bigmealbigmeal

I find this classical viewpoint of "create only for yourself" to be essentially suited to only the most individualistic of people.

Many, if not most people want to have value to others. Including introverts. We want to behave in a prosocial manner within an embedded social context. Art itself was borne out of social contexts, especially music and storytelling. Most of us gain untold fulfilment from creating art that is valuable to others, i.e. art that people like.

I can speak to this myself: I have little motivation to create anything outside of a social context. When I create something exclusively for myself, it feels hollow. When the social context is there, I come alive. It brings me deep fulfilment to bring someone joy with art. Of course, I have to also like the art myself, otherwise it's just excessively sacrificial.

If you're individualistic enough to gain fulfilment from only creating for yourself, then all the power to you. But I'm tired of this being expressed as the only valid way to do things, especially since many people will be less fulfilled with this mindset.

Here’s a delightfully pessimistic answer: The moment I reached 10 years in the field, unhappy with every development job I’ve had. I realised I’m built for it because I don’t have the capacity to escape from it.

From my perspective, you really are stuck in a bubble of old music, whether or not those takes are "new". Modern art music is old music. Jazz, even the most forward-thinking of forms, is old music. I don't think you're able to draw the conclusion that young people aren't interested in music from the concerts you attend, because you are simply listening to old music.

If you want to see hordes of young people who are genuinely interested in music (new music), you'll find them within the sprawling umbrella of club music. Not your local top 40 pop club, but the underground places.

Young people who are interested in music are focused on novel atmospheres/noises coupled with danceable rhythms. They're not interested in harmony, chord progressions, or sounds created near-exclusively by acoustic or electroacoustic instruments. That's the purview of old music, and that's why you'll only find it in music schools (which are fantastically archaic) + old people.

On that note, I'm willing to accept the hypothesis that the "average" young person today is less interested in music than in the past. It's probably true. But your evidence is... well, I think in a bit of a bubble.

This is a great counterpoint! Sadly, I've been unable to find any data on whether young people use Google less. Do you know of any indication of this?

It's a logical leap to suggest that indirectly benefitting from something means one is indifferent to that thing. We're all beneficiaries of child labour in the third world; it doesn't mean we're all indifferent to it. Most of us at least disapprove.

Errol Musk claimed to the New York Times that he belonged to the anti-apartheid Progressive Party at the time. Elon Musk said in his biography that he did not want to partake in South Africa's mandatory military service because it would have forced him to participate in the apartheid regime.[1]

I understand that this an emotionally charged issue, and I would never expect the wider public to behave differently, but I'd at least expect this community to engage in more critical thinking -- to not make logical leaps, and to be honest about the facts at hand. We're not going to reverse the world's social progress because the nerds on Hacker News decided to pause for thought.

[1]: https://www.nytimes.com/2022/05/05/world/africa/elon-musk-so...

Prove it. Let's look at some data:

https://trends.google.com/trends/explore?date=all&q=%2Fm%2F0...

Even from 2004, when Brad Pitt was arguably less popular than in the 1990s, we can see that Tom Holland has never reached the same 'peaks' that Brad Pitt had reached. Tom Holland blew up in December 2021 (though never reaching two of Pitt's peaks), and is now down to a level of interest lower than Brad Pitt is today.

Similar for Zendaya vs. Jennifer Aniston: https://trends.google.com/trends/explore?date=all&q=%2Fm%2F0...

If we average out the 2021 popularity for Zendaya/Holland, and average out the 2004 popularity for Pitt/Aniston, then Pitt/Aniston dominate.

The data is slightly tangential, and so it's not conclusive, but it basically suggests that you're mistaken.

Whatever the internet tells you about what is "standard"... as someone who has spent his life in New Zealand, I can assure you the majority of under-30s usually use "zee". "Zed" is on its way out.

It probably started with the popularity things like Sesame Street and Dragon Ball Z (Dragon Ball Zee).

