Do you hear more from people that made money in crypto or that lost money?
21 karma · joined January 3, 2017
It was enormously helpful /s
What an anodyne summary, when Wikipedia informs us that "classical Islamic jurisprudence calls for the death penalty of those who refuse to repent of apostasy from Islam", "Until the late 19th century, the majority of Sunni and Shia jurists held the view that for adult men, apostasy from Islam was a crime as well as a sin, punishable by the death penalty", "As of 2021, there were ten Muslim-majority countries where apostasy from Islam was punishable by death", and so on. Now, all of the above of course is subject to conditions and constraints, because decent people don't kill each other by and large.
Seems quite instructive of the limitations of LLMs/AI that it is incapable of highlighting the simple fact that as of today, Jews and Christians do not kill apostates, while Muslims still do (on occasion; obviously not everyone - again, most people are decent people).
If the policy is "don't accept money from anyone abusing children (or at any rate people under 18)", then I suggest that a lot more due diligence is required.
In fact, it's probably safe to assume that anyone accepting investments from the Middle East or Asia has very likely dealt with or taken money from people engaging in the same or worse conduct, only that it hasn't been prosecuted there.
If this here is the standard by which things ought to be measured and decided now, then I would expect a lot of money be returned and/or given to NGOs and charities.
But then, I suspect this is mostly moral posturing and virtue signalling, so nothing substantial will happen.
While at university, I once went to the university shrink and said, look, I have no motivation, I can't get myself to go to the gym and exercise, I don't manage to get a good sleep rhythm, I eat crap, I don't study enough, I have no discipline.
The guy says, well, I know exactly what's wrong and what you need to do: you need to develop more discipline, study more, eat healthy, develop a regular sleep rhythm, go to the gym and exercise, and be more motivated.
No shit! Thanks Sherlock.
So, here my attempt to give slightly more useful advice. I read research concluding that behavioural change can come about through three means:
1. an epiphany (eg someone you know develops cancer, and you suddenly realise what's important) - rare.
2. a significant change in surroundings (eg you move to a different country) - rare.
3. baby steps, but sustained baby steps. Like an oil tanker - you change the direction by just a degree (and even that is hard), but over years you end up at a better place.
The latter is realistic. (Found the source: https://www.tinyhabits.com )
I'd try:
* be compassionate and benevolent towards yourself. Sure, you have flaws, but nobody is perfect. Do not compare yourself to others (particularly not to Instagram caricatures or Nobel laureates or Fields medalists or so). Depending on what motivates you, you could consider this effort (taking care of yourself and being good to yourself) as a duty, or as a challenge, or as a commandment, or an axiom, or a tool. (This does not mean that you should be egocentric and selfish, just the opposite: you have to be healthy and strong so you can better help others!)
* recognise that bias in self-perception is ok, and both overconfidence and "underconfidence" have advantages and disadvantages. Now, for you, it's the way it is, no need to beat yourself up for it, now let's work with what's there.
* read the book "Mindset" by Carol Dweck. (Someone recommended the Stoics ("A Guide to the Good Life"), but not sure how applicable that is here, though it is a great book. It emphasises the idea that you should not care so much about things, but about your response to them - the only thing you can change is yourself, your own behaviour.)
* set some small goals (just say hello to someone at a conference or ask someone a question in supermarket, wake up at 8am for a week, read 15 mins of documentation every day for something you want to learn, ... ), try your best, and don't beat yourself up if you don't manage one day - just get back on the horse. Just get back on the horse. Take a smaller horse if need be, and get back up.
* check out Martin Seligman and "Positive Psychology", "Authentic Happiness".
* maybe do consider going to a psychotherapist employing CBT.
Bad sign...
(Note that it's measured using Apple's diagnostic tools, not using the value displayed in the System Report).
Assuming, hypothetically, that some selfish person were happy to get a new battery paid by Apple for their expensive laptop as it approaches the end of the AppleCare contract, but the diagnostic pegs it at over 80% - would it be possible to push it under 80% over a few months? How? (Not a question most articles on laptop batteries address, for some reason...)
In discussions with young women of modest means in countries with limited opportunities and huge income inequality (ie most third world countries), it is hard to find arguments against their impression that this lifestyle is their best chance for a good life.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Analytic–synthetic_distinction
In an equal relationship, both contribute economic resources, emotional support, domestic work, sexual pleasure, etc. Traditionally, in the West, there was an asymmetry in that the woman provided the domestic work, the man the outside work with the concomitant salary; but the asymmetry has shrunk over the decades, due also to the increased opportunities of women in the work force.
In these sugar relationships, there is massive asymmetry in the nature of the contributions; it's an intermediary between prostitution (pure money vs sex, short term) and marriage (lots and lots of stuff vs lots and lots of stuff, long term), but arguably closer to the former.
Several young women maintain several distinct social media identities: one for family, one for friends, one for "daddies".
US marketing is the best in the world, no doubt; maybe "mistaken" or "deceived" is more accurate than "stupid".
A few observations:
- people trying to immigrate to the USA come predominantly from desperately poor countries that are, indeed, not as nice a place to live. (People from those countries are also frequently denied tourist visa to the USA, btw.)
- among my fellow students at a good university in California that came from first world countries, only about a quarter decided to stay for longer than a few years.
- among Chinese that go to study in the USA, increasing numbers apparently choose to return to China.
> it's all a personal preference
To a large part it is.
Among expats that have options and have seen different continents, the US is more of middling choice, I'd think, but for some people it just clicks and they love it. (And NY is in a different category, anyway.)