fan

The logic behind the author's central thesis seems to be:

1. Humans live about 100 years. 2. The highest human ambitions, like writing a great novel, can only be reasonably accomplished in a well-balanced life if that life lasts more than 1000 years. 3. By definition, our life is absurd because we don't have enough time to reasonably accomplish our highest ambitions.

She concludes that human life could be made less absurd by extending life to 1000 years -- this I disagree with.

The problem I have with this thesis is that I think the phrase "highest human ambitions" is really a shifting goal. It's a goal that is set by the accomplishment of a person of extraordinary talent who dedicates her entire life to that one pursuit.

We think today that a brilliant novel on the order of Tolstoy is a high human ambition, only because it's the limit of what a human can do. Instead, consider if humans lived much shorter lives, reaching their cognitive peak at age 15. In such a world, few people would have time to learn calculus, and so solving a differential equation might be within the highest order of a human's mathematical ambitions.

Conversely, let me suggest that if the average person were to live to 1000 years, the definition of human ambition would scale accordingly. Imagine the absolute masterpiece symphony that Beethoven could write if he were alive today. He would have hundreds of years of experience. He would have seen the evolution of music and integrate all these advances in his repertoire. He could afford to spend 50 years writing his mater symphony. This level of music will be now our new target of ambition.

The central problem reduces down to this fact. The high water mark for an ambitious goal is always defined by people in that field who are unreasonably talented and dedicates an unreasonable fraction of their lives to the field. If these experts lives the same number of years as I do, since I'm a generalist of average talent dabbling in their field, I will never be able to accomplish anywhere near their level.

The absurdity here then seems to stem from the intrinsic human desire to always compare ourselves to the best, even when we realize we don't want to commit to the field (with good reason) as the best do.

"English-language conquest is not more efficient than polyglot science – it is just differently inefficient."

This seems to be the main thesis the article is trying to prove, yet there's no real clear analysis of the actual tradeoffs.

The argument that having multiple languages has some vague "multi-cultural" advantage over a single unique language is far from evident. The only real argument I can think of distills down to a sense of inequality that some people have 100% of major science article written in their native tongue (English), and all others have 0%.

The segway into the long history of languages in science seems like a non-sequitur for the article key thesis. But it does bring up a point that seems interesting: if one language is so efficient why did scientists fail to coordinate for so long?

Are you against the particular points in this lecture? The video seems like sound tactical advice on how to do a particular type of startup. He talks about things like looking for cofounders, hiring, and soforth. Very little time is spend haranguing students on raising money, or working 80 hour weeks.

Or perhaps you are speaking against the SV startup culture in general, with this video as a catalyst for touching off those thoughts? In that case, perhaps there's just a difference of values.

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Those of you who say that this research is just correlation need to read the paper for a few minutes. Shai's paper would be much less interesting if he just looked at many patents companies did pre and post IPO.

Shai looked at companies that pulled their IPO due to random external factors, and compared this to an group that didn't, and found that those that pulled their IPO innovated more afterwards. It's really this clever identification that makes this paper so well-done.

To the majority of users, including me, that idea is actually novel, and the novelty itself demonstrates the hidden corners that are lurking quite well.

I believe that point was well made, even though in a technical sense, the exact error was unfounded.

I believe that your metaphor above is correct in getting at some features of the startup world, namely:

1) Many founders are attracted by glory rather than logic.

2) Large companies receive research information from startup successes and failures.

But I don't agree with the gladiator metaphor at all because it implies a degree of deviousness and collusion that isn't present in the startup sphere, and is disingenuous to imply.

Take your example of the king offering $0.5M for the finder of a treasure. Here you imply that his goal of offering the prize is to "give villagers a fake hope" and "inspire the poor".

What if the treasure in reality was just worth $0.6M to him? Then the king might conclude a) if someone had the treasure, he'd be happy to pay $0.5, but b) suppose the cost of finding the treasure via hire at $1M, then it is not worth hiring people to dig it up.

Thus, the king may not decide to hire people to dig this, while happily posting a prize. He doesn't need to have ulterior motives to do this.

