goodroot

Ayahuasca changed my life and banished two decades of born-into depression. I have seen dozens of people transform thanks to this medicine. I've seen similar, incredible transformations from Psilocybin. Daily meditation keeps me in balance and singing tunes of contentedness. They're out there!

You can always, always get better. The brain is plastic. The spirit is fearless.

With that being said, IBM isn't a successful technology company with a proven record building good software products. They were an unwise choice from the get-go. IBM is a successful financial engineering and sales firm that sells things, then scrambles to hire/acquires to get things done to an ever-evolving, always justifiably rough spec. They quack and then start the hack-show.

What do you expect from the organization that invented "FUD" (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fear,_uncertainty_and_doubt) as a way to emotionally manipulate perspective clients into making a purchasing decision?

Back to your point, though, I think that the mark of an effective essay on the Internet is whether or not it drums up interesting conversation. This one has.

...

> Then the book became a best-selling sensation. Brinkmann now lives the life of a successful European public intellectual, appearing on TV and radio and travelling the world to lecture “on the big questions of modern life.”

...

I agree with the sentiment of the article. I find it interesting from a meta-analytical perspective, too. As the above quotations demonstrate, even when aware of the sinister, deep nature of the hamster wheel, the author perpetuates their own forebodings. The pattern is being unable to see value or usefulness without highlighting the material end; do we want to stoke the fires to encourage more of the same under a different brand?

There's some reference to the Stoics, aye. That's a good place to start. I'd suggest this book: The Guide to the Good Life: The Ancient Art of Stoic Joy (https://www.amazon.ca/Guide-Good-Life-Ancient-Stoic/dp/01953...)

One of the secrets the Stoics have uncovered, I believe, is to practice will-power so that we can identify and resist craving. Simply saying "stop it", or "re-think the system" undermines the reality that billions upon billions of dollars and our smartest minds are, at this very second, applying our most advanced technologies to further expand this soul-less, insatiable machine which we've created.

This is leveraging Ethereum, to create a currency, to address a market need: photographers getting appropriate renumeration and accreditation for their work.

Picture this: you snap a photo, its hash is on a decentralized public record. If someone uses this photo, you're aware of it and can be rewarded/credited appropriately.

We can scoff at the blockchain-ization of all these applications, or realize that they really do have far-reaching implications. Whether the investors are patient enough to wait for the benefit to become actualized, though, is a whole 'nother matter.

If the transaction is on an immutable public record, the authority couldn't say: "Well, no you didn't pay us. Pay us again, or we'll steal your dog."

If you live somewhere where Government/Corporation are out of control, this sort of safe guard has major benefit.

It may be the case that the fundamental, key, killer features of the blockchain have lost their initial lustre to many people, and I understand that. But decentralization and verifiable, consistent truth are a really, really big deal.

There are applications with promise, large promise. Killer apps? Maybe. They will arrive, it's more "which of these" and not "whether these":

* https://ambrosus.com:

"At the Ambrosus project we aim to radically improve the global supply chains by creating a trusted ecosystem where we can reliably record the entire history of products and execute commercial transactions accordingly."

* http://www.augur.net:

Prediction markets -- fascinating stuff with major potential.

* https://qz.com/1163660/brazil-may-write-new-laws-based-on-da...

Brazil experimenting with laws/petitions on the blockchain

... There are many amazing use-cases.

The reason this YC article was published is because there is a great demand for blockchain from investors.

Ignore it or doubt it at your own peril!

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Under the prototype, users interact with the charging station by agreeing to a smart contract that is programmed on top of the Ethereum network. Prior to charging, the user makes a deposit on the network, which is later released after the transaction is complete.

The main difference is that instead of users being billed for the amount of time that they are connected to charging station–i.e. the way most stations work today–users pay only for the amount of electricity consumed during the charging process. The hope is that both the cost of the micro-transactions, and the allocation and consumption of electricity, will be made more efficient and ultimately save money.

In addition, the blockchain plus smart contracts has the potential to streamline the process of purchasing power from a charging station. In theory, this can take place directly with the machine (charging station) and not require prior contact with the providing company or a human representative.

You might want to check this page out:

https://www.stateofthedapps.com

There are 938 projects listed that leverage Ethereum/Solidity.

One of my personal favourites is: https://colony.io. The whitepaper is a fun read.

I feel like this is more of a feature than a bug. If you're weaving applications into the blockchain, would it really be wise to have that chain communicate with abstract data off of the chain itself? Seems an unnecessary burden for the chain to bare!

Great article. I've recently gotten into Ethereum Dev and Solidity. It's really fun, fun stuff. This isn't directly addressed in the Ethereum portion of the article, but it's good to keep in mind that these things are all works in progress. Limitations today are non-such tomorrow; we don't quite know where the train is headed.

You, Developer, can help it get to wherever you feel it needs to go. Remember that before deciding not to contribute. :)

It should answer your question, in similar spirits to that of this article. Thank you for reading and I wish you well.

However, if we're going to green wash (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Greenwashing) a cryptocurrency, we need to focus on more than power consumption.

Given that power is getting cheaper and cleaner through solar[1, 2], this is asking people to further accumulate more waste and precious metals in the form of fixed drives. This is not eco-friendly and it's dubious to assert such.

[1] https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2016-06-22/solar-pow... [2] https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2017-01-03/for-cheap...

* A Guide to the Good Life: The Ancient Art of Stoic Joy: Taught me much about myself and reinforced a healthy pattern of practicing will power.

