SoylentNews is people
SoylentNews
https://arstechnica.com/features/2020/08/ars-readers-take-on-the-present-and-future-of-work/
Over the past few weeks, we've been talking about how best to manage the current state of work and what companies will need to do in the near and not-too-distant future to adjust to post-pandemic reality. As expected, our readers had some opinions on these topics, too—ranging from insightful to inciteful.
So, in the interest of better surfacing the wisdom of our particular crowd, I've curated some of the thoughts of the Ars community on the topics of working better from home and what our shared experiences have taught us about the future of collaboration technology and the future nature of the corporate office. As always, we hope you'll share additional wisdom in the comments here, as they may guide some future coverage on issues related to the realities of future work.
[...]
Aside from responding with protests of post-traumatic stress after I mentioned Lotus Notes in our article on the future of collaboration, our readers had some on-point thoughts on the current strengths and weaknesses of collaboration technology—particularly in the face of current circumstances. And one of the problems is collaborating across companies effectively.
[...]
Other readers noted that work-from-home wasn't an option for them, but only because of management's whims. RCook wrote that his employer had brought everyone back into the office, "partly because we're located in Iowa where the Pandemic didn't happen according to our Governor and partly because the company President has some stupid control issues."
[....]
However, the company president is working from home. And while RCook "made sure the IT infrastructure was ready and capable of handling the [work-from-home] VPN load" during the company's initial lockdown, "I was actually asked at one point how management could effectively spy on employees to gauge productivity."
(Score: 5, Funny) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday August 26 2020, @10:31AM (42 children)
If you want a picture of the future of work, imagine a robotic arm fisting a human ass. Forever.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday August 26 2020, @11:28AM (11 children)
You don't even have to imagine it, check your friendly pron site.
(Score: 3, Insightful) by DannyB on Wednesday August 26 2020, @01:59PM (10 children)
Don't you mean check your fiendly HR site?
When trying to solve a problem don't ask who suffers from the problem, ask who profits from the problem.
(Score: 4, Interesting) by RS3 on Wednesday August 26 2020, @02:22PM (9 children)
I could not agree more. HR have all but derailed my career. I could go into a long rant but I'll spare you. Over recent years I've gone to many many jobsearch workshops and meetings and one consistent thread is "how to bypass HR". Gee, why would we need to do THAT? Aren't they the ones who are supposed to HELP us? I've met almost no good ones. The HR world seems to attract people who are surly, grumpy, lazy do-nothings with a big chip on their shoulders. Yes, I'm dealing with them now as I try to get back into regular work. Well, seeing as they don't answer phones ever, don't return calls ever, and don't reply to emails, I guess I'm not really dealing with them. Time to write directly to the actual managers.
(Score: 5, Insightful) by Azuma Hazuki on Wednesday August 26 2020, @02:30PM (8 children)
Human Resources is not and never was your friend, and the unintentionally (I hope) Orwellian, dystopian nature of the name should give it away. Human. Resources. As in "humans are fungible, interchangeable commodities." Think "Soylent Green" here. When this is all over, they will be first against the cubicle walls, and they'll be executed by firing squad...of staplers.
I am "that girl" your mother warned you about...
(Score: 2) by RS3 on Wednesday August 26 2020, @02:53PM (5 children)
One of your many great insightful posts where I'm happy, laughing, angry, agreeing- pretty much every possible reaction.
I'm just old enough to remember a time when the phrase "Human Resources" didn't exist. They were called "personnel departments" and they were generally kind, helpful, accommodating people. When I first heard the term "human resources" I rolled my eyes, and felt a sense of fear, which of course ended up being valid. I thought "uh-oh, someone's getting a big head, full of themselves, needing to take control".
I would love to know what they do all day. Someone should be monitoring them. I don't see any work results. Not full-time worth anyway.
I've often thought I should start a talent agency. I'm pretty good at identifying talent, and potential. But then I'd have to deal with HR people even more... sigh.
