1) Take a short break of at least a full day and do something you enjoy. Get some exercise and some fresh air if you can.
2) Mentally prepare yourself for the grind ahead. A lot of the jobs you are applying to are already filled by the time you get there or the job has been pulled due to economic slowdown but the company is still interviewing because they are disorganized.
3) Try and make a list of the reasons why you are pursuing this job and this career specifically. Clarity around why you are choosing to take on potentially hundred of these gruelling interviews can help you keep your eye on the prize.
4) Be conciously grateful for your blessings. Some people never make tech lead but want it, you seem to have accomplished it early and have acquired a ton of valuable experience. There are others in far worse circumstances. Take heart, although this situation is very tough, because you have a set of problems that many would love to have.
Hope this helps you in some way. May God bless you.
These behemoths are a major vertebrae in the backbone of the US economy. Without Equifax, Transunion, Experian and Dun & Bradstreet a huge portion of economic activity would come to a grinding halt. The vast majority of sales of housing, cars, computers, phones, hot tubs, etc. are all reliant on on-demand credit scoring. We have made serious strides in regulating them, but disbanding them would be a financial disaster. Regulation has actually made the problem a bit worse since it has essentially turned the credit reporting industry into an oligopoly, further centralizing consumer data collection so attackers only have to hit a single target to get almost everything.
We would need to limit the state in some way so that it would be unable to grow beyond a certain set of powers. The populace would also need to agree that such an arrangement was a preferable alternative to being subject to a state which attempts to control every aspect of life. Of course, in order for the populace to have a unified agreement to such a thing they would need a shared set of values and morals that transcend the idea that "might makes right". Essentially, we would need an agreed upon moral code that is superior to the state which could then be used to limit the state.
Progressive taxation schemes can redistribute some of the incredible amounts of wealth that have been amassed by the few to the rest of the population.
But the non-conservative governments are also the ones that drove prices so high by preventing building new homes and making it harder to start businesses.
Or you could think of it like sharing. Generally speaking people create governments to help solve collective problems and then create laws. Charging tax is not considered a crime; it's one of the functions of government.
Sharing is usually voluntary. If the government levied a 100% tax on your income and assets, kept the vast majority of it, and then redistributed you a year supply of beans, rice, and a tent you would consider that to be a violation of their taxing authority wouldn't you? Should the power of the government to levy taxes be considered limitless?
If the government did such a thing, what power would I have to stop them? And if I don't pay my wealth taxes, the state of Texas will indeed put me out of my house, but they won't bother to give me a tent or any beans. So it goes.
Well this whole thread is regarding whether or not someone ought to vote for a non-conservative government. So the first thing you could do to avoid such a situation is vote to elect individuals who are true to their word and argue against policies that would rob you of all your wealth through taxation and inflation. Another step you might take is to promote a vision of society where we limit the government to a certain degree so that it does not acquire so much power that it can simply rob individual citizens without recourse.
Further, this particular question is whether the government legally ought to be able to tax without limits. You seem to be conflating that with if the government is able to tax without limits.
Well, I agree with you that the wealthy should vote for conservatives if money is their primary concern. I'm however not in the tax bracket that US conservatives are interested in helping though.
> Further, this particular question is whether the government legally ought to be able to tax without limits. You seem to be conflating that with if the government is able to tax without limits.
I fail to see a distinction here. The government defines what is legal. I suppose one can appeal to some higher power as the source of all law or something idealistic like that, but that's not how the IRS or the Texas State tax assessor work.
> I fail to see a distinction here. The government defines what is legal. I suppose one can appeal to some higher power as the source of all law or something idealistic like that, but that's not how the IRS or the Texas State tax assessor work.
Right. That's what I mean by conflating. One can appeal to a higher law. I'd argue that's the only way you can make a moral judgement about the actions of a government, since as you've pointed out they have the ability to create laws. So either there is a law that can be used to judge whether a 100% tax on the individual is justified or there isn't. If there isn't a higher law, then you're right - the government is a law unto themselves. They are totally sovereign and no one can make any moral judgement about their actions since by definition their might makes them right. Alternatively, there is a higher law: a supernatural moral law that transcends the will of men and which the governments of the world and all the people of the world are accountable to. If that's the case then there is a limit to how far the government is able to justifiably tax its citizens - the amount that the transcendent law allows gives them jurisdiction to tax.
