Just another reason not to use Linux. I've gone to bat so many times for Linus but time and time again he proves that Benevolent Dictators for Life on tech projects are a bad idea for modern times.
Child Labor, like illegal immigration, like having a narco state on its borders, like endless wars, like keeping opium production at record levels during its unjust, cruel, and senseless occupation of Afghanistan, benefits the US elites.
It does not benefit you or I, plebes, but the holy few that are chasing profits at all costs while crushing everyone else.
The US has a history of doing highly illegal stuff for profits and the unwashed masses be damned.
This is just a lame attempt at saying that there's a problem and it's being addressed. It's like if you know your neighbor is very hungry and instead of inviting them for diner or giving them a nice meal, you give them a crinkled dollar.
I always go back to the Tyson Chicken raids a few years ago to show just how broken this is.
ICE officials raided a few facilities a few years ago, and actually found about 900 undocumented workers.
Many of them gave evidence to officials, including written instructions from the company that advised them how to fill out employment, banking, taxation paperwork if they "didn't have documentation", i.e. Tyson didn't just know this was the case, they were actively enabling it.
And in press conferences, when journalists asked about any plans to investigate/punish Tyson, ICE "had no plans to do so".
What it actually ended up looking like, with some other safety issues raised around that time is that Tyson perhaps decided their undocumented workers were getting a little too angry about poor safety standards, and making waves. It would be entirely unsurprising if Tyson made a sweetheart deal with ICE that said "Hey, if you come to these plants, you'll get to make this big stink about undocumented workers" (and remember, this was during the Trump administration), "but in return, can you leave us out of it?".
"Won't someone rid me of these meddlesome workers?"
When the government did crack down on a big employer of illegal immigrants, in 2008, there were screams. A prominent Jew did go to jail for years, until pardoned by Trump. That was the last time enforcement got serious.
That's a common practice, but very foolish. If your employee is at all trustworthy they don't need to have their access revoked (and if they aren't trustworthy they'll just do the damage before they tell you they are leaving). So your org is robbing themselves of employee time without any actual benefit.
You're preaching to the choir here. The most depressing thing is that people leave, like a forest fire, behind echoes of their impacts but we never really get to give them their flowers. The turnover is so rote and frequent that when the best guy in the team leaves, it's not only just a 'I'm so proud to have ... Thank you guys...' email or slack message, but everyone else is like 'Just Another Monday in Corpo Hell.'
They pushed me out when I was a student in Uni struggling with Java 101. And my experience left me shocked that an industry could be so cruel to people trying to learn the ropes and be just another programmer.
Luckily, I persevered, and I give back to the programming community by always being kind to the folks that ask me for help; but I always help others offline and not in hostile web forums.
I've answered a lot of Java questions on SO. One of the themes is beginner questions, and a lot are essentially "do my homework for me," poorly researched, or poorly asked. What have you tried? What have you researched? Explain your understanding for why you think what you're doing should work.
Even if you're asking good beginner questions that don't already have an answer, you get tired of reading all the bad ones.
I just signed on and saw this one (#3 in my personalized "new questions"):
The person asking the question put in minimal effort and showed no concern for people answering. Why am I sifting through your merge sort code when you're asking "why can't it open the file?"
I asked two or three questions in SO back in 2014. And it was an awful experience. I got over my Java block by not just reading my Uni's textbook but by also reading another much older textbook.
I got so good at Java that I became a Lab/Teaching Assistant my last two years in college. And I helped folks the best I could in person: always kind, always patient, never blaming the student even if they didn't want to learn and just wanted to pass the Lab; that is an obviously wrong student attitude to have, but whether they cheat or want the answers without learning is between the student and god. I can only try my best to help.
Who cares if someone wants an answer to some test or project? Who cares if their question is not deep enough or poorly written? Just answer their question or don't. You don't need to impose your moral sense of fairness unto them: it's not that deep. And you especially don't need the snark and the putting down of others. Again, the simpler thing is to not engage at all which is obviously not what happened or happens under the sludge and grime of SO answers.
Being polite in answering questions is pro-social.
It's a more pleasant interaction when someone is polite. -- Whereas, if you get rude answers, you'll be discouraged from participating.
Asking good questions is pro-social. People are going to be more willing to help if the questions are well thought out. -- Whereas, asking in an anti-social way discourages people from helping out.
It's still possible to ask questions even if you get snarky responses back; and it's still possible to answer lazy questions... But in either case, it's easy to see why people might not like that.
You are interpreting ability as a social gesture, taking disability as an insult. Thusyou not participating in the part of society that is learning is a good thing.
