24-Dec-18 World View -- Generational Dynamics analysis of the troop withdrawal from Syria

[Gravely Concerned]

Wow, John am I mistaken or did you spit in my eye after expressing genuine concern?
If you think setting up a YouTube channel requires any of the things you mentioned, you have no idea about what the platform is all about. None, zero, zilch, nada.

You are correct, all our hires were very young people, and to be honest, requires dedication, passion and knowledge of the absolute latest technologies. Your passion is less software, more so politics and global affairs - and this you excel at. I am not mistaken that you would be a poor fit. It would be drudgery to you and your interests would drift to politics and book writing. This is proven out by your resume timelines. You can object, but that matters less than the people evaluating your timeline and deciding whether to interview at all. Cultural fit in modern tech organizations is paramount, technical capabilities are secondary. If you don't believe this, you have not kept up with the current state of applications development. It has less to do with actual politics than dedication to the goals outlined by the organization. As an example, if a company said your concerns about network security were not a big deal and you needed to focus on getting some feature working, I believe you would object - to the point of blocking progress. Or you would snicker and sneer and give attitude like you did to me. That is why you do not fit anywhere. What you call "age discrimination" is more a function of not having the patience for cantankerous and crusty attitude and stubbornness, rather than number of years on Earth. There are plenty of older people at my company, but they are always dedicated to the company goals and solving problems as well as embracing the latest technologies and solutions. You also have to keep in mind your competition includes people under 25, highly intelligent, who have been coding since 7-8 yrs old, are "full stack" devs and who live and breath software 24/7.

Your perspective and frame is not one conducive to following instructions from people who you consider your inferior. This is the impression given by your own writings here as you berate politicians and financial "experts". I am not saying you are wrong, to the contrary, I think you have tremendous insight in these matters. But you are not suited to working for a corporation and "following orders". That's why I suggested YouTube where you could be your own boss and have total control over your destiny.

Anyway your "ha ha, you're a joke", laugh in my face attitude just proved my points above. Sorry to say the joke is on you, I am employed. I still would support you on Patreon, which again requires almost nothing for you to set up.

[Tom Mazanec]

If you go on Patreon, I can only pledge a dollar, if that. I am on disability and in the bottom quartile of income with that.
If you close Generational Dynamics, I will miss you. I used to phone a person, Edward Langley, whom I met playing a Play-By-Mail space war game. He was just like you, in political/economic analysis and in computer career. After 9/11 he was working hundred hour weeks (his employer was headquartered in the WTC) and had an aneurysm burst and died. I still dream about him once in awhile.

[rmk]

John,
I would be very sad to see this site shut down. No one knows the whole truth of the world's doings, but I think your site brings us closer to it than any other news source I know of. I don't know anything about internet marketing, but if you come up with a site where people can contribute, I will. Thanks for all your years of hard work.

[François]

"Gravely concerned", why are you so agressive?

Merry Christmas to all.

François.

[Tom Mazanec]

Something you could do to get a little cash is come out with that book on China. You really should have done that one first...China is a much bigger problem for America and the world than Iran.

[John]

To all:

Thank you very much for your messages. I particularly want to thank
the dozen or so people who made a donation (through Paypal) in the
last two days. I'm very grateful for even small donations of this
type, because it's a symbolic way of expressing support. Anyone
who wants to contribute can do so easily through Paypal.

Unfortunately, this doesn't fix the problem. Unless someone
comes forth who is willing to hire me and pay me as a Senior
Software Engineer, a journalist or an analyst, then I'm going
to run out of money next year, and it will be the end of both
me and Generational Dynamics.

For those concerned about preserving the information: I created
a download page (GenerationalDynamics.com/download) in 2016,
containing all the files as of that time. I'll update that page
in the next 2-3 months. I'll include the backup SQL file for
this forum, in case anyone wants to bring up the forum on their
own web site.

As far as "crowdfunding" is concerned, I've been doing this
since 2003, and I know that crowdfunding does not work with this
material. If it were a cooking or fashion site, then it might
go viral, and people would tell their friends and build up a big
user community that way. But this is an "anti-viral" site.
Any number of people have written to me over the years saying
that they've told their friends and family about the site, and
then got shunned or shut out. This is the "Cassandra curse,"
referring to the mythical Cassandra, the Biblical Jeremiah,
and even Winston Churchill. The only way that this web site
can survive is if an interested individual were willing to
provide funding, or a salary for me as a Senior Software
Engineer or journalist or analyst.

As for Patreon in particular, see my post to "Gravely Concerned."

Thanks again to everyone for the messages and support. A
new year is coming, and things are certain to change (unfortunately,
probably for the worse). We'll see what happens.

In the meantime, I hope everyone had / is having a great
Christmas holiday.

John

[John]

Dear Gravely Concerned,

> Wow, John am I mistaken or did you spit in my eye after expressing
> genuine concern? If you think setting up a YouTube channel
> requires any of the things you mentioned, you have no idea about
> what the platform is all about. None, zero, zilch, nada.