It's important to note that if there is no law that transcends the state, then the state is not limited by moral law in any way. In that case it's the source of moral law and nothing that the state does can ever be justified as moral or immoral since under such a worldview the state is the judge of good and evil.
I suppose the problem you run into is that supernatural moral law is ephemeral and probably caught up in some religion or other which means something different to every member of that religion (as far as I can tell), whereas as actual law is written down, and actually exists.
Laws are non-material by definition. You can't eat or touch the law of gravity for example.
Using "caught up in a religion" or "means something different to every member" as a reason to ignore an argument is arbitrary and an a priori dismissal of potential evidence contrary to your beliefs. In other words, you are ruling out a position simply because you are prejudiced against that position.
There are laws which claim to be moral supernatural law which are written down. If these laws are what they claim to be and are truly of supernatural origin then not only do they exist, they exist in a greater capacity than laws written by human hands or instruments.
A transcendant law presupposes a transcendant author and arbiter.
The laws of physics are the same the Earth over through time and geography; moral supernatural law, not so much. Gravity has touched me pretty hard on occasion, and in fact punished me in ways I did not soon forget - unlike human law, it is not subject to capricious human referees.
What does your transcendent/moral supernatural law say the top marginal tax rate should be?
This kind of response tells me I've struck a nerve. I don't have these kinds of conversations because I want people to vote for conservatives in the upcoming elections. While I certainly would not mind that outcome, what is far more important to me is the spread of the Kingdom of God. The fact of the matter is that the Bible has plenty to say on the proper function of government and even the levying of taxes and the purposes those taxes are to be used for. But even if the Bible had an entire book dedicated to marginal tax rates it is unlikely that you would care. The reason you would not care is because you, like all mankind, are opposed to the rule of God, because if there is a transcendant standard then you are guilty of violating that standard. I'm not picking on you specifically, this is applicable to all mankind, including me. We are all in rebellion against God's law and we are all guilty of violating it (Romans 3:23). If we were fairly judged according to God's standards we would be doomed. The good news is that the transcendent creator of the universe has made it possible for rebels to be reconciled to Him even though they are breakers of His law. Jesus the Nazarene is the promised Messiah which was prophesied to the nation of Israel (Isa 59). For over 2000 years, word of His death, burial, and resurrection revealed to mankind that the author of the universe gave a revelation of Himself to man through Moses, the Prophets, and Jesus - confirmed by the resurrection of Jesus. Jesus resurrection is the miraculous proof that he holds divine authority and that His claims are true (1 Cor 15). Those who believe with sincere faith in the capacity and work of the Lord Jesus will be saved from sin, reconciled with the Father of all created things, and be gifted with the presence of the Holy Spirit. I didn't come to these conclusions because I'm smarter than you or because I'm more holy than you. I'm terribly guilty of violating God's laws. It is because of the mercy and goodness of God that I have been saved and that I trust in His word. To know and understand these things is a gift from God. It is a gift I pray he will give to you and to all those who read this.
Ah, yeah I don't really do any of that. If you want a word of advice, I'd say combining the conservative politics of greed with the message of radical social justice preached in the New Testament really confuses non-christians. I think the religion might look a bit more sincere if they'd remove themselves from politics and focus on less worldly concerns. But either way I'm not really buying what you're selling.
The old taxation=theft trope grows a bit tired...and frankly, I say this as someone who leans libertarian. At the end of the day, businesses derive value through infrastructure and in some cases, even regulation, without which the income streams being taxed would not be as readily available. Do I love the systems by which taxes are decided upon, or how the money is often allocated? Absolutely not. But taxes on income that benefits from the caretakers of the environment in which a business operates are no more theft than is operating such a business without compensating those who are caretakers of said environment.
Now, you can absolutely argue that the taxes being imposed or suggested are unnecessarily high, or perhaps that most of the money being levied is being squandered on things that those paying see no benefit from (which perhaps one could argue is theft, but that last part is crucial), and I'd not argue one bit with you in many cases. I'll be the first to say that the use of Western tax dollars in Ukraine is an absolute slap in the face for the taxpayers who see no benefit therefrom, and who had nothing to do with the coups that led to the war in the first place.
