I’m not sure if the competence is really in the last place. I’d say it’s on the equal level. Great communication and ownership of the problems means little if you can’t really solve the problems.
People have those things in spectrums, not all or nothing. You have to have at least some of all of them, but I’d argue that mediocre competency with really good communication and accountability is a better combination that really good competency with one of the others being mediocre.
I still kinda disagree. We’re talking here about engineering role after all. I have a colleague who is a code wizard, but has kinda problem with (under)communicating. He’s still widely respected as a very good engineer, people know his communication style and adapt to it.
But if you’re a mediocre problem solver, you can’t really make up for it with communication skills. That kinda moves you into non-engineering role like PO, SM or perhaps support engineer.
But I would say this - once you reach a certain high level of competence, then the communication skills, leadership, ownership can become the real differentiating factors. But you can’t really get there without the high level of competence first.
I think we might be agreeing, it’s just that “mediocre” means different things to each of us. My team supports human spaceflight, and no one we have is crummy. The “mediocre” people have pretty decent technical skills if you’re looking across all software development domains.
Personally, I’ve found the decent technical skills to be easier to come by than the other ones, and having all of them in one package is a real discriminator.
We’re talking here about engineering role after all.
where? seemed like general advice.
Even then, thee aren't mutually exclusive. your competence will affect how people see you on a personal level, at least at work. And your competence affects your ability to be given problems to own. You're not gonna give the nice but still inexperienced employee to own an important problem domain. they might be able to work under the owner and gain experience, though.
Documentation and presentation are highly undervalued, and your ability to understand and spread that knowledge can overcome that lack of experience to actually handle the task yourself.
I’m halfway through scrolling this long thread, and this is the first comment I’ve seen that isn’t overly cynical. It’s also correct.
I’ve been working for 38 years, and I’ve been someone who makes promotion decisions for 15 of them. The third one is helpful, not essential, but the others are super important. The people who rise to leadership positions aren’t necessarily the top technical people, they’re the ones who do those things with a good attitude.
The other thing I’d add is that they’re people who are able to see the big picture and how the details relate to it, which is part of strategic thinking.
I was taught that my job is “to make sure all my bosses surprises are pleasant ones”. 15 years of working as an engineer and that never changed. Now I have my own business and that’s the thing I look for employees… someone I can leave on their own to do a job. It they have problems they can always ask me. If they screw up I expect them to tell me immediately and to have a plan of action to fix it and to prevent it happening again. And I never ever get cross if someone does come to me and say they screwed up. Far better that we tell the client about a problem than wait until the client finds the problem themselves.
Reading all these comments makes me realize how lucky I’ve been in my career. I’ve always had great bosses who defended me and backed me up.
That with the limited number of jobs to accommodate for, changing monetary values and demand for goods and services, natural disasters and game changers, and fluctuating, unpredictable circumstances that change how something plays out, there is nothing about the job force that isn’t fluid and prone to putting you in some kind of shifting interdependent situation, enough that making the job scene a bureaucratic construct was a big mistake and that having career dreams is too oversimplified an expectation. I knew this to an extent but now I know the full scope.
There is no ideal place to work where they “do it right”, whatever kind of “right” you care about right now. When you change jobs, you merely exchange one set of problems for another.
That said some companies do it more right than others. The problems at the current company are ones I can live with. Which is why I’m still there after way more years than expected.
Indeed, that’s what I mean: you’re always exchanging one set of problems for another, until you find the set of problems that you can accept (enough (for now)).
I feel better about the things I do wrong, because at least I made the decisions and I can only blame myself. I can also choose which things I especially care about doing well instead of being subject to someone else’s preferences. It feels better, but still yes.
And, as CEO of a tiny company, I have to interact with bureaucracies more than I did as an employee, so becoming my own boss didn’t mean escaping that nonsense, anyway.
Absolutely. There is no business yet in which you invent money from nothing. Everyone works for someone else. It might be a capitalist boss, it might be a client, it might even be constituents or donors, but no one truly works for themselves. The only winning move is to not play, and the ones fortunate enough to not have to play were born rich. Being self-employed and/or owning your own business is just trading one boss for another.
Source: Was in private practice for a decade; now I’m a corporate attorney, and it’s just a different set of people making my job hard.
Having worked 7 different jobs that all were in the same field made me have some backbone of standards that nobody else could have built without going through that, though. It’s a blessing and a curse, so be warned. The things I picked up on that I never realized I would care so much about in the healthcare field is good office administration and Director of Care leadership. The morale is just as important as the pay rate.
As a consultant, I now feel grateful to the variety of dysfunctions that I experienced, because they provided me with some of the credibility that I use in advising others. That’s the blessing part.
i worked at all the pizza chains delivering ---- the absolute shittiest ones were a nightmare, for the same 3 reasons:
not letting employees make food themselves. it’s a restaurant, you have abundant food, it’s cheap, we all know it’s cheap, we work long shifts, come on. the cobbler’s son should have good shoes.
overemphasis on dress code – if you genuinely give a shit if the pizza guy has his hat backwards, you should literally be sent to the gulags.
being overworked for low pay, especially being made to drive when exhausted [literally dangerous and life threatening!!]
I’m determined to ever only work in public, state-owned companies. I believe in a causal connection between being a private, profit-oriented business and the daily “wtf” moments, the only true measure of quality.
Reading about it, it seems they are in fact all the same. Even the white haribo mice. TIL.
Yeah, in a way. As in, I don’t feel like I have any responsibility in things in the company going to shits (which I would if it were, well, my company).
The book The Responsibility Virus helped me a lot with this. Most people are over-responsible for the choices of others, specifically ones they can’t reasonably influence, anyway.
Yes. This lies among the reasons I find it easier not to blame enterprises for their dysfunctions. The unsustained growth imperative of our economic systems makes the Gervais Principle behavior the path of least resistance. Indeed, the only way to stop it seems to come down to the heroism of one key influential person who chooses differently.
This also accounts for why I stopped trying to fix enterprises and instead focus on helping the well-meaning people who otherwise would need to fend for themselves.
Efficient workers get more work if you’re in the office. I work from home, and that allows me to work efficiently until my work is done, set up scheduled emails to go out at the time I would’ve otherwise been done, then do what I want until then.
