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I'd go further than "middlebrow megachurch infotainment". I'd say, "high-IQ house-slaves". I'm sure this isn't the intention of TED, but the purpose of this up

I'd go further than "middlebrow megachurch infotainment". I'd say, "high-IQ house-slaves". I'm sure this isn't the intention of TED, but the purpose of this upper-middle-class boosterism seems to be deeply conservative in nature. It re-emerges every time there's enough wealth to let the 4.9% (as opposed to the 95% doomed to stagnation and the 0.1% taking everything) gain a little make-believe ground (that's chewed up by rising house prices, increasing income insecurity especially late in one's career, and education costs). "You should be proud; you get to clean the upstairs bathroom instead of working in the fields." It's not TED's fault. The format of an 18-minute talk is a good one for a large number of purposes. The problem is that any time rich people and smart people get together, the smart people are always very willing (as a group; there are exceptions) to become the proud little house slaves just to enjoy that fleeting sense of having arrived due to the phony proximity to the true owners of this world who are running it into the ground. So most of them soften up and start spouting "status-quo-plus-plus" as soon as a few people in the true upper class start tossing them small favors. You see a lot of this in the "tech" world, especially in the VC-funded incarnation of the Valley. It's sad. We were supposed to be different. Thanks to PG's rankban (I say things he dislikes, so my comments get a personal penalty in placement) this comment will probably be in the middle-bottom (if not absolute bottom) of the page no matter how much you upvote it. Anyway, there it is.

