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LinkedIn, the place to be, to

1:02

be. Well,

1:08

hello, hello, and welcome back

1:11

to another exciting episode of

1:13

JavaScript Jabber. This is actually

1:15

a continuation from the episode

1:17

that you may have heard last week, or I don't

1:20

know how this is going to get cut, but this

1:22

is, we're still here together. Right now. I've

1:24

got Kyle Simpson on the line. And

1:28

while we were doing our

1:30

warmup talk before the podcast,

1:32

we, we got into

1:35

something, something spicy.

1:38

And so we're gonna, we're gonna

1:40

cover that topic as well. So

1:42

anyway, welcome back. I am AJ O'Neill. I

1:45

am your host and

1:47

this yo-yo coming at you live from the

1:49

shed that stinks because of the flycatcher thing,

1:51

my Bob. And Kyle,

1:53

go ahead. And for, for the, for

1:55

the audience that is going to be

1:57

listening to this. probably

2:01

a week or two apart from the last

2:03

episode we just cut. Who

2:06

are you? What do you do? Why

2:08

are you famous? Why

2:10

do you, I don't know, Twitter handles. I

2:13

don't know why. I don't know whether famous is the

2:15

right word anymore. I think maybe more infamous. In

2:19

any case, I'm Kyle. A

2:22

lot of people know me online as

2:24

Gettify. Been around now for

2:27

most of the web. I've been doing this engineering thing

2:29

for like 25 years or more. So

2:32

long time. And

2:34

I'm most well known for the You Don't

2:36

Know JS books. And

2:39

those were published in the last

2:41

decade or so. Two editions, six

2:44

books each or six

2:46

books in the first edition and then kind of

2:48

like up in the air, how many books for

2:50

the second edition. But anyway, the You Don't Know

2:52

JS books are how most people know me. That

2:54

spun off a whole series of courses

2:57

that I've done on front end masters,

2:59

corporate trainings and conference songs. So

3:01

that's how a lot of people out there will probably

3:03

know me. Yeah, I

3:06

think that you're one of the certainly

3:08

one of the bigger names in the industry. So

3:11

I think I think you're famous. You're famous. Well,

3:13

I appreciate it. And

3:16

I always love, you know, I've

3:18

always loved when you give presentations

3:21

or I think we've had you on

3:23

the podcast a couple of times. Yeah, I

3:25

disagree with a lot of what you

3:28

have to say. But I learn and

3:31

sometimes I come around to your way

3:33

of thinking. So I just I

3:35

think you have been a great educator and

3:38

hope you continue to do so. All

3:41

right. So with that out of the way. So

3:43

the spicy bit. I

3:46

I'm I'm just going to say this plainly.

3:48

I'm not going to sugarcoat it because

3:52

I think I think that between you and I and the people watching,

3:54

I think it's going to be all right. I

3:56

have noticed over probably

3:58

the last six months. your tweets

4:01

have gone from being things that felt

4:04

more positive, more energetic, to

4:07

a lot of tweets coming through that have

4:09

a really bitter tone to them. And

4:13

I am curious as to what's going on.

4:15

I was saying before, I think that some

4:18

of it's resonating with an industry problem. It's not

4:20

just like you're having a personal thing in your

4:23

life and it's making you bitter, although I think

4:25

that there might be something there. But

4:27

there's some sort of industry problem

4:29

that's going on that's reflected in

4:31

this. So do

4:34

you agree that, especially in the last

4:36

six months, you have become

4:38

a little bit bitter and why?

4:41

I very

4:44

much agree, except for the time frame, I

4:47

would say it's longer than that. I would

4:49

say it's at least 12 months. And if

4:51

we really kind of zoomed out, we might

4:53

say that the way that

4:55

I've approached social media has really changed

4:58

quite a bit over the last two to four years.

5:01

But I'll say that in

5:03

the most immediate sense, I

5:07

am absolutely dealing with

5:11

a significant amount of, I'll

5:14

call it personal animus, frustration.

5:18

One of the biggest reasons for that is that

5:21

I have now been unemployed for a full year.

5:24

And it's not for lack of

5:26

trying, I've done a lot of

5:28

applying and some interviewing and a

5:30

whole lot of effort. I've

5:32

been able to find a place. And there's

5:35

going to be a lot of different reasons why that's

5:37

the case. I'm not going to try to come

5:39

on here and shift the blame

5:41

on to everybody else. I

5:44

own a lot of that. With

5:47

particular respect

5:50

to the tone, I've

5:53

had some, I'll call

5:55

it love hate relationship with social media for

5:57

quite a while, going back at least. several

6:01

years. And part

6:03

of the reason for that is because

6:07

of the success that I had

6:09

in building a bit

6:11

of a long tail following

6:13

around my takes on JavaScript and

6:16

trying to encourage people to learn

6:18

it. And I am

6:20

regularly seen as someone who kind of

6:22

challenges the status quo and pushes back

6:25

and asks more challenging questions. And I

6:27

think that's resonated with quite a few

6:29

folks. I hope that people

6:31

have felt empowered to own why they

6:33

feel a certain way. That's certainly always

6:36

been my mission. But I didn't make

6:38

a lot of friends along the way is the

6:40

point I'm trying to make. I've made

6:43

a name for

6:45

myself by being willing to

6:48

be disagreeable in what I hope has

6:51

still been productive ways. But I

6:53

made a name for that by being a bit more divisive

6:56

or churning, stirring

6:59

the pot, whatever kind of metaphor you want to use. And

7:02

that I

7:04

did not recognize and

7:07

probably should have, but I did not recognize the

7:09

cost of building my brand that

7:11

way. And I didn't even think of it as

7:13

building a brand at the time. But

7:15

over the last 15 or whatever

7:17

years of my public persona, I

7:20

built a brand around this

7:22

guy who comes up

7:25

with these hot takes on JavaScript and is

7:28

challenging the status quo and is a

7:30

little bit maybe cantankerous at times and

7:32

gray beard and old school and any

7:35

of those other terms. And

7:37

I also, because

7:39

of that large following, because

7:42

I'm a human and I have an ego, I

7:45

enjoyed the fact that I had 80, whatever

7:47

thousand followers, and that when I

7:50

had something to say, people listened.

7:53

They didn't always agree. In fact, probably mostly didn't agree,

7:55

but at least they listened. I had a

7:57

megaphone that I could speak through. Um

8:00

as opposed to if I just had a little

8:02

personal twitter account somewhere with you know,

8:04

seven followers and half of them were my

8:06

family That's not much of a megaphone to

8:08

make a you know difference if I have

8:10

a thought so over

8:12

the last several years I

8:15

increasingly started sharing

8:18

Thoughts at times that didn't have anything

8:20

to do with my technological perspective whether

8:23

they were about Politics or

8:25

religion or other social issues As

8:28

a person I was willing to kind of

8:31

share my personal views on things and I

8:33

was doing so through This

8:35

megaphone that had been built around the

8:37

brand of JavaScript,

8:40

um, you know questioner i'll call it

8:43

I didn't realize that that was going to

8:46

be taken so poorly and I pushed back

8:48

a lot on people who would try to

8:50

tone You know, they try to police what

8:52

i'd say and they'd say things like, you know, stick to

8:54

the javascript We don't want to hear what you have to

8:56

say about, you know politics or whatever And I

8:58

pushed back on that and I still feel like It

9:01

should have been my right to be whoever I

9:03

wanted to be with my own online persona But

9:06

what I didn't appreciate at the time is

9:08

how many people Had come

9:10

along for the ride only because of what

9:12

they Liked about what I

9:14

had to say with javascript and technology and

9:17

so I kind of I

9:19

sort of broke an unspoken contract

9:22

in doing that by trying to

9:24

become something more than The

9:27

javascript guy and talk about other things

9:30

It really created some some strong

9:32

frustration in folks and I didn't

9:34

appreciate just how Tangible

9:38

that would be so

9:40

there were a couple of different instances

9:42

over the last several years where I

9:46

Ended up creating a pretty significant Storm

9:50

of frustration and controversy

9:52

over one of my you know over

9:54

something that wouldn't necessarily have been about

9:57

javascript one of them was on my

10:00

views on healthcare and health insurance.

10:02

I have some very personal

10:05

and real experiences

10:07

with that that are difficult. And

10:10

another one was on, probably

10:13

the most recent a year or two back

10:15

was on what I thought we

10:18

should do to change how we

10:20

onboard engineers into being new engineers

10:23

on teams and into the industry.

10:26

I had thoughts about that. And in

10:28

both of those cases, I

10:31

believe that I was significantly

10:33

misunderstood in what I said. But

10:35

I'm not here to defend myself because

10:38

the damage has already been done. But there was a

10:40

lot of people that got really mad at what I

10:42

said. They took it in ways that were

10:44

very much not what I intended and

10:46

went with it. The most recent

10:48

round involved a

10:51

significant push to

10:53

boycott my courses and books,

10:59

to try to tell people that I should never

11:01

be employed in the industry again, and

11:05

literal personal threats of harm and

11:07

direct messages that other people

11:09

have experienced, I experienced it too. And

11:12

because of those periods of time and

11:15

other smaller periods in between where I

11:17

get really frustrated, I'll kind of like take

11:20

a break from social media, hoping

11:22

that I can kind of clear my head. And then

11:24

I come back in a week or a month or

11:26

sometimes much longer. And I

11:28

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11:30

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13:34

I've been. But one thing in

13:36

this most recent, in

13:38

a most recent kind of kerfuffle

13:40

was, somebody said

13:43

to me on one of, it

13:45

was a LinkedIn post. Somebody said to me, you

13:49

know, you're very logical and

13:51

you're defending your points

13:53

well and you're making your points well here, but

13:56

what you're missing is that you're just not kind.

