alexqgb

That's not a coincidence. It's a direct product of cosmopolitanism. The cities that represent it most clearly are its capitals. Like any working system, it has rules. If you want the benefits, you need to play be the rules. If you don't, you're free to leave. Goodness knows your apartment won't go unfilled for long.

Comment · 8 years ago

It depends on the culture. Also worth nothing: some cultures make this effectively impossible.

Comment · 9 years ago

There is nothing random about the world's most powerful retailer wanting the basis of virtual retail to be based on an 3D engine they control, and not one controlled by an independent third party, such as Unity.

Comment · 9 years ago

Here's the deal; if you're (a) at work and (b) dealing with subordinates, the correct amount of sex to bring to the relationship is zero. Figuring out "where to draw the line" is no more complicated than deciding how much flirting with your own daughter is appropriate. Seriously, when you're in a position like Lasseter's, the math is SUPER simple.

Comment · 9 years ago

It's not that representatives should isolated from all influence, just influence aside the electorate's.

Comment · 9 years ago

Whether they're enforced exactions of voluntary contributions is not the Court's call to make. Some people are happy to pay their taxes, recognizing them as the perfectly reasonable cost of living in a functioning civil society (which, not coincidentally, is seen as the basis of their security and prosperity).

Others, for whom this connection may not be so clear, take a more exploitative view of the public sphere, in which their own role is all take and no give. They may see taxation as forced extraction, but that view is hardly shared by everyone. Moreover, were they allowed to act on this view freely, the public sphere would surely collapse - which a clear majority clearly recognizes.

In this regard, tax law is no different from laws against, say, murder. Most people are internally resistant to the thought of killing others. But the law still exists because "most" isn't "all". In cases of extreme anti-social behavior, the few - if allowed to run riot - really can secure tyrannical domination of the many (classic example: the mob in Sicily).

Comment · 9 years ago

You're being downvoted because this is a fundamentally dishonest argument. Even if you believe the bit about averages it's clear that the recommendations made by the memo didn't pertain to the average. They pertained to the staff of Google, where the average employee - man or woman - has abilities that vastly exceede those of the population in general.

Using this "on average" bullshit when making adverse reccomendations aimed specifically and directly people who are anything but is an especially nasty sleight-of-hand, and sound reason to disregard the writer's claims of good-faith and benovelence.

Of course, it's possible that Damore is just an brainless idiot who is too intellectually mediocre to check his own work for basic logical consistancy, but he lost the benefit of that particular doubt When putting Harvard and MIT on his CV.

At this level, the rules are different. If, like Damore, you're presenting yourself as one of the best and brightest, you better live up to a very high standard when taking public shots at the standards of others. Otherwise, you could get dumped very unceremoniously.

Comment · 9 years ago

Here's a direct quote from the "Personality Differences" section of the screed:

"Neuroticism (higher anxiety, lower stress tolerance).This may contribute to the higher levels of anxiety women report on Googlegeist and to the lower number of women in high stress jobs."

So yeah, it was referenced, specifically, explicitly, and used in direct support of the central argument that the preponderance of men in Google's ranks was biologically determined, meaning a number of Google's D&I initiatives were misguided, at odds with scientific consensus, and should be discontinued.