Norvig's book is great.
What's even more perverse is that being "hungry" (instead of skilled, or competent, or ethical) is valued in a lot of corporations. A significant component of the price of Manhattan real estate comes from the…
I really don't think anyone can predict when this bubble bursts. There are too many political and cultural factors involved. Also, as employment prospects decline and remain dismal throughout our second "lost decade", I…
This assumption is a mix of broken societal wisdom and an association fallacy. FWIW, there's another fallacy committed when they themselves become unemployed; everyone else unemployed is a antisocial lunatic, but they…
True and depressing. I think one side effect of suburban alienation is that, because this geography thwarts organic friendships and also maintains social class barriers, people fall out of touch with people who are less…
It's my firm belief that the hottest rooms in hell will be saved for those who kick people when they're down.
I have been reading an unfortunately large amount of articles here on Hacker News seemingly deterring prospective students like myself from entering a university, especially from the field of Computer Science. They cite…
Motivation is tricky. Sometimes it's worth it to continue, and sometimes it's not. Only you can make this decision, but you have to listen to yourself and figure out what it is that's bugging you. If it's a transient…
Great point. A sad reality of the career game is that you win not by being most truthful, but by building a coherent story. My moral stance is this: "fudging" is okay-- if you were fired, turn it into a layoff-- as long…
No. First of all, a lot of startups still need to raise money. It may be cheaper now than in 1998 but it's still not cheap to pay 2-6 people for 6-24 months. And getting users and customers does not necessarily equal…
Renting in general (cars, housing) is one of those things that people want other people to do, but not for themselves, at least not on things they consider important. For example, if you rent textbooks, you give them up…
No. Poverty is overrated. It sounds like his argument for "poverty" is that investors micromanage and sink companies. The obvious solution is hands-off VC and more trust of entrepreneurs. In other words, we need to move…
This is a serious problem, even today, but the article seems to fail at addressing it. 1. The "nurturing" sort of work isn't inferior to the analytical style of work. Both are important. Raising children is one of the…
Surprising fact: most people like working. Many people hate being told what to do and when to do it, but people have a fundamental desire to work. Here's how to do basic income. Starting with 2010 GDP as a base, 50% of…
Right. All they have to do is sell their kids so that they need less space (cheaper housing) and don't need to spend money on education, and then "wing it" with regard to health insurance. "Just don't get sick" is great…
I will gladly work to destroy the bigoted and heartless sort of society that conservatives and so-called "libertarians" seek.
Depends on the kind of slavery. Slavery has been a fixture of most economies, with the degree of force and inflexibility variable across societies. In one phase of the Ottoman Empire, slaves could own land and armies...…
The Hacker News libertarians (who are, despite our shared nausea, far smarter and more reasonable than the right-wing of any other community, I'll note) believe they will be future technology "barons". Pretty much…
By definition, a person who is working only because he must will not get a fair wage. One side has leverage, one does not. So the worker gets screwed. The ideal society is one in which no one has to work but everybody…
We're not there yet, but our economy has been headed in that direction for the past 30 years. Michael Lind has termed it "Brazilianization", in reference to the inequality and corruption one sees in much of Latin…
You don't get to the leaderboard if your account is nuked. Survivor bias. Admittedly I've said things that are immature and stupid and that I regret. None of them merited the destruction of 2000+ karma account. Not a…
I don't think "fucking asshole" is much worse than "trophy kid". They're about comparable in terms of incivility.
I agree. Hacker News has a lot great people on it. Karma, however, is a joke because accounts are regularly nuked for no good reason, which necessitates starting over at zero. Hellbanning spammers and outright trolls…
I think a lot of the criticism of our generation and of job hopping is projection. The whining about entitled, self-centered young people sounds exactly like the complaints that were made of the Boomer generation in…
Job hopping is a touchy subject because young people don't like job hopping, as was discussed in those posts. They do it because, in today's corporate climate, they usually have to do it in order to prevent being…
Norvig's book is great.
