thoms_a

Expose your kids to activities that are more compelling than screens. Trust me, once you take a kid go-karting, they aren't going to be as excited playing a video game.

Do cool shit with your kids. Go skiing, camping, fishing, go-karting, flying (small plane tours), drone racing, etc.

I know most of us here are nerds, but the jocks really do have life figured out when it comes to fun stuff.

Democracy has become a mantra. It means nothing. There are many corrupt and dysfunctional democracies throughout the world.

Every time a car passes you with a massive speed differential, you are gambling with your life. As long as you (and your family) are willing to accept that risk, then all the power to you.

Also, rural roads aren't exactly known for their alert drivers. Drunk driving is far more common due to lack of taxis/ubers.

As a counterpoint, I bought my first iPhone (first ever Apple product) this week, and it was specifically because it seems like Apple is finally designing products with usability and functionality as their top priority.

Ive was great, but he was way too much of an artist to understand that computers are mostly tools. Ive was more interested in folding katanas and the process of creation than the mundane design of a productivity tool.

As an example, I remember being utterly bemused by the relentless port-pruning on the Macbook Pro. It just didn't make sense to me to remove ports on a machine designed primarily for productivity. But Ive didn't like ports, because katanas don't have ports. So the MBP didn't have ports.

I can think of one "routine" prophylactic amputation that was and is still performed with no anesthesia on newborn male infants.

The Hippocratic oath really does seem like a marketing gimmick in light of many such facts about modern medical practice.

I've asked very young students what they think a computer is and how it works. There's always at least one student who correctly replies: "It's a machine that does what someone told it to do".

Of course modern computing devices are absurdly complex and intricate machines all the way from silicon to software, but the basic mechanism is easily grasped by children. For all their complexity, computers are still just programmable calculators.

This doesn't mean that the opinions of powerful people do not affect you, however.

The Civil Rights Act and its consequences have meant that America will forever be politicized along every fault line of human identity. Whether it can withstand this burden and remain a functional civilization remains to be seen.

Life on Earth has survived much, much worse than the burning of fossil fuels. For example, the K-Pg extinction event.

It's all a matter of perspective. But humans are irrationally social creatures susceptible to memetics, so no amount of empirical evidence will alter socially beneficial memeplexes.

I'm glad you saved me the effort of reading this article. I've been following fusion for years, and have been cautiously optimistic. Recently, with the progress of both Commonwealth Fusion Systems and Tokamak Energy, both startups with private funding which aim to develop commercially viable Tokamaks, I'm ready to throw caution to the wind.

Tokamaks work, high temp superconductors work, and the combination is likely to result in working fusion reactors. If it doesn't, then at least we'll know soon enough via these two private companies. It doesn't make sense to write articles heckling companies which have literally put millions of dollars where their mouths are. Just let them get on with the work, and if they fail, they fail, and we learn something.

I know your line of reasoning is not popular, but I would like to add some nuance.

The empirical reality of this situation is that societies directed towards the maximization of individual desires (or "rights") will tend to be in conflict with creation and sustenance of communal societies. As such, we're seeing the breakdown of relationships, marriages, communities and even nations via social atomization. This is the result of liberal philosophy followed to its logical conclusion. The individual reigns supreme, and thus the community suffers.

Traditional societies throughout history had strategies for building families and maintaining communities, but the liberal West deems these anachronistic. We want to have our cake and eat it too, and we're learning this is simply not possible.

Well said. I'd also add that life has stages. YC-style hyper growth startup culture is suited for the young and ambitious. As we age, that immense drive of youth gradually declines. So it makes sense to use that energy productively while it's there for a chance at outlier success. But there is an age at which the slow and consistent life you've described becomes far more preferable to the constant hustle .

Why not work remotely? I can't see any benefits to living in the USA. I assume you already have experience living here, and for the life of me cannot fathom why anyone would choose the USA over most of Europe.

I could list all of the benefits of Europe, but I'm sure you know them as a resident. The USA is a very strange and highly dysfunctional (healthcare, social strife, violence, etc.) country. Most predictions for the future of the US are not optimistic, and there are good reasons for this.