I'm from New Zealand, but work in Europe. Recently I started working remotely for an American firm part-time. Those few hours I work for the Americans equates to about 3x the amount of stress from my EU job but with absolutely no protection (at-will clauses). There is such a palpable difference in culture, management style that I am fairly certain I would never work for an American firm again.
Out of curiosity, what were some of the differences in work culture you experienced? I've never worked outside the U.S., so would be interested to hear a different perspective.
Not OP - but I've worked with American and non-American tech companies. For similar-sized companies, my experience was that American companies are more obsessed with productivity and metrics, with more frequent meetings involving people who don't need to be present (including at least one one who is a level or 2 too high, but justify their presence by having to say something which occasionally derails the meeting).
On a purely subjective note: American work culture has lower trust and attempts to extract much more "productivity" from people doing the work compared to European companies, which is not always proportional to the salary differences. My sample size is fairly small (<5)
If you are going to make such claims, then at least try and be objective about it. Let's start with the toxic hellfire that is Twitter, I'm sure no credible death threats exist there, right?
You know "Whataboutism" isn't a magic word that lets you ignore an argument, right? If Twitter has extremist content (or death threats, or racism, or whatever) and isn't banned, then that is evidence that that's not the real reason for another app to have been banned. Weak evidence? Maybe. Open to argument about proportions of "bad" content? Absolutely. But still evidence.
Yes it is, I and almost certainly a large amount of people just blip right over whataboutism posts. Everyone is fed up with this style of deflection. Its just.. old. The discussion is about Parler, if you can't talk about it without the constant barrage of "well what about what Twitter does??" then maybe don't hit reply at all.
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You know "Whataboutism" isn't a magic word that lets you ignore an argument, right? If Twitter has extremist content (or death threats, or racism, or whatever) and isn't banned, then that is evidence that that's not the real reason for another app to have been banned
Parler were banned for refusing to properly moderate ( while having no problem with moderating any content they disagreed with), not for having hateful content. When you report similar content on Twitter or Facebook, they usually do something.
So yes, this is classic and very useless whataboutism. Don't you have anything meaningful to add to the conversation?
We appear to have very different ideas of what whataboutism is. If twitter and parler are actually different, then just say that. There's no reason to dismiss the argument without meeting it.
> Don't you have anything meaningful to add to the conversation?
And in any event, there's no reason to resort to personal attacks.
I am reminded of my experience working for a German medical equipment company.
We have distributed shared service centres around the world. Policy, best-practices, etc are formulated in the head office. For some reason we have continual problems with colleagues from one South American region who never follow best-practices and cause a lot of additional work for other teams who have to clean-up after them. I believe this is exactly what we talk about when we discuss cultural issues. We also have problems with giving these colleagues additional training and mentorship because they prefer to start a lot later in the morning, so our working hour overlap is very minimal.
Generally, people can be classified into three groups:
First, those who believe everything they consume;
Second, those who no longer believe anything;
Third, those who critically examine what they consume and form their judgments accordingly.
Numerically, the first group is by far the strongest, being composed of the broad masses of the people. Intellectually, it forms the simplest portion of the nation. It cannot be classified according to occupation but only into grades of intelligence. Under this category come all those who have not been born to think for themselves or who have not learnt to do so and who, partly through incompetence and partly through ignorance, believe everything that is set before them in print. To these we must add that type of lazy individual who, although capable of thinking for himself out of sheer laziness gratefully absorbs everything that others had thought over, modestly believing this to have been thoroughly done. The second group is numerically smaller, being partly composed of those who were formerly in the first group and after a series of bitter disappointments are now prepared to believe nothing of what they see in print. They hate all newspapers. Either they do not read them at all or they become exceptionally annoyed at their contents, which they hold to be nothing but a congeries of lies and misstatements.
The third group is easily the smallest, being composed of real intellectuals whom natural aptitude and education have taught to think for themselves and who in all things try to form their own judgments, while at the same time carefully sifting what they read. They will not read any newspaper without using their own intelligence to collaborate with that of the writer and naturally this does not set writers an easy task. Journalists appreciate this type of reader only with a certain amount of reservation.
