Worked in tech for a long time before I got to WOTC. Went through a lot of layoffs and short term executive decisions that invariably leave anyone without preferred stock out to dry. Wish I had a union then. Glad to have one now.
Edit: Words are my own. I am not a rep of WOTC or Hasbro.
Did you not know what you were getting into? Most folks I know in Seattle have pretty commonly talked about wotc being an absolutely abysmal company to work for going all the way back to the early 00s.
The only reason to be there was for the love and the buying access/perks. That access & perks are long gone.
Had a friend whose dream job was to work on D&D. He's got a fairly high profile in the TTRPG space and developed one major product/book release for D&D. The experience spun him out of Hasbro and the TTRPG industry entirely.
I knew the publishing and game industry weren’t known for good treatment of their labor, but WOTC had a fair reputation in that regard. This has apparently degraded prior to my joining the company and has continued to do so. A big motivator for organizing for many was the steady erosion of pay, benefits, and the lauded perks despite a workload that has and continues to grow tremendously.
“People on twitter will really be like ‘you believe in voting? that pales in effectiveness to my strategy, firebombing a Walmart’ and then not firebomb a Walmart”
I don't understand why people make these hyperbolic jokes about guillotines. Violence is counterproductive; and not practical anyway. Joking about it just makes you feel great without actually doing anything.
There is a simple alternative. Vote; and educate your family and friends.
If you don't know what is on the ballot in the midterms, you are part of the problem. If you aren't starting a family conversation about how corporations are squeezing us, you are part of the problem.
Everyone talks about MLK, but no one points out that people were willing to listen because Malcom X was a looming threat if MLK failed. Yes vote, but the threat of violence is what makes voting a delighted option. That's why protests exist. They are reminders that peace is a choice.
Violent revolution has merit when peaceful means break down. The rise of the guillotine jokes are the first time that people are losing faith in the peaceful option. We should hope that our leaders don't make most of use disillusioned with the idea of a peaceful transfer of power.
It is one of the most eye opening pieces of media. Especially the French and Russian Revolutions are covered in such great detail, while staying interesting. I also loved the appendix to the show where Mike talked about "patterns" in a revolution. Learned a lot about the relationship between the government and its people.
Yeah, for me, Revolutions and The History of Rome are two of the best examples of "this is why knowing history is useful", and that history isn't actually boring - it's basically a highlight reel of some of the highest human dramas. Mike Duncan put out some incredible work.
It's never been a good way to get things done, but when you block off every other venue for change people will be much more willing to take a chance on a high risk option. Violent revolutions aren't usually the first thing people try.
Democracies that arise by nonviolent revolution, do so in part due to the threat of what comes next if the nonviolent revolution is crushed. Because if you make sure placards and petitions don't work, it eventually won't be placards and petitions anymore.
'Those who make peaceful revolution impossible, will make violent revolution inevitable', and all that.
Yeah, I get that it's a useful threat to back up the nonviolent options. I just don't think Americans have tried the nonviolent options wrt economics with any amount of real effort yet, and it's worrying/annoying to see people jumping to the nuclear option as soon as they personally hit a rough patch or start getting scared of one.
When I've gone to local government meetings, I've generally been one of only a few without gray hair. The vast majority of working-age people seemingly can't be bothered to learn the basics about who's running in a non-presidential election, let alone go argue for the boring but extremely impactful things that would actually help people out.
People need to put down the phones and put in some actual effort on fixing things before even jokingly advocating for something that would almost certainly be a mass casualty event. It's shameful.
Everyone remembers Malcolm X, but does anyone remember the names of the thousands of civilians who protested the Iranian regime and got summarily executed?
Resistance doesn't work very well against highly militarized autocratic regimes.
The UK didn't just repress its citizens, it ultimately caved to them. The voting reforms of the 19th century gave people essentially everything they wanted, at the time, and as a consequence when the rest of europe was going thru 1848 Britain was chilling. But just a few years beforehand there was legitimate fear that the government would be toppled by rioters! You can't judge centuries of history just by looking at the end result.
[EDIT: for the downvoters - the folks who got guillotined in France were definitely bad, but the Terror was very real and very awful. It tends to be a trend with the noble overthrowers that after the initial wins they then get excited to go lop the heads off anyone else that might have ever bothered them. Be careful what you wish for.]
