I enjoyed reading his self-deprecating enthusiasm as he flipped from one disappointment to another before he could fall off the tip of his Dunning-Kruger joyride. At least, I hope it was self-deprecating.
I wasted $40k on a fantastic startup idea (2020)
271–280 of 336 posts
Re: I wasted $40k on a fantastic startup idea (2020)
#272I’m a physician. I really appreciate Tom’s enthusiasm, but I think that enthusiasm led him to overestimate the significance of the problem. Moreover he didn’t really understand for whom he was building this product. At first he thought it would be a consumer product. But he realized that consumers would not pay/subscribe and later learned that advertising wouldn’t work. Next he thought doctors would pay because “Doct…
If the COVID-19 pandemic has taught me anything about science, it's that if you do a "meta-analysis" without reading each paper carefully and critically, you can end up proving anything regardless of its veracity. You cannot replace domain-expert scientists spending huge amounts of time painstakingly going over every detail of many papers to weed out mistakes and fraud in order to write a meta-analysis, with a comput…
ok, but... would a meta meta-analysis analysis show that on average, meta analyses do find positive benefits? get back to me.
Re: I wasted $40k on a fantastic startup idea (2020)
#273Earlier quoted context omitted.
Better products don’t necessarily make the world better. They often make the world worse. I don’t have a particular chip on my shoulder about Apple, or Microsoft, or free software. There are things I appreciate that all of them produce, and good in the world because of some of those efforts by each. But yes, making the world better and making money are inherently in conflict. That doesn’t mean there isn’t a way to re…
If money disappeared overnight, a lot of people would die (almost all of them). So, money allows the survival of people. If you are not a misanthropist, then, the world is better with money, since it allows people to live. Therefore, making money is simply something that must be done to allow the existence of human life. This is not in conflict of making the world better, it's in service of it.
> If money disappeared overnight, a lot of people would die
If asbestos disappeared overnight lot of people would die. I almost made this a list but it would detract from the point. Making something disappear overnight is almost always harmful in any systemic context. There are a lot of things I want to eradicate from existence, and I don’t think I could name one which I would want eradicated overnight.
But I wasn’t even advocating for eliminating money. I was acknowledging a tension between incentives. Please don’t make me elaborate about dialectics. No one will enjoy it.
Re: I wasted $40k on a fantastic startup idea (2020)
#274Earlier quoted context omitted.
Better products don’t necessarily make the world better. They often make the world worse. I don’t have a particular chip on my shoulder about Apple, or Microsoft, or free software. There are things I appreciate that all of them produce, and good in the world because of some of those efforts by each. But yes, making the world better and making money are inherently in conflict. That doesn’t mean there isn’t a way to re…
If money disappeared overnight, a lot of people would die (almost all of them). So, money allows the survival of people. If you are not a misanthropist, then, the world is better with money, since it allows people to live. Therefore, making money is simply something that must be done to allow the existence of human life. This is not in conflict of making the world better, it's in service of it.
Money doesn't allow people to live, shelter, food, water and friends are what allows people to live. Do you think that you plant dollar bills in the ground and they grow food?
Re: I wasted $40k on a fantastic startup idea (2020)
#275I’m a physician. I really appreciate Tom’s enthusiasm, but I think that enthusiasm led him to overestimate the significance of the problem. Moreover he didn’t really understand for whom he was building this product. At first he thought it would be a consumer product. But he realized that consumers would not pay/subscribe and later learned that advertising wouldn’t work. Next he thought doctors would pay because “Doct…
I think this startup would have more of a chance if it was able to solve the Google/trust problem with medical advice.
From my perspective as an ignorant consumer, Googling medical things always leaves me unsatisfied. I get too much mixed advice when I poll multiple websites and my final feeling is that I've learned no new information, there was no clear information winner. Part of that is the SEO spam problem, part of it is not knowing accurate Google words for medical stuff.
