isomorph

Where can I find out more about this community?

Thanks for this. I didn't notice myself falling into this wider pattern of behaviour. Kind of uplifting!

I suppose it's become an unfortunate header for any comments agreeing with the article. I've never had a comment "succeed" in this fashion before so I wasn't prepared for the decontextualisation. If I could write it again, I would simply write how my experience seems to back up the experience in the article, and miss out my angry meta-commentary.

I don't think it's "immoral" [your word] or "incorrect" [your word] to have a knee-jerk reaction. It's a fact of life. I see that my statement has landed on you as a critique of morality or some kind of discussion-suppressing wokeness, but that's really not what I wanted, so I apologise.

The phrase I used - "we can do better" - was not meant to mean "I think these replies are incorrect [your word] and immoral [your word]" but that we can do a better analysis. A DEEPER analysis which requires BOTH the knee-jerk dismissal and the interrogation of that dismissal. I don't think it's morally wrong but yes, it is depressing TO ME. I'm not saying other opinions should be banned. I'm not even saying those comments shouldn't have been posted. I guess I'm saying they should have been longer and more considered and frankly less rude!

OK, let me write up my engagement with the other comments. I do agree with the possibility of cultural differences being responsible for some of the things in the post. I also agree that to some extent the "negative mindset" criticism is in some way valid, because growing up poor DOES give you a negative mindset. But the essence of my comment was that really the substance of those comments was missing the main point. There's a 1500 word article there with someone's actual experiences - a valuable outside perspective on part of tech and corporate culture. Even if one doesn't relate to the article and think it's wrong, one can say "Hmm... this doesn't fit with my experience." leaving the door open to the fact that one hasn't experienced that particular life, rather than just further marginalising the author by acting as if they have just magically generated 1500 words of "wrong".

I'm complaining about what I wrote in the comment. It wasn't the top comment when I wrote it. That happened after I wrote it. It got a lot of upvotes so I guess people who agree with me were more comfortable upvoting/replying after I wrote it than commenting before me. Maybe because they knew that the comment would attract criticism like yours

I summarised a bunch of comments. If you have an issue with my summary you can critique it directly, just like you wanted me to do. To me they don’t look like differing opinions that have been thought through. They seem like kneejerk dismissals, which are against the HN rules.

That makes sense. Regarding your final sentence - I guess I felt that for me it’s been the other way round. I feel that in most HN discussions I had silently been empathetic and not demanded any level of empathy from anyone, and clearly that was not going to work in this instance.

Thanks for the considered reply. I don’t think it would be cold and I don’t think I would have such a visceral reaction. I think the offhand tone implies a kind of misplaced confidence and shutting down of conversation - almost contempt - which is not a good way to start a conversation.

Many of the comments on this article are so cold. I can’t believe it. When I read the original article I was imagining all the constructive ways HN readers would interpret it and hold a mirror up to their own behaviour. Some commenters are doing this. But it surprises and depresses me how many people are commenting saying “no, this list isn’t what it says it is, it’s a list showing the author has a negative mindset / is not from the Valley bubble, and that problem can be fixed by just getting over it.”. We can do better than that.

As someone who has sat at some interesting class and race intersections during my career in tech, including my time at some very prestigious institutions like the University of Cambridge and FAANG, and has exhibited and noticed many of the listed behaviours and the lack there of, I can say this article had the undeniable ring of truth and made me feel sick to my stomach. Guilty for when I’ve been on the rich side and angry for the times I’ve been on the poor side.

The psychology of growing up with financial uncertainty - and a risk of racial exclusion - is hard to shake and can be passed from parent to child. My life has mostly been financially blessed but you can’t buy your way out of the mindset, or snap your fingers / empty the cache / cycle the power the way the average HN commenter seems to think you can.

But it IS a list of what someone who grew up in poverty did

It was realistic enough to make them expect that their keyboard shortcut would close the window. It wasn't realistic enough to actually do that. So the visual UI was too realistic for them to not have that expectation, but the behaviour was not realistic enough for it to fulfil the expectation.

It was "too good" in the sense that it was realistic enough that they forgot they were in a simulation, and thought the terminal window was a real native macOS window

Wow this is a very interesting theory. Like a reverse conspiracy theory! How could we go about comparing the likelihoods?

This article makes me think that if you know what you’re doing, it doesn’t matter whether it’s through a screen or not. It makes sense based on my own low-stakes experience (socialising through screens)

Yes. I’m noticing that we seem to be having a decent discussion about divorce - the effects of divorce on children; how divorce after a long time is not the same as breaking up with a partner of just a few years; …

Huh. When I submitted this 11 hours ago it was flagged https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=27031515

Please can you explain more? I’m interested

I clicked on the YouCaring link but it took me to a 404 page that said it had been absorbed by GoFundMe. When I searched for “Vernon Adams” on GoFundMe I couldn’t find anything. Does anyone have the link? Has anyone successfully donated?

EDIT: I see the link is http://sansoxygen.com/

Wow, thanks for raising awareness about that. I see from the linked Wikipedia article that they finally issued an apology in November 2020.

I take it you haven’t read Small Fry

I submitted this to HN - sorry if it was premature. https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=26724522 I also tried to contact The Guardian (UK) about it today - will try again tomorrow.

See full discussion here https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=26724522

It’s Sean Parker.

I submitted this to HN but I am not the author of this article. I have contacted a journalist and will keep trying until someone can authenticate the story.

I’m impressed by this thing lifting cardboard boxes by sucking on the top of them. I’m surprised that it works at all, and that the top of the box doesn’t rip off

What do you mean?

“Dr Swan believes that the rapidly decreasing fertility rate means that most men will be unable to produce viable sperm by 2045.”

Like the wooden balls in Minority Report

This is the training undertaken by Black Cab (taxi) drivers in London. They memorise every street in London and have to be able to mentally direct from any location to any other. It is known to change the brain (https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3268356/)

I found this absolutely fascinating. The first scene alone, slowly zooming in on the chief examiner (an ex cop) in front of the map as he rattles off the definition of an “important place”, made my jaw drop, As this knowledge of all the streets of london gets less and less relevant because of ubiquitous GPS, I find myself (a Londoner) more drawn than ever to these “human computer”-like tasks.

Some amazing atmosphere from the 90s here. Race relations. Relations between the English and the Irish. Class differences. It’s all here. I was so happy to find this and hope someone else can enjoy it too.

That's interesting. What's your rating? I think I probably encounter it more in chess.com post-analysis of my games than in actual games. i.e. the computer says "you made X move, but you should have done Y!" where Y was capturing a pawn en passant.