I’m not writing up anything. I clock in when my shift starts, I complete the work designated for me for that shift, send it out by the time it needs to be sent out, and clock out at the end of my shift.
Obviously not if it’s a flat rate. But empoyment rarely is flat rate based. The contract are usually require you to work a certain amount of time per week/month.
It does not, or at least should not work like this. If you can do same work, with same quality in less time than average, then pay rate is higher than average.
Most shops I know of these days assign a labor time to any given job. You get charged that amount whether the mechanic does it in half the time or takes five times as long.
Anymore, it’s an internal benchmark for mechanics to build on the efficiency of their own work.
In my line of work, it may take me three hours to solve a client tax issue. I will bill for that accordingly.
If another client comes along the next day with the exact same issue, but this time I know the answer because I researched it yesterday, so I can solve it instantly, should the second client get charged nothing?
If you’re in tech, it can be absolute hell. I worked at an agency that required 7 hours clocked to projects every day. Doesn’t sound so bad until you realize you still need to eat lunch and deal with random non-billable things that arise. Now you’re working a 10-hour day to appease the numbers, while furiously clocking every minute to every job. If you estimate 6 hours for a task and find an efficient way to do it in 2, that’s the expectation going forward—even for the devs that haven’t done it before.
It doesn’t sound terrible until you do it for a while and realize that it’s a fucking meat grinder. Instead of being gauged by your abilities and skills as a programmer, you’re quietly evaluated by how many tickets you can get out the door.
I have tasks where I might spend 6 hours to make the task take a half hour going forward. That’s value-added work and I shouldn’t be rewarded with an onslaught of new tasks because of that simply to fill a void.
I deserve to find some ways to keep my sanity intact until I’m mentally incapable of continuing to write code anymore in the older years before ageism starts shoving me out the door.
I mean, sorry. That sounds quite horrid. But that just sounds like a really shit agency.
I do work in tech and I also have to write up all billable hours minutely. But most of the work I do is on internal projects anyway, so I have to write up the time, but it’s not billable. Paid work usually takes priority though.
But when it comes to it, I’m required to work 8h a day. Doesn’t matter what as long as it is what matters the most right now. And I could easily just keep it there and work my 8 to 5 if I wanted, not giving a shit.
But I actually like my work, most of the time. So I do. So when you have to solve a lot immediate problems, the internal projects often get delayed and you risk overshooting the deadline. That’s bad for the company in general, so best to avoid it. That gives incentives to solve everything asap and still get the internal stuff done on time.
And if we risk falling behind the deadline, that means overtime (voluntarily of course), but all of our devs know that missing a deadline could set us back quite far, so everyone shows up. Of course all overtime is paid and at better rates. Hell, I’ll sometimes do overtime just to get the better rate and get ahead of things I’d have to fix eventually anyway.
And the boss very much appriciated the effort we put in. In fact, he makes less money then me. I know that because I’m a shareholder and can read the yearly financial report, they gave all the senior devs a share when the company went public.
It was indeed a shit agency, but I’ve found almost identical practices in other agencies. It’s the nature of the work and it sucks, which is part of why I won’t work at another agency ever again. Another issue I’ve run into are colleagues that don’t clock all of their time for a task, which makes management say things like “well X did this in 2 hours; why is it going to take you 6?” It took me a long time in my career to arrive at a place where I feel like I have actual control, so I can empathize with younger devs that are feeling crushed under the weight of work.
My role now is all internal product work and I always clock my time spent, but it’s not crucial. I do it mostly to gauge how long things I build take (a lot of which are greenfield projects) and keep the data on hand as a point of reference for myself.
I like what I do but don’t really like that it’s become a big part of what defines me as a person. That’s really besides the point though. I think white collar employees like us have it easier than others in the workforce elsewhere, and that’s somehow with the absolute onslaught of tech layoffs I keep seeing. I have a friend that has been laid off 5 times in the span of 3 years, and I was laid off myself for 3 months before finding a new role. I’m actually shocked at how many times previous employers have tried to take advantage of myself or others. Those things are the reason wage theft in the US is a 50b dollar industry and it’s just going to get worse as capitalists try to squeeze as much value out of things as they can.
It really is a problem that is unique to the US. So if you encounter a lot of us US folk that are angry and jaded due to work, that’s why lmao. The protections and time off that Europeans receive is leagues better than anything here. Europe is definitely something we’ve personally considered for the future.
So if you encounter a lot of us US folk that are angry and jaded due to work, that’s why lmao
That might have been an issue. I actually know a lot of people from the US, but because I lived near military bases or international schools. But those are probably not people stuggeling. I don’t have actual insight into the mood of the country or any personal expirence.
But going by this thread and comment chain, working conditions, even in sought of sectors like IT, are apperently exploited quite badly in the US. More than I could have imagined. I was not trying to mock people that just want to get by.
Still, it seems very sad that this is apperently a reality so many Americans have to deal with, even in IT. You desperately need better labour protection laws in generals. And unions.
It’s honestly like a pressure cooker sometimes. That’s why strikes are happening so much more often in the US. The attitude towards corporations here is rightfully really pessimistic because of the mass layoffs, the rising prices of rent and everything else, poor employment environments, etc. We’re facing the brunt of late capitalism.
Most employers pay you to be on standby for last minute tasks. That’s what you are doing for the rest of the time. You are also planing on how to do these tasks more efficiently. That is all billable in my opinion.
Wage theft is one of the least acted upon crimes. This system is immoral, and the people who run it are immoral. Thinking you will get any justice except for what you take for yourself is naive and wrong.
This system isn’t designed for us, its literally designed for the people its named after… Capitalists. Taking anything you can back from them is perfectly fine.
I grew up in a communist country, and we had a saying “if you don’t steal from your employer, you’re stealing from your family”. And people acted accordingly.
You would love that! Or perhaps not, it actually sucked for everybody.
Yeah, that’s exactly what they said… can you refute that surplus value is extracted through exploitation of labour forces? No? Didn’t think so. Much easier to insult and deride, and pretend that was a meaningful or valuable argument, than to actually make one.
Amazon is still very much fueled by human labor. “Warehouse Associate” would be the job title. It is definitely a “real job,” and the people grinding their joints into dust deserve so much more dignity (and compensation) than Amazon, and society as a whole, really, deigns to give them.
