When I first tried Ubuntu decades ago it was like an awakening and I started seeing every developer using Windows and Mac as brainwashed fools. That's not to pick on others because I also started seeing my former self as brainwashed.
For a developer, Linux is far superior for many reasons.
Moving from Windows to Linux reminds me of Plato’s Allegory of the Cave.
A lot of times, with software, you could be severely constrained but not realize it because you don't know better. The effect is very strong in this industry.
If you think about it, it's the Internet Service Providers in the UK who choose choose to allow this US content into the UK. Why go after 4chan?
The ISPs could just shut down the BGP protocol and set up their own ICANN alternative with their own DNS system which is completely separate from the US one. So it's the UK government's choice to allow this content to the UK, not 4chan's. Or they could just put up a China-style great firewall.
I did a side project with a non-technical co-founder a year ago and every time he told me what he wanted, I made a list of like 9 or 10 logical contradictions in his requirements and I had to walk him through what he said with drawings of the UI so that he would understand. Some stuff he wanted me to do sounded good in his head but once you walk through the implementation details, the solution is extremely confusing for the user or it's downright physically impossible to do based on cost or computational resource constraints.
Sure, most people who launched a successful product basically stumbled onto the perfect idea by chance on the first attempt... But what about the 99% others who fell flat on their face! You are the 99% and so if you want to succeed by actual merit, instead of becoming a statistic, you have to think about all this stuff ahead of time. You have to simulate the product and business in detail in your mind and ask yourself honestly; is this realistic? Before you even draw your first wireframe. If you find anything wrong with it, anything wrong at all; it means the idea sucks.
It's like; this feature is too computationally and/or financially expensive to offer for free and not useful enough to warrant demanding payment from users... You shouldn't even waste your time with implementation; it's not going to work! The fundamental economics of the software which exists in your imagination aren't going to magically resolve themselves after implementing in reality.
Translating an idea to reality never resolves any known problems; it only adds more problems!
The fact is that most non-technical people only have a very vague idea of what they want. They operate in a kind of wishy washy, hand-wavy emotion-centric environment and they think they know what they're doing but they often don't.
It sucks so bad to be a software dev today. We simultaneously have to worry about:
- Market monopolies reducing options/leverage
- Outsourcing
- AI automation
- Complexity explosion
These days, every company which has money is using some horrible clunky platform/infra and we spend 99% of our time just working around limitations of those platforms; Problems which were created artificially and don't need to exist... And at the same time we're expected to meet deadlines while almost all of the challenges we face involve certain critical aspects that are totally outside of our control and require us to wait for someone else to fix stuff while we work around it with some crappy solution and we can't just switch platforms or write it from scatch (which would be easier for a lot of us) because the organization forces us to use a particular platform because of the pretext that they are SOC2 compliant. It's total BS!
Not only we have to worry about threats to our jobs, when you look at who is being rewarded in this industry; it's essentially people who create bloat/unnecessary complexity and build these horrible products.
The industry is full of horrible products that everyone uses. There is no incentive for software engineers to be competent because look at what the market rewards!
This in turn affects organization politics; everyone who has some leverage over the platforms is (at least subconsciously) looking for ways to sabotage the tech to maximize billable hours to fix it later... Fixing the platform is their bread and butter so of course they never want to fix it completely. Anyone who tries to do the right thing runs into issues with managers for missing deadlines which they have ZERO control over due to underlying constraints of the platforms they are forced to use. The people 'maintaining' the platforms don't have deadlines do they? They can keep making money from the shit they produce by ensuring they stay shitty and ensuring that the people who actually have deadlines and actually try to get stuff done can't meet them!
What kinds of innovations require protecting people from being held liable for harms that they participated in? Economic growth for whom and at whose expense?
- What's the catch? It's better than forcing the population to pour all their money into stocks that they don't understand just to stay ahead of inflation. This form of passive investing is creating a lot of problems under the surface.
- The one with the most control would get the biggest share of liability.
Blame attribution doesn't have to be precise. For example, if a police officer catches someone littering and it's a plastic Coke bottle, they would fine the person doing the littering, but also a small fine for Coca Cola for having made their bottle out of plastic... If the problem is significant enough, the CEO would be fined a large fine and lose their job along with any employees responsible for the design choice of using plastic. The shareholders would also get a fine (potentially taken out of their dividends).
Some panel of councilors in different towns can decide on the fines independently and fine any local branches that the company has.
It would open up opportunities for smaller companies which is good. Everyone is working constantly anyway; life would be better for most people if they could operate their own company.
Firstly, I question the efficiency of large companies in terms of delivering what people actually need. Secondly, I question the need for such efficiency to begin with; especially in a world where everyone is spending all of their time working bullshit jobs.
Wouldn't it be better if everyone could feel useful in their jobs? Even if it was less 'efficient' in aggregate? I'm pretty sure people would get more value in terms of what they actually need from such society.
The biggest problem is the privatized gains/societal expenses. That's where the real accidents happen and with liability for shareholders and execs you can bet that a lot of corporate crime would simply never happen in the first place.
I took as beyond sarcasm, just a simple explanation of how they manage to keep going written in the first person. From my perspective it is incredible anybody could misunderstand.
That's how I took it too, and didn't realize someone might read it otherwise, but I can see how it could be misunderstood if someone isn't paying as much attention.
There is no tone of voice in writing. This is part of the problem with written social media. Some writers will say "only an idiot would believe what I wrote", showing themselves to be adversarial in their communications. I don't think that's you in this case.
It's hard for me to tell because I've seen this multiple times in my career (in tech). People wasting investors' money getting funding over and over while those actually building stuff get suppressed.
I swear there are some people who control a lot of money who are just having fun ruining people's lives for laughs.
There are people who spend years working for some company, betting their career on it but it turns out the whole thing was some kind of inside joke.
My view is that some companies are basically somebody's toy and the employees are part of the entertainment like a personal reality TV show for some rich person so they can play-act as a hotshot entrepreneur.
Probably it serves as some kind of inflation control mechanism. If you have a lot of money and want to spend it without driving inflation, you have to find things with extreme diminishing returns and you have to invest in people who value such things.
The only thing I can add (regarding the motivations of people willing to invest with a fraudster) is that many people invest with the belief that they'll make money because they are just part of the scam and they assume there's a greater fool somewhere down the line.
These fraudsters who get second chances have got blackmail. Trust me, all the people we see in the media are sharks. They only help each other if they feel a threat or have something to gain.
> Milton and his wife had also donated at least $3.2 million to Trump’s 2024 election and to political groups and people in Trump’s orbit, including Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr.
The problem with Trump is that his only values are centered around business and deal making. It's all about loyalty, not about truth. Clearly he doesn't have much tolerance for disagreement.
When I first tried Ubuntu decades ago it was like an awakening and I started seeing every developer using Windows and Mac as brainwashed fools. That's not to pick on others because I also started seeing my former self as brainwashed.
For a developer, Linux is far superior for many reasons.
Moving from Windows to Linux reminds me of Plato’s Allegory of the Cave.
A lot of times, with software, you could be severely constrained but not realize it because you don't know better. The effect is very strong in this industry.