I was expecting a more nuanced article that talked about the “Suez Moment” in America but this is basically a (not even a good) critique of deindustrialization.
I don't expect anything from the guy who declared self driving cars are easy, everyone is just doing it wrong, and he could do it better in a just a year; 5 years ago.
The fame totally went to his head :P It is somewhat common issue for Nobel award winners, in this case the scope is limited "I am great at security and reverse engineering, that makes me an expert for anything IT related".
Nobel Nacre.. The nobelprize is hyper destructive to the scientists receiving it. Its hard to one up from there or return to your field- everyone is bombarding you with high expectations. You can only fail after you received olympic gold. Thus, as scientists inflict change on society, and society hates change, it is like a oyster, trying to protect itself from a grain of sand, wrapping it in Nacre, protecting itself from further change, by encapsulating the changing factor which remains neutered from its ability to do science.
Self-driving cars are easy though, 12-year-olds make them in high school STEM classes. You just give it a light sensor so it can follow a strip of white tape down the middle of the "road" and let it go from one place to the other.
Oh, until it hits an obstruction.
Okay well you add some sort of bumper switch to it so if it hits an obstruction it stops and backs up, to find a route round it.
Ah right, well, let's see, that didn't work so well when the obstruction was much smaller and squashier than the car.
Let's have some sort of distance sensors that - ah bollocks, they pick up everything including objects beside the road, and stop the car.
Okay what about some sort of camera and machine vision system? Great, that lets it "see" the road ahead and steer or brake to avoid obstacles! But it turns out it now needs to understand a bit of physics, at least enough to stop it booting it wide open through a sharp bend and ending up shiny side down.
Right so now it will drive at a sensible speed through bends, use a camera to look for obstructions, LIDAR to look for obstructions too, and it can actually follow road markings quite well, and even pick up speed from signs.
Ah. It can't actually be used around other vehicles because it can't anticipate what they're going to do, and keeps getting into bad situations that it then needs to brake and swerve to avoid.
Oh well, turns out self-driving cars aren't easy after all.
Yeah it's a very short-sighted article. Taking a quote like this:
> I can’t believe those who seriously try and say America’s value is in consuming.
as a case against outsourcing manufacturing really doesn't understand the value that societies create when they are on the forefront of innovation.
Maybe, just maybe, at a certain point physical labour is not the best way to use your working population, but instead, you know, services, innovation, etc?
America has been doing pretty good in that regard over the past few decades.
(For disclosure, I'm not from America, but still think this is a silly article)
ok, any ideas for the best way to use our working population? soldiers, amazon vine reviewers? we have a lot of people with high lifestyle expectations (by global standards) and no interest in pursuing specialized education that allows them to participate in the future. and there may not be enough seats in the future.
i don't consider them redundant, but lifestyle creep from the "american dream" combined with management culture viewing labor as a cost to be reduced is a compounding problem.
China is at the forefront of innovation. America is not, except for financial innovation a.k.a. the best ways to get money out of people without doing actual work.
They’re transitioning to the forefront of innovation, but they’re definitely not at the forefront yet. They’re good at implementing things, not yet innovation.
They desperately do need to do that, though, because manufacturing alone isn’t going to grow their economy any further, as wages in China are already becoming high enough that they’re becoming less attractive to foreign investors.
They’re strategically well positioned to take over the west in the next few decades, but to argue that China is already leaving America et al behind in innovation is silly.
If you think that the US is corrupt when it comes to money, and that that’s the only innovation that the US is currently leading in, I heartily invite you to actually explore China.
(And I say this as someone who lives in South-East Asia)
>manufacturing alone isn’t going to grow their economy any further.
But why does the economy need to grow? If you can manufacture everything you need, and you have access to the raw resources, what else do you need as a country. In what sense is growing your economy with VC scams like Juicero better than actually having industrial output?
I just realised that this is why SV centre-right is lowkey obsessed with Japan.