phpnode 13y ago
> Thanks to PG's rankban (I say things he dislikes, so my comments get a personal penalty in placement) this comment will probably be in the middle-bottom (if not absolute bottom) of the page no matter how much you upvote it. do you have any evidence for this? because your whole post sounds a little paranoid - not just the last paragraph. In fact a lot of your recent posts seem to have taken this kind of tone. I don't mention this out of spite, but out of concern. I hope you're ok.
- michaelochurch 13y ago
  do you have any evidence for this? Yes. I didn't talk about it until I confirmed it. Someone who knows a lot of people in the YC-sphere also confirmed. Karma scores of others' posts don't appear here, but they are available (on old posts) using https://www.hnsearch.com/ https://www.hnsearch.com/ . If you look at your placement of an old post (> 3 months) and find yourself at/near the bottom but have the highest-rated comment, then you're on rankban (rankban seems to apply to threads that originated before it was applied). You can also check for slowban empirically by comparing latency while logged in to what you get in Incognito mode.
  - lgieron 13y ago
    It is a pretty serious accusation. I wish you'd prepare a pdf or something where ou state your case. Most people don't have time to dig into that themselves.
    - michaelochurch 13y ago
      It's a huge accusation. Not one I'd make lightly. At first I was furious about it, that I'd wasted so much time into comments that would almost always float to the bottom (when I used to have a ~50% top comment rate, that went to zero). Now I'm more flattered by it: it means that PG is trying to censor what I say-- that my comments are important enough to merit a personal rankban. I also have good reasons to believe that PG is making the decision because he's been pressured by others in the VC world. I don't know that they specifically mentioned me (or even know who I am, for that matter) but he's definitely been told to "do something" about the formerly prominent anti-VC posts that tend to do well here (excluding rankban).
      - BlackDeath3 13y ago
        I notice that you avoided the implicit question in the above post: can you provide proof of your accusation?
craigyk 13y ago
There's some truth to this... but even if true, things could be a lot worse than having the uber wealthy become patrons of smart people. I suppose the danger comes from the smart people realizing that it's a lot easier to gather kudos for putting together good talks than from doing actual quality R&D. Then again, it's been the case for a long time that PIs are really spokesmen for their groups, and are usually quite abstracted away and have less input into day to day research. I say as long as TED helps spread ideas across fields, and inspires rich people enough to fork over $$$, it's all OK.
simoncion 13y ago
Momentary derail: > I say things [PG] dislikes... You seem to frequently and loudly say a lot of things about Google that many current and past Googlers consider to be misguided and largely incorrect. For a very long while it seemed that you were posting these statements on pretty much every Google-related article that made it to the front page. I suspect that your comments would get massively up-voted because: 1) Your writing style is strident and self-assured. Someone who writes so confidently is highly likely to be correct! 2) You're speaking poorly of an SV darling. Contrary opinions must be heard! Time and time again, your comments became the dominating thread of discussion, even if (as was very frequently the case) they had nothing to do with the issues raised in the article that they were attached to. This distressed me and others, and was made even more distressing by your tendency to speak about one of only a very few topics. The first time I saw your complaint about Google's promotion system attached to an article about the tech behind "Google's" self driving cars, I was sympathetic. The fifth time, however... I argue that if the ability for your comments to become top-placed comments has been restricted, it's not because you've said things that PG doesn't like. It's because you've seriously derailed productive, on-topic conversation in numerous threads by repeating pretty much the same largely-off-topic complaints about a former employer that you had several bad experiences with. I'm a strong proponent of free speech, but I also strongly support efforts to encourage meaningful, on-topic discussion.
- michaelochurch 13y ago
  You're wrong. People downvote the off-topic and obnoxious comments. I've been posting here for 3 years. Off-topic negativity (and I've made some boneheaded comments, I'll admit) gets exactly what it deserves: downvoted to shit. You make what would be a strong case if there weren't data, but I have the data from 3 years of posts (with-- again, I'll admit to this-- a wide range in terms of quality). Downvoting works and is democratic. Rankban isn't needed. Also, I've heard that I'm not the only one put on rankban for criticizing VC.
  - simoncion 13y ago
    > People downvote the off-topic and obnoxious comments. The folks who run MetaFilter, Reddit, Digg, Slashdot, and any number of other large public forums would likely disagree with you. It seems that globs of angsty folks who up-vote off-topic vitriol (and down-vote things that they just don't like!) tend to occur in any open-access forum that becomes sufficiently popular. Democracy is a sub-optimal tool for promoting productive, on-topic discussion in popular public-access forums. Look at the pile of largely useless babble that is Slashdot or Youtube comments, or comments on articles attached to the Reddit frontpage for supporting evidence. Hell, even when it was small, MetaFilter understood the serious need for human moderators to help keep discussions civil and on track. > ...I've heard that I'm not the only one put on rankban for criticizing VC. I didn't and don't expect you to be swayed by my claims. You appear to be a person with very strongly held opinions. For the benefit of others, I'll summarize my previous post succinctly. For a several month period at some point in the not-too-distant past, I could guarantee three things: 1) For any randomly selected story that had something to do with Google that was still on the front page in the afternoon, a comment of yours would be one of the top four comments. 2) Your comment would have little to nothing to say about the article it was attached to (unless that article was about some management technique), and lots to say about what you felt was wrong at Google during your (allegedly) brief tenure at the company. 3) The volume of heated discussion attached to your comment would dwarf the discussion (either off-topic or on) in any other thread.
elsurudo 13y ago
Well, I liked your comment, and didn't get what you were talking about with the rankban until I read your username. That "rankban" you mention, that's a pretty shitty thing to have in a forum that is supposed to be about ideas.

phpnode 13y ago

> Thanks to PG's rankban (I say things he dislikes, so my comments get a personal penalty in placement) this comment will probably be in the middle-bottom (if not absolute bottom) of the page no matter how much you upvote it. do you have any evidence for this? because your whole post sounds a little paranoid - not just the last paragraph. In fact a lot of your recent posts seem to have taken this kind of tone. I don't mention this out of spite, but out of concern. I hope you're ok.

michaelochurch 13y ago
do you have any evidence for this? Yes. I didn't talk about it until I confirmed it. Someone who knows a lot of people in the YC-sphere also confirmed. Karma scores of others' posts don't appear here, but they are available (on old posts) using https://www.hnsearch.com/ https://www.hnsearch.com/ . If you look at your placement of an old post (> 3 months) and find yourself at/near the bottom but have the highest-rated comment, then you're on rankban (rankban seems to apply to threads that originated before it was applied). You can also check for slowban empirically by comparing latency while logged in to what you get in Incognito mode.
- lgieron 13y ago
  It is a pretty serious accusation. I wish you'd prepare a pdf or something where ou state your case. Most people don't have time to dig into that themselves.
  - michaelochurch 13y ago
    It's a huge accusation. Not one I'd make lightly. At first I was furious about it, that I'd wasted so much time into comments that would almost always float to the bottom (when I used to have a ~50% top comment rate, that went to zero). Now I'm more flattered by it: it means that PG is trying to censor what I say-- that my comments are important enough to merit a personal rankban. I also have good reasons to believe that PG is making the decision because he's been pressured by others in the VC world. I don't know that they specifically mentioned me (or even know who I am, for that matter) but he's definitely been told to "do something" about the formerly prominent anti-VC posts that tend to do well here (excluding rankban).
    - BlackDeath3 13y ago
      I notice that you avoided the implicit question in the above post: can you provide proof of your accusation?

