Well, I stopped reading when you started painting your rhetoric opposition as crybabies.
Do you expect to be taken seriously when you are unable to actually deal with some arguments your opposition has?
Now I'll be the first to admit that the pro-gun side has a lot of idiots and mind, I'd rather they didn't have guns either. Frankly, half the NRA shouldn't have guns. However, that is my personal opinion which is not valid enough to base legislation on, especially considering I'm not even American.
The fact remains, though, that there are enough statistics that show that the availability of guns alone isn't the factor that determines violent crime. Any halfway sane person, at that point, should go "Well, gee, perhaps there are other issues as well?"
Let's say America creates a prohibition on guns (I'm not even going to go into how bad America is at handling prohibitions...). What do you expect will happen? Violent crime using guns MAY go down. Abuse of legally owned guns will vanish, sure, because there won't be any more legal guns.
Do you think there will be fewer robberies or murders? How well does it work out for countries like Great Britain?
If you have a high rate of fucked up people in your country, you don't need to idiot proof the world. You need to take a long, hard look at yourself and admit that you, as a society, are doing something terribly wrong. Your rate of incarceration is astoundingly high while your crime rates are puttering on along the same lines as those of most other countries that don't have such draconian laws.
Maybe start there before you go paint tens or even hundred's of thousands of law abiding citizens as potential murderers? It would have the advantage of bringing tangible benefit to all of society, too, even if you don't care about ever owning a gun yourself.
Or are you actually trying to get fifty percent incarceration rates? Is there some kind of competition you're trying to win?
I just can't understand how it's somehow more worthwhile to take something away from good people that they love instead of making sure you have a populace you can trust with those things. The latter may be harder but in the long run would have so many positive effects on all aspects of life I don't even know where to begin listing them.
Could have put a little bit more grace and a little bit less butt-hurt into the statement but I'll agree on one thing: How is it news that a few of your employees are hired by Apple unless the number represents a major chunk of your workforce?
I know exactly where you're coming from. You have no idea how long I've battled with myself to accept that no, I'm not just lazy... I actually do seem to have less energy at my disposal as some other people and the fact that I am where I am is actually not a detriment because I could have done so much more if I had just applied myself...
No, it's a damn miracle I am this functional despite it all.
It also changed, more often than before, how I look at people that fail. I've become much more forgiving and less judgemental.
Life is fucking hard, yo. Just as some people lucked out genetically, others have lucked out mentally... some few even in both aspects. If you try to live up to those standards, you're in for a shitshow of disappointment and frustration.
Albeit it has been brought to my attention in the context of how boys differ in how they learn best compared to girls, this is nonetheless not news.
And I think it makes a lot of sense, too. The concept of being told how to do something to achieve a not really desired, made-up goal is comparably new.
Don't get me wrong, this kind of learning has enabled us to broaden our minds beyond the immediate, has made us much more versatile, but I think it's easy to guess that this is hard on our still very animalistic brains.
Seeing an outcome you actually desire come together will give much more satisfaction. The tangibility draws you in more, I think.
It does make sense for every person to craft something from time to time. Or at the very least do some fixing around the house. At least in me, it also tends to give me a greater sense of accomplishment compared to let's say building a "cloud" for a client.
That has always been my point. I don't see how you can test a UBI on a subset of the population. Of course I may very well lack the in-depth knowledge on how this thing is supposed to work, I'll grant you that any day...
I think to really know whether the UBI does what the proponents says it would, you have to have it for everyone that shares the same borders and general tax code.
You might get away with switching a whole state in a federation like the US or Switzerland. However, a very real concern is the influx of people from outside who want nothing but free money. So we're back at controllable borders. Which, come to think of it, makes Switzerland unviable what with free migration in the EU and all that.