But taxation in and of itself isn't theft, any more than property, in and of itself, is theft. As long as the left and right just keep shouting "THIEF!" at each other, we don't really have any hope of getting anywhere.
Not all taxation is theft. However, taxation taken specifically from one person or group in order to benefit another is theft. Taxation for the purpose of maintaining the military, police, roads, and other necessary public infrastructure is not theft. For example, it is not theft for the Senate to pay for reasonable military salaries. It is theft to levy a 100% tax on billionaires in order to redistribute those funds to all non-billionaires whether in cash, benefits, or other property.
The "benefit of the public" is a better standard than no standard - but is in and of itself insufficient to contain the state to its rightful domain.
The Federal government in the US is (on paper) extremely limited in comparison to other countries. The US constitution was written specifically to limit the potential for tyrannical or mob rule. To regulate or disarm the citizenry of the United States is a particularly arduous task because the US Federal government does not have that kind of sovereignty.
I wonder how this will affect housing prices in the rest of the states. The bay area has a lot of people, if half of them migrate that's bound to have an effect.
Most American cities are only slightly behind Bay Area cities in the housing crisis process and small disturbances radically upset their housing markets. Market rents in Austin almost doubled in the past year alone. If you're leaving SV for lower housing prices you might be surprised.
This is true. I make $150k a year and Boston area rent prices + cost-of-living makes me live close to paycheck-to-paycheck. (I'm not there, but I can save very little even though I try to live frugally, prices are insane!). I simply cannot comprehend how low income people live in major American cities, you'd have to live with many roommates and be very food insecure! Life is hard in the US [1] right now!
[1] In the cities. I'm guessing life in suburbia/rural towns is easier. I lived in a major city my entire life, and living in rural parts of the country not worth it unfortunately. It's my own personal decision, I understand that it comes with significant trade-offs.
Boston rents are much higher than they should be (build more housing!) but $150k is still quite a lot compared to rents? For example, you can rent a 3br unit 10min from Harvard sq for $3700/month or in East Arlington / West Medford for $2800: https://www.jefftk.com/apartment_prices/#2022-08-18&3
At $3700, that's about 25% of someone's before tax income at $150K/yr, But your after tax take home in Boston would be something like $104K/yr. So you could do this and be left at $59,600 for all other expenses and savings. This is very doable with no children, debt, or other financial obligations, but you never know what someone's life circumstances are.
You're making twice the median whole household income for Boston... I nearly guarantee you could be more frugal and save fully half your income. You'd have to give up things you don't want to give up, but that most people in Boston don't have either... I say this not as a personal attack, but what I found out about myself after critically evaluating my finances in a similar situation despite being a single father in a HCOL location.
Boston's prices, while not as high as SF, are crazy as well. Many large cities like Houston, Atlanta, Chicago, etc, have prices that are around half of Boston.
The Austin housing market is insane. And with Texas getting a large chunk of their income from property taxes, there's going to be some very major effects when everyone's homes start getting reappraised for tax reasons.
Yeah. The homestead exemption limits tax increases to "only" 10% per year, but it will still be a lot for people who count on their home payment staying static. And, getting the homestead exemption isn't automatic, so anyone who forgot to file it will be ... surprised.
The homestead cap limits annual appraised value increases to 10% over the previous year. In theory, if the taxing units maintained the same rate as last, yes, it would result in a 10% jump in tax amount too. Many taxing units reduced their rates a bit this year, given the higher appraisal values. Surprisingly, many Austin area homeowners reported their estimated tax amount stayed the same as last.
The owner has to live on the property and make it their primary residence, to claim homestead exemption. CADs will not know that until the owner applies for Homestead exemption. Not sure they can make it automatic.
Housing prices have risen everywhere, but they are still dramatically cheaper than SF or even Austin. The average home price in the US is more than 1/2 that of SF. Big cities in Texas are typically cheaper than Austin (Houston and San Antonio averages are around $350k).
If you restrict yourself to specific "tech lifestyle" cities obviously that's a different story.
Yes, houses in nice areas with desirable amenities tend to be expensive, because (no surprise) demand to live there is high. Most of these areas also have the common problem of local government that is very heavy-handed in the zoning in permitting of new housing construction.
Moving from California put a tremendous amount of pressure on the housing prices in Denver. And then Salt Lake when Denver got too expensive. And then Boise when Salt Lake got too expensive. And then Spokane when Boise got too expensive.
