I mean that seriously. Sometimes when one asks a question the asking may be more insightful to you than the answer.
I mean, you'll get a bunch of answers here, reflecting a bunch of opinions. But why do you care about what they think? And what does it matter to you what Zuck is or not.
It doesn't sound like you're asking about billionaires in general (or the number of them, or the harm they are doing), and you're not asking about Facebook in general, but rather on Zuck himself.
Do you think the success of a person is based on their original ideas? Or is it on execution? Do you think he's a bad CEO because his company (and him) are visible? (Does your local accounting firm with 10 employees get the same scrutiny?)
Do you think a CEO operates in a vacuum? Is he the only one eith ideas? Is the the only one (inside meta) who makes bets, or buys companies?
All of which brings us back to, why do you care? Is your success delineated by his reputation? (Hey, maybe you're C level at meta aiming for his job.)
Honestly, I've found for me, caring about the success, or deservingness, of others (big or small) is meaningless to me. Their success doesn't make me fail. Their moral failings doesn't make me a success. My job is to be the best I can be, not compare myself to others. And my definition of success is what I want it to be, not some measure society offers (like absolute wealth.)
I'm objectively a bad golfer (outside the top 100 000 in my country, as my phone delights in telling me), but my measure for golfing success is how much fun I'm having. I don't hate on Rory for his success.
If it can be rationally argued that the success of the billionaire class is mostly down to luck, size and "quality" of their lineage's social network, exploiting legal loopholes, and immoral conduct, then it follows that we should demand much more of their wealth for the betterment of society. And I very much think that the argument is correct. The Epstein files and the lesser known but just as important Panama papers is strong evidence.
I think this us a fair feeling. One chooses a house based in part on the area as the specifics of the house itself. Wanting the neighborhood to remain unchanged is a reasonable desire.
Unfortunately, as much as you desire it, it's not something you can control. Neighborhoods change all the time. That good school you moved to be close to can decline, people with the wrong politics can move in next door, the convenient mall may close.
Yes, local politics gives you a vote. But of course we all get the same vote, homeowners and wannabe homeowners.
So, I think your want is valid, alas though you have no rights to your neighborhood and so your want is just what you want.
Of course you should stand up for your wants. But wants are not rights. So it's equal to everyone else's wants.
I'm upvoting you because your desire is not invalid. However, and I don't mean this perjorativly, your wants don't legally count for much. Just as much as any other person.
Part of the problem (or the solution depending on what side you stand on) is that only residents get a say, and often you find that the renters become just as nimby as the owners, especially if rent controls or other advantages are in place.
And those outside have a very hard time voting where they want to live but don't.
(The old solution was to make a new city that was like you wanted, with blackjack and hookers, hell forget the city we'll just build the strip!)
>> both will struggle hard to actually turn a profit some day, let alone make back the massive investments they've received.
I'd agree with you, except I've heard this argument before. Amazon, Google, Facebook all burned lots of cash, and folks were convinced they would fail.
On the other hand plenty burned cash and did fail. So could go either way.
I expect, once the market consolidates to 2 big engines, they'll make bonkers money. There will be winners and losers. But I can't tell you which is which yet.
I’m not sure there will be consolidation. There’s too much room for specialization and even when the models are trained to do the same task they have very different qualities and their own strengths and weaknesses. You can’t just swap one for the other. If anything, as hardware improves I’d expect even more models and providers to become available. There’s already an ocean of fine tuned and merged models.
>> build it and they will come" was true in 2005 and hasn't been true since 2015.
It wasn't true in 2005. It wasn't true in 1995. It's never been true.
I joined a fledgling industry in the mid 90s. There were some established names. (Established in those days meant your ad appeared in a trade magazine a couple times a year.) My offering was good, maybe even very good. I advertised in the same places and sales were ok. (Without the advertising it would have been nil.)
I started traveling to do in-person demos at conferences, user groups and so on. Sales rocketed up, and stayed up. I won simply by taking the time to market a different way. By meeting prospective customers in person. In many ways they responded to the marketing effort, not the product.
Obviously today marketing channels are different. But the approach is the same. Marketing matters. And the mouse trap thing? It was never true.
>> The process is fun. Abandon the idea of making money, and it becomes more enjoyable.
100% this. Some things you do in life are for money. Other things are for fun. Turning fun into money usually removes the fun part.
We have a word for this, it's called "hobby" and somewhere along the line it acquired negative connotations. But in fact a hobiest has the ability to spend lots of time perfecting their skill.
A long time ago, if you wanted the best craftsmanship you went to an amateur not a professional. The amateur had time to make things perfect. (John Harrison spent years making a single clock) whereas the professional had to make money, so was forced to compromise.
Yes, you can turn your hobby into money, but it will remove the fun part. It will require lots of extra stuff (marketing, support etc) which all erodes the fun part. Plus the pressure of release requires compromising perfection.
If you think going this route makes your job into "fun" then think again. Yes, you'll still enjoy the coding part, but its an ever shrinking part.
