I identify very strongly with this. More than once in my career I have gotten feedback along the lines of:
> We really like your work! How can you help other engineers be more like you?
The thing I think (but usually don't say) is:
> You realize I'm like this because I often work directly against your instruction in order to satisfy my personal sense of professional pride and responsibility?
I've been reading Steve for a long long time. He's had a lot of good ideas, issued some solid advice, but has always had a quirky sense of humor. A few pages into it I thought "this has to be a joke". But I couldn't find the punchline. This is the most depressing comment section I've read in a long time. I might have to enter the lottery to become an apprentice electrician.
Am American, can confirm. I largely disagree with the idea that U.S. citizens chose their government, there are many, many filters, restrictions and unnecessary complications specifically designed to prevent politics having too much influence on policy, and our militarized police force is only too happy to deal with any inconvenient protestors. (Not to mention literal military deployments to several of our cities.) On the other hand, I am routinely amazed at enthusiasm among the public for surveillance, such as the opinion that FLOCK cameras are justified because they might help catch people exceeding the speed limit. Never underestimate the average person's desire to monitor and control other people.
Edit to clarify: I and many Americans are trying hard to be your allies, but it's not clear we have the leverage to be effective. Shit is locked down pretty tight over here.
I read this phrase in a Spiderman comic, probably 1990 +/- 5 years. If memory serves Harry Osborne said it to Peter Parker, something regarding Norman Osborne's activity as the Green Goblin. Anyway, it's one of those phases that immediately etched itself into my brain and replays itself whenever the situation seems appropriate. I've always wondered if the quote had a more respectable original source, but haven't been able to find one.
I have a theory, it would be great if someone would do a rigorous study to back me up! Ha. I'm most likely wrong, but anyway:
The more effort a state puts into surveiling its population, the more effort law enforcement will put into suppressing dissent, and less into addressing crimes targeting the general populous.
If only there was a party on the ballot that supported universal healthcare. (I know there are third-parties that do, but they are pretty effectively excluded from the process.)
> If only there was a party on the ballot that supported universal healthcare
There are plenty of advocacy groups for universal healthcare. You could join them. You could also support electeds pressing for this, and call your elected to make it known it's a priority.
Civic engagement doesn't start and end at the ballot box.
It was set up the way it was because the founders didn't trust voters. Voters don't always make optimal choices. Nobody said democracy was perfect. It's just a lot better than every other system we've ever tried. Benevolent dictatorship is good in theory, but quite rare in practice.
> Nobody said democracy was perfect. It's just a lot better than every other system we've ever tried.
This has bugged me for a long time: Why do people repeat this ?
I mean this on the fundamental core of it: not on the merit of the argument[0], or whether people deeply believe it, but on making the argument in these terms in the first place.
I don't remember people running around saying Christianism isn't perfect, but better than every other religion _we tried_. Or using the same rhetoric for Object Oriented programming. Or touting as a mantra that frying chicken isn't perfect but better than every other cooking method we tried.
IMHO we usually don't do that kind of vague, but short and definitive assertion. The statements would usualy be stronger with specific limitations, or an opening for what we don't know yet. Why did it take this form in particular for political system? (I am aware of the starting quote, but it wouldn't have caught on if people didn't see a need to repeat it in the first place. I think it hit on a very fundamental need of people, and I wish I knew why)
I feel understanding that would give insights on why we're stuck where we are now.
[0] We're two centuries in western democracies, and many other regimes lasted longer than that. I personally don't think there is any definitive answer that could bring such strong statements, but that's not my point.
> The statements would usualy be stronger with specific limitations, or an opening for what we don't know yet. Why did it take this form in particular for political system?
It's claiming an empirical fact, rather than pure opinion (cooking preferences) or a fact with a well-characterized theory behind it (OOP, anything physics, ...).
The phrasing is way too blurry for it to be a reasonable fact. The original quote came from a politician, and how people convey it today are as vague as it was initially.
For instance, thinking for a minute about "who". Who are we talking about and who is judging the results ? When did the experiments happen and what do we actually know about it ? On the "what", What other forms are we referring to ? What period are looking at ? etc.
It would be the same for the theory. Which well know political theory do you see related to this ? Political science doesn't deal in "better" or "worse", and I'm not even sure there is any consensus on the different systems.
IMHO, the more you think about it the stranger it becomes. I invite more people to get on the journey.
If HN is social media, then so are PHPBB, NNTP, BBS, etc. and the term loses its semantic relevance.
My heuristic is that social media focuses on particular people, regardless of what they're talking about. In contrast, forums (like HN) focus on a particular topic, regardless of who's talking about it.
Doesn't matter what you want it to mean. What matters is what those in power want it to mean. It's very easy to stretch the definition to cover all sites where people can post content for strangers to see, or stretch it even wider to all digital media where people can interact with a social group.
AFAIK nobody here is. The point is that with relevance to the current discussion on potential future age-verification laws, only the widest definition matters, because that's what's at risk.
I think the phrase "fair distribution on social level" is doing a lot of work in this comment. Do you consider this to be a common occurrence, or something our existing social structures do competently?
I see quite the opposite, and have very little hope that reduced reliance on labor will increase the equability of distribution of wealth.
Doesn't matter. The countries with most chaos and internal strife gets a lot of practice fighting wars (civil war). Then the winner of the civil war, who's used to grabbing resources by force, and the one that has perfected war skills due to survival of the fittest, goes round looking for other countries to invade.
Historically, advanced civilizations with better production capabilities don't necessarily do better in war if they lack "practice". Sad but true. Maybe not in 21st century, but who knows.
Yeah none of that fever dream is real. There's no "after" a civil war, conflicts persist for decades (Iraq, Afghanistan, Syria, Myanmar, Colombia, Sudan).
Check this out - https://data.worldhappiness.report/chart. The US is increasingly a miserable place to live in, and the worse it gets the more their people double down on being shitty.
Fun fact: Fit 2 lines on that data and you can extrapolate by ~2030 China will be a better place to live. That's really not that far off. Set a reminder on your phone: Chinese dream.
> We really like your work! How can you help other engineers be more like you?
The thing I think (but usually don't say) is:
> You realize I'm like this because I often work directly against your instruction in order to satisfy my personal sense of professional pride and responsibility?
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