WhompingWindows

Well, he certainly had a ton of help from other people to ensure he wasn't taking shots in the dark most of the time. He copied most of his best ideas from other sources, and point-blank refused to acknowledge Woz and Apple 2, publicly denigrating their work when it would've been SO easy to just give them a quick shout-out.

I'd consider this, at best, waiting by the goal for the puck to be passed so he can flick it in behind the goalie, and then being good at raising his arms in triumph. Did Gretzky wait for the assist, or was his brilliance that he himself could make tremendous opportunities and then flick it in as well? At least "visionaries" like Elon and Bill Gates coded up solutions themselves when they needed to.

In a tech world with dozens of "amazing leaders", is it possible that some of them just got lucky? They took some shots in the dark, some got lucky, some got unlucky: can it be that simple?

If Steve Jobs was coming up today, could he have owned leetcode and tech interviews, would he have gotten a CS degree, could he have succeeded in a start-up today? Could many of us here in tech now have done what he did?

My point is: Maybe we don't have to fetishize individual people so much. Maybe the conditions around them, the timing of their career, the timing of their personal viewpoint, was simply a set of lucky circumstances. Maybe there exist a few hundred individuals in any given time with the potential, and it takes that last bit of random chance to make them the famous one over the others.

You'd have to stick with vegetables and fruits, but even then there's debate over what is truly healthy. Is corn healthy? Is wheat healthy? Are carrots healthy? They're all plants after all, however... All three are high in carbohydrates and would be considered "unhealthy" from a keto-perspective.

The best bet here: don't listen to one source of information. There are literally thousands of experts on diet, health, and nutrition, no one of them is totally correct. Find what you can tolerate, what you can stick to; eat mostly plants, and not too much.

Marijuana needs to be reclassified off of Schedule I Status in the USA, so it can be more thoroughly studied. Schedule I category shouldn't include recreational drugs like marijuana, which has no overdose possibility and has limited withdrawal side-effects. This wrong classification, going back to ignorant viewpoints of the early-mid 1900's, has heavily limited our scientific understanding of marijuana's effects on health and society.

Imagine if we weren't allowed to study alcohol freely, if we had to jump through a dozen hoops to become qualified to do one of the few alcohol studies. We might not have so much knowledge about alcohol's toxic effects, and we might not have the current picture of "Marijuana is slightly healthier than alcohol" if Marijuana had been as thoroughly studied.

I've been in data analysis for a few years -- grew from scientific research in SAS with zero VCS, into programming and data analysis in R and STATA, still no VCS for a while...eventually I was allowed to use Github after I left my restrictive hospital research space. No one ever sat me down and trained me on Git, though. I just heard repeatedly: if you're not using Git, you're missing out on a huge set of important software-creation tools, you shouldn't be coding without VCS.

Why did this happen? Imagine it's this data analysts' first year out of school, something like a crappy statistics program that only teaches SAS or base-R with no VCS. This young padawan needs to practice analysis in preparation for a work project. They grab some data and stash it in a folder where Git is tracking. They do their analysis practice, it's Friday afternoon, they get lazy, they don't look at what they're committing, and they click buttons in the GUI without much thought.

It's incompetence and laziness, not malice. These tools that allow us to share widely, not just GH but also social media broadly: these tools have great power that should be used with greater training, responsibility, and care.

There's a lot happening here, what a wide ranging post! Thanks for stimulating the mind.

I'd separate aging research from attempting to solve Alzheimers, PD, cancer, and other maladies. Cancer is ever-present, sorry to say but most people who read this have some small amount of latent cancer growing slowly. Maybe we will harness the immune system and new powerful drugs and techniques to remove cancer more and more effectively, until it becomes like infectious disease: a threat to all, but usually treat-able.

For aging research, however, we're in a different realm. Assuming someone didn't die from any common malady or old-age related ones, let's say they live to 105. What's likely to kill them then? Well, it could still be cancer, but it could also be solve-able issues like falling and breaking a hip (we could invent machines to prevent or lessen damage from falls). It could be cardiac events, strokes, things where the cardiovascular system has been through so many "duty cycles" that the parts reach their expiration date.

And this expiration date is where I think we'll struggle most. We need to make our hardware last much, much longer if we're to achieve immortality as biological-only entities. The valves of our heart, the vessels of our brain and heart, the operation of the lungs, the sensory organs, the kidneys and bowels: these parts need a lot of extra "lubrication" and "TLC" over our lifetimes if we're to get past the "Age Limit" which is probably around 120 years old.

