Sagat

One advantage of this policy for foreigners is that it's remarkably easy to get into the best Chinese universities (even Tsinghua) compared to the effort the average chinese student has to expend to achieve the same goal.

Source: a visiting professor from China

I think we should start a cult around Musk.

The post was overly dramatic and mostly sarcastic, but not entirely. My point is that we are under the illusory impression that our opinions matter. If you are like 95% percent of the population who don't have a significant amount of capital (whether political, social or economic) then what you think is largely irrelevant and it's delusional to think the contrary.

As you said, the world usually ends "just as lousy" as before when things change. By lousy I mean that there will be a strict hierarchy of a few unimaginably powerful people exercising their will over the rest. Whether it's in a libertarian's wet dream or in the most claustrophobic dictatorial society, this will always be true. The average standard of living improves over time but the distribution remains the same. It's inevitable.

Let's say you hate Facebook and its privacy violations. What can you do about it? Nothing at all. You may try to stage protests or send angrily worded letters to your representative, but at the end of the day, to people like Zuckerberg you will be the equivalent of a pesky bug, soon squished and forgotten. So go ahead and impress me! Change the world. You might think, "What about those people who didn't give up their dreams and changed history in the process?" Well, unless you are lucky enough to be in the right place at the right time and armed with the right idea, it's extremely unlikely that you will have any impact at all on the world; hard work will never be enough. I want to change society as well, and I am constantly on the lookout for an opportunity to do so, but I also try to keep my expectations grounded in reality. I know I am not a protagonist according to whose life the story of the species evolves. It's highly possible, though not certain, that my life will be insignificant. I keep hoping it won't, but life isn't fiction and there are limits. I keep the glimmer of hope alive but I am fully aware that it emits only a pale light.

tl;dr Stop being outraged about the hypocrisy of powerful people and don't convince yourself that you have the moral high ground; you will only hurt yourself. Might makes right.

I should have indicated that my post was sarcasm, but I think the underlying point is correct. Most of our lives are determined by extremely powerful people because power and wealth are distributed in extremely unequal ways. The point being that HN posters complaining about Zuckerberg and his hypocritical views on privacy is not unlike an ant complaining about the kid who owns the ant farm. What are they gonna do about it?

So far, laws that have tried to rein in software and the persons using them have been laughably impotent. Take Hadopi for instance. The legal profession and the people elected to the government are light years behind the current tech development.

My post was partly sarcastic, but I was trying to illustrate just how little the opinions of 95% matter to "winners", i.e. powerful magnates and people who own entire industries.

This was a successful troll. I actually believed you were serious for several hours. Thanks for brightening up my day.

You might not use it, but the websites you frequent and the people you socialize with will do so, and in some cases will be unable to live without it. You can try to escape, but you will still be within Zuckerberg's grasp, no matter how far you hide. He will hang over your life like a digitized sword of Damocles. Deep down, no matter what you tell yourself, you know you belong to him. His shadow will color every single thought you will ever conceive and every movement you will ever make.

If you want a vision of the future, imagine Zuckerberg's boot stamping on a human face - forever.

No matter how many times people bring up privacy issues or the "haha users are dumb fucks" quote in order to characterize Zuckerberg as evil, the fact remains that he has absurd amounts of money and power and is likely to remain that way for a very, very long time if medical science continues to advance in leaps and bounds.

It's his company, and he can do what he wants. Your opinions are insignificant to him. We as a society need to start learning how to deal with this, accept our place in the food chain, and obey those more fortunate. We created Zuckerberg ourselves by collectively choosing to use Facebook to regulate our social lives; we must now accept the consequences and embrace the loss of our rights.

Zuckerberg will forever win, and you will forever lose. He will own you for the entire duration of your life. You won't enjoy it, and neither will I, but it is a fact as immutable as the human condition itself.

Why use the word "should"? Nobody is entitled to anything in our world. Working hard is not valuable in itself. The only reason it is encouraged is that it has the potential to bring about positive results. A world where people are rewarded based on how much they "tried" or worked would be highly dysfunctional. There is no moral basis on which to justify rewards without results.

I did, it's just that they didn't make it clear who the "community" was and how they had gotten wind of the problem, and what exactly they were demanding and how they were demanding it. In any case, I still think she should have gone through a different route. Why should masses of strangers dictate whether or not you have reveal personal information?

I really wish I could help this person (assuming the story is accurate, since some HN posters have pointed out that there are conflicting versions) but the only thing I can think of saying to her is to keep it within the circle of persons who are actually concerned by the whole incident, and seek reparations through legal channels. Nothing good comes out of involving a bunch of internet followers. I'd rather a formal investigation was made instead of witnessing a bunch of armchair detectives harass O'Brien without knowing all of the facts. One of my friends has had to deal with false accusations of a similar nature coming from his deranged ex, so I'd like to know beyond reasonable doubt what happened before thirsting for vengeance.