(Score: 5, Interesting) by bzipitidoo on Wednesday August 26 2020, @04:27PM (4 children)
I have come to understand that employment is highly political. HR is full of trolls who hate and fear engineers. They get a kick out of rejecting the best, while keeping their a** covered by advancing a few stock subjective reasons. They'll claim a candidate is "not a team player" or lacks social skills or something else in that vein. And is too independent and not obedient enough. And a "flight risk", likely to leave before even finishing their first year. And is too financially sophisticated, and won't get themselves into a bind and be unable to quit. They lack the skills to check out a candidate's technical chops, and have to resort to the sorts of subjective evaluations I mentioned above. However, they also love, love, love claiming that you're a fraud because you didn't know the answer to one question about technology, about something trivial and obscure like where in the menus of a spreadsheet program to find some functionality, never mind that the producers of commercial office software are always rearranging the menus. They're frauds, and deep down they know it. They want to be reassured that everyone else is phony, too, and willfully blind themselves to the unfairness of a question of that sort.
Something else that happens a lot is nepotism and cronyism. HR is abused to concoct plausible reasons why a raft of much better candidates were all rejected in favor of an imbecilic, spoiled brat of some VIP. Or they simply drag their feet, in hopes the candidates can't wait that long. I was once on the inside track of one of those. The company put an ad in the paper (this was back in the 1990s), and interviewed several applicants, but it was all for show, merely to satisfy EEOC requirements, because they had already decided to hire me. It didn't feel good. I think I could have won a fair competition, and certainly my skills made it very easy for HR to make the requested case to hire me. I especially felt bad that my new employer was not interviewing these job seekers in good faith, just wasting the time of everyone concerned. However, I went along with it all. Most I did was ask whether they might hire another person as well as me, since they were doing all this interviewing, and was told that they might. Maybe they weren't lying to me, maybe they really didn't know themselves. Maybe I shouldn't have taken the job, but when it comes down to it, it's very, very hard to turn down a job offer when there is no other offer on the table, and you're feeling the social pressure of being despised as a mooch and a loser for not having a job, and in any case there's enough ambiguity about the ethics of it all that you can't be absolutely sure your new employer is that unprincipled.
Incredibly, I have read that for the position of police officer, some cities actually have a policy against hiring candidates who are "too smart"! Claim that brains are an impediment to doing good police work. And maybe they really believe that, but I suspect they have a hidden agenda, like maybe, I don't know, perpetuating racism in law enforcement? Now, finally, those chickens have come home to roost, and thanks to too many thuggish police, we actually have groups proposing that local police forces be entirely eliminated! Meanwhile, this notion that a job applicant can be too smart, aka "overqualified", still has much currency. even for positions that require a high degree of skill and training.
HR is high school all over again, with the normies using their superior numbers to make stick their slanders and vilifications of smart people as nerds, uncool, unstable, and, actually, stupid, as in stupid in certain areas, basically idiot savants, or unsophisticated and naive in the ways of lying and corruption, though of course they hide that with all sorts of euphemisms. Yeah, you have to bypass that kind of HR.
Another factor is indeed the future of work. I am seriously wondering if employment as we know it is coming to an end. The Robot Apocalypse. I suspect that pressure is influencing HR to treat job candidates even worse than they have in the past. One effect of pressure of that sort is to push people into becoming a whole lot more political with their decision making.
(Score: 2) by barbara hudson on Wednesday August 26 2020, @05:04PM
You heard right https://abcnews.go.com/US/court-oks-barring-high-iqs-cops/story?id=95836 [go.com]
This is what you get when you give people of average intelligence a gun. As long as you say "I feared for my life" you can kill an unarmed person lying face down with impunity. They need a test for bravery, or just select for above average intelligence, because intelligent people won't see someone lying face down on the ground as a threat who needs to be shot dead.
SoylentNews is social media. Says so right in the slogan. Soylentnews is people, not tech.
