Yeah, this guy doesn't speak for persons with Autism. He's trying to make an 'autistic culture' thing, acting like his disorder is just a choice, a valid social model. Unfortunately autism is not a social model, it is a disorder that ruins lives.
It's not used 'too broadly.' Autism is a disorder on a spectrum. Some people have mild autism, some people have moderate and some people have severe autism. These are technical terms.
Also calling people 'autistic' and later calling people with autism 'it' as in 'try to injure itself' is a really shitty way to talk about human beings. Check yourself.
> Also calling people 'autistic' and later calling people with autism 'it' as in 'try to injure itself' is a really shitty way to talk about human beings. Check yourself.
mamcx is not a native English speaker and was perhaps trying to use "it" as a gender-inspecific pronoun rather than intentionally portraying people on the autistic spectrum as "objects" or "inhuman."
I think most people will tend to use a plural (they, them) in this kind of situation. People who are pickier about grammar will probably say "he or she" or "him or her."
That is a weird distinction, probably is a cultural thing? How can be better to say one of the other?. I have more than 30 years with my twin brother. My aunt is a professional trainer for people with disabilitues (a sport, gold-winner kind of trainer), I have learn a bit of sign language and so on. But I never heard that kind of argument (ie: here in colombia none of both will sound more or less respectfull, are equivalent)
Yeah I read the article, and his rejection of 'people with autism' is akin to 'deaf culture' nonsense. Autism is a tragic, often crippling disorder and this guy wants it to be a culture. That's fine, he can feel however he wants and construct his identity however he feels best about himself. Calling a person 'it' is considerably worse, though, and that's what I was objecting to above.
@angersock yeah, exactly like the next batch of shitbag YC kids hiring a COO. Because apparently that's who he's trying to get employed by. It's weird that you seem to think that this crowd are shallow children and yet somehow don't think that they will retaliate against public criticism.
Reply button is usually hidden for the first 2-5 minutes on deeply nested comments, to prevent angry back-and-forth with no thought. You can reply, but you have to know to click the permalink for the comment.
Exactly. These things are ugly and this is a cautionary tale for anyone looking to work for a new startup but it's also really important to keep from looking like a bitter employee who will turn on you and make you look evil if things don't work out.
Because the individual needs something, and the startup does not. what do they care if he is pissed? He's some unemployed dude they'll never have to deal with again. Meanwhile potentially having them as a resource who will say 'oh yeah Ex Employee was a really great guy, we regret losing him, definitely hire him if you can' is pretty much the only positive he's gonna get from this experience. Complain about them and you don't even get good word of mouth from the, just a ton of wasted time and an angry story to tell.
YCombinator people talk to one another. they go to meetups. San Francisco is an incestuous little town. It's hard to break into and having bad blood with people on the inside can make it harder.
They should talk to each other about why this was bad behavior. If the OP mentions the name, the company can respond with their reasons in an adult and professional manner, explain why they needed someone else, and how they are going to make this right. Then they look like smart, grounded pros willing to admit a mistake and will get some free marketing.
"Because the individual needs something, and the startup does not"
Sounds like they do, in fact, need something, and it's a different person.
"Meanwhile potentially having them as a resource who will say 'oh yeah Ex Employee was a really great guy, we regret losing him, definitely hire him if you can' "
He was there 2 weeks, if that. You can't tell if someone was good in that time period. If I got a reference like that about someone who worked at a place for a grab total of 6 days... I'd think something was fishy.
Of course it is, don't be naive. The people he's talking about are in a position to badmouth him right back, end even if they don't he can get a reputation for being a whiner who will turn on people who hire him the moment things don't work out. If you think that publicly criticizing your ex-employers isn't harmful to your future prospects then you're crazy. No one wants to hire someone who might turn around and complain about them to all and sundry if things go poorly.
@ davidw: oh yeah I don't mean that this guy actually is whining, or that he didn't get screwed by jerks. I'm just saying that you can get screwed even harder by handling things like this in the wrong way, no matter what the rights and wrongs of the situation actually are. Reputations are important.
At very conservative estimates for bay area salaries, 2 weeks is probably like $5000. Complaining about that is not "whining" in my book - that's quite a bit of money where I'm from.
That said, there are various things involved with the decision.
$5k for two weeks is a pretty princely sum for employees virtually anywhere but, crucially, employees (particularly professional employees) have the reasonable expectation that they will have longer than two weeks of tenure at a new employer. If you can only reasonably expect two weeks of tenure, then you're much closer to a consultant than an employee. Nothing wrong with being a consultant, but COO-caliber consultants charge a heck of a lot more than employees in SF and everywhere else on the planet. A company which extends people standard employment offers but treats them with the no-fault disposability that governs consulting relationships is doing something which is highly irregular.
Conversely, if you're a consultant, you can get constructively fired like this two weeks into an engagement. Happens all the time. It doesn't even require an awkward conversation where they say "Hey, startup life yo, plans have changed." They neglect to schedule you for more work, you follow up, they continue to neglect to schedule you for more work, you take the hint, and then you get paid $50k+ because that is what COO-level consultants cost for two weeks.
