thelock85

I have no real philosophical or financial -besides a few BTC bought years ago- stake in crypto's success or demise, but it seems that there is an unsolvable marketing problem in this space: how to nudge considerable behavioral changes needed to move a critical mass of retail investors/users from traditional banking/finance to "defi".

This kind of shift is more like a social movement but VCs don't fund education and organizing (hallmarks of societal shifts), they fund growth (if not for a single company then for a sector).

So crypto should really be more hobbyist than mainstream right now (which is what I think I hear crypto enthusiasts screaming about amidst all the fallout).

But the current reality shows us that crypto-as-a-hobby market would not be big enough to realize the crypto-as-a-new-paradigm vision, hence the celeb endorsements and positioning value propositions against centralized banking features to raise the money/interest needed to build out the vision.

It's the standard startup journey, except that marketing for growth/adoption naturally places the business at odds with the ideals of the technology.

Just my two cents!

I could totally see this. Scheming for access to “human data” not just “user data”. It also seems like a lot of people would mostly opt out of AI content for entertainment purposes, and instead seek in-person human community (surely still augmented with AI).

And then the droids will enter.

Culture presents much harder problems than science when it comes to social media. Though I agree it’s not a stretch to think he can add Twitter to his successes.

I empathize with your experience having also grown up in relative poverty. But now that I have kids of my own and see other kids being disruptive, asleep, rude, violent, etc. I'm looking at those kids' parents and guardians like WTF?

So just like it's not fair for the person working hard and studying to get their family a better life (equality of opportunity), it's also not fair to penalize minors who don't have those types of parents or can't outlast their broken environment to reach a better life (equity in opportunity).

I don't have the answers either but think we should keep trying rather than accept some large number of kids can work hard and still fail due to circumstance beyond their reach. Especially when at the same time, some large number of kids can just be kids and eventually figure it out due to circumstance beyond their reach.

> The fact is, generally, anyone in the US who has a capable brain and really tries can excel.

This is a great populist message but not sure it can be backed up with enough data at any meaningful enough scale to enact policies. Just like if I posited, "Generally, there are a lot of smart, capable and hardworking people who are just surviving check to check." It feels good and there are plenty of anecdotes to back it up, but it's too vague to make policy decisions upon. Raj Chetty's research [0] on social mobility dives into the complexity of it all.

[0] https://rajchetty.com/publications/

Edit:

> But it's only a disadvantage, not a roadblock.

You really nailed the crux of it here in terms of equality of opportunity vs. equity in opportunity. The unhappy compromise to avoid irreparable divisions in U.S. society lies somewhere between removing roadblocks vs. addressing disadvantages.

> First there was no such thing as race, then suddenly everyone was using race for everything, and now only white people can't use racial terms. WTF?

I don’t follow your first assertion. Pretty sure that an “Act concerning Servants and Slaves” aka the original Virginia slave codes first introduced “race” by way of limiting length and terms of indentured servitude for “white Christian” indentured servants. Under these terms, the acts then categorized “servants important and brought… who were not Christians in their native land” as slaves unless they converted to Christianity.

If that’s not explicit enough, the acts pretty distinctly name conditions for “negroes”, “Jews”, “Moors”, “mulattoes”, “Mahometans” and “Christian whites”.

Technically you are right that there was no such thing as race in American politics. But it was literally created by elites to divide working class former indentured servants, natives and Black freedman, ostensibly in response to Bacon’s rebellion where these groups found their common enemy in elites. So really it’s not that weird that things are as they are today in our political system.

No argument here. Though there’s tough competition for some of those Nixon-Reagan era reauthorizations of ESEA which set the stage for standardized tests being the primary benchmark for everything (and priming the pump for education publishers to create/expand the test prep industry).

The evidence is literally in the federal and state legislation passed since late 1800s to support public education with extreme prejudice toward women and minorities. And the subsequent battle to make the system inclusive, culminating with the 1964 Elementary and Secondary Education Act (commonly grouped with “civil rights acts”). And even this law is continuously reauthorized by both sides on the aisle in the name of less discrimination (most recently “No Child Left Behind” and “Every Student Succeeds”).

It is very true that “systemic discrimination” is an argument often parroted without evidence, especially in audiences that prefer rigorous scientific method to be persuaded. But it’s also true that counter arguments often lack evidence that systems are inclusive, and almost never take on anthropological context which take time and effort to build.

> someone that has enthusiasm and a skill set could surely pick that up as they go.

Sounds like the early days of Teach For America where enthusiasm will mostly get you between a few days and few years of service.

I think it’s pretty complicated to measure the effect of teachers in lots of context, let alone with respect to educational attainment.

The exception is at the intervention level: Teachers who learned X technique for improving Y skill improved Y skill at a higher occurrence than teachers who did not learn X technique.

Even for interventions you need to develop understanding of childhood/adolescent cognitive and emotional development in order to communicate effectively. Maybe enthusiasm gets you there organically through experience, maybe you quit.

