Agreed. I’ll also make an observation based on this thread: the idea of computation as a fundamental law is most believable (and desirable) to people who like computers and want to reduce reality to a computer.
The belief is like a cheat code: somehow our tinkering and 9-5 job somehow grants us, the computer nerds, a deep understanding of life, the universe and everything. Deeper than scientists, philosophers, etc. It’s epistemic catnip and pretty tasty at that!
IIRC, one of the highest profile North Korean defectors said that Jimmy Carter's interference in Bill Clinton's Korea strategy basically gave North Korea another decade to build an atom bomb. After that regime got the bomb, they became un-invadeable.
"Passcode to the Third Floor" describes this instance and other missed opportunities to undermine the North Korean regime.
If he had left that coupling at 1.0, I’d agree that would be careless. But he didn’t; that one expedient choice was reversed before mass adoption.
IMHO, you may be confusing “care” for legibility. The creator(s) made a choice that you disagree with and that you may not understand. They also haven’t justified or explained their choice to you. That illegibility might feel careless, even a little mean, but I reckon their focus was on figuring out the language, not seeking widespread approval.
Using local labels to communicate to an (inter)national audience is a bit foolish, I think.
In SF, we have a wealthy clique who are locally labeled as “progressives” and who are also contradictorily against new housing. They even veto’d building a new apartment complex on a parking lot!
I’d personally call that clique “NIMBY” since their “progressive” label is essentially designed for propagating denialism among the credulous.
It’s ironic to say the GP overreached and then accuse him of injecting an agenda. Particularly on a blogpost that leans towards the GPs understanding, not yours.
> When he gets home at night, he argues for hours on Italian forums about which type of oven is best. The Italian forums are, to him, the ultimate source of oven-truth.
This detail, among several others, is subtle but deeply fateful.
The GP (Jonathan Pollard) has been using the “Xe” pronouns on other people since about 2015. I think he’s also edited/argued for unusual pronouns on Wikipedia as late as 2025.
I don’t think he’s ever explained his intentions with "Xe" on HN. My guess is that forcing “Xe” somehow gives him pleasure, neverminding the misunderstanding it incurs.
imho, one big reason why Data Science as a big org lost clout in tech companies was a tendency to treat DS as gatekeepers of data. Outsourcing the responsibility of stat thinking gave many DS a weird power trip; when one dude gets to decide the trade-offs first without anyone around them needing to understand properly.
“No” is a straightforward answer to “areweguiyet” in Rust. Many well intentioned and well-invested projects with no winning GUIs means we’re not there yet.
Saying “almost” or “yes” privileges the
activity and hype around Rust GUI over actual results. Bevy is the ironic example: a game engine that produces more discussion and code than, so far, one notable & good game.
Billing statements disguised as marketing nudges is a cromulent business practice until the SaaS start sending bills to collections.
I think the author is being kind, both to themselves and startup practicing dark patterns. He walks through his own thinking, raises important questions and also gives the benefit of the doubt that I wouldn’t give.
IMHO, the article gets ahead of criticism well: accepting the valid critiques while also confining the weird/lazy ones to downvotes.
At the 0:10s mark of the video, the ex-stabber makes a move on the mayor and gets in the bodyguard's face, trading words. The SFChronicle reporter noted that critical detail you've overlooked.
Seeing the threat depends on one's bias. The mob that hates police and/or the mayor (he's jewish, billionaire, etc) can't see it, because all violence is supposedly the system's fault. Verbal threats are only real if the system does it.
For me, I lived next to the Tenderloin for two years & was threatened at knife-point by a nearby homeless. I think the risk warrants the shove. Maybe if the bodyguard hadn't shoved, the mayor would be fine. Or maybe the mob would have been much, much happier that day.
That wikipage over-focuses on modern rightwing racism to the exclusion of modern leftwing racism against the Chinese. It doesn't account for how 2020's White Progressives treated Chinese-Americans as "white-adjacent" second-class constituents. For example, by funding front-groups that claimed authority over US Chinese & Asian concerns, from an almost exclusively partisan angle.
The marginalization of Chinese-Americans by Progressives is a common frustration for recent Chinese immigrants in the Bay Area. It's a deeper resentment for local Chinese-Americans who eventually drove a recall campaign ousting SF's infamously progressive DA.
I'd concur with the sibling commenter; they put their money where their mouth is and they've addressed your arguments, particularly the popularity fallacy.
I'll also say Zig got Bun to their big acquisition; not unlike how other startups started with Ruby and then later to switched to Java at scale. Those startups didn't need to ruminate on their past experience as a horrible mistake or disappointment; they just moved on.
The left-right coalition against porn makes relief for Kickstarter or Stripe unlikely.
FOSTA-SESTA, the law that increased liability for platforms facilitating porn, passed 388-25 in the House and 97-2 in the Senate back in 2018. Every senate Progressive except one voted yes, including Sanders, Warren, Kamala Harris (AG against Backpage), Booker, etc. Anti-trafficking feminist groups like NOW backed that legislation, or were silent on it. Similarly, media outlets were either quiet or in vocal support, i.e., the NYTimes 2020 attack on Pornhub.
The belief is like a cheat code: somehow our tinkering and 9-5 job somehow grants us, the computer nerds, a deep understanding of life, the universe and everything. Deeper than scientists, philosophers, etc. It’s epistemic catnip and pretty tasty at that!