So I think you've done the right thing. Stick to this as soon hobby, not your job. And I mean that in the most positive way.
I concur that most web sites could use less JavaScript. And a lot of (but not all) cosmetic uses for JavaScript can be done in CSS.
Of course for web apps (as distinct from web sites) most of what we do would be impossible without JavaScript. Infinite scrolling, maps (moving and zooming), field validation on entry, asynchronous page updates, web sockets, all require JavaScript.
Of course JavaScript is abused. But it's clearly safe and useful when used well.
See, that's where we went wrong. IMO the web is for web sites. Co-opting the browser for full applications has led to the significant degradement of modern software. If we must have a "write once, run anywhere" approach for modern development, can we at least use WASM bytecode and build a dedicated runtime that doesn't use the browser for GUI output?
You are of course entitled to your opinion. And you're free to code apps for any platform or language you like.
Clearly though the world is using the web platform for writing applications. And I for one like the fact I can book a car, buy a secondhand book, or leave a restaurant review from a generic place that just works on all my devices.
Consider your experience up to now as an education.
The hard part is not building a working product. The hard part is finding people to use it.
Yes, building the working product is the fun part. Yes it's the part that overlaps your current skill set. Stop doing it.
Instead of building products, go find customers. It doesn't matter what they want, you can build anything, what matters is they have pain and are looking to pay to make it go away.
That initially means going out to talk to people. Ask about their lives. Find pain. Ask about how much they'd pay to make that pain go away.
The paying part is serious. No one likes tables that rock at the restaurant. But no one pays for a solution- you just push something under the rocking leg.
I know, I know, you just want to code, the customers should just find you, leave cash, and leave. Alas, you and everyone else. That's unfortunately not how it works.
I follow your logic here, and it's certainly a coherent argument.
That said, there are perhaps some factors you are overlooking which matter.
The first is that no amount of certification solves the actual problem (which is that security mistakes are made, often in new and novel ways.)
Secondly the amount of software being needed (and produced) is immense. Bridges require engineers, but the demand for new bridges is tiny. The demand for new software is enormous, and the current rate of production requires many more people that could ever be certified.
In other words, say you only allowed comp-sci graduates with a proper 4 year degree, covering assembly upwards etc. The supply of programmers would drop to what colleges could produce. Which is not nearly enough.
The analogy also falls down a bit on penalty-for-failure, a collapsed bridge kills people, bugs in my notepad app might lead to information leaks? Thats not the same thing.
In truth, at least for the last 35 years, the number of unqualified developers exceed qualified ones by orders of magnitude. And there still seems to be no limit to software demand.
Finally there have been no studies I am aware if that suggest that security flaws are added more frequently by non comp-sci grads compared to comp-sci grads. Anecdotally I don't see that distinction myself. (From my observation security outcomes correlate to the degree to which the individual considers security to be important.)
And, of course, security issues are not limited to programmers- management has a role to play as well. Should they be certified too?
So, I'm not convinced that your suggestion, however desirable, would solve the problem. And since it's clearly unimplementable in the real world it's a moot argument anyway.
"Bridges" are shorthand. There is no shortage of need for new infrastructure. Any kind of construction needs engineers involved to ensure what's being built doesn't collapse from a gust of wind. Apparently, in the US, there seem to be about 1.5 million engineers and 4.5 million software developers. Well, I think in the short term, certifying only 1.5 million "software engineers" would be fine, actually. Note that my argument pertains only to sensitive software. If you want to make software that doesn't pose a danger to its users, you don't need an 'engineer'. This should have the second-order benefit of making PII toxic waste. If you need a real engineering team to process PII, companies that don't need PII will stop scraping every last fucking thing and leaking it. The majority of software in the world doesn't actually need PII to function, they could just be incentivized to stop hoarding it and use a regular "software development" team if they want to deliver cheap and fast.
I also wouldn't specifically associate this with college degrees. In fact I think universities are doing a shockingly bad job of producing functional software developers. But, on the other hand, you don't need a university to produce a good programmer. Software development is possibly the most open, information-available discipline in the world. Self-motivated learners can absolutely become competent on their own. The certification should be merit-based, and provide a clear path to learning the material the certification is based on. Many people will go through the effort to educate themselves and learn the required skills, especially if certified software engineers are in high demand and command a higher salary.
Regarding the penalty-for-failure, as I said, the harm is not as immediately apparent as when people die in a bridge collapse. But leaking sensitive information still leads to people dying, even if the connection is not as direct. Doxxing and blackmail frequently lead to suicide, and there are other damages that could lead to a butterfly effect culminating in a higher death rate, or, even if not death, tangible harm. This leak contained birth certificates, IDs, passports, tax documentation, passwords, all kinds of information that could be used to ruin someone's life with identity fraud. There is also, of course, some software in the world that is directly safety-critical, much of the software used in the health field for instance, which is also currently being written by the lowest bidder in many cases.
