Sure, although the obsession with "CEOs and billionaires" does have the ring of the 300k HHI software-engineer class hoping to play class enemies above and below them against each other.
Software engineers are in the same class as the people below them - the working class. The entire concept of "middle class" originates from a time when the middle class were non-nobility who were, nonetheless, sufficiently powerful that they needn't worry about things like "keeping their jobs", whether because they were their own employees (as were nearly all doctors, lawyers, etc.) or because they had sufficient social capital not to worry about such trivial things as paid labor.
I want to be clear here: Eton boys were (and are) predominantly middle class, not upper class. In the US, we allowed the idea to be perverted, perhaps because we do not have nobility, and so there is no true "upper class". Given this, the reality is that we are bifurcated into a working class and an owning or capitalist class - though, many would argue (correctly, in my view) that we are in a feudal regime now, rather than a capitalist regime.
To put perhaps too fine a point on it, software engineers are house slaves, and, yes, CEOs and billionaires have done a good job of convincing the field slaves that the house slaves are their enemies, and of convincing house slaves that the field slaves are inferior and just want to take what the house slaves have without working for it.
That is an, uh, unfortunate choice of metaphor. Would recommend leaving that club in the bag the next time this comes up.
Anyhow. Software engineers, like, hire nannies when their kids are young. Have cleaning services. Accumulate nice little slices of the S&P500. Generally own houses.
Minor nobility is a better comp than anything to do with chattel slavery.
That's becoming dangerously true of my wife and I as well, to be honest.
The friction is just so much lower than Google Drive or whatever. As long as I handle it right away. It's just finding something from more than an hour ago that's intolerable.
I met a business partner who is doing some work for SME retail investors last week for lunch:
He showed me his WhatsApp: People are sending _ALL_ type of critical documents by WhatsApp to him. Everything.
(and bank statements are among the class of "less critical" documents in his case)
My theory here is: "If you have any function in your product, people will use it for anything appropriate to them in a given minute"
To be fair, what other simple way is there to send a document to a contact through an e2ee channel? Mail + PGP/GPG? Wormhole?? openssl???
Sending it via WhatsApp (which also has desktop clients, btw) strikes me as a perfectly reasonable solution. (Which is somewhat of an indictment of the current state of cryptographic software, but that's a different topic.)
This exact scenario happened with me in a prior job. Invoices, payments, everything could (and sometimes was) sent through WhatsApp. It was absolutely shocking to see people do this.
I witnessed a cop attempting to manipulate some files I provided to him on a thumb drive. It was a slow laborious process of dragging files one at a time from the Windows image viewer to shared folder. I would have liked to just do a Ctrl-A, Ctrl-C, Ctrl-V, but that was way above his level of thinking and he didn't seem like the type who wanted an education. So I just sat there through the long, painful process--and then at the end he completely screwed up the report. Idiot.
Also, you usually have context for the file. Like "Hey, can you send me this blueberry crumble recipe?".
I do this quite frequently. I know which person knows, I know I've asked them before and usually a quick keyword search is enough to find whatever I'm looking for again.
So this thing has at least two more information points I can search for to pinpoint the file than a simple file on my PC. It tells me who, and more context on what.
Yes, I think "Gen Z doesn't understand file systems" is at least partially an indictment of file systems.
Hierarchy was always a poor substitute for tagging. You have to either decide a bunch of arbitrary parent / child relationships to encode your tags in a deep directory structure or just stuff them all into the file name and filter with regex.
I actually have similar frustrations with emacs org-mode. I get paralyzed by tree-structure decisions and I'm realizing that a tree structure is just not what I want. A flat collection of knowledge items festooned with every conceivable piece of metadata that might help me find them later is.
Not defending it, but the meme itself is derivative quote from the developer of TempleOS. He suffered from Schizophrenia and believed the CIA was tracking him. He believed you could tell a CIA agent due to them glowing, and would refer to them as "glowy nwords" very regularly.
The term "glowy" has taken on a life of its own despite the original context. The image itself is from it's 4chan days. Probably poor taste to include a version with Terry's full quote.
I'm sympathetic to Terry saying that. The guy had measurable brain damage, and it's hard to blame someone for doing things when it's their damaged brain that decides to do them. It's like getting mad at a diabetic for having high blood sugar.
But I can certainly squint at other people when they spread Terry's quotes and memes.
> But I can certainly squint at other people when they spread Terry's quotes and memes
Someone can use language you disagree with but still have a point if you dig past it. I also happen to personally think it's important to engage with this sort of thinker at least sometimes
Insisting on polite, formal language can be a type of bigotry too you know. It's historically pretty classist, and lately also indicates a sort of neuronormative bigotry.
Wait - not conversing with someone who thinks it's fine to post the N word is now classist and some kind of neuro-whateverthefuck bigotry?
No it's not, it's enforcing the norms of civil discourse. If they have some kind of actual underlying issue that causes this and it's legit beyond their control - then sure, go the extra mile and try to meet them where they are.
If on the other hand, it's some annoying person who likes ruffling feathers on purpose - I really think they ought to be ostracized for such behaviour.
There is still a difference here at play you haven't addressed yet: "posting" here sounds like its some form of direct speech i.e. the author is using the nword as part of their terminology. The context is what is the deciding factor. Does the display of a specific cultural artifact stand to represent itself and and thus point towards its own specific context, or is it a stand in for the authors speech, with a thin veneer of displacement of authorship that ambiguates thuer racist bias.