I see your work doesn’t have invasive programs that check idle mouse and idle keyboard behaviors.
this is an old one but i can’t help thinking, what if they installed it without my knowledge, after all, my work laptop was given to me already pre prepared by our IT department.
Yeah, they’re pretty behind the times, and I’m happy for that. They gave me a work laptop, but since they didn’t block me from just using my home computer instead, I just do that so that I’ve got an excuse if they ever bring up any strange data they might be skimming from the laptop. It’s been a couple years now without any word from them about it, though, so I think I’m in the clear.
Yeah, I figured they’re aware I’m not using the laptop - I’m not on the VPN most of the time as a result. I’m still able to do all my work in my own copy of excel, though, so I’m hoping I can continue pretending I’m unaware that I’m not following the correct avenues to get my work done, at least until they force me to use the laptop.
There is an entire department at my work that employs thousands of moderators to review desktop screenshots of all employees every 5 minutes to make sure no one is “idle”.
It’s a double edged sword. I was very efficient, and did get more work, which got me noticed and eventually promoted out of a doing position into a leading position
It’s a nice change, the work is light, the people side of the work is easy. I have higher pay and much more free time
I’m in America and this isn’t an issue. I don’t know anyone where this isn’t an issue, in fact there’s this thing in America called SSI designed specifically to help the chronically unhealthy without even a need to work.
It depends on the state, but it’s not like it’s not there for people, which debunks the idea the American system doesn’t care about health, as poorly prepared as the healthcare system might be.
I didn’t say it was able to help everyone. No stipend can do that. But the comments that led up to this conversation claimed America “doesn’t care about health” (hence why my first guess about what country they were alluding to was the one most people first think of when talking about human rights abuse).
I worked a job in health insurance where I couldn’t take time off for doctors appointments until I had been there for 6 months. My health got super fucked.
I got out of construction this year. I was on jobsites for basically the entire shutdown for Covid.
Outside of disease, there are a lot of physical health hazards in construction that you’re just expected to work through. Working at all on a coal-fired power plant, you’re going to breathe in coal dust all day long for your shift, which for me was up to 16 hours a day not including travel time.
cw gross___ if you sneeze or blow your nose for the rest of the day, the tissue will be black with coal dust. Imagine what that does to your lungs.
Edit: I originally wrote this when I first woke up, and was more combative than I should have been.
You’ve genuinely never seen a job promote their “5 sick days a year” BS like it was generous lol? You also must not work construction. Being sick in construction means even your co-workers will be mad at you, for some reason.
Kind of. I work in the humanities industry, so there is a limit to off-days (as with most jobs) but nothing like a set number like five days and definitely nothing like a prohibition like I thought the original commenter was talking about, you just can’t drag it out. However, it wouldn’t be humanities if there wasn’t a human element, and it’s a red flag in the industry if there wasn’t a willingness to accommodate, like I see posts about that all the time like here for example and wonder what anyone saw in them.
Either you’re lucky that your field is pretty flexible, or I was unlucky that all the jobs I had, my current one being an exception, were the opposite ¯_(ツ)_/¯
Honestly, in my experience it’s a crapshoot and wildly varies from company to company, or even manager by manager basis. But some industries have it really rough. I used to work retail, the exploitation over there is insane. This thread you’re linking pretty much lines up with what I know about service too - OP being angry at his colleague for falling sick rather than his employer for guilt tripping him is pretty much par for the course too.
Isn’t it inscribed in law that if you have a perfectly good reason to call in sick, even exceeding five days a year, that it will be granted to you? Even grade school allows something like at least fifteen days a year, as that I think is the maximum time someone can be temporarily suspended. Someone can correct me on that.
I mean… Yeah, sure. The law also says I can’t sit on non-chair public infrastructure around here, but is it really being enforced?
Retaliation and abuse from an employer is hard to prove. Fighting back takes energy and time, a thing your average middle-class and lower don’t have in large quantities once they’re done working. And it can be hard to explain to your next employer that you’re in legal proceedings against your ex employer over your working conditions without hurting your chances to be employed in the first place. There’s a world of difference between what’s in law and what actually happens.
Lineman for a major telecommunications corporation. Just tested positive for covid. The unspoken rule is show up, if you are dead they may send you home. Got lucky since I actually interact with the public. Sent pic of the positive test to manager. Don’t know what is going to happen.
Not surprised at all. Companies love to offload their losses to everyone else. If you come in regardless, they don’t lose the value your work brings them, while their sick employees spread their crap to everyone and costs society thousands in perfectly avoidable healthcare costs.
America had a larger infection rate and mortality rate than North Korea.
I know what you’re gonna say “oh they lied about their numbers”. Why would I trust the US to be honest about theirs? Why would I trust the US media in their claims about North Korea lying about its numbers?
The US had several whistleblowers like Rebekah Jones getting arrested/abused/harrased for their reporting on the state of the US obfuscating data.
The american media has been shown to lie time and again, especially when it comes to foreign matters - Most famously about Iraq. What reason do I have to trust it?
The United States has the largest prisoner population in the world and has a history of persecuting minorites and political dissidents like leaders of black lives matter. These dissidents are dissapeared at secret police blacksites where they are tortured. This prisoner population is used as slave labour, which is still legal.
Why would I trust the lies peddled by this authoritarian regime about a country whose population they relentlessly bombed until they’d murdered 20% of it.
Ah neat you failed to engage with the central argument, instead moving the goalposts to now being another weirdly general discussion.
You were referring to American media and American claims, so this is the framework. Instead of either accepting your sources are flawed, that you have a bias, that they have a bias, that you might not be entirely correct, you choose to shift the discussion to one where you yet again take another incredibly broad position that is so vague it is nigh impossible to disorove. I don’t think you do this on purpose, I think it is reflexive, but I encourage you to interrogate your actions upon encountering data that conflicts with your worldview.
I’m not moving any goalposts, I’m simply stating the observation that there are other nationalities who not only might serve as a spark or derivative for whatever the American media says but also that info is shared enough that it can amount to a confirmation. Some other countries and their media, such as the BBC and Russia Today, report on both America and North Korea as much as America does. Never did I imply I was only talking about things because America was the one doing the narrating though.
m simply stating the observation that there are other nationalities who not only might serve as a spark or derivative for whatever the American media
What does this have to do with a discussion about North Korea as presented by American media? You are not engaging with the argument or the points, you are not even relating it to your own, you are instead reframing the discussion to be about something else - You are moving the goalposts.
