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Which of the following "Dilbert" characters would your co-workers say best resembles you?
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(1)
(1)
There's no such thing as an original sin.
-- Elvis Costello
(Score: 2) by The Mighty Buzzard on Wednesday May 06 2020, @04:20PM (32 children)
SN's odd case aside, I don't do corporate nonsense. Life's too short to put up with that sort of bloody stupidity on a daily basis.
My rights don't end where your fear begins.
(Score: 5, Touché) by Hartree on Friday May 08 2020, @04:20AM (8 children)
I do something far worse. Academia. Corporate nonsense isn't even on the same continent as academic nonsense.
(Score: 2) by The Mighty Buzzard on Friday May 08 2020, @04:31AM (3 children)
That ain't no lie, faculty or student.
My rights don't end where your fear begins.
(Score: 2) by Hartree on Friday May 08 2020, @05:07AM (2 children)
Staff. I fix lab instruments and equipment.
(Score: 5, Insightful) by VLM on Friday May 08 2020, @02:20PM (1 child)
I always wanted a job as an EE lab tech when I was young; basically like sitting in my basement goofing around with ham radio gear and weird hamfest electronic finds, except getting paid for it.
Decades later, just last night, I was replacing the FET in an old 2 meter preamp. Can't imagine not only getting paid to do that, but having an expense account. Of course a modern 75 cent MMIC would have a tenth the noise figure. But its fun anyway.
The downside is all my life experience since then indicates nothing kills the joy of a hobby quite like a boss telling you what and how to do it.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday May 10 2020, @11:08AM
Ditto that!
I am of the strong belief that artisans have no business being employees. Unless they are directly working with the man who owns the company.
I have seen several corporations technically disintegrate after "leadership" techniques, learned from traveling seminar-givers, caused the creative talent to either leave or self- destruct.
There are people who are like pumps, pulling water from hundreds of feet down, bringing it up and keeping water line pressure at 100 psi.
Then there are those who open the tap just a bit, draw a glass of water, and serve it to the customer.
And there are those who have the skills to recognize the importance of each.
A lot of people think pumps are a dime a dozen, carelessly blown like sports car engines. Important people. Private jets await.
(Score: 3, Interesting) by Kell on Monday May 18 2020, @11:24PM
As an assc prof who has worked in industry, I feel this in my bones.
Scientists ask questions. Engineers solve problems.
(Score: 3, Interesting) by TheReaperD on Thursday May 21 2020, @06:10AM
I worked in Academia as well in IT. I was also the person the Director went to when he wanted something done in a timely manner and was willing to 'look the other way' on how it got done. Example, getting blueprint changes done for a new building that that the school board wouldn't authorize because they didn't want to spend any more money on the project. I talked to the construction crew, figured out what would be best, asked their favorite brands and showed up at lunch with a cold case of beer, each of their favorite brand. I even got them for the guys I didn't need to bribe. They asked why I did that and I said, I take care of everybody. I may not need your help today but, I might tomorrow plus, it's bad form to leave out some of the crew. I got all the changes we needed done and they were updates on the blueprints so it was all legal. Though it did count as an illegal bribe of a government contractor that resulted in unauthorized changes to a federal building. My boss, the Director, made the mistake of asking me how I got it done when he couldn't do it. He then remembered why he didn't ask me how I got things done. Less legal liability that way.
Ad eundum quo nemo ante iit
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday May 28 2020, @03:25AM
Academia is horrendous. For all the issues with private sector employment, it seems preferable over academia.
I'm a postdoc, meaning I'm considered faculty. I just got a federal grant funded to conduct research and pay my salary for the year. I'm the lead PI on this grant. It should be obvious that, as the PI, with funding budgeted for me, that I get paid for a year to do this research. Were I not qualified to do this work, the reviewers would never have scored my proposal sufficiently high so that it would get funded. So, this shouldn't be a problem, right?
Wrong. Even though my name is on the grant as the lead PI, even though there's funding budgeted for me by name in the grant, even though reviewers deemed me qualified, that's not enough for the university. They want to conduct a formal search for the PI position budgeted for me in the grant. There's a hiring freeze, meaning that approval high in the administration, all the way up to the "executive vice chancellor" level, is required to even conduct this search. I understand the hiring freeze with respect to state funds allocated by the legislature. I understand why a formal search would be appropriate for positions funded in that manner. But the federal funds are allocated specifically for this project, so not filling the position doesn't save the state any money. The funds would be awarded with the expectation that I'd be leading the project.
It's not entirely clear to me how this gets resolved. If the position doesn't get filled, a lot of the work won't get done, which reflects poorly on the university. And if we're truly concerned about reducing spending, we could start with reducing the layers upon layers of highly paid bureaucrats.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday May 28 2020, @09:00AM
Depends on your Chair/Director. Thankfully both of mine are wonderful at my current position. Bend over backwards to protect us from the bullshit raining down from above. In return, we help them by boosting their numbers and not creating unnecessary problems. It is amazing how much more work we get done without having to deal with that additional headache as well as how much smoother it is to deal with the administration when the academic leadership does more than the minimum and doesn't pawn their work onto others.
Now at the place I was at before, the chair would probably be the first to stab you in the back. And that is on top of the lack of tenure, budget squeezes, impossible mandates, ruthless competition, and dealing with the five layers of bureaucracy, vocal donors, vocal taxpayers, the students, and their helicopters at the same time for seemingly every minor decision.