14:00

And I took

14:03

quite a bit of time to

14:05

reflect upon that assertion. And

14:08

I think that person is absolutely right.

14:10

I don't think I'm a very

14:13

kind person. And

14:15

I actually dug into this with my therapist.

14:17

I see a therapist and I like normalizing

14:19

those things. I think it's helpful for people.

14:22

I see a therapist and I went

14:25

to my therapist and I talked with

14:27

them about this. And

14:30

what I can say is that because

14:32

of some quirks of the

14:35

way my personality works, kindness

14:37

is not actually a priority of mine, which

14:39

is why I'm not kind. There

14:42

are things that I think are much

14:44

more important. And one of those is

14:46

the authenticity of being the

14:48

same person in every situation

14:50

and conversation. Every person

14:52

I interact with, I want for them to

14:54

come away thinking, that's the same

14:56

guy as he was over here and he was over here

14:58

and he was in his book and he was in this

15:00

conference. I want to be that. That's

15:02

one of my core psychological

15:05

drivers. But it's really

15:07

messy how this plays out in social

15:09

media. So when you

15:11

see my frustration around my lack

15:14

of employment, see my

15:16

frustration around decisions that I made along the way

15:18

that I didn't realize were going to box

15:21

me in later. When

15:24

you see my frustration around how

15:27

I'm so regularly mistaken, how

15:29

there can be people that really believe

15:31

in what I'm trying to do. And

15:33

then there are other people out there

15:35

probably not listening to this episode, but there

15:38

are other people out there who are really,

15:40

really strong, gatify

15:42

haters. They're really strong detractors.

15:45

And I get web notifications or people

15:47

tell me about threads that just randomly

15:49

spin up on somewhere on

15:51

a Reddit or there's dozens of them

15:53

that I get screenshots of private Discord

15:55

chats and people just really

15:58

like to talk a lot of crap. about

16:00

me. And I've

16:02

upset a lot

16:04

of people. One thing

16:08

I would like to say in my defense

16:10

is to say that I do not insult

16:14

people. I do not

16:17

make my points by way

16:19

of trying to attack the

16:22

person and demean

16:25

the person and condescend the person.

16:28

I have some very strong opinions of what I

16:30

feel. And I'm trying

16:33

to avidly portray

16:38

what I feel when I'm in these

16:40

conversations and social media or whatever. I

16:45

take up the case strongly and

16:47

passionately. But most

16:49

people that I engage with in

16:52

these negative fashions don't have that

16:54

same line. They

16:56

very quickly turn to attacking

16:58

me as a person, attacking,

17:01

calling me a troll, telling me that I'm a

17:06

bad influence. I've been told many

17:08

times you should be unemployed.

17:10

You don't deserve to have a job. That's

17:16

tough. And I own that I've

17:18

created a lot of controversy around

17:20

myself. I'm a lightning rod. I

17:23

own that. But I

17:25

do think that you won't go

17:27

back and you won't find examples of me

17:30

saying things like hurtful things like

17:32

that to other people. Because that's

17:34

not in my nature to attack

17:36

people. I disagree a lot. And

17:38

I have some strong feelings about

17:40

some people, but it's not in

17:42

my nature to go after people's

17:44

personal ethics and morals in

17:46

that way, the way that

17:48

I've fielded a lot of that. So I

17:51

guess this was a very long-winded way

17:53

of saying the increasingly negative tone you're

17:55

hearing from me and a lot of

17:58

social media, especially Twitter. But even

18:01

it's crept into my LinkedIn and people have said

18:03

it there too now That

18:05

negativity is coming because I'm not really in

18:07

a great place If

18:09

I'm being honest pretty frustrated about

18:11

where the industry is where it's headed. I'm

18:14

frustrated personally about how it

18:17

left me I don't have a place

18:19

really or I don't feel like I have a place and

18:22

And how I felt like

18:25

I really spent my career trying

18:27

to keep us from getting here and

18:29

we still got here and And

18:35

Then you mix in all the other stuff like I'm just It's

18:38

difficult for me. I I consider

18:41

Being logical and rational to

18:44

be the most respectful thing that I could ever

18:46

do with somebody I engage with That's

18:49

that's the way that's part of how I'm wired But

18:52

I think most people experience that

18:54

as meanness as rudeness as being

18:56

too cart and too dismissive

19:00

And so I know that there's a lot of

19:02

people and maybe a few of them are listening I know there's

19:04

a lot of people out there that Feel

19:06

like I've ruffled feathers over the years on

19:08

that and I just want to say It

19:12

was never ever my intention to personally

19:17

Demean or attack a person. We've always

19:20

tried to stick to the topic. I Right

19:27

here you there. I'm not a kind person. I don't

19:29

aspire to be a kind person. I

19:31

think that And

19:33

there's there's nuance to how to say this but

19:36

kindness is a form

19:38

and manipulation as opposed to or

19:42

sorry Not I actually

19:44

said that wrong. I distinguish between nice

19:46

and kind Nice is

19:48

a form of manipulation Kind is

19:50

a form of authenticity and

19:52

the way that you were speaking I was interpreting

19:55

as people want you to be nice, but

19:57

I think that it is in fact kind to

19:59

confront And I feel very

20:02

comfortable when, like this is

20:04

a frustration I have. I

20:08

will get into arguments with someone, a

20:10

heated argument, and

20:13

walk away thinking, you know,

20:15

I don't like them as a person, but I

20:18

respect them for their knowledge. And when I have

20:20

that problem, I want them on my team. And

20:24

I wish that more people were that

20:26

way. I have had

20:28

frenemies become friends because

20:32

we were arguing about something and we

20:34

could call each other D bags

20:39

or whatever, you know, we could do a little bit

20:41

of name calling and, but

20:43

we could walk away having learned like, okay,

20:45

this person's actually really smart at this and

20:47

they've got some opinions I don't agree with,

20:49

but, but yeah, I want them

20:51

on my team if I'm doing X because I

20:53

can tell they know X and there's, there's,

20:56

I mean, it's not like hundreds of people, but there's

20:58

a handful of people that over the course of my

21:01

career that I have gone

21:03

back to and, you know, the friendship, like

21:05

first it was the fighting or

21:07

the argument, like the, you know, like

21:09

the two cats that just like, something about you, I

21:11

don't like, like, I don't even have a reason to,

21:13

I just don't like it. And

21:15

then that turning into a, that turning into,

21:18

but I respect you and that

21:20

turning into, okay, well, let's actually work together

21:22

on this project where you're obviously better and

21:25

that turning into friendship. I, and I

21:27

wish that that was the norm. I think that

21:29

was the whole idea behind, you know, if you

21:32

can't beat them, join them when, when somebody's bested

21:34

you, when they've defeated your arguments, when they've, when

21:36

they've made you look bad because you

21:39

were wrong to be able to go back and say,

21:41

but dang, do I

21:43

want to have you on my team for this

21:45

project? So

21:47

I, I don't know. Is that, does

21:50

that resonate with any of what you were saying or feeling?

21:54

Yeah, parts of it for sure. The,

21:59

the cheesy. way of saying it

22:01

is to disagree without being disagreeable.

22:04

And I think that last part, I've got

22:06

a lot of work that I could still

22:08

improve on. Because I

22:10

think that the intent

22:13

that I have in what I'm

22:15

saying versus the way that I'm

22:17

experienced by others, there's a

22:19

wide gap there. And I

22:22

literally struggle with this all day,

22:24

every day. Why is there such

22:26

a wide gap? Why don't people

22:28

experience me the way that I'm

22:30

intending to come across? And

22:33

so I believe that there's a lot

22:37

of people that have been turned off to

22:39

what otherwise could have been useful disagreement

22:44

and collaboration because they've been

22:47

really unhappy with the disagreeable way

22:49

of me doing things,

22:52

whether that's me

22:54

being too quick to respond to something.

22:57

I experience on a regular basis,

23:00

feeling like the rest of the world is

23:02

going in slow motion compared to me. I

23:05

don't know if anybody else feels that way.

23:07

But in any sort of conversations or debates,

23:10

I feel very much like,

23:13

because I spend so much time in my

23:15

own head thinking about things, I already know

23:17

exactly why I feel the way that I

23:20

do. Right or wrong, I have

23:22

lots of deep reasons behind it. And

23:24

the rest of the world is just so

23:26

slow motion compared to that and

23:28

can't understand. And I can't even get them

23:30

to listen to me long enough for me

23:32

to articulate why I feel that way. But

23:35

I hear that old adage

23:37

of like, people are

23:39

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23:41

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23:43

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23:46

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24:00

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24:02

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24:05

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24:07

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24:09

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24:11

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24:18

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24:20

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24:26

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25:40

opinions loosely held or whatever. I've

25:42

never understood or been able to agree with

25:45

that. Partly

25:48

because if an opinion is

25:52

loosely held to me that means that

25:56

one statement to the contrary might you might

25:58

throw out the whole opinion. Right just

26:00

like one new fact and you might

26:02

completely flop and I'm not

26:04

gonna share an opinion on something Until

26:07

I have a mountain of reasons for why I

26:09

feel that way because I've already spent hours or

26:11

days or weeks in my head About it. I

26:14

don't even share opinions on things Unless

26:16

I've already spent that time. I do

26:19

appreciate when somebody comes along with

26:21

a mountain of counter evidence I

26:24

really enjoy that and I have actually changed opinions.

26:27

I know there's people out there. They're like no

26:29

He's never changed an opinion. I have But

26:31

it's rare. I'll leave it. I've it's

26:34

rare. I rarely find people willing

26:37

to defend their reasoning to the

26:39

same level of rigor as I've

26:41

got Driving what

26:43

I feel about something and

26:46

so that creates a real Imbalance

26:48

and I think that is where a lot

26:50

of the static comes is this imbalance that

26:52

I'm coming to the fight already prepared With

26:54

a bunch of stuff this person feels that

26:56

way and I'm not invalidating that they that

26:58

they feel the way they do That's fine.

