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Political Whores posted:Oh please. Listen the only reason that Business Insider is even running this piece is because it's a chuckling dismissal of calls to look at inequality. "See, Google says you need inequality to keep top talent!". Honestly who gives a gently caress about Google employees? These are the people who have a private shuttle bus to work to avoid dealing with the poors as much as possible. Somewhere in the Less Wrong thread before it closed, someone posted a blog from some Rationalist-Libertarian savant who was arguing about how hypocritical the left was because they were only interested in class inequality, and not things like temporal inequality ('what about all the poor people in the past") or familial inequality ("what if one kid gets the lion's share of the estate?"). Same basic idea here; shouldn't people who worry about inequality care about this inequality? Look how big it is! But Pareto says it works! It's also some heavy duty strawmanning. The left doesn't complain about inequality but rather the amount of it. People are literally going hungry so CEO Richy McGreedypants can buy his 12th mansion and brag about his $600,000,000 net worth. The left is totally OK with somebody that has skills that are in high demand or somebody that is highly productive making more money than others. What the left is not OK with is that person becoming extremely wealthy off of paying starvation wages to the guy cleaning his bathrooms. The janitor deserves to have a decent standard of living just as much as the CEO. This lolbertarian blathering about "but...but...but...MY FREEDOMS!!!!!  " are failing to understand what the left is concerned about. Poor people are often given the choice of starving to death quickly or starving to death slowly then dying of lack of medical care while laboring 70 hours a week to make some rich guy even richer. That's what the left is worried about.
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Apr 15, 2015 21:33
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To get back to happier topics, I am celebrating Government Theft day by applying for jobs with my state's Internal Revenue Service aka MEN WITH GUNS.
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Apr 15, 2015 21:45
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Chalets the Baka posted:In libertarian-related news, Google is perpetuating income inequality and points to their ubermensch as the reason why it's necessary. So is paying people what they're worth bad?
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Apr 15, 2015 22:11
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People are paid what they are worth, therefore people are worth what they are paid.
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Apr 15, 2015 22:21
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asdf32 posted:So is paying people what they're worth bad? How do you determine their worth, postingbot 9000?
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Apr 15, 2015 22:22
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CharlestheHammer posted:How do you determine their worth, postingbot 9000? By how much they are paid.
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Apr 15, 2015 22:23
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archangelwar posted:People are paid what they are worth, therefore people are worth what they are paid. Just seeing this idea as a bald circular argument like this should, in itself, be enough for anyone to reject their faith in it. Except idiots, I guess.
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Apr 15, 2015 22:28
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CharlestheHammer posted:How do you determine their worth, postingbot 9000? Google tried pretty hard to figure it out and then tried to pay people accordingly and that got presented as bad. Is that bad? Or are people rejecting their methods for figuring it out.
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Apr 15, 2015 22:29
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Political Whores posted:Oh please. Listen the only reason that Business Insider is even running this piece is because it's a chuckling dismissal of calls to look at inequality. "See, Google says you need inequality to keep top talent!". Honestly who gives a gently caress about Google employees? These are the people who have a private shuttle bus to work to avoid dealing with the poors as much as possible. Somewhere in the Less Wrong thread before it closed, someone posted a blog from some Rationalist-Libertarian savant who was arguing about how hypocritical the left was because they were only interested in class inequality, and not things like temporal inequality ('what about all the poor people in the past") or familial inequality ("what if one kid gets the lion's share of the estate?"). Same basic idea here; shouldn't people who worry about inequality care about this inequality? Look how big it is! But Pareto says it works! I think that you're creating an unjustified interpretation. The income inequality in the article applies only to bonuses in relation to specific projects where one developer produced significantly more than other developers. The article didn't seem to be leaving the scope of that scenario in its description, so "you need to keep inequality to keep top talent" isn't really what the article is about at all. I would even go as far as arguing that it's not really "inequality" when increased pay is actually earned. Pretty much every large company offers performance-based bonuses, and I don't see an issue with that
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Apr 15, 2015 22:30
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QuarkJets posted:I think that you're creating an unjustified interpretation. The income inequality in the article applies only to bonuses in relation to specific projects where one developer produced significantly more than other developers. The article didn't seem to be leaving the scope of that scenario in its description, so "you need to keep inequality to keep top talent" isn't really what the article is about at all. I would even go as far as arguing that it's not really "inequality" when increased pay is actually earned. Pretty much every large company offers performance-based bonuses, and I don't see an issue with that Yeah the article completely twists it around, it seems to imply that not only are the project bonuses very different but the normal pay is very different. In reality the difference in actual salary is way narrower, especially if you don't count employees from other locations. I have no doubt that maybe the most ancillary person on the project (who probably was mostly working on a separate one at that) really did only earn $10,000 extra payment in stock and the most productive person on the project did earn the 1 million in stock one time bonus. But since their salary pay was probably at most a difference of $100,000 vs $200,000 if the guy who got the least was also relatively new and the other guy was around for a while, not really the case the article wants to push.