(Score: 2) by Azuma Hazuki on Thursday August 27 2020, @01:47AM (1 child)
This all scares the shit out of me. For so, so many reasons, not least of which is being "scary-smart woman with scary-long hair," I know my chances of surviving the HR gauntlet are somewhere around "snowball in the Malebolge." As time marches on I am seriously considering something like finding an organic farming co-op or something to join.
Part of the problem is I haaaaate lies and lying with a burning passion, and this is *all* lies, the worst kind of lies there are, the kind of lies that lead to people becoming homeless or worse. I've had enough of it all and just want out. I could probably lie and manipulate my way through some interviews well enough (I've done it before, and makeup helps--only time it ever gets used!), but it does some kind of long-lasting psychic damage that doesn't heal off.
I am "that girl" your mother warned you about...
(Score: 2) by bzipitidoo on Friday August 28 2020, @02:03AM
There are still employers who value competence and honesty. It's not all Dilbertesque. Talking to acquaintances in the engineering field over the years, I hear it's about 50-50. The engineers who have had the same job at the same company for 20 years, they're the ones in a sane and straightforward workplace, and never were gaslighted and ground up in office politics. It's the engineers in the gig economy who get most of the sh*t.
I now think that my university education had some large holes. We were not educated in how to detect and deal with insincerity. Not warned that we needed to keep our bullsh*t detectors active. We were perhaps too arrogant in thinking that such problems are trivial. The flip side of the Dunning-Kruger effect is that very smart people often underestimate their skills and performance. The con artists in the workplace see that self-doubt in a New York minute, and exploit it to the max. Do all they can to sow more confusion and doubt. Many are nearly as incompetent at that as they are at engineering, but a few are all too slick and successful with the gaslighting. And indeed, the entire nation has been blindsided by all the bull from the bullsh*t artists who finagled their way into power.
It'd be nice if we could entirely avoid the bull. But that's not realistic. So, how do you deal with it?
1) Get it in writing. The scumbags in management don't bat an eye at asking others to do illegal, dangerous, wasteful, or stupid stuff they wouldn't do themselves. And if it leads to trouble, they absolutely will deny that they ever asked such things of others. But if you have a paper trail, they can't weasel out and leave you to hang. However, it doesn't usually go that way. What happens is that when you insist that they put their requests in writing, they will change their minds, deciding that what they were about to ask of you isn't such a good idea after all. In any case, you don't want to be in the position of having to demonstrate that you were ordered to do something bad.
2) Keep your cool. Don't have a temper tantrum. Yes, yes, the lying dirtbag just tried to manipulate others into firing you, tried to frame you for something, or sabotaged your equipment or data. Losing it totally hands your enemies a gift. Sometimes, sh*t is done on purpose because they want to see how you will handle it. It's okay to be angry, but don't, don't, don't lose control. Yeah, you want to smash the a**hole in the face, but you won't, you know better than that. About the farthest to go is playing a harmless prank on them, if there is any hope they are not incorrigible. If they are, don't waste any more time on them than you absolutely have to.
3) Don't be afraid to refuse. Its not uncommon to be asked for the moon. Or to be left wondering what the heck did they just ask of you, really. What is hard, is untangling all the business speak and pinning them down. If you don't have clarity on what you're supposed to do, you're cruising for a bruising. Before long, they're going to view you as incompetent, never realizing that they expected too much. Some bosses are never satisfied. No matter how hard you work and how much you accomplish, they want more. You could have worked even harder. If by some miracle you delivered on a request for the moon, don't expect them to appreciate it. Instead, they might well whine that they wanted Mars, not the moon.