Contrast with the SV-aligned execs-turned-thought-leaders from decades ago that used to claim that it is not in the cultural DNA of Japan to innovate. They don't say that now, but they still look to Japan for inspiration as Steve Jobs used to do before it got fashionable
Today, Japan has a diverse economy but one could argue in good faith that its the lack of financial innovation that's holding them back
(Lack of raw resources very much a red herring-- as ever, something that the almost perennially rightwing Japanese government has never gotten less OCD about)
Another "mesocosm": Hollywood is _quietly_ looking East for "cultural innovation", bc the studio system "knows" that not even Korea can catch up. Is bigtech this certain? Do they have to MJGA before MAGA?
China is a the forefront of catching up. Don't mistake that for innovation. China isn't building the best chips, that's Taiwan with really Netherlands doing the hard part. China is catching up to European car makers except they've largely caught up to Tesla in the powertrain (I partly blame that on Americans boycotting Tesla for silly political reasons). In the AI space obviously China is just running after playing catch up. Biology, catch up. Chemistry, catch up. Physics, catch up.
Despite my handle I am not Chinese lest I am accused of harboring any bias. Anyway, I decided to look up what is going on. Apparently, things are nuanced. On the one hand China lags behind when it comes to semiconductors, large commercial aircraft, some pharmaceutical innovation. On the other hand,
> When evaluating the top 10 percent of high-quality scientific publications, ASPI finds that China surpasses the United States across all 8 critical technology domains. The gap is particularly pronounced in the energy and environment domain, where China accounts for 46 percent of top-tier publications compared to just 10 percent for the United States. Despite U.S. leadership in AI, China produces more top publications, contributing 30 percent versus 18 percent for the United States[0]
Basically, China dominates in batteries, solar, quantum communications, robotics deployment, high-speed rail, nuclear construction, autonomous vehicle deployment, manufacturing process innovation, patent volume in most categories
China is the world leader in Drones, Electric vehicles, Batteries, Solar Panels, Electronics, Robotics, High-Speed Rail, Industrial equipment, Nuclear energy, Telecommunications Equipment, Cameras, Shipbuilding, Scientific research, rapid mobile payments.
Tied for AI, Smartphones
Semiconductors, rockets, and aerospace are probably the only sectors china is behind in.
China is the most technologically advanced society on earth. They are far far ahead of anyone else in using technology to make society easier. Many government services can be handled easily on your phone.
That's a propaganda you fell for. From the wiki page you linked
> There have been widespread misconceptions in media reports about a unified social credit "score" based on individuals' behavior, leading to punishments if the score is too low or rewards if the score is high.
Even if that is so, and surveilance capitalism is why the GPDR consent requests on half the websites I visit claim to have more "trusted partners" than there were pupils and staff combined in my seconday school, China are still ahead on those things.
I think it's less about blaming us for boycotting Tesla and more about blaming us for letting our entrenched interests in both oil extraction and ICE cars prevent us from investing in EV development and switching to them faster.
>I partly blame that on Americans boycotting Tesla for silly political reasons)
China taking over the EV market was always going to happen. for instance, BYD sold (tens of thousands of) their first EV a decade before Musk went from le wholesome space man to le evil nazi man.
besides, I don't think being boycotted by the terminally online folx has had much impact. luxury brands just don't do well during a recession, and the market for Tesla - US and Europe - is not doing so good, to put it mildly.
> I partly blame that on Americans boycotting Tesla for silly political reasons
What would be different in Tesla’s output if Americans didn’t start boycotting Tesla less than 2 years ago?
And I’m glad you think killing at least half a million kids in Africa to not even save any money, stealing all our social security data, etc are just “silly political reasons”.
> What would be different in Tesla’s output if Americans didn’t start boycotting Tesla less than 2 years ago?
Car companies do better if they sell cars. They also find it easier to sell cars if owning said car doesn't make you fearful some crazy person will smash it because of identity politics.
> And I’m glad you think killing at least half a million kids in Africa to not even save any money, stealing all our social security data, etc are just “silly political reasons”.
Oh, I'm not. But hurting Tesla and putting a break on saving the planet will do what exactly? Absolutely jack shit.
