longtimegoogler

Jesus. That was kind of tone deaf. Not everyone laid off is an Engineering Director who has worked at Google for 18 years. That guy probably could have retired years ago. There are many who were laid off for whom that isn't true.

My child studied the Yamaha music program which starts at age 4 or 5 and emphasizes singing everything using fixed do solfege similar to Suzuki but with group classes

They developed white key absolute pitch meaning they can recognize any natural tone by ear and can sing any pitch from memory.

Many of the students developed some form of absolute pitch.

However, I am not sure the utility of the skill. I am into jazz and tried to teach them some improvisation and they never showed a great aptitude or interest for it and they also struggle with relative pitch tasks, essentially converting the notes they recognize into the interval.

In short, I came to the conclusion that absolute pitch recognition by itself won't make you a great musician.

Strong disagree. Getting into a top University is hard but once you are there matriculating isn't. In fact many of these institutions suffer from grade inflation.

I don't think an equivalent GPA at a more prestigious school signals anything of the sort. In fact many more prestigious institutions grade fairly leniently on the assumption that their students are already ahead of the curve.

The few exceptions are at places like Berkeley where they accept a large number of students.

It's one of the reasons that I think eliminating standardized tests for admission to graduate institutions may be a mistake.

Same. I have never met this proverbial rest and vest guy making 7 figures. Most everyone I know is scrambling to survive the performance reviews and get to the next level.

And if your productivity is very low you will get put on an improve or out plan.

I'm not sure how much that reflects general attitudes. That show is also set in Shinjuku which I believe houses a lot of strip clubs and other similar activites.

These days we seem to be obsessed with tearing down any successful institution.

I am skeptical that redistributing endowments will have a large net positive impact.

That said, I never attended an "elite" institution and have lamented that they are so revered in our society. The German system of higher education where schools are relatively inexpensive and similar in quality seems to incentivize students to attend in order to learn something whereas the main incentive for attending an elite institution is to open doors to high paying careers.

It's the same at SpaceX. Everyone I know who has worked there said the pay sucks and the hours are long and the only reason to do it is a passion for the industry.

Musk seems to be modeling his companies on the video gaming industry.

Robin hood.

One downside to Bridge is that it is a much less visual game than Go and Chess.

Personally, that is what drew me to the other two games.

Yes it can.

Verbal abuse can be as damaging to people as physical violence.

If you go up to someone and call them a slur, then you have committed verbal assault:

"the use of offensive language directed at a person, where such language is likely to provoke a reasonable person to physical violence."

As an ethnic Jew, pure un-moderated free speech is a frightening prospect for me.

I can't wait for twitter to become another Parler or 4-chan filled with hateful content.

As someone impacted by this kind of speech, I don't see how this is any different than yelling fire in a crowded theater.

We are essentially normalizing ideas that will lead to violence and oppression of certain groups.

Well argued and I agree completely.

Yup. THat's what I was going to say. There data suggests that everyone kind of estimates their ability similarly so that more skilled people underestimate there ability (impostor's syndrome) and less skilled people overestimate the their abilities.

And on the right, Fox let go some of longtime staffers who were not sympathetic to the networks coverage of the 2020 elections.

ESPN fired Jemele Hill for calling Trump a white supremacist.

If you want to claim that the NY Times is left-leaning than I would agree. It's a newspaper in one of the most liberal cities in the country. Its ethos are probably more reflective of that than any elite orthodoxy.

It's funny that you are being downvoted and that HN thinks mainstream media is a bigger problem than Qanon.

I would say it jumps to unsupported conclusions. It is true that few companies own most of the mainstream media produced in this country.

As someone else who worked at one of these companies stated, that these companies are just pedaling propaganda to serve elites or oligarchs needs much more evidence to substantiate such claims.

Most of these are public companies whose primary motives are just to make a profit.

These companies have millions of employees with diverse opinions and diverse sources of content production.

So, I think the article oversteps its claims that the mdeia in this country just serves the interest of some set of elites.

Agree, but it doesn't fit the narrative.

The article doesn't really show how this situation has evolved over time. Before cable didn't we essentially only have CBS, NBC, and ABC?

When I see other sources like OANN, or the disinformation being peddled from some corners, I am not sure what is a better alternative.

These media companies also employ a large number of people with diverse opinions. To suggest that a small group of elites are controlling the output of these companies is far fetched.

For some reason, a certain segment of Americans, have lost trust in these institutions that have been there all along. I fear the alternative.

Amazon...

One's opinion on this probably depends on identity and political views.

From what I understand, Trump blocked the National Guard from supporting officers during the Capitol insurrection, so it was supported by the President at the very least.

Preventing the certification of Biden is a more grave threat to our democracy than the BLM protestors in cities like Portland, IMO.

Mainly since White Americans are still the majority and by and large supporters of the right, I don't see movements like BLM gaining much power.

The question is who is the mob. I fear the crazies much more who stormed the capital and tried to overthrow our democracy than some online SJWs who are going to try and cancel someone for having an unpopular opinion.

Not that either are great, for instance I didn't find Damore's opinions outlandish although expressed poorly.

Any evidence of this claim? It hasn't been my experience. For instance, I believe that politeness is more valued in Asian countries like Japan and Korea and I would disagree with your assertion.

Anecdotally, I've found Russians to be the frankest and corruption is rampant there, so I am not sure what the basis of your assertion is.

Politeness is about respecting others. You can communicate difficult things while still being polite.

I've long thought the same. I've often thought that the University system in Europe, in particular Germany, is a much better model for higher education.

From what I gather, admissions is entirely merit based there and money isn't an issue.

It isn't just the Ivies that cater to the rich and elite. Many other private universities also do so and promise alumni connections and wealth, think Vanderbilt, Williams, etc.

Even when I was applying to colleges as an undergrad I found it a bit off-putting and instead only applied to public universities.

That site is a shit show. Do you have a better source?

It's not that odd if you consider that Germany is a democracy and Russia is a dictatorship with a history of poisoning dissenters.

Read the story about this mathematician who has been sentenced to prison for 6 years in Russia. https://meduza.io/en/feature/2021/01/22/imprisoned-for-his-e...

At some point, we have to use some sort of priors to evaluate the truth of claims from various sources.

That's why right wing topics dominate on twitter and Facebook by a large margin.

It couldn't be that the "tech cartel" is concerned about a specific subset of speech designed to insight violence.

Your narrative is so false, it isn't even funny.

The most liked and tweeted content on Twitter and Facebook skews heavily towards the right.

Fox news is the most watched news show in this country.

Your spin on the whole situation is a gross distortion of what is happening.

It's real in some cases, but for many it isn't. Many of my friends are decently well off, own a home, with good jobs and support Trump. These people support him because they don't like paying taxes, immigration, BLM, wokeism, etc.

I am sympathetic to those who have been impacted economically. But, many of those who are despairing do end up blaming "outsiders" for their problems.