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Alan Cooper @MrAlanCooper
, 4 tweets, 1 min read Read on Twitter
I used the word “art” the other day in a tweet, and it was exactly like stepping on a land mine: an unexpected explosion occurred. 1
Now my feed is filled with people debating the meaning of the word “art.” OMG. I used the term as a shorthand—something I will never do again—for the practitioner’s ability to choose their challenge. 2
The brevity of Twitter suckered me into using the 3-letter word instead of a longer description. If you want to know more about what I really mean, please read this brief blog post and it will explain: medium.com/@MrAlanCooper/…. 3
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The first truly brilliant programmer I ever met, and one of the smartest people I ever knew, and who I started a company with, was a libertarian and a legendary asshole. I regret to say that I learned a lot from him. It has taken me decades to unlearn it. 1
IMO, the single largest obstacle to collectivizing tech practitioners is the way we place brilliant programming savants on a high pedestal. 2
I can’t tell you if masters of programming are attracted to libertarianism, or if libertarians are attracted to programming, but this is a hard problem within the tech community that needs to be solved. 3
Read 4 tweets
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What I mean by that is that your compensation is not just YOUR issue. It is one shared by the entire community. Because your compensation affects your entire community. 1
The fact that some actors in the community (such as employers like yours) don’t play along is a societal dysfunction. They treat the success of their employees as an externality. This tears at the fabric of society. 2
Companies should not be allowed to treat their employees lives as externalities. Sure in the short term they make more money, but in the long term they drive society back to something more primitive, and then we all suffer. 3
Read 9 tweets
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I’ve been to many tech and business conferences over the years and heard many, many presentations. Most of them were by men. Some of them were good some of them were bad. A few were excellent and a few were execrable. 1
Because of this accumulation of experience, I and many others, know full well what the norm for public speaking is. 2
You are welcome to draw any one of many conclusions from knowing this norm, but one that you cannot draw is that the norm is particularly meritorious. Yes it has moments of merit, but it is by no means any sort of model, far less a ceiling. 3
Read 17 tweets

Related threads

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People ask me how I managed to overcome failure or how I "made it" or at what point did I know I was going to be a success. I always give a canned answer because frankly, I don't want to type so much. But I have gotten this question a lot so let me tell you guys a bit about me.
I was born in the 80s, in Zaria. We lived in Gusau, Zamfara State. My Dad was a very successful business man, imported goods from the UK, until Buhari happened in 1984. Within years, his business shut down, inflation shot up, the currency's value eroded, market prices were fixed
and people were imprisoned for speaking out (sound familiar? Oops Buhari is President now. Leopard and dark spots)

Growing up, I didnt know we lacked anything. Until around 1989. I was moved from my school to a cheaper school, Ideal Primary School, then to yet another cheaper...
Read 30 tweets
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Now that Google+ has been shuttered, I should air my dirty laundry on how awful the project and exec team was.

I'm still pissed about the bait and switch they pulled by telling me I'd be working on Chrome, then putting me on this god forsaken piece of shit on day one.
This will be a super slow burn that goes back many years. I’ll continue to add to over the next couple of days. I’ll preface it with a bunch of backstory and explain what I had left behind, which made me more unhappy about the culture I had come into.
I spent most of my early career working for two radical sister non-profit orgs. I was the only designer working on
anywhere from 4-5 different products at the same time. All centered around activism and used by millions of people.
Read 149 tweets
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People keep complaining about the plight of white farmers in my mentions and, um, I truly actually don’t care about them pin tweet
We were driving around Windhoek today and my uncle was describing how in the 1950s, natives (mostly Herero, Damara, and Nam) were literally relocated to the Katutura townships (created in 1961) so the whites could have their land.
In Otjiherero, “Katutura” literally means “The place where people do not want to live.” People were angry and boycotted municipal services; on December 10, 1959, apartheid security forces opened fire on protestors killing 11 and wounding 44 other people.
Read 13 tweets
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Now that the Young Turks have made me aware that I'm stupid for following 'Q' I'm set straight and I'm not going to be stupid anymore. Oh, and the idea that there are really pedophiles and pedophile rings is ridiculous!! WTF Is QAnon?! via @YouTube
@cenkuygur are you concerned that you have incited violence against citizens who follow 'Q" by labeling them gun toting lunatics? Why are you virtue signaling about fairness while viciously attacking people in the same breath that you whine they should not view you as an enemy?
How many Democrats have been attacked by 'right wingers'? How many school shooters have been 'right wingers'? How many 'right wingers' have gone to left wing demonstrations or rallies and violently attacked them? Now reverse the question. Who's violent again?
Read 15 tweets
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NOW: DNI Coats: The President has specifically directed us to make the matter of election meddling and our election security a top priority… We continue to see "pervasive messaging campaign by Russia…Russia isn't the only country trying to influence our elections. #Midterms2018
FBI Wray: Foreign Influence Task Force designed to root out operations is multidisciplinary just as the threat is. The scope of foreign influence is broad and deep. Our adversaries don't just threaten elections but society. Russia is a threat we need to take extremely seriously.
Make no mistake. This is a public intervention. Intelligence and military chiefs (NSA, DNI, DHS, FBI, Navy) are now speaking directly to the American people from Sarah Sander's WH podium to assure Americans that our govt IS taking Russia's threat seriously, even if Trump is not.
Read 10 tweets
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People seem to think "Nazi" is meant as a slur or term of abuse. It's not: it has a straightforward, literal meaning.
After WWII, there was a campaign to argue that Nazism had no real ideology, that it was just some group of people, to delegitimize it.
That had some value, but its downside was that people forgot that Nazism *does* have an ideology, and it never went away.
Read 41 tweets

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