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x is a private company and it can do what it wants

There's this bad thing, terrorism. Worry not! We have the solution which is warrantless mass surveillance of Americans. If you aren't with us you are a bad person.

It doesn't help that powerful entities use it as a trojan horse to further less noble agendas, think of the patriot act as an example.

Social media algorithms are designed to capture your attention. It turns out humans can't help but click on and watch softcore porn of teenage girls dancing, thumbnails with cartoonishly expressive faces, and videos with jump cuts every 2 seconds. The companies behind them say they are just giving people what they want. In my opinion they are exploiting the subconscious human brain, much like how food brands make their junk foods hyper palatable by loading them with sugar and oil.

Lawyer up! Delete facebook! Hit the gym!

Being economically strained is relative. Middle class people clutch their pearls at the thought of having children before they have completed their master's degree, have their 4 bedroom house in a safe neighborhood with good schools, maxed out retirement accounts, and a membership to Whole Foods. Broke people have a different idea of what necessities are so they have no problem pumping out kids.

You don't pay and don't generate ad revenue. They won't miss you.

>Leverage experience and expertise where it matters most without paying a full salary with benefits.

Someone that useful would be worth bringing on full time.

Many people, when given a hypothetical scenario, say what they daydream about doing not what they would actually do. It's a subtle brag saying something like "If my boss asked me to do X, I would quit on the spot!" In reality you might have bills to pay or worries about being able to find a new job quickly so you won't be so eager to quit when you have to put your money where your mouth is.

Me? Of course I would love being able to choose where I want to work from. The ideal would be a hybrid arrangement where I can come and go as I please to the office (although going to the office to sit in virtual meetings is silly).

Self taught programmers come in different flavors but people tend to think of one type when talking about them so it is hard to have good discussion. There are classic self taughts, like George Hotz who had an interest that naturally developed into a career. There is also the newer self taught, like the 40 year old fry cook who realized one day they needed a career and saw a bootcamp ad or a story of someone in their position brute forcing leetcode for 3 months and landing a 200k job at google. In some way even people with CS degrees are self taught programmers. You learn programming by spending hours in front of a computer just like you learn to drive a car by driving not just by sitting in a classroom.