We can make the exact same reasoning if we do those steps but instead of buying bitcoin we buy other company's stock. In fact, this did happen, it was called the merger-mania and happened in the 70s (or 80s? Someone correct me). At the time companies were valued as a multiple of revenue growth, so companies figured they can grow revenue by acquiring other companies. So they would announce they would do it, their stock would jump, then they would acquire by issuing the now-higher value stock. Keep repeating.
The world of crypto is reinventing all the scams that were first invented in the real world. It's not even a hypothetical lol
If you wanna get even more meta, you could imagine the sole point of bitcoin is someone thinking "I'd like to scam people, but the people who are into stocks are already too literate these days. However, if we could invent an entirely new asset class..."
No it is not. You do not understand what bitcoin actually is and why it is valuable or why everyone is trying to get their savings/investments out of the dollar and into Bitcoin (NOT crypto).
But the thing he describes with StarCraft Vs whatever the brainrot game is can be explained differently. I think the author likes the idea of liking StarCraft, but doesn't actually like playing it. Brainrot on the other hand is engineered to be addictive. Surely if he LIKED playing StarCraft he wouldn't have to be searching for motivation. Personally, I know that in my life I only need motivation for the things I don't like. The things I like I just naturally do a lot.
One insight that I've had is that people often don't really understand what they like and don't like. How many times have you heard "oh I wanna be a writer" "ok what have you written?" "I haven't written anything yet because I'm not a writer yet." These people like the idea of having achieved some end result, but they don't enjoy the process, and aren't even aware that the two are different.
In fact some times I think the word "to like" isn't that useful as it doesn't map well into anything in the mind. I think perhaps we should differentiate between the ideas of "things I planned to do", "things that I did", and "things that when I do make me feel such and such internally". If you re read the post with these ideas in mind, it makes a lot more sense what's happening: the author planned to do one thing and did another. You no longer need to invoke strange ideas like "I need community to give me the motivation to do the thing I already like doing because without motivation I do things I don't like".
My experience is similar enough to the author's though. I was a Masters level dueler in starcraft2 and had a huge passion for the game, and a huge part of that was that the community was exciting at that time. I participated in the subreddit, I wrote articles, I casted games on the side. My friends played the game. I eventually had a go/no-go moment where I could've kept pouring myself into the community, potentially worked with folks like Artosis and Tasteless, etc.
But all signals were that the community was dwindling and blizzard wasn't properly invested in the game, which lowered my motivation a lot over time. So my decision was No.
One problem with this is that people nowadays have a harder time figuring out what they truly like. Even disregarding the constantly pushed images and adverts of what companies want us to like, people are nowadays also just less bored. This stops them from trying new stuff and encountering activities that they truly enjoy.
Using the example of the writers; the writers that I personally know all seem to have started writing things as a fluke, often as children, not to achieve something but just to do something fun. Or as a result of a school assignment and finding out it's actually pretty enjoyable.
> I think the author likes the idea of liking StarCraft, but doesn't actually like playing it. Brainrot on the other hand is engineered to be addictive. Surely if he LIKED playing StarCraft he wouldn't have to be searching for motivation.
Although you're mostly right, I do feel there's some nuance to be made. Although this kinda ties in to like not really mapping well to how the brain functions.
This is kind of similar to something called 'health choices' in psychology. Although we all know that e.g. smoking is bad, it's still hard for people to make the 'right' choice every time. And that doesn't necessarily say anything about if people 'want' or 'like' to stop smoking.
Even if playing starcraft was fully alligned with the wants and likes as they exist in the brain of OP, the existence of an abundance of available snacks can still make it hard to choose the 'healthy' option.
As a side note, your comment really reminds me of Charlie Brooker's 'How TV ruined your life', especially the aspiration episode https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tNGK9ni4aSY
It's not a tactic. The story was that at one point the tech person in charge wanted to use ocaml because he liked it. The project was a success and there was never any reason to change it.
I'm sure everyone here is familiar with these two phenomena of the corporate world:
A) techie pushes tool not because it's useful or necessary but because he wants to learn the tool
B) something that started as happenstance ends up as a defining property of critical infrastructure.
We're currently (very slowly) working to deprecate our Elixir codebase.
I wasn't around when it was adopted, but it definitely felt like someone joined the company, evangelized Elixir, hired maybe half a dozen people who were really good at it, and then left.