Now let's take the economics further. Suppose some people are efficient and other people are not efficient diggers (they're good bakers), and there is no way to observe this beforehand. Then if he hires people to dig, the king will lose money because he's at half efficiency with half bakers and half diggers. If he posts a prize, the efficient diggers will self sort into digging, and the bakers will produce real good.

Our data points are few, and really just 1) and 2), so we can't know for sure companies are being evil (and I don't believe they are). It's a classic case of an underdetermined system.

I disagree that a citizen of one country cannot complain about the actions of another country if his/her own country has some (perhaps worse) violations as well.

Applying this logic would mean that no one, say, in the 1980s Soviet Union had anything insightful to say about political oppression in the UK.

This is exactly what we do. And the point is to give wages to those who value it more, and equity to those who value that more.

It's creative and win/win generally for the team. I've yet to have anyone be upset at this. I encourage those considering it to take a closer look.

Speaking from the startup's side, I feel a lot of startup hate for Paypal comes from these horror stories. But in reality any low cost service will have bad customer support (Gmail customer support anyone?).

Also, take into account the fact that Paypal has millions of users, so even a 1:million horror story rate will explode into thousands, whereas for these new startups, I doubt they even have a million customers.

Yes, their customer support is stubborn, paranoid, and OCD. They might even sneer at you, but learning to work with them may be one of the best paying skills to have if you're processing volume.

Also, I give paypal credit for taking almost everyone under their wings. Half the people using paypal couldn't get a merchant account with any real reputable bank. They have paranoid security because their standards are so low.

And of course on the other side, if you're willing to give up a percent or two for being treated kind and by the "right people" then of course these startups will probably suit your need better.

You're right that a lot of outcome comes from past experience. I don't think a resourceful person riding a bike for the first day can be nearly as good as a non-resourceful person who's been riding for decades. So outcome isn't purely a function of past experience.

But let's take a group of people who have the same experience in a domain. Then I would define resourcefulness as the component of outcome that depends on the person, specifically how much self-drive the person has, and how much the person can leverage the tools in his or her situation.

Resourcefulness, as define this way, I think is some part skill. You have to be intelligent enough to put the match and sandpaper together to start a fire. Part of it is tolerance for being burned -- it's much harder to cold call a VC if to you it's personally painful to be told to shove off. And as pg mentioned in previous essays, the last part is determination. Resourcefulness is inherently related to schlepp and you won't schlepp unless you really, really, care about the problem.

Basically, I think you're right in that some situations really benefit those who've seen it before. But at the same time, to dismiss the effort and self-ambition of the person isn't quite right either.

True, but he's controls whether its removed or not so it's best to give a more persuasive reason.

In this case, it's right under the section entitled "Lock Up Agreement", and seems to be indeed after the /prospectus date/ and not the IPO:

"...during the period ending 180 days after the date of this prospectus..."

The transition is never that stark.

Take your example of sunglasses. A quick search on wikipedia shows that the precursor were glasses with a thin slit in them. It was never squinting, and then BOOM, Oakleys.

There was always a gradual change that is only missed in retrospect because of how standardized and popular the winner is.

Name a few popular products and services, and I bet there have been similar solutions beforehand.

I think that can be applied to technologies that aren't open -- and it can be a property of the technology itself.

In fact, one entire category of technology that's overlooked right now is sensors. Besides sound (mic) and light (camera), accelerometers and magnetometers are already there. Some other detectors of "state" that make sense:

Pressure (think of being able to predict rain) Humidity/Temperature (think of an environment controller) Directional Microphone (4): Conferencing, noise cancellation, etc.

99 Designs has actually worked pretty well in my experience. It's like Derek Siver's strategy to have a bunch of people do the work you want be done, and then hiring the best.

Except this site does all of it for you.

I personally have had some luck with Joel's stackoverflow career postings when it first started out. I'm not sure what it's like anymore.

Also, are you a programmer yourself? If so it's much easier because you can just reach back to classmates and friends.

Otherwise, you probably have a much harder time. There's an entire article here about how it's hard to hire a good programmer if you're not good yourself: http://www.joelonsoftware.com/articles/fog0000000073.html

One big assumption that the article is leaving unstated is that the market is valuing things fairly. That is, the analysis depends on the market valuation being correct.