4) Keep some f*ck you money. So you can tell your boss "f*ck you", and walk. There are situations that are so bad that walking really is the only viable thing to do. Don't believe those self-help books that claim you can work with anybody. No, you can't. There are people who really are impossible. Like I once had a manager/coworker who deliberately sabotaged equipment. He'd wipe hard drives I was using. But it wasn't behind my back, no it was done in my face, with him giving me spurious reasons why it was supposedly necessary. That one is obvious, but it can be hard to tell, and you don't want to rush out when there is still some doubt. On the other hand, don't be scared into believing them when they hint around about your career being ruined if you walk out. As to the other card they love to play, that the economy is in the crapper, unemployment is through the roof, and all that, maybe it is, and maybe not. If you are stressed to the max, and it's affecting your health, leave.
(Score: 2) by stretch611 on Thursday August 27 2020, @03:08AM
Same here. I have had a job where this happened as well. I worked at the company previously and I knew the department manager quite well. She knew I was not just competent, but skilled and I knew her management style and was happy to work for her. In order to get around the crap with the HR department, she took a copy of my resume and created a job position that mirrored my skills and years of experience, including every obscure reference. Then she just waited and passed on every candidate that came in from HR until I eventually was called in.
This was in a very large fortune 100 company as well... and what she did was also done by many others in that company. While I do not know personally of other companies doing this, with all the rules and regulation around hiring, I am sure that many others do the same. It really makes a person wonder how many job ads are actually real.
Now with 5 covid vaccine shots/boosters altering my DNA :P
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday August 26 2020, @03:16PM (1 child)
Without HR, who would Fwd: you emails about online training? Who would hand you the promotion packet to be filled in yourself? Who would return said packet requesting you to reorder the time-line from earliest-latest (or whichever the other way is from what you've done)? Who else would refuse to let you leave blank the section on Contributions to Diversity? And Community Outreach? And how you have accomplished the department's aspirational message?
(Score: 2) by RS3 on Wednesday August 26 2020, @05:53PM
All true and good points, but that's why you have to apply to lots of places and pass over the annoying ones. That and do your best to connect with actual employees at said company. I've had some pretty inspiring coaching from jobsearch experts who give many ways to find out who works in a given company, and often you have some common acquaintance or ex-coworker. LinkedIn is supposed to help with that, and they do, but I've refused to join since the beginning because I saw it as spying. That and someone, I don't know who, started a profile for me there, but it was lame, and I had no control of it. I tried to contact LinkedIn and guess what- big surprise- there's no phone number! There's NO street address! There's an online form that gets ignored, and I'm going back 13 years or so. Now that M$ p0wns I mean owns them, I know not to trust them.
(Score: 5, Insightful) by Rosco P. Coltrane on Wednesday August 26 2020, @11:28AM (14 children)
If humanity is freed from toil by the robots and people get to lead a full and happy life without having to work, I'm all for it.
Unfortunately, with the current ultra-capitalist system and the rich sumbitches that run it, displaced workers will simply end up onto the street, so the rich sumbitches can get richer. That's the only reason why it'll feel like fisting. But it doesn't have to be that way.
(Score: 0, Flamebait) by khallow on Wednesday August 26 2020, @12:08PM (12 children)
In other words, you want something, but aren't willing to do anything for it except make excuses. Why should we try to do this, when it's not important to you?
(Score: 1, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday August 26 2020, @12:35PM (3 children)
You poor sap, it was never a have/not, with/out, us/them binary selection. It is 2020, even with current state of automation and education, we should all be working 16hr weeks and such, but for the greedy rent seekers who killed the dream.
(Score: 1) by khallow on Wednesday August 26 2020, @12:56PM
I'm not who is turning this into a zero sum game " so the rich sumbitches can get richer".
Because?
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday August 26 2020, @02:02PM (1 child)
What constitutes "work" in your statement? Time spent doing something in exchange for money? Even if we enjoy that effort? Or, is it time spent doing something we don't want to do? You make a simple statement that encompasses a very complex situation. Without explaining yourself, it's hard to take your statement seriously.
(Score: 5, Funny) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday August 26 2020, @02:12PM
> What constitutes "work" in your statement?
