cubano

This TED talk https://www.ted.com/talks/robert_waldinger_what_makes_a_good... makes the same point and used data from an 75y study.

I found the most surprising aspect of the article was the guy absolutely refusing to believe that his Skype contact was phony and trying to scam money from him, even when the very law enforcement he so trusted to help "save the hostages" 1/2 way across the world told him so.

I wonder what sort of physiological issues must be present, and why, that allows someone to be sucked so deeply into believing the fantasy of the situation, even in the face of overwhelming evidence, and how that very thing exists in so many other decisions that confront people.

I'm not really convinced if its even possible for me to learn something that I'm not interested in.

[edit] By learn, I don't mean simple regurgitation of the facts or some superficial thing, I'm talking about extended study and efforts.

I am surprised that no one has been developing (or I haven't heard of) fully autonomous airplane pilot systems. Something like that tied to a fleet of solar planes like this for shipping stuff could be a real game changer for certain types of cargo.

Flying actually seems like a much "cleaner" environment for the AI to navigate then roads do, to be honest, and the dependence on instrumentation and not visual cues as much is of course a natural fit.

Most IT-based business hire based on the lowest cost option and what tech stack the founders are comfortable with. Probably not as true in SV and SF, but the rest of the country it is.

All b) really does is start the loop over again at the initialization step.

One of my favorite little know facts about how much has really changed with medical treatment...

Only 90 years ago, President Calvin Coolidge's 16 year old son died from a foot blister he got while playing lawn tennis on the White House grounds, something that would have probably been easily treated with an OTC anti-bacterial or a quick trip to the doctor nowadays.

We hardly have the get "medieval" to see the radical advancements in health and how we all greatly benefit from it.

Maybe, in the VCs minds, a "group of low-paid humans" is equivalent to "ai."

Of course it is...its has been and is being totally propped up by the Fed monetizing debt with equity purchasing ie QEI, II, III with QEIV being considered soon[1].

This is nothing but an asset bubble that is sure to burst someday, as is akin to what the Gov't, the credit agencies, and WS did with housing and mortgages back in the 2000's that led to the meltdown and TARP.

[1]http://www.safehaven.com/article/39140/jobs-report-moves-fed...

Not me.

In the 80's and 90's, I decided to do other silly things with my life, like becoming a professional guitarist and being a Dad.

I know I know...how irresponsible. :)

From my experience in addiction therapy, one thing has become very clear to me and that is much of the compulsive behavior caused by faulty brain wiring began during early childhood.

In my case, I was abandoned by my biological parents for a three month period as an infant and was mistreated by Aunts and Uncles. I still have fleeting horrible memories of this event.

Eating without regards to health or other consequences is simply a form of addiction, as you are doing it for emotional reasons and not because of hunger.

All sorts of emotional traumas happen to infants and young children in poverty that are far less likely to happen to those in a more financially and, lets face it, emotionally stable environments. Poverty, of course, stresses everyone involved in it.

I am not sure how groundbreaking this research is as it has been well-known for many years that seriously stressing infants causes the brain's reward system to change.

I would have thought that the two-week 0day exploit alone was 100 hours.

Oh then you must try this: http://www.philosophizethis.org

Stephen West does an outstanding job of tracing the complete history of philosophy in the West and relating its ideas to modern thought and idioms, and uses humor effectively as well.

Isn't one of the more interesting benefits of a UBI supposed be that it frees the people getting it to be madly productive in their passionate interests?

As Sam Altman said in a recent podcast (and I paraphrase here)..."its ok of 90% of UBI recipients sit around and smoke pot all day as long as 10% create awesome new things for society...its a net benefit."

Are these 6000 Kenyans in the technical position to create a new vision and application that benefits the world society? Can they build the next AirBnB or Uber?

I'm not saying they can't, of course...just wondering if the cultural and technical infrastructural differences between Africa and the US/Europe would create experimental distortions.

[edit] ok..AirBnb and Uber were probably poor examples and with more thought it makes sense the the effects would be much more localized in this case.

I guess what I was trying to say is that the 10% have a lot of work to do if they have to carry the weight for the other 90%.

I no longer drive for a variety of reasons, and here in Florida at least where everyone has, it often seems, 2 cars, and there is very little good public transportation, it's not really very fun.

I get things thrown at me by random drivers at least once a month. I have to be constantly aware of drivers chatting on cells not seeing me and literally hitting me head on at intersections.

Trying to date, at my age, with no car is almost impossible.

