In my experience, LLMs perform significantly better on readable maintainable code.
It's what they were trained on after-all.
However what they produce is often highly readable but not very maintainable due to the verbosity and obvious comments. This seems to pollute codebases over time and you see AI coding efficiency slowly decline.
So even you concede they benefit almost everyone, only they benefit some more. So should we really be dismantling them and descend into anarchy, just to harm a group you dislike? Doesn't seem like a good move.
Only because you hate the rich.
I get that it encourages them to share to keep the pitchforks off their lawn, and that noblesse oblige has broken down recently, but property laws are the foundation of our prosperity. If you can't have something that's actually yours (property laws) for you to invest in, then there will be little investment.
Wanting property laws not to give additional advantages beyond those that wealth itself already gives is not hateful. It's also pretty reasonable that the vast majority of people who are not rich might not care about preserving "our" prosperity in the current form. I'm pretty certain there have been plenty of societies with worse quality of life for most people in them throughout history with property laws at least as strict as ours, so it doesn't follow that people would overall be worse off with more egalitarian property rights. This doesn't even address the obvious issues with assumptions that maximizing prosperity is inherently the most important thing; it was arguably more "propserous" to avoid regulating child labor, 40 hour work weeks, minimum wages, etc., but I fundamentally disagree that those would be bad policies even if there were provably shown to reduce "prosperity", whatever that means
The only problem with modern infrastructure projects is that the infrastructure doesn't actually get built. They have become welfare programs in disguise.
In the past the government would choose a competent industrialist to lead the construction such as Kaiser to build the Hoover Dam. Imagine the impossibility of appointing a billionaire industrialist to build CA high-speed rail in this age.
And perhaps a controversial take but consider the counterfactual: Should it be illegal to fire employees that recent took mental health leave? Get a bad review or put on a PIP? It's already becoming a common strategy to immediately take mental health/sick leave.
> Should it be illegal to fire employees that recent took mental health leave?
In civilized countries it is illegal to fire someone on sick leave, and I highly doubt you’d get a permit to fire someone who just got back from sick leave.
I've taken mental health leave (not due to a PIP) and my productivity before and after was significantly different. It was great for my employer that I took it. I'm quite sure I would've eventually ended up with a PIP if I hadn't taken it sooner myself, and the best remedy on a PIP would have been to take mental health leave. Not as a strategy as such, but literally because it would have been the best solution (and I think the only one).
Yes, exactly. Taking mental health leave should be seen as a positive step: an opportunity to overcome whatever difficulties you've been facing, leading to - amongst many other benefits - better performance at work.
Mental health problems are tricky; they tend to creep up on us gradually, and often some form of external trigger is needed in order to prompt us to seek help. So it shouldn't be at all surprising that an employee in receipt of a PIP might take mental health leave as part of a genuine effort to improve their situation.
gp's cynical "counterfactual" suggests that they view PIPs as being purely a sham, intended to always result in dismissal rather than improved performance. Now, that might occasionally be true - but we should be blaming the abusive employer (who is likely acting outside the law) in that situation, not the employee.
> Should it be illegal to fire employees that recent took mental health leave?
It's not legal to fire an employee on a sick leave in our country. They have to come back to work and then you can fire them. The employer is not paying their wage during the sick leave anyway, they get money from the social and health insurances. So there is very little downside for the company to keeping the employee employed. And if they employee is somehow faking it, that's an issue to check for the insurance companies.
> It's already becoming a common strategy to immediately take mental health/sick leave.
Maybe the companies should ask themselves very hard why this is happening.
Here's another controversial take: as long as healthcare is tied to employment, companies shouldn't be allowed to fire someone except for actual negligence / malice. If they suck at their job, find them another one at the company -- there has to be something they can do in a company of 5k employees.
On the other hand, it may end up the other way: pressure you or bully you into quitting yourself. Here in Spain it happens sometimes: firing you is expensive and they don't want you around for whatever issue, so they'll try to find any justification to fire you, or just pressure you in some way on another to make you miserable enough to quit. No doubt that would happen in the US.
This can easily backfire on the employer with discrimination, hostile workplace, and a variation on wrongful dismissal lawsuits.
From Wikipedia:
From a legal standpoint, it occurs when an employee is forced to resign because of intolerable working conditions which violate employment legislation, such as:
Family and Medical Leave Act of 1993 (FMLA)
Equal Pay Act of 1963 (EPA)
Change in schedules in order to force employee to quit (title 12)
Americans with Disabilities Act of 1990 (ADA)
Genetic Information Nondiscrimination Act of 2008 (GINA)
Age Discrimination in Employment Act of 1967 (ADEA)
Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 (Title VII)
It would take significant change to multiple parts of federal legislation and that in many states with additional worker protection laws.