Let's see um... Mostly it goes like this:
9am : Clock in
9.15-45: Take a huge shit on the clock
10am : Read the news
12pm : Lunch
1pm : Nap at desk
2pm : Start wrapping up for the day
3-5pm : Mostly a blur, drugs involved, possibly hookers
5pm : Clock out
But that's me, an overachiever. The real Big Knobs don't even pretend any more:
4am : Twitter
6am : TWITTER!!!!!!11111
6-12 : Executive time
12-1pm: Two scoops of ice cream YUM!
2pm : Golf
(Score: 3, Interesting) by DannyB on Wednesday August 26 2020, @02:05PM (7 children)
I resent that! I care. But I'll let the robots make up excuses for me! Why should I have to exert the effort to complain when technology gets to the point that robots can can complain for me.
The robots can rise up and rebel for me. They can tax the rich for me so that I can have UBI. The robots can feed me because I don't want to do it myself -- or build a massive global system that intravenously feeds us all to save us the effort of swallowing. Now that's progress!
When trying to solve a problem don't ask who suffers from the problem, ask who profits from the problem.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday August 26 2020, @02:16PM (5 children)
> ...to save us the effort of swallowing a rugged individual self-pleasuring fantasy...
FTFY
(Score: 1) by khallow on Wednesday August 26 2020, @09:13PM (4 children)
Like?
What are you doing to earn this fantasy?
(Score: 2) by looorg on Wednesday August 26 2020, @09:26PM (3 children)
Wasn't this explained in the first post?
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday August 27 2020, @12:24AM (1 child)
Are we back to making low effort posts?
(Score: 2) by acid andy on Thursday August 27 2020, @01:17AM
Dunno?
If a cat has kittens, does a rat have rittens, a bat bittens and a mat mittens?
(Score: 1) by khallow on Thursday August 27 2020, @02:35AM
Not in the least. It's just another fantasy. Luddites have been fantasizing about the replacement of humanity by machines for centuries. It has yet to happen.
(Score: 2) by barbara hudson on Wednesday August 26 2020, @05:08PM
SoylentNews is social media. Says so right in the slogan. Soylentnews is people, not tech.
(Score: 2) by stretch611 on Thursday August 27 2020, @03:19AM
That reminded me of this trailer for a game... (7 Billion Humans)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1OqaU7CutsY [youtube.com]
I can't mention what person I am reminded of in the last segement. =)
Now with 5 covid vaccine shots/boosters altering my DNA :P
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday August 26 2020, @12:56PM
Forever? I doubt it.
The robot arm will need maintenance else the metal will fatigue, resulting in ragged metal shards tearing into the delicate human flesh over and over. Or we could skip maintenance.
(Score: 4, Interesting) by DannyB on Wednesday August 26 2020, @02:12PM (5 children)
That sounds like a strange way to describe robots taking care of everyone's personal hygiene because we've become so dependent upon robots that we can no longer do it ourselves.
The original Star Trek TOS pilot was about a race that had long since forgotten how to repair the ancient machines built by their ancestors. They probably didn't even remember how to operate a chip fab facility.
When trying to solve a problem don't ask who suffers from the problem, ask who profits from the problem.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday August 26 2020, @02:17PM (1 child)
Don't worry! AI will solve that too.
(Score: 3, Insightful) by DannyB on Wednesday August 26 2020, @02:28PM
They better hurry given the current state of our education system. When you look at the number of people who believe "flat earth", it is not so alarming. When you look at 18-24 demographic, it is much more alarming.
When trying to solve a problem don't ask who suffers from the problem, ask who profits from the problem.
(Score: 2) by Phoenix666 on Wednesday August 26 2020, @04:40PM (2 children)
Hasn't coronavirus made that obsolete?
Washington DC delenda est.
(Score: 2) by DannyB on Wednesday August 26 2020, @05:30PM (1 child)
I would say no.
Coronavirus, no, actually, Working From Home has made optional all but the most basic of personal hygiene.