However, interestingly, the one time everyone uses "zed" is when we acronymise the country name -- NZ, or N-Zed.

I can’t relate to this “three Ps” thing at all. I just want a partner who is deep thinking (most important), reasonably kind, and reasonably good looking.

I couldn’t give two shits about some weird notion of being a provider or a protector. Income, strength? It doesn’t come into the equation for me. But then, I also don’t have a strong need to be a procreator.

I have no success dating due to my own seemingly excessive standards (almost impossible to find deep thinkers) so I can’t give any advice on that front.

But you shouldn’t rule out being a single mother, because I suspect you’d regret that once it’s no longer possible.

It's actually interesting to look at reviews of disco music on RateYourMusic going past the last decade. You might notice a pattern of the older reviews criticizing it as vapid and cheesy, while the newer reviews praise it as danceable and fun.

I think we're finally brushing off the excessive dismissal of the form, probably in no small part to the rock-worshipping generations being drowned out by the newer generations that have no such allegiances.

I would argue that people with ADHD noticed this problem before anyone else, simply because they were the first to suffer from it.

Perhaps just to shatter the illusion that one will instantly become an enlightened productive person, this is what I did when I got rid of screens and books[^]:

  * Sat around philosophising about what to do with my life
  * Walked around philosophising about what to do with my life
  * Walked around discovering abandoned places in the city
  * Played instruments (which I already did when I had screens)

That's about it. It's not a bad way to live, but I didn't get any great projects done, or create anything, or build anything.

Instead, I've made the most progress in life by setting myself up with social environments that force me to get things done. Joining bands and sketch comedy groups has essentially peer pressured me into writing and producing a shitload of songs and screenplays. I've played more times live than I can count.

I achieved not through ridding myself of the drug of the internet, but by supplementing it with the drug of social belonging.

Hypothetically, most of our motivation for creating or building things comes from wanting to be valuable to our tribe. If we have weak social ties, or our tribe doesn't really value what we want to do, then motivation will be very difficult to find. (I think some people are exceptions to this, where they create endlessly in their splendid isolation, but it may be worth being honest and asking whether you are one of these exceptions, or whether you fit the rule like most of us.)

[^]: Failing to get rid of books meant I just sat around reading books all day

I'll add to this that having subtitles next to the person one is speaking to is completely transformative for hearing-impaired people. The only way you could replicate this with a 2D screen is by having them either (a) avert eye contact to look down at a phone, which prevents them from being engaged with the person, or (b) hold up a phone camera to someone's face, which is obviously significantly more cumbersome and socially awkward than wearing some glasses (and please try to imagine the future of AR headsets that are becoming increasingly compact like sunglasses, not a bulky existing Hololens headset).

So, take that idea. It's not a novelty experience. It's not fluff. It significantly improves the lives of hearing-impaired people.

Did you even come up with this idea? If so, why were you not able to create it? Have you considered that perhaps it was due to the fact that something like this is extremely difficult to develop and can't be done by a regular team over a period of 'months'? Have you considered that AR/VR isn't just going to be made transformative within a <1 year time period of you getting your hands on it?

On the other hand, if you didn't even come up with such a practically beneficial idea as this (or were unable to see how life-changingly useful it'd be for the hearing-impaired), then the issue with all of your ideas being "fluff" was not due to the technology at hand.

This even sparks my imagination further. Right now, if someone yells at a hearing-impaired person from behind, they have no immediate way of knowing (any phone-based solution is not going to give quick information about the direction of the yell when it's in-pocket). On the other hand, an AR headset will be able to immediately inform that person that a loud voice has come from exactly the direction it is pointing to, because it can literally show an arrow in their visual sight. That is so goddamn exciting and useful. And I simply can't comprehend how you cannot see it.

This is a semantic distortion of what most people mean when they say something is political.

Yes, a painting of fruit can be discussed within a political context.