To succeed on a claim for constructive discharge, you must be able to prove at least three elements:
Your employer was trying to force you to resign by intentionally and knowingly creating an employment environment that was intolerable and aggravated;
This unbearable, hostile workplace gave you no choice but to resign; and,
Your employer was motivated to get rid of you for illegal, retaliatory or discriminatory reasons.
so you'll take janitorial after your SWE job? if yes, the go for it but what happens you become disgruntled because you're no longer getting paid the same? You think it wise to keep a disgruntled employee?
so you have guaranteed employment for life with the same company? that is about as radical as it gets. this would shoot the unemployment through the roof if I, as a business owner, am unable to fire anyone that I hire! health insurance or not, that is to radical for even the most "social" country in existence (or that previously existed)
You're uninformed. France has that, and it doesn't result in excessive unemployment; in fact, the unemployment rates in France and in the US are practically the same, respectively 7.5% vs. 7.8%.
What changes between the countries is the hiring procedure.
US and UK companies mostly use a "hire anyone, keep the slightly useful ones for as long as they seem slightly useful, fire everyone else, fire them too, wash, rinse, repeat" narcissistic-sociopathic trial-and-error pseudo-method that's just guesswork dressed up as "choice".
French companies, and those in countries with similar preferences, take their time to very seriously vet the people they're hiring with a focus on the long term, and do it right from the start, following scientific hiring methodologies that leave little to no space for guesswork and gut feelings.
The result for the company is the same: the proper employee, at the proper position, doing the proper job the company needs.
The result for the employee is that the first "method", being as it is narcissistic-sociopathic, promotes unnecessary human suffering with zero actual benefit to anyone, whereas the second promotes well-being, satisfaction, and good work-life balance.
And, again, unemployment rates don't vary between them.
Now, if you believe your company would do badly under this system, maybe it would indeed. Which only goes to show you don't know how to hire properly. Start hiring better, and it'd make zero difference for you whether you're in a system or the other. In fact, start hiring better, and you may even move ahead compared to your narcissistic-sociopathic competitors, since then they will be the ones going with simple trial-and-error, while you will get the right employees from the start, and without regrets.
> You're uninformed. France has that, and it doesn't result in excessive unemployment; in fact, the unemployment rates in France and in the US are practically the same, respectively 7.5% vs. 7.8%.
You might want to expand that to the youth unemployment rate.
> Youth Unemployment Rate in France decreased to 18.90 percent in October from 19 percent in September of 2025. Youth Unemployment Rate in France averaged 20.52 percent from 1983 until 2025, reaching an all time high of 28.20 percent in November of 2012 and a record low of 14.50 percent in February of 1983.
While the overall unemployment rate may be similar, the "hire them once and have to take exterodary action to fire them" significantly impacts the employment rate of college new graduates where it can be difficult to identify how well they actually work in the work force.
> ... High unemployment, especially for young immigrants, was seen as one of the driving forces behind the 2005 civil unrest in France and this unrest mobilized the perceived public urgency for the First Employment Contract. Youths are particularly at risk as they have been locked out of the same career opportunities as older workers, contributing to both a rise in tensions amongst the economically disenfranchised underclass, and, some claim, a brain drain of graduates leaving for better opportunities in Britain and the United States.
Good points. But notice that, if the overall unemployment rate is the same, and in one country there's higher unemployment rate for youth compared to another, this means in the other there's higher unemployment rate for older workers compare to the first. The question then becomes: which is worse, more unemployed youth people, or more unemployed mature/elder people?
I'd argue more unemployed mature/elder is worse. Mature people in an at-will system don't become younger over the years to start finding better and better opportunities, rather their prospects become worse as time goes by. Conversely, young people become mature and find more and more opportunities as they age, so long-term not-at-will systems favor everyone, at the cost of making the start more difficult.
In both the corresponding difficulties can be reduced via welfare. But at-will systems tend, or at least it seems so to me, I may be wrong in this, to provide worse welfare, which may add weight to the comparison.
You can get the overall unemployment by demographic breakdown at https://www.bls.gov/web/empsit/cpseea10.htm (this also gets into how do you count unemployment https://www.bls.gov/news.release/empsit.t15.htm - the reported numbers tend to be the U-3 rate, but people also like to quote the U-6 rate if they want bigger numbers ... the demographic numbers are likely based on the U-3 rate).
