dbingham

58 ms·

511.
by dbingham 8y ago
I think it's a combination. It's a natural consequence of both our economic and political model. Markets that allow unregulated investment of private capital have a natural tendency to concentrate wealth through multiplier effect
512.
by dbingham 8y ago
Except that standard of living has been propped up by debt. Meanwhile productivity has skyrocketed during that time, and it's not like there aren't financial gains coming along with that increase in productivity - there are. The
513.
by dbingham 8y ago
Yeah, population isn't the issue. As others have pointed out, we grow more than enough food to feed the world. And to address the other side of the equation - the growth side - it seems to be the case that when a country reaches a ce
514.
by dbingham 8y ago
How is the company governed? Have you considered becoming a worker cooperative and creating a democratic governance structure? Does the non-profit structure allow for that?
515.
by dbingham 8y ago
...until you try to heat it to a reasonable temperature, the walls melt, and all your atmosphere off gases in to space.
516.
by dbingham 8y ago
Pushing the need for clear documentation is a battle I find myself frequently fighting. Many devs just aren't sure how to prioritize it or write it, and even worse, many seem to have absorbed the idea that code should be self document
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by dbingham 8y ago
The evidence overwhelmingly suggests that the market fails to make this choice, and governments - for the most part - have done a good job.
518.
by dbingham 9y ago
Yeah, I just want to echo this. As a periodic insomniac, I cannot imagine having your struggles with it. My own are bad enough. I've done the whole "month with out sleeping" thing. It was hell. Being in that state where n
519.
by dbingham 9y ago
Yeah, I've been using a combination of melatonin at bedtime and meditation. Plus really good sleep hygiene: red light after 8pm, no screens after 9pm, bed by 9:30 or 10pm every night (with few exceptions) get up with out an alarm every
520.
by dbingham 9y ago
As a periodic insomniac, my insomnia is often triggered by stress, but then fed by the fear of not sleeping. I'll got to bed with my brain caught in some sort of stress loop that I can't break. Then I have the thought "Oh shi
521.
by dbingham 9y ago
You actually don't need leaders. I've been part of plenty of leaderless flat heirarchies that self organized pretty damned well. People just stepped up to do things that needed doing. The problem isn't that people can&#x27
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by dbingham 9y ago
That is always the question asked. They would argue that things could be voluntarily self organized, instead of structured in coercive heirarchies. In other words, they would say that people who are capable of being doctors should provide
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by dbingham 9y ago
Have you seen / used [Waffle]( http://waffle.io ) before? It's pretty much exactly this. It's free for open source projects and has a monthly fee for private ones. It's what I've used for a while, and m
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by dbingham 9y ago
I would really love to see them rewrite Windows on a unix or linux core the way Mac did with Mac Os X. Having the software industry unified on a unix standard would be amazing. It would free up so much development effort currently spent ma
525.
by dbingham 9y ago
I feel like this might have more to do with modern social media and celebrity culture, especially Twitter culture, than with Tyson himself. It's toxic. It's really hard to move in that realm with out adopting some of its sensibi
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by dbingham 9y ago
It's interesting to me that you assume I am as inactive as you are. As it happens, when I'm not writing code for my job, I'm engaged in activism for those very causes. Remaining inactive or neutral is a choice. Even when th
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by dbingham 9y ago
Except for the dichotomy between "Change things" and "leave them more or less as they are". If you choose to be politically active, there are a million roads you could go. But if you are inactive, then you are choosing
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by dbingham 9y ago
Then they aren't a rockstar. And frankly, I've spent my career cleaning up the obfuscated, badly documented, untested code of "rockstar" devs. The idea of a "rockstar" you seem to be referring to has, in my ex
529.
by dbingham 9y ago
Gar Alperovitz is doing some incredible and really important economic work today, supporting research into economic systems other than capitalism and state socialism. He's doing lots of research into cooperative economic structures, m
530.
by dbingham 9y ago
I think it depends on where you are and how used to using bureaucracy you are. I know people who really struggled to wend their way through the bureaucracy that protects food stamps in order to get them.
531.
by dbingham 9y ago
Those benefits are all pretty severely restricted. They are difficult to apply for (it takes knowledge, time, and work), often they are time limited, or require some sort of proof of your situation that would be difficult to produce. In m
532.
by dbingham 9y ago
Ahh, thank you. That is the stat I was referring to, I misremembered the number. I would edit it, but it won't seem to let me.
533.
by dbingham 9y ago
Automation is only good if the benefits of said automation are shared broadly among the populace. For the time being, that is not the case. Instead the benefits are held closely by only a tiny percentage of the population, who use said au
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by dbingham 9y ago
They didn't measure when work got done. They measured when people chose to update their project management software. That doesn't necessarily correlate in any way with when the work is actually getting done. So all of their con
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by dbingham 9y ago
To flip this, the minority of the country that live in 39 states should not be able to dictate the law to the majority of the country who just happen to be concentrated in a relatively small area. That's tyranny of the minority, which
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by dbingham 9y ago
Unfortunately that's not how it works, at all. Especially when there are legal conflicts between the state and federal governments like this. There are so many laws on the books, many of them horribly outdated, and legislatures are o
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by dbingham 9y ago
The average tube driver's pay is ~42,000 pounds. That converts to $56,000 a year. That's not a very high income. That's solidly lower middle class depending on where you're living and whether you're single or the
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by dbingham 9y ago
When it's their whole livelihood, all they've ever known, and their families depend on it? You can hardly blame them. We need to give people other options. A lot of people who work these sorts of jobs don't have the saving
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by dbingham 9y ago
We're already in this situation and the data do not entirely agree with your anecdotes. Social mobility is quantifiably dropping. And that's a problem. [1] https://www.theatlantic.com/business/archive/2
540.
by dbingham 9y ago
It's a pretty well understood and accepted fact at this point. It's been a major talking point in economic and political circles for the past 5 - 10 years. The sources below are from a quick Google search. They mostly reference

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