I haven’t worked a union job, so I know nothing about this. But a family friend always rails on unions and how they do more harm than good, citing these kinds of situations. I generally like the idea of unions because I’ve seen how companies abuse employees without them. So I’m torn.
Can you explain to me how the union prevents you from getting promoted/a raise? I’m specifically curious about how the mechanics of it work
(Edit: what I’m about to say is a good bit wrong, but I’m not going to try and hide my mistakes. This article has a more complete history: https://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/middle-east/why-israel-and-palestine-conflict-war-history-b2426050.html)
I don’t support the violence at all, but this isn’t a (direct) result of imperialism.
After WW2, the Allies were like, “what do we do with all these Jews? We don’t want them in our countries.” Then they thought, “why not Jerusalem?” But a bunch of Arabs were living there, but the Allies really didn’t want more Jews, so they just dumped them all in modern Israel, told the Arabs this is Jews’ land now, and recognized Israel as a state. Palestine has a right to be pissed. So this isn’t so much an imperialism problem as much as a racism problem.
But still, Hamas are evil fuckers that take shit too far. Israel definitely is not the good guy and is not helping the situation at all, but this kind of escalation just makes shit worse for everyone.
What are these answers…
Wrong place to ask, but whatever.
It depends on what you want to build. If you’re not sure, start with Python. It’s likely easiest to pick up and get running. There’s a book called “Automate the Boring Stuff.” I think there’s an online version. (Edit: link - https://automatetheboringstuff.com/)
If you don’t want to set up Python (or any language, really) on your computer, there’s a tool called a REPL that you can find online. So you can just search “Python online REPL,” and you’ll get a functional online environment to code. Now, you won’t be able to do stuff interacting with your local computer this way, like reading files, but it’s good for learning the basics of the language.
In terms of software for writing code in on your local computer, Visual Studio Code (NOT to be confused with Visual Studio) is a free, lightweight code editor. It supports every language via plugins.
If you do go the Python route, make sure to learn about virtual environments before you do ‘pip’ or ‘conda’ anything. Also, unless you’re doing data science things, stick to pip. (Maybe some personal bias there, but I hate anaconda.) If you’re starting from nothing, it’ll be awhile until you get there anyway, so don’t worry too much about it.
Most importantly, find a community that welcomes new learners. Learning to code is absolutely fucking brutal, so having supportive people available makes a world of difference. Bonus points if you can find an offline meetup in your local area.
If for some reason you want a secure password and aren’t using a password manager https://www.grc.com/passwords.htm
I don’t think you read what I wrote.
I’m arguing that living conditions have improved due to technology, not economy. Our generation’s buying power is less than that of our grandparents. I’ll pull some data for this tonight after work. It’s true in several industrialized countries
So how does that relate to the original point…? The investment in and use of Chinese labor wasn’t happening during our grandparents’ generation, which is what we’re alluding to.
I haven’t tracked Chinese history very well. I don’t know when the poverty reducing occurred in relation to the markets opening up. Intuition suggests the market opening up is what reduced poverty, but I’ll see later if I can find data to corroborate that.
But I think China is subject to similar problems. Now that several areas of China are well industrialized, will the CCP ensure workers aren’t abused? Unfortunately, I anticipate it won’t. Given that the CCP doesn’t permit serious criticism, there’s no feedback loop for improvement. I’m hoping I’m wrong.
Saying Marx predicted everything is not at odds with mostly free market economies.
I think most people will say that free markets do provide economic opportunity, generally. The problem is when those free markets are completely unregulated, where those with wealth can create fascist plutocracies, which is the trend we’re seeing now. This is what Marx predicted.
We have two options: 1) reinstate proper regulations and ensure capitalists keep their hands out of government or 2) come up with a better system. To my knowledge, 2 hasn’t happened yet, and I think most people would be quite happy with 1.
All of these arguments are missing the point. They’re attempts at strawman arguments, though I don’t believe it was out of malice. Technologist progress is a function mostly of population and time. Both the US and USDR made significant technological progress, so economic system is a less important (still important though!) factor.
The argument is that the modern economic system compared to our grandparents’ generation is worse. We have less buying power. We have less publicly funded welfare to act as a safety net. Workers have less bargaining power than times past. Large corporations are taking advantage of consumers and workers at huge rates.
We could have had all of the technological progress we’ve made PLUS our grandparents’ economic situation if our parents didn’t fuck everything. That’s the argument.
Oh man, that brings back memories
They seem better because they’re references you’re more familiar with
I had a discussion with a security guy about this.
For software with a small community, proprietary software is safer. For software with a large community, open source is safer.
Private companies are subject to internal politics, self-serving managers, prioritizing profit over security, etc. Open source projects need enough skilled people focused on the project to ensure security. So smaller companies are more likely to do a better job, and larger open source projects are likely to do a better job.
This is why you see highly specialized software has really enterprise-y companies running it. It just works better going private, as much as I hate to say it. More general software, especially utilities like OpenSSL, is much easier to build large communities and ensure quality.
It boils down to cash.
Companies can make money off penicillin. Governments can readily allocate funds to visible, common disasters.
Disasters that have been a century in the making and require whole nations to change the way they do things for an observable result decades down the line is almost impossible to get money for. Our shortsightedness is our downfall