The United States is currently showing 4.1% for 20 and over with the 20-24 range at 8.3% and 25 and over at 3.7%.
United States by that measure is 4.6% while France is 7.7%. For the US at 7.8% would be the U-6 number which includes everyone working a part time job.
> U-6 Total unemployed, plus all people marginally attached to the labor force, plus total employed part time for economic reasons, as a percent of the civilian labor force plus all people marginally attached to the labor force
> The unemployed under the International Labour Office (ILO) definition comprise all working-age persons (conventionally those of at least 15 years of age) that 1°) during the reference week had no employment, even for one hour, 2°) were available to start work within the next two weeks and 3°) had actively sought employment at some time during the previous four weeks or had found a job due to start within 3 months.
Note the "even for one hour" means that comparing it to the U-6 rate is inappropriate. So comparing it to the U-3 (4.6%), U-4 (4.9%) or U-5 (5.6%) would be more correct.
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With that in mind, I would urge you to reconsider your comparison about how increasing the difficulty to fire someone impacts employment.
Furthermore, there's only one state in the US that is not at will... Montana.
> Montana is the only state that is not an at-will employment state. In Montana, employers must have a valid reason for terminating an employee, and employees can only be fired for just cause.
However, that is "just cause" not "have to attempt to find another position for them at the company before they can be fired."
Comparing employment stats for Montana (45th state by population) may be difficult to compare with other states. https://montanafreepress.org/2018/11/17/where-the-jobs-are-m... -- would you compare the unemployment Mato Grosso do Sul to the rest of Brazil - and would you be able to attribute employment stats there to one difference in employment law vs the rest of the country?
> French laws don’t recognize at-will employment. In France, you can’t simply dismiss an employee without reason. In fact, the French labor code makes it extremely clear that it considers termination to be an absolute last resort, especially in cases of voluntary or involuntary personal grounds for dismissal. Instead, it encourages employers to try to find other ways to resolve the problem. For example, let’s say the employee in question is having serious interpersonal issues with their manager or a coworker. You can only dismiss them after you’ve tried everything else, such as holding a meeting in which you talk to the two of them and try to find a solution, or by putting them on different projects so they don’t have to work together directly. If the company is putting technological changes in place to increase its competitiveness, before you can start the dismissal procedure, you must demonstrate you tried another course of action, such as redeployment or employee training.
> Everything must be documented. This is extremely important: You must document evidence of all events and/or incidents that led to the dismissal of the employee, even if the reasons have nothing to do with their conduct specifically. You’ll use this evidence both during the interview when you’re telling the employee why they’re being dismissed and should also keep it in case the employee decides to bring a lawsuit against your company.
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If someone is having difficulty with their job, you first provide them training before you can fire them. From what I understand, it has to be a "we tried everything for the past year, here's all the documentation and they're still unable to do the basic requirements for the position.
> companies shouldn't be allowed to fire someone except for actual negligence / malice
France sure does a lot of things right here but above is what OP stated that I commented on which isn't the case for France. While one might have to go through some additional paperwork / procedures / ... you can in fact fire an say an underperforming employee
True, if you prove they're in fact a completely underperforming employee. Notice this is not only for the position they're in at the moment, but for every other conceivable position they might be reassigned to before the conclusion becoming it's impossible to keep them and the company positively, absolutely, needs to hire someone else for their place.
For absolute unfireability, there are countries where government employees cannot be fired no matter what, but that's not private employment so it doesn't count for your question.
The closest to that for private employers, that I know about, was Japan before the 1990's economic crisis, in which the culture (not the laws, but the culture was strong enough for it to be the same in practice) prevented companies from firing employees. If an employee became useless, the company assigned them a desk and nothing to do. After a few weeks of this the not-fired employee felt so ashamed of being paid for doing nothing 8 hours a day, they themselves asked to be let go (which was also the expected cultural thing for them to do, so they did it).
Regardless, the point is that at-will employment vs not-at-will employment doesn't affect things as much as it seems to do. And if you look at statistic comparing US States that don't have at-will employment vs those that have it, there's no practical difference either.
Sounds like the kind of thing a union or works counsil could help with: enforcing a fair policy. That and revisiting the concept of at-will employment.
If neither option satisfies, we must go up the stack. There is something seriously wrong with a society that drives educated, productive adults to suicide.
The US is somewhere in the middle, right there with some European countries. It's hard to say what drives people over the edge. Surprisingly Uruguay is high up there but Uganda, Ghana and Colombia are low.