Never did I imply I was only talking about things because America was the one doing the narrating though.
dawg your alleged sources were all American media.
Oh hey you managed to find one whole article! Good on you! Is that article the sources you mentioned? I just wanna be sure that I’m not missing out.
You initiated this with the framework of American media. Now that that media has been critiqued, you are trying to reframe the discussion to one that is being more general, rather than actually engage with the argument put forth or acknowledge in any way what I have been saying. You are not engaging with my argument, you are trying to avoid it by making the discussion be about something else.
Your whataboutism can’t deflect the fact that the US policy on COVID put the prerogatives of capital ahead of public health, doing the most half-assed lockdown procedures without contact tracing, pretty much guaranteeing that this apex predator would continue to stalk the streets and mutate indefinitely, enabling mass social murder on a historical scale, pushing the most precarious workers back into contact with the public to get sick over and over, pushing kids back to school without vaccinations under the pretext that they were low risk (false), allowing infections to rebound through the population endlessly through the vectors of families, workplaces, and schools.
We’re now at the point where the most at-risk, especially the immune compromised, continue to die quietly in the background while the country’s leadership declares the state of emergency to be over. Officially over a million dead here and it’s sure to be a mass underestimation because states are no longer reporting, and regardless it’s a major risk factor of other diseases, especially cardial, one of which claimed one of my closest family members after they caught COVID multiple times before being vaccinated despite performing all these supposed protocols to the extreme (doesn’t matter how much you isolate if the workers delivering your groceries bring the virus with them).
Oh yeah and, the pandemic never went away, “endemic” is a weasel word that really means “the weak shall suffer what they must,” hardly a word about long COVID in the media any more even though we don’t yet understand its full extent. US COVID policy amounts to enabling a mass death and disability event. Guess our burgers and haircuts are more important than the lives of the elderly and immune compromised. America’s COVID policy is neglect and eugenics with more steps. As for North Korea, who’s deranged enough to give a fuck about their supposed lack of protocols (also false) when the real disaster is still unfolding all around us?
You say that like it’s whataboutism to mention a country had it worse when the original commenter meant to make it sound like there was a singular country with the issue. I never said America’s response was great, but I responded asking if they were talking about North Korea because they had it worse, even going so far at one point to say covid didn’t exist in a practical sense. They ignored the virus and it almost decimated them because North Korea has such bad health. They fit the commenter’s allusion to a country that handled it badly better than America even if America handled it badly too.
North Korea was shut down anyway, it took a long time for them to have their first covid outbreak and I think when it finally did happen they did shut down.
Also, I am glad you have come out so strongly in favor of the PRC approach, or so I must convlude.
Being so close to China, North Korea couldn’t be in a position to escape being one of the first to suffer. Kim Jong-un spent the first part of it saying it didn’t exist. What’s worse is health in North Korea is poor, so there were more casualties. Any true response was too late.
You’re gonna need a better source than Wikipedia, which has a ridiculous level of slant against the DPRK (look up “Propaganda village” if you need convincing)
Wikipedia, the neutral website that also somehow happened to protest with a Reddit-style blackout when Donald Trump tried passing those internet bills, has a slant against the leader’s party? Alright, I’ll humor you.
Also, completely unrelated question about that, how does one square someone having a slant against a political party, being on good terms with the political international that party is in, that party being in said political international, and that party being in a nation that works against anything about itself being publicized?
So then what’s the basis for the second article? That people editing wikipedia pages are in an edit war over the atrocities of the nazis? That it’s longterm and ordained by wikipedia themselves? Elaborate.
The basis for the second article is that there is thousands of Nazis on Wikipedia, seemingly writing barely-challenged lies. The point of the second article is that Wikipedia has a nazi problem, which leads to it having a right-wing bias.
I don’t believe it’s some sinister plot by Wikipedia, but it is a fact that it is an issue wikipedia has. It is the downside to the “everyone is an editor” format which the site makes use of
You were being critiqued for use of Wikipedia, you defended Wikipedia as being neutral, I pointed out how it wasn’t. That is the crux of the discussion you and I have been having. I am not embroiled in a larger one about the DPRK or whatever. Wikipedia sucks as a source and now you know, hopefully that’ll keep you from using dogshit source material some other time
I’m confused, can you elaborate? The DPRK is North Korea’s name for itself. WPK is its majority party. Are you claiming they’re part of a political international that wikipedia is on good terms with?
It’s not so much Wikipedia is aligned “with” anyone (in a favoritist sense) but that they are on good terms with them. Wikipedia lists a few of the internationals here, note how Communist internationals take up the bulk of internationals, some which share countries. The two most relevant ones are this and this one which star North Korea. Having never heard of a slant towards the WPK before yesterday, how this might be still piques my curiosity given the internationals seem fine, and the only thing that comes to my mind is how North Korea has, let’s just say a digital reputation.
What they meant was there wasn’t an outbreak reported, not that there wasn’t one. Here’s a clearer source (same one as well) as long as someone else asked for one too.
It’s always the same bullshit. If they are handling covid well “they’re lying about their numbers”. If they report high numbers it’s “evidence they’re incompetent.”
What reason do I have to mistrust their numbers? They’re not the ones having lied to me for decades.
And it’s not like the US wasn’t lying about its own numbers
Why would I trust the US to be honest about theirs? Why would I trust the US media in their claims about North Korea lying about its numbers?
The US had several whistleblowers like Rebekah Jones getting arrested/abused/harrased for their reporting on the state of the US obfuscating data.
The american media has been shown to lie time and again, especially when it comes to foreign matters - Most famously about Iraq. What reason do I have to trust it?
The United States has the largest prisoner population in the world and has a history of persecuting minorites and political dissidents like leaders of black lives matter. These dissidents are dissapeared at secret police blacksites where they are tortured. This prisoner population is used as slave labour, which is still legal.
Why would I trust the lies peddled by this authoritarian regime about a country whose population they relentlessly bombed until they’d murdered 20% of it.
