Hacker News Reader

Comment by epoxyhockey | Hacker News Reader

As a general rule, it's pretty safe to do "what everybody else is doing."

I noticed this rule after the housing crash. If one person was underwater on their mortgage, no one would blink. But, when hundreds of thousands of people become underwater, Congress started to get involved to (attempt to) provide relief.

It seems impossible to limit someone's exposure on Facebook, especially when any 3rd party will happily post a photo of your family member online. I also suspect that untagging a person on FB is analogous to FB's soft-deleting of statuses. The damage is already done.

View on HN

>I noticed this rule after the housing crash. If one person was underwater on their mortgage, no one would blink. But, when hundreds of thousands of people become underwater, Congress started to get involved to (attempt to) provide relief.

Considering that hundrends of thousadns still lost their houses, it's not much of a comfort -- or good advice in general.

"Do what everybody else is doing" will at best lead to mediocre results (by definition).

Consider the effect of such an advice to someone in a slum neighborhood where "everybody" is dealing drugs, to get the worst case scenario.

Considering that hundreds of thousands still lost their houses

Hundreds of thousands also had portions of their mortgages forgiven. One can also not deny that the Fed is keeping interest rates low, in part, because many home owners have HELOCs or other adjustable rate loans.

I agree with you that "doing what everybody else is doing" is not a free pass to be reckless and is not something to aspire to do.

Yes, doing what everybody else is doing will lead to mediocre results by definition. But it will also minimize social friction (important!) and give you herd protection against certain kinds of downside risk.

There was an article recently that said that startups shouldn't innovate in non-core areas. This is precisely the advice of "do what everyone else is doing" at least for certain things.

Yes. Something about bridge jumping.

Then again, when everyone else is safe in the water and you're the last one on the bridge when the train comes through, you might feel a bit silly in the moments before your untimely demise.

I hate it when people say this as a response.

If I'm on a bridge, and people are jumping off en masse, then one of two things is happening:

1. They've all been mentally affected, in which case, I almost certainly am too, or;

2. They know something I don't.

It's disingenuous to throw out a contrived example of a herd of people nonsensically jumping off a bridge. If that many people are jumping off a bridge, you probably should too, because they probably know something you don't (yet).

There was a great Dilbert that had his mum asking him the "if everyone jumped off a bridge, would you?" question. His response was along the lines of "if they all came back and told me how awesome it was, yes".

Also, this:

http://xkcd.com/1170/

"Imagine reading this on CNN: 'Many fled their vehicles and jumped from the bridge. Those who stayed behind...'"

Thank you, this puts a great twist on the situation.. basically saying that if all of his generally smart, sane friends all of a sudden jumped off a bridge, most likely there was a REALLY good reason behind why they did it

If everybody in a neighborhood is dealing marijuana and then you show up and starting dealing heroin, a sudden increase in police activity and interest should not be surprising.

>But, when hundreds of thousands of people become underwater, Congress started to get involved to (attempt to) provide relief.

Yeah, I was almost afraid that I had bought too small of a house, knowing that I would have to pay for my share of the mortgage bailout in extra taxes and value lost to inflation, I might as well buy the most ridiculous crib I could get financing for. Right? But then it came to pass that those bailout programs never really did much for underwater and overextended homeowners. Of course, none of that really makes me feel better, except that I can still afford my mortgage.

That's my whole beef with the "underwater" thing. They seemed to think that house was worth the price they signed up to pay when they did it. Now those houses are not worth as much. Too bad, so sad. I think I should get congress to bail me out on buying a new car. It certainly is not worth as much as it was when I purchased it.

Right - just like those TV shows encouraging the whole thing.

"So, you put $10,000 of renovations into your kitchen. That increases the book value by $50,000."

Uh, what?

All sorts of people, for all sorts of reasons, were whole-heartedly drinking /that/ Kool Aid.

> It seems impossible to limit someone's exposure on Facebook,

I don't think anyone is forced to use it. I know several families who have account, yet, they don't share on it or use it for anything that could be embarrassing in the later years.

> especially when any 3rd party will happily post a photo of your family member online.

You should always explain to your friends what your expectation of privacy is. If they don't respect that, they are not your friends anyway.

>I don't think anyone is forced to use it.

Shadow profiles http://www.dailydot.com/news/facebook-shadow-profiles-privac...

Reply on news.ycombinator.com