craigyk 13y ago

There's some truth to this... but even if true, things could be a lot worse than having the uber wealthy become patrons of smart people. I suppose the danger comes from the smart people realizing that it's a lot easier to gather kudos for putting together good talks than from doing actual quality R&D. Then again, it's been the case for a long time that PIs are really spokesmen for their groups, and are usually quite abstracted away and have less input into day to day research. I say as long as TED helps spread ideas across fields, and inspires rich people enough to fork over $$$, it's all OK.

simoncion 13y ago

Momentary derail: > I say things [PG] dislikes... You seem to frequently and loudly say a lot of things about Google that many current and past Googlers consider to be misguided and largely incorrect. For a very long while it seemed that you were posting these statements on pretty much every Google-related article that made it to the front page. I suspect that your comments would get massively up-voted because: 1) Your writing style is strident and self-assured. Someone who writes so confidently is highly likely to be correct! 2) You're speaking poorly of an SV darling. Contrary opinions must be heard! Time and time again, your comments became the dominating thread of discussion, even if (as was very frequently the case) they had nothing to do with the issues raised in the article that they were attached to. This distressed me and others, and was made even more distressing by your tendency to speak about one of only a very few topics. The first time I saw your complaint about Google's promotion system attached to an article about the tech behind "Google's" self driving cars, I was sympathetic. The fifth time, however... I argue that if the ability for your comments to become top-placed comments has been restricted, it's not because you've said things that PG doesn't like. It's because you've seriously derailed productive, on-topic conversation in numerous threads by repeating pretty much the same largely-off-topic complaints about a former employer that you had several bad experiences with. I'm a strong proponent of free speech, but I also strongly support efforts to encourage meaningful, on-topic discussion.

michaelochurch 13y ago
You're wrong. People downvote the off-topic and obnoxious comments. I've been posting here for 3 years. Off-topic negativity (and I've made some boneheaded comments, I'll admit) gets exactly what it deserves: downvoted to shit. You make what would be a strong case if there weren't data, but I have the data from 3 years of posts (with-- again, I'll admit to this-- a wide range in terms of quality). Downvoting works and is democratic. Rankban isn't needed. Also, I've heard that I'm not the only one put on rankban for criticizing VC.
- simoncion 13y ago
  > People downvote the off-topic and obnoxious comments. The folks who run MetaFilter, Reddit, Digg, Slashdot, and any number of other large public forums would likely disagree with you. It seems that globs of angsty folks who up-vote off-topic vitriol (and down-vote things that they just don't like!) tend to occur in any open-access forum that becomes sufficiently popular. Democracy is a sub-optimal tool for promoting productive, on-topic discussion in popular public-access forums. Look at the pile of largely useless babble that is Slashdot or Youtube comments, or comments on articles attached to the Reddit frontpage for supporting evidence. Hell, even when it was small, MetaFilter understood the serious need for human moderators to help keep discussions civil and on track. > ...I've heard that I'm not the only one put on rankban for criticizing VC. I didn't and don't expect you to be swayed by my claims. You appear to be a person with very strongly held opinions. For the benefit of others, I'll summarize my previous post succinctly. For a several month period at some point in the not-too-distant past, I could guarantee three things: 1) For any randomly selected story that had something to do with Google that was still on the front page in the afternoon, a comment of yours would be one of the top four comments. 2) Your comment would have little to nothing to say about the article it was attached to (unless that article was about some management technique), and lots to say about what you felt was wrong at Google during your (allegedly) brief tenure at the company. 3) The volume of heated discussion attached to your comment would dwarf the discussion (either off-topic or on) in any other thread.

elsurudo 13y ago

Well, I liked your comment, and didn't get what you were talking about with the rankban until I read your username. That "rankban" you mention, that's a pretty shitty thing to have in a forum that is supposed to be about ideas.