punee

I'm pretty sure that Wittgenstein, while agreeing with your point about meaning being defined by use, would still argue that there's a lot of unspoken confusion that comes from calling the smartphone a smartphone.

The first thing I did when opening this thread was Ctrl+F to see if anyone was suggesting it should be called a "personal computer", because that's what I've thought best described what the smartphone really has become.

Now, to suggest even trying to use that to refer to smartphones these days would be adding a much heavier does of confusion. But the insight seems fundamentally right to me.

Interesting article on the subject that brings up this point: http://ben-evans.com/benedictevans/2015/11/7/mobile-ecosyste...

That doesn't seem very logical.

First, I think you mean "less valued". That's generally what happens when there's little demand for something, or when there's a good substitute at a cheaper price.

Second, if all the free, evil ad-sponsored content on the internet is of such "low quality", it certainly would make such services more valuable, as it would offer something scarce. Their conspicuous absence seems to indicate something is amiss with this analysis.

People tend to rely on watching television commercials to learn about new products. So you should buy more TV advertising. Correct?

That's not a claim that will meet much opposition.

However, to claim that marketing is inherently "manipulative", or that manipulative tactics are even a significant part of it, seems a little ill-informed.

Y Combinator's motto is "Make something people want". To the overwhelming majority of practitioners, this is exactly what marketing sets out to do.

Which probably makes it improper to call it "product placement".

Where is that service if it's so valuable?

It's quite telling, but by no means surprising on Hacker News, that you completely failed to address the question.

The question wasn't "What would you do if you were looking for something to buy".

The question is: "What would you do if you were a business and had something to sell?"

Yeah, it's just too bad you're the only person in the world to define advertising and marketing that way, I guess? At least among people who know what they're talking about.

The point is that those requirements seem redundant.

If the exam is intended as an assessment of your knowledge, then why should it matter how much time you spent acquiring that knowledge?

Presumably, if the exam is well-designed, you can't pass it without understanding the material, which you could learn over however many hours you like. Requiring both an exam and a mandatory number of hours seems redundant.

His comment sounds like a joke.

So you will upvote differing views that you find interesting. And they will be included in your "bubble". Tada.

An "airtight echo chamber" would be a situation where the only information I get is a restatement of something I already know.

It's not even remotely analogous to what I'm suggesting, which is simply filtering out (some of) the noise.

No, I don't see any flaw.

Am I supposed to carefully read every stupid comment from a poster that so far has only annoyed me on the off chance that he writes something insightful once in a blue moon?

I'll ignore him and take that risk. I'm sure it's still a +EV move overall.

How do you decide not to read a comment before you've read it?

I think you're missing the point.

I'm proposing HN introduce a feature that exists on virtually every message board on the internet (i.e. blocking users). That's because its usefulness is well-recognised.

I fail to see what being here has to do with how precious my time is. My time is precious to me as soon as I start to value some experiences over others and decide which ones I consider valuable, and which ones I consider a waste. I don't have to be spending my every waking moment "hustling" to have a concept of value.

Reading comments from authors that I find interesting is a valuable use of my time.

Reading comments from authors that I find stupid and annoying is a waste of my time.

That's why I wish I could prevent that from happening.

"Not thinking" about the existence of such users is in no way a solution to that problem.

So not thinking about things you don't like makes them disappear?

That's odd, because I spend about 0% of my time thinking about dumb Hacker News comments, and yet I can see them right there, and before you know it, I've read them and wasted my precious time. How come?

This stuff is why HN commenters are the Adolf Hitlers of the internet. Etc. Etc.

P.S. Can we get a Hacker News ignore function? Is there a chrome extension that offers that?

Why/when should I use it over Intercom?

Why would they need an incentive when they already continue to work on their own?

The productivity of labor is also vastly different.

Okay, I really like this and have thought about creating something similar before... BUT. I think you're missing an essential piece of the puzzle if you don't provide, short of the syllabi themselves, at least the ORDER in which the books are supposed to be read. What's interesting about the syllabi is their structure more than their content.

Oh but the livelihood of software developers and startup owners also depends on advertising, or even worse gasp... SALES (direct manipulation!!). They just can't admit it.

So you're saying The Martian's ad campaign wasn't as good as Star Wars's?

Yes, finding something that teaches you how to do something you want to do is useless. Unless it's something YOU want to do, of course! Then it's fantastic.

What happens to people's wealth when they buy products from Bill Gates's company?

> The sheer scale of the evidence is overwhelming.

Really?

Because your description sounds very flimsy. Can you really compare Japan and the UK without correcting for a bunch of confounding cultural variables that have nothing to do with equality?

Is there no society that is "more equal" than Japan, and yet scores terribly on the metrics you suggest?

Oh wow, I'm sorry I missed your comment because for the last few days I've been wondering why no one was asking that.

Why on earth is no one pointing out that the excessive influence of the rich on politics is a problem that has to do with institutions being corruptible, and not with money?

Don't want rich people to influence politicians? Don't give so much power to politicians in the first place.

Yeah, it's just too bad we can't ask the (millions of) old Russian people who were around at the time and who got killed. Are you fucking kidding me?