lusus_naturae

Friendly advice, if you’re looking for a co-founder, please don’t start with a depressive laundry list of your baggage while suggesting a risky venture.

We’re all human, and have our issues. But your post does not make you come off as a professional or technically capable or reliable business partner. I don’t mean to be harsh, but just some candid feedback.

My suggestion is to take some time off to assess if you don’t have burnout.

That said, you were smart enough to get into medical school, and are a practicing doctor from what I can tell. My suggestion is to keep the stable income from your current job flowing, while working on your startup as a side project. It would make the most sense to jump over full time when you have something solid.

You can even use part of your current income to hire one full time software developer to work on something for you. Make sure you have a solid NDA or contract so they don’t steal any of your IP.

Sorry if anything I said made you feel bad, that wasn’t my intent.

Because of anti-DEI sentiments, the perception is that minorities are getting everything easily, so the minorities do more to prove themselves

Someone would hate that I’d say this, but it really depends if you’re white vs. a minority. Minorities need more education AND experience to justify their employment.

I read through this person’s post and the related, recent presentation which was rejected. I don’t understand why they’re bringing up this topic in hacker circles, in particular. Do they have evidence that these traits are more prevalent in hacker circles? Why this community in particular? Are they also trying to give similar presentations at JP Morgan or something similar?

I don’t disagree with their overall goal of bringing awareness to this issue, but I think they need to focus more on the behavioral science and how it impacts society at large. Trying to insert oneself into places with topics that seem “out of place” seems to indicate that perhaps you’re saying that that organization has an issue.

One more thing to note, people who come in with ideas of “empathy” or “altruism” in unrelated spaces may perhaps be trying to build a following, or recruit others to a cause.

I am not saying this presenter has a cause for which they’re looking for particular personality types, but that’s exactly how cult leaders build a following.

Cult leaders often seek out people sensitive to traumatic events or who’ve been traumatized themselves. Once cult leaders have some recruits, further recruitment is left to the initial people who joined.

Perhaps a pithy statement, but it’s almost always MBAs as CEOs or leadership who seem to set a wayward course for tech companies

I am unsure what to trust about the knowledge of this essayist if they don’t even mention Le Rat or Jesuit missionary work in the New world.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kondiaronk

Apologies if I missed these references in the article, I found that the essayist was confused about the actual roots of the myth. Rousseau comes at least 200 years later.

> The question has therefore been which subsets of the elite would break Republican. In tech, this is now clear: where Obama’s allies in the industry were social media platform moguls, Trump’s are crypto, AI, and biotech investors eager to accelerate America into a new Golden Age of innovation.

Robber barons without failure will always want to see themselves as bastions of intellectual progress and innovation. I think an objective approach to answer whether such personalities really bring forth what they promise is to look at the overall results of their labor. A very superficial example is that no country with an appreciable influence of such people has ever been voted high in the happiness index: https://worldpopulationreview.com/country-rankings/happiest-...

Perhaps, an interesting experiment would be for such robber barrons to try to utilize their great influence and intellect to teach those poor mongrels in high happiness countries all about innovation and technological progress.

Nope, plenty of mediocre people doing great based on nothing but virtue of where they were born or their parents. It’s all luck. Don’t believe me? Imagine what your life would be like if you didn’t get the key moments in your life which defined them. Would you fundamentally be doing the same thing? It’s hard for most people to answer this honestly. For poor people who made it: be honest about what gave you the opportunity to work hard or whatever. It’s probably the fact that you had parents or other support structure to uphold you when you were vulnerable.

Many such people who are entrepreneurs etc. right now would be in the service industry if not for their luck. That’s the only difference between most people, simply luck. That said, I have such admiration and respect for those who truly overcome odds to slowly or otherwise make it despite their bad luck. It’s hard to stop lying to each other about ideals of meritocracy or whatever because everyone has a self image and narrative they prefer about themselves or society. But do you really think that someone else who had your life wouldn’t have done the same as or better than you? Why do you think they’d be worse if you do? Cognitive biases are tricky, I wish people would stop lying to each other and themselves as that might perhaps make for a social environment which is optimal for most people’s self determination

Is there a study which has shown a decrease in Dunning-Kruger effect with varying competence over time? If the effect is real, then you’d see more accurate self-assessments with increasing competence.

I also think these self-assessment vs actual performance studies don’t control for post-assessment cognitive stress. Stress almost always impairs judgment, and I wonder if asking for a self-assessment on the day of the exam and sometime after the exam would show a difference. If stress is a factor for self-assessment, then both high and low performers will score themselves more accurately given more time after a test.

Looking at the study design of this paper, I am not sure how the authors themselves would assess its strength for the kind of broad claim they’re making…And we’ve already seen many studies on this type of claim, so I am confused why the authors didn’t ask the “next step” type of question as I mentioned above.

