So 'progressives' are actually annoyed by homosexuality? They don't actually like minorities? To tolerate something means to endure something you dislike, and they always describe themselves as 'tolerant'. If they are tolerant of other cultures, it means they dislike them, but allow them to practice their customs anyway. I have no doubt that this is true, affluent progressives like their private schools and gated communities, but it's a rare bit of honesty.
I agree that society is more tolerant now than ever, though. Once upon a time, you couldn't disagree about something like climate change without proponents calling for your job. Heck, once upon a time, you would get fired for privately disagreeing with something like, for instance, gay marriage. The so-called "liberal" side basically de-humanized anyone who disagreed on a wide variety of moral panics, and tried to ruin their lives. At least we progressed past all of that nonesense. Now, people can agree to disagree.
Most importantly, now that Democrats have taken over the governments of most large cities, things like police shootings of unarmed black men are a thing of the past. Since Democrats have begun caring for minorities, instead of opposing their civil rights for 100+ years and fighting wars to preserve slavery, the black standard of living has gone through the roof, as the incarceration rate of black men has plummeted. Frankly, I can't believe anyone ever doubted their sincerity.
And don't even get me started on the way they' ve abandoned things like driving and flying in order to save the planet. Heck, protressive Mellenials are the worst-travelled generation in history. Talk about putting your actions where your mouth is! We could all learn a thing or two about living our ideals from these folks.
Yeah, I like the way it's all turned out too. And to believe, some people were worried. Not me, though. My every thought and utterance represents my employer's core values. As long as that remains true, it should remain smooth sailing for yours truly!
For millions of people buying inexpensive smartphones in developing countries where privacy protections are usually low
Goodness, it sure would suck to live in a country with low privacy protections. I bet they'd even let the manufacturer continue to control the phone even after they sold it to you, And install all kinds of stuff on your device that does things that you don't want it to do. And disallow you from uninstalling it. Or, even, prohibiting you from getting root on your very own computer!
People. Real people. Non-Geeks, have grown tired of crapware. Killing battery life, sapping performance. Regular, everyday people hate it.
We live in a world where we tell the top 10-20% IQ'ed people that we don't care what they want. That they will get what the bottom 80% will accept, and they'll like it. We get people championing the decision.
Cater to the masses, forget those demanding people who probably work in the industries that make the technology that the 80% uses.
Sure, it would 'get around' if you live in South Fuck, Minnesota. Here in the big city, corporations don't call each other and say 'Here's a list of the employees that did us wrong, watch out for them!' Receuiters are a dime a dozen, and they're as notorious for ghosting on clients, recruiting for non-existent jobs, and pulling all kinds of shennanigans. Few will have sympathy for the recruiters or employers. Everyone is an asshole these days, and the moral high ground remains vacant.
Democrats are far worse. At least you know where you stand with Republicans. They're scumbags, but unabashadly so. Democrats are also scumbags, but they comsider themselves self-righteous as they spread hate and intolerance far and wide. Sure, they 'tolerate' minorities, but interesting word... tolerate. It means to begrudingly accept that which you do not like. Why don't Democracts like black folks? Why do they feel they need to 'tolerate' them? Hey look, some powerless, trailer-dwelling redneck told an offensive joke, let's talk about that instead!
Asking people to estimate how long a task will take, when that task has never been done before (at least in the org), is concentrating on the box rather than the task, and it leads to sub-optimal outcomes. IMHO.
To a manager, the solution to all problems is more management, Otherwise, what their purpose be? To an engineer, the solution is general more time/resoruces. Corporations manifest decision-making with managers. Therefore, the solution to problems will continue to be more management. Management says you cna't miss the scrum. Oh no, cna't miss the scrum. Heaven forbid. Are head-down in a critical section of code and uou've finslly formed a mental picture of the problem? Sucks to be you because it's time for the scrum, snd if you miss the scrum, pretty soon others will miss the scrum, it'll be chais, it'll. be anarchy!
Agile in the hands of managers is a disaster, and its managers who obsess over it the most. Agile is belng used by managers to focus on the box. Everything has become about the box. Meeting Sprints with mediocre code > slipping to produce quality code. Don't track down the bug if it will mean you miss a sprint, try to work around it instead. Success is measured by hitting these points. Even if the task hasn't been done before.Estimate how long it willl take and be accurate wi4th your estimates! Yeah, Agile has been co-opted by managers and TPMs. At this point, everything regresses to this paradigm. It's the corporate way, and the beancounters ultimatey control everything. No matter what the supposed intent is.
Not all of them. 10% of people are very bothered by it, 10% are moderaly bothered by it, 10% are concerned by it, and 70% don't care. The 66% of Americans that are below the critical thinking threshold of ~IQ 110, plus a little.
The problem is, that 70% is the solid majority.
