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What should individual developers do?

Fundamentally and writ large, tech makes us more efficient. Efficient means doing more with less labor. Which is good because it is deflationary: things get cheaper over time from tech advances, and without any tech we would all be subsistence farmers.

But it also means that yes, tech intrinsically enables capital to do more with less labor, thereby shifting the balance of power towards capital and empowering those with more capital.

What ‘we decide’ to do with that is another largely unrelated matter.


Those big anti-capital actions took bold class-betrayals from the inside. Notably Teddy Roosevelt (born with a silver spoon but wished he’d been in a log cabin) going after Standard Oil after taking their money for the campaign.

You’re also at the mercy of the libraries you use, no? Which likely makes this an increasingly niche case?

> You’re also at the mercy of the libraries you use, no?

To a certain extent. No one says you must use the, presumably newer, version of a library using generics or even use libraries at all. Although for any non-trivial program this is probably not how things are going to shake out for you.

> Which likely makes this an increasingly niche case?

This assumes that dependencies in general will on average converge on using generics. If your assertion is that this is the case, I'm going to have to object on the basis that there are a great many libraries out there today that were feature-complete before generics existed and therefore are effectively only receiving bug fix updates, no retrofit of generics in sight. And there is no rule that dictates all new libraries being written _must_ use generics.


If you see someone do it well (the word ‘genteel’ comes to mind) you can find that verbos it and awkwardness will detract from both the directness and honesty.

‘Traditional’ etiquette books are actually pretty good at this stuff: one definition of etiquette is to never out another ill at ease or uncomfortable. Discomfort is contagious especially through body language, so the first thing you must do is be comfortable yourself with the feedback you’re giving.


Or it means you haven’t practiced and some parts of the space are more difficult for you to traverse individually but still orthogonal objectively. I would say that something isn’t orthogonal if it is impossible to be both. It is clearly possible, just not practiced or easy.

I could grant there is also an objective friction surface, a fourth scalar describing how difficult it is to be direct, honest, and polite at once.


For me:

- the goal

- 5 dysfunctions of a team

- the first 90 days

A friend swears by:

- atomic habits

- seven habits of highly effective people

(Slightly different genre but quite close)


Oooooh! I forgot about Atomic Habits. It's not only one of the best "business books" I've ever read. It's the single best "self-help" book I've ever read.

I disagree on "Seven Habits" as its model of "effectiveness" is only applicable to (for lack of a better term) extroverted vocations.


Familiar more with the first two and going to suggest there is a distinction between those and the phenomenon originally described in the thread (having read some others too)

Reven that being said, there could be value in those ‘repeat’ books inasmuch as one framing/telling may resonate with some more than others and get the message through, even if same message through multiple books.


Or Catholic primary/secondary education.

But still, both are highly variable in quality/coverage and likely much less consistent than you might assume if unfamiliar with the space.


I think the realistic possible end-states are either effectively Facebook controls the app store that matters or Apple/Google do.


That's not the end-state that was achieved on macs, why would it be on the one achieved on iPads or iPhones?


And somehow despite that ecosystem existing before, new entrants Apple and Google emerged victorious. Maybe it had something to do with their different approach.


I doubt it was because people wanted The App Store. If the PocketPC/Windows Mobile had an App Store it would not have won.

Featurephones had App Stores like Verizon’s “Get It Now” and it was obvious that they were money grabs like Apple’s.

Apple and Google won the game because the phones were powerful enough to make web browsing feasible, and had great text input.

If nobody had thought of app stores, it would have been trivial to distribute .ipa’s and .apk’s on the Web just like Windows and Mac software still predominantly is.


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