gyulai

It's ironic how many people here mention him as a substitute father figure, seeing as it's the kind of father-son pair that cannot be. Never being a father is one of Picard's life regrets, and Stewart himself expressed in an interview he carries "significant grief" because his relationship with his children is "practically non-existent".

A workflow I've recently discovered for myself that provides a kind of middle ground: I'll ask the LLM to write a first draft in a language that isn't the one the piece should ultimately be in. Then I'll use the LLM's first draft as a blueprint, to write a first draft myself in the intended target language. This fights my brain's temptation to just shut off, and forces every word choice to actually be mine. Then I'll hand that over to the LLM for editorial suggestions and iterate from there.

A workflow I've recently discovered for myself, that may be useful to anyone who speaks at least two languages: Ask the LLM to write a first draft in a language that isn't the one the piece should ultimately be in. Then use the LLM's first draft as a blueprint, to write a first draft yourself in the intended target language. That way, you won't be tempted to shut off your brain and just meatproxy anything from the LLM's first draft. Then hand your actual first draft back to the LLM for editorial suggestions. At that point, feel free to ignore suggestions, push back on bad ones while adding a rationale about why you don't like them, etc. Work in the best suggestions, then iterate. If you're in “writer block” mode, force yourself to keep going by asking the LLM for five suggestions on how to phrase something, form an opinion about what you like and don't like about them, draft it yourself by frankensteining from among the suggestions, without using any one suggested phrasing literally. Optionally, provide feedback to the LLM explaining your thinking about why you did or did not like certain suggested phrasings.

For objective/factual writing, asking for a fact check is a widely-used practice. And there's a useful counterpart for writing subjective things and opinionated hot takes, namely to ask the LLM: “Anticipate how this might be misunderstood in ways that might cause offence or trigger people.” Sometimes, you might want to say something that will cause offence, and there might be no way around it. In this case, making a conscious choice to let that be might be the right thing to do. But I find it surprising, how often an LLM will see an angle that I myself did not see, where something might cause offence in a way that I genuinely missed and genuinely want to fix. And then that gives me a chance to re-write before posting something.

You forget a third option. A monopolist doing the right thing from their good heart? Not gonna work. Legislators micromanaging every last aspect of every last thing through regulations? Not gonna work. Legislators squashing monopolies and making rules to keep competition intact and put meaningful choice into consumers' hands: Might work.

> If people want to regulate certain things they can, even if you don't like it - welcome to society.

...that could be a response to anyone taking a political stance in favour of changing anything and, besides being rude, adds nothing of substance.

> If people were dead set against things like Meisterzwang in some areas it would not exist

I'll give you an example: When I went to a copy shop in Austria to have my thesis bound, the attendant said they were only allowed to do it up to 200 pages. Since my thesis had 210 pages it didn't fall under some exemption, and I had to go to a master bookbinder. The result is: Disgruntled consumer forced by law to pay more.

Your "in a democratic society, if it wasn't wanted, it wouldn't exist" is a bit reductionist. It's a very technical / niche kind of law making and is rarely the subject of public debate or decisive in an election. So it's easier for the CDU (in Germany) or the ÖVP (in Austria), to just give these people what they ask for and collect donations from them, than to stop and think about what's good for the economy and for consumers.

All the while these same sectors that enjoy Meisterzwang (the need to be a master craftsman, to practice self-employed) are the ones shouting Fachkräftemangel, Fachkräftemangel (labour shortage, labour shortage) into every microphone that anyone ever puts in their face. And that's another attempt to co-opt the government for their cause, which is to bend the supply-demand balance in their favour, specifically as it regards to the job market for people who will accept low wages, while keeping out anyone who might compete with them on a self-employed basis thus safeguarding their respective local monopoly/oligopoly/cartel. The net result is: no plumber, when you need one.

I'm a mid-career professional, researching opportunities to make a career change right now, in my forties. In Germany, bookbinding is one of the very few things I might actually be allowed to do. In Austria, it would mean I'd have to apprentice for next-to-no salary for 3 years with a master bookbinder, before I get to set up shop, which, at age 42 and with a family to take care of, I'm just not going to do. Anyone who actually cares about preserving bookbinding as a craft in Austria should be opposed to this nonsense, because it's making it impossible/uneconomical for most people who might like to practice the craft to actually do so. The net result is: the craft of bookbinding dies.

...and yet the spin in PBS or ARTE style romanticized documentaries is: "look at these people and their proud traditions! ...shouldn't that be the envy of all of us office dwellers."

> collecting subsidies

In Germany, except for the very largest cities, municipalities don't do subsidies. Their political currency is not money but re-zoning, parking spots, favourable placements of kids in those public schools which happen to be marginally better than the other ones, that kind of thing. It's precisely the kind of currency that doesn't allow for the kind of opportunism you suggest.

> The regulations on Handwerk are so old, not sure how you could put that on the Mittelstand.

Exactly. These regulations stem from the same chapter of history as when kings used to grant monopolies (to the East India company, and similar) in their respective industries. It didn't cost the king anything and it did a political favour to those companies, which might then reciprocate. Or the monopoly might have been the king's quid-pro-quo for some favour that the company had done him.

Monopolies are now widely recognized as bad. The monopoly didn't cost the king anything, but the cost was born by all consumers.

In the centuries that passed, some countries with a more libertarian bend got rid of the guilds and their privileges, or never started them in the first place. In other countries (notably the "old world"), these constituencies have remained politically strong enough over all those centuries to still be around now.