Eventually, our Elixir experts evaporated, leaving maybe two people who truly understand it and can do difficult work in it. That's not sustainable.
Someone else in the comments here said that a good developer can be productive in any language, and that's true - but why hobble people? It's like saying a good surgeon can be productive with a butterknife and a pot of boiling water, or a good artist can be productive with a charred stick.
> or rather doing so is not in their self-interest.
Nor in the interest of the company at large, to be honest. Elixir doesn't really give us anything specific for our use case that other, more popular languages, don't also offer.
From reading this, it sounds more like a management problem more than anything else. For example, retention goals should be such that all a companies experts (at anything, not just language) don't evaporate overnight and hiring goals should be such that experts are retrained and re-hired.
I think the analogy is also off a bit. I't be more apt to say a good surgeon should be expected to use electrosurgical units from different manufacturers, which is a completely fair expectation.
This speaks volumes of why the Elixir people left in the first place.
As a separate point, if a company wants the most generally applicable programming language, there is no reason to look further than C, yet few companies are like this.
I didn't say Yaron Minsky pushed OCaml because he wanted to learn it. I said it was because he liked it. Still, the distinction isn't important to the point I was trying to make.
I would encourage everyone to read the Sutton and barto directly. Best technical book I've read past year. Though if you're trying to minimize math, the first edition is significantly simpler.
> The article suggests that they should be allowed to stay because it’s an ill child
Where?
I see it calling out presumed ICE agents “in civilian clothing,” making arrests in “the hallway” of a courthouse (in violation of “a federal court ruling that the new ICE courthouse arrest policy is unlawful and unconstitutional”), allegedly violating “the Fourth and Fifth Amendments of the U.S. Constitution — which guarantee due process and prevent unlawful seizures” while laying bare that this administration has given up on arresting the “violent criminals” we were promised in campaign world.
The problem is that they've been convinced the reason everything in our lives is increasingly shitty is down to hordes of 6-year-olds with leukemia who've crossed the border for free medical care. It couldn't be more obvious that this is a scapegoating operation being pushed by the ultra-wealthy who are gaining from widening precarity and exploitation. But a "solution" that involves just inflicting a bunch of harm to the powerless is inherently more appealing than wresting control from the powerful, which will involve real work & sacrifice.
Aside from the article not suggesting that, even if it did, so what? I'd like to assume that the federal bureaucracy of one of the absolute wealthiest and most powerful nations in human history can manage to avoid economic disaster if it defers some half-reasoned regulatory deportation policy for little kids who are possibly too sick to travel.
Basic humane considerations and decency really do have a place in how you enforce laws, and their existence makes a difference that can affect any of us at any time.
This is a legit good question, someone who walks across the border is extremely unlikely to be able to afford cancer treatment.
There’s a near infinite supply of needy people in the world. What is the legitimate, rational argument for allowing them all to come here and receive aid and treatment?
Even if you decide you’re not going to “allow” it, if the incentives still exist, like California’s free healthcare for illegal immigrants, they will still come because the benefits are worth the risk.
After moderate partners abandoned Netanyahu, his only source of support was more right-wing partners, which steadily pushed government policy to the ultra-right.
It's not ironic at all, it's democracy working as intended.
It might superficially appear ironic because us in the west confuse being a democracy with being moderate. But that's not the case if a large fraction of your population are religious fundamentalists, which goes to my point. In Israel, the problem isn't just the government, it's also the culture of the majority of the population.
Considering ~50% of the Knesset is in opposition, I don't think it's proof that a politically large fraction of Israeli society is religiously fundamentalist.
It's non-negligible, but the reasons ultra-right parties like Otzma Yehudit [0] have a voice in politics has more to do with election calculus by Netanyahu.
The ideal 2+ party parliamentary system seems to be >2 but <6.
Below that, you get bad outcomes (US). Above that, you get bad outcomes (Israel, India).
Somewhere in the middle, it forces the right amount of coerced cooperation... most of the time (Germany).
Speaking of Germany - Israel really weaponized the holocaust, in the sense that's absolutely impossible to criticize Israel without being accused of antisemitism. I actually think it got to the point it makes difficult fighting antisemitism because it's evident to any honest person that the accusation is a weapon now.