Consider that there are probably geniuses dying in rice fields, Gaza, or crushed to effective death due to poverty anywhere. Consider also that given enough resources and attention, any donkey can be made to believe that it’s a prized steed. The only defining characteristic is luck. The “genetics” answers has been drilled into wage slaves to make them believe they’re perpetually unworthy.

All that said, if you have the time and resources to pour into unabashed and uninterrupted learning, growing and exploring, it seems to help develop above average skill. Secondly, precise and guided attention and mentoring is very effective at reducing knowledge barriers.

There are literal geniuses, like Gauss for example, who can solve something on intuition without being taught, and there are maybe like 2-4 people who are actually like this alive today. The rest are seething and coping and pretending they’re genius, and taking the rage of their insecurities out on everyone else—a genius is the last person to talk about IQ tests, wordcels or shape rotators etc. Memorizing facts is not genius, it’s a memory trick.

If SV techies want to succeed in Europe, then they should be okay with valuing what Europeans value.

Europeans are not stupid, they prioritized different things, including market socialism in different countries. The Americans also need to remove their exceptionalism glasses and take a long hard look at their own selves—the average American citizen (digital or otherwise) is socially worse off than the average European citizen. The success of American companies is based on the financing environment in the U.S. and has less to do with “friction”. The “friction” exists because on average Europeans have different values. So really, wake up SV tech bros. That whole site is a big ball of yuck.

A simple project is implementing a FIR filter using a HDL like Verilog. The Altera university FPGAs are cheap enough.

European researchers in many fields are better or comparable to their U.S. counterparts. The main difference I find between these groups of researchers is access to funding, which is lacking for Europeans.

It would make an interesting case study to examine him neuropsychologically. I am not willing to believe such claims at face value, but there are people with interesting physiological capabilities, like the woman who can smell cancer. Studying someone like him, if he’s telling the truth, would probably help researchers understand something fundamental about long term memory formation and maintenance.

Consider working as a SWE for a small shop working in a niche industry, or trying to solve a niche problem. I wouldn’t recommend early stage startups based on what you’re describing.

Myth and folklore has always been used as an instrument for defining culture and reinforcing it. Nothing is a better example of this than the myriad of Bibles produced during Charlemagne's rein, and these manuscripts are the progenitors of the English bible. A source for the curious, https://www.purecambridgetext.com/post/charlemagne-and-the-e...

So what does this author consider “psyops”, exactly? I assume anything that subverts the culture being maintained by the ruling class in the current time for a given place.

> I'm a nonbeliever myself I don't want to be part of any of those religions. But all of them have healthy, modern interpretations, and Dawkins really ought to at least put in some effort to look into it. As it is, he makes atheists look uneducated about the religions around them.

I understand the human tendency to belong in a group, or want to belong in a group. I don’t think any group that encourages religiosity in any way is conducive to modern civilization. I don’t think being “culturally” anything is acceptable either since part of the culture is regressive attitudes towards the “other”, and often times blind devotion to authority figures.

He’s basically saying the brown people are scary

You may be getting fired soon, just fyi

Aging is fine, it’s people’s attitude towards it that sucks on average.

On average it’s seems many get stuck in some existential crisis by realizing they don’t have enough time left to self actualize according to some previously realized ideal. However, self actualization requires self awareness and understanding of how to navigate changing circumstances–many would take this as being “a loser” or “giving up”, but those are either people with chronic good luck (so it’s impossible to get them to see anything from anyone else’s pov), or people who are prone to self flagellation.

Aging is great if you reframe your life, and give yourself the freedom to explore. Secondly, if you look at some aging athletes, they’re a good example of the possibilities of the human body and the fitness it can maintain with some amount of discipline and care. Exercise also staves off cognitive decline to some degree.

This isn’t new, the common folk have been doing it for ages. Some religions like Islam and Mormonism have it built into them. In the U.S., we had the free love era of the 60s and 70s. Also, the common folk are plenty into what they’ve colloquially called “swinging”, and at any age. For example, senior swingers are quite prevalent even today. I think this author is missing a lot of historical context about polyamorous or multi-partner relationships throughout history. So I reject the premise that “affluence” has anything to do with an inclination or acceptance of polyamory.

Maybe what the author is confusing is the flexibility of partners to indulge infidelity in more highly prized, choosier mates (from the partner’s perspective, there’s no objective standard to this). I think this flexibility results from two social conditions:

1) the prized mates are highly desirable in their social circle, so there are some aspects of FOMO to this.

2) the need to please the highly prized mate(s) is born out of some learned insecurity about their status in the circle. If you think you’re lesser than someone, you are likely to acquiesce to their whims to keep their interest. So again, I reject the premise that thinking “monogamy is boring” has anything to do with this.

Over the course of history we’ve experienced the stability that monogamous relationships provide at any socioeconomic level—managing the emotions of multiple partners can get tricky. But again, if the power and status dynamic favors one partner over the other, then the one with the lesser power, status etc. is ripe for getting abused. Or at the very least they go along with it because they don’t have the power to say no or refuse. I am not sure polyamory is the “luxury” this author is making it out to be.

