Tell HN: Regrets. Think carefully about how you spend your time
249 points - last Sunday at 1:33 AM
I'm writing this 38 hours before I go into a surgery on Monday that I may not survive, and while I am told I have a better than 50/50 chance of making it to this time next year, I still feel, though I am too young (early 50s) to deal with these things, that I have wasted too much time. I'd like to impart some lessons.
1. A small number of accomplishments really mean something, but you often won't know which ones. I started three companies and two were successes, and even though they comprised more than two decades of my life, I feel like I remember a grand total of six important hours between them. Meanwhile, I still remember the shed I built for my father in the first summer after college. Whatever seems unimportant, you will care about the most.
2. The thing you do today, you will probably do tomorrow. I've wasted a lot of time, but most people I know have wasted lots of time, and it's because of the tendency to make an exception of the present day, which either excuses laziness or pathological busyness, which is a form of the same thing. "I'll do it tomorrow." But tomorrow it will be today. It's always today.
3. Ethics matter. I don't believe there's any life after this one, but I find myself ruminating on what I've done. In 2015, I had a lot of interaction with a startup incubator you know well, and ended up sitting in the discussions and planning around banning and erasing a young programmer we considered a threat to our financial interests, due to his concerns about authoritarianism in technology. In retrospect, he was harmless, but an example had to be made. The decision was made to ban him here, try to get him fired though I don't know if we succeeded, and attack him with sockpuppets on Reddit, and it seems to have worked because you don't hear his name much.
Ten years later, I'm still stuck thinking about this. Am I the kind of person who does shitty things? I was. Am I still? How would I even know?
I don't believe that faith is an out, or that you can apologize or donate your way out of past behaviors. You will always be the person who has done what you have done.
4. Be kind to animals. There are few joys like having a dog. I always refused when my ex-wife wanted one, and she got one after we separated. For her, it was probably an upgrade.
5. I developed a knack for founding companies, but I never learned how to build communities. They aren't the same thing. You might have three hundred people at your company and you truly feel like they are your village, but they're not. Circumstances will change, and people will move, and in five years, most of them will not remember your name.
That's probably enough for now. My mind goes between periods of racing and long spells of languid acceptance. All humans end up in the place where I am, and I hope you reach it with fewer regrets than I have.
Comments
There's something a bit odd about confessing that you were part of an institutional attempt to cancel a specific person, without naming the person or what their specific concerns were, or what specific institution this was; and also claiming that the reason you regret this now is because they were "harmless" rather than "correct".
Someone who in 2015 was concerned about "authoritarianism in technology" possibly came from a cluster of political perspectives that is relatively close to my own; and also possibly came from a cluster of political perspectives that I am relatively opposed to. It's hard to tell which from just that wording and the fact that someone with institutional power in 2015 wanted to cancel them.
I'm certainly curious for more details about exactly what happened here. I imagine it would compromise your anonymity to say more, and depending on the details it might even be bad for that person.
Don’t think for a second saying this so vaguely atones for what was done. You have a 50% chance of dying yet you will hide the names of the people that did this still? I still think you have an ethics problem…
I hope the best for you and your future though. There is room to still grow.
Ten years later, I'm still stuck thinking about this. Am I the kind of person who does shitty things? I was. Am I still? How would I even know?
Corporations and governments often get flak for doing shitty things, but ultimately it’s still people within those corporations and governments doing shitty things. “Just doing my job” is not really a legitimate shield to hide behind and I give OP credit for recognizing this even if a bit late.
Thanks for sharing the advice and best wishes with the surgery.
What have you done since then to mitigate this very egregious harm?
I have not found your success, and I suspect it's because I too am "anti-authoritarian" -- I had folks try to convince me to do "scholarshop for service" and act like I was crazy when I expressed worry if the presidency went from D to R, someone might do crazy shit like initiate a government shutdown making it impossible to fulfull my service, and then I'd get a bill for a degree I didn't want.
https://cyberscoop.com/government-shutdown-cybersecurity-wor...
In fact, every prediction I made about creeping authoritarianism down to a member of the national guard being shot dead outside where I used to toil away as a public interest lobbyist has come true.
I'm having one of the worst emotional nights of my life tonight -- and maybe I'll regret this post, but why do you feel you're in any way good, to put your boot on on the necks of others then say all the right things at the last second to ease your conscience while those of us who actually acted in the public interest are harassed and abused?
I hope the OP makes it through his surgery
Perhaps then he can find the time to apologise to those who he believes might deserve an apology
Of course you will make it, and if not, you wont care anyway. You'll make it. I'll wait for the pics.
PS: But take that existential eye-opener serious and use it (you might later forget and drift from that in everyday-default-mode). You could print and frame this post to make it unforgetable.
Apropos, I recommend Taleb's Skin in the Game to both you and all others on the thread who may not have read it. (If you haven't, perhaps during your recovery.) But, as Taleb points out, talk is cheap, and so is reading and living vicariously through texts. Actions speak louder than words, and we must do and act in the world, not merely chat about it.
Jesus Christ, dude. I'm going to be honest with you. While I feel bad for you in your current state, this is a pretty disgusting thing to have done. Have you tried to make any of it better? I mean, you could name this programmer (assuming that wouldn't make it worse), and you could definitely name the incubator and everyone involved in this decision. I'm guessing this kind of thing is quite common.
