Having an alter ego can reduce anxiety, benefit confidence: research - <AUTHOR> https://www.bbc.com/worklife/article/20200817-the-batman-effect-how-having-an-alter-ego-empowers-you <comment><USER3> It's a variant of the suggestion often given in therapy and recently popularized by Jordan B Peterson I believe — and no matter what you may think of him as a person, it is a good strategy — "Treat yourself as someone worth taking care of". Meaning: look at yourself as you would look at your own child, a pet, or anyone you would have the responsibility of looking after. It's easy to miss meals, not dress yourself well and so on, but you might look at it differently if it was your kid or pet that was hungry. So take care of yourself as if you weren't you!

The same thing goes with investments. To get over my own sometimes pathological cheapness (a combination of growing up poor and other stuff) I sometimes view myself as a corporation when making purchases: what do I need, are there goals I have that lack materials, what needs to be replaced — then I just sign a blank check to myself as it were and buy the things I need.

In a way, taking care of yourself does become easier when you pretend it isn't you. Especially if you have issues with caring about "you" in the first place.

<comment><USER4> > no matter what you may think of him as a person, it is a good strategy

The thing about Jordan Peterson's book is that the chapter titles are usually _great advice_, but the content always tends to slide into his strange, mediocrely researched conservative ramblings and sometime worse, at one point he just about admitts that he blames one of his women patients for her own rape, at others he veers right into granddad style rants about young people and their "progressive politics" ruining the world.

Honestly it's a bad book and people would be better off literally just reading the Quora question and answer that inspired it.

<comment><USER5> Well, you can't please everyone - in this case your interpretation is a stretch to say the least (Just about admits blaming a patient for their rape? Where did you get that?) and it sounds like you have a problem with conservatives (which I wouldn't say JBP is) rather than the actual book/author.

<comment><USER6> Well said. I would also like the source to him blaming a patient for their rape.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> True Story: the guy who leads our sales team is a super star named John (legal name). He's fearless, organized, focused, determined "and Canadian" as he would say.

Any way, while he was a rising junior his GF came to the office one day and I heard her call him Jake (nowhere in his name legal name). I asked "who the hell is Jake?" to which she replied "oh, that's what we call John back home". I looked at him and he said "John likes to make cold calls, Jake doesn't".

It works...

<comment><USER8> What, John liked cold calls so much that he had to invent alter ego Jake, who didn't like cold calls, in order to get a girlfriend?

<comment><USER9> Few people in my family use their first and second name in different contexts (family/friends/work). Reasons probably vary. For my mum it just started that way when she was a kid. Family used her second name and when she started working people knew her by her first name.

<comment> kube-system Some people don't use any part of their legal names at all with their friends and family.

I used to have some extended family who all went by nicknames unrelated to their legal names. It was a cultural thing.

<comment><USER10> That partly explains a perplexing issue I have with my students.

For example, let's say a student named Fred Smith emails me, but then signs his name as "Alex Harrison." And his self-selected email address is email@example.com. I'm not sure if it's a trend or a culture thing to use multiple names and last names, but it gets a bit confusing at times.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> In high school, it was wearing a three-piece suit (because if you're not wearing a vest, are you really wearing a suit?) for all of my speech and debate events; now, it's wearing one of my kilts. For those of us with anxiety, esp social anxiety this entire article isn't necessarily surprising, as many of us use some form of externalizing our confidence to get through big presentations, meetings, etc.

If I've got an important set of meetings that I'm going to be at it's always going to be a kilt (with appropriate vest as well, everything snazzy needs vests) or a full suit.

If I'm going to something where I know I'm going to need to be social, it's always the kilt. It's amazing how much a kilt is just a segue for other people to talk about their "scottish or irish" heritage; talking about myself is terrible, but listening to the 10,000th person today talk about their boring ass family tree is great (the convo will eventually turn to something interesting or the person will wander off). It also makes me extremely memorable and findable, so I don't have to initiate most conversations which is also a terrible, horrible thing.

