seagullriffic

Excellent, well done. Looking forward to hearing a discussion about this on your podcast! Might you go chase some other startup ideas? Does this "validate" the career model of creating something new, for you? Or would you not do it again?

This is almost exactly how I think about it too - a good repeatable mental model is "infinite upside / near-zero downside".

These massively asymmetric choices occur elsewhere in life, e.g. "asking them out on a date"; "asking for a raise", and are good to look out for.

The LinkedIn preview text made me laugh, thank you :)

> At a YC event last week Brian Chesky gave a talk that everyone who was there will remember. Most founders I talked to afterward said it was the best they'd ever heard. Ron Conway, for the first time in his life, forgot to take notes.

Is there a recording? It's very frustrating to read things like this and not be given a link.

> The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration's rating system focuses on occupant safety, not the safety of other road users, and tax policies subsidize heavier vehicles.

Sociopathic. Regulations and safety standards should be updated to consider both occupants' and others' safety.

The auto manufacturers won't like this, because they are cheap and greedy.

Interesting! That article I linked had lingered in my memory for a while, so good to hear a response to it!

Oh no, a really sad Far Side cartoon! Which is very closely related to a shaggy dog joke you can spin out for ages, "$5 talking dog for sale", which ends with the setup / punchline, "why so cheap?" / "because he's a goddamn liar!"

> choosing to pick the negatives

Yes of course there are positives. Don't worry, we have never let negative consequences hold back progress before.

But the blind optimism is staggering, and let's get philosophical: what's the ultimate good, objectively? (Subjectively obviously _I_ and _you_ think it's that we get to be around for longer.) But objectively, from a humanity standpoint, is it (1) the most people in existence, (2) the most people to ever have existed, (3) the most consciousness, (4) the most happiness? Etc.

If we start letting people live forever, over a long time, because of resources, fewer people will ultimately exist. We'll also have slower progress because old ideas will live longer. It's very hubristic to think we've peaked, and it's inevitable that the first live-forever generation will put the brakes on progress/change.

I'd say those downsides far outweigh the upsides you've proposed.

Oof. If we defeat aging, we'll have to contend with:

* unbounded population increase * wealth and power directly proportional to age * dictators and other bad people not dying

Not insurmountable but all of those big problems would require massive sociological shifts.

> You mean freely as in for no compensation?

I do. The BL is a national institution, and, like the NHS, would attract masses of free labour if they asked for it. There are volunteer developers and data scientists who work for charities in their spare time to help improve society.

Not everyone's so greedy that they must be compensated for every breath they take.

Can anyone explain why this happens?

Why would they pay ransomware hackers when they would obviously have backups. Sucks to have data compromised, but presumably it's not lost. And what part of the system was designed to bad practices that this was able to happen? Aren't there lots of UK white-hats who would freely lend their services to help improve the library's infrastructure?

Presumably excluding attacks of this sort isn't arcane or impossible, because other major companies and orgs manage it. Is it secret knowledge, or something?

Surely there's a SOP to just not have this happen.

Burnout is a thing which should be taken more seriously by more people.

Go on holiday. At least two months. The first week you'll think you're still at work. The second week you might have some time to collect your thoughts, and plan. Then beyond that you might hopefully have the headspace to catch up on chores and life admin.

Month two is for enjoying yourself and your family.

Do the above first. Not addressing your main Q; I'm sure there are good jobs which would still hold your interest/excite you.