The argument against classist bigotry is also "just something to think about" and not identified specifically with saying the n-word"
Also there might be some contexts in which this identity might be a valid argument - e.g. some works of black artist/thinkers/writers philosophers etc. (E.g. sylvia wynters ceremony must be found, the music of aanderson paak etc.) Well thinking about it: As a rule of thumb it seems pretty reasonable to not converse with people who >>post<< the nword as long as it is not a dogma that takes the responsibilty of contextual awareness away. (Not certain about the context here, haven't properly read the article)
Short of something like the recent event with the chap with Tourette's saying awful things at the BAFTA awards, or Terry Davis with schizophrenia saying outlandish stuff, there aren't many scenarios where I'd be willing to give someone a pass on this.
If you have the ability to choose not to use the n-word, and you're not in a group that can use it self-referentially among your peers, and you use it anyway, then you're an asshole and I don't really care to hear what else you have to say. I feel pretty OK with that blanket assessment.
> Short of something like the recent event with the chap with Tourette's saying awful things at the BAFTA awards, or Terry Davis with schizophrenia saying outlandish stuff, there aren't many scenarios where I'd be willing to give someone a pass on this.
"There are some scenarios where you might want to give people a pass for reasons outside their control" is literally the only point I was trying to make
So I guess we are in violent agreement?
Edit: also, you will never actually discover which people you should give the benefit of the doubt if you categorically dismiss anyone who uses language you dislike
> No it's not, it's enforcing the norms of civil discourse
You don't see how that is exclusionary to people who struggle with norms?
I guess if you're born neurodivergent and can't handle social norms, you don't deserve any kind of grace. You can't ever contribute anything worthwhile or meaningful if you don't live up to all of society's polite norms. Good to know
Speaking as one, I have found that I have never gotten "grace" from most folks. A few folks have been especially patient with me, over the years, and for that, I'm grateful; but they haven't been the norm.
I used to go to Japan, quite often, and watched Americans violating societal norms, all the time. The Japanese were usually fairly good at not lashing back, but I could see them visibly restraining themselves, sometimes. Over the course of about a decade, I learned to at least respect their ways. I found the Germans to be less accepting of annoying Americans (and I was one). I learned a lot quicker, there.
I know that many folks think that self-diagnosing as "on the spectrum" is considered some kind of "get out of jail asshole" card, but that's just an urban myth. If you're an asshole, you'll usually be treated like one; no matter the reason.
> Speaking as one, I have found that I have never gotten "grace" from most folks. A few folks have been especially patient with me, over the years, and for that, I'm grateful; but they haven't been the norm
This mirrors my experience too. I think my bitterness about that is on full display in this thread
Well, in my case, I had to learn that I live in the NT (neurotypical) world; not the other way around. It's my job to adapt, and it's unreasonable for me to assume that others will, for me.
In my experience, it's been worth it.
Growing up overseas, in many different cultures, I think, has helped me with this.
Oh behalf of the neurodivergent people surrounding me, 100% of whom successfully resist any temptation to say the n-word in my presence that they may ever feel, it's reprehensible that you're conflating racism and neurodiversity. I've never, not once, ever, heard someone blame their racism on ADHD.
You've never encountered someone who is pretty autistic and doesn't care about (or perhaps understand) the social consequences of using slurs?
Or someone bipolar who gets kind of erratic and can say really out of character stuff when they are going through a manic episode?
Or someone with tourettes that might say something that pops in their head unexpectedly?
Sure thing about ADHD. You're right that people with the executive function disorder don't tend to blurt wild social faux pas. But there are also people with social function disorders who might.
It doesn't necessarily mean they are terrible people
This is an insultingly narrow definition of "neurodivergent" limited to people with profound impediments to social functions.
I'd already explicitly excluded people with Tourette's and other major challenges, but you knew that, so now I presume you're arguing for the sake of arguing. Have a nice day.
I just want you to know I'm similarly frustrated with you and also feel you are arguing just to argue, and deliberately trying to take my words in the worst possible light
Like seriously.
> This is an insultingly narrow definition of "neurodivergent"?
No! I'm trying to define it as a broader scope of behaviors than just "my friends with ADHD" like you did!
What a frustrating interaction. I hope you're pleased with yourself
No. There's a huge, eye-wateringly vast gap between impolite, informal language and racial slurs. I happen to personally think it's completely unimportant to engage with someone actively calling someone else the n-word.
That's not classist, and in no way neuronormative bigotry, unless we're classifying racism and generalized bastardry as a mental illness.
I'm neurodivergent (diagnosed) and under the care of two mental health professionals and I'll just say I don't have tolerance for people using slurs.
As much as I appreciated the point being made in that article, once someone pointed out the image and I went and read it, I won't ever choose to share it with anyone because that image is discrediting. The writing had the intended effect on me and at the same time I'd be ashamed to link to it.
Yes, I'm a bigot against bigotry. It's unacceptable.
In the most generous interpretation possible, I still would not say it has taken on a "life of its own", it's still very well rooted in the context of the belief the CIA plants black people in locations for gangstalking.
No, it doesn't, and honestly, your comment comes off as trying to steer people away from clicking the link and learning the actual point of what's being linked to.
The corpus of work on this exact topic is so vast, and so overwhelmingly bereft of distracting racial slurs, that I think we can safely discard this contribution.
I didn't notice it as well, but it definitely does. Double check the green smiley face, below the mouth. Since so many people missed it, I wonder if the author did too.
When? The French are to blame for Algeria an most of Africa, but Lebanon is the ex-french colony that suffered the less from French rule, and used to be a perfect example of multiculturalism before a nearby rogue state started putting their greasy hands everywhere.
Unless you talk about Lybia, but that's not ME (and yes, 80% of the French)
IMO it's a combination of long-running paranoia about cost-cutting and quality, and a sort of performative allegiance to artists working in the industry.
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