<comment><USER12> Kind of reminds me how my 25th great uncle is Robert The Bruce.

Fun times.

 _Walks off_

<comment><USER11> I'm sure you are silently judging the fact I don't really like bagpipes too... __Groundskeeper Willie fist shake __

<comment><USER12> I fucking hate bagpipes.

Maybe England only wanted control over Scotland to shut the fucking bagpipes up.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> This worked on our (then) 5 year old, who was shy on the soccer field but kicked it up a notch when we told her to be a dinosaur. Of course, this also resulted in her running around with t-rex arms and baring her teeth, so I guess you have to be careful which alter ego you adopt.

<comment><USER14> Your story reminded me of this comic [http://hyperboleandahalf.blogspot.com/2013/10/menace.html](http://hyperboleandahalf.blogspot.com/2013/10/menace.html) which I like to read every once in a while.

Edit: And of course you already had two suggestions for this. I should refresh the page before commenting.

<comment><USER15> Goes to show how great that comic was.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER16> I've long been fascinated by the complex imaginal techniques of tantra in Tibetan Buddhism, in which you vividly imagine yourself as a yidam, or tutelary deity.

Via intense concentration on elaborate self-visualization, repetition of the yidam's mantra, and ritualized hand gestures (mudra), you take on the form, attributes and mind of the yidam for the purpose of transformation - <USER2> recognize that one's own mind is not, in fact, different from the all- pervading Buddha-nature.

[https://studybuddhism.com/en/tibetan- buddhism/tantra/buddhis...](https://studybuddhism.com/en/tibetan- buddhism/tantra/buddhist-tantra/buddhist-deity-or-mickey-mouse-what-s-the- difference)

'One of the most characteristic features of tantra is what we call "deity- yoga," where we imagine ourselves to be a Buddha-figure. The term is usually translated as "visualize" instead of imagine, although we're not just dealing with some visual picture of ourselves. I think the word "imagine" is great because we imagine that we really are a Buddha in the form of this figure. Not only do we imagine looking like this figure, but we also imagine speaking, thinking, helping others and experiencing pure enjoyment with all our senses like it does. We also imagine having all its good qualities, such as equal love and compassion for all beings and deep understanding of everything. Of course, to do this successfully we need to have trained beforehand in each of these qualities with sutra practice. Putting them all together with deity- yoga, then, is like a dress rehearsal for actually being a Buddha. By rehearsing now, we build up powerful causes for attaining enlightenment. This extremely efficient method is known as "practicing causes that are the most similar to the result."'

<comment><USER17> If you're using tantra (vajrayana) for ego-oriented material benefit, then that's called "spiritual materialism." According to Tibetan Buddhism, the vajrayana can be dangerous for you and those around you.

Edit: I apologize. I realize that was very heavy handed. I felt obligated to throw out the usual warnings about Buddhist tantra.

<comment><USER16> No worries! I'm familiar with Trungpa's warnings about spiritual materialism. I know the context of Vajrayana is quite different from the "Batman Effect" discussed in the original article, but I wanted to spur discussion in general about the power of assuming the identity (transitory though it may be) of a chosen figure.

And for anyone who's interested in tantra, I'll spell out the warnings more explicitly: this kind of practice should only be attempted under the careful guidance of an expert - a teacher who is empowered by a qualified lineage. These kinds of visualizations are very powerful, and can be dangerous to one's mental health if done foolishly. Hacking with the boundaries of one's ego and merging with deities is not to be done lightly. Seek expert instruction.

<comment><USER18> Why do people on this website take this seriously? Is that because this whole stuff is incredibly in fashion in SV?

I can visualise myself as Hitler; for all it is I can also visualise how I could consciously go all the way with whatever methods he employed.

Are you trying to say I should not think about it because so will suddenly start World War III?

How is this different from visualising myself as the all-powerful deity?

