Not to disagree with the overall point, but because this comes up a lot I'll nitpick it: issuing debt is not the same as printing money
With debt, along with the proverbial "cash" comes an opposing "IOU" -- any change* is thus only temporary, in the time dimension (essentially that's what's being exchanged: time)
Printing money out of nowhere is different, because it's missing that other half
* at the risk of stating the obvious: "change" meaning "difference" and not "cents"
A lot of debt also arises because of savings needs. If everyone is saving for retirement, for example, that savings has to be debt marked somewhere else. Examples:
* Social security used to have a huge surplus, that was savings that had to go somewhere (even if it was just a savings account in a bank, the bank would then be able to lend it out). They instead buy treasuries and that savings becomes debt to the USG.
* China likewise needs to save dollars because it doesn't want them sloshing around in their economy leading to inflation, so instead of using it to buy things they buy treasuries, and their savings becomes debt to the USG (not always a great deal for China if interest rates are below inflation).
The dollar has been so useful in the past as a currency of trade because you could save large amounts of it easily by buying US treasuries. One reason China doesn't want the RMB to be used so heavily for trade is that they don't want to do the same yet.
Actually it kind of is, in as much as it expands the money supply.
When a bank issues debt, the money is created 'out of thin air'. When the debt is paid off, that money is destroyed. However usually more debt is being created than redeemed as things go on, so the total money supply increases (this is a good thing, as it allows the economy to expand).
Various regulations and central bank market interventions (quantitative tightening/easing) control this process, which thus can be induced to 'print money' if the government wishes - assuming they have a sovereign currency.
Fractional reserve banking is still not the same as printing money outright
If you borrow $100 USD from the bank, and pay it off immediately after, it's clear no money was "created" as such
If $100 USD is "printed" outright, it's clear that there's no way to achieve that same result
The fact that the debt isn't generally paid back immediately doesn't change that fundamental. That's what I meant when I said any apparent "change" is about "time" rather than "money"
It is true that the money supply should expand with the economy. Turning raw materials into finished goods represents a larger "net economy" at the end of the process than at the beginning. (Indeed that's basically how it makes sense to have interest on debt in the first place)
Nevertheless, printing money out of whole cloth is different from issuing debt
> If you borrow $100 USD from the bank, and pay it off immediately after, it's clear no money was "created" as such
The bank "printed" money by handing out cash that it didn't have. It only had a fraction of it. That new money went free into the world with the same respect any other cash gets. You and I can't pull that off.
Ok fine I'll agree call it "creating money" rather than "printing money", because it's not the same mechanism the central bank uses to "print" permanent money (technically not printed either but whatever), but money is still created by the bank.
I read the thread. I don't see where that's addressed
I also see survivorship bias keep coming up. Each time it claims to be have been addressed in the original comment, and that's that. Yet I don't see how the existence of surviving mansions today proves anything about the prevalence of wealthy farmers at the time
Similarly, there's no inherent reason subsistence farming should prove or disprove work outside the farm. The existence of farms large enough to grow and sell surplus food, that doesn't mean all farms could do so
I don't think it's a scam, I think all too often people forget that people don't just automatically know things that are going on. It's an important life lesson: telling the story is as important as taking the action. "If you build it, they will come" is bunk
Marketing, publicity, networking, call it what you will. If no one knows a feature is in your app, it doesn't matter how good it is. You see this in politics too. That's why you have those signs on the road saying "your tax dollars at work"
I bet you can think of any number of poorly publicized success stories that didn't get the credit they deserved, or became victims of the invisibility of their success
FWIW, coming from another unknown internet person, this is 100% the best reply to this whole thread and the most pragmatic way in corporate life. If you think otherwise, you're an idealist and I wish all the best for you in what I suspect you might find a frustrating career. Unless you create your own company.
Writing “I ignore the spotlight as a staff engineer” with a long description of how they’re better than the other person, is not something a leader that will rise in any company should be writing for the public, even if they’ve given up.
Someone else will always at some point will steal or deserve the spotlight.
