I'm indeed panicking and haven't lost my job, yet, let's see in 3 weeks. I never worked at a FAANG and it terrifies me that if I'm out there I will be competing with people with big names on their resumes. This news coupled with the AI news of the past weeks is making me think about what other profession this forever developer can do to pay the bills.
I took the black pill. Maybe I can find wisdom in past professions' cataclysms, like ice harvesters and milk delivery.
My smartest employers always said they preferred hiring the top decile from mid level colleges rather the average ivy leaguers, or the stars from unheralded companies rather than the employee #987563 from big name logos.
Unfortunately that's not the norm, but I find branding yourself in that way can at least help overcome this challenge in the hiring process (if you get past the screener that only looks at these filters that is)
I think you should relax. Even if this AI hype is 100% real, we will be running massive IT projects for 20 years to convert everything over to AI run. Realistically, it will probably find a use case for a few niches, but not take over all work.
Unless we invent an actual superintelligence, in which case, no humans will be needed for work ever again and you will either live out your days in some kind of early retirement paradise or be fighting over the last can of cat food.
Don't be terrified. People who get laid off in small layoff rounds smaller than 10% are often not that attractive in the job market. There are some exceptions like recruiters for example because usually their pie of the chart is much bigger than engineers for example.
I get your point, and it was a pretty serious discussion in the early days I think.
Now, introducing micro-transactions into people‘s communication looks like a straight ticket to hell to me. Reminds me of the early days of SMS when only porn sites, scams and businesses that made you pay for their SMS bills would send you messages.
Well, it would have combated spam effectively, which would have directly decreased the power of Gmail.
But it would also have, more importantly, created a revenue stream and normalized microtransactions, which would have created an alternate business model to attention/advertising.
Nobody likes paying for things... but I think the "free" future we're living in is pretty shitty compared to the way things were before.
On spam: we’ve been receiving physical direct spam mail from the dawn of the modern postal service, and the delivery is paid by the sender. Same way on linkedin for instance, recruiters pay to reach inboxes. Same for many other platforms where spamming and shoving content in users’ feed is monetized by the platform itself.
And that’s the bulk of the alternate business models and revenue streams we’re talking about.
Not everything needs to be free, but raising paywalls at the wrong place can have devastating effects on platforms.
Did you use email ~2000? It was a nightmare in sheer spam volume. Zero cost of copying + zero cost of sending = send worldwide all by default, or as close to it as they could get.
I'm sure the amount of email that isn't even seen in modern webmail services would still boggle our minds.
And as far as I see it, platforms are part of the problem.
Marketplaces are better for the customer in the long run.
That is to say, shared infrastructure/basic utilities with many different independent vendors on top, each offering goods and services.
Sure, the not so early days were rough, everybody and their dog could run a self hosted email server, a lot of us actually did, and the spammer jumped on the bandwagon x1000.
But trying to solve these kind of situation with marketplaces only solve them monkey paw style. Marketplaces are for discoverability and supply and demand issues. Fundamentally I don’t want my personal communication to be supply and demand regulated. Instead I want strong enough penalties on entities that flood my inbox.
As you point out spam filters help a lot, but to me regulation was the biggest move: having a one click link to unsubscribe from ads and companies actually respect it reduced my inbox manyfold. Businesses I actually have transactions with were the hardest to filter out, and finally some progress was made in that front.
In general I feel believing marketplace are more than financial systems only leads disappointment. AppStores are the poster child marketplaces, and they’re sure full of scam and predatory content. Online ads are also marketplaces, facebook made user feeds a marketplace etc.
In my thinking, I probably should have said cooperative instead of marketplace -- a place where all parties have equal access and there's no tax to a third party.
App stores, ad markets (as they exist today, namely Google/Facebook/Amazon), and Facebook user feeds are all beholden-to and -enrich a single operating party. And specifically, an operating party that also competes with many of the offerings in their own "marketplaces". That makes them owned platforms in my book.
That sets up some screwy incentives (e.g. caring about volume over quality, self-preferencing) that substantially degrade the entire experience for buyers/users.
To the email case though, the problem with penalties is that they require a centralized manager. Which is how you get back to Gmail being a de facto standards body. Ugh.
