anon400232
Not all ethicists recommend "dying on your sword" so to speak. Sometimes it is useful to maintain influence and fight another day. These things are far from simple.
If you want Apple to push back on censorship in China, let's talk about the details. What would China likely do in return?
It is easy to criticize an organizations' behavior.
It is easy to criticize someone else's ethics.
What are your ethics? What would you do if you were in Tim Cook's position?
Why? I'd like to see how you perceive the options available.
As for me, the following is an open question: can organizations have something analogous to a conscience? How does it work?
Indeed. I'd suggest everyone in our industry study ethics, particularly with an eye towards its (i) philosophical foundations and (ii) cultural differences. If one of those underpinnings doesn't grab your interest, try the other.
There is a rich body of ethical writing around individual behavior. When that discussion starts to involve groups of people, ... yikes ... it becomes even more complex.
Stargate: wow! With that kind of return on investment on $20 M, psychic readings for $10 a pop sound like a bargain in comparison. At worst, the readers are good at reading some signals hiding in plain sight and prompting some self reflection.
Let's make this testable. Bankruptcy by when? Saying, e.g. "at some point" or "eventually" is very problematic to falsify.
I've noticed statements of this kind often have a lot of caveats; e.g. ...
> unless an activist investor pushes them to fire him and change course
... typically there are many other unspoken/unwritten caveats/exceptions as well. When this happens, the statement becomes unfalsifiable. In such cases, I treat the statement more as a normative criticism (here, "Mark's vision of VR and how stubborn he is") rather than a testable prediction.
What about the passage of time? Memories can be reshaped; public opinion even more so.
Is your claim falsifiable?
The difference is having the option. :) Behavior tends to be different if you don't have the option to sell during a window of time.
In this hypothetical case it might serve as a built-in grace period. Companies that otherwise might have failed if measured and punished quarter by quarter might have time to build a product over five year time horizon.
This is the mark of a troubled human being.
Your behaviors are not beneficial for yourself or for this community. You seem to think you are standing up against a troll. But your words reveal a person making a bunch of guesses based on only one point of view. Based on this, you lash out.
I am not trying to get you banned. That would not have much long term benefit. That would not help you either. You would just get angrier I'd guess.
I'm trying to have a conversation to help you see another point of view. So far, you have not answered my questions. You have not asked clarifying questions. Fair?
Are you really so confident in the things you are saying? I think you will benefit if you can at least temporarily reduce your sense of confidence in your assessments. This might help you to not lash out at people that you think are your enemy.
Here are some questions for you to consider privately. You probably don't want to answer them here with someone you seem to detest so much... Why are you so angry? Why so accusative? Have you asked friends or a trusted person to assess your behavior? Do you have some kind of ethical or moral code? What is it? Does it justify your choice of words (a kind of behavior) here? Have you experienced any traumatic life events? Do you know where the hate is coming from?
Answer my questions, at least to yourself? Or continue being angry and not address them?
Your choice. Maybe. Do you have a choice? Could you reply kindly if you tried? Or are you locked in a counter-attack mentality? What could break the pattern?
What would make you happy (or relatively less unhappy) here? For me to admit that your claims are correct? I'm sorry, but I'm not going to say things that aren't true.
I have not insulted you, and I'm not going to. Everything you are doing is quite human, and all of us have done some parts of it or worse ourselves. This doesn't mean it is useful or helpful.
Your ideas, at least as written here, are flawed and quite unreasonable, and that's ok. Improve yourself and start caring, and your life can get better. Believe it or not, I care. Seriously.
"Can't actually remember"? Yikes.
"I'm pretty sure" ... based on...? Not working there any more?
"Strong feelings about the ethics?" Dude. Contracts are not about your feelings about ethics.
Mr. Bray doesn't have -- or didn't take the time to find -- a signed contract from two years ago.
Not a great example to follow.
My point? There are many incredible technologies, but not all are "secret weapons" that justify a seismic industry shift. Not all are suitable or able to upend existing technologies.
Fitness of purpose is contextual. Some of the most amazing innovations in computer science cannot be captured by one industry. Most do not lead to widespread disruption.
Granted, but they usually have the option to sell at many points along the way.
Think about an alternative financial instrument. What if you could invest $X in a public company (and get a higher rate of return because of the higher risk) but you lose the ability to sell until five years have passed?
This is one kind of option that might be worth trying. I want to see more mechanisms promoting long-term investment in our public markets. (Bonds are not identical to what I described BTW.)
The lack of these kinds of options (sure, bonds exist but I've not noticed them used with any notable significance in public companies) is why people talk about the short term quarterly focus of Wall Street.
Think about the threat model for an "everyday" person. It is different than an American journalist contacting sources in the United States, which is different than a journalist in Russia or China.
But understanding the effects of CO2 in more every day situation seems more complicated. It is also hard to find good rules of thumb about guidelines about when to look more deeply and pay to get measurements.
But I haven't found high-quality studies that talk about residential settings. My Google results seem to be populated with companies trying to sell stuff. So based on maybe 30 minutes of research, I remain practically skeptical.
