Most of the people who died were destitute, old, or sick.
I thought we were talking about the survivors. I mean it would be hard for the dead to make any "assertion" (See the post that started this thread).
You need more then $25.00 (although that's hard to come by for a lot of people), you also need to be able move and to you need to be able to risk losing everything you have. It's not like these people were insured or anything.
Wouldn't you know it, Greyhounds ticketing system is not working when I want to prove the fair to travel within the state of LA (I'm just saying move above sea level) is less the $25. Not only that if the people were afraid to risk losing everything than they would have even more reason to get out of New Orleans.
Many people agree with you. I think that's the number one reason the govt waited so long to react, they simply didn't think it was the job of the govt to help dying people. After all this is one of the core values of the republican party. The idea that people should be left to fend for themselves.
Hey lets not start name calling, I am NOT a republican. I'm actually a socialist, and even in a good socialist society you would not be so worried about balling people out from living in a dangerous area, because for one you would build houses in safer areas (just becuase of the cost) and two people wouldn't own property to need to be saved. But we are not a socialist societ. The US is a Constitutional, Capitalist, Republic, which measn what FEMA should be doing is not letting people back into New Orleans and spending some resources getting them set up in productive jobs in a place that isn't bound to flood by design.
I, and many others, was not born privilaged, nor where I live now. I was born on the other side of the country, about as far apart as you can get. But rather than deal with the threat of huriccans, earthquakes, floods and other natural disasters I moved to some place safe. I feel for the kids who's parents are too stupid to get there kids out of a bad area, but I don't feel for the adults. But sorry to say, I can't get my way, and so those poor kids will probably be sent back to live with their unfit parents in a dangerous land that no mater how you look at it was not intended for human life. But hey I can look on the bright side and be thankful that they are rebuild, so next years issue of "Girls Gone Wild" will have it's share of seens out of Mardi Gras.
It kind of bothers me when people blame NO for being below sea level, the people that live there now didn't build the city, and most live there because that is where they were born.
You going to have the same comments next time when everone who lives there already got pushed out by floods once and then moved back?
Furthermore, if you were in a position to relocate, and were offered a better job in NO, would you really turn it down because it's below sea level? What about California, Florida, or Tornado ally?
If the job was significantly better (3 to 4 times what I make now) I would consider it. But I would then use that money to invest in property in a safer area, and be prepaired to move when the next hurrican was heading that way.
Most people aren't fortunate enough to be able to choose what city they live in, and those with a choice will rarely consider natural disasters as a factor in that decision.
WTF, who is so unfortunate they can't move? seriouslly it cost $25 to get on a bus to move to higher land. You could probably hitch it for free. And finding a job paying minimum wage is pretty easy to do anywhere in this country.
That said if you build a mansion on a cliff that is eroding at the rate of feet/year, and your house is destroyed I have no sympathy for you.
I would have no sympathy either, I find people that waste money by building in/on on safe land to be pretty worthless. I should point out I live in an area that has not been struck by significant natural disaster in my life time (there were floods previously but with very little damage).
In the end, until the US is a socialist country, or the government mandates where you live, you have the choice to move and the government should not be responsible if you chose to live in a high risk area (like some where that you look up too see ships!).
Mozgest still means one of your hands is off the keyboard. Which is all fine and dandy when you're browsing porn sites but not really good when doing actual work (a.k.a. using one of the many rediculess web apps out there). It's a pretty major waste of time to move from the mouse to the keyboard to fill in form data. Just keep your hands on the keys. Now if only more sites would be built to effectively use the keyboard (I mean I can't easily preview/submit this message with out a mouse click, atleast in safari)
Please step away from the Mouse. Learn some of the key board commands, they will save you alot of time and effort. CTRL-W (or Command-W for us Mac Users) will close the current tab. Now if only the Firefox developers would implement CTRL-Q (I'm so used too Command-Q) to quit the application.
Untill I can run Windows on my current hardware IN PLACE OF OS X, comparisions between Windows and OS X have no meaning precisely because I would have to buy antiquated... I mean new hardware to use Windows. Vista is a rip off of Tiger? Of course, and until Windows runs on proprietary Power and x86 platforms, Windows is not a competitor to OS X despite coming out with copies the features.
Once someone is using a PS2, Gamecube or XBox to generate scenes for major motion picture, or are otherwise used by more than just developers for primarily none game playing purposes, then they can be considered something other than a game console.
I like how you cut out the important part of the sentence. It was that particular project (and any other programmer experiment) that I was being sure to exclude in my statement.
The difference between a game console and multi purpose computer (not just PCs) is how it is primarily used. Once someone is using a PS2, Gamecube or XBox to generate scenes for major motion picture, or are otherwise used by more than just developers for primarily none game playing purposes, then they can be considered something other than a game console. The C64 was a PC, designed from the ground up to do more than play games. It had exceptional graphics and sound for the time to give it adittional selling points. I personally used my C64 for primarliy word processing, document layout and for creating tools to assist in Table Top Role playing (this does not qualify as gaming in this context). The Amiga was a Buisness machine. It was built for sound and video editing, which just happened to be the same tools needed for advanced video games.
