5 ms·

Trampled by Unicorns: Big Tech’s Empathy Problem and How to Fix It

11 points by eplanit 6y ago

luckylion 6y ago
Why did the title get changed? The submission used the actual article title Why Silicon Valley CEOs are such raging psychopaths.
- cbarrick 6y ago
  Trampled by Unicorns is the book referenced by the article. This article appears to be PR for the book.
- dredmorbius 6y ago
  Title guidelines are flexible in some regards: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=19776913 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=19776913 Avoiding reactions based strictly on titles is a key consideration. HN is interested in stimulating discussion, not selling newsprint or eyeballs.
- dang 6y ago
  A moderator changed it because it was linkbait. Note this from https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html: "Please use the original title, unless it is misleading or linkbait" For book reviews or articles about new books, the book title often makes a better HN title, so we turned to that in this case.
deleted 6y ago
[deleted]
hinkley 6y ago
As I was reading this I was reminded of the aphorism, You should never meet your heroes. Perhaps we should meet all of our heroes. To see that we should not hold them up as goals to be achieved, but bars to be surpassed.
ankushnarula 6y ago
Remember when Bill Gates became tech’s enemy number one? How about when Google was not going to be evil? How about when Steve Jobs convinced us that “it just works”? Or when Elon Musk was going to save the world? We want to blame these highly-capitalized cults of personality for our human cultish tendencies — often exacerbated by chatterers who are incentivized by media access to cult leaders (that lead to clicks and views). But the truth is most people are unwilling to make tradeoffs that favor principle over convenience & security. So it’s very hard to take them seriously when they cry for the Nanny State or the collective shaming mobs to bend the world to their will. Liberty and innovation become ossified when people defer moral action to some regulatory authority or mob collective.

11 points by eplanit 6y ago

Why did the title get changed? The submission used the actual article title Why Silicon Valley CEOs are such raging psychopaths.

cbarrick 6y ago
Trampled by Unicorns is the book referenced by the article. This article appears to be PR for the book.
dredmorbius 6y ago
Title guidelines are flexible in some regards: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=19776913 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=19776913 Avoiding reactions based strictly on titles is a key consideration. HN is interested in stimulating discussion, not selling newsprint or eyeballs.
dang 6y ago
A moderator changed it because it was linkbait. Note this from https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html: "Please use the original title, unless it is misleading or linkbait" For book reviews or articles about new books, the book title often makes a better HN title, so we turned to that in this case.

deleted 6y ago

[deleted]

hinkley 6y ago

As I was reading this I was reminded of the aphorism, You should never meet your heroes. Perhaps we should meet all of our heroes. To see that we should not hold them up as goals to be achieved, but bars to be surpassed.

ankushnarula 6y ago

Remember when Bill Gates became tech’s enemy number one? How about when Google was not going to be evil? How about when Steve Jobs convinced us that “it just works”? Or when Elon Musk was going to save the world? We want to blame these highly-capitalized cults of personality for our human cultish tendencies — often exacerbated by chatterers who are incentivized by media access to cult leaders (that lead to clicks and views). But the truth is most people are unwilling to make tradeoffs that favor principle over convenience & security. So it’s very hard to take them seriously when they cry for the Nanny State or the collective shaming mobs to bend the world to their will. Liberty and innovation become ossified when people defer moral action to some regulatory authority or mob collective.