Away from my mother, because the courts mandated she never be in contact with me again for life, and I'm happy about it.

"knowing the business" or "being the best in what you do" would save one's derriere

Except that it won't, except in very special circumstances.

Let's be honest here: Most IT jobs - being a sysadmin, writing software, setting up a network - are not complicated. Most systems don't need much other than some some packages and configuration handled by something like Puppet. Most software doesn't do anything remarkable - it just shuffles data from point A to point B and displays a few things to an end user. Etc., etc.

A vast majority of IT jobs only require mediocre skill and knowledge. Most H1-B folks I know have rarely been mediocre, but they ARE cheap and management doesn't know the difference anyway. All they know is eventually their widget does the new X they've been asking for. So what if the code is a terrible mess and deployment is a gigantic pain? The management doesn't see or care.

Knowing the business? That's what project managers and other management-y types are for (or so they think). You and I know that a software engineer who is well versed in a certain business will design better systems, for example, but I've not once seen a manager that believes this way.

Management sees IT staff as nearly a commodity with people easily interchangeable. They're not entirely wrong - not entirely - but they think they're not wrong at all.

Remember: It isn't what YOU think that is important when a company is doing the hiring. What is important is what THEY think and how cheap they can get you and how much they can work you before you burn out.

Yeah, it's pretty amazing. It reminds me of so many "Web 3.0 Hipster Startups" that bastardize a word and make some kind of vague hand-wavey promise by using a buzzowrd or two and adding "in the cloud".

Ugh. The modern tech industry makes me want to puke. Maybe I'm getting too old for this...

Remove steps 2 and 3 and you're getting close to reality!

Can we also get rid of the fucking obnoxious TLDs? I learned that .today is a valid TLD. It's bullshit. There's so many TLDs that ICANN should just throw in the towel and say "Okay people, register whatever the hell you want." Either that or go back to a small set of TLDs that actually mean something as God intended.

I really would like the media to stop referring to people who DDoS as "hackers". All they're doing is sending a pile of requests to a service and overloading it. I'm not impressed, neither is anyone else here.

I sure would. I would love to only pay 20% on my income tax, especially if it meant I didn't have to spend money on software to do my taxes for me every year because the tax code keeps changing.

Hey now. As a bear, I am horribly offended that you would want to put either one of those fools near any of my kin. Stick them in the lion cage. Cats are a lot less fussy about these things and they have a proclivity for torturing their prey before killing it.

I used to think I was a good programmer. Then I started to learn about how much I didn't know, new techniques and frameworks and languages, and then I saw that I had a lot to learn.

Ten years later, I've learned a lot - but I've also discovered even more that I don't know and that I can improve upon.

So, I consider myself "average". In my domain I'm pretty good, I can crank stuff out that works well, is easy to understand and set up, has tests and documentation, etc., but there's a really, really big world out there.

Yeah, today is the day the Internet becomes worthless for information.

That, and not all plumbers, electricians, tutors, cleaners, painters, etc. are equal.

Some are experienced and produce amazing work. Others just started and have a lot to learn.

A standard rate of pay means that the guy who does the crap work gets paid the same as the guy who does the great work.

we're all still convinced the news media is capable of objectively reporting wars and foreign politics.

I disagree here.

I believe that a majority of people thing the major news media outlets are full of shills for one side or the other. I also believe that most of people in America, quite frankly, don't give a crap.

As long as they have food for the day, can download porn, and watch the latest celebrity scoop, they don't care.

Never underestimate the power of apathy.

A business is not a person, but a business is run by people. It is an extension of the workers themselves. I know you're trying to derail things by going into the "a business is not a person" argument (and I agree with you, a business is not a person - you cannot, for example, sentence a business to 20 years in prison), but it doesn't matter. Forcing a person to provide a service to someone they do not wish to serve is still forcing.

This brings me to another thing people don't quite seem to understand.

By saying, "I think those people are wrong, they're intolerant, they should be forced to act against their conscious," you are yourself being intolerant.

Diversity of thought really does mean diversity - not just the diversity you happen to agree with.

This is the big downward spiral of freedom you get from the so-called liberals. They want to promote fairness and diversity, but in the process, they unfairly prevent people from being diverse. It's hypocritical. It doesn't make sense.

But, ultimately, this is not about Right or Left, secular or religious, gay or straight. It's about remaining faithful to the the vital principles of freedom of conscience and freedom of speech which underpin our democracy.

We dilute them at our peril.

I may be misinterpreting your post, but it seems to me that you're misconstruing something.

Believing in the right to be an asshole does not mean that one agrees with the asshole. I feel that the famous Cake Incident shouldn't have been an incident at all. To me, the company has the right to refuse service. I disagree with what they're doing, but support their right to do it (and go out of business).

Same with flag burning. I think it is disrespectful, but people should be allowed to do it. Want to make blog posts supporting ISIL? Go for it. You're a dick, but you're free to do it.

Freedom of Speech, Freedom of Religion, Freedom of the Press, Freedom of Association, etc., none of these include the freedom from being offended.

It works both ways, you know: If a business is being a dick, then the customer who has been denied, and everyone else, has the right to say, "Wow, that business is full of assholes, don't go there."

You might see this as being rather idealistic, and you very well may be correct, but I would rather try the ideal route and allow the highest freedom for the individual as possible, then see what happens.

Remember, this is just a state law. It can be repealed. It isn't set in stone, it isn't the end of the world. We should always be willing to try something new, or something older in a new context. Maybe it will work out well and maybe it won't, but the people of that state should have the right to make that decision. If it backfires, well, too bad.

I hope some of this made sense. I'm replying to you because you seem less ANGRY than a lot of the other people here today and there might be some good discussion. We don't have to agree on everything, and we don't, but that's okay, but being able to find some common ground would be nice.