I don't believe that activism actually generally works, and I am skeptical that voting works either.
Don't get me wrong. I do vote, and I believe that voting and activism can work, and even still does for a variety of things. But as for fighting against forces of corruption and tyranny, I believe activism is about as useful as an ashtray on a motorcycle. Any grassroots efforts are in a horribly asymmetric battle against well-funded adversaries that will come back every year everywhere without fail to get their opening. And any hope we had of limiting corporate interests in politics has been decimated in the U.S. basically since Citizen's United — not that I really believe there wouldn't have been some other workaround had that not happened.
So yes, I believe grassroots activism largely doesn't work. The fact that the battle is so asymmetrical makes it even more asymmetrical by making people apathetic about and fatigued over activism, making it even less effective.
But people often turn their heads when there's violence.
Nobody wants violence, just like nobody wants to hit rock bottom. I believe truly that political violence is a very dark place that will be no fun for anyone involved that I personally do not want to be a part of in any way. But, it just is the case that things will get worse before they get ~~much worse~~ better.
I see it as a question of if and not when until structural changes occur that durably improve upon the asymmetry of political activism. And in that case, it's not a matter of whether or not, it's a matter of getting it the hell over with.
I don't know how the fuck these stupid Flock "safety" cameras got here, but I have a pretty good guess how they'll disappear.
This is anticipatory obedience and it's actively harmful.
You are also wrong. Contracts, ordinances, and everything related to governance get rolled back or changed all the time. Especially at the local level.
If you have lost the initial battle you can do the same thing as them: you keep attacking their presence and you only need to win once to undo it.
Locally over here our city councils are overran with people who are anti Flock. Flock's strategy is to sneak their way in as if it is an "emergency". They've got a whole playbook.
Normal activists don't stand a chance against well-funded adversaries.
This is just anticipatory obedience. Deciding that you've already lost before even trying is actively harmful, especially when paired with a lack of any other action.
If you don't believe in this system then start setting things on fire[0] I guess. Otherwise shut up, people are actually trying to fight it.
Violence has been very productive for the ruling class. Voting sounds nice but evidence abounds about the mendacity of politicians and their willingness to subvert or overrule voters' preferences if sufficient money or status is to be had. You can say 'well vote those people out if they ignore the voters' but once a new reality has set in the politicians often gainan incumbency advantageor have lined up a cushy post-retirement gig.
This is actually a pretty interesting observation as GMail, when it first came out, was just as clunky as all the other webmail clients. At the time, everyone was used to Yahoo!, MSN, etc. and Google was the odd one out with their webmail client.
This changed when they were the first folks out there to get a dynamic interface in the browser (some of you may fondly or not so fondly remember the days of DHTML, XMLHTTPRequest, and the like). Fast forward 10 or 15 years and now GMail is the standard by which everything else is measured.
I'm sure there are some things that are objectively better, but a surprising amount of preference comes from familiarity.
> Humans have a tendency to ascribe intelligence to how well spoken a person or thing is
That’s true. I’m fluent in German, but there’s still a difference between me and a native speaker. I’ve often seen my ideas dismissed, only for the exact same point to be praised later when a native speaker expresses it more clearly.
Probably a diversification play and a play to see out bigger contracts. If you've worked in the FEDRamp space, you may be aware that Wiz (last a checked, a year or so ago) is one of the few and possibly ownly player certified to operate in FedRAMP Medium/High deployments operating with the technology it does (eBPF instrumentation).
There is a reason for hoarding data: it’s an asset on the balance sheet. So long as it is legal to liquidate data for cash, there will be incentives to collect and keep it.
Or at least make it a liability on the balance sheet rather than an asset. Sure, you can store as much user data as you want. Oh, what's that, if it leaks you owe each user $10,000 under the new law?
Well, in the case of a company trying to market to you, it literally _is_ their business. It makes them money.
The problem is that we have markets where we:
- Incentivize organizations to pursue profits at the expense of everything else, which includes social good and civic rights
- Rarely hold bad actors accountable (and almost never in a timely manner)
Which means, given enough time, we're always going to trend to whatever makes the most money. Targeted advertising makes money, and will continue to do so unless or until we collectively decide to make it a greater risk to profits than it is today.
Edit: Words are my own. I am not a rep of WOTC or Hasbro.
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