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Insane to see the government resources used to prosecute this - it's basically play money for rich guys who want to show off.

If you have 120k a year to burn on a "hobby business" I think it's pretty safe to say you're in the top 1%. Calling it a "donation" doesn't change that.

Yeah he correctly identifies the outcome, but like I said he misattributes the cause. And his rhetoric is not helpful in getting "common people" around to his cause. It comes across as elitist and condescending.

The verbs are not the issue. America has been hollowed out by political propaganda, offshoring and growing wealth inequality. Sagan fails to identify any of these and instead dunks on harmless folk superstitions. Show me where the Fed rate or IBM's quarterly earnings or a Fox News chyron were determined by a horoscope.

The real enemy is the belief that value can be created from nothing, such that an economy of infinite growth can exist. Once you've exhausted all the externalities - exploiting people overseas, domestically, pillaging natural resources - you're left in a zero sum game.

There's something deeply ingrained in the American psyche that says that warnings and guardrails are for other, stupid people. You, personally, are no doubt an ubermensch who can perform every procedure flawlessly from memory every time. If there were a crisis you would be a hero and save everyone. This applies equally to "good guy with a gun" and human factors analysis of software.

My point was that this was indeed a vanity project by someone with more money than sense. At no point does it seem like they had any business plan or conception of how to make money from actually operating the business. It's just cosplaying.

The "crystals and horoscopes" part is such a cheap jab that's going to alienate a lot of the population. Astrology is a harmless introspective process for most people, they just like having a framework to characterise their beliefs and feelings. You find very few people who feel that it's prescriptive and limits their life.

Contrasted with very rational people who are chasing magical, unmoored valuations in the stock market for instance. We buy and sell equity based not on future cash flows, but on confidence there will be a bigger sucker down the line. This untethering of "value" from any productive work is a greater contributor to the hollowing out of the US economy than anyone buying a piece of amethyst.

This is insane overhead if you want to try and run a "leftist" business. It sounds like Scarlett is a trust fund baby with more money than sense.

I've been running a retail business with similar inventory costs for a couple years. I have one employee and I pay them generously. I personally chip in about 20-30k annually to keep the whole thing afloat. It's definitely possible if you keep things small.

Edit to add: 10k in inventory just doesn't add up. In retail you need to turn over inventory multiple times annually to cover your fixed expenses like staff, rent, etc. if you only have 10k worth of inventory and you're burning >10k a month that means you're selling everything in the store every couple weeks. I don't think books move that quickly, although I could be corrected. Usually the retail standard is turning over inventory 4-5 times annually.

For people who don't read TFA:

> In addition to SSNs, the database reportedly includes Americans’ place and date of birth, work permit status, and parents’ names

This is quite a bit more information than just a number.

Huh, so if the people going to emergency for the flu had primary care doctors they wouldn't have to go to emergency? That's almost like an argument for public non-emergency clinics and universal health insurance so people can get treatment in an appropriate setting.

It's not a case of the manager not supporting her, it's a case of the manager putting something that could have been informal - "I'm happy with your performance and if you need to take some breaks during the workday I support it" - and made it a formal thing that is risking getting her fired.

The manager in question has admitted they fucked up and didn't realize how much HR would try to force my friend out for being a problem.

Nope! Her manager had no concerns about her performance and has expressed regret about the situation because it has made everyone's life harder. The manager likes her and wants her to stay at the company, but because she's a "problem" for HR they want to fire her.

Yeah I understand why they can't do it for backwards compat reasons. Considering they had the forethought to randomize map iteration order it's a big foot gun they've baked into the language.

I can't over-emphasize the role line managers play in decoupling the delusion expectations of leadership and the ground truth of employees' lives. I think a lot of CEOs would burst into flames if they saw an average IC's day, but those ICs can still be high performers and achieve the goals of the business. Having automonomy and flexibility is huge for ICs. The role of the line manager is to provide plausible deniability both ways by tolerating a necessary amount of deviation from the black letter "law".

A great example is my friend, who works in a non-technical office job. She has always gotten great performance reviews and gone above-and-beyond because she's very passionate about her work. She's been doing this for over 10 years. Lately she has experienced some pretty severe burnout, and her immediate manager didn't know how to handle it so they immediately punted her to HR for a disability leave.

Of course because HR is involved now there's paperwork and doctors and insurance implications. A competent manager could have navigated the situation "unofficially" and preserved a valuable employee, instead of sending them on a 6 month odyssey of navigating the healthcare system. Ultimately the business got less value out of the employee because she's stressed and has to take a bunch of time off to deal with administrative BS.