Tell HN: Thanks for All the Fish

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Article news.ycombinator.com

Tell HN: Thanks for All the Fish

Dear fellow HNers: I said my account has a max karma of 32767, and I'm about to hit that limit. So, for my final post, I'd like to share some of my individual aspirations:

* Be honest. We shouldn't lie, manipulate, dark-pattern, etc. We should invest towards a society that can trust each other, and the first step is our own behavior.

* Be reliable. We should make things that work, follow through on promises, represent prospects in good faith, etc.

* Be helpful. We should help colleagues, random strangers, and society in general. Not maneuver to exploit them.

* Be smart. We're not as smart as we think we are, and we are often dumb. Especially when it comes to topics in which we actually have little experience. Also when we're overconfident about something we "know".

* Be humble. We can make mistakes about even the things we know best, and we should always be learning.

* Be constructive. Others make mistakes, too, and we should help them when they do, as we'd want them to help us or our friends&family, when we make mistakes.

* Be decent. No one person deserves a billion dollars of humanity's wealth. Few people agreed to the rules that enable that: it's not a game that we are winning; it's collusion against the masses, which some people hop onto. Also applies to some smaller sums.

* Be sane. If we find ourselves with way more money than our share, then we say, "oops, how embarrassing", and spread it back around, to everyone. We shouldn't be like the billionaire who instead decides all the poors or immigrants or feminists or trans people or artists or kindergarten teachers or whoever are somehow shortchanging billionaires.

* Be introspective. See sane, above.

That's it for now. See you around. I'll continue to be in the world and in tech industry, but it's time for me to take an HN break. If I come back, it might as well be a new account.

Discussion 5 comments · 15 points · neilv · 1d
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