lollol
3d ago
I think an equilibrium will be found (effort, human attention, bug fixes, value delivered, etc.). At my workplace, I did an analysis (after the VP of Ops blew up at the number of bugs since Claude adoption on my team) and I discovered the number of bugs introduced per release (bugs found after and due to release) has remained the same if not less, but because devs are so much more productive, we are releasing faster (+ delivering more features) and so the total number of bugs increase.
AI bears are too bearish, AI bulls are too bullish. And delivering immense value does not mean immense (or any) profit either. Buffet famously wrote "if a far-sighted capitalist had been present at Kitty Hawk, he would have done his successors a huge favor by shooting Orville down" because of how airlines famously destroy investor money.
Personally, AI means I can split up my time and participate in this forum instead.
lollol
3d ago
Might interest you and others that 3 weeks there was the Freakonomics Radio 679. "Why Does Vanderbilt Keep Winning?" where Diermeier sat down for a long interview about this.
lollol
11d ago
sounds similar to the transition from senior software engineer to staff engineer, and at a lesser level from SWE to senior SWE. I highly recommend https://staffeng.com/guides/staff-archetypes/ to anyone to see what kind of staff they would be, if your company support you being even better at problem solving and there's a career path for that, "The Solver" archetype is not necessarily bad.
As for the distinction between "problem solving" vs "problem setting", I think it's just opening your mind up to the kinds of problems that can be solved and that one would have agency on, problems are problems no matter whether they are technical, social, or political. https://www.noidea.dog/glue (Being Glue) might give you some insight on the direction of this.
Personal anecdote, I think one moment in which my boss noticed that I am senior SWE and not just SWE was once in a meeting when my boss boss (so my skip) was essentially harshly criticizing someone else, I stepped in and pointed out that the person was ill-equipped to handle the situation, and seeing as there is lack of time and resources to get them up to speed, the problem should be handled by someone else, namely a different senior SWE or me and that we can work on the post-problem docs afterwards. The temperature dropped almost immediately. My boss did a 1-1 with me afterwards and was especially thankful of how I was able to gracefully handle that. This is obviously not a staff-level contribution (it was more just matching the right technical person to the right problem and the comfortableness to speak up), but that's the kind of direction in which I am growing.
Ehhh, I'm ok with asking a bit more of public figures in terms of a "clean image". I suspect it's true that politicians are more "consensually clumsy" than the average person, and I also suspect that different tiers of politicians have different tiers of "consent clumsiness" (like what, 7 of the last 10 presidents have had some kind of sexual assault allegations?), but the mass majority of active politicians aren't getting accused of sexual assault. Maybe yeah what we need is a national conversation about how to attract better people into politics. But politics being what it is and what it's for, we're always going to get more dark triad personalities, so it's a cultural thing of how much a society tolerates vs the objectives it wants to achieve. It's like how Americans do not like adultery but the French are very tolerable of it.
PS: consent clumsiness is a spectrum, the other end is active consent disregard.
lollol
14d ago
Well, it's more important to understand what Platner thinks of himself. You are absolutely correct that a certain group of Democratic operatives/consultants went and find Platner specifically to be anti-Democratic-establishment and appeal to blue collar workers. But I believe that individuals can take responsibilities for their own actions. Platner decided to enter the race, Platner decided to drop out of it, all the consulting was at best just influence. I do believe Platner believes in himself as anti-establishment, I do believe Platner thinks he is the kind of anti-establishment that is not like Trump, I do believe that Platner feels a modicum of guiltiness or "for the cause" or shame or whatever that led him to drop out. It's the fact that he drops out led me to believe he is not non-guilty/shameless. I don't want to conflate being anti-establishment with non-guilty/shameless, they're two different things.
