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>It seems to have partially worked, since you commented. Unfortunately, your comment doesn’t get us into the discussion we are actually supposed to have. No, t

>It seems to have partially worked, since you commented. Unfortunately, your comment doesn’t get us into the discussion we are actually supposed to have. No, the discussion we're having is the discussion we're supposed to have, although I don't think it's the one you would have liked. You are generally not having discussions on this forum that reflect that you understand its conventions. > Well, I have written materials that explore every facet of this problem, and to software that has solved it. You clearly don't have a community already invested in what you have to say about the state of the problem, never mind your solutions to it. So I'd say take a step back and prove that you can build a community that cares about the problems you are trying to solve, whether through a mailing list, IRC channel, slack group, twitter list. Once you have built that community, it's a lot more likely that you'll have a group consensus to what the problem is, which is a necessary foundation for you to build any kind of a solution. If you did have that foundation, you wouldn't be spamming project links on hacker news. Forget about your software. Focus on the foundation it will require to be successful. Focus on discovering what you can write about that will actually win people's hearts and minds, with evidence. Focus on what things you think and you express that resonate with a community, that they'll go to bat for. This is extremely hard and failure-prone. But if you can't do that, you'll never successfully build a solution that gets adoption. You do want the solution you build to be used, right? Then focus, really focus, on community building first. Best of luck.

EGreg 6y ago
You clearly don't have a community already invested in what you have to say about the state of the problem, never mind your solutions to it. So I'd say take a step back and prove that you can build a community that cares about the problems you are trying to solve, whether through a mailing list, IRC channel, slack group, twitter list. Once you have built that community, it's a lot more likely that you'll have a group consensus to what the problem is, which is a necessary foundation for you to build any kind of a solution. Thank you, this is very good advice. And yeah, I have a bad habit of "doing the hard things" and taking risks to engage smart people in conversations, sometimes stupidly (because I walk into a group which has been conditioned against, say, cryptocurrency, and try to present my case). I do it to improve my own communication skills and also understand the dynamics on "hard mode". I've focused on the foundation. I just didn't want to mention it here. I wanted to see if smart people would talk about the real problems for their own sake, and not just getting on the bandwagon of something already successful. But, I've learned over the last 10-15 years that this is largely a waste of time. Time could be better spent actually building the thing you're talking about. I'll try to be a bit smarter about it in the future. It's the same impulse that makes people get into Twitter wars for no reason and waste time.
- yowlingcat 6y ago
  > And yeah, I have a bad habit of "doing the hard things" and taking risks to engage smart people in conversations, sometimes stupidly (because I walk into a group which has been conditioned against, say, cryptocurrency, and try to present my case). I do it to improve my own communication skills and also understand the dynamics on "hard mode". Treating life like it's a video game or an exercise in contrarianism is adolescent and borderline antisocial. Just don't do this. Trying to convert people is incredibly hostile, presumptuous and condescending and presumes you know better than their existing notions without even asking them about it or any kind of discussion or successful convincing. It's an easy way to lose the potential trust of acquaintances who have very little incentive to listen to you unless you earn their attention. I'm not saying not to ever approach things this way, but know when it's not appropriate. If you have to ask, it's probably not. I know I said that you should try your hand at building a community, but that's hard and it can fail as well too. Perhaps it's worth at least proving to yourself that you can function as an active member inside of a community without getting regularly downvoted. Don't malign "the bandwagon of something already successful" as if it's so trivial. They're succeeding and you are not. There was a lot of work and cleverness involved in them building that territory. They will remain on top until they are out-executed.

EGreg 6y ago

You clearly don't have a community already invested in what you have to say about the state of the problem, never mind your solutions to it. So I'd say take a step back and prove that you can build a community that cares about the problems you are trying to solve, whether through a mailing list, IRC channel, slack group, twitter list. Once you have built that community, it's a lot more likely that you'll have a group consensus to what the problem is, which is a necessary foundation for you to build any kind of a solution. Thank you, this is very good advice. And yeah, I have a bad habit of "doing the hard things" and taking risks to engage smart people in conversations, sometimes stupidly (because I walk into a group which has been conditioned against, say, cryptocurrency, and try to present my case). I do it to improve my own communication skills and also understand the dynamics on "hard mode". I've focused on the foundation. I just didn't want to mention it here. I wanted to see if smart people would talk about the real problems for their own sake, and not just getting on the bandwagon of something already successful. But, I've learned over the last 10-15 years that this is largely a waste of time. Time could be better spent actually building the thing you're talking about. I'll try to be a bit smarter about it in the future. It's the same impulse that makes people get into Twitter wars for no reason and waste time.

yowlingcat 6y ago
> And yeah, I have a bad habit of "doing the hard things" and taking risks to engage smart people in conversations, sometimes stupidly (because I walk into a group which has been conditioned against, say, cryptocurrency, and try to present my case). I do it to improve my own communication skills and also understand the dynamics on "hard mode". Treating life like it's a video game or an exercise in contrarianism is adolescent and borderline antisocial. Just don't do this. Trying to convert people is incredibly hostile, presumptuous and condescending and presumes you know better than their existing notions without even asking them about it or any kind of discussion or successful convincing. It's an easy way to lose the potential trust of acquaintances who have very little incentive to listen to you unless you earn their attention. I'm not saying not to ever approach things this way, but know when it's not appropriate. If you have to ask, it's probably not. I know I said that you should try your hand at building a community, but that's hard and it can fail as well too. Perhaps it's worth at least proving to yourself that you can function as an active member inside of a community without getting regularly downvoted. Don't malign "the bandwagon of something already successful" as if it's so trivial. They're succeeding and you are not. There was a lot of work and cleverness involved in them building that territory. They will remain on top until they are out-executed.