(Score: 5, Funny) by edIII on Friday May 08 2020, @09:35AM
Found the Elbonian.
Technically, lunchtime is at any moment. It's just a wave function.
(Score: 3, Insightful) by JoeMerchant on Sunday May 10 2020, @01:59AM (21 children)
We don't all get a choice, sometimes you've got to suck it up and accept the paycheck.
As absurd as the corporate gig is, I must say it's the lowest stress and highest paying posting I've ever had, by a wide margin.
🌻🌻 [google.com]
(Score: 2) by The Mighty Buzzard on Sunday May 10 2020, @02:44AM (20 children)
You getting marched to work at gunpoint? Then don't feed me that bullshit. You may be afraid of making a non-ultra-safe choice but you have choices.
My rights don't end where your fear begins.
(Score: 5, Informative) by JoeMerchant on Sunday May 10 2020, @03:46AM (19 children)
I've made plenty of non-ultra-safe choices in my career, got plenty tired of that shit after my 5th job in 4 years, each pretending to be a permanent position but less reliable than most consulting gigs.
My boss decided he didn't like the crew where I still work (understandable, most of them didn't like him, but the culture is too polite to say that out loud to anyone's face)... he looked for over 3 years for a better gig, finally sort-of found one - closer to his native state, likes the people, they like him, the money has the potential to be better... Some of the absurdity of where I work was that he was doing so little he was practically begging to be fired, but apparently his management never had the opportunity, in 3 years, to even begin the process - or just couldn't be bothered to.
I'll say the job is ridiculous and absurd, I'll not say that there are many better opportunities out there.
I had one previous job similar to this one - the messaging from the top was clear: don't do anything, change is risk and we're making top bank as we are, anybody who screws that up will get lynched. This place is much bigger and much more PC, but the corporate procedures amount to the same thing. Back when I was 33 I was afraid my brain might rot having to do nothing of any significant challenge day after day. 20 years later, I'm o.k. with that, particularly when the pay and benefits are top drawer. Remembering my interview here, one of my future coworkers asked me point-blank: "can you take brain rot? Because, we don't do much here."
So, sure, I have choices, but who walks across the street to step-down 25-50% in pay for a job with more stress, less security, and worse benefits? Matter of fact, I tried to do that when I was in the meat-grinder town and nobody would hire me because they figured (correctly) that I would get a better job than they could offer and leave them... didn't make much sense in a lot of places that had an average of 3 months' turnover anyway, but people are very reluctant to hire you when your resume says "I've had much better than this place has to offer."
Could I hang out my shingle and run my own operation - sure, for about 6-18 months before a very probable crash and burn and return to corporate life. Or, I could do the consultant - travel gig, great money in that - and airports are so much fun, especially today - right?
🌻🌻 [google.com]
(Score: 3, Insightful) by The Mighty Buzzard on Sunday May 10 2020, @09:28AM (18 children)
See, you listed off several choices right there and that's without even leaving the comfort zone of the type of job you're afraid to switch from. If you insist on only working one type of secure wage slave jobs in one industry, that isn't even remotely the same as being forced to.
My rights don't end where your fear begins.
(Score: 3, Interesting) by JoeMerchant on Sunday May 10 2020, @12:22PM (17 children)
Absolutely, I can chose to go from a retirement at 70 in my current home trajectory over to something that puts me 90% chance of having to work until I'm dead or disabled, likely having to give up not only the boat, but also the house. There's no gun to my head. Just like the people working at WalMart who genuinely can't find anything better don't have a "gun" to their head, most of them are already on federal assistance anyway - they can go try something entrepreneurial and end up on total assistance within 3 months.
I'm not saying it's slavery, and my company does make good and valuable products. I actually do provide some good and valuable services to my company which help bring those products to market. However, having done the same kind of work in startup environments for 30+ years, I can pretty confidently estimate that my present contributions to said product development are down around 10% of what they could be in a different, less risk averse corporate structure. Benefits to the patients about the same. Here I'm just ensuring the patients continue to receive the status quo, and once every 10 years or so we buy out a startup that has done something actually innovative and we bring that product to a wider market; the kind of innovative ideas that I used to spin up from concept into marketable products a couple of times a year. That's what's ridiculous - my personal benefits are much better here, my cost to the world for (my perception of) the value of the services I provide to the customers on the other hand have gone up well over 10x.
So, like Wally, no complaints, just ironic observation of a situation I'd be idiotic to walk away from.
🌻🌻 [google.com]
(Score: 2) by The Mighty Buzzard on Sunday May 10 2020, @12:33PM (16 children)
Or you could reach for the brass ring and take a chance. That you're unwilling to means you will punch a clock and be miserable for the rest of your life. That is the choice you have made but it is not your only choice. It's just the one you're least afraid to make.
My rights don't end where your fear begins.
(Score: 2) by JoeMerchant on Sunday May 10 2020, @12:40PM (15 children)
Keep buyin' those lottery tickets Buzzy, you can't win if you don't play.
🌻🌻 [google.com]
(Score: 2) by The Mighty Buzzard on Monday May 11 2020, @10:29AM (14 children)
You mock but it's the absolute truth. You ever want to be anything but a wage slave, you have to risk failure. Life ain't easy and it ain't safe but you can't succeed if you don't even try.
My rights don't end where your fear begins.