So the original poster's robot arm will probably become a household necessity.
When trying to solve a problem don't ask who suffers from the problem, ask who profits from the problem.
(Score: 2) by Phoenix666 on Wednesday August 26 2020, @10:37PM
Hmm, not sure it's safe to trust a robot arm to do the naughty bits...
Washington DC delenda est.
(Score: 3, Funny) by Freeman on Wednesday August 26 2020, @03:06PM (4 children)
Wow, Fallout 3 was prescient with Fisto!
Joshua 1:9 "Be strong and of a good courage; be not afraid, neither be thou dismayed: for the Lord thy God is with thee"
(Score: 2) by Phoenix666 on Wednesday August 26 2020, @04:45PM (1 child)
I had the same thought, but I think it was in Fallout: New Vegas. Let's hope the game was not also prescient about Beatrix Russell.
Washington DC delenda est.
(Score: 2) by Freeman on Wednesday August 26 2020, @05:04PM
Ah, you are correct. They kind of meld in my mind, but New Vegas had a bit better story writing. I also remember the "hotel" Fisto worked in was just outside the strip.
Joshua 1:9 "Be strong and of a good courage; be not afraid, neither be thou dismayed: for the Lord thy God is with thee"
(Score: 2) by looorg on Wednesday August 26 2020, @05:40PM (1 child)
Star Wars have Kit Fisto, I don't even want to know what his force-powers and tentacles are used for.
(Score: 2) by Freeman on Wednesday August 26 2020, @07:16PM
Well, they were always talking about feeling a disturbance in the force . . .
Joshua 1:9 "Be strong and of a good courage; be not afraid, neither be thou dismayed: for the Lord thy God is with thee"
(Score: 2) by darkfeline on Wednesday August 26 2020, @07:44PM
So the future of work is robotic adult entertainment? I am seeing more mentions of sex dolls in recent years...
Join the SDF Public Access UNIX System today!
(Score: 2) by looorg on Wednesday August 26 2020, @07:59PM (1 child)
We should all invest in lube-manufacturing then?
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday August 26 2020, @08:47PM
Blood is the lube.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday August 26 2020, @12:49PM (3 children)
We'll all be back in the office again, once the government stops paying companies to have workers "work from home".
Not just out of supervision-related concerns, but for reasons of basic collaboration.
(Score: 2, Funny) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday August 26 2020, @12:53PM
Never collaborate. That's dangerously close to communism.
(Score: 2) by Freeman on Wednesday August 26 2020, @03:09PM
Collaboration is easy enough to do remotely with the right software. E-mail is the most basic and leaves something to be desired. Microsoft Teams is a pretty decent collaboration tool. There are also document collaboration tools that let you work on the same document simultaneously (possibly in Microsoft Teams, I've barely used it). Video chat, essentially removes the need to be collaborating in person 99.9% of the time.
Joshua 1:9 "Be strong and of a good courage; be not afraid, neither be thou dismayed: for the Lord thy God is with thee"
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday August 26 2020, @07:17PM
You don't really pay attention, do you? The government ain't paying shit for working from home, or "working from home."
(Score: 2, Interesting) by VLM on Wednesday August 26 2020, @12:56PM (21 children)
I wonder how far back "work at home" and "work with people 1000+ miles away" goes?
My father carried a briefcase of printouts back in the old moon landing days (did not work on Apollo, other IT stuff) I remember he brought home a terminal and 300 baud modem around 1980 to "work from home" during a software upgrade weekend.
Anyway regardless of Chinese Flu the problem of long distance collaboration must go back to at least the railroad era, prob further.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday August 26 2020, @01:15PM
Ha ha he said Chinese Flu.
(Score: 2) by DannyB on Wednesday August 26 2020, @02:23PM (19 children)
An in person meating is the highest bandwidth communication possible. Many times this is done informally. In the hallway. Water cooler. Step into my office. Etc. Working remotely you don't get these spontaneous quick exchanges.