27:00

You're you're entitled to your own opinion But

27:03

if you're gonna try to convince me you've got

27:05

to bring the same amount of counter evidence That's

27:08

how I've always taken so I've

27:10

probably missed out on a lot of what you've

27:12

you know What you were saying about the opportunities

27:14

that you've had to kind of in in

27:17

retrospect go back and rebuild a bridge and all of that

27:19

I've missed out on a lot of that Well

27:22

for me that's been in person. That's

27:24

that hasn't been over Twitter That's been

27:26

you know, somebody that I

27:29

went to school with somebody that I

27:31

lived in the same apartment complexes, you

27:33

know, those have been situations

27:36

where I've actually Had

27:39

real interaction with the person and some

27:42

proximity to them. I I don't think

27:44

I've ever Okay,

27:47

so I think enough time has passed

27:49

and it's well established I can I can talk about this

27:51

So we had Jake Archibald on and

27:54

I was not prepared. I did not

27:56

know who he was With

28:00

We've switched booking systems

28:02

a few times on JavaScript Jabber, and

28:05

we had done that recently within the last month

28:08

or two, and it was still a problem where

28:10

the emails wouldn't get sent, and so it's like,

28:12

okay, I don't know what I'm doing this week.

28:15

Chuck was out sick

28:17

or something. I mean,

28:19

and so we were having this conversation, and I

28:21

was, I thought, I also didn't really

28:24

understand British culture, it's much more high

28:26

context compared to American culture, meaning

28:29

that there's rules that you have to know that

28:31

are beyond what the words that are said that

28:33

come out of the mouth, and

28:37

that relationship, I

28:40

don't think I'll ever be able to

28:42

salvage, and I still respect him hugely

28:44

for the work that he does. I've

28:49

used some of his stuff, I read his blog

28:52

articles, I'll retweet him. We

28:56

still, every once in a while, get into a little something,

29:02

I'd even leave, like,

29:04

because I'll go on a thread that's like six

29:06

years old for some web standard and just post,

29:09

an admittedly inflammatory comment, because

29:12

I want to get the conversation started again. It's

29:14

like, okay, like this has been

29:16

six years now, and then there's other people you can

29:18

see, like, eight months ago or 15 months ago, somebody

29:23

did the same thing, and

29:26

I didn't even, he responded to something, because apparently

29:28

he's part of some web standards body or whatever

29:30

that I commented on, and I

29:32

didn't even, I didn't even look at it, but like,

29:34

you know, so that's my one big experience

29:36

with somebody online where, like, I respect him.

29:40

I respect that he has knowledge that I don't

29:42

have. I wish that it were the other way

29:44

around as well. I think that, my

29:47

sense is that what he came away with was that

29:50

I have

29:53

no idea what I'm talking about, whatsoever, and

29:55

that my opinions were completely invalid. That's the

29:58

way it came around to me, I

30:01

was being aggressive in

30:03

questioning and pushing back on what he

30:05

was saying. Because there's a lot of stuff people say,

30:07

and it's like, it's dogma. They say

30:09

it because they say it. It's not because they

30:12

know the truth behind it, or

30:14

they're looking at it from one particular perspective.

30:17

But a lot of the stuff with the web standards

30:19

committees in particular, I get so frustrated because these people

30:21

aren't web developers, a lot of them. They

30:24

spend their time in system programming languages, and

30:26

they're making decisions on JavaScript, which huge

30:29

props being smarter than the average JavaScript dev.

30:32

But you need to walk in our shoes for

30:34

a little bit before you ratify that

30:36

standard, because we have

30:39

to live with those decisions. Yeah.

30:42

So I've had

30:44

my ups

30:46

and downs with Jake. I would say

30:49

I'm in a similar place where I

30:51

respect a lot of what he's built. I talked on

30:53

the previous episode about I use one of the libraries

30:55

that he built. I respect him and

30:57

I appreciate the things that he's done. He

30:59

and I don't likely

31:02

have a salvageable personal

31:04

relationship for

31:08

a variety of reasons. But

31:11

he's not the only one, so I don't want to spend my

31:13

time focusing on him. The

31:16

experience that you just described with

31:18

standards has largely tracked with my

31:21

experience. Going back to the early

31:24

2000s, when I was first starting to

31:26

get my head around JavaScript and trying

31:28

to carve out a space where that

31:30

was not an accepted thing. There were

31:32

not jobs for JavaScript experts at the

31:34

time. And I was trying

31:36

to do so, and I naturally gravitated

31:38

to trying to participate

31:42

in TC39 discussion emails, email

31:45

threads. And I

31:48

was shot down so

31:50

harshly, so many times that

31:53

part of the reason I actually ended up writing the

31:55

You Don't Know JS books and part of the reason

31:57

for that title, it's a big. complex

32:00

layering of meaning behind that book and

32:03

that title. But part of it is

32:05

because I was told so many times in

32:09

both literal terms and implicitly

32:12

figuratively, you don't know

32:15

enough JavaScript to be here. You don't know

32:17

enough of our terms. You don't know enough of

32:19

our, you're not up to the bar that we

32:21

need. And I desperately wanted to be good enough

32:24

to ask questions, to propose

32:26

ideas. And to this

32:28

day, I desperately

32:31

wish that I was good enough to

32:33

be taken seriously by anyone in TC39 for that

32:35

matter. I've-

32:38

I think that's a lost cause, honestly. I'm

32:40

looking through the messages I've looked through. You

32:43

can't, it's political. It's 100% political,

32:45

it's not technical, it's not reason,

32:47

it's not logic. Sorry, I'm gonna

32:49

cut you off here because this is

32:51

one that just inflames me. Regx.escape, you

32:54

read the message thread and

32:56

it's couched. So

33:00

softly, like due to the great

33:02

respect that we have for so

33:05

and so, and owing to his

33:07

experience, we have carefully considered and

33:10

decided to pursue other avenues for the time being

33:12

with, you know, and it's like, no, cut the

33:14

BS, tell the dude, look, like I don't care

33:17

that you're a hundred years old. I don't care

33:19

that you're one of the best C++ developers has

33:21

ever lived. You're wrong. Like, you're

33:23

wrong. Like, everybody knows it. Everybody

33:25

knows we need Regx.escape. There's

33:28

somebody that people wanna please standing in

33:31

the way and nobody has the courage.

33:33

Everybody needs to be respectful. Nobody has

33:35

the courage to say, look, this is

33:37

a technical decision. Your emotions are getting

33:39

in the way. It's five

33:41

against six or five against one and

33:44

we're putting this through. But

33:46

the other thing with that is I've been on

33:48

another standards body, very short-lived. I only went to

33:51

two sessions. I couldn't stomach it. It

33:53

was an IOT standards body. And

33:55

I mean, the guy who

33:57

was leading the thing, he took me aside and he's like, look. because

34:00

you're new here, I'm going to school you on some

34:02

things. This is so-and-so. He

34:04

works for Cisco. His objective is

34:07

that Cisco wants a patent on this. They're

34:09

not going to do anything unless their patent

34:11

is represented in this standard. This is so-and-so.

34:13

He's right. And it may not have been

34:15

Cisco, so don't don't say I'm just throwing

34:18

some names out there. Like, you know,

34:20

this is so-and-so. He's from, you know,

34:24

the Google team. And his objective

34:26

is that he doesn't want Cisco

34:29

to have, you know, any advancement whatsoever.

34:31

He's going to try to block the patent being

34:33

used whatsoever. And like here's so-and-so. And he kind

34:36

of gave me the lay of land. Like we

34:38

have this, you know, this back room conversation where

34:40

he gave me the lay of the land and

34:42

basically explained why no progress was going to be

34:44

made. And that if any decisions were made, they

34:47

weren't going to be the ones that benefited the

34:49

people that the standard went to. Now, he didn't

34:51

say it like that because he was optimistic because

34:53

he had done this for years. He was good

34:56

at politicking. He knew that the incremental gains, like

34:58

just getting one good part of

35:00

a standard through was worth the politicking. I

35:02

can't stomach it. So

35:04

sorry, sorry, sorry, not sorry for cutting

35:07

off there, but like, I just

35:09

I can't give these TC39 people

35:11

any excuse because

35:13

I don't have that in my

35:15

heart. I don't understand

35:17

the politicking. It's not something I'm good at.

35:19

And when there's something that is so obviously

35:21

the right thing to do and somebody says,

35:24

well, the reject escape function

35:27

won't escape strings that haven't been escaped.

35:29

So we can't have a reject escape

35:31

function. Instead, we're going to continue to

35:33

have people download it from NPM or

35:35

copy it from Stack Overflow. Like I

35:37

just I can't do it. I don't have

35:39

it in me. I'm not that good of a person. People

35:42

are driven by the search for better. But

35:44

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35:46

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36:06

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36:12

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36:14

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36:23

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36:28

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36:30

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37:12

I could fill up many,

37:15

many hours of the podcast talking

37:17

about dozens and dozens of battles

37:20

that I've gotten embroiled in on

37:22

topics like that. I wasn't

37:24

involved in Regics, Escape, but there's

37:27

dozens of others from Global This

37:29

to Records and Tupole Syntax to

37:32

a hundred others. I

37:36

will say for

37:38

anybody that's listening, I

37:41

do believe there's quite a few people on

37:43

TC39. It's not

37:45

one body with one view. It's hundreds of

37:47

people. And I do believe there's quite a

37:49

few people on TC39

37:52

that really do have the best interests

37:54

of JavaScript and really don't like

37:56

and don't want to devolve into

37:58

all the politicking. PR battle.

