> I would feel 10x more comfortable sharing my liberal viewpoints in a small, deeply-red town than I would insinuating something anything less than 100% left-leaning at work here.
Thanks for the reply. I imagine that being part of the majority demographic in Utah makes daily life more comfortable than it was in San Francisco, no? (Not making excuses for other people's poor behavior anywhere.)
I honestly don't think much about demographics either place. Maybe that's because I'm the majority (I think) in both places; I don't know. It doesn't enter my calculus.
San Francisco is generally more accepting of almost everything, and I love that, but when it comes to political ideology I ironically find it intense, unaccepting and extreme. It feels like anything goes in SF, so long as you're not on the right politically. (I don't even consider myself super duper on the right, just not allll the way on the left)
My point was simply to illustrate that "I'd feel more comfortable talking about my views in the Deep Red" is a statement only a White (probably) Male would say.
Perhaps, but I honestly don't believe that's true. It feels like politics has become something beyond politics in San Francisco. It's not "people have different ways of viewing things, and boy do I think you're wrong," it's "if you think that _____ or voted for _____ you are my enemy."
Growing up in the south, as a non-white, it's not if you've been mistreated, but how many times PER DAY. Your identity is that of an outsider. You're not part of the white culture.
It's so common that it just becomes the usual part of life, and you deal with it from there.
You are definitely lacking any idea of the experience of other races.
Mormons, they go around house-to-house trying to convert people.
Try doing the same thing as a Muslim, with a long beard, in the deep south, and then let me know if you still think you'd be more comfortable expressing your views in the deep south. =^D
I live in New Orleans. My family is Ahmadi. (I don't care for religion particularly). A couple days before the executive orders on immigration, a Muslim guy in a bar down the street from my house drinking from a water bottle (with a trimmed beard, if it matters) was telling his white friends about the mercies of Sharia and how awesome it really was. I interjected and asked him what the fate of my family would be. Without missing a beat he said "Execution, in an Islamic state, if they don't repent or continue to profess their faith in public." I wonder why his outsiderhood hasn't given him any empathy. (Both he and I are Pakistani-American)
I've only been in the south a handful of times, and it definitely seems much more racially charged. Utah was so insular that we never even talked about race, even when there were minorities around.
>Perhaps, but I honestly don't believe that's true.
I'm a white Jewish-atheist male with... certain political views, and I honestly expect that if I open my mouth in the Deep Red zones it will lead to violence.
>It's not "people have different ways of viewing things, and boy do I think you're wrong," it's "if you think that _____ or voted for _____ you are my enemy."
Well, fascism is not just another way of looking at things. It's a way of killing people. Fascists are the enemy of every sane, decent human being on this planet.
Now, folks at work or in government may or may not be fascists, but if someone brings up the concern that they are, the right thing to do is to contest the factual question. You really shouldn't just dismiss it by saying, "Whether or not so-and-so is a fascist, it's only fair to tolerate fascism!"
No, what's fair is "never again". Totalitarianism in general and fascism in specific are the worst ideas in the world.
It doesn't actually sound honest, now I admit your follow up question made the intent clearer, but that original post wasn't downvoted by others for the 'sharpness' of the question but because it sounded rhetorical. Have an upvote.
It honestly sounds like the start of a line of questioning that is likely to shutdown opinions because of someone's characteristics rather than the opinion itself.
I'm not saying that's what you're doing, but it's a frequent tactic.
They aren't robbing you. They are seizing property that they found and which you are making wild claims of ownership based on the idea that it was in a backpack on your back.
I think painting the picture that the author is "this kind of dev" is just as high-horsish as writing a blog post kicking and screaming about why scrum is terrible. I've worked in both settings, sometimes POs are insanely condescending and overbearing, sometimes they're great. Neither yours nor OPs opinions are unanimous to the industry.
Plus, that's kinda the point of blogging. If you want to kick and scream, the internet will totally let you.
The "We expect you to do this work for free to prove your worth to the company" interview model tells a lot about the company, in my opinion. If they'll ask you to do it once, they'll ask it a thousand times.
About a year ago Yahoo said they expected Tumblr to generate $100 million in revenue (not profit) in 2015. I'm not saying Tumblr is profitable (don't think they ever said) or it was a great investment (cost $1.1B in 2013) but at least it generates significant revenue and uniques have around doubled since they bought it.
That $100mm target was not achieved last year. I don't know what sort of revenue Tumblr actually generated in 2015 for Yahoo, but it seemingly wasn't $100mm and it definitely is nowhere near profitable. A few points:
- Tumblr was reorganized and lost its independence [1]. Not a sign of happiness with their progress.
- Tumblr has an enormous third-party CDN bill, to the extent that even $100mm of yearly revenue wouldn't come close to covering the expanse. Their traffic levels are greater than those of some entire CDN providers, and the rates they negotiated were not particularly rock bottom. Yahoo has to get out from under that situation to ever make Tumblr a profitable enterprise.
- Tumblr has very little monetizable content. Yahoo ads on Tumblr sites have still not come to fruition after several years of management claims that it's around the corner. They will presumably face a user revolt if and when it does roll out. Display ads only appear in the admin dashboard, which has far lower hit rates than the public facing sites themselves. The vast majority of sites are permanently non-monetizable because they are one of: porn, illegal content, branded corporate sites like yahooeng.tumblr.com. Yet to discard sites like those is to severely damage Tumblr's traffic rankings, which is the only thing they have to sell ads against (if they sold ads).