And by extension, yeah, you are also correct that Trump is an anti-establishment figure (with, to me, establishment being the old Republican side that was phased out between 2018 and 2022). That is only related, but not foundational, to whether he is guilty of anything (which I think he does) and also of whether Trump himself feels guilty of anything (which I certainly think he doesn't). To me, they are all related together. Trump is shameless, thinks himself non-guilty, and therefore never back down from establishment attacks. To me, Trump is has been unethical on many things, and where is the line between unethical and illegal I don't know but I would suspect he crossed it before on some of those many things. But being anti-establishment and then won, Trump also has high amount of political power (like you said about how Republican establishments are afraid of impeaching him), so maybe figuring out whether he stepped over the line or not becomes unclear. It's like "Mao was 70% correct and 30% incorrect", the 30% incorrect was pretty bad, but for now he's still revered for the 70%. And maybe in the long river of history the public opinion on these two figures might change, but for now it is what it is.
lollol
15d ago
My belief is that theoretically, Platner could have survived this, he just needed to be convinced of his own non-guiltiness (or shameless enough) like Trump to keep saying the same thing "the establishment is pulling all the tricks in the book to stop me"/"these are all lies by the same people already lying to you"/etc.
Dropping out of the race is not an admission of guilt in a court of law, but it's certainly an admission of guilt in the court of opinions.
I do like to comment on your use of the word "democratic establishment". Like all big groupings of people, there are always intra-group divisions. Which each new scandal, the amount of people within the "democratic establishment" willing to actively and vocally support Platner becomes only nominally silent support (for solidarity, out of group loyalty, etc.), and a certain amount of nominally silent support became actively and vocally opposed to Platner. The process in reverse is just called momentum. Like Obama, like Trump, like Mamdani, successful politicians are able to get those "in the base" that actively and vocally oppose them to become nominally silent support, and those that used to nominally silent support becomes actively and vocally support.
So anyway, when you're surrounded by people who tell you how bad you are, at some point, somebody breaks. Or maybe someone close to you break, or whatever. If he was wrongly accused, or believed he is completely correct in what he did, it still certainly does take a certain amount of self-conviction to stay on your path.
lollol
23d ago
I mean, it has a net -4 rating, which is hardly mass downvoting.
Relative to other AAQC, anything below 5 is surprising.
lollol
24d ago
Ehhh, I really don't think Howard meant aliens the way we now understand aliens. And this is assuming he meant aliens as a separate category rather than as explanatory of what he meant by "families of ambassadors or foreign ministers".
I did some research on this and this is a good summary: https://old.reddit.com/r/asianamerican/comments/1i6pbh1/from_1866_when_the_senate_was_debating_the_14th/
I read the debates itself as well: https://www.congress.gov/congressional-globe/congress-39-session-1-part-4.pdf
Really wished someone transcribed the whole thing for easy search and copy paste but Howard had no objection to the comment by Conness:
The proposition before us, I will say, Mr. President, relates simply in that respect to the children begotten of Chinese parents in California, and it is proposed to declare that they shall be citizens. We have declared that by law; now it is proposed to incorporate the same provision in the fundamental instrument of the nation. I am in favor of doing so. I voted for the proposition to declare that the children of all parentage whatever, born in California, should be regarded and treated as citizens of the United States, entitled to equal civil rights with other citizens of the United States.
And Howard had plenty of objections when others say things he didn't agree with during that debate (such as on the matter of Indians untaxed or not taxed, etc.)
lollol
24d ago
agreed. I personally don't think this is Dredd Scott level of bad, I don't think people will secede. I also haven't read the thing yet but Kavanaugh left it open for Congress to make some laws.
lollol
24d ago
Someone here earlier this week or last week said that this decision will be our generation's Dred Scott regardless of how it is decided, and that it will tear the union apart in similar fashion. Demographic changes in the West generally are leading to ever increasing tension and dysfunction, and I fear this decision will ensure that a breaking point is reached soooner, rather than later.
