I work as a programmer in a dying industry. Over the last several years we've cut hours instead of having layoffs. We are now down to a 3 day work week. Everyone left knows they should have left years ago but we are all curious to see how long the company can keep going.
Everybody knows how 5 day work weeks are. You get back to work Monday and it may take a little while to pick up where you left off Friday but surely by midday you are back in the groove.
Your two days off for the weekend seem like barely time to get your own stuff done.
When we went to 4 day weeks it was a great boon to my weekends. If I wanted I could take a day to completely goof off and unwind from my work week and still have two weekend days for my own projects.
Monday though took more effort to remember where I'd broken off on Thursday. It might take all day to get my mojo going especially if I had been working on something trick like hunting a difficult big.
At 3 day work weeks and 4 day weekends I've got more "me" days than "work" days. It no longer feels like work is the main thing I do and my personal projects have to be fitted in the cracks. Now my projects are the main things and work feels like the side project.
When I get in Monday I will have completely forgotten what I was working on Wednesday. I have to end Wednesday by writing a detailed note to my future Monday self explaining exactly what I was working on. If I don't write that note it might take until sometime mid Tuesday before I'm caught up to where I was last Wednesday and making progress.
I appreciate your insight, and it really speaks to the varied experiences people can have in very similar situations.
When I first started contracting full-time, I took a presumably similar route to others who made the transition and brought on my old, full-time employer as a new, part-time client for three days a week. When my "Monday" rolled around (was contracted Tue-Thu) I was so amped to get into work that I had previously felt largely indifferent about. Since I was suddenly able to focus my own time on my own projects, it was easier to stay motivated and involved when it came back to "working". The next few months consisted of some of my post productive days with that company.
Do you think that you would get most of the personal freedom benefits without the difficulty in work continuity if you worked 5 half-days a week instead of 3 full days?
Not suggesting you’d want to do that, I’m just wondering how you think it would play out.
I think that the half days would have enough work time to keep from really getting going on personal things on those days and enough personal time to keep from really getting going on work.
I've thought of trying a schedule of working a 5 day week, a 5 day week, taking a week off, working a 5 day week, and taking a week off, and repeating that pattern.
Stallman's mistake was expressing his key point in two sentences using many words of three or more syllables.
This apparently put it beyond the reading comprehension level of the reporters at Vice and Daily Beast, and of Selam G., and so his point was completely misunderstood/misrepresented.
> If I bully a co-worker or start stating at work that I think someone is less capable for any reason linked to their biology, religion, sexuality or age I will be putting my job at risk.
He didn't really say women were less capable, though (biologically or otherwise).
He said that there are differences not related to capability, and that the current environment in tech is such that the work environment is more acceptable to people on the "male" side of those differences, which makes capable women less likely to go into or stay in tech. To increase diversity he suggested that we need to make the tech environment more friendly to women.
For example, he said that men on average are more competitive, and women more cooperative, and that women tend to value work-life balance more then men, and men tend to value status more. There's a fair bit of scientific literature supporting those claims. (To what extent these differences are biological rather than learned is less clear--but does it actually matter?)
Currently tech tends to favor competitive status seekers who will make their career the focus of their life (especially for management and leadership positions). Cooperative people who want a good work-life balance get left behind. He suggested Google move toward more pair programming and other cooperative ways of doing things, and make it so that it is easier for employees to balance their outside life with work. That should get more women coming into tech and increase the retention rate.
It is worth reading the actual memo if you have not. A very large amount of the discussion of it has been based on what people imagined it said, not what it actually said.
>He didn't really say women were less capable, though (biologically or otherwise).
Did you read the memo?
>>I’m simply stating that the distribution of preferences and abilities of men and women differ in part due to biological causes and that these differences may explain why we don’t see equal representation of women in tech and leadership.
That says nothing about the abilities of his female coworkers who are already working at Google and who are already in the minority there.
He's saying that going full steam ahead trying anything and everything to get to 50/50 may be impossible without lowering the bar for women which is bad for everyone.
So which is it then? You're going from "He didn't say that about women" to "He said that about women but he didn't mean that about his women coworkers" - i.e. no true scotsman.
Even so, Damore did not specifically say that about "non-coworker women", he said it about women.
One is the distribution of the entire population, the other is a tiny and non representative sample. Take a probability class if that is hard for you to understand.