Ruling elites love Democracy because it's easily corruptable, and they can effortly dilute the votes of the smartest citizens by out-voting them 2-1 with citizens of average and below cognition.
Democracy gives the most intelligent segments of society quite a bit less say in governance than it does those of average and below average intellect.
That "the masses" accept abuse is nothing new. They always have. We've just sold the smart people on the notion that Democracy somehow prevents such abuse, when the truth is, it does no such thing. Evil people will always find it trivial to manipulate the average majority, and once they've done so, those in the higher tiers who care are powerless to do anything. You know, because "the people had their say at the ballot box".
Smart-than-average people are forced to accept what the bottom 70% will accept, and they're usually quite upset at having to do so.
Yes, but until recently, the Democrats at least offered the illusion of intellectual superiority and the moral high ground. Who knew that they were every bit as succeptible to moral panic as the far rightest of right wingers? I didn't actually think that they were as easy to manipulate as they've proven themselves to be, nor did I think that they would so easily take positions which were outright cruel. Alas, all it took for them to devolve into a cauldron of pathological hypocricy, was for the ruling-class to play to their narcissism. Once they did that, it was game over.
Now we have people with IQs of 125 running around calling themselves "tolerant" before reeling off an ever-growing list of people they steadfastly refuse to tolerate. You know, because they won't tolerate intolerance.
People who wag their fingers about Climate Change to people that don't own cars, before hopping a plane back home so mommy and daddy can pamper them for a week, before they fly back before work starts.
They get away with it because they can always count on the ruling-class to give them a pass and look the other way. So long as they vote right and talk right, they can actually DO whatever they want.
Both parties are duly fucked. There are no occupants of the moral high-ground anymore.
lol, one of two corporate-owned puppets != control
it's the illusional of control
The average IQ of the USA is 98. Those with IQ's > 120 represent single digit percentages of the population.
True critical or abstract thinking begins around 110.
Roughly 2/3rds of Americans are under this. They far outnumber the votes of those who think critically. How do people without critical thinking learn? Via repetition. This is why candidates buy ads, and run them frequently.
Democracy is idiot rule. Okay, that's a bit extreme, it's actually rule by those of average intelligence. That's kind of scrary in and of itself, though, as history has proven repeatedly that masses cannot effectively govern themselves, and their ability to choose governors is not significantly better. Some of the worst actors have been popularly elected.
Not only that, but we feel confident that, statistically, in a country of 300 million people, it will be a very long time before they come for us personally. I mean, it's hard to persecute the entire population at once, you have to be selective. By keeping your head down, chances are, other people will be targeted first. It's like those animal species that move in groups of hundreds of thousands though dangerous territory. The lion has a very easy time catching it's dinner, but the sheer numbers mean that, statstically, most animals will survive the journey. The lion just can't catch them all. Safety through obscurity. That's the mentality that many of us have. We know that things are messed up, and that we live in a police state.
The police can't punish everyone, though, so if you go along with it, chances are very good that you can maintain a reasonable quality of life, even in a police state. Speak out, and your risks of being noticed by the machine go up exponentially.
Currying favor with the machine is the best defense when you no longer control the machine. This si much easier to do when we convince ourselves that the machine is righteous and the dissenters are evil. Such notions become a very easy sell to the people when aquiesense is inevitable anyway. We all live in varying degrees of delusion. It's how we survive.
Not to mention, you are basically excluding the top 10% of smartest people from the economy. Companies will always write in what the majority of people will accept. Assuming that those who read the T&C, and understand it, are more intelligent than the average IQ of 98, you are basically excluding the smartes people in a society from its popular economy. You're much better off having those smart people install it and raise hell, then the express-lane idiocracy you'd have if they all just dropped out. Unless you really want the 51%+ of people that "don't care" to determine what is and isn't acceptable.
The 10% are forced to accept what the 90% will tolerate. Not installing things because of the T&C (often unenforced and unenforcable), requires one to drop out of modern society altogether since mist conpanies have the same objectionable terms. And they aren't "contracts", they are "contracts of adhesion", and the two are quite different.
Contracts of adhesion almost always mix enforcable with unenforceable terms, so you never truly know what will and won't apply to you. Many people that live in first-world countries also, rightly or wrongly, assume that their first-world governments will not let companies get away with anything truly abusive. At least, that is what they are all taught from age 3... that their superior country protects its people.
Finally, the easiest way to tell the reasonableness of an action, is to determine what would happen if everyone took it. If everyone read every T&C they presented with, the economy would grind to a halt overnight. Companies would go out of business en-masse, and unemployment would skyrocket.
Inasmuch as the economies of all first-world nations depend on people NOT reading these adhesion contracts, when the very existence of the businesses themselves depend on people NOT reading them, it's more than a little disengenuous to suggest that people do so.
