onezerozeroone
Which states besides CA would you describe as "autonomous" vs not? A Federation of independent states unified under a federal government is kind of how the whole U.S. thing works, no?
You also seem to be trying to make a political statement. Should a "red" state like TX not request disaster relief funds (say, after a hurricane) if a Democrat is president?
Also, keep in mind that 57% of forests in CA are Federally managed. Only 3% is managed by the state.
I do think we're talking past each other though. Perhaps I should have said "practical" instead of "possible". Certainly just about anything is possible with enough money and manpower thrown at it.
I still maintain that forest management alone is insufficient to address the situation. After all, there is little need for forest management if the forest has burnt to a crisp, has become a desert, and no longer exists.
Let's say we devised a perfect management plan, used machine learning to slice the forests up into optimally manageable sections with nearly no chance of spreading uncontrollably. Hell, even throw in robots that automatically "rake" the land.
What happens when the climate becomes such that any segment will burn totally if ignited and all segments will inevitably burn? What happens when the climate becomes so hot that all foliage withers and dies? Problem solved I suppose.
Unfortunately, after decades of lies, propaganda, and lobbying, people (in the U.S. at least) still perceive climate change to be, as you say, a "debate". On that I guess we'll just have to agree to disagree, since IMO it is not a debate and has instead become one of those uniquely American ideological battlegrounds where one "side" has been convinced that being stubbornly contrarian is a sign of intellectual independence and superiority, despite all facts and data to the contrary.
https://www.sfchronicle.com/california-wildfires/article/Are...
FWIW I never said it had to be one or the other. But it certainly is the case that one of the two (climate change) is consistently downplayed and dismissed entirely as a major contributing cause. There are of course more contributing factors than just two, such as power lines sparking the fires.
It is not physically possible to manage the amount of forest in CA to the degree that it solves the problem. Help mitigate? Sure. Remember, you're talking something like 30 million acres.
Experts acknowledge that forest management is important and a necessary component. But again...57% is the Federal government and 33% is private.
Logically, there must be some point where the temperature+climate change become so severe that regardless of how much forest is cleared eventually all 30M acres become dry tinder, are consumed, and CA becomes a desert. Global climate change WILL eventually create that situation if not addressed and the amount of change required to cause that situation isn't as high as people might imagine. Some experts think it might already be too late.
Forest management alone at any level cannot prevent these massive fires from happening.
There is this deep, visceral resistance to acknowledging the impact of global climate change and humanity's role in causing it.
It certainly feels trite having to repeat it ad nauseam: global climate change is and will continue to cause extreme and unusual weather events including blizzards, hurricanes, droughts, floods, famines, and wildfires. And yes, it will still get "cold" in the winter -- that does not disprove global warming and the resulting climate changes.
The debt is an asset held by the bank until it is paid off, is sold, or is defaulted on.
Person A deposits $1M
Person A $1M, total deposits on hand = $1M
Person B takes $850k loan
Person A $1M, Person B $850k, Person B -$850k debt
Total deposits on hand is STILL only $1M. The combined balances are 1.85M but these are just entries that have no impact on what is actually in the bank's vault/account.
If A and B both ask for their entire balance at that moment the bank will have to go to the overnight window or some other facility to take a short-term loan that it will owe interest on and may need to provide collateral to receive.
In that case the bank's overall balance sheet would be $-850k of debt it owes someone. Because that debt isn't collateralized their rate will probably be higher. This is what led to things like the credit market freeze up that the Fed needed to step in to provide liquidity for. Banks usually borrow from each other not just the Fed, but when shit hits the fan banks might not be willing or able to loan to each other except at extremely high rates.
When the bank repays its loan (perhaps when Person C is paid by B and deposits the money into their account) the situation will unwind and we'll be back to the previous situation.
In real life it's much more complicated because the bank probably has many other types of assets like CLOs, CDOs, etc.
https://www.investopedia.com/ask/answers/040715/what-differe...
Sometimes the Fed will take assets as collateral for a loan and the bank is expected to repurchase it later at a slightly higher price a/k/a the Repo market
https://www.bankrate.com/banking/federal-reserve/why-the-fed...