I'm interested in learning more, Starting with the chemistry and, ?, airflow properties of CO2 in air, and then working up to biology. Would you mind sharing high-quality resources you recommend?
I reject the claim that "meta" comments are necessarily bad, whether it be here on hacker news, online discussion, or discussion in general. Discussions tend to reference other discussions and talk about them, and operate at various levels of abstraction.
I hope you are not claiming that you are the decider or arbiter of what kind of discussions are welcome here. That would be fanciful.
Perhaps I'm misunderstanding what you mean by "meta"?
> you are not making any point aside from resorting to a personal attack,
It was not a personal attack. Criticizing your comment is fair game.
Please, do not claim a personal attack when it is not. Learn how to distinguish. I find it hard to believe you cannot distinguish. Perhaps you were just angry. If so, it would probably feel good to apologize.
> It serves absolutely no purpose as you're not developing a counter argument, nothing.
"Absolutely" is a strong word, and that is putting it nicely. Your choice of the word absolutely is indicative of what I don't like about your writing. It is exaggerated.
You get to decide the purpose of my comment? No. _You_ may interpret my comment and you may find it not useful now. You might find it useful in the future, however, after some reflection.
Yes, this is a public forum, and I am free and within bounds to ask you to improve your writing. I'm not doing so maliciously. I think you are capable of it, if you put in the effort. What I've seen so far is below average relative to serious discussions on HN.
What you call "audacity" is what I would call "unsolicited advice". I don't think you are likely to give it chance, unfortunately. Maybe, maybe not. It is a gift whether you realize it or not.
If your anger is forcing you to not consider my advice, I would ask this: is your anger useful? Any factor that short circuits thoughtful decision making it's something you want to be aware of.
Be well. Try not to direct any more anger at me or others, please.
1. Your comment is claiming that my comment is overgeneralized? It is not.
2. I will grant my reply may be uninteresting to you. Unfortunately it did seem to push one of your buttons, which may suggest that there's something in it worthy of examination. Whatever I see someone reply so strongly to criticism in meetings or mediations it tells me more about the person than the critique.
3. My comment is not a rant. It was far too brief for that.
4. My comment was not speculation. (I am quite sure the words reflect my assessments of your comment.)
Therefore, saying "ditto" doesn't make sense. I think in your mind you thought "ditto" because you perceived my comment as an attack and you wanted to reply in kind.
My first comment did not attack you personally. It criticized your writing and reasoning. I'm optimistic that you are capable of writing something clear and persuasive.
Substantively, I disagree with about 80% of your sentences, but I don't have additional time to get into it with you, because I don't think it will be very productive, particularly with how the dynamic is going.
I do apologize if I sound condescending or mean or judgmental. I know little about you: you may well be older, more experienced, more successful, wiser, happier, or kinder. You may be having a bad day, week, month, year, decade, or life.
I'm trying to strike a balance between being direct and honest without offending you. I'm quite confident you need to hear this message whether you are ready for it or not.
I wish you (and everyone) the best. You may go ahead and have the last word (if you wish), but I won't be replying further.
Take my comment point by point and you have some opportunity to improve your writing and thinking. Or dismiss it and continue on with your current path. Or counterattack again. Some paths will help you grow and some won't. Choose wisely. I'm not your enemy -- ego and defensiveness are.
Don't worry -- so many tech people have tremendous opportunity for self improvement. Myself included.
If you are worried about corruption and authoritarian tendencies, why do you tolerate them at the state level?
Please lay out your tradeoffs in a way that might make your position consistent.
History has shown that there aren't that many Bell Labs that survive very long. How long will Open AI or DeepMind continue to contribute to public innovation? I'm not going to make a bet on that.
Decades of spending on math and science, embedded into federal spending (though inefficient and wasteful in many ways) has generated many tremendous innovations. It is foolish to rely on one mechanism to generate innovation. I'm not suggesting that government is the only or best way. We need innovations across many timescales.
P.S. The amount of close mindedness among "highly intelligent" people in the tech world is staggering. Step back and look at yourself. Ask if your ego is getting in the way of clear and creative thinking.
P.P.S. For what it's worth, among the people I consider most inspiring in the tech world, very few have their head planted only in computer science. We need more historians, sociologists, lawyers, musicians, and so on. The libertarian faction of tech is indictive of a certain brain tendency -- a desire to simplify down to core principles -- and not one that we need more of.
The drive for simplicity can lead us to interesting theories. It can lead to simpler systems. It can also lead to overlooking the true nature of humanity: what is good? what is fair? what is just?
So "Is simplicity best? Or simply the easiest?" [1]
Please question the value of simple philosophies when you make moral arguments. Human concepts are rarely simple. Neither is language. Or justice. Or fairness. Or innovation.
[1] Depeche Mode
But I would rather see policy coming out that is in the right ballpark. We can learn from that.
Vague, simplistic overreliance on "the market" is foolhardy and readily dismissed by any serious student of economics.