<comment><USER19> Consider the neurological danger of visualizing yourself as (e.g. hitler) repeatedly over and over. The exercise mentioned above is one of neurological conditioning (anpassen in german). You are training your neural pathways to take on a certain form of thought pattern. If you pick (e.g.) hitler as your mould, then you are training yourself as hitler. That's what the danger is with such a practice.

Therefore, you must be careful and wise about what neurological mould you are seeking to "impersonate" with your practice, since you would be creating new habits and neural pathways in practice.

I'm not an expert on this topic, but I can use my common sense to figure that out.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER20> I need an alto ego...

Frederick König.

I am a man who can sit for hours working productively at his computer. I am a man who is not affected by boredom. I desire nothing more than to sit, and code. My productivity is off the charts and I am being considered for a promotion. I have excellent coding ability and can apply it with ease by sitting, and coding, for hours, and hours.

<comment><USER21> Is that the person you desire to be?

<comment><USER22> Sounds like it's just classic Fredrick König to me.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER23> I got a nickname when I was 14, my life completely changed after that. I went from sitting alone at lunch, to having parties with over 100 people. Most of them only knew me by the nickname, or variants of the nickname. I went by it almost exclusively for over 10 years. I definitely feel like a different person than I was then.

<comment><USER24> Now this is interesting - I also got a nickname in highschool from a popular kid that helped me gain an identity in other people's minds and be much more social and involved, but I don't think it was an alter-ego. I think it helped make me memorable to other people while giving me a confidence boost (as the nickname was complimentary), but I think that it just brought out the real me. I don't go by that nickname since I left highschool, but I feel the same as I did then. It was more about getting over shyness and being included than being someone else. I suppose it varies from person to person!

Edit: The super pervasive nickname is a fun phenomenon, eventually even the teachers and principal called me exclusively by the nickname.

<comment><USER25> My nickname has followed me for about 23 years... I had never considered how it might have impacted my life.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER26> I wonder how much this applies to furries. How often is a fursona "the real me" vs roleplay? I've witnessed both in different individuals, and also both within a single person (primary 'sona and some other separate ones which are just role playing).

Adjective Species probably had an article on this, though it also reminds me of the discussions about therianthropy, contherianthropes, and New Age discussions of the use of masks in tribal religions.

<comment><USER27> Yep, this is the comment I came here for!

On a related note, I attended Dr. Gerbasi's research results at Anthrocon a few years ago, and she noted from her furry survey that the experimental group (furries) rated themselves higher in response to questions such as "I feel good about myself" versus the control group. (her college students)

<comment><USER28> That might just be what you get with a WEIRD control group though.

<comment><USER26> Anthrocon was probably also dominated by the Western Educated Industrialised Rich and Democratic subset.

Might be related to the oxytocin furries get from all the snuggling, though.

<comment><USER28> It could also be biased by age; I assume that the furry subject group skewed older than the students (or at least that the students were a more tightly restricted age group). I know I felt far more self-assured at 30 than I did at 20.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER29> The comments here reminded me of Tulpas: [https://www.businessinsider.com/hearing-voices-in-your- head-...](https://www.businessinsider.com/hearing-voices-in-your-head-real- life-versus-movies-tulpa-psychiatry-2018-2)

We are capable of holding more than one identity in our minds and switching between them. Some people use that ability to create "characters" (tulpas) that they interact with or even allow to take over their bodies. Apparently some people go as far as replacing themselves with a tulpa they've created (they call this ego-suicide).

<comment><USER30> This is also the foundation of so-called Chaos Magic. It uses the 'mental frameworks' of any belief system to obtain results by becoming a temporary adherent of it. Switching frameworks would be done with physical objects, e.g. a pair of spectacles.

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chaos_magic](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chaos_magic)

<comment><USER29> Thank you for the comment and that link. Fascinating stuff.