Another 2/3 is private land.
There is more bureaucracy around things like air quality regulations, but in general it's not an "aesthetic" issue causing these problems.
Many of the issues are around "interface" fires where cities butt up against forested areas. Doing a controlled burn of some remote wilderness is fine, but doesn't accomplish much as far as human safety. This is exacerbated by things like the massive drought CA suffered, and other climate change related problems. For example, millions of CA tress which would otherwise be green and healthy have died or are afflicted by disease as a result of climate change, which makes them into tinder that fuels these "conflagrations".
If you do a controlled burn nearby a heavily-populated area, you always run the risk of things going out of control and having unintended consequences. The issue as far as PG&E goes is that their POWER LINES and other equipment have not been properly maintained, which is 100% their responsibility.
They are obligated to clear areas around their lines and make sure everything is operating safely. The Paradise fire wasn't caused by State mismanagement, it was caused by sparking PG&E lines and transformers catching immediately adjacent growth on fire. That's not a State of even a Federal management issue or responsibility.
They are a for-profit corporation though, so other than fines and penalties for their negligence, they have no incentive to do better. They pay out massive salaries, bonuses, and dividends (bizjournals.com/sanfrancisco/news/2019/04/16/new-pge-ceo-salary-double-geisha-williams.html), yet their solution to "safety" here is to just shut everything off and act like it's a problem caused by others.
There are many interrelated aspects at play, but insinuating that the State is somehow just a bunch of misguided hippies not following common sense is just silly.
Ironically (or maybe not), he's recursively "mansplanined" why "mansplaining" is a term that makes him feel insecure. And I say insecure because of the false dichotomy between having empathy and being "suspicious about a hidden agenda" -- that screams "I feel threatened, so let me explain to you why your approach is wrong".
Just because someone shares their perspective on a personal experience they had doesn't mean it's an invitation, and doesn't mean they want or need any input.
For example, it says it's solving issues attributed to production of livestock...it doesn't outright claim the "meat" itself is healthier for you in terms of nutritional content.
Drive by any factory farm that stretches for hundreds of acres and the stench alone would convince you that reducing things like that would have a positive impact on human health, both directly and indirectly [runoff of feces and chemicals into the environment, use of antibiotics and hormones, climate change, etc]
Containers are all about consistency of the environment. For example, maybe your Elixir app wants to log out to something like Splunk or DataDog...if those agents aren't installed on the host, it doesn't matter what facilities BEAM provides. Or maybe your app depends on certain configs, libraries, or files being available at specific paths on the system. Things like that would be captured in the image your containers are running and guarantee consistency across machines and environments.
Companies didn't create these policies arbitrarily and unprovoked. They became necessary because of some people who took advantage of the legal system to get settlements. It's in the company's best interest to protect itself from frivolous lawsuits, so it's better to be safe than sorry.
Which isn't to say that there aren't people who actually are discriminated against, but in this example it's not a company "discarding" someone as much as it is covering its bases.
First, it's creepy that a company I paid money to for a game is actively scraping the internet trying to associate my Blizzard-Activision account/identity with other online identities. What if they get it wrong?
Second, there's nothing preventing them from taking action based on subjective aspects. What if the employee reviewing my "behavior" is racist and bans me because they figure out I'm black? Or because I posted a political video they didn't agree with and deemed "toxic"? What happens if a Blizzard employee decides to dox someone as a form of punishment?
There's no way they have enough properly trained and ethical support people to have any real checks and balances to prevent abuse.
Sure, initially I would hope (for their sake) that they're only considering in-game or game-related posts/content, but once these tools exist it's only a matter of time before they are abused, or they see how far they can push things until there's a financial backlash.
Eventually it will go to your head and you'll be viewed as a brash, arrogant, out-of-touch upper manager who throws their weight and ego around without appreciation for the repercussions of their horrendous misinformed decisions.
You either die a hero or live to see yourself become the problem.
I'm starting from a position that assumes the government is entitled to the prevailing tax rate that was law at the time the income was earned.
