Ok, that was funny.

We get asked this a lot... can we implement your solution Agile or Waterfall or whatever. The true answer is, of course, sure. But I confess I'm tempted to ask whether they want to fail spectacularly a year from now or enjoy the failure daily for the next 18 months. Because the one thing I know for sure is that the method you pick has 0 correlation with the success of your IT projects.

Alas, I have many mouths to feed and no one pays me for pithy observations.

Well now we're wandering into my neighborhood. My oldest and best pal from Grad School edited and translated Critics of the Enlightenment which is an anthology of texts from François-René de Chateaubriand, Louis de Bonald, Joseph de Maistre, Frédéric Le Play, Émile Keller, and René de La Tour du Pin.

I think it's a bit of misdirection to say the 'conservative' tradition is anti-philosophy when in this context it is anti-Philosophe. But that's rather the heart of the matter, the Enlightenment wasn't the liberation of philosophy it was (among other things) the substitution of a new method of rational inquiry that carries within it the seeds of own critique. It ultimately isn't better, and itself falls victim to its own successor rationality. We think ourselves Enlightenment thinkers, but we're not. But here I'm mostly following MacIntyre.

I do, however, take your point that most of the plain writing was in defense of the order of society and its natural antecedents; I wish I could point to Bonald and say he nailed it... but best I can do is say one should read Bonald et. al. to understand the Enlightenment and why it failed the way it did.

Heh... I'm not sure what the ethical requirements are regarding payment mid-suit... but assuming you could walk at any time for services in arears that would strike me as a fine point to make.

I would assume so... but there's context here isn't there? The context is the post about defecting from norms, there's context about the fact that any support for Trump is being tracked, there's context that the Lincoln Project specifically targeting PorterWright and JonesDay and context in this thread that PorterWright is no longer the paragon of "commie faggot" defenders, but toadies and sycophants.

I guess that's what's doubly interesting to me... I'm saying that PorterWright pulling out should be a really solid signal to build consensus around... if we hadn't undermined our confidence that they are pulling out for principled reasons rather than being craven toadies cowed by outside pressure - that they rightfully ought to bow to.

I'm staying in context here, not making a Law School 101 point, no?

I specifically included "(the collective You in Kristin’s post)" for the avoidance of doubt. So any offence you are taking is yours alone.

I'm vigorously agreeing that no lawyer is required to pursue frivolous lawsuits which is the thing that would be embarrassing. Ethical lawyers will pursue valid lawsuits for embarrassing clients.

Excatly... “Still representing commies and faggots?” undermined by "sycophants and toadies"

Principled enough for the former, but concerned about the latter.

I'm quite vigorously agreeing with you.

My point is that you've (the collective You in Kristin's post) undermined the win... and set us up for another round of defections.

What a strange notion. No. I can see why Regan-era Chip ghosted away.

"The lawsuits are frivolous, lack merit, and are brought by a bunch of sycophants and toadies"

In response to both you and Philip.

To connect the dots more explicitly... if you undermine all Legal representation as sycophantic and toadish and threaten them with economic and cultural sanctions, then when they withdraw their support it doesn't have the desired effect of illustrating that the suits are frivolous and without merit. Instead, it heightens the fact that some people/teams may not be 'entitled' to legal representation... rather than the system working through ordinary channels.

Don't do that.

That's a head scratcher to me... if I needed a definition of external social pressure, I'd use your description to describe it.

This is a combination of 'the way the world works' and another example of how Trump was just a historically bad President who didn't know how to manage the office of the President.

I'm not a fan of the term 'Deep State' because it implies a sort of coordinated anti-state when the reality is that we have hundreds of mini-states that pursue objectives that have internal coherence to their mission and objectives.

It would be closer to the truth to say the US is almost ungovernable in the way we imagine governance working... but the sociology of Mass Democratic Institutions is not really an unknown phenomenon. It goes back to the least sexy thing I keep harping on with regards Politics... there's no top-down change without a bottom-up army.