This is your point? A snide one-sentence comment completely failing to engage with any bit of the argument? Do better. Interrogate why this is your reaction to being challenged
I wish I could go thru life line you, smooth-brained, unthinking, uncaring, perfectly safe in the belief that I am a special little boy. Sadly I have been cursed with the bane of Thought, and so I must interrogate my beliefs when I encounter that which conflicts with them.
I guess that’s what makes me not a lib
The NPR article also has no evidence for an earlier outbreak. They just report what the North’s government stated, and add that the reader shouldn’t believe them.
Sure they share a border with China, but China had COVID pretty well controlled for a significant portion of the pandemic. That combined with the DPRK’s survival strategy of self-reliance make it seem plausible to me that they were clear of it until the vastly more contagious variant became dominant.
So far, there doesn’t seem to be any evidence to the contrary.
epistemology is a big topic and we’re clearly operating on some contradictory premises/priors but I’ll continue to engage in good faith.
I think I’d consider the following as evidence of an event: photos/video, eyewitness testimony, and measurement data; each provided with provenance/traceability through the entire chain of reporting. Each reporting agent’s credibility on the topic plays a role in weighing the evidence.
Finally the believability (another big term) of the claim itself plays a important role in how much evidence is necessary for me to believe it. Here’s where I put on my internet atheist hat and reference the “Sagan Standard”: Extraordinary claims require extraordinary proof and it’s corollary: a claim asserted without evidence can be dismissed without evidence.
The reason I asked is an outbreak is usually “in the shadows” until the community of medical professionals confirm it. And it’s not this I intend to reference though, but the fact many would be quick to jump at one country falling under the definition but not another (as well as individual states, as different states handled it differently). However we define evidence (even witnesses are hard, many people will say people dying in front of you wouldn’t be proof unless indicated by professionals), we’d have to apply it universally; the time period between the first suspected patient zero to the first confirmed case to the last confirmed case should be treated by the same rules in both countries, and in all countries. Depending on the standard, either you have both countries faring well or both countries not faring well.
Given North Korea is more private, that makes the latter the heavier choice, at least if you ask me.
North Korea has the world’s worst human rights, so when they made it sound like only one country had this issue, that was my guess. I’m in North America and never experienced what is described. Unless I’m wrong to have even the amount of faith required to believe there are no North Korea denialists here.
Could it be, the United States? The most vicious and bloody empire the world has ever known?
That aside (like, wow, holy fuck)
If you could not recognize the earlier comments as an indication of western capitalism, you are rich or otherwise so privileged you cannot comprehend the struggles of the average person
Or maybe you’re overreacting a little. I don’t deny struggles such as those by the average person, but being unable to take care of one’s health is not one of them. That’s also why I answered “North Korea” to someone’s assertion that there’s a place where this is an issue. America allows people to take time away to recuperate, even for mental health, and has this thing called SSI for the chronically unhealthy.
Yeah tell that to the overworked service worker, or the many other people with two jobs. The fact that a comfortable white-collar dickhead can take time off, doesn’t really mean much to me when every teacher, every driver, every railworker, every barista, chef, roadworker, janitor and every other prole is fucked
That sounds like a very forced generalization, especially considering that certain examples doesn’t disprove the whole of a practice that you originally said didn’t exist at all. I know people in all these fields who do this. I’ve been called into a psych ward before, proof it’s even systemically embedded or else that aspect of the system wouldn’t work.
The federation aspect of Lemmy is acting up again, the image won’t show up for me except as a transparent block (I assume it’s supposed to show something).
dang, unfortunate. it was an emote, a picture of famous North Korea liar/grifter Yeonmi Park, inventor of many truths such as: “North Koreans don’t have a word for depression”, “the word for friend is banned in North Korea”, and (my favorite) “the trains in North Korea don’t work so people have to push the trains wherever they go”.
When I say that, I’m going by every regular source that ever existed, plus satellite images, its near-impossible standards for leaving or entering, its lack of internet access (who here has seen anyone who is actually from North Korea), and the fact that the average North Korean adult is only five feet tall, with height being an indicator of health (the taller the healthier). What do you weigh against it that inspires you to posit it’s all just propaganda and hearsay? Other hearsay (as opposed to a conflict within the narrative you oppose)?
its near-impossible standards for leaving or entering
did you know these are imposed on them externally? their policy is that they love tourists. here’s a video of a couple of australian tourists enjoying themselves there. the reason americans can’t go there is because the US forbids it.
its lack of internet access (who here has seen anyone who is actually from North Korea),
it’s a country under brutal siege for its entire history. yes, they’re poor. whose fault is that?
Regular sources as in MSNBC, CNN, NPR, Wikipedia, etc. sources that are the most established, enough that they’re among the top 500 websites and that they show up on the first page of a Google search. Not to mention a random source is going to have random origins, trust in a source has to be earned and even with trusted sources you must compare and contrast them sometimes.
The restrictions for leaving and entering have not been imposed on them externally, this attitude of Korea predates even the Roman empire so external factors wouldn’t have been possible as a cause, even though it’s undeniable there are nations that have restricted anyone from going there. Japan used to be the same way at different points in history, though for the time being they’re open to everyone.
You said the source brands I speak of can be said to lie about what’s going on and spin it to something of their liking. Here, the question “as opposed to what” is asked because anyone in any position might argue that the sources they disagree with are lying, so in the spirit of the critical thinking mindset which you say I haven’t learned yet, I’m asking what does one source called out as lying have to indicate it might be lying that the other sources anyone else can call out for lying don’t have.
You said the source brands I speak of can be said to lie about what’s going on and spin it to something of their liking.
I then highlighted why and showed examples of them having done so.
. Here, the question “as opposed to what”.
Lying as opposed to observable reality, for example with regards to the Iraq war and stories about North Korean haircuts. With regards to the Iraq war they themselves have admitted to it, the untruths are well known. With regards to North Korean haircuts this lie has been highlighted by people reporting on the ground, showing it to be untrue.
called out as lying have to indicate it might be lying that the other sources anyone else can call out for lying don’t have.
The source “called out for lying” has been proved to have lied. The others have not. You are welcome to prove so - which you do by showing them lying, not by posting some us state dep ghoul saying “oh they’re lying”.
I then highlighted why and showed examples of them having done so.
You gave disagreements, it isn’t as if you pointed out holes or contradictions. Anyone can do that.
Lying as opposed to observable reality, for example with regards to the Iraq war and stories about North Korean haircuts.