That quote doesn't support the statement "women are less capable", since it refers to 'distribution of abilities'; whereas 'less capable' would usually be interpreted as a statement about averages.
The comments that I have seen from him on that topic (and it should be noted that I have only read a small part of his comments so this may not be representative of his thoughts on these matters) implied that those groups were better slaves because they were more resilient or stronger, so were able to better survive slavery than less resilient or weaker groups.
I don't see why that would make people from those groups feel unwelcome. If anything I would expect people from the groups that he says were genetically not as good as slaves to be the ones who would feel unwelcome. The implication is that they are weaker or less resilient.
Was that on Urbit's homepage? The docs? The IRC? The subreddit? Over e-mail?
Was it something like "yeah it is a functional system... hey have I mentioned how much potential you have for whenever you feel like dedicating your life to slavery?"
...or was it just the guy rambling on a blog of his under a pen name?
It's pretty obvious to anyone that the guy's views are obscenely offensive, but if the guy is strictly professional when it comes to Urbit, treats everyone with the same respect and works just fine along with many people that despise his views, how are the project's goals tainted?
Because people don't just see Urbit, if they end up participating long-term. They see Yarvin, and he definitely is not one to hide his worldview.
As much as some people like to pretend it's only about tech, tech is made by people and it requires them to interact with each other, and that can never be completely confined to code.
By definition no, of course. But I have never done a non-trivial amount of open source-style work (coding or otherwise) with someone who shares their political views online, without learning about them somehow.
And in fact, every Urbit contributor in this thread who's mentioned this has also heard about Yarvin's political views, and not from this thread. It appears to me there's already a kind of self-selection process in Urbit contributors, towards those who are comfortable tolerating his garbage. And that's exactly the problem.
Well, if you define "comfortable tolerating his garbage" as "contributes to Urbit despite it being Yarvin's project", then tautological assertion is tautological.
There is certainly some self-selection for people who don't throw tech babies out with political bathwater. I count myself as one such person. I mean, I continued using Javascript and Firefox even after hearing about Brendan Eich's political contribution! Feel free to draw incorrect inferences regarding my opinion of gay marriage.
I have also toyed around with Urbit, and have (in a sense) made minor contributions. Feel free to draw incorrect inferences regarding my opinion of Yarvin's political writing.
It's not about your beliefs or what people infer about them. In fact it's not about you at all- it's about the other potential contributors and users that Yarvin is alienating, despite all the claims in this thread that his views don't impact the project.
I mean, I guess you're technically correct: If nothing else, the impact of his views on the project is that it results in the exclusion of people who choose to exclude themselves from projects created by "the wrong people".
But of course that's trivially true of all projects, so why do you think it's such a problem in this particular case? If you answer "because his views are really bad" while acknowledging that they otherwise have no direct bearing on the technology, you're basically saying "because he's really unpopular".
I have no love of Yarvin's politics, but that sort of cure is worse than the disease.
Where we seem to differ is in the importance of those people who avoid Yarvin (or Torvalds, or other more or less abrasive open source contributors), as well as the reasons they avoid him. It's more than merely ideological for many people, it's personal.
I don't acknowledge that his views have no direct bearing on the technology, either, and that's tied up in my first point. We design things for ourselves, for the most part, so by excluding (perhaps inadvertently) people with different perspectives on life, we lose out on valuable input.
Thanks for the clarification. I'm certainly not claiming that people who avoid the project are somehow "less important" as a result of their decision. And I wouldn't doubt that it's personal for them - "mere ideology" also seems like a pretty personal thing!
I think we agree that Urbit would benefit from a larger, more diverse user/contributor base. What wouldn't? We're just ascribing agency in different places. I view the claim that Yarvin is excluding people as a sort of rhetorical sleight of hand. What he's actually done is 1) publish some really unpopular opinions, and 2) build Urbit. It is entirely possible to evaluate 2 on its own merits[1]. So I'm disappointed to see so many people write it off for other IMO less relevant reasons.
It reminds me a bit of a "Christian-friendly" Linux distro I once saw that omitted software written by known homosexuals. Would you also claim that the gay programmers were (perhaps inadvertently) excluding a subset of Christians? I suspect most people would agree in this case that agents of exclusion are the ones actually performing the exclusive act, rather than ones who happened to be "the wrong people" from another group's point of view.