And FWIW, the businesses themself know the "contracts" are a joke, because they treat them as such. Yesterday, one of my paid apps suddenly required that I agree to a new T&C before I could access the work I already created within it. This act clealy invalidates the "contract" and renders it illusory (see: Zappos). Companies themselves violate contract law ad-nauseum with those things, and the do so knowingly, hoping the custmer doesn't know any better. How about the number of companies who illegally state that reparing them yourself violates the warranty?
When a "contract" is so laen with unenforcable and questionably legal clauses, reading it is pointless as you have no idea what will be held to be binding and what will be tossed out.
Sorry, but this is in no way, shape or form a 'right'. Governments should not get involved in this. Vote with your wallet. If people want phones whose bootloader they can unlock, they should stop buying Huawei phones immediately.
The flying monkey fuck they shouldn't. Enforcing laws of ownership is a primary function of government. When you buy a product, it is yours to do as you please. This is a basic tenant of common law dating back hundreds of years. That companies think that they still control the products they sell you is the slipperiest of slopes that needs government intervention before it spreads and becomes out of hand as the 90% sit like frogs in a pot and watch.
Another primary function of government is to protect the minority from the tyranny of the majority. As it stands, then 10% have to accept what the 90% will tolerate. As you will hear often, "most customers don't care about unlocking the boot loader", therefore, your private property rights will go away because the 90% don't care, and the market clout of the 10% is simply not enough to make a meaningful difference to manufacturers.
If you are truly advocating that we only be allowed what the masses will accept, then you're advocating for a whole bag of hurt, not to mention a society which caters only to the whims of the masses, the average IQ of which is now 98.
It's why people coming back from Asia are startled by how far behind we are technologically. Americans will accept less. It doesn't bode well for our future.
Relying on the people to enforce your rights via market forces has proven to be a colossal failure as most people, altogether now, "don't care".
Holding the most technically literate people in a nation slaves to what the masses will accept is very much not a good thing, for reasons which I hope are obvious.
I definitely do not agree, because my company has many great developers who have never even been to college. In fact, those devs are typically more motivated.
A lot of people take computer science these days because it's a well-paying job, and they learn enough to make a career out of it. Those who learn it on their own, to a high level, tend to be ultra-motivated.
These are people who write as much code on their free time as they do at work.
In addition, the college grads tend to specialize in a few things, whereas the breadth of knowledge the the deal-taughts is, on average, much greater, in my experience.
One of our devs has been coding since he was 12, and always had enough work. Spending incredible amounts of money to get a degree was superfluous, as his resume already showed competence.
Colleges are businesses. The ability to attend one and stay in one varies dramatically, and that ability is most heavily influenced by family wealth.
Those who have gone through the trouble of getting one always tout the "mandatory" nature of degrees, and of course, *they* think they should be required for this or that. I mean, why should someone else get to take a shortcut instead of paying $100,000+ and spending 4 years going through the trouble, right?
Well, by not adhering to the status-quo, one definitely takes risks. Employment tends to be more predictable for college grads.
If you become good at what you do, however, that risk can be rewarded. A lot of books have been written by guys without college degrees. Some of those guys have shaped the industry as we know it. By far, the most interesting people I've met, are people who didn't follow the college degree path, but yet, still succeeded anyway.
You can even make the argument that, to be able to succeed without the benefit of a degree, one probably has to be a step or two above his/her peers in competency.
Put a college grad developer next to his non-grad developer, and my money will be on the non-grad every time. He had to be better to get where he was.
You're right, he is approaching like he should be able to master it in a relatively short amount of time, and he's asking questions that make it seem like the answer can be conveyed in a single paragraph.
Alright, yeah, I can see that. It is kind of insulting when you put it that way.
I'm trying hard to get your gripe, but I'm failing to grasp it.
Carpentry has been around since biblical times, and it's premise is something the everyone understands, because it manipulates the physical world in predictable ways. Sure, they have their own language, but the underlying concepts are relatable.
Software is something very new in human history. Most people still don't understand it. It's completely foreign to them.
It's quite rare to see a completely new profession come into existence during one's lifetime. Especially when that profession touches nearly everything one does these days, from business to leisure. Things that carpentry and plumbing do not do.
Trying to make sense of this thing that controls an ever-expanding amount of your life is understandable. And let's face, it plumbing and carpentry lingo is nowhere near as complicate as, for instance, polymorphism and the like. Computing is pretty unique in the sheer number of concepts to master.
I'm a developer as well, and can't find a reason to get upset by it.
Maybe it's an age thing? I do think that younger folks are more inclined to find candor manufacture offense.
Not judging, just trying to figure out where you're coming from.
But the most travelled generation in history DO care! Just not enough to, you know, cancel some of those flights.
