Cory Doctorow:

The tech worker layoffs are best understood as an all-out war on tech worker morale, because that morale is the source of tech workers' confidence and thus their demands for a larger share of the value generated by their labor. The current tech layoff template is very different from previous tech layoffs: today’s layoffs are taking place over a period of months, long after they are announced, and laid off tech worker is likely to be offered a months of paid post-layoff work, rather than severance. This means that tech workplaces are now haunted by the walking dead, workers who have been laid off but need to come into the office for months, even as the threat of layoffs looms over the heads of the workers who remain. As an old friend, recently laid off from Microsoft after decades of service, wrote to me, this is “a new arrow in the quiver of bringing tech workers to heel and ensuring that we’re properly thankful for the jobs we have (had?).”

Matt Goodman:

That’s the difficulty in this debate. It’s about the city’s future, a generational chance to trade eight elevated lanes of highway for an eventual new neighborhood. The members who added their names to the memo have expressed more interest in analyzing the opportunities removal could present; after all, traffic data cannot account for changes in technology and behavior, both of which inform how frequently people drive. As Councilwoman Willis asked last year, what happens if the city’s economic development plan creates jobs in southern Dallas so residents there no longer have to drive as far to get to work?