But when we say a piece of art is political, we don't mean it can be seen within a political context. We mean that the piece of art is intended to be seen within a political context, or that the political context is blatantly apparent. Yes, this means whether or not something is political is subjective. That's how people use the word, just as they might describe something as angry or meaningful.

When people say "everything is political", just as they say "racism is prejudice plus power", they are discarding the in-practice meaning of these words and replacing them with meanings that were invented to support a particular cause.

A smartphone is merely a dumbphone with better UI. Look how transformative that was.

None of these things are achievable in the same way with a 2D screen because by definition a 2D screen lacks the ability to literally display along the Z axis. Our minds perceive in 3D, not 2D. A 2D screen literally provides less information about distance and location to the senses. Moreover, a 2D screen has a complete inability to create the feeling of presence, something that is new to AR/VR.

Actually, to act as if the feeling of presence is not new, despite you apparently having used a headset, seems bizarre to the point of incomprehensibility. Use VR porn and tell me that’s not a completely new, compelling experience. I’m addicted to it — it’s like I’m literally having sex. Honestly, your rejection of presence as revolutionary means I don’t actually think it’s possible to get anywhere with this discussion.

Lastly, your difficulties developing something compelling with AR is not a sufficient argument that nothing compelling can ever be achieved with it.

> It doesn't really make anything new possible

How are you actually defining "new" here? Have you considered that you are defining "new" in an amorphous way that allows you to reject everything new that VR/AR offer?

AR allows one to create virtual objects with actual position and shape in the real world. We can see these objects in their location in the world, and interact with them. That is the abstracted case of what is truly new -- the thing that simply does not exist without AR.

From this abstract case, we can give concrete examples. When buying products online, one can discover what furniture will look like in their house, or what clothing will look like on their body -- they can better see it from every angle and the form it will take. In terms of "adult entertainment", one can literally experience a virtual person up in your face and on your body, something that is just not offered by any existing form. Shit, we can attach a virtual note to a physical object (that only select people get to see!), we can use a ping pong table without needing to own a ball, we can see "subtitles" next to a person who is talking, we can see a label next to our friend in a crowded place without having to constantly cross-reference a map on a phone screen... honestly. Have some imagination.

If you can see this list of things and say "none of that is new", then I seriously challenge you to define "new" for me, because I'm willing to bet you are not applying the same rigorous definition to smartphones.

I wonder if the reason this community embraced innovation in the early days is because only those who embrace new things are going to be attracted to a site in its early days. In other words, even the act of using Hacker News was an embracement of the new, which filtered out anyone who didn't embrace the new -- so you were only going to find people embracing the new in the comments.

Now that the site is established, it moreso attracts people who are interested in the established, and less-so attracts people who are interested in new things. This problem tends to amplify itself, as a community that rejects new things is also going to drive away people who are interested in new things.

Now that Hacker News is established, it's just not "it" anymore. "It" is somewhere else.

But this is all just a theory. The counter to this argument is that many people on Hacker News in 2007 expressed serious reservations to Dropbox/cloud storage when it was first revealed -- https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8863. So perhaps what we're seeing is that problem-solvers (developers) also tend to be problem-finders.

I guess the spirit of what you're saying is that I reacted with excessive condemnation. Yeah, you're right. Truth is important and I don't regret the information I gave out, but I agree that I should have taken it easier.

On that note, I guess it's a little fun that you ending with "you aren’t nearly as smart as you think you are" seems to be participating in the same unnecessary meanness that you just called out. Ahhhh man, aren't we all so brutally human...

Your hypothesis is that myopia is primarily caused by the lack of focus on far-field objects.

In a lab environment, wherein there is a lack of focus on far-field objects, myopia does not occur when there is sufficient light intensity. On the other hand, it occurs with insufficient light intensity.

If your hypothesis were correct, then myopia would occur regardless of light intensity, because all of the subjects have a lack of focus on far-field objects. But it doesn't. It only occurs with insufficient light intensity.

That's damning.