(Score: 3, Interesting) by JoeMerchant on Monday May 11 2020, @12:01PM (13 children)
Like the little twat who sold all his possessions, rented a tux and went and bet it all on a single roulette spin "Black." He openly acknowledged that the "only way" he could take such a risk was because of the safety net his parents provided. My parents are school teachers, their parents were a schoolteacher, mechanic, security guard and a hairdresser - I'd rate my safety net as thin, not the kind you can use more than once, but still better than average. After that, it's the government's safety net between me and homelessness/starvation. Most people hit that bottom even easier.
We should have a government safety net, I'm not arguing against that. It should be thin - not particularly pleasant to live on, but reliable enough to keep people from deteriorating into more expensive conditions to recover from. What we shouldn't have is a social structure that requires you to take a high risk falling on that net, repeatedly, just to have a chance of getting ahead.
I have learned a bit about startup businesses after 30 years of working in and around them. It takes money to make one go, the more the better. Generally speaking, any enterprise I have known that employs ~10-20 people, from food service to small time manufacturing, seems to require something in the order of magnitude of $5M to get going. The old guys who have succeeded, or near-succeeded, doing stuff like that won't even entertain the idea of starting a new venture without that capital. Similarly, when these guys get up in their 80s, they tend to sit on the sidelines and say things like "I'm just too old to get out and raise the money to start something new." Most people in their 20s, 30s, 40s may not be too old to raise the money, but unless they're top 1% B.S. peddlers, or connected by family or similar ties, they're unlikely to get that kind of seed investment from the people that have it to invest. When I was ~28, I made a semi-conscious choice: I turned down the opportunity to go to Boca Raton and basically beg for investment money for our business. I'm good at a lot of different things, I enjoy a lot of different things, I have successfully participated as a junior team member in the investment capital seeking process - I never enjoyed it, and by the opportunities I have chosen to pass over, I effectively have decided I'll never find out if I'm good at leading the begging process. There's too much lying, posturing of false financial security, over-polishing of results, etc. expected in the process for me to ever enjoy it. Also, I've known several people who "won" that venture capital brass ring grabbing contest - they all aged 20 years in the next 5 after they got it.
In VC land, after you win the $5M or whatever seed money investment, you're highly encouraged to succeed, but very much expected to fail. The track record is over 95% failure within 3 years. This also seems to apply to smaller businesses like independent restaurants in urban areas. Sure, you can franchise from Landrys - locate in a chic urban redevelopment zone, etc. and pad your chances of surviving, but that success padding also comes at a rather extreme cost of profit sharing with the franchise, lease holders, investors, etc. Risk control amounts to "working for the man" again, without benefits, and again you're most likely to need that safety net.
Very true, but also advice that would send most of those who follow it directly onto whatever safety nets they have, and I'd prefer if my tax dollars didn't have to pay for the aftermath of failed risky schemes just so my fellow countrymen have a chance to be something besides a wage slave.
🌻🌻 [google.com]
(Score: 2) by The Mighty Buzzard on Tuesday May 12 2020, @10:55AM (12 children)
Dude, whatever. I'll sit over here with my brass ring and you can sit over there thinking it's all blind luck. It's not, of course. I could start with nothing but the clothes on my back and be fiddling with another brass ring just like this one inside a year. But if you need the warmth your envy provides you to keep the cold your faintness of heart is dumping on you, go ahead and keep snuggling in it.
My rights don't end where your fear begins.
(Score: 2) by JoeMerchant on Tuesday May 12 2020, @12:50PM (11 children)
I don't think you've got one of the brass rings I'm looking at - that's that thing about happiness, it's all relative. Dude in a three wall shack is happy when his roof keeps most of the rain off his dirt floor and his sleeping pallet is high enough to keep him out of the mud - after all, look at the neighbors who have holes in their roof and mats in the mud.
I'm glad you've found satisfaction at your level. For all my bitching about the absurdity of the corporate world, I'm really happy with what I've got. I see how it could be a lot better for a lot more people, but I'm not in a bad spot, as evidenced by the total lack of better options around me.
Whether you feel envy or not, the inequality is there. When you're king of your own particular dung hill, the view is pretty good all around. Most of my life I've been playing on dung hills in the $10M-100M class, where I can see the top clearly, but have little chance of reaching it myself - and I am, and always have been, totally O.K. with that - I don't need nor particularly want to trade places with the people on the top of those dung hills, there are problems that come with the position and some tradeoffs I wouldn't want to make to get there. 7 years ago, I jumped off one $30M dung hill onto another much nicer one, and a year later that one got bought and consolidated into a $100B dung hill. Life here is better overall, even if the local peak is higher. Shit does indeed still roll downhill, but if you think about how pointy the top of the pyramid is, it's not surprising how little of it hits me on the way down.
🌻🌻 [google.com]
(Score: 2) by The Mighty Buzzard on Tuesday May 12 2020, @01:24PM (10 children)
I'm glad you're happy with where you are. But why then have you been going off on the safe jobs not being upwardly mobile enough to suit you? Momentary annoyance, reflex, something else?
And, yeah, you wouldn't dig my brass ring. A lot of folks aren't well suited to working a week or less a month on average and a lot of folks aren't going to be happy with my income level. It's damned near ideal for me though and should I want more all I have to do is turn down less work or hustle up a little more. No way would it work if I weren't willing to shoulder the risk of taking sole responsibility for my financial stability though.