As an aside, I'd like to ask you about your signature. I have read his document, found that he came to similar conclusions I have and presented them quite fairly. You say that his "fans" only have the argument that any opponents just haven't read it... let me go at it from another side and ask you to explain to me where I misunderstood his document so horrendously to arrive at my conclusion.
As it seems to me, the basic difference here lies primarily in how you go at it. Do you expect him to be a bad, white, privileged male and interpret the document accordingly or do you rather think he had the real intention of making things better for everyone, including or even especially the women in his company.
I get the sense it was the latter... you obviously don't. I would really like to find out why that is.
I think I would read the hell out of an Athena comic. That sounds awesome!
Strong women are pretty damn central interest of mine. My favorite works of fiction are Sunstone (comic book) and the Kushiel series (fantasy novels).
That probably won't count for your typical REEEEEEing person of overwhelming opinion (just to avoid the term SJW), as there is sexuality involved in those and since I am an animalistic male, obviously my interests cannot go beyond that.
For the non brain-damaged among us: I'd say it's pretty clear I dig strong female characters. It is one reason I like Captain Janeway, not despite her being an arguably poor Starfleet captain but precisely because. She was depicted to have flaws. She wasn't able to handle each and every situation with Picard's aplomb, because she was thrust into god damned hellish situations with no backup whatsoever.
Contrast that with the old Wonder Woman or Spider-Woman TV series, where these women deus ex machinaed whatever outrageous power they needed o solve an issue. Now don't get me wrong, that is Superman's whole sick, being imbalanced, but I never liked him for that reason either.
Failing is an integral part of making a character grow on you. Having flaws is important. Being a lecherous white dude with too much money and being too full of himself works for Stark because despite all this, he tries to do the right thing.
Replace him with a black female teenager? Sure. I am an avid fanfiction reader, I don't balk at strange turns on established characters but just like fanfiction writers, you got to make the transition. There are only a limited number of fanfics that work despite the premise being "Well, this is different. Accept it and go from there".
The moment I get the feeling the author deems me so dimwitted that they needn't bother with making something fit into canon, I get very, VERY annoyed with said author. And THAT more than anything makes me not want to read and much less buy this crap. You want to push your dogma? Go right ahead. I don't hold it against you. But make sure you pick me up on your journey gently and don't make me hop into a car going twenty miles an hour.
And much less don't expect me to try after calling me names because I balk at the idea...
Helen Delaney, a senior lecturer at the University of Auckland Business School, said employeesâ(TM) motivation and commitment to work increased because they were included in the planning of the experiment, and played a key role in designing how the four-day week would be managed so as not to negatively impact productivity.
âoeEmployees designed a number of innovations and initiatives to work in a more productive and efficient manner, from automating manual processes to reducing or eliminating non-work-related internet usage,â said Delaney.
They started working more efficiently and they were suddenly able to keep efficiency higher because rest was longer is what I take from this.
I can't be the only one who feels like he's buried himself in mud like a tractor in a tractor pull contest on fridays. The mind wanders more and more.
Sure, Americans will point out that you can always fire people who spend time on the internet on company hours, but Americans have always been a pretty naive and unrealistic bunch. The only thing that mentality leads to is employee turnover.
When your brain is done, it's done. Unless you want to use amphetamines on a constant basis... oh, wait... I forgot the US is Adderall country.
I am as cynical as they come but how is this a failed experiment if you lose nothing but have happier employees?
Sure there'll be asshats who don't get science who think it is not in their favor unless the bottom line shows it but to anyone with more than two braincells to rub together it's pretty clear that if you don't lose anything by enhancing the lives of people around you, then it's a win. Even if only for the fact that you sleep better at night.
This has to be proven scientifically of course, but I have a hard time imagining how happier and thus more motivated workers could not improve your bottom line...
Also think about this: The work that took five days previously now gets done in four. That automatically leaves you one day more to be productive. You just need a few more bodies. In a sense this is similar to working shifts.
When I started work here, I had the choice between a Macbook Pro and a Surface.
