81–90 of 106 posts
They didn't "get" Obama at all. He has so far answered a total of 10 questions, all of them canned, standard set pieces from his campaign that you could have just as easily read off his website. And he wasn't even the one interacting with the community; it's questionable if he was involved with this AMA at all. This was essentially a complete abuse of the AMA system but no one's calling him on it because he's the POT…
Something overlooked in the "he didn't give interesting answers" complaints is that just being able to ask a question (even if it goes unanswered) is a form of communication with the President that's never been available to an average citizen in this way.
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> He has so far answered a total of 10 questions I'd point out that he did say he only had 30 minutes, and given how poorly reddit handled the traffic, I'm surprised he managed to get 10 answers in, copy/paste jobs or no. How would you have preferred it to go, anyway? Seems like he's not going to make everyone happy no matter how its sliced, so perhaps he should have just not done one?
That's by far the least of the objections raised. 10 interesting, insightful answers that offered new information would have been fascinating. But we got 10 canned answers that told us nothing we already knew. That was the real problem here, although nobody should have been surprised.
I think they wanted to take the safe option. It is a shame though the answers were not less scripted, they missed a big opportunity to engage people.
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> It is a perfectly rational phenomenon that history depends on generational cycles. Then why isn't it taught in mainstream history courses? > If generations are "arbitrary constructs" then I take it you do not think "boomer" means anything? Not really, no. To begin with, you'll never find a full agreement on when that generation (or any other) begins and ends. > this "all these cycle-meisters (a subset of woo-meiste…
"Then why isn't it taught in mainstream history courses?" Perhaps because mainstream history teachers don't know everything? Perhaps because knowledge grows? "a place where you could rebut me"? What are you talking about? "woo-meisters or just plain frauds" IS name-calling, refute that. "What predictions did Strauss and Howe make that have actually come true?" Well, how about I just refer you to the Amazon page, sinc…
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It's so sad to see so many HN and Redditors so intent on their "upwardly mobile", morally relative dreams that they fail to take account of the totalitarian state they have come to live in. You will NOT be alright, jack. Listen. As of September 2012, the AppForThat, Startup, bubble is just about over. I say this as someone who warned others of the dotcom and real estate bubbles. If you want to think of it as a "techn…
Wait, what's going on? I want to understand but I can't decipher your words.
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Okay, he answered top voted questions at the time, all of which were generic questions that he's answered time and time again. What exactly would you expect? There weren't any different or insightful questions actually asked [and voted to the top where he'd see them]. I mean, I wonder how many times he's been asked "What was the most difficult decision that you had to make during this term?". Probably quite a lot. He…
>Okay, he answered top voted questions at the time Well, for example, he was asked if he'd consider raising the budget for NASA, his answer didn't directly respond or answer the question, just re-quote his campaign piece on the issue. He didn't answer if he'd consider raising the budget, he just gave some purposefully vague reply about the notion that "we should stay at the forefront of space exploration." >There wer…
And in all honesty, Reddit is terrible at AMA questions. 50% circlejerk, 50% obvious softball questions any interviewer would ask. It's a rarity that we even get any probing questions voted to the top.
There are quite a few redditors at 1600 Pennsylvania Ave... Your tax dollars at work.
It's so sad to see so many HN and Redditors so intent on their "upwardly mobile", morally relative dreams that they fail to take account of the totalitarian state they have come to live in. You will NOT be alright, jack. Listen. As of September 2012, the AppForThat, Startup, bubble is just about over. I say this as someone who warned others of the dotcom and real estate bubbles. If you want to think of it as a "techn…
It also was the formation of the New Deal, the Allied victory, the GI Bill of Rights (free higher education for vets), the rise of the US as a global superpower.
Further, it was followed by the "First Turning", from 1945-1965, which was the post-war boom.
A crisis can lead to a lot of good.
I'm not quite sure what this has to do with trusting the government - I think you may be reading far too much into Strauss-Howe to coincide with your own political beliefs. The US is not a totalitarian state, nor is Europe (though disclaimer, I'm in Canada). One of my parents did live in a totalitarian state - it was not like this, by any stretch.
We do exist in a time of crisis, financially, and in terms of global political leadership. In the US, the Republicans have become radicals, not conservatives, while the Democrats can't seem to be focused or unified on anything. In Europe, the leaders can't seem to accept the Euro will destroy their economies if they don't either fix their central bank or move to a more unified fiscal arrangement. In China, the government artificially keeps their currency low to foster growth that hides the fragility of the kleptocracy at the state and local levels of government. I could go on.
These are crises, but they are also opportunities to fix problems that seem intractable today. I do not think anyone can foresee the outcomes, I suspect it will be not hewing to any particular ideology, but rather a mix of pragmatic approaches that "just work".
edit: formatting
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Why on Earth would he go touch marijuana legalization with a 10-foot pole? He's not Ron Paul; he's actually trying to win the election. The average swing voter is a middle-aged mom, and you want him to talk about marijuana legalization? You can either be a frank politician who addresses all questions honestly, or you can be a politician who wins elections.
Why on Earth would he go touch marijuana legalization with a 10-foot pole? Well, if its good enough for TED, why not Reddit? http://whohastimeforthis.blogspot.com/2012/03/best-of-ted-20... Hands down, the best [TED] talk this year was from Bryan Stevenson on injustice in the US criminal legal system. For example, the number of prisoners in the last 40 years has grown from 300,000 to 2.3 million (primarily, I believe,…
I did like that one of his answers referenced the Obama Not Bad meme, but I imagine that was pre-canned by one of his interns or something.
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I've recently been wondering why they don't move away from the 'default subreddits' model homepage and to a splash page: "Welcome to Reddit, a place where you can share links and talk about your favourite subjects. What are you interested in?", with a big search box, and a list of suggested subreddits that you can subscribe to. It gets users to create an account, and can allow for a friendlier experience for new peop…
Believe me, this comes up every time we talk about product. A better onboarding experience is coming, with better subreddit discovery.