6 ms·

>My only consolation is knowing that I'm seeing the world more accurately than I used to. also known as growing older ;-)

afavour 2y ago
For sure. I almost included something in my comment about "I guess this is what getting old is like", losing your idealism as you age. But equally, maybe not. If I'd grown up in, I dunno the 60s? I would have witnessed enormous leaps in technological possibility and enormous increases in standards of living, personal freedoms, yadda yadda. In my youth it felt like there was a viable future where tech enabled radical positive changes in society. Instead we concentrated wealth at the top of society at historically unprecedented levels.
- ChrisMarshallNY 2y ago
  I wouldn't call it "losing my idealism," but, rather "understanding that everything is a lot more complex than my simple young mind could deal with." I'm probably more "idealistic" than I have ever been; it's just that I no longer have the silly "Let's just do this one simple thing" attitude. I've just found that getting places is always a lot more difficult than we think. Usually, it's people, and all their messy personal issues, that gum up the works. The good news is, is that I am actually accomplishing more than I did, when I was younger. I'm devoting less energy, and it is often more frustrating, but shit gets done. A big reason, is that I understand myself, and the people around me, a lot better than I used to. They are no longer "NPCs" in my Game of Life. As to the article, I seriously feel for the author, but I am not exactly in their shoes. I don't have anything against them, but their cause is not my cause. I don't have a dog in this race. I have nothing at all against trans folks. Many of my friends are varying types of LGBTQI+ folks. If I'm not going to bed with them, then who they love, and what they do, when I'm not around, isn't my concern. I'd usually like them to be happy, and support their choices, as long as they don't interfere with my life. I'm even willing to go out of my way, in some cases, to support them (that's what friends do). The one thing that is almost guaranteed to make our cause to go floop, is insisting that everyone else is either with us, or against us. This is especially annoying, when our cause is important to only a small minority of stakeholders. For some reason, almost everyone in our life ends up in the "against" column, and many of them started as people that actually supported us, but weren't willing to go much farther than that. So now, they are actively working against us, as we declared them to be "enemy combatants." The "woke" stuff caused exactly this reaction. It's not just left-leaning stuff, either. Activists of every stripe, do the same thing, and then act all puzzled, as to why everyone seems to be against them. As Dr. Phil might say, "So...how's that working out for you?"
  - ta10496520945 2y ago
    > The one thing that is almost guaranteed to make our cause to go floop, is insisting that everyone else is either with us, or against us. This is especially annoying, when our cause is important to only a small minority of stakeholders. Masterfully said, I'd love this to be the pull quote here.
    - nradov 2y ago
      "The person who agrees with you 80 percent of the time is a friend and an ally — not a 20 percent traitor." - Ronald Reagan, 1972
  - davidw 2y ago
    There are a lot of ways of being supportive without being like a full blown activist. I get that there are some 'purity test' type people out there, and they're annoying, but they're a small minority in most things.
    - nradov 2y ago
      The real trouble starts when regular people allow the "purity test" type people to have any sort of power or influence instead of laughing and ignoring them like we should. This can result in a destructive purity spiral, even over seemingly trivial issues. https://unherd.com/2020/01/cast-out-how-knitting-fell-into-a-purity-spiral/ https://unherd.com/2020/01/cast-out-how-knitting-fell-into-a...
      - davidw 2y ago
        I'm going to go out on a limb and say that the US government coming after people because of who they are is a lot more worrying than some knitters in terms of "people getting access to power".
  - btilly 2y ago
    [flagged]
- crimsoneer 2y ago
  Yeah. I'm clinging to the hope the hacker revolution might not be over just yet :P
  - horrible-hilde 2y ago
    maybe it just got hijaked for a bit.
- jimmydddd 2y ago
  "I saw a dead head sticker on a Cadillac."
  - bookofjoe 2y ago
    "His hair was perfect"
- deleted 2y ago
  [deleted]
guelo 2y ago
At the end of the essay he says "I’d be a better startup founder today than I was in 2015" and my thought was, yea but YC is biased towards college kids. And then I saw your comment and I think something clicked for me. But maybe the ignorance and pliability of youth really is required to make the crazy bet on the startup dream.
- rexpop 2y ago
  > pliability of youth Not entirely dissimilar to the exploitation of eg college athletes.
  - eastbound 2y ago
    The federation judged that even a college athlete who gets a major concussion cannot be offered a bottle of water for free, “because it could be assimilated to a wage”. No, really, college athletes are worse than unpaid.
    - rexpop 2y ago
      Absolutely. I made my choice, and it was startups > athletics.
- amrocha 2y ago
  She. She says she prefers to go by she or they in her essay.
- mempko 2y ago
  The youth has energy and are naive and will take a bad deal. They will work hard while others will make money off their work. Also, the author is not a man.
ta_1138 2y ago
That might be true, for a while. But I bet many of us have parents that are old enough that are, in uncontroversial, non-political ways, losing their ability to view the world accurately. It's not all that easy to convince them that yes, they are in cognitive decline, and we are doing their best to consider how the version of themselves 20 years before would like us to tackle the decline. Even in less obvious cases that don't involve old age, we often call something growth, when we should just say change. Sometimes we are all just more set our ways. Others, our "learning" is just abandoning principles so that we can follow random emotional fancies. Knowing when we are actually seeing the world more accurately, instead of being wrong in a different way, is quite challenging. We all want to think we are getting better, which is precisely whi we are blind to the ways in which we aren't. The convenient story often defeats what is actually true, but inconvenient.

afavour 2y ago

For sure. I almost included something in my comment about "I guess this is what getting old is like", losing your idealism as you age. But equally, maybe not. If I'd grown up in, I dunno the 60s? I would have witnessed enormous leaps in technological possibility and enormous increases in standards of living, personal freedoms, yadda yadda. In my youth it felt like there was a viable future where tech enabled radical positive changes in society. Instead we concentrated wealth at the top of society at historically unprecedented levels.