> I strongly suspect the amount of light outdoors is NOT really the issue. If you're always focused on things close at hand (as the above mentioned folks on wall street), you never allow the eyes to focus on the far horizon for an appreciable fraction of the time.

Then you need to read more on the matter.

Studies on chicks, tree shrews and rhesus monkeys show that simply increasing the amount of indoor light intensity has a protective effect on myopia. Scientists can induce more myopia in chicks simply by reducing light intensity. See https://iovs.arvojournals.org/article.aspx?articleid=2164963 and https://iovs.arvojournals.org/article.aspx?articleid=2355431

The leading hypothesis is that light stimulates the release of dopamine in the retina, and the dopamine blocks the elongation of the eye during development. One study showed that injecting a dopamine-inhbiting drug into the eyes of chicks abolished the protective effect of bright light, and myopia increased. See https://iovs.arvojournals.org/article.aspx?articleid=2126968

Your particular confidence on this ("strongly suspect") bothers me because it has an influence on others, yet it is totally ignorant of what current scientific findings suggest.

"I would just fck off and improvise and try to teach myself popular songs instead of actually practicing"

I did the exact same thing, except now I'm a skilled keyboardist (and multi-instrumentalist) who gets paid for gigs. I still spend most of my time fucking around and improvising. Every bit of theory I discovered through fucking around and just exploring freely. I never do scales: I just pick a key and start improvising.

If my parents had pushed me to 'actually practice', I would have rebelled and quit altogether. They did for a couple of years. And I did quit. Fortunately, I found my way back to it, on my own terms, because I simply loved playing instruments -- but I loved doing it on my own terms, not someone else's.

The frank truth is that some people really like playing instruments, and some are just 'meh' about it. Those who have a tendency to enjoy playing an instrument just need to have access to one -- and then they'll find their way. On the other hand, if a child is 'meh' about an instrument, is it really worth punishing and forcing them through all of it? What's the goddamn point? Isn't life to be enjoyed? Is it really just a series of skills to stoically master?

> When Europeans or Americans hunt boar, ducks, wild pigs, dear etc is it called "bush meat"?

It'd be called "game meat" or "wild meat". "The bush" is a synonymous term for the wild, and has neutral connotations.

> Bush meat is a racist term concocted by European researchers.

This paper https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC7122066/ would suggest that it was just a neutral translation of what people in Cameroon were calling it. Likely just "meat from the wild", which the English would have neutrally called "meat from the bush".

I didn't say that every thing being laughed at is the next big thing to redefine the industry. I only predicted that augmented reality really is one of those things. Further, the person I was replying to claimed that the next big thing to redefine the industry is something that will be laughed at. Neither party claimed that everything being laughed at will redefine the industry.

The statement that augmented reality is "like touch keyboards" is a statement that you haven't given justification for. Augmented reality is not a technology centered around replacing physical input with non-physical input, and so the analogy is not self-evident. You might potentially have a good point, but you'd have to explain how this analogy is relevant to the technology of placing graphics and information at any position in a person's 3D visual space. Remember, most augmented reality objects don't need to be controlled at all to be useful, and you can still control an augmented reality screen with a mouse and keyboard.

I'm interested to hear more detail to your thoughts on why you think augmented reality won't be a paradigm shift. I'm also happy to elaborate on why I think it will, if you like.

The comment doesn't assert that aesthetics is separate from design.

If I say "the world was not the most important aspect of the policy, _USA_ was", then that does not imply that USA is not part of the world.

> Whatever will redefine the industry will probably be laughed at and only adopted by nerds for a while.

I suspect that virtual reality and augmented reality are in this classic position. Laughed at, but totally adored by a group of nerds. As someone in that group of nerds, the feeling is so much like the early days of the web -- it really is incredibly exciting. It amazes me that anyone can be pessimistic about it, especially given the astounding progress and investment being made. In my view, it's deeply obvious that augmented reality is the next paradigm shift we're all waiting for.