[1]: This is true even in the presence of a strong political influence on the technology. I honestly don't see much of a connection between Urbit and Moldbug's politics, but then the latter never made much sense to me, so maybe I'm missing something. If there are politically objectionable aspects to the software, then by all means object! But plain old guilt by association is a weak argument in any context, doubly so in a technical one.
Yes, in a hypothetical platonic code-only way you can separate Yarvin from his work to some degree. But you're underestimating the impact of the word "personal" here- some people avoid communities like this not as a boycott, but for their personal safety or emotional well-being. That's the point where they go from the excluder to the one being excluded.
That was the example Moldbug used, claiming that Africans made genetically better slaves than Native Americans. 5F36B5F62640 contended that the groups that were not better slaves should feel unwelcome. This is just the basic logical implication of taking those two claims together.
Rather than attacking me personally, is there something I missed or was incorrect about?
You created a 'should' from a 'would', and therefore implied that 5F36B5F62640 had ill-feelings towards Indians.
I'm not attacking you personally, nor am I speaking to you personally. I am just pointing out to anybody reading this, that you just tried to smear somebody.
Of course, whether you did so on purpose is another matter.
You're grasping a bit on this. Logic does not dictate that there were implied ill-feelings on 5F36B5F62640's behalf. In fact, I can categorically state that from the one post I've read from them I do not believe they have any such ill-feelings!
To restate, then:
"Wait, so your argument is that only Native Americans would feel unwelcome in this community?
Is this supposed to be in his favor?"
I appreciate your dedication to accuracy, and I must assume this satisfies your complaint.
The problem with your annotations is not that they "didn't give fascism a fair shake". The problem is that you tend to do a poor job of reading the TPP text, and also often seem to have not done the necessary background research in the area a given TPP section covers to understand the meaning.
Some examples. Your annotation to Article 20.2 section 3: "TPP prohibits environmental laws that create a “restriction on trade.”
What TPP actually says in that section is "disguised restriction on trade". Either you missed the word "disguised", or did not recognize that the phrase "disguised restriction on trade" is almost a term of art in international trade agreements and so should be taken in TPP with the same interpretation and effect it has been given in the numerous other treaties in which it appears.
Article 18.2, which says:
A Party may provide limited exceptions to the rights
conferred by a trademark, such as fair use of
descriptive terms, provided that those exceptions
take account of the legitimate interest of the owner
of the trademark and of third parties.
Your annotation is:
For example, if someone posts a YouTube video
criticizing McDonald's® for making terrible food
and destroying the environment, this would
ordinarily be protected under the U.S. Constitution.
But, under the TPP, any public use of the
McDonald's® brand would only be allowable if it is
in the legitimate interest of McDonald's®, the
trademark holder. Since a video criticizing them
would never be in their “legitimate interest,”
McDonald's® could be able to bring an ISDS
complaint against the U.S. government and force the
video to be taken down.
You somehow managed to read "take into account of the legitimate interests of" as meaning "in the legitimate interest of", which is quite different.
Article 18.37 section 2 says:
Subject to paragraphs 3 and 4 and consistent with
paragraph 1, each Party confirms that patents are
available for inventions claimed as at least one of
the following: new uses of a known product, new
methods of using a known product, or new processes
of using a known product. A Party may limit those
new processes to those that do not claim the use of
the product as such.
Your annotation is: "Being able to patent “new uses of a known product” will allow patent-holders to make very minor tweaks to existing products to effectively extend their patents forever. Pharmaceutical companies love it!"
18.37 section 2 is just requiring that being just a new use of a known product does not automatically exclude something from patentability. It does not get rid of each country's general requirements for patentability, such as the US requirement for novelty, non-obviousness, and usefulness.
Her blocking tool is idiotic. It blocks people whose only offense it to follow more than one account on Twitter from a small list of accounts that she considers to be GG leaders. It ends up blocking many anti-GG people who are following those accounts because they want to know what their opponents are up to.
> It ends up blocking many anti-GG people who are following those accounts because they want to know what their opponents are up to.
Sad to hear that some Twitter users are not making the best use of its features. It's very easy to create a list of Nero and his flying monkeys, and you can add people to a list without following them.
You can keep the list private so nobody knows you're even doing it.
It's also much more efficient. In the normal use of Twitter (dipping into a stream), you are highly unlikely to see most of any account's tweets. With a list, you can see all the tweets you want whenever you want.