As an uneducated (read: holds no degree) software developer I know how hard it is to get your resume to even be considered by a company. Prior to become certified in the languages I use I had to work very hard to even be considered for a job (forcing my way in to speak with managers and HR). Once I was able to list certification on my resume I all of a sudden found myself being contact on a regular bassis by recruiters and HR managers.
Certifications in and of themselves do not prove a developers ability (specially with the low scores required to be certified). On the other hand certification is a way for the self motivated (read: able to learn with out shelling out 10s of thousands of dollars to people who teach because they can not do) to show that they have atleast the basic skills and are capable of working under time constraints (most certs are timed).
Really wise companies would not rely on degree or certification, but would instead have an internal test to see if the person can work in their enviroment.
I feel for you and think the you might want to suggest restructuring your company. There is probably not a need for that many managers if you do not have enough staff to cover the duties. I worked at a company where the CTO did atleast some of the programing. My job was basically to rewrite everything he did because he couldn't focus on the task and was a better manager than a programmer. It sounds like in your company you don't really have managers but instead have workers that handle some of the work load a manager should be handling. I feel for you, I really do.
If you had, say, an organization where decisions were made at their appropriate scope, and leadership emerged naturally
Leadership in companies does emerg naturally and is not imposed artificially. In nature, say amoungst animals, the strongs and most capable become leaders. How this strength is determined is not always the same thing. In a corporation people become leaders by being good at something, and yes that something may be kissing the right ass. Everyone in the group has the opportunity and this is natural. No company I have ever worked with chose leaders randomly. Sometimes bad leaders emerg, this even happens in in nature and some animal packs die out because of this. In general (not a hard and fast rule) if your leader is failing you, then you are somehow failing them. Make your manager look good and in most cases they will leave you alone and let you do your work. make your manager look bad and be prepaired to be micromanaged.
If everyone possessed equal authority in that group, and determined that person A would "organize the workload," does that mean person A should also have the ability to hire and fire...to have the final say in every other aspect of the project...
The person determining the workload must be the one managing the resources they will be distributing the workload amoungst. If these are not the same person then you get the common problem that you have the wrong balance of resource. Also it is important that someone be authorized to make final decisions, to avoid deadlock amoungst employees. As an example I worked on a team with an employee who regularly refused to work on certain aspects simply because he thought it was the wrong way. He was very talented at his job but required that someone enforce what tasks he worked on. Many talented people are either unfocsed or head strong, which require they be managed to get the most out of them.
The rest of the above quote was removed because it relates to other corporate problems (like beleiving managers should be paid more than workers) so I left them out.
...those functions tend to be vested all in one person with relatively absolute authority, and that is what our culture has come to see as a "leader."There is no reason these powers must all rest in one person when they might just as easily be handed out among the group.
It seems that what you are saying, when it comes down to it, is not that there should be no leaders but a change in how leaders perform. This I agree with. There is a big difference between a good leader and a bad one. I think leaders need absolute authority, because when it comes down to it someone needs to be able to make final decisions. A good leader does not abuse absolute authority and takes the opinion of those he leads very seriously.
I personally would not what to share in responsibilty as you put it. As a worker I want to be able to do my job and not have to deal with politics. As a software engineer (go figure) I don't event want to deal with other entities in the company, like sales. A good manager makes sure I would not need to do these things. As a manager I would not want to be bogged down by labor, I want my most skilled workers doing those jobs and not a manager that only does them periodically.
This is a mater of seperation of responsibilty. As I said in my first post it's the perception that needs to change. Some thinking of managers as someone who controls your every action, but as a person who handles certian importatn jobs, such as making final decisions. There is in the corporate world always been an unnecessary contention between workers and management, but this does not have to be. Respect your manager and they might just respect you.
I always enjoy hearing people talk about their ability to work with out management or any form of leadership. I personally have held roles as manager and worker. large groups, or even small ones with head strong people, need leadership.
There is a right way and a wrong way to lead. Bossing people around, telling them how to do their job, and basically being controlling is no way to lead. Good leaders educate their workers, handle disputes between them and shield them from the red tape and annoyancies that are in all large companies.
I don't think it's a hard and fast rule, but I think you would have a hard time finding a reasonable sized company (say 25 or more) made up entirely of equals taking equal share in the work and responsibility.
I think the problem is more what you are expecting than what the manager is doing. Expecting your manager to be knowledgable about your job is really not wise. Why would a company waste resource like that by duplicating knowledge. A managers job is to manage. The flip side of this is that managers need to spend less time worrying about the details of how their employees do their job and a bit more time letting them do their job.
Sadly enough the real world is not so ideal. Managers try to get hands on and employees do not respect people less knowledgeable about their job than themselves. There are examples of good working teams in the world. Most of them are lead by dedicated managers (not workers playing the part of a manager) and they have talented employees that the manager has respect for.