38:00

I think there's quite a few people there. Unfortunately,

38:03

the body doesn't

38:05

work according to that

38:08

tone from my experience

38:10

because there are others who have been

38:12

there a long time and who have

38:15

a lot of influence in other ways.

38:17

But we should

38:19

be very careful, I think, not to

38:21

paint TC39 as a whole because

38:23

there's hundreds of different people and they

38:25

are on a spectrum of

38:28

what they are bringing to the table

38:30

and what their biases are and their

38:32

backgrounds and all of that. I just

38:35

personally wish

38:38

that I had ever been seen

38:40

as a peer among that

38:42

group. Not that I was

38:45

like literally like how to seed

38:47

on TC39. I just wish that

38:49

I had ever earned the right

38:51

to be respected among

38:53

that group. The vast majority

38:55

of my interactions have

38:57

always treated me like I'm an outsider that's

39:00

bringing an unwelcome amount of noise to

39:02

what they would prefer to just be

39:04

their own process.

39:07

TC39 is not

39:09

the only standards

39:12

body that I've had that kind of experience with.

39:15

I've had more of that experience because I've cared

39:17

about JavaScript for so long. And

39:20

I apologize if I'm

39:22

misrepresenting, but when

39:24

I come into these issues, it's the same

39:27

people. It's like the same user handles across

39:29

the various issues that I'm seeing that are

39:31

holding back progress. And so from my perspective,

39:33

and then hearing when Douglas Crockford used to

39:36

talk about it. So

39:39

just like my perspective is

39:41

just I'm not

39:45

seeing the heroes.

39:47

I'm seeing, pardon

39:50

my French. No, I'm not even going to

39:52

say it. You know what I'm thinking. Well,

39:55

you may be not seeing them, but I

39:57

just want to say I believe that there

40:00

there. But they aren't so cool

40:02

on the GitHub discussion threads. They

40:04

aren't the ones who triage issues.

40:06

They aren't the ones who create

40:10

ostensibly welcoming experiences

40:12

from those not on the body.

40:15

And I wish that were the case. I wish

40:18

there was a tone that wanted that. But I

40:20

think for many, many reasons, I

40:22

don't really think they want that.

40:24

As a body, I don't think they really want

40:26

it. They operate on GitHub as if they want

40:28

it. But I think they would really

40:30

prefer to kind of do

40:33

their thing themselves. So I've

40:35

largely tried to step out

40:37

of any discussion around TC39 and around

40:41

JavaScript. And I've

40:43

stopped making my complaints

40:46

about the language. And I mean,

40:49

I even went so far as instead of...

40:51

I need to evolve to your point. Instead

40:54

of trying to change JavaScript,

40:56

and instead of just complaining

40:58

about JavaScript, I

41:01

actually designed a whole programming language that

41:03

has some of my ideas about what

41:05

I wish a programming language

41:07

were. Whether people like it or not, I

41:09

wanted to do something productive instead

41:14

of simply saying, I don't like

41:16

what JavaScript is doing. So I

41:18

hope that maybe somebody's listening and

41:21

maybe they can find others that they

41:23

can be more welcoming to. But my

41:25

experience over 15 or

41:27

20 years has not been very welcoming,

41:29

unfortunately. Yeah.

41:36

So I don't know how you feel about these things. And

41:40

we can have different opinions. But this is one of the reasons

41:42

I hate COCs because

41:44

I learned very early on that a

41:46

COC is not for

41:48

inclusivity, it is for exclusivity. COCs

41:52

are to be able to

41:54

use broad brushes to

41:57

target wrong thinkers. and

42:00

silence them. They are

42:02

not to help people have a better

42:05

experience. And you know, simple

42:08

programmer, I

42:10

think he went through a similar experience as

42:13

to some of what you were talking about earlier, but it

42:15

seems like he came out on top. Like he had some

42:18

books drop from his publisher and Chuck

42:22

had something similar happen,

42:24

which I mean, the Chuck situation, Chuck was

42:26

an innocent bystander. He literally was just saying,

42:29

hey, I'll host the podcast and let you two

42:31

talk about it. And that got

42:33

him like lost

42:36

a bunch of sponsors, bunches

42:38

of people that were gonna come on the show. And

42:41

all the, I mean, he did nothing in

42:43

my view. And I tried to see, cause

42:46

I'll be fair if I think he did something wrong, I'll say it.

42:49

But he had like the most generous take

42:51

in the world of,

42:53

hey, I don't know what's

42:55

going on. I would love

42:57

to have both of you on a podcast to talk

42:59

about it. And that

43:02

got him banned from

43:04

conferences, dropped advertisers. It

43:07

was insane. That was the first time that, that

43:09

was before cancel culture was even the buzzword

43:12

that it is today. It was

43:14

still something where it's like, no, that's not real or,

43:17

you know, it's, but yeah. It

43:20

seems like, and when that happened, I'm

43:25

not sure why Amy didn't come back on the

43:27

show. I know that

43:29

some of it is cause she's busy, but

43:32

I have to wonder if some of it

43:34

was not due

43:36

to online harassment, because

43:40

there was some that went on that was

43:43

uncomfortable. And yeah.

43:46

So I'll say just since

43:49

you brought up codes of conduct,

43:51

I personally do feel like

43:54

there is merit to codes of conduct,

43:57

but the implementation of them and the

43:59

enforcement of them. is pretty flawed

44:01

in my experience. And

44:03

that I find frustrating. I

44:06

think on the whole, our industry

44:09

is probably better with them than without

44:11

them, but that doesn't foreclose

44:14

that I think there's some

44:16

pretty strong flaws with them. I

44:19

personally experienced

44:21

the negative side of

44:24

that code of conduct enforcement

44:26

at a conference that I was supposed

44:29

to be a speaker at. And

44:32

I had a talk that

44:35

had, that

44:38

I had given at other conferences successfully and I

44:40

was scheduled to give that talk at that conference.

44:43

One of the marketers

44:46

for that conference wrote

44:49

an ad that

44:51

made an inappropriate joke

44:54

about the title of my talk, that

44:57

they made an inappropriate pun from

44:59

the title of my talk. That was

45:01

an outside marketer or advertiser or something. Nobody

45:04

cleared it with me. I didn't know what was happening, but it happened.

45:07

That ad offended a bunch of

45:09

people. And those people got, turned their attention

45:11

to me in my talk title. And

45:14

they made a claim that my talk

45:17

title was a violation of the code

45:19

of conduct because of what

45:21

that marketer advertiser did. The

45:24

conference organizer and I had some long

45:27

drawn out conversations about it. He was

45:29

begging me to change the talk title.

45:32

And on principle, I really felt like I wasn't

45:34

gonna change it because I felt like that was

45:37

not at all the intent of the talk title and I

45:40

didn't feel like it was fair

45:42

to compromise on that. In

45:45

the end, that conference organizer

45:48

basically dropped me as

45:51

a speaker. He said, well, if you won't change the title,

45:54

then we can't have you speak because one

45:56

of our sponsor companies, a

45:59

big sponsor company. is going to back out if

46:01

you speak. So they

46:03

dropped me from the program, and one

46:06

of the things that frustrates me

46:08

about that scenario, it's not

46:10

like, oh man, I got deplatformed. I mean,

46:13

it was one conference. I've given hundreds of

46:15

conference talks. But what frustrated me

46:17

about that situation was... Literally

46:20

hundreds? I've literally given like over 200

46:22

conference talks. Yeah. Wow! I

46:25

had... I did not realize. I've

46:27

been speaking forever. I've had plenty of

46:29

opportunities on the stage is my point. I'm not

46:31

trying to brag or something, but I've had plenty

46:34

of opportunities. It's not like I was somehow like

46:36

canceled or deplatformed. But the code

46:38

of conduct is supposed to protect

46:40

everybody equally, but in

46:42

its implementation, it ends up unequally

46:44

protecting some folks at

46:47

the disadvantage of other folks. That's

46:49

unfortunate. I should have been just as

46:51

protected from an unfair

46:53

claim against me as the people

46:55

who had every legitimate right to

46:58

feel their complaint about my talk title

47:00

and feeling offended by my talk title.

47:02

We both should have been equally protected.

47:05

But in that case, basically the

47:08

sponsor dollars won. That

47:10

organizer said, I got to take the sponsor dollars

47:12

and I got to kick you out. People

47:14

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47:16

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47:40

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the ones who get it

48:44

done. That sucks. And

48:47

so I've seen codes

48:50

of conduct go well and I've seen them go poorly. And

48:52

I think that's a case where they went

48:54

poorly and was unfortunate. I

48:57

don't think I've ever seen them go well. I much

49:00

prefer if you act

49:02

like a douche,

49:06

then you

49:08

just lose respect and people don't take

49:12

you as seriously. Maybe you won't get

49:14

invited back. I

49:16

think that just natural consequences, because the

49:18

whole idea of the COC is, okay,

49:20

we're going to

49:22

point out, draw attention to, and

49:24

have a formal process to

49:27

not call you a douche. Like, just

49:29

let somebody call them a

49:32

douche. Just let

49:34

the name calling be done and

49:36

let people get over it. And

49:39

I guess it's like, if you don't know

49:41

how to act like an adult and you

49:43

don't know your audience, you're

49:45

going to find out that the idea that

49:47

there is a formal process to

49:49

pick apart something you've said or done

49:51

to hold a kangaroo

49:54

court. That's

49:56

all I see at us. I

50:00

think I heard of one instance

50:02

where somebody made an inappropriate joke

50:06

and they, they COC'd

50:09

him and

50:11

it was like a warning. But most

50:13

of what I hear, and, but that you

50:16

would do anyway. Like you don't need a

50:18

COC to say, Hey man, that joke was

50:20

a little inappropriate, especially for this audience and

50:22

the professionalism that we're trying to have. We

50:26

will not invite you back if you, you know.

