ankushnarula

You have not earned the right to be heard in this context.

You have not earned the right to direct the attention of others.

You have violated the sacred trust placed in you by your employer by exploiting your access to a public-facing employer event.

If you cannot control your thymotic impulses where you earn your food and shelter, then you cannot be trusted again.

You must accept the consequences of your moral convictions.

This is dharmic justice.

Lemme tell you about a client who confronted his therapist in 2019 about how using non-clinical political personalities as reference points was eroding the feeling of trust - and also that pathologizing public entities without clinical access projects weak professional ethics.

And six years later the same client said “I don’t care anymore, say whatever you like, and I will explain how you may be projecting your personal fears on me.”

A shame because Whisky was more usable and stable than CrossOver for me.

He was one of the first to get the full Swisher treatment

The fact that Recall data and screenshots are only protected at the file system level reinforces the reality that Windows lacks user-centered privacy and security. Microsoft is content to rest their laurels instead on system level control.

I expected this question - the answer as it stands is hell no. And who can blame us for being skeptical.

But as a taxpayer, I’d be very open to those salaries IF government IT was overhauled and run like a competent and agile tech startup, unencumbered by politics and red tape - at least to bootstrap some initital momentum.

Longer term, we need something like a “Tech Corps”, akin to a branch of the military, where new recruits are trained in tech bootcamps, and then deployed to one of the thousands of government departments that require resources for their projects/processes. Ideally, these roles should be viewed as an honorable monastic vocation, not a bureaucratic or political career.

It is a sad state of affairs that the most technologically advanced government in history is incapable of rolling its own in-house tech. Taxpayers deserve better.

This is great stuff, and very useful. Cheers to your success!

I've explored these emotions and behaviors with several therapists over the years and have developed a working theory.

The type of anxiety you mention stems from accumulated unprocessed negative emotions or traumas. These intense feelings — such as shame, guilt, dread, remorse, rage, helplessness, neediness, and hopelessness — often paralyze or disorient procrastinators, particularly when they are compelled to confront the present moment. These emotions typically reflect deep-seated issues with self-esteem and self-confidence, and an inability to face negative feelings squarely.

In my view, procrastination is essentially a high time-preference tradeoff, where escapism is favored over confronting immediate challenges and responsibilities. Common forms of escapism include excessive consumption of media, overworking, video gaming, substance abuse, emotional eating, casual sexual encounters, and excessive socializing. These activities provide temporary relief from stress but ultimately lose their effectiveness, causing the anxiety to resurface more intensely when the procrastinator becomes increasingly aware of their predicament.

This recurring cycle of avoidance and stress often leads procrastinators to act out—either by seeking constant validation through drama, shifting contexts frequently to keep their minds engaged with novelty, or by focusing on others instead of introspecting.

Despite knowing various organizational techniques and tools, lifelong procrastinators often struggle internally with facing reality, continuously deferring it to some future date. They appear constantly busy yet achieve little, mainly because they aim to divert attention from the mounting issues that they have sidelined

Even if all US billionaires’ wealth is confiscated today it will not even pay for 6 months of the 2024 US federal budget. So no, the problem isn’t high individual wealth.

The problem is a pervasive culture of ignorance, idealism, inflation, and exploitation.

I have known temporary staff attorneys at large prestigious firms who were paid by the hour to read documents and summarize them for the case team. It’s not a junior associate’s income or career, but it’s a good living for even the most semi-committed and minimally experienced lawyers.

Also, it’s not difficult to imagine that many decent firms have been advising their clients on the legal risks and alignment benefits of DEI and ESG compliance. Will they not heed their own advice?

that was a thoughtful essay - why is this post flagged?

it hurts to ride the coattails of opaque achievers

Why don't the insignificant fraction of consumers who have this preference agitate directly with retailers, indirectly via media pressure campaigns, or (God forbid) build their own retail boutique stores?

Because this is a woke smokescreen, whose ultimate purpose is to politically capture control more hearts and minds and ultimately to stigmatize and ostracize the non-compliant.