We could always have done net-zero charging on email fees, that I think would have solved the accessibility issues. $0.05 paid to send an email -- $0.05 earned on receipt of an email.
It wasn't really a recommendation per gov policy in many countries, it was take the shot or else type of deal. Also any talk that didn't toe the official line was deemed "misinformation".
The goalposts for what was "misinformation" moved all the time too. Making the whole misinformation information campaign silly stupid, but one just doubled down on it.
This would seem to presume an opaque system whose workings are entirely unknowable with divine providence... rather than something constructed, operated, and controlled by humans.
The simpler explanation would be producers redirecting their gas to a higher priced market. I can't shake the idea that there's a non-zero chance of this being mitigation to a looming crisis with Russia.
That may have something to do with the 175k Russian troop posture along Ukraine's borders and US/Russian leaders already telegraphing how they'll respond so there aren't any surprises for either of them.
Putin says sign treaties preventing Ukraine and Georgia from ever joining NATO, and withdraw NATO troops from all former Soviet countries or it's their fault Russia is "forced" to annex Ukraine. (impossible; since Russia annexes either way. this is just realpolitik. If NATO doesn't comply, Russia has an "excuse" to annex. If NATO does comply, it's just a temporary measure until some manufactured issue in Ukraine gives Russia a reason to annex again anyway like Crimea. Either way Russia will make a Russian-friendly Ukrainian state, but if NATO help retreats it's just easier, might as well ask.)
Biden says there won't be US troops in Ukraine but the economic consequences will be immensely painful.
Therefore, policy pundits say Russia could annex by Jan 2022.
Not that I know of. But I wouldn't bet on any EV from betting against black swans long term. Perhaps you should investigate a bit more.
“What is happening now, the tension that is developing in Europe, is their fault,” Mr. Putin told a Russian Defense Ministry board meeting. “At every step, Russia was forced to somehow respond, at every step the situation was constantly getting worse, worse, worse. And today we are in a situation where we are forced to decide something.”
Funny story, deleted my FB acct several years ago, then a couple months ago I found a group for my school and tried to reactivate my account but now it says I was banned. Silver lining is I won't be in FB again.
Experts seems to be awfully late to what every John Doe has already figured out, it's easy to be called an expert when there's zero accountability for the expert's advice. If you constantly get stuff wrong, then your opinion is as good as some random person walking the streets.
I think about this approach every two weeks, when I hear that somewhere in the world there's a new initiative to treat the internet like a kindergarten. Sure why not, but I would like to sign up for the wild west, the easily offended and gullible can live happily on the safe side, thanks.
Exactly. I used yo be a total Internet freedom proponent and that's what I want for myself but now as everybody (of whom the majority is mentally unprepared) is on Facebook I admit it makes no sense - Internet kindergartens have to be there for the people who need them (and most of these people just naturally go to places like Facebook and Instagram).
Yes, people tend to naturally self select into the parts of the internet that suit them.
There are many wild wests on the internet in the clearnet, yet most of the people I know that would want to be treated like children already exclusively are via fb, insta, etc.
Be that as it is, I see no reason for further controls. Heck, I doubt I would have had any real interest in learning about computers if my only options for internet fun were boring sites like the top socials. From experience, I would imagine most of the appeal of the net for people if it were to become some locked down nanny land would be in breaking out of it or in "misusing" the services. Or, more likely, people would just make new sites that would serve as the wild west. The infinite of the undeveloped is not containable.
The problem with this is that the mass of clueless kindergarten attendants are fed a steady diet of complete nonsense by curated and cultivated media outlets pushing very specific self serving narratives, which these obedient clueless drones in massive hordes then go out into the world and behave politically and economically exactly as those who treated them like the wind-up toy soldiers they actually are intended.
And the more defeaning the silence is when the idiotic ideas these people float about as plausible and desirable things, the more confident and less cautious that they are in support and pursuit of those things.
As somebody who spent the last week reading Facebook post after post from these people specifically in Australia not just defending but promoting concentration camps, military round ups and forced medication, I cannot emphasise enough caution in the idea that they should just be left alone in their harmless walled gardens with their amusing but inconsequential fantasies, not subject to the trauma of critical inquiry by third parties.