We're literally running out of cities in the west.
How about build some new cities that allow high density and public transit? I swear Americans always think they could never survive without free parking. You are absolutely not running out of land out west.
Simple, build this new city next to a water resource, not a desert and build it from the ground up to be low water usage. Manage runoff and limit single family home zoning with large yards. I bet you could make it several times more efficient than the average water usage of just about any other US city and every new resident would take pressure off the water resources of existing cities. How can the answer to “the west is running out of water” possibly be “more suburbs please”?
The timing of the publication of this data is telling. The data is gathered from a total of 1018 total cases from 2017-2019. The CDC has also published totals of the national rates of maternal mortality: https://www.cdc.gov/nchs/data/hestat/maternal-mortality/2020...
In 2020, there were 861 deaths total, at a rate of 23.8 per 100k births. If my math is correct that's roughly a .024% chance across all age groups of maternal mortality including deaths caused by suicide/mental health issues.
The number of pregnancy related deaths is incredibly low.
Death rate by age and sex
Male Female
15-24 99.7 38.4
25-34 177 78.9
35-44 257 141.6
...that would look like a death rate of 258.9 per 100k for women aged 15-44. Using the US population as 331,893,000 that works out to be about 859,272 deaths of women in that 15-44 age group. Or about 0.1% of deaths related to maternity.
A significant amount of people aren't looking at this as an issue of metrics, convenience, economics, or anything of the sort. That's a utilitarian approach. The vast majority of people opposed to legal & regulated prostitution are approaching it from a religious and moral perspective. The Christians that the article rags on believe that the Bible is truth that has been revealed to man by God and that it encourages the civil magistrates to deter sexually perverse behavior of all kinds including but not limited to pornography and prostitution.
As @a-user-you-like has pointed out, your interpretation is a common misconception about what 'freedom of religion' means. The framers certainly did not mean that the laws passed by the state and federal governments were to be completely free from moral judgement based on religion or more particularly Christianity. There is no conflict, because neither the states or the federal government are instituting a state church. Instead, you have individual citizens insisting that the laws of their land should be derived from God's law and not judged by some arbitrary and immeasurable standard such as the happiness of prostitutes and their clientele.
We can argue the validity of people's claims to have changed their orientation back and forth, but the science is in:
>Some of the largest studies report little to no reported change in sexual orientation, and reports of success are unpersuasive due to serious methodological limitations and sometimes major flaws in study designs.
>Evidence of harm associated with conversion therapy outweighs reports of some benefits, such as social support and a sense of belonging. In addition, the reported benefits are common to most forms of talking therapy or support groups and could be provided by other, more affirmative, approaches that mitigate risks of harm.
Your bias and the bias of the study you cited are painfully obvious and assume a particular point of view as valid while rejecting others. The whole concept of the study is framed in a utilitarian value system. If you had a thousand similar studies you wouldn't proven anything to someone who does not hold to an empirical and utilitarian worldview because the questions that the study is asking are ultimately philosophical, epistemological, and moral. As such these questions transcend the usefulness of observational science. The study is worded in such a way as to sound very thorough but if you look at Appendix 2 you can see that even by empirical standards the evidence they have chosen to consider is slanted to a particular subset of the available data, let alone the anecdotal evidence which surrounds the researchers on all sides.
In other words all you've truly pointed out with this post is that the various members of the UK government have policy goals and that they are willing to use science as a cudgel to achieve their policy goals.
I would mind. I can tell you that I have personal connections to persons who have abandoned their so called "sexual orientation".
It is trivial to search for examples. There have been entire organizations of individuals claiming successful change of their sexual lifestyle. The problem is that you have a whole host of individuals and organizations who are opposed to the very concept of being able to change due to their assumptions and presuppositions about God and sin. This leads them to attempt to smear or discredit any movement or attitude that opposes their own.
In my opinion, the onus of proof is on the communities, organizations, and individuals pushing the "born this way" rhetoric. In the 1990s and into the 2000s we were told there was a "gay gene" or that the right combination of hormones in utero was the culprit. It is now 2022 and no such 'smoking gun' has been found, yet there are still persons claiming they are no longer homosexual through the power of God.This is despite the media vitriol against such claims and the illegalization of even benign therapy. The naturalistic position claims the scientists just need more time and eventually they will find that people are born along some sexual spectrum instead of the traditional biblical position that sexuality and even attraction is behavioral.