Seattle is one of the greenest, most liberal cities in the USA, yet every year, traffic gets worse and worse, while Sea-Tac keeps racking up 'busiest year ever' accolades.
The more affluent one is, the higher average carbon footprint.
Climate Change is caused most by the proponents of Climate Change. Even if their opponents never believe in it,the proponents could go a long way toward solving the problem by themselves.
But no, they'd rather feign concern while continuing to cause the problem. And, of course, blame their pet boogeymen like the 'Fossil Fuel Industry'.
You'd be livid if that plane didn't have enough fossil fuel to fly you home for Christmas. After all, Mom makes the bestest eggnog!
The affluent are the #1 consumers of fossil fuels. You are 'the industry'. If fixing Climate Change would cause you to be inconveneinced without others knowing about it, you'd take Climate Change in a heartbeat. You know it too. The problem is, everyone else does as well, and they don't want to sacrifice for a problem you largely caused and don't want to rake responsibilty for.
Then again, it COULD cost 'The World' $10 Trillion. Or $10 million. Or $417.25. Or $5.99 + tax. Millineals are the most travelled generation in history, mostly via air travel, yet they care so very deeply about global warming. It's the generation that is "too selfish to have kids", yet they are deeply worried about the climate issues my great grandchildren will be dealing with. It makes perfect sense. Climate Change is a tidy moral panic with which to divide the haves from the have nots. Along with gay marriage, transgender bathrooms, well, pretty much gender anything. It's one moral panic after another, after another after another. Moral panics were once the domain of the reglious right, and those of lesser intellect. Now the most educated segment of our population are it's primary victims, and since their ruling-class masters have declared a moratorium on calling out hypocricy (well, unless you're on of their uncool opponents), they appear to be completely unaware of it.
"Do as we say, not as we do". Of course that won't fly. Then again, it's not supposed to. These issues aren't supposed to be solved. They're supposed to indicate suitable guillibility and/or willfull suspension of disbelief to serve as a political base, not to mention, a recruiting tool for the party faithful. It doesn't matter what you do, only what you say. Hell, I have the lowest carbon footprint of anyone I know, but nobody cares about that. What am I saying? That's their only concern.
Some emergeny. You think if there's was a Tsunai headed this way, anyone would care what others believed? Hell no, you'd be heading for higher ground, not yapping about it.
Study after study show that the more affluent, the higher the carbon footprint. Climate Change's biggest proponents, are those who cause it the most.
But they care. Oh how they care. And their just so dang mad that you don't care too. Why, if you had any concern for the planet, you'd round up every college kid who jets home for Christmas, jets to Florida for Spring Break, jets to Europe for the summer,, and you would jail them for the good of the planet.
Be careful what you ask for, folks, you just might get it.
Keep em distracted. Don't let them see that barbwire condom going in their collective ass from the political class. No, divide and conquer is the name of the game.
Us vs. them. Climate Change vs. Natural Variaton. Right vs. Wrong. Cool vs. Lame. Good vs. Evil. Affluent vs. Working Class. College vs. Military. Enlightened vs. Uncouth. Ethan vs. Cletus. o Wise vs. Ignorant. Scientists who publish research and have it "peer-reviewed" thus "settling science" vs. more uncertainty and more fear of the unknown. At least with Climate Change, you know just how much the ocean is going to rise... and when!
So, which side do you want to be on?
Come on. It feels so good to get those nods of approval from those higher up the social ladder than ourselves.
Even better, so long as you claim to believe in Climate Change, you can actually DO whatever you want... including killing the planet!
What do you have to lose?
The easiest way to tell if a rule/law/ordinance/convention is reasonable, is to consider what would happen if everyone complied with it. Would the world be a better or worse place? In the case of "User Agreements", if everyone read them in their entirety, the economy would grind to a halt overnight as person after person worked their way through one 47-page hyperlinked document after another. Not to mention all of the indirect documents they would supposedly need to read... and they would need to "check back and re-read the policy often"... you know, in case something had changed.
It's safe to say that we'd be in extreme trouble should these documents every get read, and in fact, the companies that publish them absolutely depend on people NOT reading them, for if people did, that company would go bankrupt in very short order.
That it's completely unreasonable and impractical to read said terms, not to mention, the obligation to keep reading every TOS you've encountered over and over, is not even a controversial statement.
Another thing that completely obliterates all notions of good-faith, is that fact that the company can tell how long someone was on the "Contract" page before clicking through. They know very, very well that the use did not read the arbitration clause in 3 seconds, and knowing that, they are aware that there was no informed consent. She knows that a practical reality of living in modern society necessititates bypassing pages and pages of legalize, and our very economy depends on her not reading it.