Certainly in an otherwise pristine learning environment, enthusiasm for learning itself is a baseline desirable trait.

> I think it's great that Wade is bringing more visibility to lesser-known female scientists, but if we are valuing that, I think we should do so regardless of the subject's identity.

_we_ are not because the initiative and productivity of Jessica Wade isn’t there, not because of notability rules. Yes, some lesser known scientists were deleted but that seems to be a second order challenge. The “valuing” comes from the group or individual effort to make it happen which in turns forces a serious consideration of rule changes.

What bearing does an increase in the overall number of industry workers have on whether or not the manual weavers and spinners were justified in their concerns (with respect to their own livelihood) about automation?

With respect to that increase, there is context missing around the American South exponentially increasing cheap cotton exports around the same time, where coincidentally laborers were not even workers but enslaved peoples.

Even if the takeaway is livelihoods overall improved because of more jobs, then that is at the hidden cost of free (and grossly inhumane) labor elsewhere in the supply chain during the time period.

> They often have other side hustles and pursuits, and don't want to spend 100% of their working time for Uber or DoorDash.

I've always been under the impression that one could have multiple W-2 jobs that don't have to be classified as full-time. Also I read all the time on HN about side hustles developed by folks with full-time jobs. Heck I can even recall some folks gaming the system with two full time SWE jobs at the same time. Does the proposed legislation seek to enforce some kind of single-employer condition?

> This isn't some grassroots effort, this is being pushed by politicians and union organizers (more members = more $$).

I won't argue with your premise because I can't think of any federal legislation that reflects grassroots desires (even if advocacy/lobbying started at that level). However, in my experiences with gig drivers, there are two types: (1) those who are trying to make some extra cash on the side, but would be okay if they didn't drive, and (2) those who are driving whenever/however needed to make ends meet. I wonder what other types are out there, and how all the types are distributed amongst gig drivers.

But I think it's the second group that makes Lyft/Uber work. I just don't see a fleet of flexible, entrepreneurial gig drivers being able to meet the 100s or 1000s of edge cases that must be met in order for ride sharing companies to maintain their value proposition to customers in various markets. These companies know who these non-stop gig workers are, and might not be in the current situation if they'd taken earlier steps to offer them FT employment with benefits.

> I don’t think the hope part really works.

What other emotion than hope could have as much mass appeal as fear?

Visited Lanai once via ferry. Rode around with one of 2-3 taxi drivers who also runs the island's only newspaper.

Learned that Lanai has always been owned mostly by a single benefactor, the latest of whom is Larry Ellison (which this article doesn't mention). He also has (or had) a hydroponic farming startup operating there, in addition to owning the Four Seasons resort where this beach is.

Just adding this because the broader context is a small island of 3k people, many of which work for Ellison and depend on the tourism for local economy. That makes this news worse in my opinion since the locals are in such a position to be disenfranchised.

“ Seeking help could even be framed as socially desirable.”

Kinda buried an important part at the end of the article. Just last week I was doing a (not so rigorous) literature review on positive peer pressure for a work project, and in the largest meta study I could find, the conclusion was basically that the effect of peer influence depends on what’s cool to kids, and whether or not participation is publicly known to all peers.

Anecdotally in a design project for pediatric emergency rooms that I worked on in grad school, our team observed kids not disclosing minor accidents to their parents, oftentimes with the parent(s) swearing that their kid would never not tell them something.

Can’t believe I’m defending journalist but this analogy is only partially accurate imho.

People consume press and news media on their own volition, and even more less-vetted but newsworthy information through social media. Journalists are gassing what consumers respond to.

I believe what’s happened is that in the past, local news consumers were aware of their own “fire” (crime, civics, politics) and now in a connected world it feels like their standing amongst a great massive fire, but really they just have visibility into all of the little fires (or consternation that their local fire doesn’t seem important to anyone).

> Society is becoming a parody of itself.

We've accepted emotional, mental, spiritual, and physical (to some extent) abstractions of ourselves as our true selves. And exchanged social cues for algorithms to manipulate our behaviors.

In the moments when you can break out of that abstraction the parody becomes so clear, and also terrifying. Like what are we actually building towards?

Initially I felt similar to you, but then I considered the potential impact on accumulating student loan debt both from the perspective of paying for classes that don’t contribute to a major and rising tuition costs in the name of giving every student a reasonable chance to explore all available classes (not saying either is true for UCB).

Also I feel like it creates a new opportunity for some other entities to help students “test their major” without incurring the same costs.

Also appreciate how you approached this. I think it’s very important for individuals in multi-ethnic societies (or any society) to understand the history of how they got there, and it’s relation to society at the time and up to the present.