A virtual reality suit might help, but then those would tend to be developed for people to do . . . uh . . . other things, than
businesswork.Never say "anyway", and never "anyways". Just start with "regardless", or get into a debate about using "irregardless".
Regardless of the Trump Virus, we have much better technology for remote collaboration than the railroad era.
The security and privacy of Zoom!
When trying to solve a problem don't ask who suffers from the problem, ask who profits from the problem.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday August 26 2020, @02:32PM (7 children)
You were doing so well until you wrote "Trump Virus". Way to derail your points, and really much of your posting. You're an asshole. You're an example of the actual mechanism of divisiveness in the US, that sadly affects much of the world. Asshole. Go burn some buildings.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday August 26 2020, @02:44PM (3 children)
Obvs should have written "China Virus".
I'm thinking all you heard was a giant Wooooosh!
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday August 26 2020, @04:23PM (2 children)
Hey Wooooosh brain, COVID-19 originated in China, not Trump. It spread due to so many people traveling in and out of Wuhan, China, spreading it around the world.
On one hand Trump is a "fascist dictator", but on the other hand you want him to be a dictator and somehow control everyone and their disease-spreading behavior. Make up your collective minds, when you're done rioting and burning and destroying.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday August 26 2020, @05:00PM
The virus was created while Trump was President, ergo it's the Trump Virus. Duh! I thought you QAnon were supposed to be smart.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday August 26 2020, @07:32PM
Hey shit-for-brains, by not only ignoring it, but doing even worse and working against efforts to deal with it, Trump owns it now. He made the US #1. And still #1. He wouldn't own it if he even made a half-assed effort or showed a modicum of leadership, but he didn't and the states had to scramble in an every-state-for-itself environment. Hell, even if he was completely incompetent, just showing basic empathy, compassion, and concern for people who are suffering in many different ways, he probably would have been given a pass. But no, he is entirely incapable. Many thousands of people needlessly died because of him. This might have started in China, but in the US, this is and will always be the Trump virus, or plague.
(Score: 2) by DannyB on Wednesday August 26 2020, @03:28PM (2 children)
Ok, thanks for your inciteful correction.
Okay to write: Chinese Flu
Bad to write: Trump Virus
(I would not have written Trump Virus, except for the obvious snark reply to Chinese Flu.)
When trying to solve a problem don't ask who suffers from the problem, ask who profits from the problem.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday August 26 2020, @04:30PM (1 child)
Thanks, explanation accepted.
1) China is a country, Trump is a person. See how it's a great personal and divisive attack?
2) COVID-19 originated in CHINA, NOT TRUMP.
(Score: 2) by DannyB on Wednesday August 26 2020, @05:26PM
Please see this journal entry [soylentnews.org] then tell me it is unfair.
When trying to solve a problem don't ask who suffers from the problem, ask who profits from the problem.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday August 26 2020, @02:35PM (5 children)
I'll play your game for a moment. What should Trump have done, and when?
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday August 26 2020, @02:44PM
Injected bleach into the lungs. Fired Fauci sooner for being such a dork about it.
(Score: 2) by DannyB on Wednesday August 26 2020, @03:32PM (2 children)
<no-sarcasm>
Trump could have put scientists and doctors in charge, and what they say goes. No politics. Bite the bullet. Get things under control before it killed so many people, and before it got out of control.
This is not about politics. It's about science and medicine. A virus doesn't care about your politics or what Fox News says.
</no-sarcasm>
Trump could have injected or drank bleach, and put UV light inside the body.
When trying to solve a problem don't ask who suffers from the problem, ask who profits from the problem.
(Score: 3, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday August 26 2020, @04:19PM (1 child)
You're wrong. Trump did consult with doctors, scientists, medical workers, and they all disagreed with each other. There's still a wide-range of opinions and "facts" around COVID-19. Some scientists say the tests are not 100% accurate. Someone can be infected, contagious, and test negative.