Hence the trash that newspapers are capable of serving up is of little danger much less of importance to the members of the third group of readers. In the majority of cases these readers have learnt to regard every journalist as fundamentally a rogue who sometimes speaks the truth. Most unfortunately, the value of these readers lies in their intelligence and not in their numerical strength, an unhappy state of affairs in a period where wisdom counts for nothing and majorities for everything. Nowadays when the voting papers of the masses are the deciding factor; the decision lies in the hands of the numerically strongest group; that is to say the first group, the crowd of simpletons and the credulous.
It is an all-important interest of the State and a national duty to prevent these people from falling into the hands of false, ignorant or even evil-minded teachers. Therefore it is the duty of the State to supervise their education and prevent every form of offence in this respect. Particular attention should be paid to the Press; for its influence on these people is by far the strongest and most penetrating of all; since its effect is not transitory but continual. Its immense significance lies in the uniform and persistent repetition of its teaching.
Recognizing Propaganda
Propaganda appears in a variety of forms and uses common techniques to successfully influence people, including:
Activating strong emotions
Responding to audience needs & values
Simplifying information & ideas
Attacking opponents
Technique: Activate Strong Emotions Technique: Activate Strong Emotions
Propaganda plays on human emotions—fear, hope, anger, frustration, sympathy—to direct audiences toward the desired goal. In the deepest sense, propaganda is a mind game—the skilful propagandist exploits people’s fears and prejudices. Successful propagandists understand how to psychologically tailor messages to people’s emotions in order to create a sense of excitement and arousal that suppresses critical thinking.
By activating emotions, the recipient is emotionally moved by the message of the propagandist. Labelling is another weapon of choice for the propagandist. What emotions are important for those who create propaganda? Fear, pity, anger, arousal, compassion, hatred, resentment - all these emotions can be intensified by using the right labels.
Technique: Simplify Information & Ideas Technique: Simplify Information & Ideas
Propaganda may use accurate and truthful information, or half-truths, opinions, lies and falsehoods. Successful propaganda tells simple stories that are familiar and trusted, often using metaphors, imagery and repetition to make them seem natural or "true."
Oversimplification is effective when catchy and memorable short phrases become a substitute for critical thinking. Oversimplifying information does not contribute to knowledge or understanding, but because people naturally seek to reduce complexity, this form of propaganda can be effective.
Technique: Respond to Audience Needs & Values Technique: Respond to Audience Needs & Values
Effective propaganda conveys messages, themes, and language that appeal directly, and many times exclusively, to specific and distinct groups within a population. Propagandists may appeal to you as a member of a family, or your racial or ethnic identity, or even your hobbies, your favourite celebrities, your beliefs and values, or even your personal aspirations and hopes for the future.
Sometimes, universal values are activated, as when our deepest human values—the need to love and be loved, to feel a sense of belonging and a sense of place—are activated by propaganda. By creating messages that appeal directly to the needs, hopes, and fears of specific groups, propaganda becomes personal and relevant. When messages are personally relevant, people pay attention and absorb key information and ideas.
Technique: Attack Opponents Technique: Attack Opponents
Propaganda can serve as a form of political and social warfare to identify and vilify opponents. It can call into question the legitimacy, credibility, accuracy, and even the character of one’s opponents and their ideas.
Because people are naturally attracted to conflict, a propagandist can make strategic use of controversy to get attention. Attacking opponents also encourages "either-or" or "us-them" thinking which suppresses the consideration of more complex information and ideas.
Propaganda can also be used to discredit individuals, destroy their reputation, exclude specific groups of people, incite hatred or cultivate indifference.
If we are counting actual working hours, it is also 7 hours a day in Poland. (8hr/day inclusive of 30 minutes lunch plus cumulative 30 minute break from staring at a screen).
It is similar in Poland.
Here most colleagues can start between 6-9am and finish between 14-17. This is inclusive of a formal 30 minute lunch break and 10 minute breaks every 1 hour. (In practice most people just take 1 hour lunch instead). I enjoy this because I have much more time outside of the office to enjoy my life.
My personal experience using video conferencing software was always a feeling of heightened anxiety.
I now default to either hiding the view of the other participants with another window (maybe only making visible one participant at a time) or completely minimise the window, so I can focus only on the audio.
If I don't do that, I cannot concentrate and spend more staring at faces rather than actively listening.