ChrisMarshallNY 2y ago
I wouldn't call it "losing my idealism," but, rather "understanding that everything is a lot more complex than my simple young mind could deal with." I'm probably more "idealistic" than I have ever been; it's just that I no longer have the silly "Let's just do this one simple thing" attitude. I've just found that getting places is always a lot more difficult than we think. Usually, it's people, and all their messy personal issues, that gum up the works. The good news is, is that I am actually accomplishing more than I did, when I was younger. I'm devoting less energy, and it is often more frustrating, but shit gets done. A big reason, is that I understand myself, and the people around me, a lot better than I used to. They are no longer "NPCs" in my Game of Life. As to the article, I seriously feel for the author, but I am not exactly in their shoes. I don't have anything against them, but their cause is not my cause. I don't have a dog in this race. I have nothing at all against trans folks. Many of my friends are varying types of LGBTQI+ folks. If I'm not going to bed with them, then who they love, and what they do, when I'm not around, isn't my concern. I'd usually like them to be happy, and support their choices, as long as they don't interfere with my life. I'm even willing to go out of my way, in some cases, to support them (that's what friends do). The one thing that is almost guaranteed to make our cause to go floop, is insisting that everyone else is either with us, or against us. This is especially annoying, when our cause is important to only a small minority of stakeholders. For some reason, almost everyone in our life ends up in the "against" column, and many of them started as people that actually supported us, but weren't willing to go much farther than that. So now, they are actively working against us, as we declared them to be "enemy combatants." The "woke" stuff caused exactly this reaction. It's not just left-leaning stuff, either. Activists of every stripe, do the same thing, and then act all puzzled, as to why everyone seems to be against them. As Dr. Phil might say, "So...how's that working out for you?"
- ta10496520945 2y ago
  > The one thing that is almost guaranteed to make our cause to go floop, is insisting that everyone else is either with us, or against us. This is especially annoying, when our cause is important to only a small minority of stakeholders. Masterfully said, I'd love this to be the pull quote here.
  - nradov 2y ago
    "The person who agrees with you 80 percent of the time is a friend and an ally — not a 20 percent traitor." - Ronald Reagan, 1972
- davidw 2y ago
  There are a lot of ways of being supportive without being like a full blown activist. I get that there are some 'purity test' type people out there, and they're annoying, but they're a small minority in most things.
  - nradov 2y ago
    The real trouble starts when regular people allow the "purity test" type people to have any sort of power or influence instead of laughing and ignoring them like we should. This can result in a destructive purity spiral, even over seemingly trivial issues. https://unherd.com/2020/01/cast-out-how-knitting-fell-into-a-purity-spiral/ https://unherd.com/2020/01/cast-out-how-knitting-fell-into-a...
    - davidw 2y ago
      I'm going to go out on a limb and say that the US government coming after people because of who they are is a lot more worrying than some knitters in terms of "people getting access to power".
- btilly 2y ago
  [flagged]
crimsoneer 2y ago
Yeah. I'm clinging to the hope the hacker revolution might not be over just yet :P
- horrible-hilde 2y ago
  maybe it just got hijaked for a bit.
jimmydddd 2y ago
"I saw a dead head sticker on a Cadillac."
- bookofjoe 2y ago
  "His hair was perfect"
deleted 2y ago
[deleted]

guelo 2y ago

At the end of the essay he says "I’d be a better startup founder today than I was in 2015" and my thought was, yea but YC is biased towards college kids. And then I saw your comment and I think something clicked for me. But maybe the ignorance and pliability of youth really is required to make the crazy bet on the startup dream.

rexpop 2y ago
> pliability of youth Not entirely dissimilar to the exploitation of eg college athletes.
- eastbound 2y ago
  The federation judged that even a college athlete who gets a major concussion cannot be offered a bottle of water for free, “because it could be assimilated to a wage”. No, really, college athletes are worse than unpaid.
  - rexpop 2y ago
    Absolutely. I made my choice, and it was startups > athletics.
amrocha 2y ago
She. She says she prefers to go by she or they in her essay.
mempko 2y ago
The youth has energy and are naive and will take a bad deal. They will work hard while others will make money off their work. Also, the author is not a man.

ta_1138 2y ago

That might be true, for a while. But I bet many of us have parents that are old enough that are, in uncontroversial, non-political ways, losing their ability to view the world accurately. It's not all that easy to convince them that yes, they are in cognitive decline, and we are doing their best to consider how the version of themselves 20 years before would like us to tackle the decline. Even in less obvious cases that don't involve old age, we often call something growth, when we should just say change. Sometimes we are all just more set our ways. Others, our "learning" is just abandoning principles so that we can follow random emotional fancies. Knowing when we are actually seeing the world more accurately, instead of being wrong in a different way, is quite challenging. We all want to think we are getting better, which is precisely whi we are blind to the ways in which we aren't. The convenient story often defeats what is actually true, but inconvenient.