100% agree. I was a consultant for 6 years. The contract, terms of engagement, and expectations are vastly different as a consultant and as an employee. The sum of all different parts of the 'opportunity cost' are much higher as an employee, than as a consultant.
$5000 is peanuts to work two weeks, uproot your life and reject other, more valid job offers, only to get sand kicked in your face for no reason. in fact it's downright insulting, and most importantly, humiliating to an extreme degree. if there's anything in the world that could be classified as being a bitch, that's it.
stop short-changing yourself and technology professionals, you do us all a disservice and it's embarrassing. i am literally embarassed for you by this comment. it doesn't matter where you're from - we're talking about someone who was hired as a chief-level executive with a name brand startup in the first world, funded by billionaires or at least hundred-millionaires, or at the VERY least a bunch of millionaires that manage money for pension funds and endowments i.e. venture capitalists.
a shitty CPA (or lawyer) makes that in a few days of work. a good one can make that in literally 1 minute by signing a few documents. they can do that because they have professional respect, something technology workers sorely lack right now.
a CPA also could not get hired, and let go for no reason, within 2 weeks, without having several avenues of recourse through his professional governing body. a lawyer would file suit immediately, something i would do also even though i lack a law degree.
i would literally not stop reading/learning law except to eat, shit and piss until i learned how to get compensatory damages out of them. then again, i make it my mission in life to not be a bitch. but as it turns out, some people are fine with being a bitch, go figure.
> a CPA also could not get hired, and let go for no reason, within 2 weeks, without having several avenues of recourse through his professional governing body.
What's his professional governing body going to do?
if you can't figure out how a vast, organized dues-paying professional guild full of highly educated, intelligent, like-minded individuals can help you, i kindly suggest that you contemplate the possibilities a while before trying your hand at being a c-level executive because you'll probably be caught in the same position as the o.p.
a professional board is basically a labor union dressed up for white collar people. they'll argue until the end of the earth that they aren't, but let's be real, that's what it is.
also, if you're a vp-level or above, and not a significant owner, negotiate a severence package. ever wonder why they have severence packages? this is why. because if you don't, you're highly likely to become a bitch. in fact it's pretty much guaranteed because the cost of losing you is nothing.
That would only be the case where people accept tolls & toll booths on roads as an acceptable thing.
Sure, they're common in Canada and the US but in some other countries they lead to years of civil disobedience, protests and eventual scrapping by newly elected governments : http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Skye_Bridge#Toll_controversy
Speed fines have the semi-respectibility claim of trying to reduce accidents/dangers on the road (with some validity).
Speeding is extremely dangerous. It's ludicrous to argue otherwise. A third of crashes (including fatal crashes) involve speeding, and the faster you are driving the more likely you are to die or fatally injure another.
Also, changing the speed limits on roads have been studied and it doesn't make a humongous difference. The government usually sets the speed limit at slightly lower than the average speed people actually drive.
> Speeding is extremely dangerous. It's ludicrous to argue otherwise.
Actually, blanket arguments like "speeding is extremely dangerous" are ludicrous. "Speeding" is exceeding a semi-arbitrary speed threshold. If that threshold is, say, 70 mph I'm OK at 70 but if I go to 71 I am being "extremely dangerous"? 71 is speeding in that case, after all.
> A third of crashes (including fatal crashes) involve speeding,
If a third or more of all drivers speed, that statistic is meaningless.
> the faster you are driving the more likely you are to die or fatally injure another.
Indeed, and that statement has nothing to do with speeding. It is a continuum from 0 to whatever the top speed of a given vehicle is. This statement is equally valid when you are under the speed limit.
> Also, changing the speed limits on roads have been studied and it doesn't make a humongous difference. The government usually sets the speed limit at slightly lower than the average speed people actually drive.
I have seen that happen before, but in my experience that is the exception rather than the rule.
That was my thought too, until I realised the only correct response for the AI would be to also flip a coin. I'd prefer to take the million rather than a 50% chance to beat the AI.
I'm a one-boxer because $1,000,000 is a lot of money to gamble that I would be the (first? only? one of the few?) person who beats the system. I also wouldn't take on Kasparov in a chess match or John McEnroe in a tennis match at even odds; I definitely wouldn't put $1,000,000 on the line to potentially increase my winnings to $1,001,000.
Pretty misleading title. Yes, commercial and private planes have been shot down in the past. Yes, American commercial planes still fly through airspace where there is fighting on the ground. No, most of these places do not have access to weapons that can strike something flying at 30,000 feet or more. Israel's flights were cancelled because a missile hit a house just a mile away from the airport, where planes taking off and landing are particularly vulnerable. That doesn't mean that we should stop flying everywhere someone has a stinger missile launcher and is crazy enough to point it at Delta flights. Unless the people waging war have something on par with the BUK rocket that shot down Malaysian Air Flight 17 you've got little to worry about when you're 30,000 feet in the air. And only actual states have those. No one needs to be afraid to fly over Afghanistan.