I'd hesitate to put too much stock into aging research at present. It's in its infancy, and until it ages to maturity, it's going to be an over-hyped area for rich people to dabble in, but I doubt 99% of people living now will ever reach escape-velocity and reach immortality.

Click bait from all content producers exists to waste our time. The one goal of clickbait is to get you to click so their ads load and they make a few cents.

Has anyone seen this trend on YT recently? The videos are much shorter and much more click-baity. I do worry that it's pushing our attentions down down to the lowest common denominator, which seems to be 30-60 seconds.

Came here to suggest Bill Bryson's Short History of Everything. It covers a lot of less top-of-mind concepts, like he delves into air-balloons, artificial cloud making, moss collections, geological history, botany, and all manner of fields.

This title is pretty click-baity in my opinion. Why doesn't the title contain the words "soybean oil"? It seems bizarre to use the words "most widely consumed cooking oil" without mentioning which one.

And referring to changes in gene expression as "genetic changes" kind of fear-mongers, given most things we eat lead to "genetic changes" in our bodies...everything we eat is processed by proteins which are regulated by gene expression.

It seems highly improbable we won't have society in 2050. We're currently in 2022, we've existed alongside nuclear weaponry for 75 years, I doubt the next 28 will see annihilation but I do dread the small chance (maybe 5-10%)?

So other than nuclear apocalypse, I fail to see what could remove society by 2050? Climate Change's worst effects will not be seen by 2050, they'll be very bad but they won't destroy society in all places, just hamper its economy and lower societal living standards.

I thought about teaching as a career. I'm passionate about science and math, I'm great with kids, I'm a decent teacher...but the stress was insanely high for the compensation and benefits. I was doing entry-level assistant work at age 22-25 to see if I liked teaching, getting paid $20k a year with no benefits to mostly deal with the 10% who are crazy bad kids every day...not worth it.

One example, I had an 8th grader jump on a desk and scream "I LOVE TACOS" repeatedly. I told him to get down and be quiet, we're trying to learn about robotics. He then called me a racist (because I'm white and I don't love tacos? I do though). I talked to him after class, turns out his family life was in chaos and he needed help at home.

Define "successful career in tech" for yourself, then ask if that is what you're doing.

For me, I want to put my attention onto helping others, in this case by using computers, data, and statistics. I also put attention onto playing music for others, listening to their problems, and cooking for them. There's no need to one-up anyone if your goal is simply to help others.

And btw, it's not bad to spend attention on yourself, it's good to improve your fitness, nutrition, sleep, quality of life, and your own satisfaction and joy. There's nothing wrong with a Giver Giving to Themselves, which will enhance their overall health + giving abilities.

Death by a thousand paper cuts. As an example, the local breakfast shop. The owner claimed he couldn't find cheap employees anymore, they all left to sit at home on unemployment (his words, not mine). He also bemoaned the additional time for sanitizing everything. I saw his quality of food go down, and he didn't transition back to using real utensils (this is a major downside for me, thin plastic cutlery stinks).

Further, they didn't adapt digitally to the take-out heavy model. The prices went up across the board, too. You get a worse meal for 10% more than you used to get a good meal.

A multivariate model of all the inputs would show that many variables matter. They're losing demand, they're paying more for inputs, they're not able to get employees, rough spiral to be in.

There have been language games since the dawn of time. Our very human speech evolved to allow us to discuss other humans, to gossip, to chat, to play social games like conversation, debate, acting, humor, rapping. Language has been and always will be full of games.

This is Reddit...this is the Internet...what percentage of these "people" are actually individual humans writing their own beliefs?

I think this is poorly argued by the author.

"Now that even the poor can afford material goods, let’s denigrate goods while highlighting the remaining luxuries that only the affluent can enjoy and show off to their friends."

The author turns to classism, claiming that experience-ism is some Rich person's luxury to put down the poor...this sentence comes across as assuming rich people delight in the misfortune of the poor. Further, he casts aside the obvious environmental degradation that the acquisition of things causes, claiming somehow that experiences are all heavily lush and use tons of resources.

"The advocates of the new minimalism are, by and large, urban dwellers..." Where is the evidence for this? He's just pulling this out of a hat.

