potluckyears

5 yıl öncediscuss

I didn't mention "the government." There are other models for democratic governance of businesses, such as co-ops. Credit unions and REI are examples consumer-owned co-ops that have been very successful and provide great service. REI shows that it is possible to govern a business in the US on the principle of "one member, one vote" instead of "more money, more votes" and still make billions in revenue.

potluckyears

5 yıl öncediscuss

Member-owned co-ops like credit unions and REI come to mind. They follow a "one member, one vote" rule. Credit unions are not-for-profit, while REI makes billions in revenue, and both provide great service. They're an existence proof that it's possible to still be a good business while governed democratically.

In some countries like Finland, the democratic government holds some large non-majority stake in companies that affect the public interest. However, I don't think that model would work in the US, particularly in light of some unique jurisprudence (Buckley v. Valeo, Citizens United v. FEC, and Americans for Prosperity v. Bonta) that make all three branches of government captive institutions to a small number of wealthy donors.

potluckyears

5 yıl öncediscuss

Perhaps a valuable public service should be owned and governed by...the public? In a corporation like Twitter, only people who can afford a financial stake have a say, and having more financial stake means having more say. Not a great structure if your concern is power. Perhaps everyone in the public (with a social rather than financial stake in a platform like Twitter) should have a voice in its governance.

potluckyears

9 yıl öncediscuss

She has no experience, a felony conviction for violating the Espionage Act, and a dishonorable discharge.

Maryland is home to a huge number of defense and intelligence workers. According to Wikipedia, Fort Meade (which is the headquarters of the NSA) is the state's biggest employer.

I'm not hopeful.

potluckyears

9 yıl öncediscuss

Yeah! The rise of addictive, short-term reward technologies seems deeply tied to the fact that Silicon Valley companies make money based on showing growth numbers to investors.

Business models shape the space of architectures that companies are incentivized and disincentivized to make. For people that don't like the current landscape of addictive free technologies, I'd say Silicon Valley has a business model problem, not a technology problem.

potluckyears

9 yıl öncediscuss

Distribution companies don't purchase energy from transmission companies. You were probably thinking of Regional Transmission Organizations (RTOs), which are not the same thing as transmission companies. That said, it's not accurate to say that distribution companies purchase energy from RTOs either.

RTOs (and ISOs, which are similar) are non-profit organizations that ensure transmission grid reliability and fairness by operating markets in which generators and distribution companies bid or buy energy [1]. The market mechanisms have been designed to also incorporates network balancing and congestion control. RTOs/ISOs are the benevolent, omniscient regional gods in charge of coordinating dispatch for the purposes of ensuring transmission grid reliability. They facilitate sales, they don't sell directly.

Transmission companies, on the other hand, are for-profit organizations that build and maintain transmission lines. Their profits are constrained by regulation to be a certain percent return on equity [2], and they need to get permission from the RTO/ISO that monitors their region before making any operational changes to their transmission lines.

One more difference is in their scale. There are only ten RTOs/ISOs in North America, and they tend to cover very large regions of the continent. There are many transmission companies, and they tend to cover smaller regions.

For example, where I live in Southeast Michigan, the RTO/ISO is the Midcontinent Independent System Operator (MISO), and the transmission company is ITC [3], a spin-off from DTE Energy after deregulation forced DTE to pick two from their generation, transmission, and distribution capabilities (they kept generation and distribution, because post-deregulation that's where the money is). However, MISO's entire coverage area includes 52 transmission companies [4].

Basically, under deregulated energy markets transmission is treated as a public utility and the transmission grid is treated as common infrastructure. The grid is operated by non-profits and private companies who are required to be financially independent from generation and distribution interests. That's why the notion that distribution companies buy energy from transmission companies gives the wrong impression of how the system works, though I can see where the confusion could come from.

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Regional_transmission_organiza...

[2] http://archive.jsonline.com/business/lower-profit-recommende...

[3] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ITC_Transmission

[4] https://www.misoenergy.org/StakeholderCenter/Members/Pages/M...

potluckyears

9 yıl öncediscuss

> If it were my business, I would still be at the mercy of giant incumbent competitors, and any dollar I spent on common infrastructure would benefit them more than me. They could then use that advantage to slowly force me out of the business.

> The largest firms have the most to gain from improvements in the industry's infrastructure. [Large monopolistic firms are] the only ones capable of improving infrastructure, aside from a government.

Under deregulated energy markets in the US, common infrastructure (specifically the transmission grid) is placed under the control of a non-profit Regional Transmission Operator or Independent System Operator. In practice the transmission lines are built and maintained by private for-profit companies, but their profits are fixed by regulation and they have to ask the RTO/ISO for permission to do basically anything.

The point of this restructuring was to break up monopolistic control over the transmission grid so that new, small generation or distribution companies could join the transmission network at a fair hookup cost. Additionally, it helps deal with the issue of who pays/profits from improvements to common infrastructure.

http://www.energysmart.enernoc.com/regulated-and-deregulated...

potluckyears

9 yıl öncediscuss

That statement didn't seem to be implying that men and women are different, but rather that men and women are treated differently by mentors -- specifically, that mentors are more likely to "endorse" men, and more likely to tell women how to improve. Immediately following that sentence the article says:

> A study of 4,000 women and men who graduated from top MBA programs (surveyed in 2008 and again in 2010) found that when women receive mentorship, it’s advice on how they should change and gain more self-knowledge. When men receive mentorship, it’s public endorsement of their authority and concrete steps to take charge and make career moves. [...] Men who received mentorship were statistically more likely to be promoted, but that was not true for women who were mentored.

potluckyears

9 yıl öncediscuss

The stereotypes associated with being a woman in tech trend towards the negative. That means that having other people signal that they see you primarily as a woman first instead of an engineer can be uncomfortable in a professional environment, even when the other person isn't bringing up those negative stereotypes themselves and may even in fact be complimenting your qualities as a woman. Those negative stereotypes exist and people are aware of them, so being signaled that your colleagues are seeing you as a woman first instead of an engineer feels like people are perceiving you in certain ways before they even get to know you and your work.

Basically, if on Day One of a new job your boss says, "I am viewing you as a woman rather than an engineer," given the negative stereotypes about women in tech, it adds a lot more discomfort, anxiety, and frustration about how others are perceiving you in the workplace than an awkward proposition would in a non-professional context.

That said, I think your question implies this is a male/female thing when really it's probably more of a you/me thing. Plenty of guys would also not be okay with being propositioned for sex on the first day by a female manager that they directly report to and who is responsible for their performance reviews.

potluckyears

9 yıl öncediscuss

Part of the problem is thinking that women have a natural instinct for being social and friendly. Attributing characteristics stereotypically associated with a particular gender to "natural instincts" is part of why women get such a bad rap in technical fields.

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