mikegagnon

The problem with the world isn't too many physical credit cards. It's too many lines of credit.

I find the scheme abominable because corporations are attempting to mold the unconscious minds of elementary school students to morally support specific political policies (viz. copyright). And they're using public education as the distribution method for their propaganda.

Yes, that lesson plan is outrageous. But no, it's not outrageous that lessons plans exist and are shared in general.

"Brainwashing" isn't a precisely defined word. I believe the word is often used to describe persuasion via psychological vulnerabilities. In this sense, the article is correct in calling the technique a form of brainwashing.

Corollary: sales techniques are often a form of brainwashing. I mean this seriously.

> It seems like you're implying that these non-profit founders put a lot of weight in salary as a consideration to whether or not they pursue their vision.

I was implicitly assuming founders of non-profits care about salary. I think it's very admirable that there are people willing to forsake salary for a greater social good. It sounds like this might describe the Watsi crowd.

I am only intimately familiar with one non-profit, whose founder spent years launching her non-profit --- with the financial support of her spouse's salary. I have heard anecdotally of other non-profits whose launch was only possible because the founder was financially supported outside of the non-profit.

But it doesn't have to be this way. I don't think it's intrinsic that potential founders must choose between salary and launching a non-profit. For example, founders could make a salary working part-time for for-profit companies and spend the rest of their time running their non-profits.

Maybe YC could help facilitate such work relationships. I think it would grow the pool of people willing to pursue non-profit endeavors.

You are right; I should have said "there is less __financial__ incentive"

I think you misunderstood my point. I agree with you that a "non-profit does not have to be equated with near-zero-salary for employees."

My only point is that while there is a __financial__ incentive for for-profit founders to eschew short-term salary, there is no __financial__ incentive for non-profit founders eschew short-term salary.

Despite my financial analysis, I still think this initiative could great for non-profits. I am really excited and optimistic to see what comes out of it.

thanks

I agree it could add a lot of value. I am skeptical that the financial contribution will be significant.

I am very excited for this initiative. However, I think there is a mismatch between venture-funding models and non-profit funding models.

Venture capital economics is premised on founders accepting low initial salaries based on the hope for long-term big payoffs. Which makes it OK for seed funding to be very small (on the order of tens of thousands).

However, non-profits have no hope for long-term big pay offs and therefore have no financial incentive to seek small amounts of seed funding.

In other words, it is sensible for a for-profit startup founder to accept zero salary (or close to it). However, it is nonsensical for a non-profit startup founder to accept close-to-zero salary.

I believe the YC non-profit initiative could still be beneficial to non-profits for the sake of mentorship, networking, etc. But I don't think many non-profit founders will drop their day-job salaries to launch YC non-profit startups.

Edit: s/sensical/sensible/g

Just because a theory is unfalsifiable does not mean that it's not true. It just means that science and logic are insufficient to refute or confirm the theory. Where science and logic are not capable of shining a light on reality, we can only rely on non-logical and non-scientific beliefs and philosophy.

For example, scientists tend to hold the belief that the laws of the physical universe are constant. But in fact, there is no __logical__ reason to believe that. It is merely an inductive belief that could be violated tomorrow. The theory of constance transcends scientific experimentation and logical proof; it is simply held as an axiom (which could plausibly be wrong).

Beyond logic and science, the multiverse theory is just as plausible as the universe theory. Your intuition tells you that simplicity implies a universe, where others see that simplicity implies a multiverse, where still others find no reason to believe that reality is rooted in simplicity at all.

> "Although we can think of reality as objective, there are some special cases that prove it's nothing of the kind."

This paradox does not say anything about the objectiveness of reality. Rather it just points out an interesting scenario in which individual perceptions of objective reality won't match up.