A few things:

1. I do apologize specifically to you for jumping to the conclusion of schizophrenia when I don't have sufficient evidence nor qualification to say so. Sorry.

2. To be clear, I created this account because your idea inspired me, rather than the suggestion I created it for anonymity. I hadn't posted on Hacker News in years.

3. The reason I jumped to that particular conclusion about you is simply as such: (a) your conception of reality differs from current scientific understanding, (b) you have not conducted any proper scientific experiments on the matter, and (c) you are unshakably convinced in spite of insufficient scientific experimentation. Unfortunately, I jumped to a conclusion without sufficient evidence, but it was merely me making a guess based on the data I had. It wasn't about ego or devaluation. If I am wrong, then I am simply wrong -- being wrong doesn't always come from a place of ego or attack, but simply mistaken understanding.

4. For context, my partner has been diagnosed with schizophrenia. I do not use that term to insult people. To me, it's a neutral description of something that causes people to suffer (in the case of my partner, often horrible, horrible pain -- she constantly has experiences of being raped, electrocuted, and suffocated). Once again, I do not use that term to insult people. Unfortunately, I stepped too far by assuming someone else has it.

5. If you are correct, and wish for others to see that, then it must be demonstrated by a properly conducted scientific experiment. If you do not do that, then you cannot expect people to discard their current conception of reality. Any form of argumentation or scattered observation is insufficient to discard current scientific consensus -- only experiment can do that.

Lastly... I know you expressed resistance to this form of apology, but... I really didn't mean to hurt you. It hurts me to know that I caused you pain. I'm sorry. And yes, we disagree on the topic, but ideally we can disagree without making the other feel bad about it (an ideal which I unfortunately failed to live up to).

I am genuinely interested to hear your reasoning for how someone can be an "utterly inept businessman" and also become the richest man in the world. How is that possible?

Bernie Sanders is an immediate and obvious counterexample to your assertion that people only do this for Kamala Harris and Hillary Clinton. There's also Jeb Bush, Pete Buttigieg, Marco Rubio, and many others.

The exclusion of these fairly obvious counterexamples suggests that you are engaging in a form of confirmation bias.

There is reason to believe that people are sexist toward female politicians, but the first-name basis of Kamala and Hillary is not a strong piece of evidence, given that we do that for the aforementioned male politicians (and don't do it for a lot of other female politicians, such as Elizabeth Warren, Sarah Palin and AOC)

Thanks for sharing these. From what I can see, the criticism here is coming entirely from journalists/activists.

It makes me wonder: how many of the opinions that we are exposed to originate from journalists/activists? How much are we mixing up the opinions of these people as representing the opinions of scientists, engineers and philosophers? How much are we mixing up the opinions of journalists/activists as representing those of your average person?

I'm starting to see a deep issue with the preeminence of journalist/activist opinion.

Do you have any sources that indicate anti-censorship is “hugely unpopular” with the mainstream intellectual community? For example, esteemed scientists speaking out against it?

It may be important here to separate journalists and political activists from the intellectual community. Not to say that they aren’t intellectuals, but the issue could be limited to that set of intellectuals in particular.

These are some pretty damning issues, but I don’t think it’s fair to conclude that it makes the technology a dead end.

For example, implantable contact lenses are commonly used to treat myopia. The lens is implanted in the eye over the long term, no infection. There’s no reason why this isn’t feasible for contact lens screens. One could posit that people won’t want to implant a contact lens screen in their eye, and perhaps they won’t, but it’s up for debate and perhaps underestimated how readily many people dive head first into scary new things (think, say, how many used LSD in the 60s).

Even if the lenses weren’t implanted, it’s still feasible for disposable contact lens screens to be cost-effective. You can buy all types of screens right now for less than a dollar. It’s not impossible to make cheap disposable screens for contact lenses.

Again, there are difficult problems to solve here, but I think calling it a technological dead end underestimates just how novel and clever humans can be to make things work.