In fact, it usually tends to be the other way around. PE ratios predict future returns in a negative way. A high PE means a company is generally overpriced, empirically more often than the earnings will just grow.

What game does this Nash Equilibrium correspond to? How are we modeling the world such that the eqm. changes?

I don't see the "shift" as obvious at all.

Yes -- this is absolutely key. While the first couple of years in a PhD program can be like a Master's program, once you get to the independent research portion, it's completely different.

There is no more "standard formula" to follow, there is no more just being satisfied getting classwork done. You have to find your own ideas, your own schedule, and your own plans.

Yes but $9b of "credit" is created this way. The US government emphatically does not sell bonds for credit, only cash, which you still only have $1b of...

How could this have come about?

Was it that you guys didn't do the design at all and someone else lifted it in your name?

Or did you guys go ahead and think "we'll wait till we're called out, and in all likelihood we'd be famous enough then to afford a replacement"?

Point of clarification: what does status mean here? If it's identically equated to having a lifestyle that involves obsession with Star Wars, not following proper hygiene, and being messy, then your theory is empirically isomorphic to the article's theory.

Say you expand a little further and say that really low status means social impairment. People who are socially impaired tend to be socially unpleasant. If a woman suspects that this person is a man, that makes the gap even wider and more of a turn off. Then it's not really wrong at all for women to think that way.

The way you have it framed makes "social status" seem like a random construct, a congenital handicap. And women who dislike these people are just "intolerant" of them.

You're assuming here that enjoyment in life is some mathematic, static, function of number of years worked and number of years of free time. There are a lot of issues with that assumption.

First, there are non-linearities when you mix work and play. I personally know that if I wanted to do a full day of work and have two days allocated, I'd rather split them evenly between the two. That way each day I feel accomplished while still having fun and not being stressed.

Second, the above assumes that you're working just for the heck of resources, and work is inherently negative and to be avoided. If you love your work and it's innately important to you, you're not looking to get out as soon as possible. Thus, being able to work "just 9 years" isn't a real advantage.

Finally, this last argument is a personal preference, but I believe in a lifestyle philosophy that doesn't depend on delaying gratification for decades. We already did it once for 12 years for school, and if you extend by another 10-12 years, the better half of your life will be gone before you see any payoff. Life isn't saving for tomorrow, but rather what you experience today.

Re: "Feeling of control is very important...feels a lot worse than driving."

Citation? I'm not saying it's not true. I'm just curious if there are actually surveys of this. I've personally never felt a subway/tram/plane was any less safe because of lack of control so found the claim hard to empathize with.

I'd like to see the paper that shows medical doctors only wash their hands 9% of times after going to the bathroom.

The number is mind-blowingly low, especially since when I'm in public restrooms myself, the number of people who wash their hands seems to be in the majority.

Of course, my sampling could be off because people could be self concious of being watched, doctors could be in more of a rush, etc. But 9%? That's an incredible data point and needs incredible evidence.

Edit: Went back and read the original study. First of all, the study isn't about washing hands after the /toilet/ at all, but rather about washing hands after /patient contact/. Second, nowhere obvious in the study does it say that doctors believe they washed hands 73% of times. In fact, there is no mention of any survey whatsoever...

The cohort there is different.

"- A rapid climb in income inequality over the last generation (check the historical gini index for reference) means that there aren't very many quality, well paying jobs available to young people."

The rise in income inequality is offset by the growth of average real income.

In fact, every point on the income curve has risen, at least in the US.

That is, if we compare the population 30 years ago to today, the real income is higher for the 10th percentile of lowest earners, the 20th percentile of lowest earners, etc.

Thus, its not harder to raise a family the same way today as 30 years ago -- people's standards have just heavily ballooned. "Raising a family" used to mean getting food in the door and clothes on your familys backs. Now it means a couple of sets of HD TVs, computers, barbeque grill, etc etc...

The article has a huge flaw in not comparing equal consumption.

The interesting question isn't how much retirement savings you'll have at the end, but how much "net return" you get from the college degree.

I'd like to see a Net Present Value calculation of the two choices instead of some flaky calculation assuming a fixed 5% savings rate.