I see a lot of similarities between Tumblr and a Yahoo acquisition from a previous era: GeoCities. They're both instances of Yahoo spending too much to buy what they think is the latest hot thing that will build their userbase, and instead getting nothing in return but a giant bill and a no way to gain money or prestige off of the product.
There's also the strategic issue: if you believe Yahoo has to have a foot in "social"† to remain relevant and continue commanding the ad dollars from search and their site network, Tumblr was probably the most credible social network they could have bought; they got it for $1.2B. Who else could they have bought?
This comment is very unempathetic. You're taking a very strong "if you don't agree with me you are stupid" approach, which is pretty much the exact opposite of empathy.
Also, most of the things that you've said are entirely subjective. You're stating your own opinions as fact, which most of us (me) would say is something a stupid, unempathetic person would do.
Is it that hard to understand that a middle/upper middle class kid with two educated supporting parents, encouragement since it was small, a college fund, etc has it EASIER than a poor kid from the projects?
And that this holds regardless of "hard work" and "intelligent decisions for the future"?
E.g. even if both make the exact same good decisions, the poor kid has to work harder to overcome what it lacked in encouragement, financial ease to just study, parental support, the need to get a job to pay the rent even while at college, etc.
I've known minorities who got more in free financial assistance in terms of loans and grants than the middle class white kids, and they had a much easier time affording college when it came down to funding due to the abundance of loans and grants for those who met the low-income and minority criteria. I got much less than the minorities because while being crap-poor from a single mother environment in the ghetto, I am not from what's considered an ethic minority. I do not buy the crap or the "poor me, poor me!" sob stories about how minorities are so disadvantaged when they had a HUGE advantage over me, and were better off than middle class kids when it came to college funding. Seen it, lived it, been there, done that. Oh and we're not talking community college or state university, we're talking the most difficult of all scenarios: a private university where your yearly tuition (just tuition) was just under 30k per year at the time, it is now over 36k.
While my family stressed the importance of education while growing up and the ghetto provided a great example of what I didn't want for my life, I didn't have familial support in steering me towards intelligent decisions- in fact I had numerous family members actively trying to sabotage my endeavors to go to college because they wanted me to start a family. I was 100% on my own in all respects, it sucked but hard work and smart decisions paid off for me.
> I've known minorities who got more in free financial assistance in terms of loans and grants than the middle class white kids, and they had a much easier time affording college when it came down to funding due to the abundance of loans and grants for those who met the low-income and minority criteria.
Are you unable to recognize that your experiences may not be in line with everyone else's?
> I do not buy the crap or the "poor me, poor me!" sob stories about how minorities are so disadvantaged when they had a HUGE advantage over me, and were better off than middle class kids when it came to college funding.
Again, you're an edge case. "I had it rough so clearly there isn't an issue with racial minorities getting through college." This is a really close-minded thought process.
> Oh and we're not talking community college or state university, we're talking the most difficult of all scenarios: a private university where your yearly tuition (just tuition) was just under 30k per year at the time, it is now over 36k.
My first thought would be "Why this guy complaining about how hard he has it and then going to an expensive, over priced school?"
> I was 100% on my own in all respects, it sucked but hard work and smart decisions paid off for me.
Nobody is saying you didn't work hard or make good choices. Nobody is saying ethnic minorities can avoid working hard or making good choices. The point is that simply working hard and making good choices is not enough (hence the whole point of this article).
>Are you unable to recognize that your experiences may not be in line with everyone else's?
Oh I agree, most of the poor had MUCH more money through financial aid and easier circumstances than I.
>Again, you're an edge case. "I had it rough so clearly there isn't an issue with racial minorities getting through college." This is a really close-minded thought process.
No, I had it rougher than most. Though, I'm not an edge case- I'm fairly typical for those of my ethnic and financial demographic: poor single mom, ghetto neighborhood, and crappy adult guidance. Perfectly typical. Furthermore I'm not the only kid from my neighborhood to make it, before I moved I ran into lots of other kids from my junior high. 30% are now in STEM jobs, with 50% in much better socioeconomic condition form which they were born in to. The other 50% I've not run into since. There were some who slipped through the cracks, like one jerkface who's dream in life was to be a gang member, then dropped out and lived his dream until he got shot, and another who decided it was more financially viable to take over his brother's drug dealing post than take a full scholarship to Fordham. There's more but in short you can't save them all from themselves, especially the ones who make it a choice to be a loser. Everyone has options and financial aid does put poor minorities on equal footing with the middle class for higher education. If it were a middle class kid who screwed up their life despite being given these same chances to attend college but squandered it (by dropping our or picking a crummy major) we'd call him/her a "loser" or a "screw-up".
>My first thought would be "Why this guy complaining about how hard he has it and then going to an expensive, over priced school?"
That's a ridiculous notion on your part. Your first thought should have been: "If this poor person from the ghetto made it though the most difficult of all financial scenarios in higher education, what's excuse do poor ethnic minorities (who get more financial aid) have?"
>Nobody is saying you didn't work hard or make good choices. Nobody is saying ethnic minorities can avoid working hard or making good choices. The point is that simply working hard and making good choices is not enough (hence the whole point of this article).
Some are saying that working hard and making good choice don't matter, that is utterly false and wholly insulting to anyone who is self-made from humble roots. If you look at the article do you feel the parent who encouraged their kid to major in Theater was making a good choice? SERIOUSLY? Other than rehearsing the line "do you want fries with that" in preparation for a lifetime of failure, what good would that major do? That is a perfect example of stupid choices with dire consequences. I've seen lots of middle class college students make this kind of mistake as well. "Oh! I'm going to major in Medieval Instrumental Arts!"
Serious question: are you white?