benkay: ping mircea_popescu

benkay: are you tracking this pax dickinson thing?

benkay: i've been on the internet for a while, so everything sounds trolly to me

benkay: have you read the Mencius piece on the topic?

benkay: it's amusing what drags that guy out of bed.

benkay: http://unqualified-reservations.blogspot.com/2013/09/technology-communism-and-brown-scare.html

benkay: i'm more interested in your anthropological take, mon frere

benkay: anthropological/satirical take

benkay: ain't takin?

benkay: bah

benkay: "By degrees the anarchy finds a way into private houses, and ends by getting among the animals and infecting them... the father grows accustomed to descend to the level of his sons and to fear them, and the son is on a level with his father, he having no respect or reverence for either of his parents; and this is his freedom, and the metic is equal with the citizen and the citizen with the metic, and

benkay: the stranger is quite as good as either."

benkay: I had a conversation with someone recently who was having trouble hiring people.

benkay: (american computation industry, if you're not aware, is scraping the barrel of humans capable of making computers do things)

benkay: he was so resistant to the idea of telling his people what to do

benkay: seemed to be relatively incompetent except for being able to make friends with moderately-competent humans, put them in a room and let them self-organize into a software development team

benkay: except oh no, now he has bus-factor problems. and oh no, now he can't find any more people who already know how to do the work, and oh no, never bothered to implement a training plan

benkay: i eventually lost my cool and said "yeah. you have to manage them. if you have such a tightly limited budget that you can only afford one human and not the additional team bandwidth to train that human, your entire management philosophy is borked."

benkay: descending into sarcasm, "oh, you mean I have to manage these people? tell them what to do etc?"

benkay: *rage rage rage*

benkay: yes. yes you do. until they demonstrate that they know what to do on their own (which seems unlikely), you must give direction.

benkay: eyah

benkay: i must be getting older. i see more herp every day.

benkay: it's just a labor market disconnect

benkay: i just snipe the smart, compliant ones out of math programs.

benkay: maybe in some global market sense, but costs are still a fraction of revenues.

benkay: plus i like being physically around smart, pretty humans.

benkay: and living in the US.

benkay: there are constraints under which i operate, sir.

benkay: anyways. time for duck eggs and jowl bacon

benkay: mircea_popescu: where are you considering settling in argentina?

benkay: where in argentina...

benkay: i'm visiting in november for reasons of lolbitrage

benkay: that'll teach me to open -assets links with anyone in the room

benkay: "A privilege is a special entitlement to immunity granted by the state or another authority to a restricted group, either by birth or on a conditional basis."

benkay: hence the humor inspired by people running around hooting about privilege

benkay: listen, if i'm privileged, i don't have to deal with your idiot notions of power.

benkay: by all means, mobilize your sheep

benkay: i'm sufficiently isolated to not care

benkay: BY MY PRIVILEGE

benkay: you'll note i can still pay my armsmen

benkay: my gunslingers' powder remains dry

benkay: rise up ye masses

benkay: we have Brownings atop this castle.

benkay: i will rain steel death upon ye

benkay: actually i prefer the Notorious BIG's approach:

benkay: "Real bad boys move in silence and violence."

benkay: let us all stay icy hot.

benkay: i want to hear more about this