* The End of Your World: After discovering spirituality and meditation I had lingering questions. This is a frank book on the trappings of the spiritual journey. The break-down of abiding vs. un-abiding enlightenment helped me navigate through fascinating times.

Oh, my. This sentence gave me a real chuckle. But, then, I reflected. We're in for some interesting times. If the heuristic is whether not a robot is "more efficient" than a human then human's are going to be in short demand.

We should use our reasoning ability to overcome negative emotions. We should also use our reasoning ability to master our desires, to the extent that it is possible to do so. In particular, we should use reason to convince ourselves that things such as fame and fortune aren’t worth having—not, at any rate, if what we seek is tranquility—and therefore aren’t worth pursuing. Likewise, we should use our reasoning ability to convince ourselves that even though certain activities are pleasurable, engaging in those activities will disrupt our tranquility, and the tranquility lost will outweigh the pleasure gained.

The idea of practicing will-power, learning to decline known-pleasurable outcomes as a form of practice, is a well tested idea in stoic philosophy. The practice seems to suggest that there is an energetic ebb and flow of indulgence that can be countered by refining one's ability to reason.

Many lovely candidates came to us because of the process. One of them laughed at resumes as being a form of ritualized lying.

Neat project, but I shrug my shoulders at 'the resume'.

I am thrown a bit, though, by this concept:

Rather than centralised ownership and hierarchical management, smart contracts distribute ownership according to the value each individual contributes, and influence emerges from the bottom up through systematic peer review of contributed work.

Systematic peer reviewal...

Further into whitepaper:

Reputation losses can arise from a user being found responsible for a badly executed task, or being involved in the dispute process and the dispute being resolved against them. In addition, all reputation earned by users is exposed to a continual decay over time.

Meritocracy is an interesting concept. It's supposed to represent a system of advancement based on individual ability. It might work in a pre-existing system: earn points within this domain wherein the outcomes are known and points are awarded based on their complexities. Tetris leaderboards are meritocratic.

Will this approach ever work with conceptual knowledge? There is still a subjective hierarchy of trust and non-binary interpretation; given how much one would need to have their ego in-check to perform evaluations in a merit-based way, that's where I see the concept start to shake at the knees.

An alternative angle is this:

If you're an addict and you get withdrawal symptoms, having more of your substance does not alleviate your addition. The symptom of withdrawal, not having the phone, generates anxiety. By increasing the time that you're connected and removing natural/forced break periods, you're raising the threshold that you need to maintain to not feel anxious. In doing so, you've created a situation where it will be harder to make break time and when you do, it'll feel worse.

Here's an excerpt, link at the bottom, of one of an increasing number of studies that describe the negative health impact of communication technology dependency:

> The results indicate that depression, anxiety, and sleep quality may be associated with smartphone overuse. Such overuse may lead to depression and/or anxiety, which can in turn result in sleep problems. University students with high depression and anxiety scores should be carefully monitored for smartphone addiction.

Yet, we want to sell everyone smart-watches so that they'll never miss a beat...

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/26132913

Apple Watch Series 3 with cellular networking completely alleviates this anxiety. It is not a replacement for a phone, and is not supposed to be. But it lets you leave your phone at home when you go for a run, or in your locker while you’re at the gym, or in your hotel while you go to the beach, and not worry in the least that you’re out of touch.

It alleviates the anxiety of leaving your phone at home by... further conditioning your dependence on interconnectivity? Blind logic is the dark-side of the reality distortion field.

Applied differently: To help me with my alcoholism, I leave my 40oz at the hotel or in my locker-room. Now, I just sip on it from a smaller container filled with liquor that I keep on my wrist.

If your phone generates anxiety, fix the issue.

> Among teenagers now, "there is a feeling you're getting of, 'Wow, the world is pretty serious, so why would I rush to immerse myself. . .Why don't I stay with my friends and away from anything that has heavy consequences, like pregnancy or sexually-transmitted diseases?'"

Sex is joyful. If you have sex safely, there is a very low risk of consequences, let alone heavy or lasting ones. I felt that interconnectivity and 'bar-lowering' by applications like Tinder would increase the level of frivolous sexual activity, not decrease it. My inner hedonism-bot is disappointed.

As someone who writes content aimed at developers, I'm concerned about the generalized sentiment this creates towards technical content marketing. I stopped coding years ago and started trying to lead teams and figure out how to make businesses grow; quality marketing is a way to do that. In the HackerNews bubble, that's viewed as a step 'down the ladder'.

I think it's important to make a distinction; is the issue that they marketed well or that their product didn't match their marketing? It's the latter -- any company that hopes to succeed in the uber-competitive, fast-moving technical world needs marketing.

If we're making a fancy tool and I write a quality guide demonstrating how you can do "us" 'the ol' fashioned way' in an effort to demonstrate our value, is that wrong? How else am I to do it? You simply won't come if I don't tantalize you.

Digital Ocean had a brilliant content strategy; incentivize users to write tutorials that would bring people to try those tutorials out on their droplets. I hope we don't dismiss technical marketing as evil. Technical marketing can be valuable and be written with care and integrity.

If you use a catchall, create an address for that service. It it does something you don't like, cancel later.

Can you share the circumstance that you're mulling over? Good paycheque, ambiguous plan?

I'm curious about how one would be associated with a particular chip. I understand that key strokes can be logged, TCP/IP can be read; you can be scraped, but ultimately how is their backdoor aware of you so that it doesn't appear to them like needle in a stack of needles. A fascinating and revolting technical conundrum.

It was a delight to get a peek behind the curtain. :)