Are you saying you’ve observed them or that I have the power to observe them? If it’s the former, is this something you can prove? If it’s the latter, I’m more than happy to observe when you’re ready (and no, “sources” are not “observation”).
The source “called out for lying” has been proved to have lied. The others have not.
Based on what? Based on external sources? That brings us back here.
The restrictions for leaving and entering have not been imposed on them externally, this attitude of Korea predates even the Roman empire so external factors wouldn’t have been possible as a cause
In what way is it not coherent? Am I supposed to communicate almost wholly in pictures like you’re doing instead of links (it should be noted your pictures appear as transparent blocks either due to the defederstion settings or a glitch thereof).
Apologies if my semantics/grammar are too loose, as English is not my first language (it’s always hard translating Asiatic languages into English), though an online grammar checker said it was fine.
we are having a conversation about a country which has existed for less than 100 years why the fuck are you talking about the roman empire and the joseon dynasty
Apologies if my semantics/grammar are too loose
your grammar is fine, it is the content of your posts which is utterly useless.
It has existed at various times throughout history in different forms and even aspects of the state ideology such as Cheondoism are simply modern manifestations of ancient tradition. There is nothing new about it or its cultural attitudes, not if you ask the Chinese and not if you ask the later Christian missionaries who attempted to do anything there only to be punished for existence.
you have some very strange, very incorrect ideas about the DPRK built on a foundation of circular logic. please start de-propagandizing yourself with that video i linked earlier, it’s a very good one.
You linked two things. One of these is an article about literal ancient history, and the other is an article about three Christians who all lived and died long before the country we’re discussing existed. Please, please explain to me how your “sources” are in any way relevant to the topic at hand.
Your circular logic is as follows: The DPRK is isolationist. We know it’s isolationist because they don’t let people in. We know they don’t let people in because they’re isolationist. No, I won’t pay any attention to the hard fact that they do, in fact, let people in, and that it is in fact their enemies who do not let people into their country.
Point to where I said “we know they don’t let people in because they’re isolationist”.
Also, my sources explain how the two Koreas manifested themselves in the past. Your counter sounds a lot like the old “the Roman republic was not the Roman empire” which isn’t true. They weren’t called North and South Korea at the time. Names change. Governmental systems change. It happens.
The restrictions for leaving and entering have not been imposed on them externally, this attitude of Korea predates even the Roman empire
Anyway, we’re at an impasse here. You’ve decided that the DPRK is not a distinct country and that all you need to know about their laws can be extrapolated from the ancient history of the Korean peninsula, and that anything modern which contradicts your juvenile interpretation of ancient history must simply be made up. I have no idea what species of brainworm is responsible for this ridiculous conspiracy theory, and I am not qualified to exterminate it.
I don’t see it, whether in your passage or out of it. Maybe because I never said it. Neither did I say the DPRK wasn’t its own country, or that modern history is made up, at most I was saying its customs of isolating go back to earlier manifestations of North and even South Korea. I did give sources. Many sources, ones that weren’t Wikipedia. They said what I said before I did. What do you bring to the table?
The restrictions for leaving and entering have not been imposed on them externally, this attitude of Korea predates even the Roman empire
This is you saying the thing you said you didn’t say.
I did give sources. Many sources, ones that weren’t Wikipedia.
“Giving sources” isn’t just mentioning them. If that’s the case then I can back up the other user by saying they have their data from Reuters, the UN, the CIA, CNN, AP, internal military documents made available by FOIA, BBC, MSNBC, NPR, etc.
“Providing a source” means you give a reference to a specific text which supports the claim you’re making - in other words it’s it’s linking to them, providing them as references. You’ve only done this for the aforementioned ancient history and three christian dudes.
Listen to Blowback season 3, it would do you some good.
“The restrictions for leaving and entering have not been imposed on them externally, this attitude of Korea predates even the Roman empire” =/= “we know they don’t let people in because they’re isolationist”
They’re isolationist because it’s a cultural value derived from their location relative to their neighbors. And again, it predates the Romans. There’s nothing in my comments that make it circular, what I say is intertwined with multiple sources, some unseen, combined which wouldn’t allow me to be circular.
I’ve hyperlinked to a few sources. I can hyperlink to more as well. Are we basing validity of sources based on fame? How many others agree with it? How many narrative holes their messages have? How old the sources are? Their nationalities? Whether they’re blocked where you live?
The restrictions for leaving and entering have not been imposed on them externally, this attitude of Korea predates even the Roman empire” =/= “we know they don’t let people in because they’re isolationist”.
You’re saying the same thing twice there. The fact you say it isn’t, doesn’t mean anything when the actual statements are functionally the same. No matter what they both place this issue at the feet of the Koreans, which is what the disagreement was about.
They’re isolationist because it’s a cultural value derived from their location relative to their neighbor
So you are saying they are isolationist. Super. ut that has already been argued with you and instead you moved the goalposts to be about proving you said something you thought you didn’t say, which you are now once again saying
I’ve hyperlinked to a few sources. I can hyperlink to more as well.
As we have already gone thru, you’ve hyperlinked to two things. Do you not understand how references work? Do you need everything explained twice? Yes please provide your sources for god’s sake this is the third time I’m telling you how sources work.
Are we basing validity of sources based on fame? How many others agree with it?
You do - you rely on the reputation of your alleged sources by way of them being large established brands. I think this is a silly way of evaluating the validity of a sources claims, but it seems to be your primary requirement.
How many narrative holes their messages have? How old the sources are? Their nationalities? Whether they’re blocked where you live?
Yes this is called being critical of your sources. It’s an inherent part of any dissemination of information - not to just blindly accept statements presented by others. All of the things you mention help evaluate wether the source might have a bias, though the really big thing is cross-referencing claims. Interests of conflict and bias are helpful when conflicting narratives occur.
Do you not get the point of references? Why do you think we are taught from an early age to engage sources with skepticism?
You are putting words in my mouth to claim that I imply a nation’s policy reasoning by mentioning the timeline of said policy. If there is any act of moving goalposts, it’s being done in said process of putting words in my mouth. It is the fallacy fallacy.
you rely on the reputation of your alleged sources by way of them being large established brands. I think this is a silly way of evaluating the validity of a sources claims, but it seems to be your primary requirement.