Regarding management, they don't need a certification but rather consequences for their actions. Currently the incentive structure is such that management is rewarded for cutting costs and is never punished for harming customers. Fiverr, for instance, should be facing an investigation that threatens to shut down the business given that not only did this happen in the first place, and not only did they ignore it for 40 days, but even after it went public the sensitive files were still accessible for 12+ hours (notably, after they were definitely made aware of it, given reports in this thread of people receiving replies from Fiverr about it). Maybe throw in some criminal liability for the people most responsible for a situation this horrible. Management would tighten up real quick.
I don't agree that this is unimplementable in the real world at all. If anything it's a complete abnormality that software development is the way it is, when most other skilled professions are licensed and regulated.
I'm not sure I agree. Given that the area in question here is the southern United States, and considering that racism is alive and well there, indeed with people groups they have met (and who speak English), I'm not convinced that exposure to non-whites speaking Farsi will somehow fix their attitude.
Winning is not the absence of anything negative. Winning is emerging in a stronger position than before.
Yes the US started the conflict for reasons which are unclear. Yes a lot of lives were lost, and a lot of infrastructure destroyed.
Because the US goals are so murky it's hard to determine their standard for "winning". Certainly no one (myself included) is a fan of the Iranian regime. But that hasn't changed. The nuclear threat is unchanged. (A threat which only exists because of Trumps actions in his first term.)
What we have seen is the threat of the strait closing move from the theoretical to practical. We've seen the impact that has on the global sentiment. Iran has a card to play, and they played it, and now we all understand what it means. That strengthens their position.
Israel also ends up weaker here. The nuclear threat is unchanged. But the deaths in Iran will fuel enlistment in anti-Israel terrorist organizations for another generation.
America has lost some global prestige. (Not for the first time recently.) They've shown that they are powerless to open the strait by force.
"Winning" is a loaded term. But so far they have prevented the US from achieving their goals (if they even had any). Lots of countries declined the invitation to join in. Iran is now diplomatically stronger than before. The US and Israel are weaker. Call it whatever you like.
> Israel also ends up weaker here. The nuclear threat is unchanged. But the deaths in Iran will fuel enlistment in anti-Israel terrorist organizations for another generation.
I agree with everything else you wrote, but I'm not sure that this is considered a loss by Israel's current government.
1. Israel is used to having enemies all over the world, so by now, the population doesn't care all that much.
2. The Likoud and its far-right alliance actually needs enemies to remain in power.
Also, any reduction in the number of missiles that Iran can launch at Israel, and any reduction in the number of AA armament that prevents Israel from bombing Iran again is good for Israel.
Where Israel will feel the loss is the 2M$ levy, because this means that Iran will rearm that much faster.
True, if the presence of active terrorist organizations is beneficial then this is a win.
Politically it might suit Israel to have overt enemies. I'm not sure it's necessarily advantageous to the population, but that probably doesn't matter.
I suspect one clear outcome is that Iran now completely understands the importance of cheap, effective, munitions (drones and missiles) and so will likely build those up quickly. That might affect munitions targeted at Israel.
> I suspect one clear outcome is that Iran now completely understands the importance of cheap, effective, munitions (drones and missiles) and so will likely build those up quickly. That might affect munitions targeted at Israel.
I think that this has affected Israel for decades by now. See all the rocket factories in South Lebanon or Gaza. I imagine that this is the reason for which Israel demonstrated a few years ago prototypes of laser-based anti-missiles. I don't know if they will could work against drones, but I'd be very, very surprised if there weren't a dozen Israeli startups currently competing to come up with cheap anti-drone countermeasures.
I mean that seriously. Sometimes when one asks a question the asking may be more insightful to you than the answer.
I mean, you'll get a bunch of answers here, reflecting a bunch of opinions. But why do you care about what they think? And what does it matter to you what Zuck is or not.
It doesn't sound like you're asking about billionaires in general (or the number of them, or the harm they are doing), and you're not asking about Facebook in general, but rather on Zuck himself.
Do you think the success of a person is based on their original ideas? Or is it on execution? Do you think he's a bad CEO because his company (and him) are visible? (Does your local accounting firm with 10 employees get the same scrutiny?)
Do you think a CEO operates in a vacuum? Is he the only one eith ideas? Is the the only one (inside meta) who makes bets, or buys companies?
All of which brings us back to, why do you care? Is your success delineated by his reputation? (Hey, maybe you're C level at meta aiming for his job.)
Honestly, I've found for me, caring about the success, or deservingness, of others (big or small) is meaningless to me. Their success doesn't make me fail. Their moral failings doesn't make me a success. My job is to be the best I can be, not compare myself to others. And my definition of success is what I want it to be, not some measure society offers (like absolute wealth.)
I'm objectively a bad golfer (outside the top 100 000 in my country, as my phone delights in telling me), but my measure for golfing success is how much fun I'm having. I don't hate on Rory for his success.
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