Re: I wasted $40k on a fantastic startup idea (2020)
#276Earlier quoted context omitted.
If the COVID-19 pandemic has taught me anything about science, it's that if you do a "meta-analysis" without reading each paper carefully and critically, you can end up proving anything regardless of its veracity. You cannot replace domain-expert scientists spending huge amounts of time painstakingly going over every detail of many papers to weed out mistakes and fraud in order to write a meta-analysis, with a comput…
ok, but... would a meta meta-analysis analysis show that on average, meta analyses do find positive benefits? get back to me.
"TOO META"
Re: I wasted $40k on a fantastic startup idea (2020)
#277Earlier quoted context omitted.
If money disappeared overnight, a lot of people would die (almost all of them). So, money allows the survival of people. If you are not a misanthropist, then, the world is better with money, since it allows people to live. Therefore, making money is simply something that must be done to allow the existence of human life. This is not in conflict of making the world better, it's in service of it.
Money doesn't allow people to live, shelter, food, water and friends are what allows people to live. Do you think that you plant dollar bills in the ground and they grow food?
You can't grow enough food for everyone, house everyone's friends, and keep them alive without money. You could maybe do one of those without money, but at the expense of the other two. The money is a critical part of keeping track of how much of each thing you can do without running out of resources. There are too many resources in the world to keep track of them all in your head.
Re: I wasted $40k on a fantastic startup idea (2020)
#278Earlier quoted context omitted.
If money disappeared overnight, a lot of people would die (almost all of them). So, money allows the survival of people. If you are not a misanthropist, then, the world is better with money, since it allows people to live. Therefore, making money is simply something that must be done to allow the existence of human life. This is not in conflict of making the world better, it's in service of it.
> If money disappeared overnight, a lot of people would die If asbestos disappeared overnight lot of people would die. I almost made this a list but it would detract from the point. Making something disappear overnight is almost always harmful in any systemic context. There are a lot of things I want to eradicate from existence, and I don’t think I could name one which I would want eradicated overnight. But I wasn’t…
Let's make this simpler: If money disappeared, a lot of people would die. I don't care how long you make the transition period; even if it's a change spread across 20 years, without a database of resources and how many belong to each person (which is what money is), you aren't going to be able to coordinate people well enough to feed billions of people each day. How would the deletion of the database serve anyone?
Re: I wasted $40k on a fantastic startup idea (2020)
#279Earlier quoted context omitted.
Money doesn't allow people to live, shelter, food, water and friends are what allows people to live. Do you think that you plant dollar bills in the ground and they grow food?
You can't grow enough food for everyone, house everyone's friends, and keep them alive without money. You could maybe do one of those without money, but at the expense of the other two. The money is a critical part of keeping track of how much of each thing you can do without running out of resources. There are too many resources in the world to keep track of them all in your head.
Money doesn't keep track of resources. It is a fake system that has no correlation to how many resources are available to each person, and in fact it is ripe with abuse to hoard resources for those that don't actually need them.
Computer systems and databases are what keeps track of resources, as well as communities. This idea that we should focus on money rather than morals or value is absurd and part of the issue that will end up causing the 2nd fall of rome.
Re: I wasted $40k on a fantastic startup idea (2020)
#280Earlier quoted context omitted.
> If money disappeared overnight, a lot of people would die If asbestos disappeared overnight lot of people would die. I almost made this a list but it would detract from the point. Making something disappear overnight is almost always harmful in any systemic context. There are a lot of things I want to eradicate from existence, and I don’t think I could name one which I would want eradicated overnight. But I wasn’t…
Let's make this simpler: If money disappeared, a lot of people would die. I don't care how long you make the transition period; even if it's a change spread across 20 years, without a database of resources and how many belong to each person (which is what money is), you aren't going to be able to coordinate people well enough to feed billions of people each day. How would the deletion of the database serve anyone?
Let’s make this simpler still:
> But I wasn’t even advocating for eliminating money.