Lastly, economic inequality ain't a bad thing. People are not equal in all things, there are just certain things we demand they be treated equally in. Income has never and will never be a viable candidate for that class. Different people contribute to society in insanely different amounts and that absolutely should be reflected in their wallets. Capitalism ain't perfect at that (it can be gamed) but it is very good at it. Worlds better than any other economic system. I mean, you've said yourself that you're unwilling to take the risks and responsibilities that come with moving higher up the food chain. You can't justifiably complain if that's a position you've taken.
My rights don't end where your fear begins.
(Score: 2) by JoeMerchant on Tuesday May 12 2020, @03:56PM (9 children)
I think - more feel, really - that the pointy pyramids are bad, unqualified bad, because of what ends up happening to the bottom when the top is so high they can't even imagine what life is like down there below the clouds. Shit does indeed roll downhill, and when your toilet is in the stratosphere and it's been 20 years since you even took a look below the clouds, you really have zero appreciation for what the blue-ice bombs do on the ground. It's all relative, and people who operate at those heights easily forget that they are ultimately people, just like the mud dwellers at the bottom. For the most part, they're not up there because they're faster, stronger or smarter, and even when they are relatively smart, strong, nimble or quick - they forget (or, some of them are actually aware and very afraid) that there are millions down in the mud who are actually smarter, quicker and more nimble than they are, but have much less chance of ascending than the dim bulbs who are born near the peaks. I guess I never grew up, I still feel like we'd all be better off, including the peak dwellers, if there were even a little bit more "fair" in the world.
One of the things that kind of eats at me about being a Wally is that, in the real world, you can't really crow about it or there's a real risk of losing your spot. As for the income level, my kids are more than a full time job which keeps my wife and a few others employed, so I'm left earning the bread for something like 4.2 mouths - and we like our perks: the house on some land, 4 cars and a sailboat, when you've got decent cash income, it skews choices like who changes the oil.
No, but... through my entire life I've watched the top rocket away from the bottom, and as compared to 50 years ago it's getting pretty ridiculous around here.
Yes, but... there's a near-total disconnect between the real contributions and the remuneration that reaches the wallets, at least when I look up from my present position at the highly compensated executives, and down to the people who grind it out on the lower service tiers. I see maybe 5% value based compensation and 95% "connection based" compensation - you're worth more according to who you have access to than what you do.
Capitalism is a word that ties to all kinds of ideals - ideals that aren't very faithfully implemented anywhere, including the U.S. Communism got tied to some even more problematic implementations in the U.S.S.R. and China - if you look at Cuba and the challenges that Communism faced there for the last 50 years, I'd say it did pretty well for the circumstances. Not that I'd trade my life to live in Cuba, not that they had it good for the last 50 years, but certainly better than say North Korea.
For all my bitching about starting points, I was born a white male in the U.S. Southeast in the 1960s - easily top 5% starting advantage in the world at that time. I feel like post WWII US politics, for all of it's imperialistic adventuring to feed the MIC, was relatively idealistic - Civil rights, Women's rights, etc. a lot of progress was made in a short time. Cold war was a curious exercise, and one which the U.S. came out of with tremendous advantages. I hope those advantages aren't squandered over the next 50 years.
I think it's something that all people (well, at least the bottom 90% of the wealth distribution) in the western economies should not only complain about, but strive to change - like the ending of racial and sexual discrimination (works still in progress, of course): the ending of economic discrimination - not to some total equality holding hands singing Kumbaya - but a progressive reversal and shrinking of the wealth gap that has been growing faster and faster over the last decades.
We're all genetically compatible - pre-conception, most peoples' children have roughly the same chances for ability to contribute to society later in life, but... who your parents are skews those chances, and every action thereafter continues to skew them until a really sad number of people with really high potential end up asking "do you want fries with that?" or the equivalent for far too much of their life. The structure that requires them to risk destitution to reach the next level opportunities should be broken down.
🌻🌻 [google.com]
(Score: 2) by The Mighty Buzzard on Wednesday May 13 2020, @11:46AM (8 children)
And over the exact same span, how rapidly has everyone's standard of living increased? And don't give me the standard "it's so much worse", nostalgic, idiotic nonsense. Think about what life was actually like for poor folks when you were a kid and compare it to now. See, huge currency gains equate to one of two things for every individual (inheritance aside as it's lateral or downward movement of capital, almost never upward): massive contributions to society by them or a deft hand at gambling. They either made their money by providing what people want or by gambling in the markets. Neither of those are harmful to anyone in society in any way and neither are morally or ethically bad.
No, there's not. You think there is only because, not wanting and refusing to take said responsibility, you do not understand that responsibility's value. For the most part, people get paid what the folks hiring them think they're worth. Now the ones doing the hiring may be right or they may be wrong but that's irrelevant since they're using their best judgment and you can't expect more. Yes, there are exceptions. No, the exceptions are not the norm and aren't even really statistically relevant.
Dude, you're buying the class warfare envy line the Dems are selling when you're absolutely smart enough that you should be able to see it for the idiotic, self-serving, morally repugnant nonsense that it is. Someone having more than you, even millions of times more, does not make your life any worse. It does not in any way entitle you to any of what they have. And it does not make them in any way morally incorrect. They did not step on your neck to get their wealth. They sold you goods and service you were willing, often even eager, to pay for to improve your life in some way. And they contributed many jobs and much wealth flow back into the economy to do so.