Sounds to me like the there will be increasing tension and dysfunction regardless of whether your stated position was affirmed or struck down. The decision is just another signal/marker of the continuing trend that you're describing. Dredd Scott can be viewed as a bad decision that made things worse, but one can also see that even if Dredd Scott ruling was reversed (that Dredd Scott became a free man by staying in the free Missouri territory), there would still have been a Secession. Congress (and by extension the People) punt on something long enough then yeah it will come crashing down on them. This is exactly what the People deserve.
lollol
24d ago
To add more information gleaned from scotusblog live chat:
- West Virginia v. B. P. J decides that states may segregate sports by biological gender. And already working through the lower circuits are lawsuits asking that states must segregate sports by biological gender.
- National Republican Senatorial Committee v. Federal Election Commission. I will be interested in the first and second order effects of this.
- Trump v. Barbara. Kavanaugh concurred on the ruling but dissented on the opinion, so it's more like 5.5-4.5 . And Thomas has a 91 page dissent.
lollol
28d ago
unimportant technicality of election law
election law technicalities are important, case in point: In Elections, Timing is Everything - Power Politics where "Today, we look at one of the biggest factors in determining the outcome of elections: when they are scheduled."
Anything worth a fight is important to somebody somewhere.
lollol
28d ago
Yeah, with how much attention is being brought to it, I think there will be more attempts at vandalism, which would distract from how there really is probably incompetence involved (how much was the damage? "a caulk over the foam sealant that was cut with a sharp knife or razor" might or might not actually create the algae bloom problem)
lollol
29d ago
Thanks. How was the ROI in terms of a law degree for you even though you're not on that path? Did you pass the bar?
lollol
30d ago
I personally think it's incompetence. And even worse, it's incompetence due to corruption.
But in an effort to be charitable: somebody certainly made "giant ‘8647’ markings on National Mall" and that's vandalism, so can't rule out the same for the pool as well.
lollol
30d ago
Inspired by this comment from @magic9mushroom . What is TheMotte's preferred political compass survey? I assume it's not https://www.politicalcompass.org/
lollol
1mo ago
yeah, seems like the plan is at least try the LSAT once but if I don't get above 170, there's no point.
Thanks @Rov_Scam, as an aside I'm always looking out for your comments because I know you're a lawyer and have a particular viewpoint on whatever is being discussed.
Don't get me wrong, I like my job, to the point where I don't even mind Mondays, but I also don't have any expectations that every case is going to be a corker. The thing that separates mediocre attorneys from good ones is that the good ones pay attention to the details of the case and treat everyone as if it has the potential to be a corker. Instead of going through the motions, they'll find something to argue about, and don't mind if things don't work out in the end.
So weirdly enough, as you were discussing the job of practicing law, it keeps reminding me of similarities to the job of a SWE. "Hours of going through the contents of a filing cabinet" on the face of it doesn't feel boring to me. It would be similar to when if I change something in an upstream service, I would be responsible to go check on how my change affects all the downstream services. Or I suppose a better analogy is if my boss or higher made a change then tell me to go clean up for them. I suppose the reminder here is every job needs you to be masochistic in particular ways to be successful and you need to choose the flavor of pain you can grind at for years.
it doesn't sound like you want to practice law, but to do something exceedingly specific
You are right. I don't want to just switch from the SWE-ladder to the Lawyer-ladder like some kind of class-change. I also understand that with regards to the default allure of a career in law, the goal is to have a lucrative career. Well I kinda already have a lucrative career (in a relative sense, my household income barely reaches big law starting salary atm, but that's still pretty good compared to the median American household) so "doing something with law" has to really fulfill something else in the Maslow's hierarchy of needs (so to speak), AND justify the opportunity cost (time honing my SWE career path, law school costs, SWE less stressful working environment).
The allure of law personal to me are:
- It's an intellectual pursuit of building shared understanding (akin to how "software design is knowledge building"). edit: I realized this is very appellate law specific.
- I keep running into problems within the context of law. Politics, culture war, "China is run by engineers, America is run by lawyers". I figure it's better for myself personally to be more than just a layman.
