce absolute morons into solving complex mathematical equations as well as conversing on complex subjects of logic and philosophy, simply by asking questions.
Jargon, which are the communicative bits that contain the complex subjects humans describe, are composed of a background of knowledge acquired over time. This background of knowledge is composed of modules or vignettes. Their interactions and relationships to each other and the main subject are the basis of understanding the concept fully. Explaining these sub-units of the main subject simply and clearly is an exercise for the instructor and the difficulty of doing this is completely independent of the subject matter.
Keep in mind: the skill set for communicating complex ideas to other people is quite different from the one used to work with those subjects on a daily basis. Just because you can perform tensor calculus doesn't mean you can communicate to another human how to do it. In fact, most people who are good at doing something very technical are incredibly poor communicators and teachers with those who are uninitiated in those fields. They will want someone to have a broad basic knowledge of that field before they can instruct them. You can see this on this website, on technical help forums, etc.
Reference materials on not truly knowing something until you teach someone else how to do it. This is similar.
This.
When I look at my smartphone I see the fucking Eye of Sauron.
Scary little fucking things.
Don't argue with me about it, I was just paraphrasing someone familiar with complex subjects.
If you can't explain it simply, you don't understand it well enough. Albert Einstein
If you can't explain something in simple terms, you don't understand it.
I believe in Panspermia, with one caveat. It is a prophetic belief. Life, rare or not, begets life. It is incumbent on us to spread it everywhere we can, as we have not yet observed it elsewhere.
It's just the way this universe is. The whole thing. At every level we can observe the pieces of the universe interact relentlessly with the space and other pieces of the universe. That is life. That we call the stuff on earth life and what is on mars not-life is merely due to the myopic lens of human vision.
It brings to mind the immortal words of a quantum physicist I once met. I referred to the double slit experiment and asked his opinion as to why the single photon makes a diffraction pattern when it has nothing else (observable) to interact with. He replied with a depth of certitude and fundamental conviction that preachers and popes wish they could posses, and said simply "oh, it just does that." No dwelling on the mysteriousness of quantum phenomena, no postulating his preferred reasoning for the effect. Nope, "It just does that" is sufficient in and of itself, just like that single photon passing through two places at once and interfering with itself.
That's how the universe is with life. It just does that.
You look at humans and see consciousness. I look at humans and see life. I see no difference between the two. Life is consciousness, and vice versa.
You experience consciousness as the ability to think, to say to yourself, "this is why I am doing this." Sadly, the FMRI machine, transcranial magnets, and some modern science experiments have shown that consciousness is just a side effect, a plausible explanation of our actions fed to the conscious mind by the real workhorse of human action and thought, the non-verbal parts of the brain. For instance, say you decide to move your arm. TOO LATE! Your brain started sending the signal before you consciously thought if it, before you decided, before you thought. Then thought is merely the reflected afterimage of non-conscious/non-verbal modules of the brain, the part of the brain that thinks it is the motivator, the initiator of action when in reality it is merely the translator of actions and thoughts into verbally accessible structures and experiential sensory phenomena. It is almost as if consciousness is just the "seminal memory," an altered version of events that gives the verbal part of the brain an understanding of what has just happened in terms it can relate to, but which actually deviate quite strikingly from actual reality.
Seeing thought and consciousness as the illusion they are, realizing that the actual human experience of life is inaccessible to the verbal mind, and therefore not able to be experienced truthfully, and that every verbalization of experience is fundamentally flawed with the untruths inherent in our experience of reality as "thinking beings" with "consciousness" becomes a little disorienting. Better to take the observation of "life" and "consciousness" outside the organism which we have proven has issues (massive ones!) with internal consistency, objectivity of experience, and even cause and effect.
From outside we see a complex system, reacting to the environment based on a system of internal rules. We call it life. It has movement, structure, and seeming purpose. An issue arises though. This is is in many ways functionally indistinguishable from the levels of complexity we see expressed from sub atomic particles, to atoms, to molecules, to cells, and to other organisms. This thing we call life is made up of the things we call not-alive, and yet, when observed very closely, these not-alive things seem to behave much like life does. The molecules have movement, structure, and seeming purpose. When introduced to other molecules they seem to take action, operating in these actions according to a set of internal rules. Even their constituent parts are the same, having movement, structure, and seeming purpose. They operate according to a set of internal rules and seem to take actions when introduced into an environment with other similar scale parts.
This is a fundamental truth of our universe. There is a fractal arrangement of interactivity, structure, and purpose from the incredibly micro sized up to the macro size. Everywhere we can observe, and at every scale. Some would say this complexity has reach it's pinnacle in the human form. That our intelligence and consciousness is the top of the scale.
I call that arrogance. Hubris if you will. We would be as aware of the levels of organization, structure, and seeming purpose above us as enzymes are aware of cells, as heart cells are of the horse they inhabit.