The basic philosophy behind Chaos Magic seems to be very much in line with some ancestral eastern philosophies and religions. The gnostic state is pretty much the whole goal of some forms of meditation and religious practices.

Are there any other resources or books you could recommend to dig deeper into Chaos Magic?

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER31> I've done a lot of this as a writer. I'll actually take an article from a favorite writer of mine and paste it on the page. Then'll I'll go through that article and write my own article on top of it paragraph by paragraph. None of the content or subject matter is the same. I'm not "rewriting the original article". But it helps keep the patterns similar. I can see how I might want to change pace, structure the story, etc.

But even more importantly it helps me imagine being that other, successful, famous author.

<comment><USER25> I wonder if this would work for coding!

<comment><USER32> I often rewrite solutions to identical problems in different ways. It helps me get a good handle on what works in different situations, and how solutions differ in general.

I recently rewrote a JS problem I did in an interview in a much more functional style, a style that just visually appealed to me, and I feel like I learned a thing or two from it, or at least reinforced some things I already knew.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER33> "I need a handle, man. I don't have an identity until I have a handle." \- Joey Pardella, Hackers, 1995

</comment><comment><USER34> > Adopting an alter ego is an extreme form of 'self-distancing', which > involves taking a step back from our immediate feelings to allow us to view > a situation more dispassionately.

What's the difference between this and repressing feelings, emotions and basically not dealing with it ? Does it work only in short lived moment (a presentation, a concert, etc.) and can't be used 24/7 (or even less) ?

<comment><USER35> This would be dissociation. It would be different from repression, but not any less neurotic.

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Defence_mechanism](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Defence_mechanism)

<comment><USER36> Dissociation is a defence action. I think it could be quite helpful if used intentionally. If it becomes a habit, it could cause problems. Unintentional and habitual use of defence mechanisms leads to negative consequences. This is what people think of when they use the term "neurotic."

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER37> Anxiety-management tricks that I personally employ is to either refer to a group/class I find myself in as "we" or to use passive rather than active voice.

The former I borrowed as a kid watching Spider Man 1994, where Brock/Venom symbiont calls themselves "we"; the latter is an inspiration from David Bohm's rheomode.

Both shift the perspective from your ego to the environment that it is embedded into and is a part of: e.g. a company, a crowd, a body ("we" as a human microbiome), humanity, or nature itself; not as an object, but as an ongoing process, from being to becoming. A giving up of ontological primacy.

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/E-Prime](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/E-Prime)

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Body_without_organs](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Body_without_organs)

<comment><USER38> Relatedly, I've noticed that video game youtubers almost always refer to themselves plurally (as in, "We're going to take our main army over here" or "We won!").

I assumed this was to cultivate a sense of belonging or identity for their followers, but separating their performing-identity from their regular identity could have a lot to do with it as well.

<comment> crooked-v "We" is also common for old-school Let's Play series, dating back to the screenshot-only days, though those often have some level of voting or other interactivity that gives some fan involvement in each segment.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER39> Hip hop artists use alter egos to explore different stage personas and styles. e.g. Daniel Dumile as MF Doom, King Ghidra, Viktor Vaughn or Eminem as Slim Shady.

<comment><USER40> The Beatles — Sgt. Pepper

David Bowie... a different one practically every album.

</comment></comment><comment><USER41> If you haven't yet, read: [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/True_Names](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/True_Names)

</comment><comment><USER42> Here's a neat story. I'm a transgender iOS programmer living in Toronto and I've been diagnosed with chronic anxiety and CPTSD. I am also a rapper/producer under the name 'Nikki Grace', on Spotify/Apple Music/Youtube, etc...

I've been producing and engineering music for bands and other folks for about ten years, but I had never released any solo material. After my Mother's passing last year, I decided to strut out my first mixtape of just five songs. I was extraordinarily nervous, as being transgender, I had assumed an entirely different tone and inflection in my voice; and rapping was something I had rarely done before.

