Yes and no -- you can give internal agents access to internal APIs by using rudimentary env var, and org level agentic services tend to offer that kind of permission based access (either roll your own, use an 'enterprise' service, or be knowledgeable that if things go wrong, they'll go very wrong). APIs should, at least from my perspective, always have permission mechanisms. But internal APIs, used by 'internal' agents, have access to those the same way users on the network do, just depends on what flavour of network one is using.
Essentially it's anything that _could_ be on a dashboard, but _might_ be accessed conversationally via an agent.
I was writing MCP servers, now I just write tools for agents to consume. It's often easier to simply write the tool you need and suggest to it to look at the tool to do that thing.
I was also surprised to find out Claude knew how to use the gitlab api with pointing it at the token var in the environment. But for corporations it might make more sense to use a cli to keep the secrets separate from the agent.
I've been in the process of cutting the DC side of power bricks and crimping anderson power pole (APP) connectors onto both sides of the wire. For camping and ham radio, it's really nice to hook up to a battery without the AC inverter taking DC -> AC and the power brick sending that to DC again.
The only thing to be careful with is connecting different voltages to different connectors, but it's at least possible with the APP connectors to "Build your own" with different color housings and different ways of combining the housings.
So maybe 13.8v is red/black and something that's 5V is black/white, etc.
There was a point in the 1990's where microsoft word wasn't truly WYSIWYG. IIRC it was like an infinite page and the line breaks and page breaks were "estimates"
Further many docs from that era are plagued with abandonware.
TeX did one thing well for an era when often the only interface to the machine was over a Xyplex terminal server connecting to a tty at 9600 baud.
This is where just a refusal to participate comes in. I think I've posted this or other Tolstoy stuff on here before, but Tolstoy makes the best point about this:
> And to this question, for a person who understands the true meaning of military service and who wants to be moral, there is only one clear and incontrovertible answer: such a person must refuse to take part in military service no matter what consequences this refusal may have.
On the other hand, it's far more voluminous to catalog the list of corporations acting in bad faith and abusing their employees than finding the abuses of unions.
Firing managers for egregious behavior only makes the legal case for the victims. That's also why cities don't fire bad cops, but instead keep them around until pending litigation is resolved.
If “who is worse” is a relevant metric, the question of unions would not be complex. Again, though, this is an entirely naive view of what is a very complicated reality.
The very obvious reason that corporations are “worse” is simply that they have more leverage. The idea that “leverage is likely to be abused” is a much more thoughtful heuristic for the paradigm.
But unions have never existed in a vacuum. And without the context of why they came about, that is from corporations abusing employees, it's easy to say "Unions are complex" when the world in which they exist is far more complex than unions are and perhaps far more vile.
I'm generally pro-union. Don't think that just because I criticize them that I don't think they're generally a good idea. The problems I'm pointing to are general problems of democracy in general. Incumbents tend to ignore future generations well-beings when it comes to current generations ability to negotiate.
The point I'm trying to respond to is: "This thread is filled with so many anti-union takes that you have to wonder if they are paid bots."
I think there are plenty of reasons why normal folks are anti-union, and generally, it's because different sets of workers are in different positions and have different perspectives.
Generally speaking, if there were some kind of "Workers Bill of Rights" built into organized labor law, preventing these abuses, there would be much stronger support for unions generally.
You want to be a longshoreman? Tough shit, they aren't any jobs for you as a longshoreman... and it is a total coincidence that the extremely high paying gigs for longshoremen tend go to the children of existing longshoremen. Not to mention their effort to shut out technological improvements that are standard in most other countries now.
You want medical costs to go down? Tough shit, the professional organizations for medicine have managed to artificially limit the number of med school students and residencies.
If there were limits on what unions could to stifle competition within their own industries, if there were limits on the extent of job security for poorly performing union members, if there were legitimate rules that meritocracy has to be the rule, not the exception, then I think the vast majority of Americans would start clamoring for more union membership. What we currently see is a lot of good work, but also a lot of fiefdoms being established and locked down.
There are unions that protect workers from firm's abusive practices. There are also unions that protect lamplighters job from the "tyranny" of the electric light bulb, and make everyone poorer in the process.
No argument from me, other than: All those things can be also be said about corporations.
You brought up lamplighters and the electric lightbulb. It's worth noting that corporations had a cartel that prevented lightbulbs from running longer than a few years. And to some extent that still happens.
Big Clive did a good video on the Dubai Lamp a few years back, and why you can't buy them anywhere but in Dubai.
> The very obvious reason that corporations are “worse” is simply that they have more leverage. The idea that “leverage is likely to be abused” is a much more thoughtful heuristic for the paradigm.
If you enjoy thought terminating clichés, I suppose.
Corporations, in general, have a very different set incentives and ways they can wield power and ways that people outside of their power structures can interact with them.
It's the same issue when people try to claim a corporation having the power to do X is the same as a democratic government having the same power. It's not.
It’s a plausible take that the best government in human history (say Sweden) is worse than the worst corporation. Sweden had an active eugenics program.
