But startup founders are accountable to the VCs. They have to provide updates and let the VCs know what it is they've been doing with the money. If the KS project fails, it fails. But to not provide some sort of update to backers is a serious problem.
Yes, this was my main point here. It's difficult to get that across without writing an entire article for context, and now that ycombinator mods have edited the title its even less clear.
The founders of this project did little more than sign on once in a while to say "its not ready yet, but should be ready soon". Now they've disappeared and there's no accountability for all that money. As an investor, I would at least like to learn from this experience and see where it went wrong and what could have done better. Instead the only lesson I can take away from this is don't trust strangers on the internet.
It's worth remembering that the Weebly emails were sent more frequently then the Everlane ones. An email every month or so? Ok, not a problem. An email every day for more then a week? Back off.
Email volume does matter. You can send too many emails and annoy your users.
>The reference point should be absolute moral good
This is absolutely correct. However, that also applies to the rest of the world. So, what problem do we fix first? The USA's possibly illegal wiretapping, or state caused disappearances, state encouraged suicide bombings (on civilian targets), political prisoners, slavery, nuclear weapon development, attempted genocide?
So, yeah, "greatest country on Earth" or greatest nation in history" may be going a bit far. But from what I can see, we should take care of the more egregious human rights issues first. It is the Law of Diminishing Returns. Preventing illegal wiretapping provides margin return compared to stopping the bloodshed in Syria.
If we're going to have a discussion on how America is not a good nation, we do need to keep it in perspective, and build a priority list for how things in the world should change.
Huh. I read the parent comment significantly different then you did. I thought he was saying that people shouldn't try to get real, living and breathing girls to be tomboys. If they want to be tomboy, that's cool. If they want to be a princess, that's cool too.
I don't think he was talking about manipulating the character, but rather manipulating the young, impressionable girls watching said character.
The trouble is I don't believe that all, or even most of the people who told him to kill himself were teenagers. I have no problem believing that there are adults out there who also would have joined in.
The internet creates big pockets of social groups that have no consideration of age, race, social status, etc. There's an interesting side-effect of looking for validation from your peers when you don't know what those people are actually like. We can act more mature by looking up to a mature audience, we can look down on a less mature audience, or we can resonate with the values of a less mature audience. I went from Digg to reddit to HN mainly due to interests/content, but also because I looked up to the more mature audiences. Some people will stick to platforms where they are entertained by immaturity and seek those people's validation by mimicking them.
Unfortunately, people tend to be less then kind when divorced from the consequences of their actions. It's easy to hate, bully, and demean someone you've never personally met. The earlier days of the internet were much worse in that regard, because people generally had more anonymity then they do now, what with the rise of social networks.
I'm just glad the guy seems to have taken the right lessons from his experience. Makes me hopeful that other kids will be able to do just fine too.
> It's easy to hate, bully, and demean someone you've never personally met.
Sure; but... this wasn't online. This was in the real, physical world, right in front of him. They stood on tables and declared it to him, even, so says the article.
You have a point there, I forgot about that part. That being said, those were other kids, and it's rare that teenagers impress me with their social behavior. I'm not entirely sure I believe what pg says in http://www.paulgraham.com/nerds.html, but it does offer as good an explanation as any I've heard.
I'm actually more concerned that his friends abandoned him afterwards. Kids are fairly resilient, as long as they have someone in their corner. I would imagine losing his friends over it hurt more then some random classmate telling him to kill himself.
The problem here is not the level of access they get to our information. The problem is how they are allowed to use that access. The 4th Amendment doesn't really prevent the Feds from snooping on anything they want to, it just prevents them from acting on any of that information.
Huh? If the FBI busts into someone's house without a warrant there are going to be more repercussions than just "we can't use this information in court."
Marvel Heroes is made by David Brevik - He had the original idea for diablo 1 and played a bigger role in diablo 2 than the guys that made torch light 2. Lets no mention his failed project with bill roper on hellgate london though.