The Surface had Win10 and came only in 13 inch. So I went with the Macbook.
Now don't get me wrong, it's quite usable, but there are so many annoyances that I might just as well have bit the bullet and gone with Win10.
When it's time for new hardware, I just wonder whether there'll be a Surface that doesn't try to be a Macbook or perhaps I'll be allowed to buy from another brand.
Bang for buck wise, neither option makes me tingly all over unless you count my left arm...
It heavily depends on what basis you define masculinity, now doesn't it?
At first, only the successful hunter was an alpha male. Then somebody invented religion and suddenly scrawny people could advance to alpha status by being shaman.
Nowadays there are a lot of options. If you can wield influence, you're halfway there. If you have the confidence to do it too, there's little stopping you.
And James Damore has put himself out there. He has argued against the established ways. That takes courage and courage is seen as desirable too.
A lot of people are derisive when it comes to defining masculinity by any other means than money and muscle but that is a very limited position to take.
Actually, by being in disagreement with not one but two extremist factions, I feel rather good about myself most of the time.
Butting heads with two idiotic sides of the human spectrum doesn't completely eradicate the chance of being an idiot myself but chances are much better that I'm in at least somewhat of a healthy balance.
Slashdot Mirror
Well, I stopped reading when you started painting your rhetoric opposition as crybabies.
Do you expect to be taken seriously when you are unable to actually deal with some arguments your opposition has?
Now I'll be the first to admit that the pro-gun side has a lot of idiots and mind, I'd rather they didn't have guns either. Frankly, half the NRA shouldn't have guns. However, that is my personal opinion which is not valid enough to base legislation on, especially considering I'm not even American.
The fact remains, though, that there are enough statistics that show that the availability of guns alone isn't the factor that determines violent crime. Any halfway sane person, at that point, should go "Well, gee, perhaps there are other issues as well?"
Let's say America creates a prohibition on guns (I'm not even going to go into how bad America is at handling prohibitions...). What do you expect will happen? Violent crime using guns MAY go down. Abuse of legally owned guns will vanish, sure, because there won't be any more legal guns.
Do you think there will be fewer robberies or murders? How well does it work out for countries like Great Britain?
If you have a high rate of fucked up people in your country, you don't need to idiot proof the world. You need to take a long, hard look at yourself and admit that you, as a society, are doing something terribly wrong. Your rate of incarceration is astoundingly high while your crime rates are puttering on along the same lines as those of most other countries that don't have such draconian laws.
Maybe start there before you go paint tens or even hundred's of thousands of law abiding citizens as potential murderers? It would have the advantage of bringing tangible benefit to all of society, too, even if you don't care about ever owning a gun yourself.
Or are you actually trying to get fifty percent incarceration rates? Is there some kind of competition you're trying to win?
I just can't understand how it's somehow more worthwhile to take something away from good people that they love instead of making sure you have a populace you can trust with those things. The latter may be harder but in the long run would have so many positive effects on all aspects of life I don't even know where to begin listing them.
So basically Screw the lazy asses?
Could have put a little bit more grace and a little bit less butt-hurt into the statement but I'll agree on one thing: How is it news that a few of your employees are hired by Apple unless the number represents a major chunk of your workforce?
I know exactly where you're coming from. You have no idea how long I've battled with myself to accept that no, I'm not just lazy... I actually do seem to have less energy at my disposal as some other people and the fact that I am where I am is actually not a detriment because I could have done so much more if I had just applied myself...
No, it's a damn miracle I am this functional despite it all.
It also changed, more often than before, how I look at people that fail. I've become much more forgiving and less judgemental.
Life is fucking hard, yo. Just as some people lucked out genetically, others have lucked out mentally... some few even in both aspects. If you try to live up to those standards, you're in for a shitshow of disappointment and frustration.
I agree with you, which makes the post directly after yours so hilarious!
I have sincere doubts about our level of civilization.