Lastly, fuck, man, do you think only poor people have to take risks if they want rewards? Aside from sticking your money in a bank and hoping the interest rate outpaces inflation (it often does not and you lose wealth by doing that), there are no safe ways to make more money. What folks are lacking is not opportunity or potential, it's education in how to life. Little things like "never spend more on a car than on your house", "acquire a skill that has a history of always being in respectable demand", and "keep a bare minimum of three months living expenses saved back for emergencies no matter how much you have to tighten your belt until you've done so". Parents who don't know this shit can't teach it, so we need to be teaching this shit from some other angle. Could be in public schools, could be through for-profit ventures (necessarily low cost), or could be outright charitable endeavors.
My rights don't end where your fear begins.
(Score: 3, Insightful) by Arik on Thursday May 14 2020, @09:02PM (2 children)
When I was growing up, most families only needed one paycheck. Today, most families require two paychecks.
That doesn't sound like a better standard of living.
If laughter is the best medicine, who are the best doctors?
(Score: 2) by The Mighty Buzzard on Friday May 15 2020, @11:25AM (1 child)
You're really going to ignore the undeniable fact of all the quality of life advancements that've become available even to the poorest folks over the past 50 years? Dude, we're done here if you're going to be that disingenuous.
My rights don't end where your fear begins.
(Score: 2) by Arik on Thursday May 28 2020, @12:15AM
There are certainly improvements in technology, and some can reasonably be associated with quality of life. There's no denying that, I wouldn't try.
But at what cost do those things come? Quality of life isn't about having the best things, even the best medicine. It's more important in quality of life terms to have time for your family than to have any of those things.
If laughter is the best medicine, who are the best doctors?
(Score: 2) by JoeMerchant on Sunday May 17 2020, @04:14AM (4 children)
So, here I think our difference in life experience is why we're never going to agree on this point.
You may see small business owners as highly responsible heroes worthy of their position... I might begin to agree with that point, although I've known far too many heartless greedy assholes who focus on the power of their position far more than the responsibility aspects - quick to hire at bottom dollar and bottom benefits - quick to fire with zero notice for zero cause on the part of the employee. If I'm not mistaken "employment at will" wasn't a thing until the 1990s, that's a major step back in quality of life and security for everybody who works under it.
What I have experienced more of are petulant trust fund babies at the top of their businesses, abusing and neglecting their responsibilities - literally cocaine addicted landlords who show up once every couple of years to check on their building managers, the list is long and twisted, but these are the people I have seen at the tops of many dung heaps - maybe they have responsibility and they're abusing it, but it's not stopping them from getting paid.
I do know plenty of smaller landlords and other people who do take responsibility and get money for it - they're not all bad or evil and the position of being "in charge" doesn't automatically corrupt, my first CEO was a genuinely good guy - flawed like we all are - and Jewish so we were never paid more than market rate, but he did try to keep us around market rate, and would fix it when we reminded him we were falling behind. So, so many others are just power tripping and taking advantage of their position for personal gain with their only regard for their employees seemingly being to disable their ex-employees from suing them.
Has "standard of living" really gone up for the poor? What kind of debt did kids graduate from college with in the 1960s? Almost uniformly zero. What kind of work did these kids have to do if they needed to work their way through school paying their own way? Well, for starters, that was an actual physical possibility back then - now you're lucky to get a 4 year degree on your even with loans. What kinds of jobs waited for them when they got out with a degree? Proportionally more and better than today where kids go back home and live in the basement for years - it's not entirely because "kids these days are just lazier" - although that might be part of it - there genuinely is less opportunity, where it took me and my parents a few weeks to months to find a decent job in our chosen fields that time is much longer on average now, and many more people are forced into employment "downmarket" from their skillsets. Yeah, should have studied a more valuable skill, right? Hard to do when the market flip-flops faster than you can get a degree.
All good common sense, and I think it all still applies, but... big but here... it's not Dems peddling brainwashing, Dems are a big part of the problem, there really is a difference in the cost/opportunity landscape out there and nobody is doing anything real about turning around the changes in the world to bring costs down and opportunities up.
Personally, I think the whole system is too damn corrupt to fix it with little pork projects here and there, special laws for special interests, etc. A structural change, like a flat tax where everybody from the short order cook to Warren Buffet pays the same percentage of income in income tax, plus UBI to bring up the bottom to a "living wage" - that could change things for the better. Throw out minimum wage, throw out most of the social security crap - UBI - Universal Basic Income for every citizen. Want to live and work in the country as a non-citizen, fine - but until you become a citizen: no UBI for you. Would solve the whole immigration/wall thing real quick. It could change the landscape for the better for most people, except those who get off on having people serve them because they're afraid they (or their children) will starve if they don't.
🌻🌻 [google.com]
(Score: 2) by The Mighty Buzzard on Sunday May 17 2020, @12:01PM
I see them as people, the same as everyone else. Except that they contribute far more to society than if the same person were shoveling shit or slinging burgers.
No, you haven't. They just chap your ass to an absurd degree, so you think you have. Trust fund babies are a lower percentage of the population than transsexuals.
Dude, you just took the position that not being able to go to college at all was better than being able to go to college by assuming idiotic levels of debt. That's a stupidass position. Rethink it.
And college is an expensive luxury. It has never been a necessity. The idea that it is was created by the boomers inadvertently teaching their kids that there was something terrible about working for a living. I've been both blue and white collar and I'll tell you straight: your life will be happier with a blue collar than a white one if you put the same amount of effort into learning a trade that you would have learning shit at college.
