I don't think that's what anyone is arguing. People are arguing that Donald Trump is an existential threat to the american republic, not that he would be "bad for minorities". The racist thing is bad, but really only a small part of the overall badness of Donald Trump.
I fight with maven every day. I was just being snarky, the fact is maven can be abused in the same way anything can. Gulp gets insane when people start writing opaque custom tasks. Maven gets insane when people write opaque plugins. Nothing is perfect. Although people tell me Gradle is...
At-will means at-will. That said, larger companies generally have policies that require documentation and a "personal improvement plan" (PIP) before termination for cause. This is mostly to provide documentation in the event of a wrongful termination suit.
However, generally if an employee is considered a serious liability (they have hurt or threatened another employee) they can be fired immediately.
Startups tend to be a little more aggressive on termination because they can't afford to pay a salary to someone for months hoping they improve.
This is a good article, in particular the first point that the "super star" cities were affordable places to live from the late 60s through the early 90s if you didn't mind a pretty gritty situation. However, I don't think you can recreate that situation easily in an affordable rust belt city.
The reason those cities were affordable at that time was white flight. The wealthy and middle class white population was moving to the suburbs, causing demand for housing to fall dramatically reducing costs (as well as the tax base, causing decay, increasing white flight). However the businesses that drove those cities did not leave. San Francisco was still a financial hub on the west cost. New York was still the center of finance and business for the entire country. So you had a place were creative people could gather and live affordably as well as an economy that produced enough excess to support the artists and musicians. (a struggling rust belt city doesn't have that many coffee shops and no local money to buy art and pay cover charges and clubs)
I guess what I'm saying is that those times are gone. There are cities where artists artists "are creating their own scene". New Orleans springs to mind, but those cities are getting expensive fast because there just isn't the huge excess of housing there was during white flight.
Best way to not carry a balance is to not have a credit card. It's very easy to say "don't carry a balance" but most people do. When I used credit cards I often carried a balance, despite my best efforts. If you have the discipline to NEVER carry a balance, more power to you. But most people don't and the points just aren't worth it.
Technologies like autopilot are going to save lives. This was one of around 90 fatal traffic accidents in the US on the same day (based on historical averages). It's going to be hard to make a foolproof system, however anything that makes it less likely for an inattentive drive to crash into something is a win.
"The reason this bath water is so dirty is that there is a baby in it"
Policy matters. The right wing proposal is religious discrimination. In the US we don't make exceptions for religions we don't like. You don't have to like Islam. You can believe that Islam is fundamentally incompatible with western pluralism. If you are American the moment you decide that's a good reason to start getting ok with religious discrimination is when you've given up on the very ideals this country was founded on.
(note: I've met Eran a few times, he is very smart and I respect his opinion)
Note aside: this is one of those "it really depends" kind of situations. For many cases native apps are always going to be cheaper to build. For others the web is just much better. It seems like the problem Eran is describing is more of a labor shortage. It's really, really difficult to hire good web developers. I have no idea why this is.