You can’t have a successful show full of prima donnas that all vie for the lead role on stage. You can do your best, and have some way to promote yourself for compensation when the time comes, but if there’s this much of a problem that you feel you have to write a lengthy defense to the public, you’ve lost your way and should go elsewhere/
Exactly. One shouldn't confuse the spotlight with communication. This is just a matter of letting the appropriate people know the things you want them to know or they need to know. We're social animals. We communicate. If someone doesn't know what you're doing, then, as the Captain says, we have a failure to communicate. Being able to communicate is a core life skill and part of what it means to be a functioning adult.
(I'm also willing to bet that the very same people who pout about not being "appreciated" would be the first to complain about someone "hovering" or "spying" on them, because that's what it would take for someone to know what you're up to in such cases. Like, make up your mind, bruh.)
And if you take a moment to think about it, those who expect others to just know what they've done are displaying the very narcissistic behavior they often claim to be avoiding. After all, why you? Why should anyone know what you, of all people, are doing? Do you know what others are doing? No, you don't. Not until they tell you or someone who has been told knows. You may think you know, but there is plenty that you don't know, and to be fair, perhaps don't need to know. The world does not revolve around you. Like you (I would hope), people have their own lives and tasks and concerns.
Think of something as everyday as a PR. Even if your manager looks at every PR, he doesn't know what you did to get there unless you communicate that to him. Unless you write it down and share it or tell him that you've experimented with three different approaches before settling on the chosen one, or done some kind of detailed analysis based on which you drew up your design, how the hell is he going to know?
And even if a manager should know certain things, it is pointless to make that appeal. So what if he should? Aren't there things you should be doing but aren't, like, say, communicating with clarity and coherence? "Shoulding" doesn't make things so. You have to deal with the world as it is, not as you would like it to be. Every manager is different. If your manager requires a huge banner and a neon sign to get the message, then that's what it takes to make him know things. Behave accordingly.
It reminds me of how we moved from "mockups" to "wireframes" -- in other words, deliberately making the appearance not look like a real, finished UI, because that could give the impression that the project was nearly done
But now, to your point: they can vibe-code their own "mockups" and that brings us back to that problem
Not for nothing--I'm no optimist either--but, by what measure? I see at most one quarter of negative GDP[0]. The US market is up at least 50% since then.
I believe that they are bringing up a moral argument. Which I'm sympathetic too, having quit a job before because I found that my personal morals didn't align with the company, and the cognitive dissonance to continue working there was weighing heavily on me. The money wasn't worth the mental fight every day.
So, yes, in some cases it is better to be "right" and be forced out of business than "wrong" and remain in business. But you have to look beyond just revenue numbers. And different people will have different ideas of "right" and "wrong", obviously.
Moral arguments are a luxury of thinkers and only a small percentage of people can be reasoned with that way anyways. You can manipulate on morals but not reason in most cases.
Agreed that you cannot be in a toxic situation and not have it affect you -- so if THAT is the case -- by all means exit asap.
If it's perceived ethical conflict the only one you need to worry about is the golden rule -- and I do not mean 'he who has the gold makes the rules' I mean the real one. If that conflicts with what you are doing then also probably make an exit -- but many do not care trust me... They would take everything from you and feel justified as long as they are told (just told) it's the right thing. They never ask themselves. They do not really think for themselves. This is most people. Sadly.
But the parent didn't really argue anything, they just linked to a Wikipedia article about Raytheon. Is that supposed to intrinsically represent "immorality"?
>they just linked to a Wikipedia article about Raytheon
Yeah, that's why I took a guess at what they were trying to say.
>Is that supposed to intrinsically represent "immorality"?
What? The fact that they linked to Wikipedia, or specifically Raytheon?
Wikipedia does not intrinsically represent immorality, no. But missile manufacturing is a pretty typical example, if not the typical example, of a job that conflicts with morals.
>Have they done more harm than, say, Meta?
Who? Raytheon? The point I'm making has nothing to do with who sucks more between Meta and Raytheon.
Well, sure, I'm not disagreeing with the original point about moral choice, and in fact I agree with it (though I also think that's a luxury, as someone else pointed out).
