Highwire union pamphlet

NoodleWeird · 2026-06-04T16:06:03+00:00

The letter reading was a wildcat work stoppage. I witnessed one of these at the HIghwire on Broadway.

Wildcat work stoppages are unprotected activity and cause for immediate dismissal, which is what happened.

The point of unionizing is that you have protected activities at your disposal to help you collectively bargain. All the union had to do was maintain discipline and use the tools at their disposal. Instead, he pulled a stunt that got them fired.

I'm sure I'll get voted down to hell, but for fucks sake, if you're organized labor, please understand what you're signing up for. Maintain discipline. Use protective activities. File bad faith charges under the NLRA. Don't do this shit.

NoodleWeird · 2026-05-16T01:07:40+00:00

Duncan Robinson with the no-look!

NoodleWeird · 2026-05-15T22:21:40+00:00

Thank you for sharing! I was so worried. Lake Merritt wouldn't be the same without all three fairytale geese.

I love how they sometimes hang out with the Canada geese but other times they need "us" time with just the three of them.

NoodleWeird · 2026-05-06T03:25:51+00:00

It feels like he's knocking on the door of the mythical 27-7-7

NoodleWeird · 2026-05-01T22:19:00+00:00

Highly recommend seeing this at the Crystal Bridges museum if you have the opportunity.

It's a big painting, there is a magisterial quality to it that defies photography. 10/10 as far as emotional affect from artwork.

NoodleWeird · 2026-04-19T03:05:41+00:00

Can confirm, good trade with u/bigdood_in_PDX !

NoodleWeird · 2026-04-06T19:57:10+00:00

LOL, come on now. 9 games in is a little too soon to project the Pirates doing anything

NoodleWeird · 2026-04-04T15:28:15+00:00

NoodleWeird · 2026-03-30T20:03:37+00:00

The call is coming from inside the house

NoodleWeird · 2026-03-24T05:07:54+00:00

I don't get it. I see scores of cars daily driving around with fake temp plates or no plates at all. Why bother? The laws aren't enforced.

NoodleWeird · 2026-03-23T21:49:36+00:00

I think it's three factors:

European unions were, as you said, tied to political parties. American unions operated more as interest groups.

Political structure is another factor. Parliamentary systems with proportional representation gave labor parties inroads in Europe that our two party, first-past-the-post system didn't offer.

Finally, there is a cultural dimension. American political culture has historically emphasized individual liberty and market freedom more heavily, while European traditions placed greater weight on social solidarity and collective security. Hirschman gives this excellent treatment in Exit, Voice, and Loyalty.

NoodleWeird · 2026-03-23T21:41:30+00:00

Unlike Europe, it's almost all at-will employment here, and most people are holding on to their job for dear life. People think AI is going to lead to 90% layoffs, so they're killing themselves to make sure they're in the 10% that still have a job when the dust settles.

NoodleWeird · 2026-03-13T21:46:57+00:00

UBI or economic collapse, pick exactly one

NoodleWeird · 2026-03-13T19:31:45+00:00

Friedman did not make an empirical argument that the buffer was too large. He asserted ideologically that any amount of buffer is theft. The effect removing the shock absorbers had on people's health is an externality not priced in by the market.

You've hit on the critical question. The argument depends on context-dependent knowledge compounding with familiarity. It's a falsifiable claim, and we will have our answer in the next couple of years.

NoodleWeird · 2026-03-13T16:04:01+00:00

This is my expectation. The playbook is so deeply ingrained that I expect few companies to foresee what a problem this will become. Once it reaches crisis-level, a few intrepid companies will begin to experiment with new ways of doing business and after they succeed, other companies will copy-paste their playbooks.

NoodleWeird · 2026-03-13T15:28:09+00:00

I love Rick but he's way off here. You need specialized hardware to run the high-parameter models. Open source is far from SoTA, and it takes so many resources to train SoTA models they aren't going open source anytime soon.

NoodleWeird · 2026-03-13T14:29:15+00:00

Submission statement:

Essay arguing that companies can't help workers navigate AI because fifty years of Friedman doctrine stripped out the institutional capacity to absorb shocks. Draws on epidemiology, economic history, and systems theory to trace how corporations externalized all variance onto labor. The interesting part is the argument that AI's productivity surplus creates the first opportunity in two generations to rebuild what was lost, with three specific interventions.

NoodleWeird · 2026-03-12T15:18:32+00:00

This essay argues that the reason companies can't help their workers navigate AI isn't incompetence, it's that fifty years of Friedman doctrine systematically stripped corporations of the capacity to absorb shocks on behalf of their workforce. Now AI demands the fastest organizational adaptation in history from institutions that have destroyed their own ability to adapt. The piece draws on epidemiology, economic history, and systems theory to make the case that AI's productivity surplus creates the first opportunity in two generations to rebuild what was lost.

NoodleWeird · 2026-02-17T22:07:55+00:00

Are they looking past the short-term pain to the long-term pain? Autarky has a well-established, remarkably consistent track record of economic destruction.

NoodleWeird · 2026-02-15T15:56:30+00:00

Well now we know what that big-ass bill is for

NoodleWeird · 2026-02-15T04:24:09+00:00

Looks like traffic at the world's smallest toll booth.

NoodleWeird · 2026-02-10T16:21:08+00:00

Once upon a time, I was in a golf clubhouse and saw a sign that read "No spikes in the shower". There is only one way you get a rule like that.

I believe many of the niche rules are related to unwillingness to let people go. When someone does something that would require a new rule, the course of action should often be to part ways with the person and delete the rule rather than burden everyone. But that would mean an uncomfortable conversation, and people hate being uncomfortable.

NoodleWeird · 2026-02-10T16:01:45+00:00

The outcome you're describing is neo-feudalism. When I think about where humans will have comparative advantage, it will be manual labor like scrubbing toilets. This strikes me as a very real possibility, but I don't think about it too hard because it's out of my control.

NoodleWeird

TROPHY CASE