Name a criteria for what we shall consider a good source, and assuming it’s an ideologically unspecific criteria, let’s see if we can both follow it.
No I am presenting you with the logical conclusion to your statements.
If there is any act of moving goalposts, it’s being done in said process of putting words in my mouth.
“Having the result of my actions pointed out to me is putting words in my mouth”. Don’t ask questions if you don’t want them answered.
Name a criteria for what we shall consider a good source, and assuming it’s an ideologically unspecific criteria,
Get it thru your dense skull: THERE IS NO SUCH THING AS A PERFECTLY GOOD SOURCE. You need to be critical of ANY source, but the only way you can do that is by PRESENTING IT so it can be studied. THIS IS BASIC SHIT. Have you never learned source critique?
When we speak about “good” and “bad” sources, it’s generally common parlance to describe media that is known to lie or which had a heavy bias - Breitbart, Infowars, Epoch Times, Radio Free Asia, Wikipedia - these are all examples of being “bad”. This is not to say that they cannot present useful information, but you should be extremely wary of taking anything presented by them at face value - again you should be wary of all sources, but even moreso one that has a proven track record of a bias.
A source might be good for one thing and bad for another. You wouldn’t trust the press secretary oval office dismissing accusations of sexual assault made by the same press secretary, but you would probably trust it with statements about wildfires in the US. You wouldn’t trust the Japanese government with statements about it having no connection to the moonies, but you’d probably feel safe in trusting it’s statements about shinto shrines or whatever.
You investigate your references for bias, for lies, for truth, you cross-reference with your other references in order to gather a more complete picture, and when you encounter conflicts you weigh the validity of each reference - In large part here the question of “who to trust” should in part be answered by “who do I know has lied before?”
Well, you can stop with your “logical conclusions to my statements” because I dispelled that logic by defining the semantics. Nobody can speak for what another person intends or what they mean, just what is perceived. I laid out a clear difference.
You speak of source critique, source bias, and all sources being good for something as if this whole time you haven’t been bashing America and its practices (some of which you at first overly deny) in the exact same way you accuse me of giving into bias about North Korea. So I’ll ask again, what criteria would you like to use? Because I want to know how, if I’m failing at a criteria you prefer, you aren’t ahead of me in the same act of failing.
So I’ll ask again, what criteria would you like to use?
Well, let’s start with the first step, which is citing a source at all. They have asked you to follow through on your offer to cite sources to back up on your claims multiple times, and you just keep getting bogged down in these wacky circular semantic arguments. Currently you are failing to produce any source of any strength or bias.
Many of my comments have hyperlinks to different material supporting what I say, which I’ve said could be taken as indication I’m not being circular. Is this not what you’re currently asking for?
If it’s because you think these sources are too biased, that itself is a part of my question you quoted, being what defines bias here? In a world where anyone can point to something and make a case that it must be biased, I’m here asking where the line is drawn between something tolerable and something intolerable.
Many of my comments have hyperlinks to different material supporting what I say, which I’ve said could be taken as indication I’m not being circular. Is this not what you’re currently asking for?
You’ve posted a total of three links. One of these is about a medieval kingdom, the other is a story of three Christians that died before the country we are discussing existed and then you’ve finally posted one single reference, to which I’ve asked if that is your totality of references. I’ve asked this because 1. A single article isn’t exactly a solid foundation and you have still many unsourced claims and 2. I dont want to take the time to go through your reference with you, only for you to then again refuse to engage with the argument but instead throw up yet another half-assed article. I’d rather just get all your bullshit articles in one go, so we can skip 10 comments of me simply asking you to post your references.
Meanwhile you have claimed that they are isolationist, then claimed you never claimed that, then when that was pointed out to you, you claimed that wasn’t what you said, you then went on to say they were being isolationist.
Thru all of this you have posted a total of three links.
You are either an impotent unimaginative little bad-faith goblin, or you are a brickheaded ignorant dog-headed clown.
The medieval kingdoms are past manifestations of North and South Korea. If you studied Korean linguistics, I doubt you’d be questioning that they the manifestations even have different names.
I dont want to take the time to go through your reference with you, only for you to then again refuse to engage with the argument but instead throw up yet another half-assed article.
And you wonder why I hesitate as well as bring up the whole criteria question amidst you at other times asking for an increased quantity of sources rather than increased quality), especially as what you’re saying is more derailing.
I did not claim they weren’t isolationist, nor did I say it was for any reason aside from it being one of their cultural values/habits. Is this not you using the straw man fallacy? Would you be arguing against the point I’m not making as if I made it if you were able to come to terms with the fact I didn’t make it, or would you be praising the fact that I in actuality agree with you on that point?
Jesus Christ you really are just going in a roundabout. You claim history from middle ages is relevant, but moderns history is spurious, okay good whatever. By that logic the us if a fascist slave state, as is every single European country.
Sure it’s a strawman fallacy to quote things you said back to you, that’s what a strawman is allright. Wanting to engage with your sources is whataboutism or whatever. You still haven’t engaged in any source critique. You speak of studying history and linguistics, but you fail the very base-level tools of both of those studies.
Yeah good some website says they’re isolationist, because they say they are.
This is due to the nation’s strict closed-country policy: not many outsiders have visited there and not many North Koreans have traveled to the outside world.
Conditions that, say it with me, are imposed by the us. Here’s your favorite source Wikipedia here’s the state dep websitehttps://state.gov/democratic-peoples-repub…. It is in fact incredibly simple to both visit the dprk, as long as you’re not American www.youngpioneertours.com/north-korea-tours/
this has already been argued with you, which you refused to engage with, which is how we ended up in this semantic rabbit hole. You keep arguing they’re isolationist because of culture or medieval history, completely ignoring modern history and current affairs. But this has already been pointed out to you.
It’s a strawman to say I said things I didn’t say in order to make it seem as if there is something I’ve said which can be argued against, which is exactly what you’re doing by saying “ it’s a strawman fallacy to quote things you said back to you”. If I perceived you as saying something, and you clarified what you meant and revealed I was perceiving it wrong compared to what you intended, I would respect this.
Yeah good some website says they’re isolationist, because they say they are.
…as opposed to? It’s not pointing out a contradiction or hole or exposing a lie simply to dismiss the article’s claim.
Conditions that, say it with me, are imposed by the us.
…based on?