- Prestige bonus like you mentioned.
- Fuse my SWE background with Law to somehow unlock opportunities that either SWE or Law can't achieve by itself.
I do wonder what you think of all that. If you have any more advice or opinions, I would welcome it.
lollol
1mo ago
But I have seen a backwater state legislature reject a state supreme court nominee for the crime of not having gotten a 4.0 GPA at their top in-state law school, while cheerfully approving nominees who went to Yale, which doesn't assign grades. It's a real problem.
cool, sounds to me like i should just LSAT and see how it goes, maybe my score will be low enough that it'll just tell me that law is not for me.
Are you married? Do you have children?
Yes, and will. My wife and I will have children for sure, just not right now. For example, at the moment it's not clear if we have children prior to getting the green card they would be considered an American citizen. I am actually currently reading the book Dad Brain and I am quite excited about the prospect of being a dad. But I also want to be an amazing dad with great personal accomplishments as well. I suppose arrogance comes with being a SWE but I do think I'll be a great dad that will gain a lot of joy and pride from raising the little ones, and I also want joy and pride from my own accomplishments as well. No matter whether a bum or a contender, I'll be a great dad, but I don't want to be that guy in his 50s saying "I coulda been a contender".
lollol
1mo ago
From what I've read up, it's HYS or nothing. I have a natural aversion to prestige games but I suppose for the prestige chasers that's just loser talk.
The pay is terrible and it's unlikely I will ever make a meaningful difference on actual public policy, but that would probably be true even if I were a powerful appellate attorney.
I suppose this is what I am missing from my normal job, I don't have fulfillment. I feel that I do a good job and the people around me says I am and the company show sufficient financial appreciation, but at the end of the day it's just pushing text from left to right to get people to buy more stuff. At various points in the last few months I've did various searches on "how can a 30 year old do [research/law school/etc]?" And every time it seems like confusing and non-clear ROI. Nor does it seem like my job then would be more fulfilling, at least on the SWE path there are some pretty clear next steps I can do (big tech/unicorns/interesting startups/open source/anarcho-hackers/etc.). And yes, currently I have to wait for the company-sponsored green card process to complete before it seems like my next chapter in life can begin.
That sounds very serendipitous and not something in my control. I suppose the better way to phrase what I want is actualization/making an impact. I suppose post-law-school careers that also seems amazing to me are like Avril Haines or Lina Khan. Not sure if that's even possible for an immigrant (hasn't even gotten my green card yet).
lollol
1mo ago
They mostly demonstrated the opposite. Iranian dissidents found themselves caught between a regime that hates them, and outsiders who hate them.
I would rather say that "outsiders who don't care enough to support, or even know them". I know of at least one famous Russian political dissident, Alexei Navalny. For Iranians, I can only think of a film director.
lollol
1mo ago
So I'm a software engineer at a no-name startup for nearly 5 years. And recently I suddenly have an interest in learning law. Has anyone gotten on this path or have opinions about this? I suppose in my fantasy future, I would be doing appellate law and someday argue Supreme Court cases, but everything I read up shows that law is a high-stress, singular life. What are pros and cons here? What are things that should encourage me and what are things that should discourage me? If someone wants to pour a basin of water over my head on this whole romantic notion please feel free.
The older I am, the more I realize everyone is not normal in their own way. It's like how "the world's most typical person is male, Han Chinese, speaks Mandarin, is right handed and is 28 years old". But how many of us are like that really (the article says only 9 million people are like that). I suppose yes there is some kind of overton window of behavior, but how big does this overton window cover? If we pick the "middle 50%" there are still 50% of the people outside of this overton window. "I am large, I contain multitudes", many anime fans are "normal" people, you might not even realize they are anime fans, I personally was surprised at how many guys on the sales team watch anime (the dev team I wasn't surprised, I would be surprised if a dev isn't into anime).
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