(Sorry this is off-topic, but it might help someone who hasn't used the Lists feature, which Twitter hides away.)
You people sure take Twitter block lists seriously. There are people I like who I have blocked on Twitter, just to keep me from getting engaged in vituperative bullshit in the middle of my workdays.
I should apologize to them for poisoning them with fire (is I think the metaphor you're using, right?).
But you curate your block list. What you do with your blocking is your own business. That is a little different than using blocking software that you do not create/maintain.
Her software, according to the readme [0]:
> Good Game Auto Blocker compares the follower lists for a given set of Twitter accounts. If anyone is found to be following more than one of these accounts, they are added to a list and blocked.
Most discussions of ggautoblocker are referencing the GamerGate-specific block list. The GamerGate block list filters the majority of Twitter interactions by GamerGate supporters. This list is maintained and shared by the author, Randi Harper, as well as a number of volunteers.
Are you curious about this whole (debacle? flamewar? never-ending argumet?) and want to follow notable people on both sides of the argument? Well, her software just blocked you. Gamergate is perceived by some people to be a hate group [1]. So now, by association, this software has categorized a potentially innocent use of twitter as being representative of membership in a potential hate group.
There is an appeals process [2] for being removed from the list, I should note. I would love to hear from anyone who has experience with the appeals process.
How would you (not just you, tptacek, but the general you) feel if you were on the blocked list? I wouldn't want to be associated with this whole mess at all.
As always, if I'm misunderstanding how this software works, please let me know.
If it's important to you to hear all sides of a debate as tedious as GamerGate, don't use the blocklist software. Despite the length of your response, I'm not seeing the complexity of this situation.
Not using the blocklist software is fine, but that doesn't really address the other concerns I raised. I wouldn't want to be inadvertently identified as a member of a hate group.
It sounds like you're saying what I do with my block list is my own business as long as I don't use that block list to mirror someone else's block list.
Yes, I really don't understand the simplistic view of "she wrote a tool to protect herself from harassment". What she created goes far beyond that. It does not seem to be congruent with inclusiveness and reasoned conversation.
> I followed the link and... it is kind of almost entertaining. He means it. Literally.
He means it in the same way Jonathan Swift meant that cannibalism should be legalized and the Irish should be allowed to sell their children as food in "A Modest Proposal" [1].
It's what one of the comments they quoted at the end said. Terrible, terrible attempt at satire, and he should be mocked for it. But come on, no one is actually for legalizing rape.
The mistake Harper, Richards, Kane and many others make is failing to distinguish being disliked because of their gender, race, gender identity, sexual orientation, or other minority status and being disliked because they are assholes.
You didn't actually say you were building a fraternity. You said "I'm building a social club and support group for engineers/designers/product people, some wearing a second hat of founder/investor."
You mentioned fraternity only in this way: "Imagine something like a mini-fraternity (in only the good ways) with dinners, retreats, bonfires, product jam sessions, meditation, improv, basketball, whatever people want to do socially & professionally".
It should be clear you are not describing an attempt to make Silicon Valley "Animal House," except to those who are going out of their way to find problems. In my opinion you have nothing that needs apologizing for.
The lack of capitalization and most punctuation makes that jarring to read, which is why I downvoted you from my normal account. (Commenting to let you know why using a throwaway because I believe that if one both replies and downvotes the downvote is removed.)
Everybody knows how 5 day work weeks are. You get back to work Monday and it may take a little while to pick up where you left off Friday but surely by midday you are back in the groove.
Your two days off for the weekend seem like barely time to get your own stuff done.
When we went to 4 day weeks it was a great boon to my weekends. If I wanted I could take a day to completely goof off and unwind from my work week and still have two weekend days for my own projects.
Monday though took more effort to remember where I'd broken off on Thursday. It might take all day to get my mojo going especially if I had been working on something trick like hunting a difficult big.
At 3 day work weeks and 4 day weekends I've got more "me" days than "work" days. It no longer feels like work is the main thing I do and my personal projects have to be fitted in the cracks. Now my projects are the main things and work feels like the side project.
When I get in Monday I will have completely forgotten what I was working on Wednesday. I have to end Wednesday by writing a detailed note to my future Monday self explaining exactly what I was working on. If I don't write that note it might take until sometime mid Tuesday before I'm caught up to where I was last Wednesday and making progress.