But in selecting college as your standard, you've neglected computers (including the one you carry around in your pocket), air conditioning, multiple televisions, game systems, the Internet, access to healthcare worlds beyond what we had in the 60s, being able to finish school at all without having to drop out and take a job, and countless other things that even most of the poorest households take for granted nowadays. Take the rose-colored glasses off and remember how that shit really was.
That would work for approximately one election cycle. The very next one the Dems would be trying to add extra handouts on to buy votes. Having a party dedicated to making people think they can vote themselves someone else's money and that it's perfectly okay to do so is insanity of the highest order and will destroy the nation. That's not hyperbole.
My rights don't end where your fear begins.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday May 17 2020, @02:56PM (2 children)
Yes the actual reality is WAY worse than you think, you have watch a video to grok it
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QPKKQnijnsM [youtube.com]
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday June 01 2020, @11:43PM
Good luck getting Buzzy to actually view that, and if he does he'll still have some Libertarian excuse for it.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday June 02 2020, @08:55AM
I'm a pretty conservative and free market guy. I was off the first two by favoring the rich more than the stated amount. But even so, I way underestimated the third one.
(Score: 0, Flamebait) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday May 06 2020, @06:13PM (23 children)
More far right articles pushed by Soylent news. Dilbert is written by Scott "Trump is doing a great job" Adams, he has aligned himself with Hitler and we have to stop supporting his works.
#freearistarchus
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday May 06 2020, @07:07PM (1 child)
I say Denis Miller on Fox the other day. Still no longer funny. Funny how giving in to fear destroys your funny bone.
(Score: 2) by UncleSlacky on Sunday May 24 2020, @03:49PM
That's because Bill Hicks isn't alive to steal from anymore.
(Score: 2, Informative) by bzipitidoo on Wednesday May 06 2020, @09:00PM (13 children)
OMG, Adams supports Trump? He's gone native!
I haven't paid attention to Dilbert for over a decade. Was a shock to learn this about Adams.
(Score: 3, Interesting) by The Vocal Minority on Thursday May 07 2020, @05:27AM (6 children)
If you consider the OP to be an authoritative source of information then you have bigger problems than Adams supporting Trump. BTW he has also voiced support for AoC, I hope that doesn't make you brain explode!
(Score: 5, Insightful) by bzipitidoo on Thursday May 07 2020, @04:01PM (5 children)
No, for something unexpected like that, I did some searching. What I found would seem to confirm that Adams has argued in Trump's favor. Now, it could be that Adams was being sly. The world, maybe, is less straightforward than usual.
These are strange times. What is wrong with America? The last superpower standing, after the Soviet Union collapsed under its own vast propaganda and lies. Ending the Cold War in such a peaceful manner was a triumph of humanity and science and good sense. America has long been a patron of science and knowledge, and has been richly rewarded for that. It wasn't just sheer size that made America a superpower, made America great. The moon landings were a feat of scientific prowess, a demonstration of the power of freedom of thought. Telling too, that many great scientists came to America to escape oppression. The Soviet Union tried to dominate chess, and Bobby Fischer beat them there. They pulled the loser move of building the Berlin Wall, a resort to force because persuasion was not working, they couldn't sell even their own captive audience on Communism.
And now? What happened? WTF happened? Now America wants to build a wall?? How could we lose our sense of global community, and go back to savagery and ignorance, seeing in others only rivals and competitors to be feared and contested with, and throw our morals to the wind, sell our integrity and good reputation so cheaply, for nothing, less than nothing, paying a big price to get rid of it, acting as if it's unwanted, for a little temporary advantage in that fight? Is it that victory of such magnitude makes a people soft and weak because there's no more challenge to meet? But there is a challenge: Global Warming. It doesn't have a face like Communism did, no portrait of Lenin. But we're not all pulling together to meet that problem. No, instead, many are in denial, seeing in all this only a diabolically clever means for scientists to put one over on everyone else, just to score a victory in one round of the endless internecine rivalry. Never mind "who lost Russia?" How did we lose ourselves?
I don't know what Scott Adams is trying to accomplish thereby, if he is playing games with us. Seems to have cost him a movie deal at the least. Maybe he's now so rich he doesn't care much about money any more.
(Score: 4, Informative) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday May 07 2020, @06:44PM (1 child)
What it comes down to is that Adams doesn't have TDS and can formulate a T-chart of the pros and cons of the situation. He predicted that Trump was going to win in 2016 because he was the better candidate and better at persuasion than Hillary could ever hope to be. Since then he has turned from a meh feeling toward Trump to thinking the T-chart of American success weighs heavily that Trump is more pro than con. He criticizes Trump on a regular basis but finds overall he is doing a good job. Because of his bet that Trump would win in '16 he has lost his primary source of income (speaking engagements) and estimates over the four years at least ten million in losses (net worth is ~90). He identifies as left of Bernie when it comes to policy but is a hawk on China. Doesn't appear to support a wall, but notes that all the high up politicians in both parties supported it until Trump did, so its pointless to debate as party level opposition is currently fake.
source: have listened to him twice daily since the pandemic began, and once daily for the three+ years before that.
(Score: 3, Insightful) by redneckmother on Monday May 11 2020, @08:06PM
Hmmm... my opinion of Trump is that he's a Pro at being a Con. Just my opinion.
Flames > /dev/null
Mas cerveza por favor.
(Score: 3, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday May 07 2020, @09:49PM (1 child)
Strange times, indeed. It's strange that expressing support for the democratically elected President inspires so much outrage and ruins careers.