A while ago I would say you are tainted, but I've watched as my group of friends increasingly parroted every corporate media talking point, even when they flip-flopped constantly about a subject. They wouldn't see a conflict there and would deflect if I tried to point that out.
Now I keep to myself and watch the patterns, and I'am ok with that it is what it is, I love my friends and I don't think less of them because of that.
Your first two paragraphs are spot on, your last one demonstrates clearly that Facebook posts are not a reliable source of information.
There are no concentration camps, no military round ups, and no forced medication* in Australia.
* There is no vaccine mandate per se, but some types of businesses face fines for admitting non-vaccinated people onto the premises. You might call this a de facto mandate, others have certainly made that point.
That part is true but I never said there were yet. I said clueless information walled gardens were constantly advocating for them with very little push back exactly because they're in walled gardens where that is the narrative they want pushed.
> There is no vaccine mandate per se, but some types of businesses face fines for admitting non-vaccinated people onto the premises. You might call this a de facto mandate, others have certainly made that point.
I do think it is to an extent. But there's definitely a gap between that and forcibly injecting people against their will, and that is what I was seeing many posts advocating for along with those military round ups and concentration camps that are already facts on the ground and are only being varnished with more PR friendly labels just like they were in every single deployment in history.
Well I'm an Australian citizen, so I am "the horse" as well, so let me share some first-hand information. The military was engaged on a short term support basis to assist with logistics, contract tracing, swabbing for tests, etc [0]. The oft-repeated claim that the military was deployed to forcibly contain people in quarantine is false. Australia often deploys its military internally to help mitigate natural disasters.
> forcibly injecting people against their will, and that is what I was seeing many posts advocating for
I believe you. Seeing the viciousness, tribalism, and callousness that other Australians have treated each other with during covid has been nothing short of disgusting.
One part of the Australian psyche that is not often discussed, is that in times of disaster, we are expected to engage in collectivism. Australia is besieged by more than its fair share of natural disasters (bushfires, floods, cyclones and droughts are all commonplace) and in those times, the community pulls together and supports one another. Covid was largely viewed through the same lens, where those who don't pull their weight are shunned. Given the amplification of toxicity that the internet can provide, you get posts like the ones you've seen. Not excusing it, just explaining it.
I am also an Australian citizen although I have not lived there for many years now and after seeing what became of it during covid I intend to renounce it as soon as it is practical and I certainly never intend to return.
With regards to the cover story, you do understand that in many previous deployments of military roundups and concentration camps, they were not accompanied by announcements of "we are the evil empire now and are deploying our military against our own citizens to round them up and place them in concentration camps?". Because this is the exact defense I am hearing from aforementioned Facebook drones and I don't see how it's not predicated on the assumption that they're not military roundups and concentration camps until the government proudly and loudly announces them as such.
I could believe the Facebook drones in question are just not very bright, but I don't assume that at all for this particular forum and you seem a lot less naive than that.
Would the exact same protests from any of the other previous or extant regimes who have offered the same explanations for their actions have held water for you? And if not, why do they in this instance?
To get to the truth of the matter, we will need to agree on what's actually happening. The phrase "concentration camp" provokes imagery of Nazi Germany, with overtones of the most egregious human rights violations.
What happened, in actuality, is that the Howard Springs mining camp was repurposed for quarantine. People have opted to go there instead of hotel quarantine. They are there for a total of 14 days, at which point they enter society at large. The army was providing transport to the location. People could have opted to stay at a hotel instead.
That's it.
At my core, I'm a civil libertarian. I am skeptical of government, and an anti-authoritarian. I am very, very much not a government apologist. But I am a strong believer in the importance of using facts as the basis of an honest, good faith discussion. My comments might just be a futile attempt to reduce the Gell-Mann Amnesia effect of this particular story.
> To get to the truth of the matter, we will need to agree on what's actually happening. The phrase "concentration camp" provokes imagery of Nazi Germany, with overtones of the most egregious human rights violations.
Using the term "concentration camp" used to refer to nazi death camps is euphemistic. It really misses the core horror of the holocaust by drawing attention away from the death/extermination aspect of the camps and instead naming the camps for concentration (e.g. internment.)