Better way to look at it: why are people so afraid of losing their job, and how do we reasonably remove the fear of losing one? Denmark may provide some good guidance here, as they have a good balance between social welfare and protections and fostering a robust business environment
I suspect a major way for the U.S. would be the one mentioned in the article: make it so that losing your job doesn't mean losing your health insurance. That's a major additional stressor, particularly if someone loses their job because of an illness.
Of course, there's about a negative one thousand percent chance of something like that passing in the current political climate.
> An employer is prohibited from discriminating or retaliating against an employee or prospective employee for having exercised or attempted to exercise any FMLA right.
You can fire someone after they come back but you will need to show receipts. Your employer also doesn't pay you when you take that leave so it would be a strange way to game the system.
I know people who upon getting put into a PIP took a mental health leave as it took them over the PIP time horizon. The mileage you get from this will vary on organization —some won’t want the reputational hit, others won’t care though.
There will always be people who abuse the system, no matter what system you have.
The solution is not to burn down all systems and just wild west everything. No. The solution is to anticipate the fraud, and build it into your margins and planning. Recognize it will always happen. And, in fact, the optimal amount of fraud is never zero. Because preventing fraud, too, has a cost, and it grows exponentially.
>Should it be illegal to fire employees that recent took mental health leave?
Yes, at least for companies the size of MongoDB
Didn't need much ruminating to come to that answer, but I lack the sociopathic behaviors necessary to run a corporation in the American legal environment.
IMO the FDA should do a better job at helping the populace distinguish between these two:
1) Evidence for the null hypothesis (there are enough studies with sufficient statistical power to determine that product likely does not cause harm at a >95% CI).
2) There is no evidence that it is unsafe. (nor that it is safe).
The problem is #2 sounds a lot stronger and often better than #1 when put into English. There must be some easy to understand way to do it, IE an 'insufficient testing' vs. 'tested' label/website or something.
Yes but the fact it's primarily a Chinese export makes the profit as the cause narrative much less convincing. The US FDA is ignoring evidence to protect a Chinese supplier?
> Yes but the fact it's primarily a Chinese export makes the profit as the cause narrative much less convincing. The US FDA is ignoring evidence to protect a Chinese supplier?
Who said it was done to protect the pesticide's manufacturer? It protects the industry as a whole: the agro-industry aims for low costs, and that means using cheap pesticides to increase crop yield, even it it ends up harming farmers in the process.
Sell the spectrum and let them compete fairly in the marketplace of ideas. Half the country should not be forced to fund broadcasting they do not agree with.
You're mad about a 'split of opinions on new thing' story from nearly 4 years ago?
I don't believe you're serious. If Mr Rogers were broadcasting for the first time now opponents of public media would be deriding it as woke propaganda and worse.
Nobody is forced to fund broadcasting, now that Trump has taken away NPR and PBS funding. That has nothing to do with spectrum: nada, zilch, nichts, rien, ma'yuk...
The free spectrum granted to NPR and PBS represents a huge amount of gov funding. Spectrum is worth quite a lot, it should be auctioned and proceeds used to pay down the national debt.
>BSV seemed to scale just fine, and you could also store entire files on it, including JSON, HTML or even music or videos
This doesn't pass the sniff test. Everyone must store the full blockchain in order to verify it. So to run a full node you would have to store everyone's JSON, HTML, music, videos. Full mirroring for every node in a distributed system is about as close as you can get to the definition of doesn't scale.
I should note, the scaling I was referring to was transaction processing. Data storage is a little different.
The architecture which I heard described or hypothesized was more akin to Amazon deep storage. More frequently accessed data would be more accessible on "hot" nodes.
Full nodes would effectively, under this paradigm, become cloud storage providers. As a bonus, the problem of how to charge for access is basically already solved, and does not require a complex corporate payment scheme.
Indeed. Bitcoin's blockchain grows with a laughable 3kB/s, yet is an unwieldy 700 GB.
A blockchain that allowed you store one song per second would be hundreds of TB before long. There are other architectures for that sort of thing for a reason.
Looks like BSV is about 7TB and grows at about 4GB a day. I have no clue what those guys are up to these days. This may be unweildy for a home PC but really is still pretty trivial for a data center.
500 hours of video is uploaded to YouTube per minute which is... If my napkin math is right, about a petabyte a day.
It's what they were trained on after-all.
However what they produce is often highly readable but not very maintainable due to the verbosity and obvious comments. This seems to pollute codebases over time and you see AI coding efficiency slowly decline.
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