warcher

> Because it's Anonymous. This is part of what it is. Sucks, but that's what it is. It's an important part.

Dude, there is no reason you can't collect medical data responsibly and with respect to privacy. Cmon man. We do a whole lot of this, all over the place. They can, they just won't.

> But there is solid science that backs AA. Even if it was started without a scientific underlying idea. > People love to bag out AA, but as your last line says it is working for some people, studies back this.

It would be untrue and unfair to say that there's nothing to AA. It's been successful, but how successful? Compared to what? IMHO, the greatest aspect of its success is its ability to let people off the hook. This is just a way for politicians to throw some 'thoughts and prayers' at a hard problem and call it good.

It's not good. It's not all bad, but you start digging into the social science research and there's a lot of progress that's been made since the 30's that AA just won't touch. AA isn't working for a whole lot of people.

But it's cheap and it doesn't trigger certain populations within our democratic society, so it's gone on and on. I think we're running out of road here, but... well, we'll have to see.

It's happening, it's just happening slowly.

Point of fact, addiction is a disease and must be treated like a disease. This is pretty mainstream and not really all that controversial. The issue we're working through, glacially, is that in the US healthcare is for-profit and junkies are not profitable. So we just.... throw those people in the garbage. I think that's both immoral and economically wasteful. I know former junkies. Personally. And they're not garbage-- they have value and if you can get them well, they want to live a productive life.

The plain fact of the matter is that there's no business case for treating these folks-- the government is going to do it or nobody is going to do it. And the status quo is "Fuck it, send them to church. I'm not paying for a bunch of crackheads to get clean. They need to find jesus." Which is another way of saying "Let them eat thoughts and prayers."

AA is all volunteer, run by people who are doing their level best to help with a monstrously difficult problem, with demonstrable success. I do think they got some things right. I don't think their work is finished, and they do need to examine their methods and the efficacy of the same.

Fun fact: The current standard within the US is AA/NA.

AA and NA are not only wholly unscientific, being invented of whole cloth by a layperson in the early 20th century (for context, lobotomy was a totally accepted psychological treatment for decades after 1935). There was no science whatsoever involved in AA, and indeed Alcoholics Anonymous actively resists any data collection about the efficacy of its techniques whatsoever.

It's main advantages from a US perspective are a) it's free. The costs are borne mostly in the form of churches providing basements and meeting rooms. and b) it's super churchy. We love churchy stuff around here.

So basically we kicked addiction under the rug for the entire 20th century in favor of religious hokum that refuses any objective evaluation of its efficacy, or changing its methods.

I should say, for the record, that there's a lot of people that have been helped by AA and NA, and there's indisputably good work being done there. But it's not perfect and categorically refuses to get better, and its longevity is IMHO more a result of our collective refusal to take the problem of addiction seriously in the US than anything else.

For now. The others didn't, until they did.

This ties into a phenomena that I've noticed with a lot of social networks lately-- fake content.

What I mean by that specifically is putting things into your feed that nobody actually intended to share. e.g. "XXXX liked this thing!" Or generating notifications of non-events, like "Hey, share a thing!"

The share button is literally right next to the 'uplike' button. And they specifically did not press it. But you're gonna press it for them, because you gotta have content and folks keep pretty mum on facebook (and everywhere else) lately. There is very little I'm interested in sharing with every single person I know. And even less I'm interested in sharing with strangers a la Twitter.

To say nothing of the overall click-baity trollish quality of aformentioned articles. Every time one of my dear friends gets triggered and feeds the trolls, facebook is dutifully shoving it in my face. There is a high correlation between virality and unredeemable shit stirring.

Facebook is doing it. Twitter is doing it. Reddit is perhaps the most shameless of all with their mobile app working hard to spam you with posts that you.... haven't commented on, or even upvoted. (I can't say one way or the other about Snapchat because I'm not a millennial.)

I do believe this is the intersection of 100% social media saturation and the public markets' relentless demand for growth. This is peak social media. They're flogging live video hard, but news flash: I grew up when you had to make plans to watch your favorite TV show, and it's the worst. Live video sucks. I got shit to do. I can't even be bothered to DVR things any more.

Why play an instrument at all, when you could just hang out and listen to music? Why paint when you could use a Wacom? Why slap a clump of mud on a pottery wheel when you could 3d print a bowl?

Because, for whatever reason, when you put a brush on a canvas, or clay on the wheels, or you hands on a big Steinway, some piece of you hums along with the medium and capturing that resonance is what art is.

It's all sort of idiosyncratic at the end of the day, and how the thing feels in your hands is a big component of the artistic/creative process. If it works for you, it works. If it doesn't, try something else.

An excellent point. Who's the smart one at the end of the day? Woz seems to have all the money he needs and all the fame I think he can stand. There's a lot to be said for quitting while you're ahead.