> ou are correct, all our hires were very young people, and to be
> honest, requires dedication, passion and knowledge of the absolute
> latest technologies. Your passion is less software, more so
> politics and global affairs - and this you excel at. I am not
> mistaken that you would be a poor fit. It would be drudgery to you
> and your interests would drift to politics and book
> writing.

Wow, you're right that I did mock you after your first message, and I
can see from you second message that I was correct to do so. And you
have no clue what I'd be good at or what technology I've kept up with,
which is not surprising, given your youth and inexperience. Just
because you're incapable of working on two projects at once doesn't
mean that someone else can't. What it requires is time management
skills that I gather you don't have.

It's good that you have a team of very young, very inexperienced
programmers who will never question you, even when you're obviously
wrong, since you interpret even a question as "blocking progress."
You should read my articles on Healthcare.gov, which was implemented
by managers exactly like you, and ended up in disaster. And when
people like you lead a project that ends up in disaster, there's
always somebody else to blame.

I personally have never blocked a project. That's ridiculous. But I
have written a memo to my manager explaining why the project is headed
for problems. I've been fired for writing such a memo but, oddly
enough, I've never been wrong. Every time I was fired for telling my
manager that the project was in the wrong direction, the project
crashed and burned a few months later, so I've always been right --
not only about the project being in trouble, but for exactly the
reasons I said. But one thing I've learned about people like you is
that you don't even care about that. You just want your budget and
your paychecks, and when your project crashes and burns, you go on to
the next project and screw that one up too. I've been around a long
time, and I've participated in, viewed, and (as a journalist) reported
on many software engineering project disasters, and they all have one
thing in common -- someone like you who have no clue how to develop a
complex system, and really couldn't care less, since you're always on
to the next project.

Incidentally, your team of young programmers feel the same way. You
think that they're committed to you, but they're not. They realize
what an idiot you are, even if they don't say so. They're committed
to technology, and to learning new technologies. And the best way to
learn new technologies is to move from one company to another,
spending about a year in each. This has gotten so bad in Silicon
Valley that many companies are using "extreme pairing" and switch
partners every couple of weeks, so that when programmers start moving
on, there's always someone left who understands the code.

Another thing that people like you have no grasp of is what can go
wrong with complex systems. You exhibited this when you wrote, "If
you think setting up a YouTube channel requires any of the things you
mentioned, you have no idea about what the platform is all
about. None, zero, zilch, nada." It's exactly this naive attitude
that led to one disaster after another in implementing Healthcare.gov.
You really should read what I wrote about it.

Something else you might consider reading is the following
paper, written in the 1990s:

** How Complex Systems Fail, Richard I. Cook, MD, Univ Chicago (PDF)

** http://GenerationalDynamics.com/gdgraph ... msFail.pdf

I've always recommended this paper because it shows how minor unit
problems combine to create systems failure. You think that your kids,
who have never seen a complex system, can deal with unexpected
problems, because you're the same way. It's not about whether your
programmers know how to implement simple web applications using the
latest versions of React or Angular, it's about whether they have any
clue what to do when different web components interacting with each
other and with different servers and networks suddenly don't work well
together, because they were unaware of simple system principles.

That's why web applications are not "drudgery." A web application is
always part of a larger system that has to be understood and managed.

My next message is about the problems with Patreon. Patreon is in
serious trouble because of people like you who think that if each kid
implements a point solution, then all the point solutions will work
together. I've seen several managers of that kind, and it's pathetic
to watch the results. I hope your project won't be a disaster like
Healthcare.gov or Patreon, but if it is then I know you won't care,
since you can just move on to the next one.

> Anyway your "ha ha, you're a joke", laugh in my face attitude just
> proved my points above. Sorry to say the joke is on you, I am
> employed. I still would support you on Patreon, which again
> requires almost nothing for you to set up.

Yeah, you're right. You're employed and I'm not. You're a lot better
off than I am. You win. I lose. The younger generations always win,
and the older generations are dead. That's the way the world works.

Ho, ho, ho. Merry Christmas!

[John]

A couple of people have suggested Patreon. As I wrote in a previous
message, a crowdfunding source will not work with Generational
Dynamics, because it's "anti-viral." The only way that this web site
can survive is if an interested individual were willing to provide
funding, or a salary for me as a Senior Software Engineer or
journalist or analyst.

I've spent a couple of hours yesterday doing some research on Patreon,
and it appears to be running into a great deal of trouble for a couple
of reasons -- its payment system is breaking down, and it's viewed
increasingly as a far left-wing site, censoring conservatives. These
two problem are apparently causing a lot of users to flee. The
following are some web sites that I tracked down, for those who are
interested in following up.