What's even more perverse is that being "hungry" (instead of skilled, or competent, or ethical) is valued in a lot of corporations. A significant component of the price of Manhattan real estate comes from the…
I really don't think anyone can predict when this bubble bursts. There are too many political and cultural factors involved. Also, as employment prospects decline and remain dismal throughout our second "lost decade", I…
This assumption is a mix of broken societal wisdom and an association fallacy. FWIW, there's another fallacy committed when they themselves become unemployed; everyone else unemployed is a antisocial lunatic, but they…
True and depressing. I think one side effect of suburban alienation is that, because this geography thwarts organic friendships and also maintains social class barriers, people fall out of touch with people who are less…
It's my firm belief that the hottest rooms in hell will be saved for those who kick people when they're down.
I have been reading an unfortunately large amount of articles here on Hacker News seemingly deterring prospective students like myself from entering a university, especially from the field of Computer Science. They cite…
Motivation is tricky. Sometimes it's worth it to continue, and sometimes it's not. Only you can make this decision, but you have to listen to yourself and figure out what it is that's bugging you. If it's a transient…
Great point. A sad reality of the career game is that you win not by being most truthful, but by building a coherent story. My moral stance is this: "fudging" is okay-- if you were fired, turn it into a layoff-- as long…
No. First of all, a lot of startups still need to raise money. It may be cheaper now than in 1998 but it's still not cheap to pay 2-6 people for 6-24 months. And getting users and customers does not necessarily equal…
Renting in general (cars, housing) is one of those things that people want other people to do, but not for themselves, at least not on things they consider important. For example, if you rent textbooks, you give them up…
No. Poverty is overrated. It sounds like his argument for "poverty" is that investors micromanage and sink companies. The obvious solution is hands-off VC and more trust of entrepreneurs. In other words, we need to move…
This is a serious problem, even today, but the article seems to fail at addressing it. 1. The "nurturing" sort of work isn't inferior to the analytical style of work. Both are important. Raising children is one of the…
Surprising fact: most people like working. Many people hate being told what to do and when to do it, but people have a fundamental desire to work. Here's how to do basic income. Starting with 2010 GDP as a base, 50% of…
Right. All they have to do is sell their kids so that they need less space (cheaper housing) and don't need to spend money on education, and then "wing it" with regard to health insurance. "Just don't get sick" is great…
I will gladly work to destroy the bigoted and heartless sort of society that conservatives and so-called "libertarians" seek.
Depends on the kind of slavery. Slavery has been a fixture of most economies, with the degree of force and inflexibility variable across societies. In one phase of the Ottoman Empire, slaves could own land and armies...…
The Hacker News libertarians (who are, despite our shared nausea, far smarter and more reasonable than the right-wing of any other community, I'll note) believe they will be future technology "barons". Pretty much…
By definition, a person who is working only because he must will not get a fair wage. One side has leverage, one does not. So the worker gets screwed. The ideal society is one in which no one has to work but everybody…
We're not there yet, but our economy has been headed in that direction for the past 30 years. Michael Lind has termed it "Brazilianization", in reference to the inequality and corruption one sees in much of Latin…
You don't get to the leaderboard if your account is nuked. Survivor bias. Admittedly I've said things that are immature and stupid and that I regret. None of them merited the destruction of 2000+ karma account. Not a…
I don't think "fucking asshole" is much worse than "trophy kid". They're about comparable in terms of incivility.
I agree. Hacker News has a lot great people on it. Karma, however, is a joke because accounts are regularly nuked for no good reason, which necessitates starting over at zero. Hellbanning spammers and outright trolls…
I think a lot of the criticism of our generation and of job hopping is projection. The whining about entitled, self-centered young people sounds exactly like the complaints that were made of the Boomer generation in…
Job hopping is a touchy subject because young people don't like job hopping, as was discussed in those posts. They do it because, in today's corporate climate, they usually have to do it in order to prevent being…