If you just want someone to tell you that it's okay, I'm not going to be the one to do that. Be as sorry as you want, but what have you done to make it better for him? Even part of this post reads a bit patronizing ("In retrospect, he was harmless..."). Not "this was intrinsically wrong and we shouldn't have done this", just "he wasn't even a threat to take down". My God, dude.
I wish you well because there are vanishingly few humans I wish to see truly suffer. If you make it, I hope you work towards righting the wrongs you've done.
The premise is that people are randomly notified of their imminent death, and variously decide that they have to make amends for things they did wrong, or make up for lost time, or stand up to their enemies, or do whatever they're most proud of, or make arrangements to provide for others, or create something for posterity.
Personally I think mortality makes everybody slightly crazy, and is best ignored, so I wouldn't want to react in any major way. I'd probably record the current state of my projects, in case somebody else felt like taking over. So I'd die doing admin chores.
You should set this right while you still can. God or the afterlife isn’t a reason to try and be less shit. The reason is that our shit accumulates and makes a hellish cesspool on Earth if we don’t. Good luck.
I am a christian and do believe in heaven. I'm going to say a prayer now in my little office and ask that you find your way there, whether today or another day. God bless.
Seems like it's time to say who you did what to, and face the music for those actions?
I wish your surgery goes well.
Supporting authoritarianism to protect financial interests harms society in the long run - and you can't eat money nor buy a society pleasant to live in.
You are still not caring about ethics. You can fix the problem, you can expose the people responsible for this, you can contact the person and explain to them what you all did. That is a way to start to atone for the mistakes, but does not look like that is what you want to do, you want to fix things in your mind, not what you broke.
Serious, non-troll question: why bother?
If there isn't any scope outside of the current perceived existence, and we're all so much "smart dirt", then the difference between kindness and malevolence seems moot.
Note: I do subscribe to an explicit meaning to life, so this is posed more to express bewilderment at the alternative than reveal any anxiety on my end.
Although you can't completely undo the past, you can choose to do things to make it right. People do change. Your attitude is self-defeating and is setting you up to act on more bad impulses in the future.
Except I’m another human of your kind who found this post. It moved me. So there is meaning in your suffering that goes beyond you and reflects in someone else’s experience.
We are all doomed, but at least we can see each other along the way, clap hands and cry “we lived!”
I hope you pull through.
These are the kinds of questions I’m pretty familiar with. It’s entirely possible to reset, but it takes work and courage.
Good luck!
Hopefully the op goes sideways.
I was on the receiving end of similar treatment for several months on StackOverflow. It made me angry but eventually I just accepted and kinda felt bad for the people doing it. Your admission makes it seems like it wasn't worth it.
Hope the surgery works out in your favor.
The problem is that systems like incubators and financial structures reward this kind of behavior. Look at the billionaires we have now (Elon, Donald...) and what they’re doing to the world—making it a worse place.
To everyone: Remember, you will die someday. Think about whether the world you leave behind is better or worse because of you. No matter how monumental your achievements, you will leave this world, and your legacy will fade over time (just as it did in Ancient Egypt, Greece, Rome, and even in more modern societies). Look at who is remembered and what remains of them. We don’t realize it because a century seems like an eternity to us.
> Ethics matter.
> I don't believe there's any life after this one...
> I don't believe that faith is an out, or that you can apologize or donate your way out of past behaviors.
Why would it matter if there is no life after this one? If there is no life after this one, maybe you should just "get over it".
1. Relax. Go home, smoke weed, play video games. During my first job I worked from home but I was still young and horny 24/7 so I spent most of my time just gooning. I lived in a shitty rental apartment so I didn't care at all about keeping it clean. Best time of my life.
2. If you haven't done something difficult yet, probably there's a good reason why. Most motivated, hard-working people fail. Just chill the fuck out. You know those old men in poor countries who sit entire day just talking and playing boardgames that have already been mathematically solved? This is winning at life. Be like that.
3. I love all those hippie visions where together we push humanity forward, but the truth is, compassion is scarce, and most people are dangerous morons. If you want a romantic story of a brave soldier who kept fighting despite being surrounded sure, go ahead, but in real life the only thing that counts is power. If you are in power don't be afraid of exercising it.
4. Animals can be cute. The evolutionary reason why we love them is that they're "practice babies" before we get real ones. Speaking of babies, just don't. Your instincts are lying to you.
5. You are going to die sad and alone. That's how it is. Deal with it.
That's probably enough for now. My mind goes between periods of racing and long spells of languid acceptance. All humans end up in the place where I am, and I hope you reach it with fewer regrets than I have.
And… this wasn’t immediately seen as being deeply unethical and downright evil? Most of the western world punched Nazis on purpose 80 years ago… that doesn’t get to stop, because authoritarianism never goes away.
>In retrospect, he was harmless, but an example had to be made.
Wow. Just… wow. To destroy a life simply because of greed and because a person’s passion of fighting evil made you uncomfortable.
You need to understand you are very much the bad guy, here.
I am going to be uncivil but I hope the odds beat you.