It's like that story about the guy who made nice Game Boy clones, and people figured out he was an arms dealer originally and started a campaign to boycott the Game Boy clone. What will this accomplish? Destroying someones moral and good business will force them to go back to their evil business. It's counterproductive as hell.
Tesla is not saving the planet and not necessary to save the planet.
The whole idea that this one company must be protected from any competition and fed money and support is absurd. Add to it the years of lies Musk engaged in and his nazi affiliations ... it is tripple absurd.
The US does a terrible job trying to throw government cash at problems. See: Solyndra, PPP, the US’s inability to build ships, or most recently the debacle of Biden’s $7.5B rollout of EV chargers that only managed to build a few dozen stations in 3 years.
This is exactly how the opportunities were passed up. I am convinced its in no small part because of the unrealistic expectations of a very high success ratio with a small number of experiments. The US throws a lot of money at relatively few bets while China funds entire competitive markets at smaller scales and lets the ecosystem vet them.
There is also political alignment in funding next generation technologies even if it's disruptive of established industries. Lobbying of fossil fuel industry did not stop renewable factory investments in China. Whereas in the US any failure of a renewable investment was highlighted by fossil fuel lobbyists as a pretense to stop the investments
PPP was a ton of small bets, with rampant fraud and waste (and a stupid fundamental idea).
The EV chargers were supposed to fund hundreds of stations in each of the 50 states: only a few dozen were built in 4 years.
If the government focuses on one big project, like the SLS, it becomes rife with pork and clumsily slow.
But there’s hardly a better track record with splitting a program up among applicants or states (see SNAP, rampant fraud in “autism” services, PPP, or homelessness in California)
You are wrongly claiming that I said spent. The $7.5B is allocated, half the time of the program has elapsed, and a few dozen chargers were built. The program, by any modern standard, was a failure.
From your own article: By early this year, only four states — Ohio, New York, Pennsylvania and Hawaii — had opened stations funded by the Bipartisan Infrastructure Law, The Associated Press reported in March. A Washington Post article published the next day said this amounted to just seven stations.“
So yes, a $7B+ allocation managed to only open a handful of stations in 3 years.
Meanwhile, in a similar 3 year period, China built the Beijing–Shanghai high speed rail line: approx. 3.5 years for ~1,300 km.
Are you really going to claim that the EV charger program has been the successful, rapid deployment necessary to enable a pivot to EVs?
Has there ever been a positive story or product out of this wretched company; which has possibly destroyed billions in value across the US software sector by forcing everyone to use their disgustingly bad project management tool? When I interviewed there (and anecdotally from the people I know that worked there), at least they seemed like a nice place to work at. But alas even that had to be destroyed.
Nobody is forced to use it, they use it because it aligns with managers' incentives. Which are not related to ensuring technical work is completed effectively. Or having good visibility. Everything being obscure and hard to use allows you to paint the picture with your own words rather than the picture being painted right there on the computer screen plain as day.
If you consider choosing to leave a job of a tool a choice that people can easily make, then sure. Otherwise, yeah a good portion of employees don't have any say in the software their managers choose, and either use it or get let go
lol the only atlassian engineer I knew spent 3 months 4 times a year "working remotely" from various resorts across Europe, I'm sure the 4-hour review of javascript she did per month was really worth that plus the apartment in brooklyn.. absolutely insane
Generally people in power will surround themselves with yes-men. It takes a good amount of humility and sincerity to look beyond this and deliberately choose people with a spine to listen to.
The most charitable interpretation is that most rich/powerful people are just as flawed as everyone else. Obviously, their power/wealth makes them less deserving of that charity ultimately.
> The most charitable interpretation is that most rich/powerful people are just as flawed as everyone else.
I can't believe that. They pulled themselves up by their bootstraps at their private schools and then had to claw and fight as a legacy admission to the school their parents attended. From there they lived hand to mouth destitute with barely a million dollar loan from their parents!
Then there was the existential crisis of meeting with their college roommates' parents and their own parents' bridge buddies to secure millions in loans. It was their flawless vision and skill that let them be at the right place and the right time. If they wouldn't have had the foresight to fall out of a lucky vagina we would all be worse off.
