SecondJon @SecondJon@qoto.org

"Of all tyrannies, a tyranny sincerely exercised for the good of its victims may be the most oppressive. It would be better to live under robber barons than under omnipotent moral busybodies. The robber baron's cruelty may sometimes sleep, his cupidity may at some point be satiated; but those who torment us for our own good will torment us without end for they do so with the approval of their own conscience." – C.S. Lewis ( on government response to #COVID and other crises?)

Thanks for the welcome, #@freemo Here's my #introduction .

I'm...
• a dad of a handful of kiddos, married, living in Colorado.
• a Christian in the Anglican tradition, and suppose I'm an unaffiliated conservatarian.
• a reader, working through the great novels as well as easier/fun books and nonfiction.
• a card and board game player and am happily teaching more to my kids as they get older.
• short on free time. I enjoy a philosophical pipe as I read and/or reflect, and occasionally get my guitar or bow/arrows out to learn new skills.
• a software developer... and have been for a very long time, now in the world of APIs and cloud development (CRM/SFDC).

Bugs on established retail websites. Basic system functionality suddenly not working right on my android phone. I'm assuming it's AI slop that was UAT'd by more AI rather than by human testers. Production quality is dropping.

Is AI the new offshore?

I left a company after years of being a technical lead and manager because they doubled down on offshore. I don't care where anyone lives. That wasn't the problem. I couldn't stay because the arrangement was cost over quality. They found what they wanted in offshore firms where the turn around was so crazy, it felt like every sprint I was having to onboard and train a new developer who had no idea what they were doing for the job or with the tech. "But it's cheaper! Look how many people we can pay for one local salary"

When something other than excellence is the top priority, quality will necessarily decline. Too often cost was the higher priority with offshore.

Right now it feels like it's the entire software industry, prioritizing speed first, cost second, quality a distant third.

Want to file a complaint? You'll get to talk to an artificial agent and good luck.

Substitute any national or global topic. Everything you think is driven by available information, which is heavily filtered and shaped before it reaches you.

Everything I know about President Trump I've learned from paid corporate spokespeople and others in the media, all of whom have an agenda and a clear interest in how my perception of reality drives my choices.

The same is true of you.

Where we may differ is that I'm aware of it.

Sadly I think #qoto is dying. This may be the end for my real engagement on Mastodon/the Fediverse. It's hard to find an insurance with rules attempting to create an instance where people treat others well, even when there's disagreement. Even here, though, they've failed...Just look at the local timeline. I miss the days when @freemo was involved and I hope he doing well.