Furthermore, he blurs the lines between experiences and things so far to make his entire argument banal. If, as he claims, things lead to experiences, and they're not mutually exclusive, then there's no counter-argument...all experience-ists are actually thing-lovers in disguise, because experiences rely on things to occur. This is like saying "everything is a thing, so experiences are a thing, check-mate".

To me, the author decided on the clickbait title, then wrote a few meager, one-sided points which don't hold water.

Pressure treated wood: I see this as an essential material in modern building. Our own house used non-pressure-treated, regular boards for the sill (the walls attach to these sill boards, which are directly on top of the poured foundation, which had moisture seeping in). We got ants and termites who loved this damp wood, and they turned it to shreds in just 40 years. Will pressure treated wood last for 1000 years? I have no idea, but regular ole' wood didn't last 50 in our case.

My Own Addition:

14. Those who code for a living make good money.

I have a lot of friends who went into various fields, and it seems relative to the number of buttons we press daily, anyone who works on software makes great money. We didn't spend a ton of $ to go to medical school and 3 years of residency. We didn't go to law school and take the bar. Most of us went to 4 years, or less, of school, and here we are making great money by utilizing the greatest tool of all time: the computer.

It's uncomfortable because many of us didn't understand this going in. We liked computers for a long time, we had a penchant for working with them, and it turned out that made us great money. Meanwhile, our friends who are teachers, firefighters, child-care workers, etc. are doing tough work daily for less pay, perhaps simply because they didn't use computers much or didn't like them. And yet, their jobs are ESSENTIAL and we need people to do them even though they're grueling and underpaid.

Depending on the definition of colonizing, however. Does sending 100 scientists there count as exploration or colonization? I'd be in favor because the discoveries they'd make about the history of life on Mars would radically weaken mythological stories of religion, it'd be a death-blow that would advance Enlightenment another notch, after the work of Copernicus, Galileo, Kepler, Newton, and Einstein.

It's not procreation that's our sole purpose on Earth, however. Yes, Darwinian evolution posits that ability to procreate successfully shaped every species. However, I'd argue due to our consciousness, our ability to generate culture via language and history and tradition, our ability to manipulate the environment via tools and learning, these move beyond Darwinian evolution. Our culture and language and toolsets are extremely powerful and wonderful collective objects that are worth preserving and cultivating evermore.

Just ask yourself, wouldn't it be a shame if there was no one around to listen to Beethoven or Mozart, to look at Monet or Van Gogh Paintings, or to appreciate the sound of poetry or the movement of a dancer? I think denying that humans are social beings in a massive social network is easy, that way nothing we do really "matters" to the universe, even though it matters intensely to other humans.

You believe there's nothing worth preserving in human civilization, that's there no purpose to anything humanity does? I'd argue we are biological beings with consciousness, we have the capability of experiencing wonderful things. As our ancestors did before us, isn't on us to keep the ball rolling, to allow future descendants to experience the joys of life and thought?

There's no reason to boil these creatures alive. Insert the knife into one key brain region and it's lights out, no more suffering instantly. Chefs can take 3 seconds to end their life with mercy, or they can throw a living creature into boiling water.

I was diagnosed by both my PCP MD and a psychiatrist. Do you think you're more qualified than they are? Have you clinically interviewed me?

Well friend, I'm sorry to say your comments were hurtful to me. Do you really think an internet comment I scribbled out in 2 minutes is enough to un-diagnose me? Do you think someone diagnosed with depression by both an MD and a psychiatrist doesn't know the difference between sadness and a disorder?

First, I didn't mention COVID lockdown, this relationship and job occurred in the mid 2010's, long before COVID.

Second, depression is a family illness on both sides for me. I experienced a lot of bad times, went to an MD and a psychiatrist, both of whom diagnosed me with mild depression. I wasn't a severe case, maybe you're conflating mild depression vs. severe depression.

My friend, just take a deep breath and ask yourself: have you clinically interviewed me? Are you a psychiatrist? If not, you really can't say whether or not I have had depression or not, you have no data to make any claims.

In my opinion, the main crux is this: there are moneyed interests who are motivated to generate mistrust and otherization based on political parties. In the USA, Fox News has a strong incentive to inspire hatred and fear of Democratic policy, and MSNBC has a strong incentive to inspire hatred of the GOP. The same is true for Twitter, FB, NYT, WSJ, WaPo, literally any media outlet. Hatred, fear, outrage, worry, anxiety: they all drive viewers to advertisements.

