When they want to publicly claim credit for being a certain way but their actions point to another, it's up to them to clarify their position, and use whatever evidence to support their claim.
This seems an extreme solution to media investigation of a small number of people losing their jobs
Perhaps instead, in these situations, employers could provide, at the discretion of the dismissed, information gathered while performing due diligence leading up to the dismissal
I personally think that just the way the employer is required to document the reasons for firing, the person going off on media must also provide proof that they were being treated unfairly.
Most people who get fired don't the option of going to media. The way "star" researchers and the way average employees get treated is going to be different whether we're talking white or non-white.
That's a good point. May be we need ways to have a common person without a huge media presence have a way to voice their concerns of racism.
Since media cannot cover thousands of individual cases, there should be legal avenues without deep pockets for lawyer fees to sue companies for racist behavior.
The court should look at this situation objectively and factually.
This seems much less about being casual or being a polymath and more about those who overestimate the value of their own input
I’m leaving this comment only because I most often do not overestimate the value of my input and therefor don’t leave comments, but this seems the perfect place to deviate
Which may mean you underestimate the value of your input and, in some sense, leech off the contributions of others...leaving a vacuum that gets filled by shills and hacks. Why would you do that? A little preparation and basic work-study and critical thinking skills is all a post needs, along with something you really want to say and is actually worth saying, of course. Maybe once a day, maybe once a week or once a month. Internet posting practices and moderation have matured enough to make posting on sites like HN useful without an inevitable devolution into rantfests or infomercials. (Although it can still happen.)
Silence, digital or otherwise, is a fine spiritual practice. It’s not necessary for some...probably sorely needed by others...
> A little preparation and basic work-study and critical thinking skills is all a post needs, along with something you really want to say and is actually worth saying, of course.
Unless you have high confidence in your ability to grasp the subject, this can be considerably daunting to someone who isn’t blessed with high confidence generally. And one can at least infer that gaining that confidence may involve significant time and effort. Especially in a forum where existing contributions are:
- high volume
- scored by peers
- fast moving
- particularly accepting of critical feedback along some lines but biased against other kinds of critical feedback
This can be very discouraging. I know from my own experience that even as someone who has a tendency to challenge, I find myself constrained by my lack of experience on many subjects, my estimation of the time involved to become conversant, and my general feeling of limited time and energy. And... yeah, then I find myself more inclined to read others’ opinions, more confident than my own, and defer to trusting them unless I have a strong instinct otherwise.
That seems like a pretty normal reaction for someone with limited attention and study resources? Am I missing something?
When low in confidence, you could just use phrases like "my understanding is that [...]", or "from what I gather [...], is that not the case?" If you stand corrected you stand corrected and you're wiser, likely together with some other readers, everyone wins!
People rarely bash others that express themselves modestly and sincerely.
So if someone is informed on a topic they have a kind of societal obligation to post? By not posting, it allows those who may be less experienced or outright trolls to steer the discussion towards irrelevance.
I like the idea, but not sure how folks know which group they fall into.
I don't actually think that's quite right. Doing your own research into subjects where you're not an expert, at least for most people I think, is just as likely to lead you astray as listening to non-experts. (Most conspiracy theorists do a great deal of research.) I think the real key skill is differentiating between trustworthy and untrustworthy sources of information (on any given subject), and learning to logically estimate probabilities when multiple trustworthy sources differ.
It's just not feasible to follow the proofs of everything back to first principles for yourself, so at some point you need to trust an authority, at least to form a prior. The key is doing that in a logical manner.
I work in an academic field and took a strong and useful interest in another field. I really don't think I overestimate my abilities, I say things like I a jack of all trades and 'x think I'm great at y and y think I'm great at x'. But still people think especially talented. I even see quiet disagreement from experts in x or y who are maybe not so keen to criticise me publicly. I feel the issue is that others over estimate my abilities. Maybe a case of conflating value (which is real) with ability?
It helps to think of your abilities on multiple axes -- sort of like a spider chart. Your expertise is actually the "area under the curve." You may very well be the foremost expert (comparatively) in certain regions of the spider chart. Ironically, building expertise in multiple domains actually helps you specialize relative to others.
>> I feel the issue is that others over estimate my abilities. Maybe a case of conflating value (which is real) with ability?
As much as people like to throw around the phrase "critical thinking", you're describing people being lazy and depending on their impression of you rather than evaluating the validity of what you have to say. It's a shortcut we all take because we dont have time (or ability) to be experts in everything so we listen to people we perceive to know what they're talking about.
We've banned this account for repeatedly breaking the site guidelines and ignoring our requests to stop. Personal attacks are particularly not ok here.
If you don't want to be banned, you're welcome to email hn@ycombinator.com and give us reason to believe that you'll follow the rules in the future.
