Direct democracy does not imply that everyone participate in every decision, merely that everyone has the potential to do so, with respect to constitutive matters. Prepetory committees would iron out most details.
Historical instances of politically soverign and stable direct democracies are exceedingly rare, and so it is difficult to say definitively that minorities would be treated better or worse than in representative democracy.
In the Athenian democracy minorities were inter alia excluded from political decision making - one had to be a male member of the ethnic majority to participate, there was no mechanism for obtaining citizenship other than blood.
However - in comparison to how other Greek cities treated them, metics (resident aliens) in Athens enjoyed far greater security and had codified rights.
To me this latter point is decisive in showing that the horizon of direct democracy is always towards greater inclusiveness. But one has to make up one's own mind on these matters.
Life is bad but death is not preferable. No course of action is offered - not procreating may be morally preferable within this system of belief but in the main it will change nothing - humanity will not change its course.
The philosopher wishes to remain reclusive so as not to taint the force of his argument by allowing cheap psychologizing of his character. But this reclusiveness is itself telling - his philosophy is yet another attempt to fetishize the act of doing philosophy by elevating it above the fray of human action- a superior form of life unrestrained by corporeal needs. Here taken to its logical limit.
The act of voting, from an individual perspective, is objectively irrational. Since the chance of your particular vote affecting the outcome of an election is 0 your time and effort is wasted.
The lesser of two (or few) evils argument only applies on a collective level but you are an individual making ab atomized decision, not a collective.
Since your particular vote has no effect on the outcome if you are going to do so anyway you might as well vote for someone you believe in. And if no candidate exists that fits that criteria you are not just wasting your time, you are willingly participating in your own delusion.
Voting is like praying. Both have zero effect on the world, but there are huge structures that rely on maintaining the illusion to the contrary.
Upwork is influencing the client's decision to seek only US freelancers in some not very subtle ways, discussed in the thread. They are planting in the client's mind the need which wasn't necessarily already there (and is quite often spurious).
To ignore the psychology of the ux and it effect on the decision making process is naive.
US freelancers may be better off. Non US freelancers will certainly not be.
If you're a US based freelancer this could benefit you. As a non-US person, this has already adversely affected my job feed there. I assume this will not have a big impact on the lower end of the scale but as someone who charges a premium for unique services, US jobs have basically disappeared.
Market theory doesn't apply. The group against which lobbying efforts are directed is often the American people - and they are not organized enough to 'enter the market's.