There's a difference between "I haven't paid the full effort to figure the answer out myself" and "I haven't paid the effort that makes it easier for you to help me". -- There's no setting in which being rude is going to be more helpful than being polite.
Expectations vary; in some settings, it's going to be more acceptable for questions to be a more raw "I'm stuck and I need help" than in others.
There is an asymmetry: people giving answers are more able to help those who are asking questions. If the people learning don't like the teachers, they'll have to go elsewhere (& learning is harder). If the teachers don't like the students, they don't have to teach.
> I asked two or three questions in SO back in 2014.
Please link them! They should still be there, and we should be able to analyze them. The strength of Stack Exchange is that it is factual, like on Wikipedia, users are discouraged to be emotional and encouraged to to prove their theories.
> who cares if someone wants an answer to some test or project?
A visitor from Google, who doesn't want to search through dozens of "too localized" problems, that don't apply in his case. There are other places to ask such questions, and the strength of SO/SE lies in its ruleset.
I'd phrase this a bit differently, for the questioner's side of things.
I know from experience that when I'm frustrated, I need to keep trying something smaller (or otherwise get more information) until it becomes clear what's not working.
The kind of steps it takes to ask a good question goes hand in hand with the kind of steps you'd take to solve the problem yourself. (Similarly: with domain knowledge, you know what to look for; without domain knowledge, you don't know what to ask about).
If I put too high a value on other people's time, I'm never going to ask questions, and may be slower than if I'd asked a question at a suitable time. (Whereas, putting too little value on other people's time ... can cause friction).
If people had your level of insight and self-reflection, then SO would be less popular but much more helpful and probably not known for all the needless hostility.
It takes a lot of guts to ask for help. And being put down when you're vulnerable: exposing an ignorance or a lack of understanding, is not a good feeling at all. For me, it always sticks for a long time until I forget it.
Yes, that's beginners in nutshell. It's why it's so important to educate them rather than take the opposite stance which is to chastise them for being so inept. I wouldn't take their bad questions that personally myself, it's what it is, but also I am not a person to answer SO questions so there's that.
Those who answer questions want good questions but those who ask good questions probably solve them on their own. Leaving things as they are.
Who cares, people with homework need help too. They're beginners so asking them to formulate a perfect question or conduct research is basically a non-starter. If the barrier to entry is become a professional first, it's no wonder why the company and its user base are shrinking.
I think "professionals who can't figure this obscure things out" is the best use-case for SO, really. Perhaps being a professional is something to be required. I'm speaking only from my own experience. I have only ever asked a handful of questions on SO (going back to about 2011), and that's because I spend hours and hours trying to figure it out first. So yes, I think I do expect that of other questioners as well.
"Why won't my docker container build?" Well, because there's a typo in your instructions and it says so clearly in the error output. Of course we get tired of answering these types of questions.
Can you name those alternatives? I don't think SO/SE is being beaten by anything, it has no competition within the set of questions it allows. When it comes to other questions - of course other websites are better for answering the questions that are offtopic on SO/SE.
Grow some skin. Other then the snark it's a good resource.
I agree that the snark shouldn't be there but stack overflow is a good resource for lurkers and people who don't care and aren't so hurt by online mistreatment. It's just randos on the internet.
I don't need to grow skin on the internet where mistreatment is abundant. I just don't engage. Offline people can't treat you like shit because then they're gonna get treated like shit. Respect begets respect and good manners beget good manners.
The way SO folks talk to you ... I'll just say: try that offline and I'll pull your card no ifs or doubts.
Thats not the point. The point is who cares about the mistreatment. The objective is to get the relevant info. I'm one of the highest ranked people on SO.
And guess what? All I do on SO is ask stupid ass questions. One time someone scolded me, said I should know better for asking a certain question that was against policy of something given that my rank was so high. You know what I said to him?
Nothing. I just didn't give a shit. Stackoverflow is one of the few places on earth where you can ask the dumbest questions with zero consequence. The consequence is just in your head. Better to launch that dumbass question in stackoverflow than on your company slack.
I probably have 10 questions with negative points. My highest ranked question was likely the stupidest one I ever asked.
I care. And it's not "in my head." Read the comments here, others have had similar experiences to mine: I'm not just making it up; it's a real downside with real impact.
Now as for me: I don't mind being stupid (look at how often I get downvoted here in HN: water off a duck's back). I want to be treated in a dignified way. And if that's not happening and there are better sources out there, then I don't have to play the game of reading someone's snark or passive aggressive bs.
I don't want to read it not because it affects me in some psychological way (the internet is full of cruelty and I can handle it ok), but because it's tiresome: I've seen it before and have had it happen to me so many times that it's just boring.