Our first gods were the sun, earth, moon. If they are the next scale up, who is to say they don't speak the cosmic language of large bodies, expressed in magnetism and gravity, emission spectra and absorption, or forces we cannot yet detect in the dark spectrum? What would they converse about?
Yeah that last part is pretty woo, but would we even know the difference if it were true?
"Salvage as much of the biosphere as possible"
Why? Nothing ever did this before. There have been innumerable extinction events drastically worse for the biosphere than any of the most dire predictions of global warming. The Earth will be fine in a couple of million years, one way or another.
Consider: if it weren't for repeated global disasters that wiped out most of the species on the planet humans would not exist.
Agreed. Was just twiddling your Twinkies, homie.
If you hang out with physicists, cosmologists, or astrophysicists and/or read what they write you can easily pick up this terminology. Also, and more likely, if you read lots of hard science fiction novels (not that god dammed space opera shit!) you will pick up this reference.
I have never encountered any other usage of "order of magnitude" besides a power of 10 (an order of magnitude larger/smaller; you're off by 2 orders of mag) or a label of a power of 10 (23rd order of magnitude = 10x23.) Maybe that is because I am a total science nerd. I am curious where it would be used differently. Thank you for the reference to other usage not as referenced above. I now need to look this up to find out where I could be misinterpreted if I use this term.
You added a percent sign to the number the AC posted. Its like you invented some new kind of mathematical straw man!
Its people like you that crashed the mars lander...
In many people 0.02 is not an active dosage, neither impairing nor affecting the imbiber's skill at driving or even lubricating their social inhibitions. But yes, x10 that amount is totally fucked up.
The unions that brought us the 5 day work week and the 8 hour work week are not the same as the unions that are around today. The people, the organization, the politics, and the intention of unions have changed since then.
Not saying unions are bad by any stretch of the imagination. Just saying that things are different now.
Totally different and obviously so.
Getting a job to expose violations is a morally defensible act. Violations are happening, laws are broken, they need to be brought out into the open. Disclosure is the objective. Openness and resolution is the result.
Getting a job specifically to influence people to do something that might or might not be in their best interests, while secretly being paid to do so, is not a morally defensible act. Someone telling you how they feel and someone delivering a paid speech are two different things, even if the message is exactly the same.
In the first example the mole is there to expose corruption. In the second, the mole is there as an agent of corruption.
How you can equate the two things is really beyond me.
Bullshit on all of that.
The question is this: Do the other workers and the company know this guy is being paid to agitate for a union?
If so, no foul.
If not, well there is a reason why commercials have to indicate when someone is a "paid spokesperson." If they don't disclose right up front to both workers and management they are being paid to do this their message is tainted. Quid pro quo has already happened and their message cannot be conceived as honest, especially considering the exchange of funds was clandestine. It doesn't matter what the person thinks about the union itself, whether or not it is good for the company. They are already compromised by bribery. Their judgement is irrelevant. All that matters in the moral question is disclosure. Do all of the pertinent people have full disclosure of the interests of the involved persons, especially the spokespeople?
Plain and simple, look at it like this:
Joe talked to you a few days ago and convinced you to join the pro-union side. You then talked to 5 people, close friends you have worked with for years, and got them to vote for the union. Then you learned that Joe hired on specifically to get people to vote for the union. He got paid $20,000 dollars to do this. Do you feel like you were duped? Do you feel like you duped those other 5 people?
Of course you do.
Look, I'm pro-worker, without a doubt. The problem is unions and management can be both beneficial and detrimental to workers. When they start using outside resources to manipulate the workers this is more dis-empowerment of the workers. It undermines the whole idea of unionizing, which is power to the worker, not power to the union or the company.
If the majority of people in the company don't want unionization then there shouldn't be a union. In the same way, if the majority of the workers want to unionize that should happen. What shouldn't happen is coercion through threats or specific incentives paid under the table to influence the vote.
If a union starts adding paid bodies to the workforce at the company specifically to push a union vote over a certain threshold that is not representative of the desires of the workers there.
Similarly, what if Musk was secretly paying bonuses for people to vote against the union? You would have a total shit fit, I am sure, and it would be justified. It is the same thing. When it comes to unions the rights and interests of the workers should be protected, both from the employer and sadly, also from the unions.
It is difficult for people with a political bias that requires they conform to a narrative to put that aside and examine the world though a scientific lens, like evolutionary biology or some such. They cannot be unfaithful to their party even if the facts directly contradict what they have been told by their leaders and cohorts. This is merely one example of why I consider people who label themselves according to other people's terms, especially political labels, as mentally compromised.
They will sell out the truth to defend a lie that furthers a cause that cares nothing for them. This behavior is completely illogical, self destructive, and fundamentally divisive and I cannot begin to fathom why someone would do this.