You see they're scrappy go getters that started from the absolute bottom. They're infallible supermen whose greatest assets are their humility and unerring genius.
> Generally people in power will surround themselves with yes-men.
It's probably a CEO thing too - you have some vision for the company so you're going to hire people that enable that vision, not people that will question your every move.
Wow. I mean, come on, thats like the least offensive thing ever. At the most, maybe tell the manager to tell them thats not the “spirit” of the workplace, but firing for this is a step too far.
If the CEO wasn’t a jerk before he certainly is now.
The vast majority of crimes are still being prosecuted as such. You have to reach a certain size/notoriety and money to buy a POTUS pardon; I doubt that matters for a relatively unknown outfit like Delve.
Iran has been very patient with not striking American assets in surrounding countries in 2025. Their responses against an unprecedented assault on them were very limited.
That patience earned them another, bigger attack against them in 2026.
If Israel were attacked two years back to back like that, with the second attack killing its prime minister, it would have burned every belligerent country around it to ash without any consideration for whom they are killing, and the world wouldn't bat an eye.
In fact, they did just that in response to a much smaller attack, and the world didn't bat an eye. A quarter million dead and counting, many of the killings being straight-up, no ambiguity war crimes. Strange how they get to inflict disproportionate violence in retaliation with no consequences.
Somehow with all the thingamajigs that the Israeli apparatus has, from spy networks to informants at the upper levels of the IRGC, and a heavily militarized population, and a heavily fortified border along both the West Bank and Gaza (even more than the Jordanian or Egyptian borders), somehow they still couldn't detect and stop a breach of their barricades.... Hmm.....
And let's not forget, all of this happened right when protests in the streets against Netanyahu were at their highest levels.
> If I found a group of terrorist sympathizers invading my property and dancing on it I wouldn't be very empathetic to them
But it would be your choice to commit terrorism back at them. Plenty of people across history have chosen both ways. It tends to go much better for one group over the other.
I don't think that's "terrorism" as much as it is self defense. The Haitian Slave Revolt and Indigenous American Pueblo Revolts come to mind as analogous military actions that produced positive results.
> don't think that's "terrorism" as much as it is self defense
Everyone says this. If October 7 had limited itself to military targets, this would have been different. If current polling showed Gazans pushing for only military retaliation, I think things would be different.
Everyone has the right to self defense. But everyone also gets judged by how they do it.
> Haitian Slave Revolt
Claimed territory with a plan for maneouvre. Not particularly comparable outside minor tactical elements.
> Indigenous American Pueblo Revolts come to mind
This is a good analogy. I’ll have to read up on it more. To wit, however, they eventually accepted the new—awful, unfair and racist, I may add, but survivable and superior to the alternative of endless war—status quo.
> This is a good analogy. I’ll have to read up on it more. To wit, however, they eventually accepted the new—awful, unfair and racist, I may add, but survivable and superior to the alternative of endless war—status quo.
Well the Spanish returned and ultimately subjugated them but it's considered the reason that the South West was able to retain its indigenous culture and language to a degree not seen elsewhere.
Mind you this was 1680, which kind of brings into perspective how barbaric the Zionists have been to essentially recreate one of the greatest crimes in human history hundreds of years later, with a supposed framework of human rights that had developed since then.
I mean during ww2 civilians and supply chains were bombed to hell and back.
now this is a "small", "far away" war, so killing civilians isn't expected, but for them a supplier of agricultural products is feeding the soldiers that will be stomping their heads if this keeps escalating.
I'm not justifying anyone here, I'm just pointing out how ridiculous it sounds when we try to define a set of rules to kill each other and then say they are violating them, when we know that the good guys bombed whole cities to the ground, and will bomb whole cities to the ground, when it matters.
there's so much hate in the region that this stuff will only end one way, and I personally don't want to see Iran winning this, but let's call war by it's name.
How should the Israelis be expected to respond if Iran starts deliberately killing large numbers of civilians? You only have to follow the laws of war if your enemy is making an attempt to follow them.