50:29

Like have that, sure. But to COC

50:31

somebody and then make an announcement. Okay.

50:35

There was an inappropriate joke in

50:37

track three at 12 PM by

50:39

someone. And

50:42

we have this point of our

50:45

COC that those kinds of inappropriate jokes

50:47

are not okay. So we

50:49

just want everybody to feel safe. The

50:51

person has been dealt with. So

50:56

there's, there's, I'll just say, you know, you and

50:58

I do see a little, see this a bit

51:00

differently. But I'm not, I'm

51:02

not saying I have the right

51:04

perspective on this, but I

51:07

think code

51:09

of conduct do serve a value

51:11

of a purpose in that they

51:13

call to our attention. What

51:16

I wish was already important to

51:18

people, which is the, we

51:20

need to have more empathy in how

51:23

we deal with other people. That

51:25

is missing. And I think

51:27

it's trying to litigate empathy instead of inspire

51:29

empathy. And that's where I think a lot

51:31

of it goes wrong is we

51:34

really wish that people were just, you

51:37

know, better at understanding

51:39

how their intentional

51:41

or unintentional actions were, you

51:43

know, making somebody feel unwelcome or unsafe. We really

51:46

wish people just had that perspective and that we

51:48

could just kind of like have a quick little

51:50

conversation with them and they would totally get it

51:52

and say, you're right, I'm sorry. I'm

51:54

going to, but a lot of people don't, a lot of

51:57

people don't feel that way. And

51:59

so we've got a litig. this empathy into

52:01

the situation. I think that's where

52:03

a lot of the flaws and kind of come in. I think you just

52:06

pull them aside and say, hey, hey,

52:08

we're not gonna, you know, do you see what

52:10

was done there? We're not gonna

52:13

invite you back if you, you know, or say

52:15

like, we'd like you to apologize. You know, put the

52:17

responsibility back on the person if that's what needs to

52:19

be done. They can't take the

52:21

responsibility, but to make a spectacle of it, you

52:23

know, it's just, I think you

52:25

and I- There's a performative aspect for sure,

52:28

but I think part of the reason for

52:30

the performative aspect is because this is still

52:32

not the norm for people to

52:34

take the personal accountability. And so they kind

52:36

of have to overcompensate. I'm not saying the

52:39

overcompensation is good, but there is an overcompensation

52:41

because we're making up for the fact that this is not yet

52:44

the norm and I don't know how long it'll be

52:46

until it is the norm, but everybody

52:48

really should be acting, I think, with that

52:50

empathy that at the instant that somebody points

52:52

out, hey, that thing that you just said

52:55

or did was like, it was

52:57

over the line or it bothered me or it made

52:59

me feel uncomfortable, the instant reaction

53:01

should have been like, that wasn't my intent, I'm sorry.

53:04

I'll fix that joke, I won't do that in the future. That

53:06

wasn't my intent and I'm really sorry. We

53:09

could resolve so many problems

53:11

if people really genuinely cared

53:13

to be empathetic like that.

53:15

And there will be people

53:17

who have malicious intent, who are

53:20

gonna say things and they're not gonna feel

53:22

contrite. Those people definitely

53:24

do need the

53:26

litigious part of a code of conduct, but

53:29

it's sort of this one size fits

53:31

all paintbrush that all

53:33

interactions need that same performative aspect

53:35

and they don't, it's really

53:37

hard to know in advance whether a person

53:39

is gonna be like really receptive and understanding

53:41

or whether they're gonna make a big stink

53:43

about, no, no, no, I have the right

53:45

to say whatever kind of joke I wanna

53:48

say. So I think it's really hard for

53:50

me to imagine us being

53:52

more successful without them, but

53:54

I don't think that we figured out

53:57

the right way to position these yet.

54:00

Well, I don't

54:03

want to drag on with this, but I

54:06

just want to bring up one more thing. So

54:08

I did a bad thing once. I

54:11

gave a talk at a PHP track

54:14

and my talk was getting started with

54:16

PHP. And as you

54:18

might imagine, my first slide was the word don't.

54:25

And I made fun of PHP

54:28

the whole time. I did try to give

54:30

useful information. I said something like, don't

54:33

use PHP because it's overly complicated. The way

54:35

that it handles objects are terrible. And

54:38

this was PHP 5 or so. But

54:42

if you do, here's how to overcome that pitfall.

54:45

Never run a PHP server standalone.

54:47

But if you do, here's

54:50

how to overcome that pitfall with a reverse

54:52

proxy instead. Never use

54:54

WordPress because your server is going to get hacked.

54:56

But if you do, here's how

54:58

to install the security plugins. So

55:02

it was very much a, I don't

55:04

like PHP and I hope that you don't use it.

55:07

But if you choose to use

55:10

PHP anyway, here are some things that

55:12

I've encountered that mitigate the problems.

55:16

But it was in bad

55:18

faith in the sense that I

55:21

was trolling for my own personal ego.

55:23

And the conference organizer pulled me aside

55:26

and just gave me a disappointed look

55:28

and he said, that's not

55:30

cool, man. I'm going to need you to apologize.

55:33

You know what you did was wrong. That

55:37

shouldn't have gone that way. And I'm embarrassed

55:40

that you

55:42

did that to our community. And

55:45

so I made a

55:47

public apology and I came back the next year and

55:49

I spoke and I didn't do something stupid like that. And

55:54

I think that that is, that's the

55:56

right way to handle it is

55:59

to pull people. aside to deal with it man to

56:01

man or woman to woman or

56:03

man to woman, whatever it is. But

56:07

in the idiom, man to man. And

56:14

to take that personal responsibility in both respects.

56:17

And if I'd said no, he probably

56:20

would have said, you are welcome to leave. And

56:23

that would have been the right thing to do. And

56:26

so I agree that we should have standards,

56:29

and I agree with a lot of what you're saying. I

56:32

just, yeah, I'll leave it

56:34

at that. I agree with a lot of what you're saying. I

56:36

think that we actually have a lot in

56:38

common. I think we have more in common

56:40

on this point than we disagree on. But

56:43

there's some definitely some details we disagree on.

56:46

Since you brought up your story,

56:49

I will flavor the conversation with

56:51

my story that has some similarities,

56:53

some strong similarities. A

56:55

little over a year ago, I was

56:57

asked to keynote a React

57:00

conference. Oh no! I was

57:03

asked to keynote a

57:06

React conference, but I was. And

57:09

I struggled with what

57:11

am I going to say to a React crowd? And

57:14

I eventually decided that what I wanted

57:16

to do, which I knew would ruffle

57:18

feathers, but what I wanted to do

57:21

in an attempt to be productive, is

57:24

to give

57:26

a talk that points out all of

57:28

the frustrations that I have as somebody

57:30

trying to come in to React from

57:32

the outside and learn and do something.

57:35

And specifically, the frustrations

57:37

I have because I can't do what

57:39

I need with only React. Why

57:42

is React so deficient in the following

57:44

ways that the only solutions are all

57:46

these external libraries and frameworks?

57:49

Wouldn't this be something that is

57:51

prioritized by React? So the talk

57:53

was effectively from that frame of

57:55

reference. Here's what I was trying to do.

57:58

Here's my bad code. But here's why. I

58:00

think this is it's frustrating because on the

58:02

box react should offer me a solution and

58:04

it doesn't or whatever so anyway, that

58:06

was my talk and it was it was it was Not

58:12

well received by the majority of the audience I

58:14

guess we should say There were

58:16

some people that really appreciated it and they were

58:18

like it's really good to point out that there

58:20

are Some flaws that were kind

58:23

of missing because we're so engrossed in what react

58:25

is but the outsiders don't understand it Whatever, but

58:27

I think the majority of people were like man

58:32

Screw that guy and I

58:34

didn't get invited back. I doubt I'll get invited I

58:37

don't I'll be ever I'll ever be invited to

58:39

speak at a react conference again So

58:42

I've got the same I've got a similar experience.

58:44

I get it I It

58:47

sounds like I mean, I don't know what it was like.

58:49

I actually want to look up the the talk now What

58:53

was the did they post it online or did you get

58:55

cut? No, it was posted online The

58:58

the talk was actually framed around

59:01

the topic of declarative coding versus

59:03

it's called weathering the storm declarative

59:05

versus imperative weathering the storm So

59:09

you should be able to find the video for that. All right,

59:12

I'll watch that today or listen to it People

59:14

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59:16

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A T Z 12 terms

1:00:12

and conditions apply. Okay.

1:00:14

Yeah, I'll be interested to see what my take is.

1:00:16

I'll let you know. But you know,

1:00:18

if I feel like you came across as a

1:00:20

bit too trolly or if you came across as

1:00:23

sincere, because I know in my presentation, I did

1:00:25

have good intentions. I mean, I, there,

1:00:27

there were, I was trolling.

1:00:29

I was egoing, but I

1:00:31

also did honestly, you know, it

1:00:33

was like, this was really frustrating to me and this is

1:00:35

how you can solve it. But every slide was don't

1:00:38

use PHP, but if you do, which obviously

1:00:40

that was the wrong format. If I had

1:00:42

inverted that to saying, you

1:00:44

know, there's a lot of things I like about X,

1:00:47

Y and Z. And I think that if you use

1:00:49

these, there's a lot of pitfalls you avoid. And

1:00:51

so I'd actually encourage you to investigate those as you're

1:00:53

on your journey. But talking

1:00:56

about PHP, I could have done it in a way that

1:00:59

was much more productive. So I'll, I'll,

1:01:01

I'll take a listen to that talk and I'll,

1:01:05

I'll, I'll, I'll message you and,

1:01:07

and, and give you my, my

1:01:10

take if, if, if you would be interested in that.