What is the pinnacle of sadness and shame for the USA, is that a private company has to "allow" a person to exercise their legal rights on the basis that they user signed away those rights by clicking through a long document they viewed in 3 seconds. Prenups are invalidated when one spouse has legal representation and the other doesn't, but a woman can sign away her ability to go to court for sexual assault? And we allow it? We truly are the worst generations of Americans, and no amount of excuses, justifications, or snarky comebacks will change that.
If you steal a $1 pack of gum from a store, it's a criminal matter. If a company rips off millions of customers and/or negligently subjects them to sexual assault, it's a civil matter.
I shouldn't be the only one hanging my head in shame to have allowed this to hapoh look the football game's on! Go Foreskins!
The USA has always been scam-heavy going all the way back to patent medicine travelling shows. Dare I say that we're used to it by now. We know our government is corrupt, and we know that we aren't the generation that made the country great. I actually want a better country, but as always, the 10% gets what the 90% will accept. Comcast would gladly give up the top 10 percent noisiest, most demanding customers, and their monopoly means we have nowhere to go. Our politicians are on the take, and are holding our ass cheeks apart while the corporate cock with a barbed-wire condom plunges ever deeper into our anus. It's futilte to change it because of the whole 90% thing. Believe or not, though, we know how pathetic it is. At least a lot of us do, and I spend more time than I'd like taking the companies to small claims court to get my pittance. Outside oof that, there's not much we can do. Both major parties simply perpetuate the status-quo.
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I agree that society is more tolerant now than ever, though. Once upon a time, you couldn't disagree about something like climate change without proponents calling for your job. Heck, once upon a time, you would get fired for privately disagreeing with something like, for instance, gay marriage. The so-called "liberal" side basically de-humanized anyone who disagreed on a wide variety of moral panics, and tried to ruin their lives. At least we progressed past all of that nonesense. Now, people can agree to disagree.
Most importantly, now that Democrats have taken over the governments of most large cities, things like police shootings of unarmed black men are a thing of the past. Since Democrats have begun caring for minorities, instead of opposing their civil rights for 100+ years and fighting wars to preserve slavery, the black standard of living has gone through the roof, as the incarceration rate of black men has plummeted. Frankly, I can't believe anyone ever doubted their sincerity.
And don't even get me started on the way they' ve abandoned things like driving and flying in order to save the planet. Heck, protressive Mellenials are the worst-travelled generation in history. Talk about putting your actions where your mouth is! We could all learn a thing or two about living our ideals from these folks.
Yeah, I like the way it's all turned out too. And to believe, some people were worried. Not me, though. My every thought and utterance represents my employer's core values. As long as that remains true, it should remain smooth sailing for yours truly!
Goodness, it sure would suck to live in a country with low privacy protections. I bet they'd even let the manufacturer continue to control the phone even after they sold it to you, And install all kinds of stuff on your device that does things that you don't want it to do. And disallow you from uninstalling it. Or, even, prohibiting you from getting root on your very own computer!
Nah, just kidding. There's noplace that backward.
We live in a world where we tell the top 10-20% IQ'ed people that we don't care what they want. That they will get what the bottom 80% will accept, and they'll like it. We get people championing the decision.
Cater to the masses, forget those demanding people who probably work in the industries that make the technology that the 80% uses.
I'm sure it'll be fine.
Sure, it would 'get around' if you live in South Fuck, Minnesota. Here in the big city, corporations don't call each other and say 'Here's a list of the employees that did us wrong, watch out for them!' Receuiters are a dime a dozen, and they're as notorious for ghosting on clients, recruiting for non-existent jobs, and pulling all kinds of shennanigans. Few will have sympathy for the recruiters or employers. Everyone is an asshole these days, and the moral high ground remains vacant.
Democrats are far worse. At least you know where you stand with Republicans. They're scumbags, but unabashadly so. Democrats are also scumbags, but they comsider themselves self-righteous as they spread hate and intolerance far and wide. Sure, they 'tolerate' minorities, but interesting word ... tolerate. It means to begrudingly accept that which you do not like. Why don't Democracts like black folks? Why do they feel they need to 'tolerate' them? Hey look, some powerless, trailer-dwelling redneck told an offensive joke, let's talk about that instead!
Asking people to estimate how long a task will take, when that task has never been done before (at least in the org), is concentrating on the box rather than the task, and it leads to sub-optimal outcomes. IMHO.
sorry for the typos, i had to complete that post before standup this morning
And so we serve the process first and foremost.
Agile in the hands of managers is a disaster, and its managers who obsess over it the most. Agile is belng used by managers to focus on the box. Everything has become about the box. Meeting Sprints with mediocre code > slipping to produce quality code. Don't track down the bug if it will mean you miss a sprint, try to work around it instead. Success is measured by hitting these points. Even if the task hasn't been done before.Estimate how long it willl take and be accurate wi4th your estimates! Yeah, Agile has been co-opted by managers and TPMs. At this point, everything regresses to this paradigm. It's the corporate way, and the beancounters ultimatey control everything. No matter what the supposed intent is.