There's enough first world filth around to make the third world filth the lesser problem.
Do you also believe the earth is flat because you can put a ruler to the ground and not see an obvious curve?
In Switzerland, we know what unambiguous actually means so it's 7'017.- :D
I herd my kids like they were animals, too. Because it works.
Young children very much behave like animals. First step is training. The more they are able to profit from it, the more you switch over to teaching.
No shit, Sherlock... However, there's Schengen...
Albeit it has been brought to my attention in the context of how boys differ in how they learn best compared to girls, this is nonetheless not news.
And I think it makes a lot of sense, too. The concept of being told how to do something to achieve a not really desired, made-up goal is comparably new.
Don't get me wrong, this kind of learning has enabled us to broaden our minds beyond the immediate, has made us much more versatile, but I think it's easy to guess that this is hard on our still very animalistic brains.
Seeing an outcome you actually desire come together will give much more satisfaction. The tangibility draws you in more, I think.
It does make sense for every person to craft something from time to time. Or at the very least do some fixing around the house. At least in me, it also tends to give me a greater sense of accomplishment compared to let's say building a "cloud" for a client.
That has always been my point. I don't see how you can test a UBI on a subset of the population. Of course I may very well lack the in-depth knowledge on how this thing is supposed to work, I'll grant you that any day...
I think to really know whether the UBI does what the proponents says it would, you have to have it for everyone that shares the same borders and general tax code.
You might get away with switching a whole state in a federation like the US or Switzerland. However, a very real concern is the influx of people from outside who want nothing but free money. So we're back at controllable borders. Which, come to think of it, makes Switzerland unviable what with free migration in the EU and all that.
As an aside, I'd like to ask you about your signature. I have read his document, found that he came to similar conclusions I have and presented them quite fairly. You say that his "fans" only have the argument that any opponents just haven't read it... let me go at it from another side and ask you to explain to me where I misunderstood his document so horrendously to arrive at my conclusion.
As it seems to me, the basic difference here lies primarily in how you go at it. Do you expect him to be a bad, white, privileged male and interpret the document accordingly or do you rather think he had the real intention of making things better for everyone, including or even especially the women in his company.
I get the sense it was the latter... you obviously don't. I would really like to find out why that is.
...it's sure to be only a matter of time before the product goes down the drain...
There's a reason gun enthusiasts have started using pornhub instead of youtube ;).
One could get the impression that you think what you're proposing was actually trivial :D.
I think I would read the hell out of an Athena comic. That sounds awesome!
Strong women are pretty damn central interest of mine. My favorite works of fiction are Sunstone (comic book) and the Kushiel series (fantasy novels).
That probably won't count for your typical REEEEEEing person of overwhelming opinion (just to avoid the term SJW), as there is sexuality involved in those and since I am an animalistic male, obviously my interests cannot go beyond that.
For the non brain-damaged among us: I'd say it's pretty clear I dig strong female characters. It is one reason I like Captain Janeway, not despite her being an arguably poor Starfleet captain but precisely because. She was depicted to have flaws. She wasn't able to handle each and every situation with Picard's aplomb, because she was thrust into god damned hellish situations with no backup whatsoever.
Contrast that with the old Wonder Woman or Spider-Woman TV series, where these women deus ex machinaed whatever outrageous power they needed o solve an issue. Now don't get me wrong, that is Superman's whole sick, being imbalanced, but I never liked him for that reason either.
Failing is an integral part of making a character grow on you. Having flaws is important. Being a lecherous white dude with too much money and being too full of himself works for Stark because despite all this, he tries to do the right thing.
Replace him with a black female teenager? Sure. I am an avid fanfiction reader, I don't balk at strange turns on established characters but just like fanfiction writers, you got to make the transition. There are only a limited number of fanfics that work despite the premise being "Well, this is different. Accept it and go from there".