1:01:12

I don't want to put myself up on a, you

1:01:16

know, a high horse or anything. All right.

1:01:18

Okay. So this is, this

1:01:20

has been interesting. It definitely started off and has

1:01:22

continued in a direction that I didn't expect. And

1:01:25

I want to, I want

1:01:27

to circle back around. Actually, is there anything else that's on

1:01:30

your mind right now that you want to, that you want

1:01:32

to dig into? I,

1:01:35

I started off

1:01:37

by saying that part of my frustration

1:01:39

is my personal journey has

1:01:41

included a year of unemployment, which

1:01:44

has been tremendously difficult

1:01:46

financially and otherwise for my family

1:01:48

and all of that.

1:01:52

Offshoot from that, not to

1:01:55

say again, that I don't own

1:01:57

any of the responsibility for why

1:01:59

some employers might not want to hire me.

1:02:01

But I do think there are some macro-level

1:02:04

things that I believe to be

1:02:06

true about our industry now that

1:02:08

have changed and changed rather rapidly.

1:02:11

And I want to call them out because I think

1:02:13

they're a bad direction that we've gone. And

1:02:16

I don't know if there's any dialing it

1:02:18

back, but I just want to call

1:02:20

this out. So when I

1:02:22

joined as an engineer, when I started

1:02:24

as an engineer back in the mid

1:02:27

to late 90s, that's kind of when I got

1:02:29

my feet wet with software engineering. And

1:02:31

when I was joining, the industry

1:02:33

was full of a

1:02:35

number of extremely

1:02:39

highly regarded founding fathers and mothers

1:02:41

of the industry. There were people

1:02:43

that had been already in the

1:02:45

industry by 30 or

1:02:47

40 years at that point. And

1:02:49

they were still active and

1:02:51

involved in various parts

1:02:53

of technology and internet, web and all

1:02:56

of that. And they were

1:02:58

in these highly regarded positions at the

1:03:00

big companies, whether they're the Googles or

1:03:02

whatever. They held

1:03:05

these distinguished positions in

1:03:07

these companies. And

1:03:09

I joined as this brand new engineer.

1:03:11

And of course, I immediately like, I

1:03:13

so looked after them. I

1:03:16

want to be like them. I want to do something

1:03:18

important and impactful for the world. And I want

1:03:20

to be like them. And that's not going to

1:03:23

happen overnight. So I

1:03:25

literally have intentionally spent

1:03:28

a lot of my effort. It's something

1:03:30

that I've regularly gone back to in

1:03:33

my career over the last 25 years to

1:03:35

try to pay my dues and to try

1:03:38

to pay it for it and to try

1:03:40

to give back more to this industry than

1:03:42

I've taken, because I wanted to follow in

1:03:44

those footsteps. And I wanted to be that

1:03:48

type of engineer

1:03:50

for this industry.

1:03:53

What I think has happened over the

1:03:55

last, and I don't think it's been long, I think it's

1:03:58

been maybe two or three years at most, it's not. been

1:04:00

long. But I think what's happened is we've,

1:04:03

the industry has basically decided that

1:04:06

having people like that as

1:04:08

part of the conversation is

1:04:11

not important anymore. And

1:04:15

in fact, not only is it not really

1:04:17

all that important, it's actually more of a

1:04:19

liability. I

1:04:22

think what we've decided, the

1:04:24

way I would describe this is I think what

1:04:27

used to be the variance of

1:04:29

the engineering ladder going from,

1:04:31

you know, you just started to, you've

1:04:33

got 10 or 12

1:04:35

or more years, right? Above 12, 15

1:04:38

years, et cetera. Like that was

1:04:41

the variance of the

1:04:44

engineering ladder. And there were companies that

1:04:46

would always believe it was important to

1:04:48

hire people near the top of that

1:04:50

ladder. Now I think we've shrunk

1:04:52

that ladder so much, um,

1:04:55

where from the

1:04:57

beginning of your engineering career

1:04:59

to when you're like a seasoned staff

1:05:02

or principal engineer, where that used to

1:05:04

be 12, 15, 20

1:05:06

years, it's now like four to six years. I

1:05:09

literally saw a job on my mind. I

1:05:12

saw a job posting just the other day for

1:05:14

a staff level engineer. And they

1:05:16

said five years, JavaScript experience for a staff

1:05:18

level position. And that was unheard of. That

1:05:20

would have been unheard of back in the

1:05:22

day, but that's, that's the new reality. I'm

1:05:24

not saying it's not a reality, which just

1:05:26

need to embrace that it is the reality.

1:05:29

And so because things are changing

1:05:31

so quickly and because companies are

1:05:33

not really valuing those, those

1:05:36

longer, longer lived and more

1:05:38

experienced voices in the conversation, I think

1:05:42

we've seen a lot of

1:05:44

these factors kind of, uh,

1:05:46

reducing both the

1:05:48

pay that is available in the

1:05:50

industry. And really it's become where

1:05:53

we don't hire people anymore. We

1:05:55

hire roles, we don't hire

1:05:57

people and. Taylor

1:06:00

what we have them do based upon what

1:06:02

their experience and their skill level is we

1:06:04

just hire into roles And

1:06:07

if you fit in the role grain and if you don't

1:06:09

fit in the role, we just don't hire you right? that

1:06:11

like that's that's a big change where we now have more

1:06:13

supply than demand and I've

1:06:17

looked at a whole bunch of jobs that

1:06:20

and applied to many of them that are well

1:06:23

below my level of experience at

1:06:26

25 years and pay

1:06:28

well below what I was making before

1:06:30

and I've tried

1:06:33

to apply to those jobs and I

1:06:35

don't even get callbacks. I don't

1:06:37

even get like interview and Part

1:06:40

of reason for that. Are you

1:06:42

submitting with Microsoft Word? Serious

1:06:45

question. No, I'm not

1:06:47

submitting that is a problem because the

1:06:49

AI based parsers

1:06:52

will only elevate

1:06:55

Microsoft Word documents That's

1:06:59

there's a whole other conversation, but let

1:07:02

me just finish my point before I get shot. Sorry,

1:07:04

but sorry, but Those

1:07:06

companies look I think

1:07:09

whether they're doing it through automatic filtering or whether it's

1:07:11

a person I think they look at someone like me and

1:07:13

they say man We're

1:07:16

never going to have the budget to

1:07:18

pay him what he's probably previously paid

1:07:20

and We're

1:07:22

never going to have the job role To

1:07:25

take advantage of this 25 years experience So

1:07:29

we're not going to hire him into this lower

1:07:31

role because he won't be happy and we won't

1:07:33

be happy And

1:07:35

so it's not simply that in my opinion.

1:07:37

It's not simply that You

1:07:41

know that there's a quote-unquote more

1:07:43

qualified candidate at this point the

1:07:47

What I'm seeing and I'm not the only one what I'm

1:07:49

seeing is that the more senior you are the harder it

1:07:51

is to find any Jobs out there because

1:07:53

they're kind of just being sunsetted. They're

1:07:56

not firing Super

1:07:58

top-level, you know 20-year experience

1:08:00

people, but they're not hiring them anymore.

1:08:03

They're just not. And they don't want

1:08:05

to. And I feel

1:08:07

this is really troublesome. It creates

1:08:09

friction. It creates friction. Because

1:08:12

you've got a bunch of young kids that

1:08:15

are senior engineers after

1:08:18

three years of experience.

1:08:21

And you

1:08:25

go into a room

1:08:27

where you're challenging the

1:08:29

prevailing wisdom. You're not seen

1:08:31

as, oh, this person has the wisdom of

1:08:33

the ancients. You're seen as

1:08:35

this person doesn't know what he's talking about. What

1:08:37

a hack. I mean, I could

1:08:39

be wrong. I don't know if that's your experience. No,

1:08:41

I think, no, I'm saying that's

1:08:44

exactly what I'm seeing. I

1:08:46

had a, like we've, this

1:08:48

is the Jonathan Blow thing. This is the

1:08:50

Jonathan. This is the collapse of civilization talk

1:08:53

by Jonathan Blow. The

1:08:55

people who are in the currently

1:08:57

held positions are so far removed

1:08:59

from the original knowledge that

1:09:02

in many cases they are no longer

1:09:04

able to connect it to the current

1:09:06

knowledge. Right. Like this is

1:09:09

this is appreciate it. Yeah. It's

1:09:11

like, it's kind of

1:09:13

like the inverse of the

1:09:15

sufficient sufficiently advanced technology is

1:09:17

indistinguishable from from magic. Like you, you

1:09:19

sound like a soothsayer when you come in and

1:09:21

say, you know, I mean, a few years ago,

1:09:23

it would have been if you came up and

1:09:25

said, Hey, we should use the SQL database. You

1:09:28

know, like a few years ago, that would

1:09:30

have been like, what, what, what are you out of the

1:09:32

loop? It's like, no, not only am I out of the loop, I'm ahead

1:09:34

of it again. So

1:09:37

I think, I think what I see happening,

1:09:39

there's a lot of people that are claiming

1:09:42

that the advent of AI

1:09:44

is going to get rid of the

1:09:46

junior engineer positions. And I

1:09:48

actually think the reverse has happened. I

1:09:51

think the advent of AI has

1:09:53

been significantly improved

1:09:55

the position of those entering because

1:09:58

they are not coming into this with with any

1:10:00

prior experience about or conceptions about

1:10:02

what engineering should be. And

1:10:04

they're excited to use whatever tools they can. And

1:10:07

they're excited that they get a loss

1:10:09

of visible bang for the

1:10:11

buck, if you will, quickly. Those

1:10:14

people are way easier for companies

1:10:16

to imagine employing right now than

1:10:19

people who have been doing engineering the

1:10:21

quote unquote old school way for so

1:10:23

long and are

1:10:27

more willing to call out the flaws, right?