The problem is, that 70% is the solid majority.
Ruling elites love Democracy because it's easily corruptable, and they can effortly dilute the votes of the smartest citizens by out-voting them 2-1 with citizens of average and below cognition.
Democracy gives the most intelligent segments of society quite a bit less say in governance than it does those of average and below average intellect.
That "the masses" accept abuse is nothing new. They always have. We've just sold the smart people on the notion that Democracy somehow prevents such abuse, when the truth is, it does no such thing. Evil people will always find it trivial to manipulate the average majority, and once they've done so, those in the higher tiers who care are powerless to do anything. You know, because "the people had their say at the ballot box".
Smart-than-average people are forced to accept what the bottom 70% will accept, and they're usually quite upset at having to do so.
It's not a new problem.
Now we have people with IQs of 125 running around calling themselves "tolerant" before reeling off an ever-growing list of people they steadfastly refuse to tolerate. You know, because they won't tolerate intolerance.
People who wag their fingers about Climate Change to people that don't own cars, before hopping a plane back home so mommy and daddy can pamper them for a week, before they fly back before work starts.
They get away with it because they can always count on the ruling-class to give them a pass and look the other way. So long as they vote right and talk right, they can actually DO whatever they want.
Both parties are duly fucked. There are no occupants of the moral high-ground anymore.
it's the illusional of control
The average IQ of the USA is 98. Those with IQ's > 120 represent single digit percentages of the population.
True critical or abstract thinking begins around 110.
Roughly 2/3rds of Americans are under this. They far outnumber the votes of those who think critically. How do people without critical thinking learn? Via repetition. This is why candidates buy ads, and run them frequently.
Democracy is idiot rule. Okay, that's a bit extreme, it's actually rule by those of average intelligence. That's kind of scrary in and of itself, though, as history has proven repeatedly that masses cannot effectively govern themselves, and their ability to choose governors is not significantly better. Some of the worst actors have been popularly elected.
The police can't punish everyone, though, so if you go along with it, chances are very good that you can maintain a reasonable quality of life, even in a police state. Speak out, and your risks of being noticed by the machine go up exponentially.
Currying favor with the machine is the best defense when you no longer control the machine. This si much easier to do when we convince ourselves that the machine is righteous and the dissenters are evil. Such notions become a very easy sell to the people when aquiesense is inevitable anyway. We all live in varying degrees of delusion. It's how we survive.
Not to mention, you are basically excluding the top 10% of smartest people from the economy. Companies will always write in what the majority of people will accept. Assuming that those who read the T&C, and understand it, are more intelligent than the average IQ of 98, you are basically excluding the smartes people in a society from its popular economy. You're much better off having those smart people install it and raise hell, then the express-lane idiocracy you'd have if they all just dropped out. Unless you really want the 51%+ of people that "don't care" to determine what is and isn't acceptable.
Contracts of adhesion almost always mix enforcable with unenforceable terms, so you never truly know what will and won't apply to you. Many people that live in first-world countries also, rightly or wrongly, assume that their first-world governments will not let companies get away with anything truly abusive. At least, that is what they are all taught from age 3 ... that their superior country protects its people.
Finally, the easiest way to tell the reasonableness of an action, is to determine what would happen if everyone took it. If everyone read every T&C they presented with, the economy would grind to a halt overnight. Companies would go out of business en-masse, and unemployment would skyrocket.
Inasmuch as the economies of all first-world nations depend on people NOT reading these adhesion contracts, when the very existence of the businesses themselves depend on people NOT reading them, it's more than a little disengenuous to suggest that people do so.
And FWIW, the businesses themself know the "contracts" are a joke, because they treat them as such. Yesterday, one of my paid apps suddenly required that I agree to a new T&C before I could access the work I already created within it. This act clealy invalidates the "contract" and renders it illusory (see: Zappos). Companies themselves violate contract law ad-nauseum with those things, and the do so knowingly, hoping the custmer doesn't know any better. How about the number of companies who illegally state that reparing them yourself violates the warranty?
When a "contract" is so laen with unenforcable and questionably legal clauses, reading it is pointless as you have no idea what will be held to be binding and what will be tossed out.
The flying monkey fuck they shouldn't. Enforcing laws of ownership is a primary function of government. When you buy a product, it is yours to do as you please. This is a basic tenant of common law dating back hundreds of years. That companies think that they still control the products they sell you is the slipperiest of slopes that needs government intervention before it spreads and becomes out of hand as the 90% sit like frogs in a pot and watch.