I put it out in July of last year, and; to my surprise, the music was incredibly well-received; well-reviewed by my peers - and - to my surprise, each song on that 5-track mixtape, with no advertising, has had tens of thousands of listens on Spotify since.

The confidence increase in this was immense! My anxiety about certain integral things has certainly gone down - especially in the field of music, I second- guess myself far less often than I used to; I hit 'stop' on over-analyzing things earlier than before, amongst other tangible benefits. I've never even performed on stage and often end up with around $100-300 of revenue a month just for putting myself out there. (Which, in streaming revenue; is a shockingly large amount of streams!)

There have been serious crises in my life since my Mom's passing; I had to take leave from my work for time, but; guess what? Nobody listening to my music knew any of that. The alter ego literally just lets me go through all of that, put out music every few months, and turned out to be the healthiest outlet of my life.

It is absolutely true - it's paramount that you find your outlet and do it.

<comment><USER43> Amazing read. Keep doing music and being awesome!

</comment></comment><comment><USER44> This reminds me of something I read in a book about self love, where it's easy to confuse what you do with who you are. For example, someone who acts shy in large groups of people might start to think that they are a shy person, and that there is nothing they can do about it.

</comment><comment><USER45> One of the many dangers with this line of thinking is that on some level you're letting other people define you if you don't define yourself.

A lot of people are awful, so the definition you are given will be one you may not agree with and one that doesn't match reality.

A sort of sunk cost fallacy combines with an illusory truth effect to reinforce the narrative created about you.

Eventually it won't matter what you think about you, it will only matter what other people think about you.

</comment><comment><USER46> People at work just add the Mr. prefix in front of my name and I turn into my alter ego who is always calm, deep, calculating and focused. They love it, I love it. Strange thing is, I never tell them to refer to me that way, it just happens after a while whenever I join new work place.

<comment><USER35> How long have you been a teaching high school?

</comment></comment><comment><USER47> I have dissociative identity disorder, as a result of severe pervasive trauma when I was young. I have several alter egos, each fully conscious and each of which are capable in their own unique ways. They are nearly always present in my mind, speaking to me or each other and we have internal experiences nearly as rich as external experiences.

We absolutely have alters that are simply more composed than the rest of us, and that come out in specific scenarios. Some of us have worked and held positions supporting technology others of us can't even understand! Then others of us are better with people and can work with them more efficiently.

It's not all fun and games with this though. It's a very extreme form of PTSD, and it can be very difficult to manage, though in a way it's a blessing because we HAVE to be organized to work together. I wouldn't wish the flashbacks on anyone though, or the fact that most of us are still mentally teenagers even though we're physically nearly 30, which presents real and serious challenges to functioning as an adult.

</comment><comment><USER48> I am a shy and quiet person. But, once in a while I get an alter ego, it's vague, it doesn't have a name but it's my disinhibited persona. Acts completely unlike the shy me but is not too crazy or obnoxious to make me feel uncomfortable afterwards. Im thinking of it as a 'mode' i enter and exit from. I use it when I need to perform in front of a public.

</comment><comment><USER49> Anyone familiar with Breaking Bad? Walter White goes under the alias of Heisenberg. When he's Walter, he's anxious and fearful. It's such a contrast compared to the calm, calculated Heisenberg.

The writers did a phenomenal job of using an alter ego to slowly change the character from Mr. Chips to Scarface.

</comment><comment><USER50> I actually do this when I give presentations. It helps a great deal.

Projecting a presence and working on humor or even just levity really helps me do better presentations.

Instead of framing myself as doing a presentation I decided to attempt to think of what kind of a presentation I would be interested in. I eventually figured out would be some kind of exaggeration of myself that was more sarcastic and it actually played out quite well.

I actually discovered that I was good at stand up comedy by attempting to crack jokes while the presentation video wasn't working. At the end of the presentation people asked me if I was a stand up comic and I responded I am one now.

