I agree with you too, but I don't think it's necessarily a gross over-exaggeration: it's possible that the majority of the buying population are extremely vulnerable to manipulation.
"Average" doesn't necessarily mean half way between two extremes - the average human might actually be all of:
- extremely vulnerable to manipulation
- struggling with impulse control
- prone to making bad financial decisions
- the elderly / kids (<16/>60)
Based on age demographics, rampant consumerism and social media addiction, especially in those age demographics, I'd be more inclined to guess the average human is all of those things.
Yes, well, kind of. Opera had Multiple Document Interface (MDI) which was actually (back then) far more flexible than tabs. But yes, Opera was first with MDI, and also I suppose the first web browser for the smartphone.
At the start of this year I wrote down "Get rid of your Airpods" as a New Years Resolution. This was basically my proxy for "stop filling every spare moment with audiobooks and podcasts".
I still haven't done it, and my reflex for listening to something - even after my listening backlogs emptied a few months back - suggests I'm essentially addicted. Especially considering how much better I feel when I don't take my airpods out with me.
So, time to deal with that I guess. Thanks for the push.
i've also been mindful of this for a few years but it's not something i've thought to talk to others about - imagine telling your friends you're addicted to podcasts.
i still walk around at home with my airpods in like a zombie, but i've found some opportunities to free my brain, like when i'm walking outside in the city for short walks i try to go airpod-free. or when i have a short drive, i listen to the radio (NTS) instead of a podcast and it reeeeallly feels great to feel unplugged and listen to my thoughts and feelings for a bit. i guess the stimulation from those activities (seeing the city, having to drive, etc) helps make it easier to unplug a bit.
other things that are obvious in hindsight: i think it's also easier for me to exist at home without ear heroin when i've slept really well, when i'm not feeling pressured or nervous, and when i'm not amped up on coffee or stims.
> The person [is not super fired up and] doesn’t just want to act as a soldier for their team
This pulled me into a tangential thought:
Has anyone else noticed that a lot of people just CAN'T be wrong? They might be contrarian, cynical, narcissists, experts in their field, experiencing PTSD or other emotional disregulation, extremely online, ... Then the team-based things: political entrenchment, [colour]-pilled, conspiracy theorists, religious, Collingwood supporters (kidding) ...
Finding people who are genuinely interested in learning about things that might change their views in substantial ways is very hard. Even when you find people genuinely interested in learning, it's so common to see evidence take a back seat to political or religious views. It makes you feel crazy sometimes.
Remind yourself that every single comment, post, video, update, whatever on the internet is already a selection bias for people who either aren't deterred by the fact that shouting into the void like that is inherently low value and stupid, or reject it and believe a tweet is inherently valuable.
IE, you should never ever ever treat an average of online discourse as a representative average of humanity. It is already a niche cohort before you get into specific groups.
That alone means you will see more of people who strongly believe their opinions, see more of people who like to hear themselves talk, see more of people who unironically state that "I am never wrong", etc. The comment format of the internet is also pretty much perfectly designed to support the absolute wrong kind of discussion if you want actual productive discourse.
Instead of two people going back and forth and building up that context of "Heres what I mean when I say X" and being able to ground discussion on that shared context, there is no shared context and every dumbass can leave a large drive by argument that is not in the same shared context as the rest of the conversation, leading to vacuous "point scoring" and "um akshually" and talking past each other.
Online discourse just doesn't progress, because there's nothing that drags my ass back here to respond to your point, like I would feel compelled to in reality.
> aren't deterred by the fact that shouting into the void like that is inherently low value and stupid, or reject it and believe a tweet is inherently valuable.
What is high value; and how are you supposed to find it in this environment?
It’s not that you’re crazy, it’s that human beings are not actually rational most of the time.
More intelligent human beings can do a better impression of rationality but in most situations they’re still using their intelligence to post-rationalise some existing feeling.
Once you recognise that you’ll see that it’s true even in yourself
> learning about things that might change their views in substantial ways
The core problem is that the only people who have any interest in teaching about those things are doing so specifically because they want to recruit others into their political camp. "Education" is conflated with agreement with someone else's conclusion.
(And even then, sometimes they disclaim responsibility, and just seek to morally bully you into agreement.)
Often, you already know about the thing, and this knowledge hasn't changed your view; and then the people who call you ignorant of the thing are just annoying. Sometimes, you conclude that the thing has been completely misrepresented anyway.
When I was 11, I pulled a book off the shelf at the nearby library called "Teach Yourself C++ in 21 Days". I remember thinking the title was clearly nonsense, but if I could even learn a fraction of it, that would be pretty cool. We didn't have a computer at home yet, so I wrote out the exercises by hand.
I think I got about a third of the way through. I knew (debatably) what inheritance was, that a Dog is an Animal, etc.
School, university, and 10 years of career later across multiple stacks and companies, there's still a heap I don't know, but you can drop me in a lot of codebases and I'll figure it out.
> So go ahead and buy that Java/Ruby/Javascript/PHP book; you'll probably get some use out of it. But you won't change your life, or your real overall expertise as a programmer in 24 hours or 21 days.
Very happy JamCorder customer here. I've started playing in improv shows since I bought it too, and it's nice to have those on record!
It's rare that I come across a product I have literally zero complaints about, or any feedback to offer. Even my concern that it was tied to an app that might disappear one day is of course covered by the fact that it's all just MIDI files on a card.
Thank you so much for making this, it's basically a perfect product for me and I love it. No notes.
>Even my concern that it was tied to an app that might disappear one day is of course covered by the fact that it's all just MIDI files on a card.
I was sorta surprised when the blog mentioned it was like 200k lines of code for an app. I wouldn't think you'd even need an app for something that puts midi files on an sd card.
FWIW I don't think it's pathetic at all, and I have the same reaction as you to a lot of things on HN. There are a wide variety of topics that bring out various biases and other cognitive blind spots in people, and bots.
Space travel seems to be one of the more harmless ones, but I agree it's frustrating to see people implicitly or explicitly skip over things like near-light-speed travel as solved problem, then reject arguments from others as "not thinking big enough", etc.
In general, divorce from reality doesn't seem to be related to intelligence at all in my experience. I'm sure there are plenty of times when my wishful thinking gets in the way too.
>>>
Arguments based on human nature are nearly always awful.
...
It's human nature to care about yourself, but it's also human nature to care about others.
Different norms develop around different aspects of our nature.
You can't then use human nature to explain why it's okay to violently enforce social norms related to property,
but an unworkable injustice to violently enforce social norms related to charity.
...
While it might be human nature to consider the wood I chop mine, and the wood you chop yours,
it's probably not human nature to consider the wood as belonging to an entirely made-up legal entity
that neither planted the trees nor cut them down.
The fact of this weird arrangement, which goes against the self-interest of every woodsman,
does seem natural to a lot of people, points to the core of the problem with appeals to human nature.
...
The human nature being appealed to is shaped by the system it's being used to defend.