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Apr 15, 2015 22:45
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So ultimately what we're talking about here is another attempt at narrative manipulation by free market "wonks".
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Apr 15, 2015 22:46
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Libertarians are one of the few things that make people happy to pay taxes, huh? Also still trying to figure out Salt and Iron. It's tough, plus a the documentation is like, copies of copies, the oldest of which is like, 14th century.
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Apr 15, 2015 22:50
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asdf32 posted:Google tried pretty hard to figure it out and then tried to pay people accordingly and that got presented as bad. Well they don't actually give you any details on how they give out the bonuses, so I wonder how exactly you came to the conclusion that this is fair. Is it fair because they say it is? I mean the whole article is vague and kind of trying to push a certain narrative.
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Apr 15, 2015 22:52
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RuanGacho posted:So ultimately what we're talking about here is another attempt at narrative manipulation by free market "wonks". aka the status quo
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Apr 15, 2015 23:10
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asdf32 posted:Google tried pretty hard to figure it out and then tried to pay people accordingly and that got presented as bad. They didn't figure out how much people should be paid, they figured out how much more some people should be paid than others. Even in the most basic of models/jobs, like a production line worker, determining an employee's worth is difficult. For something as complex as programming I'd say it's tending towards impossible.
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Apr 15, 2015 23:11
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winegums posted:They didn't figure out how much people should be paid, they figured out how much more some people should be paid than others. Couple that with the fact that most of the stuff Google does loses money. They pretty much fund everything else they do with the profits from Google Ads.
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Apr 15, 2015 23:37
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Rockopolis posted:Libertarians are one of the few things that make people happy to pay taxes, huh? I'm actually fine paying taxes as long as they go toward helping society, which is what my comments about roads and research and the FDA are about. I don't think this is a particularly uncommon opinion among people on the left. CharlestheHammer posted:How do you determine their worth, postingbot 9000? By how much socially necessary labor time they expend. 
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Apr 16, 2015 01:20
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CharlestheHammer posted:Well they don't actually give you any details on how they give out the bonuses, so I wonder how exactly you came to the conclusion that this is fair. Is it fair because they say it is? I mean the whole article is vague and kind of trying to push a certain narrative. When we're talking about low wages the charge is that companies don't pay what people are worth and the implication is that they should. Here, google is getting flak for attempting to do that. I think what google is doing makes lots of business sense and generally lines up with how we expect the market to work. I don't necesarily think that's fair.
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Apr 16, 2015 01:51
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winegums posted:They didn't figure out how much people should be paid, they figured out how much more some people should be paid than others. I don't think it trends toward impossible. When working with other programmers you tend to pretty quickly get a feel for their capabilities, and you could combine that with any number of metrics to get a rough idea of an individual employee's productivity. Then when it comes time to dole out bonuses you can use those metrics to weight how much each employee gets. It's an extremely difficult problem to solve correctly and fairly, but not an impossible one. This is already similar to how other large tech companies assign bonuses, the difference is that Google allows their bonus discrepancy between employees of similar rank to have a much larger variance than most companies. But if their metrics are as accurate as they believe they are, then I don't see a problem with this. QuarkJets fucked around with this message at 03:42 on Apr 16, 2015 |
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Apr 16, 2015 03:39
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Nothing wrong with offering incentives for exceptional performance, unless that incentive is "only the best one keeps his job" As was said, the problem with this article is that it uses the narrow example of "google gives some staff larger bonuses" to sell the idea "huge differences in compensation are always good". It's a thin veneer to try and justify absurd CEO and executive salaries, glosses over how certain sectors like Finance are largely parasitic yet get preferential taxation, or the general stagnation in wages and the resulting effect on consumer purchasing power. Google isn't the problem with this article, it's BI which is using Google in a disingenuous attempt to justify the current wealth gap, in order to suck up to its 1% readership. If it isn't obvious on the surface this is why this article was written, it becomes obvious in the context of who published it (BI being the magazine for rich fuckers who think the wall street journal is commie propaganda)
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Apr 16, 2015 03:54
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When the people saw that jrodefeld was so long in coming down from the mountain, they gathered around VitalSigns and said, “Come, make us a poster who will go before us. As for this fellow jrodefeld, we don’t know what has happened to him.” VitalSigns answered them, “Take your minimum wage arguments and bring them to me.” So all the people gathered up their arguments and took them to VitalSigns. He took what they handed him and made it into an idol cast in the shape of a babby, fashioning it with a tool. Then they said, “asdf32.” When VitalSigns saw this, he built an altar in front of the babby and announced, “Tomorrow there will be a festival to asdf32.” So the next day the people rose early and sacrificed burnt offerings and presented fellowship offerings. Afterward they sat down to eat and drink and got up to indulge in revelry.