Sorry to not give you what you are asking for directly, but I'm not interested in debating the validity of specific incidents over HN. You might have good luck discussing the issue with a competent Christian theologian or pastor.
Conversion therapy is not benign. Your phrasing here leads me to suspect that the personal connections you refer to are people who learned that it is easier to lie to those they know, and sometimes even themselves, than to take other options.
Not all conversion therapy is benign. If you are talking about using shock therapy then we are in agreement. That's not really what I'm talking about. Counseling could be an example of benign therapy - depending on the context.
> Counseling could be an example of benign therapy
Even counseling based conversion therapy is not benign. It would get your license revoked as a therapist in most places (in the US, not familiar with other places) well before it was illegal. The problem with counseling based conversion therapy is it relies on guilt and manipulation of the person involved.
> And yes, you are wrong.
I'm afraid that you are one of the people they would be lying to in this case, and thus I cannot take your word on this. To be clear, this is not an indictment of you, just based on what I have seen of similar situations in my life.
For context - I am an LGTBQ+ member of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints who has spoken and worked with lot's of cishet and lgbt people from my church and others. If you want to discuss more directly, my email is open, though I'm not always able to respond quickly. I also get a lot of spam at that address, so if you email please let me know here as well.
Edit: If you would prefer to discuss here so that the discussion stays public, I am also open to that. I know people who prefer either way.
Just checked - I don't appear to have received the email.
It's possible the spam filter ate it, though I didn't find it in my Junk folder. You can send it to evan@ the same domain if it turns out that that is the case.
Also - this is an open invitation. Anyone who wishes to discuss this from any perspective (or honestly anything interesting) is welcome to send me a message.
Could you elaborate on this? How can you be certain that your personal acquaintances have not simply convinced themselves of something that is contradictory to their lived experience? It seems to me that social pressures could be very impactful to that end.
Your language conveys certainty, which is why I ask about that.
> I can tell you that I have personal connections to persons who have abandoned their so called "sexual orientation"
What are you trying to suggest by the use of "so-called" and scare quotes around "sexual orientation"?
It's pretty well established that sexual orientation can be fluid in some individuals, and I don't doubt there are people who spend many years enjoying heterosexual relationships only to determine at a later point they prefer same sex relationships. The reverse may well also happen from time to time. Not really sure what point you're trying to make at all.
> You might have good luck discussing the issue with a competent Christian theologian or pastor.
My experience with people of faith has always been to be told that I must have faith in order to understand it. Is there a path to understanding that doesn't involve circular logic?
All appeals to an ultimate authority are circular by nature. Its the philosophical equivalent of bedrock.
That being said, you can understand Christianity and the Christian philosophy/worldview perfectly well without faith. You need faith in the capacity and work of the true and living God, the Lord Jesus, the Messiah in order to be saved from sin.
Intellectual understanding of the claims of Christianity and belief in its claims are totally separate.
This is one of the reasons you should speak to those who are competent teachers. You might try and ask Dr. James White if you have specific questions. I'm happy to continue the conversation here but the format is 'limiting' to say the least.
I see; unfortunately, that's a disappointing answer. Maybe it's also worth pointing this out:
> Intellectual understanding of the claims of Christianity and belief in its claims are totally separate.
I don't think I've ever seen a clear separation of these things. At any rate, if I choose not to believe in the claims then I will be unwelcome by the congregation. In practice, these things seem to go hand-in-hand most commonly.
Also, I would like to thank you for taking the time to reply thoughtfully! I do believe you've been very honest and approaching the conversation in good faith (I have difficulty reading this without it coming off as snide, so please just take it at face value).
(I'm sorry if it is frustrating but I am personally not interested in continuing this conversation privately.)
> I don't think I've ever seen a clear separation of these things.
That's really too bad. Maybe I'll write an article or something.
> Also, I would like to thank you for taking the time to reply thoughtfully! I do believe you've been very honest and approaching the conversation in good faith (I have difficulty reading this without it coming off as snide, so please just take it at face value).
[×] Taken at face value.
I appreciate you taking the time to discuss these things, and I wish you the best on this wild ride through life. I pray that God will bless you with the opportunity to know Him.
