Sorry about your loss. I lost a friend of 17 years last spring (he was 30) to a similar cardiovascular issue, and I'm still picking up the pieces more than a y

Sorry about your loss. I lost a friend of 17 years last spring (he was 30) to a similar cardiovascular issue, and I'm still picking up the pieces more than a year later. It hit way harder than losing grandparents. It also showed me that people I'm surrounded by are a lot shittier than I thought compared to him. It taught me to look out for my personal interests more, especially when it comes to health and compensation for my time, and generally standing up to obnoxious bullies. > The general population is extremely ignorant to climate change and the rather serious consequences it brings. I've had many people tell me it's fake, it's just something politicians use in debates, it's a conspiracy, that we aren't experiencing global warming but in fact are headed for a mini ice age, that they don't care because they can't stop it so they're going to keep on living their life how they want I think we have to realize that people vary wildly in their cognitive ability, and some people may just never be able to grasp complex abstract concepts. It doesn't make them worse people, but I don't want to be subject to the tyranny of ignorance either. Another part of this is that people are dealing with personal crises much of their time (like loss of loved ones) and that their focus cannot be diverted to global problems for too long. Life's hard enough without having existential crises about the survival of your species every week. Not sure how to tackle this one. > That Silicon Valley is comical. I'd always pictured it as these brilliant people doing neat stuff, making breakthroughs and driving future technology. The one place that changed my view of technology is, surprisingly, HN itself. For the same reasons you state, I've committed to being a generalist, because most HN posters and the tech cargo cult shows how easily you lose perspective if you are successful in a narrow field of tech. It circles back to your earlier point about tech being elitist. Just the idea of people who have very narrow perspectives being elitist is hilariously ironic to me.