Asher Zafar

Economist and basketball fanatic. Lead Data Scientist for VR Content Ecosystem @ Meta. Living in NYC, but Toronto has my heart. Words and opinions are my own.

[Asher Zafar @asherzafar]

@VassB @Lanampayne Because I am bad at Twitter! My apologies 🙏

[Asher Zafar @asherzafar]

@VassB @Lanampayne One can certainly make an argument for a fiscal response or regulatory response around building affordable housing or food affordability, but monetary policy is a very scary tool to use to manage these challenges IMO.

[Asher Zafar @asherzafar]

@VassB @Lanampayne Are we reading the same article? The lede and first two paragraphs anchor on housing, which is an explicit non-goal for central banks globally for a reason (so price stability isn't politicized). Maybe that's worth debate, but there are a lot of good reasons that is the case.

[Asher Zafar @asherzafar]

@farhip @JoanneMason11 ...or lend credibility to a pre-determined narrative. Sometimes you're better off ignoring "haters" if they aren't actually open-minded.

[Asher Zafar @asherzafar]

@vviet93 FWIW, I think that analogy holds - public sector unions often protect egregious member behavior (it's just worse with police) and aren't meritocratic. The thing they have going for them is a check on political overreach. [I don't believe the same for private sector unions]

[Asher Zafar @asherzafar]

This is one of the best online content moderation takes I have ever read.

https://t.co/uIgwDsnhor

[Asher Zafar @asherzafar]

@VassB Fair enough! I guess I don't see really see the Alberta's "TM" on the word "engineer" as legit, nor most govt job classification systems as nuanced enough. This paper is one of my favs on this https://t.co/2H7cDTSGTn

[Asher Zafar @asherzafar]

@VassB The solutions are worse than the problem here:

1) Solve the semantics: SWEs become SWDs. No other jurisdiction on the planet cares.

2) Regulate SWEs with the standards of those who make bridges and planes. This false analogy is the mistake govt keeps making with its own tech.

[Asher Zafar @asherzafar]

@VassB @the_lineca Regulated professions frequently work in membership's interest rather than the public, notably by constraining talent supply as a NIMBY might do to homes. Such a designation would signal nothing about SWE talent because a provincial PEng body likely knows little about the field.

[Asher Zafar @asherzafar]

@VassB @the_lineca Agreed on ArriveCan, but regulating SWEs is a cynical rent-seeking semantic ploy by a greedy special interest. SWE has little in common with P.Eng. and could go by any other name. Companies should rightfully leave rather than submit their talent to something so inane.

[Asher Zafar @asherzafar]

@VassB So they made a front-end in isolation. I too, can draw with crayons. These are people that have never built scaled technology.

[Asher Zafar @asherzafar]

@VassB It is outrageous by tech standards, but it's the price of building fast in a govt culture that could not even be maliciously designed to be more inefficient for digital product development, as well as custom storage storage, privacy, and security solutions I'd bet are required.

[Asher Zafar @asherzafar]

@vviet93 Get well my man!

[Asher Zafar @asherzafar]

@supergovernance Having worked on both sides, there is very limited performance incentive and too many constraints to bring in required talent within government. Outsourcing can be a tremendous boon to get around this provided government can "hire" properly.

[Asher Zafar @asherzafar]

@ericmcgoey A trip home would not have been complete without this ritual my man. So happy we got to play and our joints aren't too creaky from the lack of practice!

[Asher Zafar @asherzafar]

@_mjlerner The "how" is the painful part. Govts need leadership and talent that are good at and value building digital products and services. In my experience, the accountability and political will to acquire, fire, and incentivize talent accordingly is not present.

[Asher Zafar @asherzafar]

@jessmthornton So sorry for your loss, Jessica. If that old flash website of his was any indication, I can imagine you have many fun memories to keep with you.

[Asher Zafar @asherzafar]

@bbqbaseball62 @Wadatahmydamie @NateSilver538 If only there was a way to understand how accurate the polls are based on historical data...