A tragic event but I really don't understand how making a public blog post is supposed to make anything better.

Off topic question: It says on your profile that you studied Bio and Philosophy at Stanford. How did you go from that to being a tech entrepreneur?

Why don't you give HN members a free PDF? I thought we were friends.

Does that mean that using a diceware password doesn't work?

Aren't libertarians supposed to consider liberty (whatever that means) as the highest political aim? According to this definition, you can't get more libertarian that Roberts since he put his personal life at risk in order to increase the liberty of a few like minded cohorts.

I support neither drugs, libertarianism nor the Silk Road, but I don't like to see people judging who can or can't be a libertarian based on their own moral preconceptions. The only thing that matters in the definition is how much the individual in question has furthered the goal of more liberty.

I don't buy into it because most people don't use it for truly ground breaking projects, but rather as a social themed timewaster. They remain in their small communities (now more of a friends list) and don't "evolve" into a new being or anything like that. Just the old deal with faster ways of communicating.

"I'm a guy who created a profile minutes ago and by pure happenstance chose to make an enthusiastic but vague comment about a new product!"

Sounds really vague to me. What does "passion" even mean? It's a word that is overused, not unlike "leadership" or "vision".

It will never work because there is no apple logo on the phone.

But it's the teenagers who turn into those old folks. So they don't turn out alright.

Actually, I think something did indeed happen to your brain. Neuronal plasticity means that your brain prunes synapses that are left unused and strengthens those that are frequently requested. Your brain is literally being molded by what you do everyday, which is why addictive behavior is dangerous, especially at a young age.

The cold turkey was for the internet use. The method I used was to expose myself to the computer but actively resist the impulse to read bullshit no matter what. It's mentally exhausting but after the first week you get into the habit of resisting.

I still haven't completely mastered my procrastination. Like the other posters mentioned, the key is to break the task into small chunks, thereby tricking your brain into considering it to be easier.

As for meditation the simplest thing is to spend at least 15 minutes everyday doing nothing and focusing on the present moment. I suggest reading Jon Kabat-Zinn's books: they offer advice based on science and without the eastern mumbo jumbo. Good luck!

I have a similar story to yours although I doubt I was as smart. In high school I could get the best grades in my class without much effort and got a near perfect score in the baccalaureate. Nothing to brag about though, since I then proceeded to drop out of law school in my second year. I completely lost the will to work and ended up with humiliatingly low grades before finally breaking down and starting afresh.

Like you I got into the habit of getting distracted online. Failing university was a sufficiently strong blow to my ego that I finally "woke up" and attempted to analyze what went wrong in my life: I came to the conclusion that my addiction to random bullshit on the internet had completely eaten my mind. The constant procrastination had eventually caused me to sink into depression, thus worsening the cycle even more. It got so bad I was unable to concentrate for more than 2 hours on the same subject. By contrast I used to read several books a week on various subjects.

I decided to drastically change my lifestyle. I cut away all non-essential internet use and went cold turkey. I forced myself to read again, at least 2 hours per day. I took on a strict diet and exercise regime. I took every opportunity to meet new people and see my friends I could find. I reduced my consumption of media (especially fiction). I practiced meditation. I distanced myself from the screen.

The point of this rambling post? It worked. I slowly but surely got back to my previous levels of intellectual involvement and curiosity about the world. I do go on Hacker News once in a while but it's an occasional small treat after I've worked hard. I'm not going to pretend to be a doctor and diagnose your life based on a single post, but I think you should at least try to do the same thing I did. At least consider cutting out the non-essential internet. You have nothing to lose. Keep in mind that it's a long term goal.

tl;dr It's possible to reverse the process

Russia's stance on gays does not invalidate the argument. Syria is an unrelated topic.

Putin is badass enough not to need speechwriters.

Je dirais qu'il y a quand même une petite différence entre les deux...

Replace "Putin" with "Obama" is this sentence and there you have it, a perfect description of the United States. Waxing about freedom and human rights while manipulating and coercing the whole world according to their manifest destiny.

depthhub is probably enough to suit your needs. I would however recommend leaving reddit for good. You honestly aren't missing anything.

Judging people's "value" according to their wealth is laughable and has a whiff of protestant fundamentalism to it. There are a ton of people with absurd wealth who are in fact costly to the economy (drug kingpins, polluters, embezzlers, corrupt heads of states...).

That's an honestly laughable PR measure. It's the equivalent of a robber putting your belongings in a plastic bag before taking them.

I'm always a bit wary of western "environmentalists". Nearly all of them have a carbon footprint and way of life that is not at all unsustainable on a global scale. Instead of asking ourselves if such and such car or product is green enough, we should focus on trying to remove these sources of pollution and find better alternatives.