Another primary function of government is to protect the minority from the tyranny of the majority. As it stands, then 10% have to accept what the 90% will tolerate. As you will hear often, "most customers don't care about unlocking the boot loader", therefore, your private property rights will go away because the 90% don't care, and the market clout of the 10% is simply not enough to make a meaningful difference to manufacturers.
If you are truly advocating that we only be allowed what the masses will accept, then you're advocating for a whole bag of hurt, not to mention a society which caters only to the whims of the masses, the average IQ of which is now 98.
It's why people coming back from Asia are startled by how far behind we are technologically. Americans will accept less. It doesn't bode well for our future.
Relying on the people to enforce your rights via market forces has proven to be a colossal failure as most people, altogether now, "don't care".
Holding the most technically literate people in a nation slaves to what the masses will accept is very much not a good thing, for reasons which I hope are obvious.
A lot of people take computer science these days because it's a well-paying job, and they learn enough to make a career out of it. Those who learn it on their own, to a high level, tend to be ultra-motivated.
These are people who write as much code on their free time as they do at work.
In addition, the college grads tend to specialize in a few things, whereas the breadth of knowledge the the deal-taughts is, on average, much greater, in my experience.
One of our devs has been coding since he was 12, and always had enough work. Spending incredible amounts of money to get a degree was superfluous, as his resume already showed competence.
Colleges are businesses. The ability to attend one and stay in one varies dramatically, and that ability is most heavily influenced by family wealth.
Those who have gone through the trouble of getting one always tout the "mandatory" nature of degrees, and of course, *they* think they should be required for this or that. I mean, why should someone else get to take a shortcut instead of paying $100,000+ and spending 4 years going through the trouble, right?
Well, by not adhering to the status-quo, one definitely takes risks. Employment tends to be more predictable for college grads.
If you become good at what you do, however, that risk can be rewarded. A lot of books have been written by guys without college degrees. Some of those guys have shaped the industry as we know it. By far, the most interesting people I've met, are people who didn't follow the college degree path, but yet, still succeeded anyway.
You can even make the argument that, to be able to succeed without the benefit of a degree, one probably has to be a step or two above his/her peers in competency.
Put a college grad developer next to his non-grad developer, and my money will be on the non-grad every time. He had to be better to get where he was.
You're right, he is approaching like he should be able to master it in a relatively short amount of time, and he's asking questions that make it seem like the answer can be conveyed in a single paragraph.
Alright, yeah, I can see that. It is kind of insulting when you put it that way.
Carpentry has been around since biblical times, and it's premise is something the everyone understands, because it manipulates the physical world in predictable ways. Sure, they have their own language, but the underlying concepts are relatable.
Software is something very new in human history. Most people still don't understand it. It's completely foreign to them.
It's quite rare to see a completely new profession come into existence during one's lifetime. Especially when that profession touches nearly everything one does these days, from business to leisure. Things that carpentry and plumbing do not do.
Trying to make sense of this thing that controls an ever-expanding amount of your life is understandable. And let's face, it plumbing and carpentry lingo is nowhere near as complicate as, for instance, polymorphism and the like. Computing is pretty unique in the sheer number of concepts to master.
I'm a developer as well, and can't find a reason to get upset by it.
Maybe it's an age thing? I do think that younger folks are more inclined to find candor manufacture offense.
Not judging, just trying to figure out where you're coming from.
Seattle is one of the greenest, most liberal cities in the USA, yet every year, traffic gets worse and worse, while Sea-Tac keeps racking up 'busiest year ever' accolades.
The more affluent one is, the higher average carbon footprint.
Climate Change is caused most by the proponents of Climate Change. Even if their opponents never believe in it,the proponents could go a long way toward solving the problem by themselves.
But no, they'd rather feign concern while continuing to cause the problem. And, of course, blame their pet boogeymen like the 'Fossil Fuel Industry'.
You'd be livid if that plane didn't have enough fossil fuel to fly you home for Christmas. After all, Mom makes the bestest eggnog!
The affluent are the #1 consumers of fossil fuels. You are 'the industry'. If fixing Climate Change would cause you to be inconveneinced without others knowing about it, you'd take Climate Change in a heartbeat. You know it too. The problem is, everyone else does as well, and they don't want to sacrifice for a problem you largely caused and don't want to rake responsibilty for.
People who believe in climate change use paragraph breaks too. Just one more reason why they're better. Seriously, my bad.
