We tax capital gains less because we want people to invest their money in companies. As I said, we can debate the tax rates, some might argue we should lower the tax on capital gains (double taxation?) some might argue we should raise it. We should absolutely have an evidence based rational discussion on these topics.

Making money is the incentive we have in capitalism for individuals to create value. Capitalism isn't perfect but it's the best system we know of. In systems where we don't allow people to become rich (in theory) we typically produce less value and end up with most of the value concentrated into one dictator (e.g. Russia, China, Saudi Arabia). We can argue about taxation etc. but fundamentally this is the system that has proved to be the best for everyone. We can argue about checks and balances as well but again in practice having rich people and western democracy correlates with better outcomes for everyone historically. If you propose we get rid of this system you need to make a reasonable argument for an alternative that is better. If you're arguing that life isn't always fair and luck plays a role- well yeah.

Capitalism isn't perfect but it's the best system we have. We need to educate people better about how it works and we need to regulate it so it's not abused. But capital gains, or interest, are "earned". They are also taxed, and when those taxes are used for the right goals by the government, result in improving things for everyone.

We should all go back to being hunter-gatherers? Or how do you propose this is going to work?

I blame the pandemic and social media.

- High quality (e.g. low number of issues hit by customers, resilient to failures, efficient, secure etc.)

- Easy to maintain (well organized, broken down in a sensible way into components or layers)

- Easy to extend/adapt to future requirements (i.e. the designer was able to anticipate the likely direction of the system and account for that in the design)

Automated testing feels a bit orthogonal to me but a system that is easy to test is likely one with a better architecture. It's not strictly part of what I'd call architecture.

Less different technologies - YES!

Runs on fewer machines is a sign of an efficient/performant design. Less well designed systems exhibit bloat that is often made up for by running on more machines.

The ability to differentiate good and bad architectures seems to be a lost art because to build this ability you need to have enough experience (e.g. the discussion in "The Mythical Man-Month"). Most software developers today have had no experience designing even a single system and many systems are often a random assortment of stuff thrown together by people without enough experience. What I call the "sort of works" architecture. It has big gaps but it sort of works and so there is continuous investment in trying to make it good, which is often a waste of time. You've lumped a bunch of stuff together to build something and now you're stuck with it.

AI as it is right now is probably a driver to make this worse because it makes it so much easier to throw random stuff together.

There are cultures (e.g. go to Israel) where random people still talk to each other.

I'm not sure I would call what you observed in Europe privilege. I think you were just an outsider/immigrant from a different culture. Different places have different cultures and it takes a long time (if ever) to acquire them. You'll be treated differently if you don't have the right social cues e.g.

In places like the US or Canada this tends to be a lesser effect because it's a big melting point.

I know plenty of really rich people (like billionaire or approaching) that aren't that different than most of us (also rich). You don't magically move to some other "circle" just by having money. It's true there are certain "classes"/cliques in different cultures but it's not as simple as has money vs. hasn't.

At work nobody knows what degree you've got. I mean some people insist to be called Dr. X if they have a Ph.D. (and in some cultures that's more common). You can have a B.Sc. in biology, or an M.Sc. in EE, or a law degree or no degree and nobody knows. As a manager in a large tech company I didn't even know that for the people I managed. I would usually find out people's background through random talk but it's not information I had access to. I was surprised to find one of the rising stars didn't finish his degree and wanted to take some time off to finish it.

Where it does matter is in the hiring process and especially for juniors and larger companies.

> I've never seen a time when tech is less about engineering than right now.

Sad but my experience as well.

As someone who started being more self-educated (I did learn a lot of theory myself) and only later finished my degree (started, dropped out to do some real work, came back much later) I do think a good CS program teaches a lot of important things. Most importantly the ability to learn and understand research in this area. Not all the specific things you're going to learn are going to be applicable all the time, some will some of the time, and not having that background at all is limiting. You can learn this without going through the academic system but it's much harder and most people don't and stay stuck in some sense.

That said the unevenness of contribution isn't strictly a large company phenomena. Small companies have the same uneven distribution. I've worked at two startups with about 4 people total and people were not equally productive.

That said, this is not necessarily the goal and productivity is also very hard to measure. It's doubly hard to measure across different types of work. One person can code up a greenfield back-end for something in 3 days while another can spend a week fixing some elusive infrastructure problem.

Not everyone is as good at everything. So we do have engineers who truly are much better than average. And in large companies most are average. But that is just one factor here.

1:1's can add value or they can not add value. Large companies can't just be flat so someone needs to manage people. A good manager adds value, a bad manager might subtract value, but that's orthogonal.

Is it demoralizing to work for a big and inefficient company? Sure. Is it more demoralizing for people who are motivated to get things done and are good at it? I think so. Go start your own company?

Whether or not you'll be able to progress in belts/ranks is different but who cares. Wearing a white belt forever is probably better for character development. If your goal is the belt just go to the store and buy a belt.

There's also archery and I'm sure there are many other options for no-contact martial arts training. If fencing works for you then there's also Kendo. There's Iai-do which is just about drawing the sword. Lots of options in theory.

My personal take is that if I have a chance to make it quickly out of a building I prefer to be out of it rather than having it collapse on me. It's one of those things where the recommendation probably is the right thing for the general population and all expected earthquakes but I'm optimizing for something else. You have 10-20 seconds realistically. But yes things falling off the walls and off buildings and anything that can fall on you is a risk. In my office or home e.g. I'm typically on the ground floor within seconds of an exit so my mental preparation is to avoid the building falling on me. Maybe it's the wrong calculus but hey...

Why was Iran under sanctions in the first place? Sponsor of terrorism. Oppression of its own people. Messing with Yemen, Syria, Lebanon (and the list goes on). Only in Syria they helped Assad murder 100's of thousands of Syrians. The Yemen civil war. The murder and abuse of their own citizens.

Iran had an easy way of not getting sanctioned. We didn't need the JCPOA. What we needed is Iran to cease the activities for which it was getting sanctioned.

We had a "diplomatic solution for Iran" is total nonsense. Obama messed this up just like he totally messed up the entire middle east. Iran trained and supplied Hamas which led to Oct 7th. Iran trained and supplied Hezbollah. Iran developed and built their ballistic missile program to attack all their neighbors. With what money/resources? With the money Obama gave them in for cheating on this agreement. If you have western interests in mind than the Iranians are laughing at you for being a fool.

If AI today can make you more productive that's already progress. If it can't then maybe it makes other people more productive.

Software engineers have always adapted to new technologies. New languages, frameworks, native apps, browser apps etc. So far this doesn't seem to be close to completely removing us from the loop.

If you are smart, educated, and can adapt, you'll figure it out. The economy has to find some stable equilibrium and it's not a zero sum game. Everyone in the economy getting a paycheck is also a consumer. With no consumers there is no business. The companies who are using AI and become more productive can do more things that before were not profitable but now are. Some of the people who are getting laid off are going to start new businesses and hire people. These things always cycle, and they basically have to.

I don't have a crystal ball though.