When I interviewed for my current job I asked if the manager was knowledgeable about the technology. The manager, who I was not aware was in the room, said he knew very little about the technology and trusted the opinion of his employees. The manager may not be respected by everyone but he does seem to run a pretty effective team and doesn't allow his employees to get bogged down in managariel red tape.
That could be true, but you haven't done much to show that. I went through his evaluation criteria with a bunch of my bosses, clients, and other executives I've met. Only a couple qualify.
True I have not put forth evidence and for that I appologize. I am sure there are studies out there that either support or debunk my opinion and people can feel free to look for them, and let me know what they find out. As for your bosses if you can get at least half of your coworkers, current and past, to agree then I will accept it with out argument, there are always exceptions to the rule.
I think there's a real difference between somebody who's a bit of a jerk and a psychopath, and I think people can learn to tell the difference.
You are more optimistic than me. I don't think that the general populace, uneducated in psychoanalysis, would be able to tell the difference. There are only a very small percentage of people that are classified (or would be) as psychopaths (which I must reitereate is only a scare word and does not exist as an official diagnosis in the US for good reason). The use in this article of words like psychopath are sensationalist and cause normaly people to feel that the limited criteria listed gives them the ability to determine if there boss is a psychopath. Even if it used more accurate terms like Antisocial and Narcissism, it would be less sensational but still make people think they are qualified to pass judgement.
That's pretty far from accurate. This throws a new light on the recent wave of corporate fraud. That the perpetrators may have a diagnosable mental illness suggests very different solutions than the "few bad apples" theory.
Now it may be that many top executives do have a diagnosable mental illness but this article does not support that. It only says when looking at a simplified version of a general test many people would qualify as "corporate psychopaths." I admit that I may see this as spreading fear more than the average person because I am aware that being diagnosed with any Personallity Disorder, which is what psychopathic dissorder(internationaly) or those that make it up(US) are, as being given a life sentance. The majority of the texts on PDs state in no uncertian terms, that PDs are maintainable but uncurable. This is people seeking an explination for "evil" in the world.
If Psychopathic behavior was so common it would not be considered mental illness since the criteria used to be considered as a mental defect is that it must be outside the societal norms. This is part of the reason the DSM changes every few years as societal norms change.
Even being a theif and a murderer does not make you a psychopath.
I certianly wasn't saying that ALL executives or managers are grandiose, manipulative or lacking in affect. But I would say that the majority, and the most succesful are percieved that way by the majority of their employees. If you read post closely you would see that I was saying that most succesful hire ups are not psychopaths at all, and that psychopaths are very rarely succesful for long.
The problem with someone saying " I know a number of successful execs who are certainly political players, but they are honest, realistic in their self-assessments, and empathize with other people" is that it is a subjective statement, and could resonably be wrong. If these so called compastionate executives where truely Narcissistic (once again not to be confused with psychopathic) then they would be true master manipulators, able to make a person believe they have empathy and affect (even living up to their personal vision of godliness), yet probably not lose any sleep over taking the livelyhood of thousands of people. By these standards it would be possible to send millions of people to gas chambers to die, and as long as you cried about it then your not mentally ill. Simply the act of being in charge means you are either grandios or lacking in empathy and effect. If you weren't grandios you would think that there are others just as good as you and one of them should be in your position, or you don't care that you are keeping down capable people and therefor not empathizing with them.
My point is, and has always been, that we ALL have psychopathic narcissistic, antisocial, sociopthic etc...) traits, but this does not make us psychopaths(being sad does not make you pathologicaly depressed). Every person on the face of the earth lacks empathy and affect for some person at some time (if not they would be a quivering mass of tears balled up in a corner somewhere). Those who are successfull in buisness tend towards having control of their affectiveness making them appear uncaring and unfeeling at times, but this does not make them psychopaths. Articles like this one simply put fear into the minds of the people that read them. They have no other purpose. If you want real fear just add up the percents of the people effected by each metal disorder as discribed in the DSM (or ICD). You'll find out it's well over 100% meaning we are all mentally ill, some even more so.
The 8 traits that supposedly make up the "Corporate Psychopath" are actuallly very close inline with Pathological Narcissism. As a mater of fact . Grandiosity, Manipulation, Lack of Empathy and Affect are major keypoints in Narcissism. Psychopaths do not make good leaders, Narcissits do. If you want to know more about this then check out The Productive Narcissist: The Promise and Peril of Visionary Leadership by Michael Maccoby.
Part of the problem is that, atleast in the US, there is no recognized single disorder that covers psychopathic personalities. The most closely aligned, according to the DSM(Diagnostic and Statistical Manual) is Antisocial Personality Disorder, which does share some traits with Narcissistic Personality Disorder, but neither APD or NDP alone would qualify someone as a Psychopath. In the ICD (international equivalent to the DSM) there is a personality disorder covering psychopaths, as well as a couple other disorders that are closesly inline with psychopathic personailty, but most likely neither of those would apply to your boss. There is a reason there as so many different diagnostics and that they some time share traits, because each different combination of traits should be treated differently.