But if someone wants to make some blanket judgement, I am asking for a little more effort. For example, I wonder if they would think the same as a Ukrainian under the protection of Patriot missiles? (also produced by Raytheon)
Here are Raytheon part markings on the tail kit of a GBU-12 Paveway glide bomb that Raytheon sold to a corrupt third word dictator, who used that weapon to murder the attendees of an innocent wedding in a country he was feuding with.
I know the part number of every airplane part I have ever designed by heart, and I would be horrified to see those part numbers in the news as evidence of a mass murder.
So, what is your moral justification for defending one of the world’s largest and despised weapons manufacturers? Are you paid to do it or is it just pro-bono work?
Excuse me, do you make personal attacks on anyone who dares ask for an actual reasoned argument?
Most if not all aerospace companies also produce military aircraft, right? Or is your reasoning that if your particular plane doesn't actually fire the bullets, then there's no moral dilemma?
Defending? I am simply pointing out the obvious flaws in your logic.
If you think Raytheon is the apex evil corporation you are very mistaken. There is hardly any separation between mega corps and state above a certain level. The same people are in majority control of IBM, Procter & Gamble, Nike, and Boeing, Lockheed Martin, etc, etc.
Stop consuming marketing materials as gospel.
What you see as this or that atrocity on CNN or whatever that is produced *propaganda*, made for you, and you are swallowing it blindly without thinking.
Also the responsibility is of course down to individuals and their actions-- whether you know their names or not. Objects do not go to war on their own.
I've also worked in aerospace and aviation software but that doesn't preclude me from thinking clearly about whether I'm responsible for this or that thing on the news involving planes -- you might want to stop consuming that.
Sorry, it's not. Latest example, Canon's phone app for its cameras, for GPS tagging, remote shutter, transfer to phone, didn't require any Internet access, but now they changed it to require an online login for no reason. Oh and that login only works with chrome installed.
So miss me with this caveat emptor libertarian fantasy land ("openly lies about its specs" is the buyer's fault?!)
WhatsApp is the only chat app I've encountered that refuses to work* if you don't give it access to your contacts. The last thing I want is to give it access to even more chats. Go eat a bag of dicks, Meta. More like "metastatic"
* you can respond to messages but are very limited in what you can initiate (as such they got you as part of someone else's contact list)
I think this might only be true on Android? Apple has a strict policy that the basic app functionality must work even without permissions. And testing right now, I can send messages to direct numbers without having given access to my contacts.
Original poster explained that the functionality is having a contact list. WhatsApp will either access and use ALL your contacts or none on iPhone as well as android. Having jumped through many hoops to preserve conversations without leaking contacts, I’m highly attuned to this…
nope. he literally wrote "cannot initiate messages if you don't give it access to your contacts" and that's false on iphone. on iphone whatsapp has its own separate contact list if you don't give it access. and it is like this for years.
Not true in India. WhatsApp initially worked without access to the Contact list, and you could send a message to someone by typing their number directly in WhatsApp. But after a few updates, it does not allow you to start any new conversation without access to the contact list. And if you still ignore it, further updates prevent you from using WhatsApp at all unless you give it access to the contact list.
I doubt whatsapp is customized per country and no idea what's going on there. For me it was like this probably 4-5 years ago. Right now whatsapp on iphone allows me to create a new contact and then message that contact. The contact is only saved in whatsapp. App has no access to my contacts.
> Apple has a strict policy that the basic app functionality must work even without permissions.
Is this true? How does Apple enforce this? I ask because WhatsApp initially worked fine on an iPhone, without any access to the contact list, but after a few upgrades, it demanded access to the Contacts list to send messages to new numbers, and did not allow you to do so by typing a phone number directly.
> WhatsApp is the only chat app I've encountered that refuses to work if you don't give it access to your contacts*
I've never given it access to my contacts. (iOS.) It's worked fine. I recently started giving it access to a limited set of my contacts, but that was for convenience.
With debt, along with the proverbial "cash" comes an opposing "IOU" -- any change* is thus only temporary, in the time dimension (essentially that's what's being exchanged: time)
Printing money out of nowhere is different, because it's missing that other half
* at the risk of stating the obvious: "change" meaning "difference" and not "cents"
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