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Apr 16, 2015 04:15
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oh my Sedan, a new title it's a beaut too
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Apr 16, 2015 05:27
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Is that from D&D's current racist honeypot, the *rolls 3d6, consults DMG* Cultural Appropriation thread? And why am I Aaron, the guy known for never shutting the gently caress u--oh, I see.
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Apr 16, 2015 06:27
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Amazon is starting to give me some weird suggestions, I think this thread is leaking into my account there https://www.amazon.com/dp/B00C0PQM9G
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Apr 16, 2015 07:00
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SedanChair posted:When the people saw that jrodefeld was so long in coming down from the mountain, they gathered around VitalSigns and said, “Come, make us a poster who will go before us. As for this fellow jrodefeld, we don’t know what has happened to him.” A thing of beauty is a joy forever.
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Apr 16, 2015 12:49
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QuarkJets posted:I don't think it trends toward impossible. When working with other programmers you tend to pretty quickly get a feel for their capabilities, and you could combine that with any number of metrics to get a rough idea of an individual employee's productivity. Then when it comes time to dole out bonuses you can use those metrics to weight how much each employee gets. It's an extremely difficult problem to solve correctly and fairly, but not an impossible one. Having worked in and around large tech for a couple of decades now I am fascinated as to how it has managed to craft this meritocratic perception.
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Apr 16, 2015 14:05
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I personally enjoy all of the posters who manage to do nothing in tech companies apart from shitposting and acting like huffy bitches (troubled/eccentric geniuses) if challenged, so people assume they are dysfunctional silicon valley geniuses and give them a free pass.
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Apr 16, 2015 14:33
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archangelwar posted:Having worked in and around large tech for a couple of decades now I am fascinated as to how it has managed to craft this meritocratic perception. It's because some people make a huge pile of money in tech despite not starting off rich, so people assume they earned it. Programming-type tech is too new to have dynasties like the Carnegies running around, so there's no highly visible counter examples to that idea. You'd have to rely on convincing people that the world isn't just, and welp.
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Apr 16, 2015 14:44
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Nolanar posted:It's because some people make a huge pile of money in tech despite not starting off rich, so people assume they earned it. Programming-type tech is too new to have dynasties like the Carnegies running around, so there's no highly visible counter examples to that idea. You'd have to rely on convincing people that the world isn't just, and welp. I wonder if we'll ever see tech dynasties or if anti-trust legislation will nix it
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Apr 16, 2015 14:51
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Nolanar posted:It's because some people make a huge pile of money in tech despite not starting off rich, so people assume they earned it. Programming-type tech is too new to have dynasties like the Carnegies running around, so there's no highly visible counter examples to that idea. You'd have to rely on convincing people that the world isn't just, and welp. Developer productivity disparity is very real and has been established for decades. From 1966: quote:The "horrid" portion of the performance frequency distribution is the long tail at the high end, the positively skewed part in which one poor performer can consume as much time or cost as 5, 10, or 20 good ones. Validated techniques to detect and weed out these poor performers could result in vast savings of time, effort, and cost.