Then again, it COULD cost 'The World' $10 Trillion. Or $10 million. Or $417.25. Or $5.99 + tax. Millineals are the most travelled generation in history, mostly via air travel, yet they care so very deeply about global warming. It's the generation that is "too selfish to have kids", yet they are deeply worried about the climate issues my great grandchildren will be dealing with. It makes perfect sense. Climate Change is a tidy moral panic with which to divide the haves from the have nots. Along with gay marriage, transgender bathrooms, well, pretty much gender anything. It's one moral panic after another, after another after another. Moral panics were once the domain of the reglious right, and those of lesser intellect. Now the most educated segment of our population are it's primary victims, and since their ruling-class masters have declared a moratorium on calling out hypocricy (well, unless you're on of their uncool opponents), they appear to be completely unaware of it. "Do as we say, not as we do". Of course that won't fly. Then again, it's not supposed to. These issues aren't supposed to be solved. They're supposed to indicate suitable guillibility and/or willfull suspension of disbelief to serve as a political base, not to mention, a recruiting tool for the party faithful. It doesn't matter what you do, only what you say. Hell, I have the lowest carbon footprint of anyone I know, but nobody cares about that. What am I saying? That's their only concern. Some emergeny. You think if there's was a Tsunai headed this way, anyone would care what others believed? Hell no, you'd be heading for higher ground, not yapping about it. Study after study show that the more affluent, the higher the carbon footprint. Climate Change's biggest proponents, are those who cause it the most. But they care. Oh how they care. And their just so dang mad that you don't care too. Why, if you had any concern for the planet, you'd round up every college kid who jets home for Christmas, jets to Florida for Spring Break, jets to Europe for the summer,, and you would jail them for the good of the planet. Be careful what you ask for, folks, you just might get it. Keep em distracted. Don't let them see that barbwire condom going in their collective ass from the political class. No, divide and conquer is the name of the game. Us vs. them. Climate Change vs. Natural Variaton. Right vs. Wrong. Cool vs. Lame. Good vs. Evil. Affluent vs. Working Class. College vs. Military. Enlightened vs. Uncouth. Ethan vs. Cletus. o Wise vs. Ignorant. Scientists who publish research and have it "peer-reviewed" thus "settling science" vs. more uncertainty and more fear of the unknown. At least with Climate Change, you know just how much the ocean is going to rise ... and when!
So, which side do you want to be on?
Come on. It feels so good to get those nods of approval from those higher up the social ladder than ourselves.
Even better, so long as you claim to believe in Climate Change, you can actually DO whatever you want ... including killing the planet!
What do you have to lose?
shit, paragraph breaks
The easiest way to tell if a rule/law/ordinance/convention is reasonable, is to consider what would happen if everyone complied with it. Would the world be a better or worse place? In the case of "User Agreements", if everyone read them in their entirety, the economy would grind to a halt overnight as person after person worked their way through one 47-page hyperlinked document after another. Not to mention all of the indirect documents they would supposedly need to read ... and they would need to "check back and re-read the policy often" ... you know, in case something had changed.
It's safe to say that we'd be in extreme trouble should these documents every get read, and in fact, the companies that publish them absolutely depend on people NOT reading them, for if people did, that company would go bankrupt in very short order.
That it's completely unreasonable and impractical to read said terms, not to mention, the obligation to keep reading every TOS you've encountered over and over, is not even a controversial statement.
Another thing that completely obliterates all notions of good-faith, is that fact that the company can tell how long someone was on the "Contract" page before clicking through. They know very, very well that the use did not read the arbitration clause in 3 seconds, and knowing that, they are aware that there was no informed consent. She knows that a practical reality of living in modern society necessititates bypassing pages and pages of legalize, and our very economy depends on her not reading it.
What is the pinnacle of sadness and shame for the USA, is that a private company has to "allow" a person to exercise their legal rights on the basis that they user signed away those rights by clicking through a long document they viewed in 3 seconds. Prenups are invalidated when one spouse has legal representation and the other doesn't, but a woman can sign away her ability to go to court for sexual assault? And we allow it? We truly are the worst generations of Americans, and no amount of excuses, justifications, or snarky comebacks will change that.
If you steal a $1 pack of gum from a store, it's a criminal matter. If a company rips off millions of customers and/or negligently subjects them to sexual assault, it's a civil matter.
I shouldn't be the only one hanging my head in shame to have allowed this to hapoh look the football game's on! Go Foreskins!
The USA has always been scam-heavy going all the way back to patent medicine travelling shows. Dare I say that we're used to it by now. We know our government is corrupt, and we know that we aren't the generation that made the country great. I actually want a better country, but as always, the 10% gets what the 90% will accept. Comcast would gladly give up the top 10 percent noisiest, most demanding customers, and their monopoly means we have nowhere to go. Our politicians are on the take, and are holding our ass cheeks apart while the corporate cock with a barbed-wire condom plunges ever deeper into our anus. It's futilte to change it because of the whole 90% thing. Believe or not, though, we know how pathetic it is. At least a lot of us do, and I spend more time than I'd like taking the companies to small claims court to get my pittance. Outside oof that, there's not much we can do. Both major parties simply perpetuate the status-quo.