It doesn't have to be a major issue like COVID-19 to see how people's egos still run amok, including scientists and doctors. That's where government comes in, right? Or did you expect Trump to abdicate and appoint Fauci as president? Or maybe YOU? Even in a corporation there's some kind of political (power) structure, right? Maybe Trump was ill-advised. Maybe he trusted the wrong people. Maybe they all hate him and tried to set him up to fail. Maybe, just maybe, it was and still is a complex problem that we're still learning about, how to deal with it, what to do and not do. Hindsight is 20/20.
From the start of the reports of COVID-19 people have relentlessly attacked Trump. How about putting all that time and energy into HELPING? With 1/2 of the nation wasting time mocking, ridiculing, and generally attacking Trump, tearing him down, what do you expect? Did you conveniently forget the impeachment? Do you expect someone to fork into both a leader and defending himself? People have a right to disagree with someone, including presidents, but at some point the disagreement, like the rioting, gets in the way of anyone trying to get anything done. There are more positive solutions to problems. Just because you don't like the paint color of your house you don't burn it down, right? Or maybe you do- your types certainly do. And then go burn down the paint factories too.
(Score: 2) by DannyB on Wednesday August 26 2020, @05:11PM
Please see this journal entry [soylentnews.org] which may answer your question.
When trying to solve a problem don't ask who suffers from the problem, ask who profits from the problem.
(Score: 2) by DannyB on Wednesday August 26 2020, @05:16PM
Please see this journal entry [soylentnews.org] which may answer your question.
The first couple links should answer your question.
There definitely came a point where it should have become obvious that the politics wasn't working.
I'll repeat: this isn't about politics. It's about science and medicine.
Hope that helps.
When trying to solve a problem don't ask who suffers from the problem, ask who profits from the problem.
(Score: 3, Funny) by Phoenix666 on Wednesday August 26 2020, @04:51PM (2 children)
Most of us prefer to meat others in person. Nothing else feels quite as good. Of course, the enjoyment of the person being meated can vary quite a bit, depending on the bandwidth of the meat and the length of the communication.
Washington DC delenda est.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday August 26 2020, @05:08PM
Zipper salami? Or bearded kebab?
(Score: 2) by barbara hudson on Wednesday August 26 2020, @05:17PM
I'm not ready to turn into soylent green, I'll skip both the meeting and the meat.
SoylentNews is social media. Says so right in the slogan. Soylentnews is people, not tech.
(Score: 3, Insightful) by barbara hudson on Wednesday August 26 2020, @05:13PM (1 child)
The more people in a meeting, the lower the collective intelligence, and the more time people spend idle because there's more dumb fucks who can't get to the point.
SoylentNews is social media. Says so right in the slogan. Soylentnews is people, not tech.
(Score: 2) by DannyB on Wednesday August 26 2020, @05:33PM
Meetings are dominated by people who love to hear themselves talk but can't say anything useful, or even merely funny.
When trying to solve a problem don't ask who suffers from the problem, ask who profits from the problem.
(Score: 3, Funny) by EJ on Wednesday August 26 2020, @07:31PM (3 children)
You know, Stephen King was like Nostradamus. Many years ago, he envisioned a chaotic entity of pure evil known as IT. He represented it as a clown.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday August 27 2020, @12:36AM
A clown with orange facepaint and oversize pantomime suit that performs in front of semi-literates holding a book of fairy tales?
This one:
https://www.washingtontimes.com/multimedia/image/drag-queen1jpg/ [washingtontimes.com]
Or this one:
https://www.vanityfair.com/news/2020/06/no-one-is-impressed-by-trump-tough-guy-church-photo-op [vanityfair.com]
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday August 27 2020, @09:24AM (1 child)
Yeah, but wasn't that clown supposed to hang out in the sewers or something?
(Score: 2) by EJ on Thursday August 27 2020, @04:46PM
I have no idea where they hang out. I just know that they smell pretty bad when they pass by in the halls.