This article is trash. First he makes a dumb argument that comes down to, what's $2 in exchange for the warm fuzzies of imagining where you'll move with that money.
And then goes on to explain why now's the best time to waste your money if you like wasting your money because of the ridiculously obvious point that the jackpot is larger now.
This is abysmal garbage and the author should feel bad and so should everyone who upvoted this. I rarely ever get mad but the lottery is one of my biggest pet peeves, and this brings no insight or elaboration on the issue besides, "gee wouldn't it be great to instantly have millions of dollars."
There are a number of things you can spend a small amount of money on with ultimately nothing to show for it but some brief enjoyment. It seems the author is encouraging his (non-addict, non-destitute) audience to reframe their thinking about what the lottery provides as entertainment value rather than simply being 'a tax on people who are bad at math' - even if you don't ultimately play, you don't have to view those who do in a negative light.
That's certainly how I used to feel, but once I started thinking of it as a lark rather than a blight, it just didn't seem like that big of a deal.
Hasn't it been shown time and again that the act of thinking positively about your future often carries over in to your real life, making you happier in the present?
Besides, I could drop $100 on Blackjack in AC once a year or $2 every time the jackpot climbs above $500m. My (minuscule) appetite for gambling is satisfied in both situations, and I save $98/year :)
Was pretty sure when I saw this headline on my feed it was an Onion article... nope.
This is one of those things the people don't really think about, and I know I didn't, but it really seems that a lot of the power resides in getting appointed to these committees. And it's something that people don't get to vote on.
To be fair, I thought the point of an editorial was for the author to express their opinion. [1]
[1] From dictionary.com: 'Editorial definition, an article in a newspaper or other periodical or on a website presenting the opinion of the publisher, writer, or editor'
I think the difference would be a paper that features editorials which present a diversity of views versus one that seems to editorialize consistently in support of a particular ideology.
Thank you. Thought I was losing my mind with all these apocalyptic comments on how a sixteen year old girl dropping out of high school with a cohesive plan, and parental guidance, would suddenly be completely socially challenged and lacking any other ways to gain insights into the world.
Woah. Reading the comments here is absolutely surreal, am I still on HN?
Traditional high school is absolutely not a place where you go to "learn how to socialize" or you get to learn all about "history" and being a "well rounded person. It's a place where, for the most part, you go to get babysat so your parents can go to work and not have to worry about you.
Very surprised at the reaction here, where in a different context I'd imagine the same people would be talking about the failures of public education instead of how much a sixteen year old is supposedly missing out on by dropping out.
Yeah. This seems odd. I get you're running a business but ostensibly the reason for this report is to allow people to view the legitimacy of the program and not as a means to get people on your mailing list.
Take the time that you'd spend trying to find some way to get your friends to work on a project with you and channel that energy into finding other people who actually want to work on stuff. Join meetups, find local groups, get out there.
If you feel like you're pulling teeth now to just get them to start, imagine once you're actually working and hit a speedbump. Trust me, you're gonna have a bad time.
Sorry, but that's pretty crazy. Not everyone you meet has to have the exact same set of goals and priorities as you. It's good to broaden your circles and be friends with people who don't always agree with you or enjoy doing what you do.
I don't think we disagree. You don't have to ditch your old friends, but if you wanna build side projects you should find new people who are into that instead of wasting time trying to convince people who obviously aren't.
Even though I normally would agree with the premise in the headline, the article is a waste of time. The author goes on many tangents and doesn't seem to have a coherent point besides the title. "Some tech billionaires have some things in common with previous capitalist titans". If you find that point facile, like me, then you're better off not wasting your time.
Agreed. The article doesn't seem to have a strong case to make, and so has to cut corners on its evidence to make it seem right. A beautiful example is
> The silicon sultans are some of the few businesspeople who can compete with the robber barons in terms of ownership. Today most firms are widely held by large numbers of shareholders: the largest individual shareholder in Exxon, is Rex Tillerson, the company’s chief executive. He owns 0.05% of the stock. Together Sergey Brin and Larry Page and Eric Schmidt control two-thirds of the voting stock in Google. Mark Zuckerberg owns 20% of Facebook shares but almost all of its “class B” shares, which have ten times the voting power of ordinary shares.
So it makes a point about ownership, then compares Exxon's CEO's low _ownership_ with Facebook and Google founders' high _voting rights_. Not the same thing. For comparison, Schmidt has 2% of Google at the moment. And let's not forget Standard Oil started in 1870. How much stock shall we expect Google's CEO in 120 years to have?
> Today Google and Apple between them provide 90% of smartphone operating systems
These are two large companies competing heavily, investing billions of dollars for something that they give away free (Google esp, though apple makes its money on hardware so I would claim it doesnt charge for the OS).
To say that this is an "unparalleled concentration of power" is ridiculous. Specifically, it is a lesser concentration of power than Standard Oil, which was the comparison the article was trying to draw. If you take a group of competitors and put them in a single group and declare them to be the same, then of course you're going to mistake it for a monopoly. But that doesn't make it one.
And then goes on to explain why now's the best time to waste your money if you like wasting your money because of the ridiculously obvious point that the jackpot is larger now.
This is abysmal garbage and the author should feel bad and so should everyone who upvoted this. I rarely ever get mad but the lottery is one of my biggest pet peeves, and this brings no insight or elaboration on the issue besides, "gee wouldn't it be great to instantly have millions of dollars."