1:10:30

I'm just not as employable because

1:10:32

I'm not on the bandwagon of we

1:10:35

need all of our code to be

1:10:37

generated by AI. And

1:10:39

the entrance into this industry are

1:10:41

by far more interested in that

1:10:43

or more willing to approach

1:10:45

that as the way to do engineering. I

1:10:48

was told in a recent job. I

1:10:50

love AI. People are driven by the

1:10:52

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1:10:54

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1:10:56

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1:11:43

That's indeed.com/P-O-D-K-A-T-Z

1:11:46

12. Terms

1:11:49

and conditions apply. I

1:11:51

love it. But

1:11:55

I don't know how anybody who's a junior

1:11:57

could be effective with it. Oh,

1:11:59

I guess. That's the opposite. Your BS meter has to go

1:12:01

off. The BS meter

1:12:03

has to go off. The BS meter has, I mean, how are

1:12:05

you going to get it? Because

1:12:08

they don't need it to be quality

1:12:10

for it to ship. That's the

1:12:12

difference. Yeah, but it's got to work. Like, it's got to accept the form

1:12:14

input and it's got to post it, you know, like, like it

1:12:17

has to, at the bare minimum level, the code has

1:12:19

to work. Now, I will say. You

1:12:21

and I disagree with where that bar is anymore.

1:12:23

I don't think that the bare minimum bar

1:12:25

is the same place today as it was five

1:12:28

years ago. You're right, because

1:12:30

there's plenty of websites. Barely working. It doesn't

1:12:32

work. That's enough. But

1:12:36

anyway, I just think I think

1:12:38

that they actually have an advantage. People entering

1:12:40

the industry right now have this advantage because

1:12:43

we did not have tools like that

1:12:46

when I joined the industry or all

1:12:48

along that would have so rapidly accelerated

1:12:50

our ability to get something out, regardless

1:12:53

of its quality, regardless of how fit

1:12:55

it is for the task. They

1:12:57

are just much faster at achieving

1:13:00

any result than a more

1:13:03

traditional engineering approach would. And

1:13:05

I had interesting, you know, there was a very

1:13:08

recent experience where I had gone

1:13:10

through a very prolonged job interviewing

1:13:13

process, really thought I was going to get

1:13:15

it. I was down at

1:13:17

the end, final interviews, and then got told that

1:13:19

we decided not to move forward. And

1:13:21

the feedback they gave me was literally, we think

1:13:25

you're too rigorous of an engineer, you're

1:13:27

too concerned with solving the problem in

1:13:29

the most complete way, and you're not

1:13:32

interested in just shipping something quickly. And

1:13:34

that you won't fit here because of that. I

1:13:37

said that. That's just a reality. That's

1:13:40

the way our industries change. And I'm not going

1:13:42

to say that there's

1:13:45

no benefit to it because there are reasons why

1:13:47

our industry has changed that way. But I don't

1:13:49

think we've really come to

1:13:51

terms with the cost of that quite

1:13:54

yet. I think we're

1:13:56

going to have a lot of costs down the road. That's

1:13:59

like a question. Drupal and Tundra right now, because I don't

1:14:03

know how tapped in you are

1:14:05

with the political space

1:14:07

and how that has

1:14:09

an impact on us. But interest

1:14:11

rates are a large part of what

1:14:14

is driving the need

1:14:16

to make changes, not necessarily

1:14:18

the motivation. Because

1:14:21

people, like in

1:14:23

normal human interaction, you

1:14:26

feel upset, someone says what's wrong,

1:14:28

you say the first thing that

1:14:30

comes to mind. You don't, well,

1:14:32

maybe you personally, Kyle

1:14:34

Simpson, you may do this from

1:14:36

the way you're speaking, but the

1:14:38

average person doesn't recognize what's

1:14:40

wrong. They don't know why they're angry

1:14:43

or why they're upset. They're

1:14:45

upset. They know they're upset. You ask

1:14:47

them, oh, you seem like something's bugging

1:14:49

you, what's bothering you? And they're

1:14:52

just going to spit off the first thing that

1:14:54

comes to mind, which is typically the

1:14:56

most recent thing that happened. Like they were upset.

1:14:58

They were having a bad day. They

1:15:00

stubbed their toe. So you say, why are you

1:15:02

upset? I stub

1:15:05

my toe. But no,

1:15:07

that's not the reason you were upset. That's just

1:15:09

the most recent thing that happened that put an

1:15:11

impression negatively on your emotions. And I think that

1:15:13

that's kind of what's happening in the industry in

1:15:17

regards to this AI thing.

1:15:21

Interest rates are the problem. Money is

1:15:23

drying up. AI

1:15:25

is an excuse, which

1:15:29

paradoxically then causes

1:15:31

more of the economic issue

1:15:33

because then people believe that AI is

1:15:36

the solution. People are not

1:15:38

firing their employees because AI is picking up the

1:15:40

slack. Somebody

1:15:43

come at me with the data that shows that that's

1:15:45

what's happening. But I think that everyone who's done

1:15:47

marketing for an AI company has had their

1:15:49

article refuted on that basis. People

1:15:52

are losing employees and tightening

1:15:55

the belt because the interest rates

1:15:57

have gone up. That

1:16:00

means that for the investors to take out the

1:16:02

money in the first place, they actually have to

1:16:04

have a plan to pay back the money. Because

1:16:06

when the interest rates are low, then

1:16:09

you don't really have to pay back the money

1:16:11

every month. You could just float on it. Like

1:16:13

imagine that if you could get a 1% interest

1:16:15

rate on like you had a

1:16:17

big project you wanted to do and you were

1:16:19

not being really conservative with your money, the interest

1:16:21

rates were 1%. You could take

1:16:23

out $50,000 and then you could sit on that $50,000 for the

1:16:25

next 10 years and use the money

1:16:31

to pay back the loan and only use

1:16:33

10,000 of it to do whatever

1:16:36

you wanted to do. So if interest rates are

1:16:38

sufficiently low and you're financially savvy,

1:16:40

you're going to take out way more money than

1:16:42

you need and you're going to use the extra

1:16:44

money as a buffer. And I say financially

1:16:47

savvy, I don't,

1:16:50

not necessarily from a moral perspective, I'm not saying that's

1:16:52

the right thing to do, but I'm saying it's a

1:16:54

trick you can use. You take out more money than

1:16:56

you need. You use the money as a buffer to

1:16:58

pay off the interest rates. That's what the whole, I

1:17:01

mean, and a lot of people I think are truly

1:17:03

evil. They get people to do this with their home

1:17:05

equity loans to take some blockchain

1:17:08

course or some real estate

1:17:10

course. I've got a friend, like

1:17:12

my heart just hurts for

1:17:14

him because he's gotten suckered

1:17:16

in and I'm telling him, I'm like,

1:17:18

dude, you are getting suckered. Please stop.

1:17:21

This is going to be so bad for your family. This is going

1:17:23

to be so bad for you. Just please, please

1:17:25

just hear me out. You are

1:17:27

the sucker. But

1:17:29

nobody wants to hear that. Anyway, sorry,

1:17:32

that's a tangent. But related to

1:17:34

all of this. I don't actually

1:17:36

think it's super tangential. I think

1:17:38

the zero interest rates of the

1:17:40

last 20 years are a big,

1:17:42

big contributing macroeconomic factor. And

1:17:44

they allowed a kind of arbitrage like

1:17:47

you're describing that really

1:17:49

enabled probably 50%

1:17:52

or more of this industry to exist. Many

1:17:54

of the companies that currently

1:17:56

exist today should have failed.

1:17:58

But didn't fail

1:18:01

because they had a business model that

1:18:03

was propped up only by that macroeconomic

1:18:06

condition. And I don't think that's

1:18:08

coming back in my lifetime. I don't think it's

1:18:10

coming back. And the

1:18:12

double negative on this is that what that

1:18:14

meant was, and this is actually illegal. It

1:18:17

is illegal to, well, I mean, it

1:18:19

guess it depends on the state and at

1:18:21

the federal level, but in general, it is

1:18:23

illegal. It's considered an illegal, unfair business practice

1:18:26

to put your

1:18:28

products and services at a loss

1:18:31

in order to extinguish competition. But

1:18:34

that's effectively what these zero interest rates

1:18:36

did because the profitable businesses went

1:18:38

out of business because

1:18:42

they had to pay their costs

1:18:45

that month. The

1:18:47

businesses that had the zero

1:18:49

interest rate loans funneled through

1:18:51

investors, they

1:18:54

did not have to pay their costs that month.

1:18:57

And so the businesses that

1:19:00

were profitable went out

1:19:02

of business and the

1:19:04

businesses that were unprofitable had

1:19:06

an unfair advantage. And this is, I mean, this

1:19:09

goes into a whole ball of wax,

1:19:11

but I mean, like that's the Fed, it funnels

1:19:13

into tech. Why do these tech companies from the

1:19:15

last 20 years, why do

1:19:17

they all parrot the same message?

1:19:19

Why is there not a single

1:19:21

publicly traded company that has

1:19:24

a different opinion? Why

1:19:26

is it only privately owned companies,

1:19:29

like 37signals that have a different

1:19:31

opinion? When the money flows

1:19:34

that way, it is the ideology,

1:19:36

the philosophy, the ethics,

1:19:39

everything about it, where the money comes

1:19:41

from is tainted. When you've got a

1:19:43

profitable business, your relationship is to your

1:19:45

customer. When you have

1:19:48

a growth opportunity, your

1:19:50

relationship is literally to the US government.

1:19:53

You are getting your money from the

1:19:56

Fed. That is where, that's where it

1:19:58

all goes back to. You

1:20:02

may have a different opinion on that or whatever, and

1:20:04

I don't want to push that any further, but that's...

