One correction: I don't believe *everyone* has an opportunity to better themselves. There are those who are truly dependent on others. People will severe cognitive or physical disabilities, for example. But this is not the majority. Most who complain about their lot in life, simply haven't done what it takes to succeed. I see this first-hand as I volunteer with an inner city Houston mission, teaching trade skills to young men in an effort to help them gain a better life. Some of them take the opportunity and thrive. Others choose to ignore the lessons learned, and will wallow in their poverty through the rest of their lives. Many of them *could* succeed, but choose not to.

Your links this time have substance, thank you. However, you are mistaking my "quick" responses as being fast, automatic, and intuitive. This is not the case. Rather, it is a result of many years of study, of having my beliefs challenged, and more study, and coming to a firm conclusion. Yes, I know what I believe, but it is not, as you suppose, flippant or without depth.

Be that as it may, yes, I do generally dismiss YouTube videos as sources. My 27-year-old son often tries to convince me of things using such videos, and I've engaged with him on that level in depth. The problem is, YouTube videos are infomercials that are paid for in clicks. They have something to sell, and they will say what they have to get those clicks. Send me links to actual articles, and we can discuss. Send me YouTube videos, and no, I won't engage. If a YouTuber really has a deep thought, they will want to share it in whatever way they can, whether they get paid in clicks or not.

Sure, it's sophisticated. But in what way is the digital ID an improvement over the old laminated version?

That police officer can already scan the bar code on your physical driver's license, and query that database you are talking about. And why do *you* the driver's license holder, need to be able to query that database? I have never, in 40 years of driving, felt the need to do something like that.

As for disadvantages, you yourself mentioned an important one: the possibility of being hacked. This is not theoretical, it actually happens, usually through phishing.

I don't want to live in a nation that requires you to "carry your papers" with you at all times.

So my question is, what is the benefit?

And the cycle of life goes on. It's the Darwin effect, for businesses.

Any companies that do this, will be slowly dying, and will create opportunities for other companies to undercut them by doing things in a sensible way. Ultimately, employees are people. If you treat them like numbers, they will game the numbers, and you'll get crap. If you treat them like people, they will give you their best, and you'll *far* outrun the competition.

Yeah this. If you want privacy, you need to be using ProtonMail or some such.

Yep, and one that digests those long forward chains, or summarizes a long article, or summarizes a video somebody sends you, that's worth gold.

Well, I do.

When somebody sends me one of those really-long email chains, I do *not8 want to read it all to figure out what's happening. When somebody sends me a long-form article or video, I also don't want to spend the time reading or watching it. Being able to ask AI to summarize, is amazing.

It's probably included in dozens of breaches by now. If you think your data hasn't been leaked, you are misleading yourself.

by being a nonprofit, since the founding of the company.

They avoided a *whole lot* of sales taxes, property taxes, and other taxes, by being a nonprofit. At the very least, they should have to repay all those back taxes.

Or how about get rid of the *long* videos! Usually, the long ones say in 30 minutes, what could be said in 5 minutes or less.

I feel exactly the opposite, I have no interest in watching long-form YouTube videos. These guys yammer on and on, repeating themselves, saying something in 30 minutes or longer, that could be said in under 5 minutes. Whenever somebody sends me a 30-minute or 1-hour video and asks me to watch it, my eyes immediately glaze over.

What their employees are doing each year.

A bad manager makes it unbearable. That's regardless of stupid company policies like this.

As a manager myself, my company wants me to use various metrics to monitor my team. They even helpfully provide tools to collect those metrics. Frankly, I'm just not interested. I know my team, I know they're good at what they do, and I know they care about their work. If I ever look at metrics, it's because I already know there's a problem, and I need to jump through HR hoops to take action.

A manager who doesn't know their team, and thinks they can manage by metrics, isn't managing well.

Oh, and I don't care one bit whether my team members come in or work from home, as long as they get the work done.

Well maybe, but you didn't actually make a point. If *you* have a clue, why don't you actually explain how it works, instead of just saying I don't know? Maybe because *you* don't know?

To me, grunt-work makes me burn out. I've worked in corporations of all sizes for 37 years, I know a thing or two about the effects of grunt-work.

You are evoking straw man after straw man.

Yes, corruption is everywhere. Yes, rule of law does not eliminate corruption. But corruption is not equal everywhere. https://www.transparency.org/e... The US still has relatively low corruption, despite Donald Trump's attempts to change that. In the US, if you offer a bribe to a police officer or a judge, you are almost certainly going to jail. This is not true in much of the world.

Yes, I also know that some people work at McDonald's who are adults, who are working multiple jobs. They are doing exactly what they have to do to get ahead. And the ones that don't want that life, do what it takes to change things for themselves. (By the way, YouTube is not a source. It's a soapbox, and a paid one at that. Drama sells clicks. Hint: You can't believe what you see on YouTube.) Yes, there are hard-luck stories, even in the US. But there are also opportunities. In the words of Oliver Goldsmith, "Success consists of getting up just one more time than you fall."