(Score: 2) by Kitsune008 on Saturday May 30 2020, @12:03AM
'Democratically elected'? Did you just wake up Rip van Winkle?
He was elected by the Electoral College, not by a democratic popular vote.(which he lost said democratic popular vote by 2.8 million votes)
He may have won the election, but it is utter bullshit to say he was 'democratically elected' when he clearly lost the democratic election(popular vote).
(Score: 2) by JoeMerchant on Sunday May 10 2020, @03:54AM
I used to read his blog a lot - if he's putting us on about supporting Trump, he's been staying "in character" remarkably consistently for years now, from before the election through today. It also fits with some of his non-Trump political rants going on about taxes on the money he earned and deserves to keep all for himself and his purposes - so it would appear he's not yet so rich that he doesn't care about making/keeping less money.
🌻🌻 [google.com]
(Score: 3, Interesting) by JoeMerchant on Sunday May 10 2020, @02:09AM (3 children)
I used to read Adams' blog, he used to be a pretty reasonable guy. This is from 15 year old memory, subject to distortions, omissions and inaccuracies, but the story as I remember it: Back around 2004-ish he posted in his blog about a struggle he had with ideopathic aphasia - in his case an inability to speak in person to person or small group settings, for some reason his presentation style speaking was mostly unaffected. After several weeks/months of worsening of the condition and increasing distress, he hit on the phrase "Jack be nimble, Jack be quick, Jack jump over the candlestick." He was able to repeat that fluently, it "felt good" doing it, and the more he did it, the more he banished his aphasia symptoms, to near total recovery.
I stopped reading his blog around 2006, moved states and didn't get back to it for several years. When I looked for the above stories around 2012 (I think) they were gone from his blog, and nearly erased from mention everywhere I looked on the web, including places like the wayback machine.
Perhaps coincidental, perhaps not: his political fervor seemed to rise quite a bit after that - and by the time Trump came around, I became convinced that it was more than his speech center that was damaged.
🌻🌻 [google.com]
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday May 10 2020, @06:03AM (2 children)
You can easily have a stroke and suffer brain damage while remaining unaware and without obvious symptoms... Scary to think about!
(Score: 2) by DannyB on Monday June 01 2020, @09:28PM
Even modern mental health care has difficulty helping people to achieve complete recovery from having programmed in Perl.
To transfer files: right-click on file, pick Copy. Unplug mouse, plug mouse into other computer. Right-click, paste.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday June 02 2020, @09:01AM
A friend of mine did a rotation or residency or whatever it is called in a radiology department. He said that at least once every other day, he spotted a stroke, aneurism, ischemia, or the like that was completely unmentioned in the paperwork. On more than one occasion during his time there, he would be left to wonder how the person had managed to walk in to their provider at all given what he was seeing.
(Score: 2) by el_oscuro on Tuesday May 12 2020, @04:15AM (1 child)
Scott Adams correctly predicted Trumps victory months in advance"
https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/comic-riffs/wp/2016/03/21/donald-trump-will-win-in-a-landslide-the-mind-behind-dilbert-explains-why/ [washingtonpost.com]
"Adams, mind you, is not endorsing Trump or supporting his politics. (“I don’t think my political views align with anybody,” he tells The Post’s Comic Riffs, “not even another human being.”) And he is not saying that Trump would be the best president. What the Bay Area-based cartoonist recognizes, he says, is the careful art behind Trump’s rhetorical techniques. And The Donald, he says, is playing his competitors like a fiddle — before beating them like a drum.
Most simply put: Adams believes Trump will win because he’s “a master persuader.”
The Manhattan mogul is so deft at the powers of persuasion, Adams believes, that the candidate could have run as a Democrat and, by picking different hot-button issues, still won this presidency. In other words: Trump is such a master linguistic strategist that he could have turned the political chessboard around and still embarrassed the field."
Trump completely 0wned the Republican party - and destroyed it.
SoylentNews is Bacon! [nueskes.com]
(Score: 2) by DannyB on Monday June 01 2020, @09:30PM
Trump is a master debater.
The rest of the time he's playing with his Tweeter.
To transfer files: right-click on file, pick Copy. Unplug mouse, plug mouse into other computer. Right-click, paste.
(Score: 2, Funny) by Ethanol-fueled on Thursday May 07 2020, @03:16AM (1 child)
Perhaps then we should have the same poll but instead for Hillary's favorite tech strip XKCD. Then the poll options would be:
But my serious answer to this poll is a combination of Dilbert and, as much as I hate to admit it, Topper. I'm trying to work on not always tooting my own horn and having the last word but having worked with so many assholes over the years, old habits die hard.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday June 01 2020, @11:49PM
They must have given you the ol' stink eye every day for that much asshole to rub off on you.
(Score: 4, Funny) by Hartree on Friday May 08 2020, @04:10AM
"#freearistarchus"
Must have been, cause I sure wouldn't have paid for him!
(Or Ethanol Fueled, for that matter. But I might buy either of them a drink.)
(Score: 2) by VLM on Friday May 08 2020, @02:12PM
OK so far. I was always told those were the bad guys but clearly they're getting an image rehabilitation by being positively associated. Well, we've always been at war with Eastasia and all that 1984 stuff. I'm so old I remember when Russia was the journalist's closest ally not enemy like today, LOL.
Oh, I'm breathless with anticipation.
Nooooooo that doesn't make sense.... The definition of "the good guys" is changing over time, change is OK, etc.
