Neil deGrasse Tyson Doing an IAmA on Reddit | Hacker News Reader

Neil deGrasse Tyson Doing an IAmA on Reddit

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97 pointsrazerbeans18 comments

"The problem, often not discovered until late in life, is that when you look for things in life like love, meaning, motivation, it implies they are sitting behind a tree or under a rock. The most successful people in life recognize, that in life they create their own love, they manufacture their own meaning, they generate their own motivation.

For me, I am driven by two main philosophies, know more today about the world than I knew yesterday. And lessen the suffering of others. You'd be surprised how far that gets you." -- NdGT

Probably the best thing I've heard in a while. I love when he does these AMA's.

50 minutes old and 4300 comments... best of luck to anyone hoping to ask him a question.

I just spent 20 minutes writing up a question that was important to me (would you become a public supporter of Copenhagen Suborbitals, working towards sending a man into space) only to see it being lost in a sea of questions.

http://www.reddit.com/r/IAmA/comments/qccer/i_am_neil_degras...

"No one is getting paid"

Sounds like a really cool project! Have another upvote in hopes it gets his attention.

I gave you a hopeful upvote. I'm generally not a fan of asking AMA subjects for money, but it sounds like a cool program and something that Dr. Tyson could be interested in.

We actually just talked about trying to get some international coverage on a board meeting the other day, so this AMA seemed a pretty good opportunity. Our goal for this year is to get more international members, it's currenlty mostly Danes.

Normally I'd agree with you on the money subject, but this just seemed too good of an opportunity to not act upon. Besides all the money will be spent building rockets :-)

And thanks a lot for the upvote.

You should try to contact him directly. Just posting a comment on a Reddit AMA, especially one as popular as this, probably won't make anything happen.

Sad that there are so few comments out of that many that are actually worth reading.

I live in a different timezone, so luckily by the time I arrive the conversation has been curated somewhat. Reddit does a great job of taking 10000 comments and giving me 100 to read!

I guess if you're mainly scanning, read it tomorrow and you'll probably enjoy doing so more.

I thought some of them were quite funny.

And btw its not Hacker News :)

That's about how the last one went too. I think it hit nearly 10k comments.

EDIT: Yes it did hit 10k, Here's the previous IAMAs with him

http://www.reddit.com/r/IAmA/comments/mateq/i_am_neil_degras... http://www.reddit.com/r/IAmA/comments/ngd5e/i_am_neil_degras...

I think to myself "I'm spending too much time on Reddit looking at stupid stuff" so I come to HN for some highbrow articles and see a link to Reddit of Neil deGrasse Tyson doing an AMA :/ ...back to Reddit.

that's why reddit is in my hosts file...

Here is a true story. I've curated the hell out of my reddit frontpage.

I went to reddit just now and while it was loading I thought "I'm so sick of the downward trend in my enjoyment of the unstoppable march towards extreme mediocrity in every corner of reddit... if I don't see anything on my frontpage that interests me this time, I'm going to add it to my hosts file"

I scanned the page, saw nothing that interested me (including this AMA... I don't even know who he is) and added reddit to my hosts file.

Then I opened Hacker News. Top link? This reddit AMA. Sigh.

Two things.

1. The good doctor is awesome.

2. It's not worth enduring weeks crap to enjoy one AMA. Block reddit, read HN (maybe, it has been kinda marginal, but higher s2n than reddit).

tl'dr reddit signal to noise is very very low. quality content is an anomaly. just block it.

I'm tiring of saying it repeatedly, but simply unsubscribe from those subreddits and visit less often. It's amazing, I know, but reddit is actually more enjoyable when you don't feel a compulsion to click it every hour. That, and quite frankly, you're missing out. deGrasse is extremely well spoken about science and progressing as a human race. Frankly, I'm not surprised it was posted here, the things he said on The Daily Show a few days ago really made my hacker insides glow with joy and pride.

I can't believe that "I have so little self control and lack of understand of how reddit works that I have to forcibly block myself from it via /etc/hosts" is applauded here. That or it's just tongue-in-cheek "reddit sucks [now]" that is applauded. Either way, it doesn't matter. Seeing it in every thread that mentions reddit just perpetuates the stereotype that HN has a bit of an elitist complex.

You mischaracterise me. I've been using reddit for 6+ years. I've pruned my subscribed subreddits down to a handful of ones with a high signal to noise.

If I pruned AMA, I'd be left with not much. truereddit, theoryofreddit, askscience and few niche interests (which disproportionately overwhelm my feed... I'd like a granularity slider for each subscribed subreddit "show me all <---> show me only top posts").

Yes. I have 'so little self control' after using reddit for so many years. It's hard to ween yourself off a habit that was initially so rewarding but has gradually and ultimately become an unrewarding and depressing time-sink.

You would begrudge me trying to manage my 'addiction' by blocking reddit in my hosts file? I should man-up and not click when hovering over a reddit bookmark? I should not tap out cmd-t r enter to navigate there after deleting the bookmark?

"lack of understand of how reddit works" = false

"That or it's just tongue-in-cheek "reddit sucks [now]" that is applauded."

Do you deny the level of discourse, the level of signal to noise, the benefits from contributing or participating haven't been dropping over time?

"Seeing it in every thread that mentions reddit"

This was my first comment about reddit on HN. And I can't remember seeing any others, so I can't comment.

"just perpetuates the stereotype that HN has a bit of an elitist complex."

Where is this stereotype being expressed? "Elitist" is a loaded term. Like those 'Rucola Eatin' Obama Liberals' that Sarah Palin liked to denigrate? HN is comprised of people who want to discuss content over fluff and humour. It's by design! Check out r/askscience. Is that elitist?

You may still get benefits from reading reddit, but after six great years, it's time for me to ween myself off and go cold turkey.

For those who are just interested in the questions that Dr. Tyson chose to answer (along with the answers, of course): http://www.reddit.com/r/tabled/comments/qcyqa/

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