One major example, these media groups facilitated making a huge rift on climate change belief. The fossil fuel industry saw in the GOP, and some moderate Dems like Manchin, an opportunity to create doubt and slow the transition off their fossil fuel products. Now, the GOP has leaned into anti-scientist, anti-elitist sentiment, fed by Fox News and others. They're not totally anti-science, they still use abortion science, ivermectin science, and all the wonders of modern life...but they ARE anti-scientist, anti-elitist, anti-university.

And Why? We're hating each other so media companies can make a few measly cents.

I think you should clarify that Ivermectin works better in higher-worm-prevalence areas. It's not remotely true that 10% of Americans have undetected worms. The praised study in the post highlights 12.5% as "high" prevalence, so 10% would be nearly high -- not true in the developed world.

You state "let real estate developers build housing. Full Stop."

Using your car example, if we allowed auto-makers to do anything they wanted, FULL STOP, well...fuel standards would be much lower and we'd have even more work to do on carbon emissions. Furthermore, when you look at most of the massive cars built today, the majority of trips will have on average maybe 1.2-1.5 people in it. Most people choose their cars selfishly, with little regard for local emissions, asthma, emphysema, or the broader climate.

Should automakers be making these huge cars, unregulated and unfettered? Wouldn't it be better for the untold billions of people not yet living, if we put into place guidelines and rules to limit the inefficiency of laissez-faire vehicle production?

Now, let's think of housing. Does it make sense in San Fran to build more single-family homes, when the footprint of where houses can be built is so limited? Or, does it make sense to have 3-5 family units, allowing less-rich or less fortunate individuals to still buy in to the market? Will the developers that you're "just letting" do whatever they want build these more useful domiciles? Or will they build luxury homes for the rich with higher profits based on higher prices?

I think individuals owning pieces of the city is a luxury. It makes more sense to me to have 3-5 family units, or small condo or townhouse buildings. Will those be built by the laissez-faire free market? The outlook is not good.

99% of the time I use corded headphones, it doesn't matter that they're corded. They are simply better in every respect outside of the cord. I've owned at least 5 pairs of mid-range headphones, I loved my Sony studio monitor headphones so much that I bought a second pair. I also bought some DT 770 pro headphones recently and I am enjoying those quite a lot.

I was depressed for years due to two things: a bad relationship and bad jobs.

Once I moved on from the hoarder ex with 3 un-treated mental health problems, whose clothes literally covered the entire bedroom, floor and bed and all surfaces, well damn: I was a lot less depressed! Imagine a 1500 sqft apartment where 90% of the possessions are not yours, where if you see a piece of her garbage and toss it out, she'll get mad at you, even if it's a rotting, blackened orange peel. This sort of toxic relationship has to end, do not cling, do not "care for them" if they refuse professional help. This will sap your energy, it will sap your life, and you'll become depressed, unable to muster the energy to "fix" them or to leave the relationship. It was only when she went away for 3 months one summer, and I was marvelously not depressed and I didn't miss her one jot, I knew it had to end when she returned.

On top of that, I was in high-stress teaching jobs, $11/hr with no benefits in inner-city schools: this was important and impactful work, but brutal on the self. We actually got called racists by a very rowdy student, who wasn't allowed to jump on the desk and scream "I LOVE TACOS!" I'm not kidding, he called us racist for not allowing that. Never-mind the constant fights, religious students telling me science is fake, or having 35 kids in a tiny classroom. Teaching is a very important and undervalued field.

Once I actually got a $30/hr job with benefits and gained my freedom from toxic relations, suddenly I was the happiest I'd ever been. Add onto that, being in a relationship with a good match, with someone who had no undiagnosed/untreated mental health problems.

Where is the line between objective science and subjective science? Is the work truly science if it is funded and heavily motivated by industry to increase the industry's profits? Or is it advertising and marketing masquerading as science, cloaking itself in claims of objectivity, when only we educated folk know to follow the money and the affiliations?

If science is a set of methods and tools to discover truth, it does make sense that there are self-interested "parasites" which feed off this reputation for their own ends. Sadly, it does seem these parasites are bad for us: smoking, sugar, hydroxychloroquine, ivermectin, low-fat diet lies, not to mention cottage industries of fake internet reviews, bots, trolls, paid shills, who go on forums and social media to sell their snake oil.