So please don't everyone go of thinking there boss is a psychopath because they are manipulative, grandiose or don't show any feeling or affect. It's a job, and it is those particular traits that most likely allowed them to get where they are.
I'm confused. After reading the rest of this thread it seems people think that because it can be done then it's not a crime. There are alot of things in the real world that can be done, but they are still crimes if you do them. I mean your saying that if I "can" kill you then I should be alowed by law. That doesn't make sense.
Second, the person in this case was not arrested for cheating or stealing in a Game. What the were arrested for was bringing the stolen property into the real world and profiting from stolen goods. had they not sold the stolen goods there would be no crime because it would still been just a game. IANAL but that is my take on it.
This is a companies good use of an EULA (the one that probably says the virtual items belong to the company not the user, though I have not read the EULA for this game). Good for the company.
I'm no expert but I wouldn't think apple would not stand to benifit from direct compition with MS in the home PC space. Apple has a certain apeal that they would lose if they became just another OS provider. First they would lose stability because they would nolonger control the hardware as well as the software (this is the reason I own Macs). Second the lack of games and other children's software helps create the feeling that Macs are for intelligent working types, or elitist (Apples bread and butter). I for one would never waist my Macs processing power on games (ok rarely would I) and leave the to the consoles (regardless of performaces differences).
The bottom line is, people buy Apples because they work (99.999% of the time), and if they just provided a generic OS then quality would severly drop (more drivers to develop and test or allowing third parties to develop drivers).
I think you may be looking at the wrong numbers. It may be true that most of the games available are not MA but if you look at the sales numbers you will see that (atleas for PS2 and XBOX) MA games out sell others. The top selling 3 PS2 games and the top 4 for xbox are all rated MA. I realize it is only a small slice of the sales but I'm pretty sure it's enought to make big sellers think twice.
Is a 14 day human embryo, which happens to have a nervous system, a very young human organism?
For me, no it is not, because it has no sense of self, memory, the ability to survive without a host attachment or any of the other things that I personally use to define "human life." You are the one that came up with the 14 day thing not me. I have already stated an embryo is a parasitic cell mass. The fact that it may eventually become a human does not make it a human. By your logic my lunch qualifies as a human since some of it's atomic strucure may someday become part of a living human.
Sure, a clump of cancer cells has some superficial similarities with an unborn person. So does an unborn monkey - that is not the point.
Excuse me if I miss enterpreted but I think you are implying that a monkey embryo is not life in the way a human embryo is. If you say that cancers cells and monkey embryos share similarity to human embryos and cancers cells are ok to destroy then you are also saying that monkey cells are ok to destroy. Damn I hope the next evolution looks on us the same way, we do after all deserve it.
Beyond 14 days (after which there is no possibility of twinning), that embryo is a fully-fledged human organism that will some day develop into a fetus, child, and adult.
Cool, you have also figured out how to make sure all births go full term. And to think my Sister in laws late term misscariage would have never happend if we had your knowledge.
Lastly you almost screwed people that rely on wkipedia, I damn near went and edited the page to definitively prove you wrong. Please next time pick a reliable scientific resource, not some over rated weblog.
I keep these arguments up and i might actually join the Pro Choice movement myself.
Ok I may use some far out analogies but the idea that conjoined twins "sharing" an organ and mass of cells growing in or on a host organism ae in anyway the same is a pretty good streach.
______ is an organized mass of cells produced by a foreign substance being introduced to the host body and infecting a cell within the host body. This mass will continue to grow, uncontrolled, untill it is either removed from the body or the host dies.
You can replace the above ______ with either Cancer, An embryo, or many other possibilities and you will see that it still holds true. For some reason pro-lifers beleive that only once the body rejects the growth is it acceptable to remove the growth. Many prolifers even beleive it is acceptable to remove the growth prior to it being rejected if the host's life is in danger. Then again I am sure there are others that beleive the cell mass is actually of more importance than the host and would risk the host's life in exchanged for the continued existance of the cell mass.
If you believe in evolution you would realize that Human life can grow from mutant cells. In fact (assuming you accept evolution) humans MUST HAVE grown from a mutant cell strain. Therefor equating humans to cancer is not all that far off, and we as humans find it acceptable to destroy or remove those cells that may produce the next evolution of existance while in turn continuing the current evolution at all costs.
I can already see that a scientific argument, like I was expecting to have, is going to shortly become a moral argument, which I don't have much interest in.
Good opinion, but you still didn't explain the difference between mutant cell growth and an embryo. Having worked for a national organization for genomic research (as a software engineer) I have learned a few things, like the fact that even cancer cells contain the same elements that define the cells of a human being, DNA. As a mater of fact they often contian nearly Identical DNA to the human they are host in, probably far closer than that of an embryo (which would be somewhere around 50% different).