***** In the last year, Patreon has been losing control of its payment
system, as more and more ordinary users are complaining about being
charged without authorization, and more and more posters are having
difficulty collecting the money that users have pledged.

https://theoutline.com/post/2571/no-one ... on-patreon

https://www.consumeraffairs.com/business/patreon.html

https://www.bbb.org/us/ca/san-francisco ... complaints

https://www.theverge.com/2018/8/2/17644 ... gged-fraud

***** There have been a few "favored" clients who have made lots of
money using Patreon, but most make very little.

https://www.merchantmaverick.com/review ... on-review/

https://www.quora.com/What-is-your-review-of-Patreon

https://www.trustpilot.com/review/www.patreon.com


***** Breitbart has been investigating Patreon. Patreon has been
allowing extreme left accounts that promote left-wing violence and
extremism, but has been banning conservatives as "hate speech."

https://www.breitbart.com/tech/2018/12/ ... ervatives/

https://www.breitbart.com/tech/2018/12/ ... m-patreon/

https://www.breitbart.com/tech/2018/12/ ... flee-site/

https://www.theguardian.com/technology/ ... te-patreon

My personal conclusion is that even if "crowdfunding" could work for
Generational Dynamics (which it can't), then Patreon wouldn't work,
since even in the best circumstances I would make no money, and I
might even be censored.

[John]

> Something you could do to get a little cash is come out with that
> book on China. You really should have done that one first...China
> is a much bigger problem for America and the world than
> Iran.

The book on Iran is a good example of the problems of making money.
Loretta Napoleoni, who has published several books and whose name is
on the cover of my Iran book, encouraged to write the book. She told
me it would be very popular, and if I sold it at a low price ($7.00)
then I would sell tons of copies and make lots of money. I didn't
believe her, but I wanted to write the book anyway, since it was a
very interesting project, and I was unemployed anyway. And I'm really
proud of the book. It's a fantastically good book, if I do say so
myself. But it's like everything else I do -- no one's interested.
I've sold 30-40 copies, so it's not going to make me rich.

After that was done, I decided that I could best fill out what was
probably the last few months of my life by writing the book on China.
Once again, it's a fascinating project.

Well, I've been working on that book on China. It was originally
going to be on China's claims to the South China Sea, and it was going
to be done by Thanksgiving.

First off, one quickly discovers that China has no claims to the South
China Sea. The whole thing is a hoax. There is absolutely no link
there whatsoever. At least Hitler could claim that he was protecting
Germans when he annexed stuff, but China doesn't even have that.
China has absolutely nothing.

But I've gotten sucked into trying to understand why China is the way
it is. Both China and Japan had generational crisis wars that
climaxed in the 1860s (Taiping Rebellion and Meiji Restoration), and
both were triggered by Western "invasions" (Opium Wars and Commodore
Perry). But after those wars ended, the two countries proceeded in
vastly different directions.

Japan embraced the West, and by the early 1900s was considered a
"developed country" and even a "Western country," although the people
became imbued with a militaristic attitude that resulted in disaster.

China did not embrace the West. China rejected the West (or at best
had a love-hate relationship with the West), and even declared war on
the West in the Boxer Rebellions. China was repeatedly "conned" by
Japan and the West in World War I, and they never seems to learn what
was going on. "Fool me once, shame on you, fool me twice, shame on
me." The Chinese were fooled over and over, and never seemed to learn
anything. While Japan's government was highly competent and driven,
China's government was totally incompetent, and stumbled from one
disaster to another -- until the May 4th movement (May 4, 1919), which
turned the people into a driven population seeking revenge against
Japan and the West.

The riddle about China is why the Chinese people people are so naive
and credulous. For three hundred years, from 1640 to 1912, they were
governed by a small army of Manchus that they could have overthrown at
any time, but never bothered to do so. Then in WW I, their
incompetent government was humiliated time after time, leading to the
iron rule of Chiang Kai-shek and then Mao Zedong -- both of them
disastrous, authoritarian rulers. And then they were so incompetent
in WW II that America had to save them from the Japanese.

Today, the meek, naive, credulous Chinese people are being governed by
another monstrous authoritarian government, led by an incompetent
leader Xi Jinping, who's adopted an insane policy of locking up
millions of people in reeducation centers, and who is so frightened of
Winnie the Pooh that anyone who mentions him can be punished. Can you
imagine Donald Trump being afraid of Winnie the Pooh? And yet, the
Chinese people bow down to this insane, incompetent leader who has
just anointed himself president for life.

Well, I've let myself rant on about this China project. It certainly
hasn't been languishing, and I've done and continue to do a great
deal of work on it. But there's a lot to do. Still, it's coming
along, and I'm now hoping to have it done by mid-January.

And I'll probably sell 30-40 copies.

[John]

> Be a shame to see this site shut down. I consider Generational
> Dynamics to be worthwhile and it's the only news source around
> that I trust. Just about everyone else is full of bullshit. I hope
> you'll find a way to keep the website up and running or at least
> have the information saved if you aren't able to come up with the
> money. Thanks for all the work you've done.

As I said earlier, in the next 2-3 months I'll update the download
page (GenerationalDynamics.com/download), and anyone who wants to
preserve the files can download and keep them.