Yes, probably. Although I was at a google talk / recruitment event with one of the founders giving a talk before they were big, and they gave me creepy cult vibes even back then. True, I was only moderately interested and it took me a 5 minute walk to be there, but still. My guess is the real reason the went mainly for "highly intelligent but inexperienced" is that more experienced people and people that actually see the world would not want to work for them.

Incidentally, I did go though their broken hiring process, because a friend there really wanted me for his team. Then they stopped all hiring. And at the end of the year they proudly proclaimed their numbers were stellar. That was my personal confirmation that they are all assholes. Don't think I would have lasted long there either before I would have quit.

Yes, very likely. They were somewhat innovative for a while and they got really lucky with the timing when they launched search. But that is essentially the amount of their contribution. These days, they are a cult and cults are 100% idiots. Google is no exception.

As a side note, I had a look at some research papers by Google. These people did supposedly hire the best and the brightest? No way. That trash would have been soundly rejected by the reviewers if it did not have the name Google on it. No bling review for Google.

Given that the project will likely be dead within 3 years of launch, I do not think we should care.

Well, it is Google, so not much of a surprise. They are more and more going the way of Microsoft.

I do not use home automation. I want things to work. Well, I have an irrigation system, but no Internet connection on that one and it is my own design anyways.

So you think baseless assumptions are smart? Found the second idiot.

Indeed. And that CEO has either already hired even less competent people or is not listening.

They need to fire some "managers" though, that made that bone-headed decision earlier.

It's also possible that having 10+ years of easily found blog posts keeps the open source world from evolving a better stack, through having a readily accessible source of good enough fixes that function as a brake on innovation. It's difficult to tell a priori.

Depends if you kidnap their daughter, I'm sure they'd speak to you...

Not that you should, but you're asserting the lack of options because you're not seriously looking. You're merely asserting it's unsolvable as if that were an obvious fact.

There are people known as hackers, who like to figure out weaknesses in systems. It appears that most hackers don't actually like to figure out weaknesses in the social systems that rule their lives, though.

I'm not wishing for anything. I'm pointing out the inevitability (because I'm tired of people complaining on here, unrealistically). It doesn't matter that I point it out either, as the US population demonstrates no sense of self preservation. The outcome is a foregone conclusion imho, only the timing is questionable. There are enough historical precedents.

Your argument about civil war seems vacuous to me. There are no realistic options AFTER America's democracy fails. There is also no silent majority waiting somehow for the last democratic options to be tried and fail, before doing something more serious. There are only Americans minding their own business until its their turn to suffer, hoping not to. We are witnessing the boiling frog analogy.

I feel like your model of open source is not really open source. You're describing companies or individual programmers whose aim is commercial software, but who decided that they would flood the "market" with free samples to try and hook users into paying for upgrades later. It's the old shareware model in sheep's clothing.

My model of open source is someone (or a group of people) writing code for themselves, and being generally ok with other people benefiting too. There's no reason to ask for money/donations, it should be voluntary and, tbh, probably treated with suspicion (and for good reason, even. Don't accept large donations, they aren't free).

I have zero stock market investments. And you are an idiot.

Yes , that is normal. Ministers are part of the executive branch, not the public service, they are there to implement policy, not micromanage staffing. The problem isn't Cabinets. The problem is political appointments below the cabinets.

Careful what you wish for. Ask any refugee what it looks like when countries start solving political problems with guns. Its *very* rare for Joe little-guy to win against the state which is always going to be better at violence.

Civil wars are fucking horrible. You end up having to shoot your neighbors for disagreeing with you, or worse , they shoot you. This is the genius of democracy, you dont HAVE to shoot your neighbor, you just have to convince more people that you are less wrong than your neighbor.

America may well end up at the "time to shoot each other!" stage , but that comes AFTER the democratic options fail, not before.