In the case of Irish indentured servants, I’m sure the difference between them and enslaved peoples from Africa were only academic from their perspective. And there is so much that I don’t understand in terms of the circumstances of them leaving Ireland. However with respect to the institutions that have developed since, equating the two requires a narrow analysis of the scale (numbers and time) and permanence (legal and cultural) of both. Hence the importance of understanding the facts of your own background in order to have healthy exchanges with people of different backgrounds (especially when historical, violent oppression is involved).

Edit: I should add and also excepting that others may have deeper understanding and taking a posture of learning instead of “winning” from the exchange.

I agree that parents should have much more responsibility on these matters, but not in exchange for state influence, at least in the US. 40M+ adults lack basic literacy to inform themselves well enough to pass on to their kids. Another 65M only have enough literacy to make low-level inferences and compare/contrast [0].

I’d rather govt (which has many channels for advocacy even if flawed) influence choices than corporations completely control the panopticon of choices (where small time spenders have very little consumer power).

But we’re not far apart. As you mention schools (of the state) are a good place to start.

> The Trump company stopped paying RightForge, a conservative web-hosting service, in March and now owes it more than $1 million, according to Fox Business, which first reported the dispute.

How normal is this for a potentially high growth startup that isn’t headlined by a former POTUS?

Wrong thing or just not the main thing? The prevalence of private prisons is unrelated to whether or not they should be closed, never mind that they still operate within and are funded by a public system.

This reminds me of the evolution of the slot machine (as read in Matthew Crawford's The World Beyond Your Head). A rough analog would be:

1. Medium: Mechanical reel > Digital reel

2. Gameplay: Fixed odds > Adjustable odds > Programmatic adaptive odds

3. Experience: Pull the lever and win or lose > Pull the lever and win even if you lose (e.g. get back change) > Swipe a card and win even if you lose > Swipe a card and watch the game auto-play until you're out of money

After reading that book (in 2014), I made my last Facebook post (the history of the slot machine) and promptly downloaded my data and deleted my account. I'm paraphrasing but Crawford's point was basically that social media is a socio-emotional slot machine.

Appreciate this softer side coming from someone known to be absolutely vicious on the football field. Also while I think it's fair to lump Suh in with all of the other "I got rich, you can do it too" hucksters, he does stand apart from his peers in professional expectations, performance and longevity. So I imagine this is solid advice for an NFL rookie or pro who is trying to navigate the leeches and scammers endemic to pro sports.

In between policy with quantifiable impact and sacrifices that make us individually feel good is… politics (at least in USA).

Arguably, the more people who are comfortable making sacrifices, the more politically safe it is to pass impactful policy (on any issue but especially those that impact the future collective more than the current individuals).

I do feel your cynicism though. For me, it’s the thought that any promising solution must survive culture wars or align with the “free” market, neither of which have any consistency or urgency in 2022.

Lots of great ideas here around how to augment the Congressional voting system to counter influence of dark, corporate money, but as a few have pointed out, not voting at all seems to be preferred on most potential legislation. I think that's because super PACs and corporate lobbyists are fighting for overall influence, not legislative outcomes --that is, how existing law is regulated/interpreted, how Congresspersons posture on various issues that are far away from a vote (esp. when affecting economic outcomes), and most importantly how Congresspersons wield the threat of their powers (e.g. initiating an inquiry or whatever the formality is into their corporate patron's rival).

I'm curious to if/how this relates to corporations having free speech rights under Citizens United vs. FEC.

Property is an asset, not a corporation (though could a corp. be an asset of a holding company?) but philosophically-speaking, "property itself as a defendant" and "corporation as a legal individual" seems connected.

>> Racism is still pernicious, but it's not fundamental.

How did you reach this conclusion in the face of 300+ years of verifiable, well-documented federal, state and local racist legislation and policies? If it’s pernicious now then it’s always been pernicious since generations have persevered irregardless of these policies… but that doesn’t make sense to me.

There are a surprising number of conspiracy theorists out there, but also lots of people desensitized or overwhelmed in the Information Age.

The rubble and ruins of war across the Middle East, state brutality of all scales from China to the U.S., unprecedented destruction by weather events... all delivered to your screen in near real-time then 24/7 pundit-ized until the next event... non stop for over a decade.

If you grew up in this cesspool of information, you tune out. If you yearn for the ignorance of yesteryear, conspiracies are easier to digest than critically analyzing the deluge of info... and that doesn't take into account all of the people who are just out there mostly concerned everyday with food and shelter for themselves and family.

To your point... As I started to write this, a nearby group of senior citizens meeting for morning coffee (in East Bay, CA) started fawning over this "refrigerator magnet set that helps you construct your own conspiracy".

The part that stuck out to me was “friendly”. A subtle insertion of language that at best alludes to some early 19th century frolicking, and at worst rewrites a history of sexual violence.

In a fairly objective accounting of historical science (is that a term?), I’d like to see more evidence when suggesting cultural behavior, or just leave the descriptive language out and let the reader interpret.