It sounds like you're a very worldly and pragmatic person. Perhaps you should go and teach in one of these schools. You might just turn things around! :)
What normally comes from such meetings are policies aimed at curbing the consumption of the 80% of the population who control 20% of the resources. The upper 20% of the population (who control 80% of the resources) are very good at sparing themselves from hardship.
> Growth rate is not an excuse for the evils that have been enabled by Facebook.
This sort of over the top moral grandstanding is, ironically, the sort of "evil" that many have attributed to Social Media. Yet it looks to me like the same sort of pearl clutching that soccer moms were doing about Satanism during the 1980's (for instance).
> Today we are experimenting with new phenomena that have never been available to humanity en mass. Effective birth control, gender equality, freedom from restrictive social norms, all of these are very new, and indeed evolutionarily novel.
In brief, I would sum this up as "modernity."
> Eventually through trial and error, and a kind of evolutionary process, we’ll figure it out, and then that will get passed down as the new value system.
It has been said, by some philosopher or other, that "modernity selects for those who don't adopt it."
It means, when you look around the world, the people having the most babies are the people who have adopted the least of these new aspects of society. At this rate the future ought to look more like the past than like a continuation of the trends we see today. Just due to the fact that our modern society depresses birth rates.
Maybe there will be mitigating factors? Perhaps we'll reach a balance? Unknown.
One interesting demographic fact. If current birthrates persist the United States of America will be majority Amish by 2200. Something to think about. ;)
Criticizing the organizations funded by George Soros has nothing to do with Judaism.
And ironically you ignored:
> It also tapped its business relationships, persuading a Jewish civil rights group to cast some criticism of the company as anti-Semitic.
Misrepresenting things does not help you in your goal of critiquing the behavior of large companies. It actually serves as ammunition against your credibility.
Engineers and Doctors were smart enough to form professions/unions to protect themselves without having to resort to incompetence. Programmers haven't been wise enough to take this route so targeted incompetence (making things that only you can maintain) is our only existing avenue for job protection.
(Before people start yelling about competence being its own form of protection: the top 1% of programmers will always be in demand, but the bottom 99% are not always going to have it so good whether that be from economic downturns or automation.)
> Has it ever occurred to you that if people are willing to burn it to the ground, the "modern world" might not be quite as good for them as it is for you?
Has it ever occurred to you that some people identify themselves not as individuals but as cells in a group organism (race, gender, etc...) and that these people seem to live by the old saying "it's better to rule in hell than serve in heaven"?
It's not about justice. It's about your group being on top.
The world that grievance mongers are building does not strive for fairness. It strives for an inversion of the cartoon hierarchy they've dreamed up. Where every imagined historical evil is played out against the descendants of the people who they think are responsible.
The whole thing is fueled by a vicious mixture of hate and envy, providing an endless supply of righteous anger induced endorphin rushes. It's addictive and cruel.
Even the poorest "identity groups" in the United States own more wealth than most other "identity groups" across the planet. Western Society also goes out of its way to embrace "the outsider" insofar as it tries very hard to include them in everything to the point of ridiculousness. This tradition of inclusion goes all the way back to Rome, which preferred integration over annihilation (excepting Carthage).
But I get it. It feels good to complain and to hate on things. Especially when there is no downside (e.g. you get patted on the back and told you're a holy person). You might even convince some of the oppressed "identity groups" you're speaking for to help you implement your pet projects along the way.
> The end does not justify the means. So what good is a society built on prejudice, harassment, and corruption?
Spoken like someone who was raised in a culture where airing grievances led to getting what you wanted most of the time.
I mean, it's not illogical. There's a reason why the activist archetype is so respected in our society. It gets results!
But the outlook that fuels activists to push things things until they win: "I'd rather burn everything to the ground than not get what I want" is also an incredibly short sighted and selfish way to look at things.
This is the human condition I guess. We take things for granted. Like the stability we've grown up in, so much that we're willing to sacrifice our inheritance [a stable and mostly fair society] chasing windmills.