These people were exploited which is terrible. That the nation that exploited them was still more desirable to them than their former home is also terrible. That all they got in return for being exploited was what they were initially promised but decades later is terrible
"Everything" is a bit uncharitable. There are people in that story who, when they found out about a historic wrong, did something about it. That's not terrible. There are people who are inspired by that act of doing the right thing, and have gone on to be partisans for righting similar wrongs. That's not terrible.
That it happened is terrible. Ignoring the good that was done so that we can wallow in the bad is also terrible.
The comment to which I am replying is a great example of that. When the bad outweighs the good, it becomes particularly important to make note of the good when it happens.
It's easy to just roll over and say everything is terrible. That's what happened to the people in this story; nobody was willing to try and do the right thing. Then, someone did. It's important to acknowledge the evil, but it's also important to hold up the good and say "Do this. You can make a difference."
Don't roll over and accept the evil as inevitable. It's not.
There's almost 200 comments here but no one that I have seen has actually mentioned who in Washington "did something about it" and Ken's post also left this out.
Hawaii Senators Dan Inouye and Dan Akaka, along with Ted Kennedy were the driving forces for many of the provisions from 1990 to 2010 that sought justice for Filipino veterans. Rob Simmons (R-CT) pushed for the 2003 extension of VA benefits to Filipino vets. Jackie Speier (D-Bay Area) continues to introduce the Filipino Veterans Fairness Act which would extend that to more veterans every session but never advances. The Filipino Veterans Family Reunification bill once had a chance but now also stalls every session. Obama created a program in '16 to allow the family members to stay here while awaiting green card status but Trump ended the program last year.
Ortholinear isn't necessarily better. I have a Plank collecting dust in my drawer. These designs are not anatomically better shaped than the standard staggered keyboard.
An ortholinear split keyboard is better (it's easier to rotate either half without the normal key stagger getting awkward), but I don't see any reason to buy a Plank.
I have two Ergodashes [1], one for home and one for the office.
It's also not going to increase typing speed. Learning to touch-type can do that, but 99% of the gain from changing the physical keyboard layout (ortholinear / split etc) or logical keyboard layout (Dvorak, Coleman etc) are for typing comfort.
Of course, a split keyboard with offset columns is something else. The parent comment specifically mentioned Preonic and OLKB. As for the Plank, the claim is that it reduces finger movements, but in reality it is just cramped and puts your writs and fingers in an awkward position. The only thing I liked about it is the layers, but then getting used to that just threw me off when using the standard layout.
I have a Planck EZ. Thought it would make me faster since num pads are linear and I'm super fast on those. However, it's the switching between staggered and linear really dragged me down.
I'd suggest going back to John Brunner and The Shockwave Rider. TSR is generally considered one of the foremost examples of "proto-cyberpunk" and laid the groundwork for a lot of what came after. Plus it's just plain and simply a fun novel to read.
ribbonfarm - a longform blog devoted to unusual takes on both familiar and new themes. What we call “refactored perception.”
https://www.ribbonfarm.com/
meaningness - Better ways of thinking, feeling, and acting—around problems of meaning and meaninglessness; self and society; ethics, purpose, and value.
https://meaningness.com/
Whereas sites like SSC and LessWrong are rationalist, both of these suggestions are predominately post-rationalist, but perhaps you’re like I was – reading the rationalist sites because I didn’t know there were post-rationalist sites
I don’t know what your work-sample looks like, but unless it’s time actually working with your team on a real project, it gave you no indication of whether or not someone was “capable of delivering”
You may think you filtered out people who failed your test, but you have no indication that that’s the case – you could just as easily have filtered out people who don’t like tests or people who don’t test well
I trust you’ve found some decent hires, but I’d suspect you passed on many as well
And, I don’t know about your work environment, but I’d prefer someone who can have a friendly conversation and do good work... I’m surprised you bothered giving your work-sample test to people who didn’t pass the earlier test
> but unless it’s time actually working with your team on a real project..
I've ranted about this before on HN, but that's very much illegal in my neck of the woods. As soon as someone does useful work for you, they're an employee. YMMV but you can't expect new candidates to do actual work until you've hired them.
There are plenty of programming assignments, exercises or questions you can have them do instead.
So have a basic filter, hire based on who meshes well with the team and have a trial period during which they actually get evaluated for competence. They’re technically an employee during the trial period, but with the understanding (and contractual agreement) that they will be evaluated at the end of the period and that the employment will be terminated if they do not meet the criteria.
Trial periods, too, are no longer allowed over here. They used to be permissible up to 6 months (which was an insanely long time to essentially live with the knowledge that you could basically be sacked any day). But now they're gone. Firing people isn't terribly easy either, might need to give two months notice!
Of course, the net result is that self-employed contracting is on the rise. Especially the kind where people are self-employed only in name, but really work for a single employer. The only difference is that they send an invoice at the end of the month, and the employer can terminate the contract at any point (depending on the terms in the contract, of course).
Hiring is hard. Especially so when hiring the wrong person can cost you two months' wages.
A workplace that isn't hostile to people of color and evidence of the cause of dismissal