The camps for Japanese-Americans during WW2 could be appropriately called concentration camps. Wikipedia redirects "concentration camp" to their page on internment, with this note: "Not to be confused with [...] extermination camp."https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Concentration_camp
I understand the imagery is extremely disturbing, and the worst nightmares of the idea of a concentration camp, which are actually extermination camps, is not what is being executed at the moment by the Australian government, but the fact is, it's a concentration camp all the same. The idea existed long before Nazi Germany and has been executed many places outside it since. Even if it were absolutely true that every mitigating factor was at play here, the fact would still be that a precedent has now been set that the military can be used to round people up and put them in concentration camps.
As a civil libertarian myself, I think given the nature of governments, and in particular the Australian government, that precedent is something that should be horrifying enough to all observers, without extending it to the hyperbolic gesticulation of direct comparisons with the historical Nazi extermination camps, Soviet Gulags, Khmer Rouge killing fields, etc. And I believe that strongly enough that I'm planning to renounce my citizenship over it ASAP and would rather die than return. I cannot emphasize enough how disgusted I am by these events.
Further, the cover stories and reasons given just don't matter. Look at the reasons the Nazis gave for their concentration camps, it's not a long bow to draw; chief amongst them was disease control. Really think about the idiocy of offering alternative of even more expensive hotels to some of the poorest people in Australia as alternatives to said concentration camps, and then the cherry on top with the unique AU execution of the idea is that they actually have the nerve to bill the interns of said concentration camps anyway! 2.5k AUD per week for singles or 5k AUD for families.
I just can't believe this has actually happened, but when this entire covid event started, and the initial lockdowns dragged on and the AU government in general seemed intent on escalating degrees of authoritarianism, I drew a mental line in the sand and that line was military roundups and concentration camps, and no matter which way you slice it, the facts on the ground are that that's exactly where we are now. Even worse is that people I've known and respected my entire life, intelligent people in forums like this one, people like you in fact, and I do not intend at all to denigrate you by putting you in this group, but to draw attention to just how corrosive this kind of thing actually is to any kind of trust in a civil society, are defending, and even calling for the escalation of these tactics.
Meanwhile, no other country on the entire planet is doing this. Even the most egregious examples of Austria aren't going to these lengths. I really can't understand why anybody is trying to defend it, and even less so why they're calling for it to be escalated. I feel like I've stepped through the looking glass into crazy world.
> Even worse is that people I've known and respected my entire life, intelligent people … are defending, and even calling for the escalation of these tactics.
It's a spectrum. More a question of temperament than intelligence:
Some people desperately wish to told there's someone out there, looking out for them. A wise enlightened leader, preferably in a tie or a white lab coat.
"Just follow orders and everything will be alright."
Others prefer to assume responsibility and evaluate risk on a case-by-case basis. This end of the spectrum is more sparsely populated, because it requires personal struggle and sacrifice. So such people are always a minority, with obvious implications for democracy (AKA the rule of the majority).
Most people oscillate somewhere in between, swayed by pragmatic incentives and currents of social zeitgeist.
Facebook is where people were defending the behaviour, not where I heard about it. That was circling in more obscure smaller libertarian circles as an example of the escalating insanity of Australia.
The defense of the behaviour has indeed also caused me to stay off facebook, though.
It pays really well to shift blame, I wonder is someone somewhere has an excel spreadsheet with the ROI for propaganda expenses. Like Greta pointing the finger to western countries while ignoring the biggest polluters and the countries that mostly contribute to plastic in the oceans.
> so sad to watch recently is peoples' disbelief in how different the reality of the Kyle Rittenhouse situation is from how it is presented to them on the news
I feel pretty positive about this actually. This will be the tipping point for many to finally question all the info they get from the corporate media.
For a long time I saw garbage reporting on subjects that I had the slightest familiarity but I still blindly believed their reporting on any other subject, until something clicked in my mind and now I can't unsee it. I'm sure many are experiencing this click due to the trial.
> This will be the tipping point for many to finally question all the info they get from the corporate media.
Only if they actually get to see the reality presented to them somewhere. I fear that most people still won't. If they've been in the bubble for years, there will be nothing indicating to them that they should venture outside of it this one time.
I took the black pill. Maybe I can find wisdom in past professions' cataclysms, like ice harvesters and milk delivery.