So, this romanticizing about the "proud old tradition" is completely the wrong reaction. There are many things with an "old tradition" where it would seem quite odd if a given country hadn't gotten rid of it (like collective punishment, or whatever; the examples are easy to think of). So something being old is neither here nor there.

> Yes, local integration has value, but also means you had to stick around to get there - comes with a cost.

Not sure if you're implying that regulatory capture of local government is some kind of just reward for "sticking around." If so, I disagree.

> people could move to places with higher wages (e.g., cities), no?

...well, often times, when you have a family and real estate in a region, it might be inopportune to do that, and my contention is that some employers capitalize on that immobility by offering worse terms.

> Being in a place where you could help shape local politics seems like a good move, no?

Sure. If you want to buy a forest, have your buddy the mayor re-zone it as industrial, and build a logistics hub there, it's a good move. Not so good, if you're the company from out of town that wants to move in and do the same thing, to compete with the incumbent (and you aren't friends with the mayor). Not so good, if you kind of liked the forest.

> What is the issue with "excellence in craft" as keeping "out the competion"? Why would anyone not want to beat the competion?

You can beat the competition by being a plumber who offers better plumbing at lower prices. Or the better plumbing and lower prices might be from the plumber who just moved here from Turkey. And then you can beat that would-be competition through regulatory capture by having your buddies in politics pass a law to assert that the craftsmanship of the Turkish feller is somehow inferior to yours and they aren't allowed to work as a plumber.

It was providing context which some people may find useful.

The article, rather than being a strictly historical treatise, is taking the bait to propagate some narratives about the motivations behind why these companies do business the way they do.

Reframe "family values" as "paying less" and see where you land on a critical appraisal.

Reframe "rooted in a region" as follows: Being a relatively large fish in a relatively small pond is often strategically preferable to being a relatively small fish in a relatively big pond, if your strategy involves regulatory capture of local government and the formation of a cartel with the handful of other Mittelstand employers in a region that otherwise doesn't have much going on.

Reframe "excellence in crafts" as "keeping out the competition".

I've seen all of these bullshit narratives getting spun, and all of these mechanisms at play, over the last 7 years, having lived in two separate such regions in Germany. It is a scent of bullshit that is very well known to me. When I see other people in danger of being misled, I will say something, just as I will say "watch out", when I see someone about to get hit by a car.

the article was a bit long for me to read, but when i hear "mittelstand", i think "inherited wealth", regulatory capture leading to gatekeepting of access to the trades and crafts, and employees that are getting paid less than they would in larger industries in exchange for lofty blah blah about family friendliness (sitting in a weird contrast with crazy levels of bean counting when it comes to, e.g., flexible working time and vacation entitlements).

...if you've only visited and never lived here for an extended period of time, you haven't even seen the tip of the iceberg. Also, the rules and systems are different from one municipality to another.

Here are some of the highlights for the one I live in.

AI image recognition on garbage trucks. -- Yes you've heard right. You do still need a fax machine in Germany to interact with the government. But when it comes to the garbage: Bring in the f##ing AI!! -- If you get the separation or packaging wrong, they won't collect the ton, and will instead leave a note to chastise you. You can meditate on your love for the green party, as you rummage through your weeks-old biodisposables to re-separate, and thank them next time at the polling booth.

Some kinds of garbage can go in the collections, others need to go to a recycling center. Just load up your car with everything you need to get rid of. Drive to a recycling center. Find out that it's closed (opening hours are maximally inconvenient; plan on burning several vacation days for visits to recycling centers that are open during your core working hours only). Once you make it to the recycling center, someone will take X, but tell you they don't take Y, and to try the recycling center several towns over. Of course they are closed. Plan on having your car serve as a garbage truck for several weeks, before it's finally empty.

Of course, some things you can't get rid of at any recycling center: They need to go to a collection. Do you have several cubic meters of styrofoam to dispose of, after re-furnishing your apartment from IKEA? Well tough luck. Find a place to store them for several weeks until the next collection. Then cut them into pieces so they fit in the yellow bag, which is only available in a single size. Then put the many many bags out into the street. If it's a windy day, collect that stuff from all over the street several times. If you're lucky, the garbage truck actually arrives. More likely: You miss the collection several times, because the pickup times are maximally inconvenient and unpredictable. In the meantime, the storage problem is all yours.

Do I need to continue? Because I could continue.

What percentage of your productive capacity is used for proper recycling and garbage disposal? ...that's the real metric to measure Germanness by, and yet it never got mentioned once!

I've looked into these kinds of policies a couple of times now, and the premia are just astronomical. (At least from the quotes I've been given).

It's kind of understandable, given that the risk is not all that low. But my guess would be that it's amplified by fraudulent claims in relation to psychological illness, burnout, etc. I asked my insurance guy to exclude those, but, apparently, it's something he can't do.

You can kind of see, how this works for a roofer: If you hurt your leg and can no longer climb a roof, the policy pays. What does it take for me to no longer be able to sit in front of a screen? Well, it would almost have to be something in the psychological realm. Sure, there's the possibility of an illness with chronic pain or cognitive impairment, but those are orders of magnitude less likely, so the psychological stuff is what completely dominates the high premia.

> Max Weber called the Protestant work ethic

...hmm. Not sure that this is quite state-of-the art in sociology today. Crediting a particular strand of a particular religion as the locus of a virtue that confers a clear fitness advantage in and of itself, and without recourse to any outside explanation, seems a bit off.