Maybe, but there are nuances to this. Emergent properties of various factors (biological or otherwise) make this somewhat useless.

> A tip comes in about someone who frequents church X organizing a terrorist attack. Do you do a background check on church goers, look for suspicious activity, or sit back and twiddle your thumbs because this is “unfair targeting”?

Obviously no one will agree that the situation you described merits inaction. Preemptive surveillance “in case there is a terrorist” is a human rights violation because no one should be deprived of their privacy. Privacy is fundamental to psychological well being, creativity and self-determination.

Moreover, what’s to stop ideological enemies of one faction from sending false tips? Or to prevent progressive political action. For example, the FBI certainly considered civil rights activists as terrorists at one point (some still do, in different contexts). What if someone creates false flag terrorists to target a whole race? What if someone radicalizes someone by targeted harassment and stalking, and then blames their religion or culture if the target does something violent?

Yes, violence is scary and psychopaths doubly so. The response to violence and psychopaths is not to sacrifice human rights. We need to understand people and create more social cohesion. I think this also means understanding and identifying psychopathic and anti-social behaviors.

I don’t think killing people or locking them away from society is ever the answer because we will never run short of people to kill or lock away. We need less barbaric ways to deal with people, while also understanding the need for justice and revenge that being subject to such violence can create. The solution is not brute force surveillance. All this does is create resentment and political strife, and might lead to genocide.

Your logic is the same as the kind one expects from Twitter posts about having one poison M&M in a bowl of M&Ms, so let’s throw out the entire bowl. Here’s why it’s stupid to think like that:

1) People are not borgs or hive mind enjoined entities. Yes, they may share beliefs or have friendship circles etc. but it’s irresponsible and reaching to believe that everyone thinks or will act the same simply by virtue of being in the same mosque or temple or church etc.

2) So because people are not borgs, there is a lot of factionalization, even in the same religious group, political party, Internet forum.

3) Even still, unless someone is actively going out to do something for some organization, you cannot penalize them for thought crimes by their association. Why? Because doing so usually leads to spread of authoritarian control.

This is a rough response to your comment because people already know these things on some level. I think some people willfully choose to be stupid because of their biases.

There’s no need to fluff anything up, focus on what makes you great—your technical skills and achievements.

I am not sure anyone is rejecting you based on awkwardness or autism masking. My advice is not to worry about this or think about it. Thinking about things you can’t control or have difficulty controlling will make you anxious.

A hiring manager or peer interviewer will try to discern two main things (speaking as both a candidate and someone who has interviewed others to be hired):

1) is this person technically capable of performing the work?

2) how will this person be as a co-worker or employee?

For (1), just focus on being able to tell the highlights of your technical accomplishments. What you did, why it was important to the org or project, what you learned etc.

For (2), have stories of being a good person to work with. For example, someone gave me a critique and this is how I handled it. Or when we had a really challenging situation, this is what I did. No one is looking for a hero (being a hero isn’t desirable in all situations or roles). But people want to know that the person they’re hiring is someone who will listen to them, provide knowledgeable suggestions, and be flexible to pivoting when the situation needs it. Most of all, they’re looking for someone who can help get things done.

What levels are you aiming for? I am guessing junior or mid?

I think the term is still useful for giving words to a phenomenon people experience. I guess a less charitable and more presumptuous term of such behavior would be calling the person displaying it narcissistic.

> So people aren't necessarily being shoddy or doing bad work, they're just not using good systems.

Agreed. I think there isn’t an incentive to do this because reproducibility takes a back seat to so many other concerns. Unless PIs are told that their publication chances depend on reproducibility, this isn’t going to change.

All anyone can do is try to use that research in their own work, and see if their work supports findings from prior work. Sometimes it doesn’t, I am not sure if that means someone lied on purpose. It’s possible they were bad at interpreting the results, or they made bad assumptions. I think poor research standards are the main reason for the reproducibility crises, and not people lying on purpose.

Typically bad research assumptions or implementations are rooted out during peer review, but it’s an imperfect process.

I do think there needs to be a dedicated non-profit and neutral organization solely responsible for reproducing scientific results for all fields, and assigning a reproducibility score to research finding. This could become an entire field by itself, and would have its own complications, but the reproducibility crises does exist and needs a solution.

> Anyone who's advised students or asked even presenting researchers such questions know that often people will literally not know what happened to all their data.

I am sorry that’s been your experience, maybe it varies by field and quality of research? Most people I’ve questioned have provided reasonable answers to their findings. I don’t understand why anything needs to be assumed in bad faith or shoddily done. It’s all a bit Dunning-Kruger to me where everyone assumes that everyone else is doing shoddy or bad work.

> The point of doing "reproducible science" is not that I write a paper, you email me asking how did I come up with my number, and I email you back an explanation. No! The important details should be in the paper already.

This is how it works, people email each other all the time. Why shouldn’t you? You can’t imagine every bit of information that someone would want, and papers have page length limits so you make choices about what to cut.