The moment I get the feeling the author deems me so dimwitted that they needn't bother with making something fit into canon, I get very, VERY annoyed with said author. And THAT more than anything makes me not want to read and much less buy this crap. You want to push your dogma? Go right ahead. I don't hold it against you. But make sure you pick me up on your journey gently and don't make me hop into a car going twenty miles an hour.
And much less don't expect me to try after calling me names because I balk at the idea...
You people seem to assume that this act's list of endangered species actually is built upon sound science.
So a review of this is certainly a good idea.
That being said, we all know what interests drive this so I don't expect a sensible outcome either...
What makes me think that? Well, reading what TFA suggests...
From TFA:
Helen Delaney, a senior lecturer at the University of Auckland Business School, said employeesâ(TM) motivation and commitment to work increased because they were included in the planning of the experiment, and played a key role in designing how the four-day week would be managed so as not to negatively impact productivity.
âoeEmployees designed a number of innovations and initiatives to work in a more productive and efficient manner, from automating manual processes to reducing or eliminating non-work-related internet usage,â said Delaney.
They started working more efficiently and they were suddenly able to keep efficiency higher because rest was longer is what I take from this.
I can't be the only one who feels like he's buried himself in mud like a tractor in a tractor pull contest on fridays. The mind wanders more and more.
Sure, Americans will point out that you can always fire people who spend time on the internet on company hours, but Americans have always been a pretty naive and unrealistic bunch. The only thing that mentality leads to is employee turnover.
When your brain is done, it's done. Unless you want to use amphetamines on a constant basis... oh, wait... I forgot the US is Adderall country.
This is purely anecdotal, of course, but I'd even go as far as to say you need the right kind of character to even manage 40 hours a week.
My gut says the sweet spot is probably somewhere around 7 hours a day, four days a week.
I am as cynical as they come but how is this a failed experiment if you lose nothing but have happier employees?
Sure there'll be asshats who don't get science who think it is not in their favor unless the bottom line shows it but to anyone with more than two braincells to rub together it's pretty clear that if you don't lose anything by enhancing the lives of people around you, then it's a win. Even if only for the fact that you sleep better at night.
This has to be proven scientifically of course, but I have a hard time imagining how happier and thus more motivated workers could not improve your bottom line...
Also think about this: The work that took five days previously now gets done in four. That automatically leaves you one day more to be productive. You just need a few more bodies. In a sense this is similar to working shifts.
When I started work here, I had the choice between a Macbook Pro and a Surface.
The Surface had Win10 and came only in 13 inch. So I went with the Macbook.
Now don't get me wrong, it's quite usable, but there are so many annoyances that I might just as well have bit the bullet and gone with Win10.
When it's time for new hardware, I just wonder whether there'll be a Surface that doesn't try to be a Macbook or perhaps I'll be allowed to buy from another brand.
Bang for buck wise, neither option makes me tingly all over unless you count my left arm...
Uh Hell Yeah?
That's what RAM is used for after all.
It heavily depends on what basis you define masculinity, now doesn't it?
At first, only the successful hunter was an alpha male. Then somebody invented religion and suddenly scrawny people could advance to alpha status by being shaman.
Nowadays there are a lot of options. If you can wield influence, you're halfway there. If you have the confidence to do it too, there's little stopping you.
And James Damore has put himself out there. He has argued against the established ways. That takes courage and courage is seen as desirable too.
A lot of people are derisive when it comes to defining masculinity by any other means than money and muscle but that is a very limited position to take.
Actually, by being in disagreement with not one but two extremist factions, I feel rather good about myself most of the time.
Butting heads with two idiotic sides of the human spectrum doesn't completely eradicate the chance of being an idiot myself but chances are much better that I'm in at least somewhat of a healthy balance.
In today's world, ANY method you use for account security will have downsides.
I have decided that this method gives me a balance between usability and security I can live with.
But you knew yours was a rhetorical question to make people look stupid, didn't you?