If you treat me like shit but help me solve the problem, ok thank you. The problem is solved. Now on to the next. But if you treat me like shit and don't solve my problem, well then, I'll look elsewhere for the solution.
Well there's no alternative. People will think you're dumb if you ask a dumb question that's just society. If they aren't talking shit to your face then they're thinking it. Can't change human nature.
What better source is there? Stackoverflow is the best IMO. I'm up for a better resource if a better one actually exists.
The problem isn't the people asking questions, there will always be an infinite number of those.
It's the moderation scaring away the people who answer questions. Just because they haven't shooed away everyone doesn't mean they haven't had an impact.
I know that I no longer browse relevant SO topics "for fun" anymore.
Funny, it's the lack of moderation that scared me away from answering. (And I say that as someone who's… kinda been scared away from asking by excessive moderation.) It's the age-old question: how can Stack Overflow be all these different things to all these different people, simultaneously?
It's an incredibly difficult problem, and it's a people problem - as so many companies find out; they're solving people problems and the technology is really a side-note.
(This is the real answer to the "why does tech company X have so many employees" question)
Don't be scared of moderation. Just ask the question. If it gets shut down, you can ask again via copy+paste. Just edit the question slightly so it doesn't piss someone else off.
Here's a prototype of an average tone-deaf user of SO who think their imaginary internet points actually count. The point being raised here is the difficulty new users (with no imaginary internet points, but with dignity and self-respect) face while submitting a questions/answers to SO. Not people like you who've normalized the bullying for "getting info". Guess what, now with ChatGPT you can get answers that are on average of much better quality than average new SO answers without tolerating pricks.
Tone deaf isn't the word to describe anyone here. I think blind and stupid are the perfect two words to describe you.
if you ACTUALLY read the post you'll see that I literally said I asked the stupidest freaking questions ever. My entire post is trying to prove to him that asking dumb shit questions on SO is harmless and can even net you empty worthless points to be one of the top posters.
I don't even answer questions or ask smart questions on SO. I direct all the stupidest and most embarrassing questions I've ever had to that platform.
Spoken like someone who lurked in #Linux on EFNet.
There's a way to foster new people who are interested in your field. There's a time to explain something, and a time to say you're at a point where you should be able to grasp this, and point them in a direction, and wish them well. There's never a time to make someone feel stupid for simply asking a question, even if it really is a stupid question.
You're being silly, and you know it. I don't mean all Russians, just the ultranationalist garbage who back Putin's hamfisted attempts at rebuilding their old empire. And the idea that it's somehow a slur against all Slavs is just you revealing exactly how dishonest your complaint is.
@dang - can we not allow people who are deliberately misunderstanding other users to fabricate controversy on HN?
I don't like fiat money but wouldn't money tethered to an actual value store like silver or gold limit credit and future spending? Or is that some fiat-propaganda I've fallen for?
Can’t over inflate something that is impossible to over inflate.
That said, historically this ‘problem’ would be solved by conquering a neighbor or new land and stealing all their gold/silver, or debasing the currency bit by bit through slicing bits of metal off coins or melting impurities into them.
It's bullshit used to excuse and justify Fiat money.
There is no reason for a dynamically expanding money supply to exist (or even an expanding money supply at all).
Ultimately what actually matter is the goods and services being bought and sold, their price in whatever currency you use is irrelevant because the actual value remains the same.
> There is no reason for a dynamically expanding money supply to exist
This has been known since at least Sumer. The consistency of weights of measure is vital for a fair, durable, sustainable economy. Adjusting the ruler of trade only benefits the adjuster.
It would be one thing if all this debt was being spent on public works projects or universal welfare programs, but sadly it's being squandered away on unaccountable and dark military projects, cronyism, and all the worse avarice that humans are capable of.
I would gladly pay more taxes for better schools, parks, cities, humane crime reduction, etc.
Yes and other truth USA citizens can't directly see is, how both parties agreed to raise debt level so fast. When was the last time these people agreed on something big in common? I really can't tell. Something that will directly benefit USA citizens first?
Since the US exports terrorism and instability across the Global South, I support wholeheartedly a balanced budget aimed at eliminating most if not all debt because it would necessitate decreasing the military budget; having expressed that wishful statement, we all know that will never happen.
With my accelerationist viewpoint, the continued debt explosion could neuter American military intervention thousands of miles off its coasts in the endgame; but that would require some sort of collapse where I probably, an unwilling funder of the American military, would also suffer - but that is ok if it means stopping the killings abroad.
I think the debt explosion, assuming infinite and stable growth, is on purpose: it creates forever wars that we citizens have no say in. And as a result, the debt will continue to balloon forever.