The idea that one cell growth has different rights than another is some what absurd. An embryo can not survive with out physical connection to the host. I personally am not saying it acceptable to directly kill the cells of an embryo, but it should be acceptable to the host to remove the growth from their bodies. It's not my fault if the growth can not survive with out direct physical connection to the host body. That is why an embryo or even a fetus is not a Human
People can be lumped into two categories - either the unborn have the same rights as those who are born, or they do not.
Those are not the only categories. I beleive I explained that there are those that don't beleive life begins untill some point after birth, when conciousness begins. There are those that beleive life and rights begin at different stages of development (like you even said, life might not begin untill 14 days after conception). And there are those like myself who think it's enjoyable to watch extreamists get all bent out of shape when they are confronted with an argument they can't deny as a possibility.
Slashdot Mirror
I, and many others, was not born privilaged, nor where I live now. I was born on the other side of the country, about as far apart as you can get. But rather than deal with the threat of huriccans, earthquakes, floods and other natural disasters I moved to some place safe. I feel for the kids who's parents are too stupid to get there kids out of a bad area, but I don't feel for the adults. But sorry to say, I can't get my way, and so those poor kids will probably be sent back to live with their unfit parents in a dangerous land that no mater how you look at it was not intended for human life. But hey I can look on the bright side and be thankful that they are rebuild, so next years issue of "Girls Gone Wild" will have it's share of seens out of Mardi Gras.
If the job was significantly better (3 to 4 times what I make now) I would consider it. But I would then use that money to invest in property in a safer area, and be prepaired to move when the next hurrican was heading that way. WTF, who is so unfortunate they can't move? seriouslly it cost $25 to get on a bus to move to higher land. You could probably hitch it for free. And finding a job paying minimum wage is pretty easy to do anywhere in this country. I would have no sympathy either, I find people that waste money by building in/on on safe land to be pretty worthless. I should point out I live in an area that has not been struck by significant natural disaster in my life time (there were floods previously but with very little damage).
In the end, until the US is a socialist country, or the government mandates where you live, you have the choice to move and the government should not be responsible if you chose to live in a high risk area (like some where that you look up too see ships!).
Yeah I was curious about that one when I wrote it. That's what I get from growing up with Ebonics.
Then again why should we take the opinion of a bunch of people foolish enough to live below sea level, and right on the cost.
Mozgest still means one of your hands is off the keyboard. Which is all fine and dandy when you're browsing porn sites but not really good when doing actual work (a.k.a. using one of the many rediculess web apps out there). It's a pretty major waste of time to move from the mouse to the keyboard to fill in form data. Just keep your hands on the keys. Now if only more sites would be built to effectively use the keyboard (I mean I can't easily preview/submit this message with out a mouse click, atleast in safari)
Please step away from the Mouse. Learn some of the key board commands, they will save you alot of time and effort. CTRL-W (or Command-W for us Mac Users) will close the current tab. Now if only the Firefox developers would implement CTRL-Q (I'm so used too Command-Q) to quit the application.
Untill I can run Windows on my current hardware IN PLACE OF OS X, comparisions between Windows and OS X have no meaning precisely because I would have to buy antiquated... I mean new hardware to use Windows. Vista is a rip off of Tiger? Of course, and until Windows runs on proprietary Power and x86 platforms, Windows is not a competitor to OS X despite coming out with copies the features.
Once someone is using a PS2, Gamecube or XBox to generate scenes for major motion picture, or are otherwise used by more than just developers for primarily none game playing purposes, then they can be considered something other than a game console.
I like how you cut out the important part of the sentence. It was that particular project (and any other programmer experiment) that I was being sure to exclude in my statement.
The difference between a game console and multi purpose computer (not just PCs) is how it is primarily used. Once someone is using a PS2, Gamecube or XBox to generate scenes for major motion picture, or are otherwise used by more than just developers for primarily none game playing purposes, then they can be considered something other than a game console. The C64 was a PC, designed from the ground up to do more than play games. It had exceptional graphics and sound for the time to give it adittional selling points. I personally used my C64 for primarliy word processing, document layout and for creating tools to assist in Table Top Role playing (this does not qualify as gaming in this context). The Amiga was a Buisness machine. It was built for sound and video editing, which just happened to be the same tools needed for advanced video games.
As an uneducated (read: holds no degree) software developer I know how hard it is to get your resume to even be considered by a company. Prior to become certified in the languages I use I had to work very hard to even be considered for a job (forcing my way in to speak with managers and HR). Once I was able to list certification on my resume I all of a sudden found myself being contact on a regular bassis by recruiters and HR managers.
Certifications in and of themselves do not prove a developers ability (specially with the low scores required to be certified). On the other hand certification is a way for the self motivated (read: able to learn with out shelling out 10s of thousands of dollars to people who teach because they can not do) to show that they have atleast the basic skills and are capable of working under time constraints (most certs are timed).