Not at any given time, though. It's okay for Iran to kill Israeli children because they may some day serve in the IDF? Then I guess it's okay for the Israelis to carpet bomb Iranian cities?
It would force a company to come to the negotiating table when laying off workers and grading their performance. It would prevent a lot of bs layoffs; at the very least concrete reasons would be needed for RIFs.
I grew up in small town South GA that growing up has 5 or 6 factories. All but one left when they got tired of dealing with the unions. The one that is still there was never unionized
Sure it is, show me one business that actually closed from union costs and I’ll show you a million unionized businesses that have never closed for that same reason.
Cherry picking a few businesses and then saying all businesses are doomed because of unions is exactly propaganda.
So other businesses moved for cheaper labor elsewhere but one stayed open is proof that the cost of living in GA went up not that unions cause businesses to move. The greed of the business owner is what caused them to move.
What many of these articles miss is that even if you do everything they say you will still not get the promotion you want for several reasons.
My advice for Career Growth for engineers who like to do things is to be willing to take on problems that others might not want, things that aren’t “sexy”, if you find them interesting. Theres a lot of interesting problems and you can grow your career by following the direction that interests you rather than the company. And when it comes to promotions, its often easier and better compensated to get a new job rather than trying to convince a bunch of people that you should be promoted.
This is recipe to be track locked and miserable. It’s the exact path I have taken over my unfortunately long career as an IC. Now I’m too useful doing bullshit work, tied with a golden ball and chain, and have no hope of ever seeing a management track/easy job. I’m currently planning my exit from the field as I am becoming too interested in actual life to learn frameworks, do bullshit 8 tier 3 month coding interviews, and collect experience to write CRUD bullshit for the next 10 years.
The real advice to aspiring engineers who don’t want to have trouble sleeping from years of pagerduty and high blood pressure is to work in middle management as soon as possible. Forget IC work. The rewards are so much less than the morons who manage. Unless you are at a major dev first company (if you have VCs you aren’t) your manager will always outearn you by a large margin, have an easier life, and way more leeway. Every company I have been to only middle management converts to the VP/C level jobs where you do virtually nothing all day but waste everyone’s time. This is the ideal job. The absolute wastes of precious air in management have the life you want.
If you’re like me and followed this terrible advice decide on an amount of money that is good enough and then decide on how much competence that buys. Volunteer for nothing beyond that, game the ticketing system, use as much vacation as you possibly can without a PIP, vibe the shit out of even the most trivial amount of work, and fuck off once your house is paid off and accounts are appropriate for retirement in T+30 years. Use that time to take up goat herding, wood working, or conservationist work.
Every company is a bit different. There's IC's where I work making more than some managers.
The author suggests that nobody is going to come tap you on the shoulder and let you know it's time. Well, that's what happened to me where I am at now - hired at bottom level, regularly promoted, now at top level. Took 6 years to get to principal. Granted, my group is not SWE's, it's more like an Architect role.
What I learned having made principal is that the yearly bonuses can be lower, because expectations are so high. I got bigger bonuses at a lower title, because I was exceeding the expectations of that role by so much. Apparently principal's have such high expectations you almost never get beyond the target bonus for your role. Then there's the stress from all the layoffs across tech - a lot of Principal level people where I work got cut over the last ~2 years, presumably to save on costs. I almost wish I'd stayed at the lower level to get bigger bonuses, lower salary and higher job security. YMMV.
This is not how things work at any company where I have worked at with real leveling guidelines (including one BigTech company). It’s all about “scope”, “impact” and “dealing with ambiguity”. It’s stated in different ways depending on the company.
No one cares if you find it “interesting” when it is time for your promo doc. It’s visibility.
And when you interview at the next company and they level you, they are still going to ask behavioral questions that are concerned with scope, impact and dealing with ambiguity…
Microslop is clearly flailing. They were first movers with the OAI investment but OAI is doing fine on its own and microslop failed to capitalize on that early momentum. Now they’re resorting to increasingly desperate measures across their product portfolio to stay relevant.
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