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Apr 16, 2015 14:52
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Nolanar posted:It's because some people make a huge pile of money in tech despite not starting off rich, so people assume they earned it. Programming-type tech is too new to have dynasties like the Carnegies running around, so there's no highly visible counter examples to that idea. You'd have to rely on convincing people that the world isn't just, and welp. Anyone who's worked with custom software devs knows you get quality or cost savings, customer service or hubris and software updates or strung along for 6 months at a time about it'll work any day now. Pick one of each and then throw your hands up because you're getting all of that simultaneously anyway. Series DD Funding posted:Developer productivity disparity is very real and has been established for decades. From 1966: Haha "could" weed out. RuanGacho fucked around with this message at 14:56 on Apr 16, 2015 |
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Apr 16, 2015 14:54
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This is kind of a red herring though, because yuppie coders pulling low six figures are not what anyone is talking about with wealth inequality. The absurdly wealthy top 1% who own a full third of the wealth in this country hide behind well-paid professionals with "but...but that programmer has a family to feed too" to pretend like the people who live parasitically off of inheritance and investments have anything in common with a white collar office worker.
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Apr 16, 2015 15:19
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VitalSigns posted:This is kind of a red herring though, because yuppie coders pulling low six figures are not what anyone is talking about with wealth inequality. Devil convincing us he doesn't exist etc etc.
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Apr 16, 2015 15:21
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Series DD Funding posted:Developer productivity disparity is very real and has been established for decades. From 1966: No one is disputing the possibility that two different people might have disparate productivity so you can probably stop tilting at that windmill. But if you think the methodology of that study is representative of workplace output then I don't really think we have much common ground to discuss.
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Apr 16, 2015 15:31
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VitalSigns posted:This is kind of a red herring though, because yuppie coders pulling low six figures are not what anyone is talking about with wealth inequality. Yeah, this too; it is necessary to maintain the "impoverished millionaire" illusion and yuppie coders pulling low six figures are like the immortal embodiment of this belief paradigm.
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Apr 16, 2015 15:33
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VitalSigns posted:This is kind of a red herring though, because yuppie coders pulling low six figures are not what anyone is talking about with wealth inequality. Yeah, that's the most important piece of their slight-of-hand. You could eliminate a huge portion of the inequality in this country and end up with those programmers coming out better from the whole deal, but obviously any attempt to rein in the Captains of Industry means we want to take away Chad Programmer's Google Glass* and throw him into a government tenement. *Wanting to take away his Google Glass for reasons of privacy or fashion or common decency is, of course, still perfectly valid.
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Apr 16, 2015 15:49
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I just had a fight with a libertarian on facebook. I accused him of being a religious zealot. He denied it saying it was a stupid accusation to make against an agnostic. I asked him why he wanted a smaller government. He refused to discuss it because, and I quote, "Going into a huge theological discussion on Facebook about the intended role of government, is not something I'm interested in getting into right now. " I point out that he apparently considers the role of government a theological issue, and his defense is "It is for everyone, it's not a gotcha statement." He actually believes this. He is not only for serious a religious zealot of a libertarian, but he literally believes that everyone who opposes him is exactly the same, and after further discussion that his opponents all support "big government" as an end in and of itself and that is why they must be opposed. It's a loving holy war for him. I mean, I was planning how this conversation was going to go for a while, because I wanted to see how one of them would react to the accusation, but this certainly wasn't the result I expected.
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Apr 16, 2015 18:18
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archangelwar posted:Having worked in and around large tech for a couple of decades now I am fascinated as to how it has managed to craft this meritocratic perception. Meritocratic, as in people are promoted and placed into higher positions based on their skills? I don't think that I ever described anything like that. You must have replied to the wrong post.
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Apr 16, 2015 18:29
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GlyphGryph posted:I just had a fight with a libertarian on facebook. Have you been reading Prester John's thread on Authoritarianism? "Everyone thinks like an Authoritarian" is one of the big cornerstones of the worldview he's describing. And yeah, I've run into this idea talking to libertarians and conservatives myself. If they think less government is an objective good, and we disagree with them, we must think more government is an objective good. There's no shades of grey where you support some government actions and not others, that's just hypocrisy. You can see it with JRod's posts, too: you don't like the Iraq war or oil subsidies, so obviously you should support getting rid of food safety regulations and national parks too!
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Apr 16, 2015 18:40
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QuarkJets posted:Meritocratic, as in people are promoted and placed into higher positions based on their skills? I don't think that I ever described anything like that. You must have replied to the wrong post. You describe compensation as being handed out based on capability and productivity, which should tie into broader culture should it not? Edit: Why do you think compensation is merit based when you admit career advancement is not? archangelwar fucked around with this message at 19:21 on Apr 16, 2015 |
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Apr 16, 2015 19:15
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