Really wise companies would not rely on degree or certification, but would instead have an internal test to see if the person can work in their enviroment.
I feel for you and think the you might want to suggest restructuring your company. There is probably not a need for that many managers if you do not have enough staff to cover the duties. I worked at a company where the CTO did atleast some of the programing. My job was basically to rewrite everything he did because he couldn't focus on the task and was a better manager than a programmer. It sounds like in your company you don't really have managers but instead have workers that handle some of the work load a manager should be handling. I feel for you, I really do.
If you had, say, an organization where decisions were made at their appropriate scope, and leadership emerged naturally
Leadership in companies does emerg naturally and is not imposed artificially. In nature, say amoungst animals, the strongs and most capable become leaders. How this strength is determined is not always the same thing. In a corporation people become leaders by being good at something, and yes that something may be kissing the right ass. Everyone in the group has the opportunity and this is natural. No company I have ever worked with chose leaders randomly. Sometimes bad leaders emerg, this even happens in in nature and some animal packs die out because of this. In general (not a hard and fast rule) if your leader is failing you, then you are somehow failing them. Make your manager look good and in most cases they will leave you alone and let you do your work. make your manager look bad and be prepaired to be micromanaged.
If everyone possessed equal authority in that group, and determined that person A would "organize the workload," does that mean person A should also have the ability to hire and fire...to have the final say in every other aspect of the project...
...those functions tend to be vested all in one person with relatively absolute authority, and that is what our culture has come to see as a "leader."There is no reason these powers must all rest in one person when they might just as easily be handed out among the group.
The person determining the workload must be the one managing the resources they will be distributing the workload amoungst. If these are not the same person then you get the common problem that you have the wrong balance of resource. Also it is important that someone be authorized to make final decisions, to avoid deadlock amoungst employees. As an example I worked on a team with an employee who regularly refused to work on certain aspects simply because he thought it was the wrong way. He was very talented at his job but required that someone enforce what tasks he worked on. Many talented people are either unfocsed or head strong, which require they be managed to get the most out of them.
The rest of the above quote was removed because it relates to other corporate problems (like beleiving managers should be paid more than workers) so I left them out.
It seems that what you are saying, when it comes down to it, is not that there should be no leaders but a change in how leaders perform. This I agree with. There is a big difference between a good leader and a bad one. I think leaders need absolute authority, because when it comes down to it someone needs to be able to make final decisions. A good leader does not abuse absolute authority and takes the opinion of those he leads very seriously.
I personally would not what to share in responsibilty as you put it. As a worker I want to be able to do my job and not have to deal with politics. As a software engineer (go figure) I don't event want to deal with other entities in the company, like sales. A good manager makes sure I would not need to do these things. As a manager I would not want to be bogged down by labor, I want my most skilled workers doing those jobs and not a manager that only does them periodically.
This is a mater of seperation of responsibilty. As I said in my first post it's the perception that needs to change. Some thinking of managers as someone who controls your every action, but as a person who handles certian importatn jobs, such as making final decisions. There is in the corporate world always been an unnecessary contention between workers and management, but this does not have to be. Respect your manager and they might just respect you.
I always enjoy hearing people talk about their ability to work with out management or any form of leadership. I personally have held roles as manager and worker. large groups, or even small ones with head strong people, need leadership.
There is a right way and a wrong way to lead. Bossing people around, telling them how to do their job, and basically being controlling is no way to lead. Good leaders educate their workers, handle disputes between them and shield them from the red tape and annoyancies that are in all large companies.
I don't think it's a hard and fast rule, but I think you would have a hard time finding a reasonable sized company (say 25 or more) made up entirely of equals taking equal share in the work and responsibility.
I think the problem is more what you are expecting than what the manager is doing. Expecting your manager to be knowledgable about your job is really not wise. Why would a company waste resource like that by duplicating knowledge. A managers job is to manage. The flip side of this is that managers need to spend less time worrying about the details of how their employees do their job and a bit more time letting them do their job.
Sadly enough the real world is not so ideal. Managers try to get hands on and employees do not respect people less knowledgeable about their job than themselves. There are examples of good working teams in the world. Most of them are lead by dedicated managers (not workers playing the part of a manager) and they have talented employees that the manager has respect for.
When I interviewed for my current job I asked if the manager was knowledgeable about the technology. The manager, who I was not aware was in the room, said he knew very little about the technology and trusted the opinion of his employees. The manager may not be respected by everyone but he does seem to run a pretty effective team and doesn't allow his employees to get bogged down in managariel red tape.
That could be true, but you haven't done much to show that. I went through his evaluation criteria with a bunch of my bosses, clients, and other executives I've met. Only a couple qualify.
True I have not put forth evidence and for that I appologize. I am sure there are studies out there that either support or debunk my opinion and people can feel free to look for them, and let me know what they find out. As for your bosses if you can get at least half of your coworkers, current and past, to agree then I will accept it with out argument, there are always exceptions to the rule.