Pretty much the only other people I see riding bikes are the homeless. And then there is the stigma that if your riding a bike, it means you obviously have DUI and/or other issues.

But I love riding my bike. I've been a constant bike rider since I was 6yo and it has and always will be a source of joy and freedom to me.

Like I enjoy saying "drive a car, burn money and get fat...ride a bike, burn fat and save money."

In my experience if a tech hiring person is playing with "trick" questions during an interview you should very quickly start wondering if this would be a place you really need to work.

I think a more interesting question is...can any successful self-publishing website do the things necessary (whatever they may be) to prevent it from becoming the marketing shit-heap he describes?

I have my doubts, but anything is possible I guess.

"Free will" is almost certainly an illusion as well.

This has been proven in many different ways over the past 50 years.

http://io9.gizmodo.com/5975778/scientific-evidence-that-you-...

Here's one...maybe the actual developer who was contracted to build the damned thing purposely used weak encryption to try to ameliorate his/her part in making this malware mess.

I'm not sure if my thoughts on this subject can ever be articulated correctly, but I'm going to try anyway at the risk of being misunderstood.

Due to my lifelong struggles with addiction, I have often contemplated suicide. Actually, one of my closest ex-girlfriends off-handily remarked 20 years ago that she thought suicide might be the only answer for me, after doing everything in her power to help me over a 3 year period.

You see, she intimately saw the pain that my self-inflicted junkie lifestyle dispensed to others and, on a much deeper level, myself.

Today, I continue to live in the wreckage that I so carelessly created, with a brother whom will not talk to me no matter what I do and old friends whom don't return calls, and I'll be honest...life is pretty bleak when family and friends no longer exist.

Why is it that some, often ancient, cultures not-only-tolerate but almost-glorify suicide when an individual has lost their self respect or has been publicly shamed?

Maybe suicide isn't the worst possible option there is.

Well then, do better and don't look back.

There is no shame in taking a first job out of college and realizing it wasn't meant to be.

Working at your age should be akin to dating...you should have no guilt or issue with realizing you acted without having complete information and perhaps jumped into something that wasn't, in the end, right for you.

Why not start actively shopping a resume and talking to colleagues your age to see where you could possibly land next?

Good luck, and keep moving towards a better tomorrow.

Yes for sure someone like you should head to Summerlin.

> But the problem is not nearly as widespread as generally believed...

Yes well we agree to disagree because I firmly believe, and my 35 years of experience following the issue closely prove to me at least, that not only is the problem widespread but is papered-over and much worse then will ever be reported.

There is a solid statistic that something like only 10% of crime is reported on and solved. I think this number matches nicely to the real damages, waste, and fraud caused by the issue.

I am not against public investment.

I am for using modern IT practices to add transparency and accountability to the process.

I personally find it almost absurd to expect the very agencies that are nominally in control of Federal expenditures to reliably track and then expose their own waste, folly, and, yes, theft of taxpayer funds.

Why do you think their is such huge support behind political establishment outsiders such as Sanders and Trump?

Many people are simply exhausted by the lies and deceit that flows from elite Washington circles nowadays, and thinking that self-reported figures are going to placate them is wishful indeed.

Not maybe.

In my case, definitely.

Thanks for the clarification.

> The trendy idea that taxes in general and progressive (not in the political sense but in the technical sense) tax systems are somehow unfair is holding up important development in the U.S.

I would disagree.

The opposing trendy idea is that the eventual output of the tax systems are so filled with waste, fraud, and abuse that simply pouring more and more money, no matter the source, into politically-connected blackhole businesses contracted to perform some government sponsored task rarely if ever works and needs to much more carefully managed.

There are so many real-world examples of this (healthcare.gov comes instantly to mind, and the recent TSA app but there are many others) that I won't bother to list them.

A much greater level of transparency for all these deals would go a long way in helping fix these sensible concerns.

[edits]

>...and the people here just don't give a crap about life

Yes and to finish my OP thought, I would argue that this was without a doubt the worse of it as well.

>You and parent poster are both wrong. A politician rarely ever lies. Incredibly, most career politicians sincerely believe what they say. They just change their beliefs more often than most people, even several times a day.

I'm sorry, but I truly believe that not only is this view utterly naive but apologist as well, and I simply think it tries to blot the sun with its thumb.

I still to this day argue that by a significant margin, the best thing about living in Vegas was the everything goes 24-hour lifestyle where you can literally do or eat anything you want 24/365.