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Quit Social Media, Your Career May Depend on It

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Re: Quit Social Media, Your Career May Depend on It

#141

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The actual inventor of Hacker News, Paul Graham, hasn't commented for over a year: https://news.ycombinator.com/user?id=pg Considering that he was very very active on HN in the past (karma 155077), I wonder what his reasoning is to cut back?

Well, the quality of the discussions on HN have taken a dive dramatically since about a year and a half. So maybe he just doesn't feel theres much to comment these days.

Concern over the decline of HN reached a head ~5.5 years ago.

Re: Quit Social Media, Your Career May Depend on It

#142
Why social media only?

After being a news addict for years, I've decided to not only limit my social media posts (and reading) down to zero, but also the amount of time I spend on the daily news sites (NYT, Guardian, Politico etc). Instead I read media that operates on a longer cycles like weekly (Economist, NewYorker) and longer (Foreign Affairs, Private Eye)

Its been an interesting experiment: most "news" is just content that is ultimately inconsequential, discussing ephemeral events that will be forgotten by the next news cycle.

However, the weeklies and the monthlies, because they have to edit what they write about, do a great job of filtering out the fluff and giving me a better perspective of what mattered that week/month.

I've found I still know what I need to know, suffer much less distractions, and more time to read books (amazing invention btw!)

Re: Quit Social Media, Your Career May Depend on It

#143
post #51

So if your co-worker believes that, for example, black people and gays are subhuman and expresses that view you think that's ok and we should all just put up with it?

Yes, it is free country. Big part of HN believe that black people, gays and even women are "subhuman" who need special help and special protection.

Great, and as it's a free country, it's then perfectly ok to try to get this person fired for those views, right? Or is the freedom limited?

Re: Quit Social Media, Your Career May Depend on It

#144
post #35

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I've recently been finding it really hard to concentrate on my work I've overcome my Facebook, Reddit, and Twitter problems, but I can't seem to shake Hacker News.

I use https://freedom.to/ to block HN on my phone and laptop when I need to.

My favorite is: https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/go-fucking-work/hi...

Re: Quit Social Media, Your Career May Depend on It

#146
post #86

More importantly social media is bad for your mental health. It hits the brain in many of the same ways as the 'news' and those intentionally boring phone games. It causes dopamine dysregulation which leads to a dependency. Consider the anxiety you feel if you need to go to the bathroom and cannot find your phone. This dopamine dysregulation destroys your mood and motivation. Being social is a good thing. However com…

>Think about it; why are your keys always in the last place you look? Because once you find them you stop looking. If you want to keep people on your site you hide their keys.

That is actually very interesting analogy! And when I think about my facebook browsing habits, it only makes sense. Of course it has a flow an rhythm. Something interesting I engage with, a bunch of filler I scroll through, another interesting post. If all that is interesting to me is crammed into the top of the page, that would drop the metrics. Less vertical space used, less ads, less time on site (biggie with investors, I'm sure). Probably get fatigued much faster too. Consume even less interesting stuff than the "long format". I wonder if it is really beneficial (at least to them) in the long term or it is one of those things not worth maximizing (metrics vs. reasons [1]).

Do you have any interesting reading/watching/listening material from your old jobs? What are you up to these days?

[1] http://nxhx.org/maximizing/

Re: Quit Social Media, Your Career May Depend on It

#147

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The actual inventor of Hacker News, Paul Graham, hasn't commented for over a year: https://news.ycombinator.com/user?id=pg Considering that he was very very active on HN in the past (karma 155077), I wonder what his reasoning is to cut back?

Well, the quality of the discussions on HN have taken a dive dramatically since about a year and a half. So maybe he just doesn't feel theres much to comment these days.

Has it? I've seen comments such as this for a few years now, but I didn't notice the decline myself.

Re: Quit Social Media, Your Career May Depend on It

#148

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Again, nothing in here is referring to a Trump vote or people who voted for Trump. It's referring to things like ridiculing or mocking minorities, immigrants, and disabled people. Which I think we can all agree are things that Trump did and have no place in a workplace like Grubhub, no?

People should not be mocked, agreed. But I think things get more complicated in the current environment where people who have voted for Trump have basically been labeled the same as him. It's apparently possible to have a "hateful attitude", or be racist, or whatever else, which can get you fired at GrubHub, by having voted for Trump. But honestly, regardless of arguing intent or whatever, I think the crux of the arg…

"It's apparently possible" as in you're the one drawing the connection the CEO didn't draw and then explicitly stated he didn't intend to draw: he did not say and did not mean to say that voting for Trump would get you fired.

The CEO never said Trump voters aren't welcome. That was the original comment that I disagreed with. It's factually incorrect to say that's what the CEO said.

Re: Quit Social Media, Your Career May Depend on It

#149
post #47

I have found it weird that despite the commentators here being the loudest proponent of privacy, you cannot actually delete a Hacker News account and all comments with it.

This is a great point. Why not?

Because a comment made on a public worldwide-readable forum is not private, and you know that before you sign up with an account, so it's not like you accidentally made a public comment that was meant to be private. Protecting private communication is about just that - stuff that actually is private (to begin with).

Public opinion and the law may of course change, the issue that something uttered in public, be it by voice or in writing, can be retroactively taken back and declared as "private" has only been an issue with the advent of public electronic forums.

I don't think you will find a lot of people who think enabling people to change their mind after they made a public statement is a high priority, especially since it has a negative impact on everybody else: How does a forum look like when key posts are suddenly missing? And I say "key post" because if it didn't get a lot of attention to begin with it's unlikely that the poster will regret having posted it.

Re: Quit Social Media, Your Career May Depend on It

#150
post #22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> fire people, based on their opinions. Lest we forget: - Brendan Eich, former CEO of Mozilla, fired for a donation, - Douglas Crockford, uninvited from NodeVember, the general opinion is that he said something that a woman didn't like, - Tom Preston-Werner, co-founder and former CEO of GitHub, upon an unproven accusation, - And all people and the 2 colleagues who have been fired in smaller companies, in smaller even…

- GrubHub CEO saying that anyone who voted for Trump is not welcome.

The ballot is secret for precisely that reason — it's not possible to judge people based on their vote.

But making public your support for Trump — or the KKK, or NAMBLA, or Hacker News — is a completely different thing. You can and should be judged on the basis of the ideas and opinions that you promote.

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