A tax rate that existed during a time when Apple became the world's most valuable company. It wasn't a colony with no representation suffering under a tyrannical monarchy that was leeching it like a parasite for the enrichment of an elite class. They ARE the elite class.
In fact the opposite is true. Apple benefited from all the services paid for by other tax payers (security and military, infrastructure, legal system, etc) and avoided paying their fair share using legal tricks and loopholes.
The result wasn't "fix the loopholes" it was "give the finger to the American people and government until we get someone elected that will change the rules in our favor"
I'm not saying government is the answer to all problems. Far from it. But there's no question Apple exists and is as successful as it is in large part due to the favorable environment America provides to business...and part of that environment exists due to things paid for with taxes. Never mind the ridiculous wealth inequality that is only continuing to grow in the U.S...this road leads to oligarchy.
Nah, they capitulated and accepted a far lower rate than they should have received otherwise if Apple (and companies like them) weren't permitted to play these shifty legal games.
If the U.S. gov was really looking out for its own interests and the interests of its citizens, it would have closed these loopholes years ago and told Apple to go pound sand going forward.
Pay your taxes or get slammed with massive fines and be barred from selling product in the U.S. until your tax bill is paid.
Not many markets can afford their products, see how they like it when the country whose resources and laws allowed them to become so successful becomes off limits to them.
Corporations are treated as people only when it's convenient.
You and I don't have high-powered lawyers, lobbyists, loopholes, offshore accounts, subsidiaries, etc to hide behind.
This is an insult to every U.S. citizen...Apple wouldn't exist if it weren't for the U.S. and its tax-payers providing the environment that allowed Steve Jobs to create his company and become successful.
The rate they're being charged on this money is even lower than the new lower rate that they'll be charged on future income. Must be nice. Yay for corporate oligarchy.
Because it isn't and history is full of examples showing it isn't.
Circumstances (social, economic, etc) might sway things in certain directions, but in the same way we can't predict the weather a year out with 100% certainty, it's impossible to predict the course of a human being's life a year from now, let alone 10 or 20.
And that isn't even taking into account changing environments. Ask someone in the 1950's if Obama would become president and most would probably have said "no way"
It's also detrimental and discouraging to people even attempting to achieve their potential. It's like the photo of the horse tied to a chair by a rope. The horse only believes it can't move because it's been trained to think that is its reality.
Philosophies are really only important and useful in as much as they produce a certain result. History is also full of examples of those philosophies being used by the ruling class to suppress their "inferiors" in order to maintain their positions of privilege. Then you get things like the French Revolution.
If you got a hundred people together to collaboratively build a mansion, volunteering their time and resources, with the implication that it would be something "open" and jointly built and owned by all...then flipped the house to a private company for $10MM and kept all the proceeds...that would seem a bit unethical, no?
Only do this if you think you've set the company up for long-term success and it will still be successful even without you there.
Also only do this if you think you can make out better in the long-term (more money, more equity, equally sure thing elsewhere), otherwise just buckle down and ride out the remaining 2 years.
Unless you think your current company is trash, then just bounce.
I'm the kind of person that would pick up my own cup, but if it was the interviewer's cup, I definitely wouldn't pick it up. I'd also probably have a slightly negative impression of the interviewer for not doing so.
That being said, I feel like silicon valley gives preference to younger people in large part due to ingrained social expectations. A young 20-24 year old that pitches gets a lot of lee-way.
They have a passion and fire in them, so anything they say seems more impressive especially because you might not expect it of them. It's like a 5 year old regurgitating some obscure or advanced factoid...wow you say, what a smart young man! Objectively the kid isn't smart, but relatively speaking he appears very smart, especially compared to other 5 year olds.
The standards increase as you get older. You can't just walk in and pitch like you're an idealistic 20-something. You have to project complete confidence...essentially you need to act like the boss society expects you to already be. In contrast, younger entrepreneurs benefit from a sort of stereotype: younger people are "fresher" ideas, aren't held back by convention, etc. Older people are expected to know how to run shit and aren't allowed to just skate by on vision alone.