1:20:07

No, I think the

1:20:09

point is well made. I

1:20:13

don't have much more to

1:20:15

say about the employment industry, but

1:20:17

I just hope that people are thinking

1:20:20

more about both

1:20:23

the literal and the figurative costs here. And

1:20:27

I'm personally just going to have

1:20:29

to keep trying to find

1:20:32

a way to invent a job because I

1:20:34

don't think I'm going to find the job.

1:20:37

It's kind of the reality that I've come up against.

1:20:40

I need to wrap probably

1:20:42

here, but

1:20:47

I do think that this is a conversation that

1:20:49

I hope maybe you'll have with even other people

1:20:51

on this podcast, bring people on and ask them

1:20:53

their perspectives on these things, because it

1:20:55

might be different than mine. Yeah,

1:20:58

I think because I've had

1:21:00

even some real world interactions with you

1:21:02

over the years, it's

1:21:05

a lot easier for me to have

1:21:07

some real talk with you. A

1:21:09

lot of the people that we have on the show, that

1:21:12

real talk is not... And

1:21:15

yeah, and it's hard to navigate

1:21:18

because some people are high-tech

1:21:20

communicators and some people are low-text communicators. Some

1:21:22

people, you and I, we're low-text communicators, and

1:21:24

that makes it a good pairing. It

1:21:27

is a very bad pairing when I get on

1:21:29

with a high-text communicator because I'm not intuitive and

1:21:32

I take things that's face value. I don't

1:21:34

read signals. Anyway,

1:21:36

yeah, I don't want to monopolize

1:21:39

your... Actually,

1:21:42

I do want to monopolize your time. I absolutely

1:21:44

do, but... I've appreciated the

1:21:46

conversations today. Today was really

1:21:49

engaging. I hope it puts

1:21:51

some thoughts in people that

1:21:54

they'll chew on as they listen to

1:21:56

this episode. All right. Well...

1:22:00

Thanks very much for coming on and sharing about

1:22:02

that. Like I said, it took a different direction

1:22:04

than I was thinking. Some of the directions loop

1:22:06

back around to what I, some

1:22:08

of the things I thought we were talking about. I thought

1:22:11

we were going to be talking more about industry issues by

1:22:13

that, you know, kind of seeing how it all comes together,

1:22:15

like the personal development and

1:22:17

culture and ethos and, you know, the

1:22:19

way of interacting and seeing with the

1:22:21

world, plus the change and shift in

1:22:24

culture and all that kind of culminating.

1:22:28

Yeah. So thanks for coming on. I guess we'll go ahead

1:22:31

and move on to PIX then. And

1:22:33

I'll go first. So

1:22:36

I know so many people

1:22:38

right now. This is what's blowing my mind. It

1:22:40

makes me really worried because I myself

1:22:43

am at risk. I work

1:22:45

independently. I work for a few different companies, but

1:22:49

it would be, it

1:22:54

as the economic situation changes, I'm

1:22:57

at risk and I could be. In

1:23:00

a unfavorable position, my

1:23:02

myself and. I

1:23:06

know so many people that are highly qualified

1:23:08

people that if I were hiring, I would

1:23:10

hire them. I met this guy in a meetup. He

1:23:13

is, you know, there's probably like

1:23:15

the 10 smartest people I've ever met. And

1:23:18

this guy is so weird now because now there's nobody

1:23:20

to accept the Internet that I'm talking to. It's

1:23:23

totally different vibe, but there's.

1:23:29

And what if he's probably one of the 10 smartest people

1:23:31

I've ever met, just in terms of like the way that

1:23:33

he can reason about things, I mean, not just his knowledge,

1:23:35

but like his ability to intuit patterns

1:23:37

and connect the dots, right? And

1:23:40

he works at an Amazon warehouse

1:23:43

and he also works on a

1:23:46

compiler and he

1:23:49

is struggling to get a job for some

1:23:51

of the same reasons that Kyle was mentioning

1:23:53

where he's overqualified

1:23:55

and yet has no industry experience

1:23:57

like the things that he can.

1:23:59

solve the things that he can work

1:24:01

on, he's overqualified for the positions that he's

1:24:04

applying for. And

1:24:11

under experience in terms of what could be shown on

1:24:14

a resume. So it's just like this

1:24:16

weird limbo. And he's not the only one. And

1:24:19

I'm going to share some of his work. For

1:24:22

fun, for fun, Walmart had

1:24:24

released a paper about their search algorithm, and

1:24:26

he noticed some technical issues with

1:24:28

it. And he created

1:24:30

one of the most masterful

1:24:33

presentations I've ever seen showing

1:24:35

how applying different techniques

1:24:40

would yield significant benefits. And this is

1:24:42

actually significant because it's Walmart and it's

1:24:44

search for their autocomplete. So

1:24:47

it's not like a, I

1:24:49

mean, it's a significant problem. Anyway,

1:24:54

he, just

1:24:57

one of the most amazing things I've ever seen, and

1:24:59

I'm going to post some links to that. His

1:25:03

handle is Valadark. But

1:25:06

this is a guy that if I were hiring, I would totally

1:25:08

want him on my team. I wouldn't be able to use him

1:25:11

to his full capacity, but totally want him on the team. And

1:25:13

I've done a little bit of work with him on a side

1:25:15

project and was very satisfied. But anyway,

1:25:18

and I know other people like this. I know

1:25:20

several other people that do not have jobs right

1:25:22

now that are top tier engineers.

1:25:25

They are on the top shelf. They

1:25:27

are the people that I would want to hire

1:25:29

and they cannot find work. And this is the

1:25:31

strangest thing in the world to me. So

1:25:34

anyway, I was the, the pick there was

1:25:36

more than anything else is that the

1:25:38

Walmart paper and then,

1:25:40

oh, whoops, I actually didn't link to the

1:25:43

correct. The, let me,

1:25:45

let me see if I can link to this correctly.

1:25:50

Go link to this. Okay.

1:25:54

There we are. That's the correct link for the

1:25:56

other piece there. And then

1:25:58

also. You

1:26:01

know, since we're all alone now and it's just

1:26:03

me and no one else can be blamed, my

1:26:07

other pick is going to be, I

1:26:09

don't know, like I kind of want to couch this.

1:26:11

I kind of want to don't, I don't know, but I

1:26:15

don't know if this is going to come out before the

1:26:17

election. I think it will. I

1:26:19

don't think our lead times on the episodes are that long right now. I have

1:26:21

to go back and check. But I

1:26:23

would encourage everybody to reconsider

1:26:26

what you think you know. I

1:26:29

like, no, I don't even want

1:26:31

you to reconsider what you think you know. What I

1:26:33

want, what I want for people to do, what would,

1:26:35

what would make me so incredibly happy is if, you

1:26:37

know, just one person goes

1:26:39

out there and looks up actual source

1:26:41

videos, take the person that your hate

1:26:44

is targeted towards, go

1:26:46

look up the source videos and

1:26:48

see what that person actually says

1:26:51

for the whole sentence.

1:26:55

Because I've seen some, I don't

1:26:57

know if it's AI generated or what, but I've

1:26:59

seen some content that's not parody content, that's

1:27:02

actual content that's being put out there that

1:27:05

is removing words like not

1:27:08

from the video and,

1:27:10

and, and

1:27:12

then being, you know, recycled into,

1:27:14

I think a lot of people

1:27:16

have some very. Wrong

1:27:20

misconceptions about particular events. And

1:27:23

particular things that have been

1:27:25

said in particular, like a

1:27:27

lot of the particulars are

1:27:29

very, very skewed. So

1:27:31

whatever your greatest bias is against

1:27:37

or for your candidate, go

1:27:41

just watch the video and watch like the whole

1:27:43

60 second clip, the 30

1:27:45

seconds before the 30 seconds after of

1:27:48

what they're actually saying and

1:27:51

see if it lines up with what you

1:27:53

believe that you have been taught that they

1:27:55

are saying, because I guarantee you

1:27:57

for many of you, if you do

1:28:00

that no matter which

1:28:02

side you're on, you

1:28:04

are going to have your eyes opened and

1:28:06

it might open up enough to

1:28:09

cause some reconsideration. I do think that

1:28:11

this election is very strange. I think

1:28:13

there's a lot of anomalies that have led up to it.

1:28:16

I think that something is wrong in

1:28:19

the US system right now. I think

1:28:21

it's dangerously wrong. And

1:28:25

if you want to make a quick buck,

1:28:28

Elon has announced a program on Twitter

1:28:30

where you can make money by

1:28:33

registering people to vote. And as far

1:28:35

as I know, I don't

1:28:37

think that there's a stipulation on that

1:28:40

they have to be for a particular

1:28:42

candidacy. The position is a freedom of

1:28:44

speech position, but

1:28:48

I don't believe that you have to subscribe

1:28:50

to a particular candidate in order to take

1:28:52

advantage of that offer. So basically $47 million

1:28:54

is up for grabs. That's

1:28:58

$47 per registration

1:29:01

is up for grabs for

1:29:03

anybody who goes

1:29:06

through whatever online tool

1:29:09

they have, inviting,

1:29:12

it becomes the referral for the

1:29:14

registration, something like that. I don't know all the

1:29:16

details, but I

1:29:18

think is, anyway, so I'll put that

1:29:20

out there. So with that all

1:29:22

said, thanks for tuning in.

1:29:25

I hope that this was a good episode.

1:29:27

I hope that this has a positive impact overall.

1:29:30

I know I did a little bit of ranting

1:29:32

there and whatnot, but I hope this is a

1:29:34

positive impact overall and y'all have

1:29:36

a good one. I'll catch you later. Adios.

1:29:43

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