I think there's a real difference between somebody who's a bit of a jerk and a psychopath, and I think people can learn to tell the difference.
You are more optimistic than me. I don't think that the general populace, uneducated in psychoanalysis, would be able to tell the difference. There are only a very small percentage of people that are classified (or would be) as psychopaths (which I must reitereate is only a scare word and does not exist as an official diagnosis in the US for good reason). The use in this article of words like psychopath are sensationalist and cause normaly people to feel that the limited criteria listed gives them the ability to determine if there boss is a psychopath. Even if it used more accurate terms like Antisocial and Narcissism, it would be less sensational but still make people think they are qualified to pass judgement.
That's pretty far from accurate. This throws a new light on the recent wave of corporate fraud. That the perpetrators may have a diagnosable mental illness suggests very different solutions than the "few bad apples" theory.
Now it may be that many top executives do have a diagnosable mental illness but this article does not support that. It only says when looking at a simplified version of a general test many people would qualify as "corporate psychopaths." I admit that I may see this as spreading fear more than the average person because I am aware that being diagnosed with any Personallity Disorder, which is what psychopathic dissorder(internationaly) or those that make it up(US) are, as being given a life sentance. The majority of the texts on PDs state in no uncertian terms, that PDs are maintainable but uncurable. This is people seeking an explination for "evil" in the world.
If Psychopathic behavior was so common it would not be considered mental illness since the criteria used to be considered as a mental defect is that it must be outside the societal norms. This is part of the reason the DSM changes every few years as societal norms change.
Even being a theif and a murderer does not make you a psychopath.
I certianly wasn't saying that ALL executives or managers are grandiose, manipulative or lacking in affect. But I would say that the majority, and the most succesful are percieved that way by the majority of their employees. If you read post closely you would see that I was saying that most succesful hire ups are not psychopaths at all, and that psychopaths are very rarely succesful for long.
The problem with someone saying " I know a number of successful execs who are certainly political players, but they are honest, realistic in their self-assessments, and empathize with other people" is that it is a subjective statement, and could resonably be wrong. If these so called compastionate executives where truely Narcissistic (once again not to be confused with psychopathic) then they would be true master manipulators, able to make a person believe they have empathy and affect (even living up to their personal vision of godliness), yet probably not lose any sleep over taking the livelyhood of thousands of people. By these standards it would be possible to send millions of people to gas chambers to die, and as long as you cried about it then your not mentally ill. Simply the act of being in charge means you are either grandios or lacking in empathy and effect. If you weren't grandios you would think that there are others just as good as you and one of them should be in your position, or you don't care that you are keeping down capable people and therefor not empathizing with them.
My point is, and has always been, that we ALL have psychopathic narcissistic, antisocial, sociopthic etc...) traits, but this does not make us psychopaths(being sad does not make you pathologicaly depressed). Every person on the face of the earth lacks empathy and affect for some person at some time (if not they would be a quivering mass of tears balled up in a corner somewhere). Those who are successfull in buisness tend towards having control of their affectiveness making them appear uncaring and unfeeling at times, but this does not make them psychopaths. Articles like this one simply put fear into the minds of the people that read them. They have no other purpose. If you want real fear just add up the percents of the people effected by each metal disorder as discribed in the DSM (or ICD). You'll find out it's well over 100% meaning we are all mentally ill, some even more so.
The 8 traits that supposedly make up the "Corporate Psychopath" are actuallly very close inline with Pathological Narcissism. As a mater of fact . Grandiosity, Manipulation, Lack of Empathy and Affect are major keypoints in Narcissism. Psychopaths do not make good leaders, Narcissits do. If you want to know more about this then check out The Productive Narcissist: The Promise and Peril of Visionary Leadership by Michael Maccoby.
Part of the problem is that, atleast in the US, there is no recognized single disorder that covers psychopathic personalities. The most closely aligned, according to the DSM(Diagnostic and Statistical Manual) is Antisocial Personality Disorder, which does share some traits with Narcissistic Personality Disorder, but neither APD or NDP alone would qualify someone as a Psychopath. In the ICD (international equivalent to the DSM) there is a personality disorder covering psychopaths, as well as a couple other disorders that are closesly inline with psychopathic personailty, but most likely neither of those would apply to your boss. There is a reason there as so many different diagnostics and that they some time share traits, because each different combination of traits should be treated differently.
So please don't everyone go of thinking there boss is a psychopath because they are manipulative, grandiose or don't show any feeling or affect. It's a job, and it is those particular traits that most likely allowed them to get where they are.
I'm confused. After reading the rest of this thread it seems people think that because it can be done then it's not a crime. There are alot of things in the real world that can be done, but they are still crimes if you do them. I mean your saying that if I "can" kill you then I should be alowed by law. That doesn't make sense.
Second, the person in this case was not arrested for cheating or stealing in a Game. What the were arrested for was bringing the stolen property into the real world and profiting from stolen goods. had they not sold the stolen goods there would be no crime because it would still been just a game. IANAL but that is my take on it.