And vice versa. Jobs got where he was by (not likely coincidentally) finding a person with Woz's combination of genius and gullibility. Woz didn't get a remotely fair shake from Jobs, and there are not a ton of guys dumb enough to ride that ride and smart enough to deliver what Woz delivered.

The trouble with this, and several other recent companies, isn't whether there's a business there. Cab via app? Way better. I love it.

It's still an open question whether there's a 100 Billion Dollar Business. That's what they sold to investors, and since they cashed the check, that's what they must deliver.

Or some hedge fund will buy the pieces for pennies on the dollar and sell them for scrap.

I would argue that the readership of that blog would merit at least a discussion of his argument, which you will not even attempt. Like it or not, people know who he is and they read what he writes. If he's wrong, it's doubly important that you address his point of view, because a lot of people are reading it. Going ad hominem just gives credence to his unspoken assertion that the US military is an old-boys club clinging to their preconceived notions in the absence of an actual war to fight.

I would further argue that someone being wholly ignorant whereof they speak would make it very easy to dismantle their position. I've seen it happen pretty often on the internet.

That was quite the ad hominem right there.

It's a pretty decent way out of the whole "I'm rich, and I will destroy you with lawyer bills irrespective of the right or wrong of the situation" loophole. Any time you spin the wheel of fortune, bad things can and often do happen, but for these sorts of flagrant violations, where you're an honest dealer and they're not, it's probably the least worst scenario. I know whereof I speak here, but obviously can't share details.

Binding arbitration is a real, real smart move if you don't plan to fuck anybody.

I suspect the pamphlet would be a short read: "Stay off our breaks, kooks." And then like a picture of beach rats slashing your tires.

(Obviously I'm kidding, but HN doesn't do irony, so I'll make it explicit. Joking and I like my tires how they are.)

Is it a straight MS in Computer Science, accredited and all, from GA Tech? Or some other thing?

I only skimmed these papers, but they seemed to be dealing with contract terms that caused later shares to have value not totally reflected in the per-share price, including but not limited to things like ratchets and liquidation preferences. Such that the valuation is that of a "unicorn" but that some conditions may apply if you want to realize that investment.

Nowhere did I find reference to the economics of Uber justifying their valuation. I should clarify my point: I don't think Uber is worth what they think they're worth based on the fundamentals. Certainly a bunch of tricky contracts could exacerbate that, but I think everybody bought into Uber at a valuation they were never going to sustain, and the ship is slowly crashing back to earth.

So, this might be me just being dumb, but I don't understand how Benchmark has made any money whatsoever on this deal. Not yet.

And what I mean by that is this: they gave Uber money for shares. But they have not yet sold the shares to anybody, b/c no acquisition or IPO. Other investors buy more shares, but that's not a liquidity event, is it?

Benchmark has a whole boatload of paper profits that they can't return to their LPs, not yet at least.

Or am I crossed up here? Could they, or have they, done some kind of private sale? I kind of doubt it but could easily be wrong here. Is there some kind of financial instrument to cash out early I'm ignorant of?

I'd like to hear your reasoning that the ship isn't sinking. My reasoning is their burn rate, unit economics, the writedowns, and VC's taking some controversial hardball steps to protect downside risk. Since they're private, there's not much real data to be had, but that's a lot of smoke for no fire.

Anecdotally, I have seen up close what it looks like when suit-and-tie MBA types start looking for the emergency exit, and this smells right.

BUT

What I don't know would fill volumes-- whaddya got?

I get in a lot of arguments with dudes who believe they have a right to stuff other people made without payment or consequence. The last one I remember is a bunch of DJs who didn't want to get permission to use samples.

I find the arguments pretty spurious and it's best not to engage.

It's their website. If you don't like their website, we got a whole other internet to enjoy.

I think the argument would be that, say, the New York Times wrote an article, and that article included ads for their sponsor. This third party tool is making unauthorized edits to the New York Times' copyrighted material.

I'm a hardline free speech dude, but I find it difficult to justify "We changed around your copyrighted work to remove stuff we decided we don't like." If you don't like ads, pay up or go elsewhere. You do not have a right to anybody else's IP.

You say you owe your country nothing. If you truly don't think so, we're all the poorer for it. A very modern malaise. The right wing in this country has taken a curious turn of late.

I think embracing these imagined grievances is going to lead you down a dark road, but living well is the best revenge. Enjoy whatever it is you get out of your trolling. Ta ta.

The whole "power imbalance" definition is a tremendous wedge to divide and conquer groups that would ordinarily be on the same side of an issue of basic human decency. "I can say what I like and it's not racist because I am [fill in the blank]."

To say nothing of the muddiness of a 'power imbalance'. I have been the only white kid on my block, and I got my ass kicked more than a few times because of it. Was there a power imbalance on the block? Sure. Was there a power imbalance in the school or court system the other way? Absolutely. Who's the victim this time? Where does the dividing line between them being racist and me being racist lie?