It is in fact incredibly simple to both visit the dprk, as long as you’re not American
You say that like being restricted to one area when you visit and needing a supervisor is that much better.
Allright you’re just going in circles, it’s obvious you refuse to engage with anything I put in front of you, and you keep behaving as if I haven’t gone into every single one of your arguments. You’re wasting both of our times by willfully choosing to be obtuse, so I am going to disengage from this conversation
Did you not ask for more sources and did I not give a few more? Did I not ask what criteria you want us to go by with sources and did you not say there was no inherent criteria except to demonstrate where points in an article conflict? If in your answer to that question you were explaining your chosen criteria, you have a funny way of showing it.
You’ve given exactly one more, which I engaged with. Stop being obtuse.
I’ve given you the criteria. You kept asking for the criteria, yet you had received it.
Alright, if that’s the criteria (even though it can be perceived as a lack thereof), then there’s really nothing you’re going by or can go by based on your sources because they’re all even in that regard.
I’ll give an example in one of them. One of your sources claims that North Korea allows people in like any other nation as long as it’s not one of their three opponents… yet the sources also allude to the fact it’s barricaded, with a river to the North and a guarded wall to the South.
because I dispelled that logic by defining the semantics.
“You can stop with pointing out what it means when I say shit, because I also said ‘nuh uh’”
You speak of source critique, source bias, and all sources being good for something as if this whole time you haven’t been bashing America and its practices
You are correct, I have been speaking of source critique and then I have been critiquing the “sources” as far as has been possible BECUSE YOU HAVENT PROVIDED A LINK TO ANYTHING. How are you not getting it? What is with your weird circular logic?
the critique had this been limited to showing how these media have a proven track record of lying and a clear bias. This called source critique.
So I’ll ask again, what criteria would you like to use?
Get it thru your dense skull you dense motherfucker, there is no such thing as an overtly good or bad source. Did you not comprehend what I described to you?
Because I want to know how, if I’m failing at a criteria you prefer, you aren’t ahead of me in the same act of failing.
You have so far posted three links. Two of these are descriptors of medieval kingdoms.
Post your fucking references you massive brickhead porridge farmer
I’ve posted many links in various parts of this branching-out conversation. You said the ones you witnessed weren’t satisfying and questioned their validity and place here. So I asked based on what criteria should we both go by when considering a source suitable. That brings us to here. Pretend for a moment I’m questioning the validity and place of your own sources. What would you do then, with both of us questioning each others’ sources? If one of our sources are lying while the other’s are truthful, what sign would we go by?
I could just as easily ask you to list the things I’ve said you want more sources for if they would end up being welcome.
What as opposed to what in what way? What are you trying to say?
I’ve posted many links in various parts of this branching-out conversation.
We’ve already gone thru this. You’ve posted three links. We’ve already gone thru them. I’m not gonna keep repeating myself. If you’re just gonna be doing this circular thing were you don’t acknowledge the facts as presented to you, and don’t interact with them, but instead just keep repeating the same thing, then there is no reason for this conversation to continue.
So I asked based on what criteria should we both go by when considering a source suitable.
Which I then answered. Are you dense?
Pretend for a moment I’m questioning the validity and place of your own sources.
Then do so you dense motherfucker. Point out where there are issues, point out where they are clearly obfuscating the truth, point out where there are conflicts of interest, compare them to other sources.
What would you do then, with both of us questioning each others’ sources?
I would then interact with your argument. Questioning a source isn’t going “well I just don’t trust it”. It’s pointing out why it is untrustworthy - Which you dont do by saying “well I’ve been told they’re untrustworthy.” You do it by highlighting a history of untrustworthiness, clear bias, lies, conflicts of interest, etc. If you wanna do so, please I would love for you to actually interact with the argument.
could just as easily ask you to list the things I’ve said you want more sources for if they would end up being welcome.
Good thing I provided sources for you to critique and interact with. Please do so, providing your own references as relevant.
I was simply recapping with the first part is all. No need to react to those.
Questioning a source isn’t going “well I just don’t trust it”. It’s pointing out why it is untrustworthy - Which you dont do by saying “well I’ve been told they’re untrustworthy.” You do it by highlighting a history of untrustworthiness, clear bias, lies, conflicts of interest, etc.
My sources so far have included, as you said, a seeming (to you) random missionary-based website, the BBC, Wikipedia, two affiliates of Britannica, and all the American sources you say you denounce. If you truly are not simply saying “I just don’t trust it” as you say one shouldn’t do, what leads you to denounce every last source of mine, case by case?
I should point out many of your sources weren’t exactly news websites, a few seemed like homemade PSA sites.
If you truly are not simply saying “I just don’t trust it” as you say one shouldn’t do, what leads you to denounce every last source of mine, case by case?
I’m not saying that, I’ve taken the time to go thru them and illustrate why they are bad sources for backing up your claim. I have not simply denounced them based on vibes, as you seem to suggest, despite me taking pains to illustrate the process and reasoning.
I should point out many of your sources weren’t exactly news websites, a few seemed like homemade PSA sites.
This was almost something that approached engaging with a source. Now all you need to do is engage with the content and critique it based on a factual basis.
I’ve already gone thru why “well this is a famous brand” is not a good foundation for “what makes a source good for a given claim”, but if you need it in reddit-language: Appeal to authority.
This is obviously going in circles, so I am going to disengage from this discussion. I hope you will one day look back and realise how obtuse you’ve been.
I’m not saying that, I’ve taken the time to go thru them and illustrate why they are bad sources for backing up your claim.
There are a few you’ve yet to say anything about. The rest of them you’ve basically said it boils down to the trustworthiness of the country it’s in (or in Wikipedia’s case the supposed Godwin’s-law-violating bias) but then when it’s asked what the trustworthiness itself boils down to and it becomes a subjective matter.
Now all you need to do is engage with the content and critique it…
Haven’t I?
…based on a factual basis.
Your true colors are showing. Imagine if this was a court of law. You’d be seen as imperial for not having anymore evidence than the opposing side yet insisting it amounts to more than the opposing side.
I stopped appealing to authority in the first few comments, then I became ready to adapt to what you wish I appeal to, because based on the lack of clarity about your answer aside from your view on how a source should be critiqued, your stance is not as above mine in being backed up as you make it sound like you believe.
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