This is a companies good use of an EULA (the one that probably says the virtual items belong to the company not the user, though I have not read the EULA for this game). Good for the company.
I'm no expert but I wouldn't think apple would not stand to benifit from direct compition with MS in the home PC space. Apple has a certain apeal that they would lose if they became just another OS provider. First they would lose stability because they would nolonger control the hardware as well as the software (this is the reason I own Macs). Second the lack of games and other children's software helps create the feeling that Macs are for intelligent working types, or elitist (Apples bread and butter). I for one would never waist my Macs processing power on games (ok rarely would I) and leave the to the consoles (regardless of performaces differences).
The bottom line is, people buy Apples because they work (99.999% of the time), and if they just provided a generic OS then quality would severly drop (more drivers to develop and test or allowing third parties to develop drivers).
I think you may be looking at the wrong numbers. It may be true that most of the games available are not MA but if you look at the sales numbers you will see that (atleas for PS2 and XBOX) MA games out sell others. The top selling 3 PS2 games and the top 4 for xbox are all rated MA. I realize it is only a small slice of the sales but I'm pretty sure it's enought to make big sellers think twice.
Is a 14 day human embryo, which happens to have a nervous system, a very young human organism?
For me, no it is not, because it has no sense of self, memory, the ability to survive without a host attachment or any of the other things that I personally use to define "human life." You are the one that came up with the 14 day thing not me. I have already stated an embryo is a parasitic cell mass. The fact that it may eventually become a human does not make it a human. By your logic my lunch qualifies as a human since some of it's atomic strucure may someday become part of a living human.
Sure, a clump of cancer cells has some superficial similarities with an unborn person. So does an unborn monkey - that is not the point.
Excuse me if I miss enterpreted but I think you are implying that a monkey embryo is not life in the way a human embryo is. If you say that cancers cells and monkey embryos share similarity to human embryos and cancers cells are ok to destroy then you are also saying that monkey cells are ok to destroy. Damn I hope the next evolution looks on us the same way, we do after all deserve it.
Beyond 14 days (after which there is no possibility of twinning), that embryo is a fully-fledged human organism that will some day develop into a fetus, child, and adult.
Cool, you have also figured out how to make sure all births go full term. And to think my Sister in laws late term misscariage would have never happend if we had your knowledge.
Lastly you almost screwed people that rely on wkipedia, I damn near went and edited the page to definitively prove you wrong. Please next time pick a reliable scientific resource, not some over rated weblog.
I keep these arguments up and i might actually join the Pro Choice movement myself.
Ok I may use some far out analogies but the idea that conjoined twins "sharing" an organ and mass of cells growing in or on a host organism ae in anyway the same is a pretty good streach.
______ is an organized mass of cells produced by a foreign substance being introduced to the host body and infecting a cell within the host body. This mass will continue to grow, uncontrolled, untill it is either removed from the body or the host dies.
You can replace the above ______ with either Cancer, An embryo, or many other possibilities and you will see that it still holds true. For some reason pro-lifers beleive that only once the body rejects the growth is it acceptable to remove the growth. Many prolifers even beleive it is acceptable to remove the growth prior to it being rejected if the host's life is in danger. Then again I am sure there are others that beleive the cell mass is actually of more importance than the host and would risk the host's life in exchanged for the continued existance of the cell mass.
If you believe in evolution you would realize that Human life can grow from mutant cells. In fact (assuming you accept evolution) humans MUST HAVE grown from a mutant cell strain. Therefor equating humans to cancer is not all that far off, and we as humans find it acceptable to destroy or remove those cells that may produce the next evolution of existance while in turn continuing the current evolution at all costs.
I can already see that a scientific argument, like I was expecting to have, is going to shortly become a moral argument, which I don't have much interest in.
Good opinion, but you still didn't explain the difference between mutant cell growth and an embryo. Having worked for a national organization for genomic research (as a software engineer) I have learned a few things, like the fact that even cancer cells contain the same elements that define the cells of a human being, DNA. As a mater of fact they often contian nearly Identical DNA to the human they are host in, probably far closer than that of an embryo (which would be somewhere around 50% different).
The idea that one cell growth has different rights than another is some what absurd. An embryo can not survive with out physical connection to the host. I personally am not saying it acceptable to directly kill the cells of an embryo, but it should be acceptable to the host to remove the growth from their bodies. It's not my fault if the growth can not survive with out direct physical connection to the host body. That is why an embryo or even a fetus is not a Human
People can be lumped into two categories - either the unborn have the same rights as those who are born, or they do not.
Those are not the only categories. I beleive I explained that there are those that don't beleive life begins untill some point after birth, when conciousness begins. There are those that beleive life and rights begin at different stages of development (like you even said, life might not begin untill 14 days after conception). And there are those like myself who think it's enjoyable to watch extreamists get all bent out of shape when they are confronted with an argument they can't deny as a possibility.