A couple gems for life though, the bit about old age stuck out to me. I've learned that from my dad, who attests to having never thought about getting old and now spends lonely nights drinking himself to bed. Pretty depressing but very little anyone can do about it... Just know you're going to get old one day, you're going to die, and then get over it.
Using your logic, shouldn't one be bullish on Groupon considering it'll make MORE money once the economy improves ? Using your logic of course....
My real problem with all this negative talk is that it's become a fad.
Groupon is gonna crash! It's a ponzi scheme! It's not worth anything!
Since so much sentiment is against Groupon, I tend to favor it more. Don't get me wrong, they've had a lot of problems, but it's definitely not the total disaster so many make it out to be.
Don't forget that contempt and fear are just as irrational as exuberance and greed.
It might be a fad on the day of the IPO, but if you break Groupon's business model down to its essential elements, it requires a huge number of leaps of faith to rationalize its competitive advantage and revenue potential. Goldman Sachs says they predict 40% growth year over year for the next two years. That sounds extremely fishy to me, given the already-dubious value of the service, the low technical and financial barriers to entry, the lack of loyalty from merchants and consumers alike, the allegations of crooked books, the early cash out for founders and investors, etc., etc. Too rich for my blood, I guess.
Steve Jobs and Sean Parker don't actually seem like they'd do well in school. Their temperament and personality types run counter to how school is structured, while in companies people are more capable of getting away with a kind of free-wheeling style.
I'll speak for myself when I say I hate school. It's not about education, I wonder when it was. Not anymore for sure, more about that piece of paper at the end of it all that says "you can get a job now". It's about not having to do the work yourself and on your own initiate. It's about teaching you to be an employee.
I never saw the value in it. If one's considering going for it any time, even once in a college, my advice is GO. Even if you fail, at least you'll sleep a little better at night.
Educations' flaws are deep in the system itself. It comes from the Industrial mentality of worker lines and an Enlightenment paradigm of the mind, both of which at best are fallacious. Education can't be given. You're not extracting valuable skills by bullshitting that English paper.
Education is something you honestly have to desire and seek.
It probably make the most sense to donate the 500k to liver transplant organizations, seeing how Steve was involved in that towards the end of his life.
And yes, it is more than a little ironic someone would donate money to colleges in honor of a college dropout.
Though it may seem cruel to say this in his death, looking at Steve Jobs' behavior when he was younger really makes me wonder whether he was a psychopath
I support legalization for ideaological reasons, but that doesn't at all sound accurate to me
Drug use will almost definitely sky rocket if drugs are legalized, at least initially. We can't really say what will happen, say, 5-10 years after, because legalization in this country is unprecedented.
But ask most users if they'd use more if it was legal, and you'll get your answer. Ask some fence sitters who are too scared to try drugs if they'd use currently illicit drugs if it was legal, and you'll get your answer
There are also drug addicts who would like to stop, if more money (that's currently spent on prevention) was being spent on treatment.
Read up on Portugal, they legalised all drugs, just over ten years ago, and the reports released a few months ago (after ten years of it) showed that there are less people using the drugs that previously were illegal (from weed up to heroine), and a higher percentage of those using drugs are in treatment to stop.
It could be that much more naive and ignorant people are submitting applications now than before. 99% of these applications could be hogwash and disposable. That may not be the case, but who's to say it isn't?
The quantity of applications doesn't actually indicate anything except greater name recognition and maybe more recent entrepreneurs, but even that is a stretch
I'm not convinced. Jobs was incredible despite his flaws, not because of them. There are plenty of asshole liars that go nowhere, but Jobs' passion and vision was so strong people are willing to look past it
I still think you make an interesting point, and I find it compelling to look at idols when they were young and nobody cared.
Bringing such idols back to earth can help one realize that we are all in fact human, and as such all have tremendous challenges, flaws, and potential
I'm sure Steve would appreciate the parent link painting him as a liar and manipulator. ergo, observe the word "plausible" and humbly suggest that you missed the point. Mr.Jobs had strong Christian colleagues / friends and so am fairly certain a deep theological idea wouldn't be beyond the scope of appreciation.
I "humbly" agree with the point that Jobs was apple to appreciate deep philosophical ideas; unfortunately, prevenient grace is not one of them
Not trying to make any value judgements on Christianity in general, but prevenient grace is an Augustian idea, and as such is one of the more repressive ideas of Christian theology
It directly contradicts Buddhist teachings of Karma
If memory serves correct, he advised* us not to follow dogma.. so paying my respect to Steve as you suggested and avoiding a dogmatic discussion. Here's a track from another remarkable thinker:
" Is it possible to communicate not by "making known" but by "making understood how little we know"? If we can recognize that we know so little, a method for finding out little we know will become clear as well. As the Greek philosopher Socrates remarked, " The only true wisdom is in knowing you know nothing ". There are infinite number of methods to attain knowledge; finding the right method is up to the individual ". This single idea throws conventional communications methods into reverse. I call this method "exformation", as a counterpart to "information" ( pg. 376 , http://www.amazon.com/Designing-Design-Kenya-Hara/dp/3037781... )
* - not to follow dogma, if you think clearly, is a faulty recursive function
A couple gems for life though, the bit about old age stuck out to me. I've learned that from my dad, who attests to having never thought about getting old and now spends lonely nights drinking himself to bed. Pretty depressing but very little anyone can do about it... Just know you're going to get old one day, you're going to die, and then get over it.