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paganel: "investors like Levchin do not care one iota about what said start-up founders will do with their lifes after all is said and done" dang: "You can't p

paganel: "investors like Levchin do not care one iota about what said start-up founders will do with their lifes after all is said and done" dang: "You can't possibly know what iotas someone else cares about" aaronbrethorst: Here's a quote that describes what Levchin cares about. greglindahl: "Here you have a Huffington Post editor getting extremely close to putting words into someone else's mouth" aaronbrethorst: Here's just the quote that describes what Levchin cares about. dang: "You completely changed the subject" I give up.

dang 10y ago
The error is that your quote doesn't cover every iota he cares about. That's like searching a list to make sure it has no odd numbers in it and stopping when you find 42. We don't commonly make that kind of mistake while programming, but we do commonly make it while venting. Many users come to internet forums to release pent-up emotional energy at their favourite symbolic targets. Monkeys do that too, only with feces rather than words, and not on the internet. We're all monkeys in this respect (edit: i.e. I don't mean to pick on you personally), so I don't believe HN can be immune to this (not for a while anyhow). But I do think we can do a little better. The point here is not about Max Levchin, of course. The point is that feces-throwing is extremely predictable (that's part of its pleasure) and therefore extremely tedious. It cuts against the mandate of this site, which is to gratify intellectual curiosity—the polar opposite of tedium.
- patrec 10y ago
  Insulting people as shit slinging monkeys and quibbling about yet unknown iotas reads like a transparent deflection from losing the argument. Look, I agree that outrage signalling and unsubstantiated imputation of value systems on specific people are generally toxic -- but how does this help? To any normal person not caught up in some weird startup death cult the quotes proffered suggest that Max Levchin is probably not about maximizing your physical and mental health at expense to your economic output. This seems fair to point out, even if it could have been formulated better.
  - dang 10y ago
    > I agree that outrage signalling and unsubstantiated imputation of value systems on specific people are generally toxic -- but how does this help? Since you agree with this, we agree on the only thing I'm arguing for. What helps is (a) not doing it, (b) trying not to do it, and/or (c) being conscious that one is doing it— in that order.
Gatsky 10y ago
What have we learned here except the futility of guessing what famous people are thinking? dang is right to call out this vacuous behaviour.

dang 10y ago

The error is that your quote doesn't cover every iota he cares about. That's like searching a list to make sure it has no odd numbers in it and stopping when you find 42. We don't commonly make that kind of mistake while programming, but we do commonly make it while venting. Many users come to internet forums to release pent-up emotional energy at their favourite symbolic targets. Monkeys do that too, only with feces rather than words, and not on the internet. We're all monkeys in this respect (edit: i.e. I don't mean to pick on you personally), so I don't believe HN can be immune to this (not for a while anyhow). But I do think we can do a little better. The point here is not about Max Levchin, of course. The point is that feces-throwing is extremely predictable (that's part of its pleasure) and therefore extremely tedious. It cuts against the mandate of this site, which is to gratify intellectual curiosity—the polar opposite of tedium.

patrec 10y ago
Insulting people as shit slinging monkeys and quibbling about yet unknown iotas reads like a transparent deflection from losing the argument. Look, I agree that outrage signalling and unsubstantiated imputation of value systems on specific people are generally toxic -- but how does this help? To any normal person not caught up in some weird startup death cult the quotes proffered suggest that Max Levchin is probably not about maximizing your physical and mental health at expense to your economic output. This seems fair to point out, even if it could have been formulated better.
- dang 10y ago
  > I agree that outrage signalling and unsubstantiated imputation of value systems on specific people are generally toxic -- but how does this help? Since you agree with this, we agree on the only thing I'm arguing for. What helps is (a) not doing it, (b) trying not to do it, and/or (c) being conscious that one is doing it— in that order.

Gatsky 10y ago

What have we learned here except the futility of guessing what famous people are thinking? dang is right to call out this vacuous behaviour.