(Score: 3, Insightful) by khallow on Friday May 08 2020, @09:51PM
Tell 2: No specific criticism
Tell 4: Analogy Arguments
Tell 5: Peering Into the Soul of a Stranger
If you could express fake surprise, "Wow" (Tell 1) and then tell us what Adams is really saying (Tell 3), you'd check off the other two too.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday May 27 2020, @08:45PM (1 child)
Adams, he has aligned himself with Hitler
No concentration camps. The gas chambers are empty!
Socialist policies totally failing all over the place.
Managed to not start a world war, twice.
Worst hitler ever.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday June 02 2020, @12:00AM
Takes a real dummy to not see what Trump is.
"You've got to arrest people, you have to track people, you have to put them in jail for 10 years and you'll never see this stuff again," Mr Trump said.
Ah yes, such a great way to handle protesters. Yup, real freedom loving SCROTUS we've got here.
(Score: 4, Insightful) by Thexalon on Wednesday May 06 2020, @06:28PM (1 child)
... but really, the one I'd probably enjoy being most is Phil, Ruler of Heck.
The only thing that stops a bad guy with a compiler is a good guy with a compiler.
(Score: 2) by JoeMerchant on Sunday May 10 2020, @02:17AM
Not Mordoc: preventer of information services?
🌻🌻 [google.com]
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday May 06 2020, @08:50PM (2 children)
None.
I'm not a stereotype...
(Score: 1, Touché) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday May 07 2020, @06:45PM
Thats what I thought you would say
(Score: 2) by Hartree on Friday May 08 2020, @04:08AM
You are the new Number 6!
(Score: 5, Funny) by Hartree on Friday May 08 2020, @04:15AM (2 children)
Who I think I am: The Garbageman
Who my enemies think I am: Mordac the preventer of Information Services
Who my friends think I am: Dilbert
Who I really am: Wally
(Score: 3, Funny) by krishnoid on Friday May 08 2020, @07:16AM
What your friends blame you for building: This guy [dilbert.com]
(Score: 4, Touché) by VLM on Friday May 08 2020, @02:28PM
I had internal and external customers who thought how various networking protocols were designed and operated was me as a loose cannon implementing some kind of personal attack.
You haven't really done network support until someone accuses the existence of bridge spanning tree protocol or BGP route dampening or DNS TTL attributes of being your fault or you not wanting to work harder or something.
(Score: 3, Funny) by VLM on Friday May 08 2020, @02:23PM (2 children)
I picked Wally because lets face it, I spent a quarter century in one form or another implementing variations on "Fuck that manual procedure I'm gonna replace that entire multi hour process with a very tiny shell script" and then I'd sip freshly brewed tea and shitpost on /. and the chans for hours every day and the bosses didn't care because I was saving the company so much labor money by turning hundreds of hours of paid labor into paying me a couple hours a week to shitpost and be on call for troubleshooting.
All Wally ever did in the comics, as I recall, was sip a drink and shitpost verbally; if I'm misremembering, well, then its just too early in the morning.
(Score: 2) by looorg on Friday May 08 2020, @10:04PM (1 child)
Indeed, it pretty much has to be Wally. I (not so) secretly wish I was Catbert but when things come down to it I'm probably Wally. I'm just not evil, or care, enough.
(Score: 3, Informative) by looorg on Friday May 08 2020, @10:07PM
... come to think of it I'm turning more and more into this guy every passing day. When being Wally just isn't enough anymore.
http://folk.uio.no/hpv/linuxtoons/dilbert-unix.png [folk.uio.no]
(Score: 1, Funny) by Anonymous Coward on Monday May 11 2020, @07:43PM
I am Mordac, Preventer of Information Services!
(Score: 1, Touché) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday May 13 2020, @12:55PM
oh, you still have a job? sucker!
(Score: 1) by RandomFactor on Sunday May 17 2020, @11:24PM
Which Schlock Mercenary character most closely matches your person or personality.
() Schlock
() Tagon
() Petey
() Cindy
() Breya
() Chinook
() Ennesby
() Chisulo
() Kevyn
() Ventura
() Bunnigus
() Attorney drone
Disclaimer: I don't know the author's political leanings. Sorry.
Warning: If you like this stuff, there is 20 years of back-stories updated daily....
В «Правде» нет известий, в «Известиях» нет правды
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday May 23 2020, @04:44PM
I'm this guy: https://dilbert.com/strip/1995-06-24 [dilbert.com]
(Score: -1, Spam) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday May 24 2020, @09:25PM (1 child)
Are you enjoying COVID-19, Boomers? I hope you are, because your political response to the pandemic has completely destroyed the economy. Did we really need a Great Recession in 2008 caused by you, and a Great Lockdown in 2020 caused by you? Are you proud of yourselves for creating an economic depression even worse than the Great Depression of the 1930s? Are you proud of yourselves, Boomers? Your legacy will be economic ruin for all. You don't care as long as you Boomers continue to receive your pensions. You Boomers don't have jobs. You Boomers don't create jobs. You Boomers don't do anything for anyone ever. You Boomers are utterly worthless parasites. You don't care about anybody except yourselves. Everybody except you is forced at gunpoint to wear a facemask while you Boomers sit in your giant mansions laughing and waiting to die when you will be buried with your fortunes so nobody will ever touch your precious money.
Boomers did COVID-19.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday June 04 2020, @04:44AM
Hey staffers, was this message actually posted word for word elsewhere?