"bunch of sycophants and toadies"

The interesting thing is that Porter Wright is withdrawing from representation in PA (breaking) and Jones Day is perhaps wavering.

Under ordinary circumstances, this would be the beginning of a precipitous end to the legal challenges...
But the targeting of Law Firms with the intent of denying representation to clients by threating social and economic sanctions undermines whether Porter Wright is abandoning the lawsuits for being frivolous and unsubstantiated - which would end the debate - or whether they are doing it out of self-interest - which fuels the debate.

Bottom line... Kristin has a point... the only norms that exist are the ones you bind yourself by.

Quantity is a Quality of its own.

I'm on the business side and my experience of our new releases is that they are not as bullet-proof as they used to be... but boy do the problems get fixed fast... once we identify them.

In 1989 I was doing document reviews as part of a college internship for a law firm.

In 2009 I was selling adjacent tech to e-Discovery software that automates document reviews.

In 2019 my industry is working to eliminate the need for expensive Sales Professionals to manage complex software projects... and have very nearly succeeded.

My job will not exist in 2029.

I'll also add as someone who travels the Bible Belt solving Tech Problems that "they" absolutely will relocate to places where "evangelicals have a lot of pull over education" RTP in North Carolina is a representative example from my experience.

...and that non-competes have been dead for at least 20-years, except as noted for a tiny subset of people who have intimate knowledge of the IP - and even there it's narrowly focused on direct competitors... and generally does not include people who 'merely' code. And even then, we hire people from direct competitors all the time outside of California.

Further... while we're headquartered in Silicon Valley... all of our development happens in tech hubs outside of CA. It's not until you get to the SVP/GM level that I'm calling someone in CA... VPs of Development, Product Managers, and R&D aren't in CA anymore. Our single biggest tech hub is, in fact, in India. SV is a destination now, not an entry point. There's still a lot of money sloshing around in SV, but the downward trajectory of "Tech Work" is already in full swing. It's the same problem that stalks all the other issues of wages mentioned in this thread... labor arbitrage and productivity gains captured by equity.

In fairness to Georgia... all *our* elections should be structured this way. They're doing it better.

Quite so.

Then there's nothing to discuss or worry about... the process is working. The overwhelming evidence will be reviewed by the people who have authority to review and take appropriate action. Right?

"The [insert prior here] proved that [insert preferred example of said prior here]. The lack of [insert same prior here] in 2020 means [insert wildest dream outcome here]."

Yes, but my priors are correct.

Whomever they pick, if Sir Sean were still around I'd have him ceremonially host the first post-Trebek game. Alas.

Pity Sean Connery passed as well...

If there's evidence of rigging, then the violation of those laws will determine what recourse is available.

Make that case, the courts are open.

But absent any substantiations of rigging? Yeah, the State(s) in question will Nigerian Funeral Dance their certifications on in.

Not necessarily, no. The state laws govern when a recount is even available (and often who pays). The states can, and will, refuse to do a recount if it falls outside their statutes. GA, WI (I got that wrong) and AZ do *not* have automatic recounts... PA does.

The main point is that the States determine the conditions under which they will do a recount. Candidate's wishes and willingness to pay are sometimes necessary, but not sufficient causes.

Fair enough
PA: Trump needs approx 13k more votes for automatic recount (0.5%)
GA: Recount may be requested... Biden needs 13k more votes to exceed threshold (0.5%)
WI: Automatic recount will be triggered (1%)
AZ: Trump needs approx 14k votes for recount (very high threshold 0.1% - would qualify @ 0.5%)

But this is why Trumps actual chances are vanishingly small... he'd have to qualify for all 4 *and* flip them all in a recount. As I read it, candidates may request a recount (if qualified) within a period of days once the vote is certified. Have any of the votes been certified? based on a quick search on Georgia, it appears not... counties have until 11/13 and the state has a deadline of 11/20.

Plus, all it would take would be one of the states to close the re-count window and it wouldn't matter if any of the other states flipped. Once that happens... then sure, start the transition process. Maybe that has happened... but that would be the best counter-argument.