The stop sign? The school boundary?

Lot of those dudes, we became friends after knocking the hell out of each other for no reason, and let me tell you, we walk into their house and systemic racial prejudice popped right up again, poor family, bad education, trouble with the law. "You're so smart, help Alejandro with his homework and then you can play nintendo. Yes Ms. P."

So at school, I'm racist, on the block, they're racist, inside their house, I'm sort of racist but I still might catch a beating if the wrong cousin was hanging out because his dad was in jail again and he's looking for a skinny white kid to blame.

What a muddled mess. How could you make sense out of that gibberish?

This is a curious strawman, but I'll play, what the hell?

I believe you and I agree that there has been systemic oppression against, let's choose african-americans in particular. Slavery, Jim Crow, the War on Drugs, Block-Busting, these are pretty cut-and-dried examples.

So the government did this stuff. I maintain that, as beneficiaries of our forefathers' efforts in establishing this country, we owe a debt to continue their work and clean up their messes. It's a great benefit to live here and I have to be honest, I didn't do shit. I was born here. I did nothing but get born. My grandfather fought, my father fought, on for several generations. I am a businessman, that's what I do, and that's fine.

But there's unfinished work to be done. I think we owe a debt to continue that work. And this injustice is one that merits redress. Would you do nothing? Can you argue that point? Do you have a better idea? I hear so much from the right that basically boils down to "let somebody else do it." And that's... disappointing to me, as a fairly conservative guy with fairly conservative values. I really do believe in this dumb 'America' thing and I believe it merits sacrifice. An old-fashioned idea, I realize.

I fundamentally reject the new definition of racism and sexism as requiring a power imbalance. Racial or gender prejudice is racial or gender prejudice. Full stop. Don't do it. This novel attempt to muddy the waters of racial prejudice by defining racism as the exclusive perk of minorities is self-defeating and ugly. A just and equal society is a better society for all within it, and by allowing the struggle to be characterized as a zero-sum game, we allow ourselves to be divided in the pursuit of basic human decency.

In fairness, I'm aware of the hypocrisy in using positive discrimination to combat negative discrimination. I just haven't heard any better ideas to fix the problem. And the argument that we owe a debt to continue our forefathers' unfinished work towards a more perfect union is persuasive to me.

I think if you take a population that has been the subject of generations of systemic government oppression, remove it (allegedly), and then declare "fairness accomplished! You are free to complete on a level playing field! Pay no attention to the effects of generational poverty!" you are on real dubious ground. This would also presuppose that we have successfully eliminated systemic racism from our society, which is... an argument that would require substantial supporting evidence.

And with respect to the whole "taking of jobs", I will add a more comprehensively researched rebuttal to my own anecdotal experience: if you're good, you're in no danger of getting caught up in a quota system. Competent white folks are doing just fine. The less-competent.... probably should cowboy up. As my exploited millennials would say: "git gud".

http://blogs.lse.ac.uk/businessreview/2017/03/13/gender-quot...

This is increasingly my concern-- There really seems to be a prevailing opinion that racism and sexism are just fine when directed towards white men. You can drag a white guy for pretty much any societal ill you like on the internet these days, and while there are some pretty great points to be made with respect to blaming a lot of modern society's problems on its principal architects (old white dudes), this is no way to win hearts and minds.

We're currently suffering through four years of self-imposed punishment as a result of being a bunch of judgmental assholes in pursuit of a goal that any reasonable human would accept as self-evident-- that people deserve to be treated fairly and without prejudice, no matter their race, sex, gender identity, et cetera. That the American Dream is available equally to all Americans.

I spend a lot of time offering feedback to people in a professional capacity and I am frankly shocked at the level of discourse I see on the internet from progressives. If I pulled this kind of shit at work I'd be finished, because I don't see any way I could possibly be effective communicating an idea to anybody in this fashion.

Almost as if the media doesn't really give a shit about justice or equality, but rather generating rage-clicks and internet lynch mobs to move advertising inventory. :-\

I believe clojure's made a lot of progress porting to android's JVM. Last I heard the clojure runtime took a couple seconds to boot, which is shitty if you're real serious about your apps, but not a dealbreaker. And the last time I messed with it was a couple years ago, I would hope to see improvements in that amount of time.

Ehhhhhh hard ass real time stuff like heavy dsp or a game engine, you're on the metal and you're pitching your code to the CPU, not to humans. And the CPU thinks (kind of) imperatively. And the GPU does its own thing which is basically neither, haha.

Stuff like web apps, or honestly, the vast, vast majority of programming, functional is just fine. The deep stuff is gonna stay imperative, but that's a small fraction of the work that needs doing out there.