Luckily we've amassed so much wealth and institutional inertia that I think it'll be a while before it all comes tumbling down.
They probably, rightly, assumed that certain personality types gravitate toward programming work. They also probably felt that their manner and choice in clothing style helped to convey their personality type. For example, in their minds a programmer might choose to dress more like the girl in "The Girl With The Dragon Tattoo" or interact socially in a way that's either more intense (excitable nerd stereotype) or more withdrawn (shy nerd stereotype) than is the norm.
I know that despite my gender people will change their expectations about my career based on how I dress. When I had an undercut and wore around hoodies more often people were much more likely to assume I was technical. Now that I've gotten a little older and my fashion sense has become more conservative people tend to assume I'm a manager or in some other sort of administrative/people oriented role.
It doesn't take much experience in the world to notice that personality type, fashion sense, and career choice are correlated with one another.
It takes a lot of experience on the other hand to learn that you are supposed to ignore such things for the sake of politeness.
The baizuo[0] doesn't really care about people with a history of slavery. She only cares about stroking her own ego: "look at me, look how good and holy I am!" :)
America's academics long theorized that abolishing all common ties between people would increase freedom, happiness, and equality. Pluralism has been touted as an obvious good for over 70 years now.
And while they were right that it's sort of nice to be able to believe what you want and "let your freak flag fly" so to speak. Without a common set of values, civic life has pretty much withered and died. What's left is ... Facebook groups?
Without a strong civic life or common values there is no reason for opposing groups to show mercy to one another. It's just full on war for control of society.
After this works itself out we'll make a great case study for future societies (maybe even future North American societies) on what not to do.
Logged out of any Google account from a work IP address (not used for much personal searching) and I get the same result.
Info cards are not influenced by your account's history as far as I know. They are purely programmed by a combination of bots and hand tweaked responses. The hand tweaked responses come from a combination of user complaints/requests and internal pushes by engineers.
> Now that the EU actually wants to do something about it, the law is being denounced as lobbied by big media, but, to the contrary, the current status quo only serves Google et al.
Do you think these regulations will make it more difficult for smaller companies to arise in any space where they are relevant?
If so, this legislation favors incumbents. It provides them with a nice little moat in the form of higher start-up costs.
The EU does not pass legislation out of the kindness of their hearts. There are lots of people in Brussels bargaining on behalf of clients who are first and foremost interested in the health of their businesses. Granted, there is a lot of feel good propaganda about "protecting the people."
As this site is a community centered on the creation of new companies it is normal that this legislation would be looked at negatively here. Since it will stifle small companies.
Wait what? Are you claiming that corporations deign for some countries to become dumping grounds? I'm not sure what you mean here. The article hints at the fact that while standards of living increase for some, they decrease for others... Which is essentially the complaint that anti-globalization activists have. It's not a rising tide but a race to the bottom.
Most corporations (I can't think of any counter examples, but maybe someone here will find one) are all on board with abolishing borders. It makes the most sense from the POV of a capitalistic institution since it drives down wages and increases efficiency much more than strong national borders and "nationalism" would. (Wouldn't your local tech giant like an unlimited supply of work visas to pass out like candy?)
It seems to me that open borders and pro-globalization activists are mostly playing right into the wildest dreams of corporate robber barons. Who prefer the "race to the bottom" WRT labor costs that is "globalism."
Every "side" has their own morality. And believes that they are good and the other "side" is evil. This is just a fact of life.
It is very noble to attempt to adjudicate based on impartial rules rather than picking one of the many possible moralities and enforcing it with an iron fist.
Despite not being a fan of Facebook as a product, I'm impressed that they've been principled enough to not go the route of petite totalitarians like Twitter.
Progressives believe that their ideas are universal and must be forced on everyone. They even believe that history itself is an inevitable march towards their ideals being realized. They happily destroy the lives of those who disagree with them (because "they deserved it" right?). That is supremacy. There is no way to sugarcoat it.