</comment><comment><USER51> There are interesting correlations with the research on the sense of self, and how it relates to spiritual teachings which equate much of suffering with the sense of being a separate "self" entity (rather than seeing oneself as an indivisible part of a whole).

Maybe this trick helps reduce the activity of the DMN (default mode network) which is attributed to much of our worry based thinking, which is self centered?

[https://jeffwarren.org/articles/neuroscienceofsuffering/](https://jeffwarren.org/articles/neuroscienceofsuffering/)

</comment><comment><USER52> How do I refer to myself in the third person without feeling like Gollum?

<comment><USER53> Two ideas:

* Create duplicate account with different persona and make them talk. Fun on reddit.

* Start roleplaying and mostly dming. One of my favorite experience in life.

<comment><USER54> I feel like the former is a lot of the Internet in the late nineties. People pretending to be someone they're not. Nobody knows you're a dog in the Internet.

<comment><USER55> The Internet: where men are men, women are men, and children are FBI agents.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER56> This is why I think it's a huge shame we moved to using real names and no alt accounts online. No more space to experiment.

<comment><USER57> That's very true on Facebook, and it's true that Facebook is the dominant online destination so far as numbers go.

There are still regular old forums for a lot of hobbies and interests though, and even on here people can use handles. Reddit and Twitter as well.

I will confess to having multiple alt accounts on Facebook.

There is room to experiment still.

</comment></comment><comment><USER58> Teaching kids how to dissociate may not be completely good.

<comment><USER59> This isn't about dissociation. This is about using the tool of a constructed or adopted persona to engage _differently_ with the situation at hand. Dissociation is about finding a way to _disengage_ from the situation at hand. I have experience with both - the former after a fashion although I don't think of it that way, the latter in such extensive detail that it took me the better part of a couple of decades to learn how _not_ to do it - and I can tell you, they're not even a little bit similar.

Also, again based on experience, I do not think that parents who teach their children to dissociate - or, more accurately put, make it necessary for their children to learn to do so - are particularly skillful at identifying what is and isn't good for those kids. They seem very often to be very sure that they are, but I wouldn't recommend taking their word for it.

</comment></comment><comment><USER60> "Society is a masked ball, where every one hides his real character, and reveals it by hiding"

― Ralph Waldo Emerson

</comment><comment><USER61> I had an unwanted alter ego once. A colleague called me by the wrong name for the entire time we worked together (a few months). I considered correcting him, but I wanted to see how it would play out.

<comment><USER19> if you didn't correct him, then it wasn't unwanted. so how did it play out?

<comment><USER61> It was initially unwanted, but it became interesting because it lasted so long. What made it possible was that we didn't work closely (different groups) and encountered each other only infrequently and usually one-on-one, so there weren't others around to correct him. When I left, there was a social event with mainly people from my group, so he was not present, and I don't actually know whether he ever learned of his error. Maybe my alter ego still lives in his memory.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER62> This reminds me of masks, but unexpectedly used in real world rather than in acting and/or improv.

For more on masks, if someone's interested, read Impro by Keith Johnstone and (tangentially) Emissary's Guide to Worlding by Iain Cheng.

Also, British comedy improv trio Pappy's comes to my mind—in some podcast episodes there is a time where Tom spontaneously drops into another persona; Matthew immediately switches to addressing that mask instead of Tom, until Tom snaps out of it. It would've sounded incredibly bizarre to me had I not read Impro prior.

</comment><comment><USER12> Todd Herman wrote a book about how develop an alter ego. He used the technique through his professional career.

Through media interviews you can piece together that Kobe Bryant was one of his clients.

</comment><comment><USER63> Are there any downsides to this technique?

E.g. will you become less authentic, and will you become a stranger to your friends, family and perhaps even yourself?

Will people think you have lost your mind?

<comment><USER25> I think social interaction is just us donning a series of different masks anyway, so the concept of authenticity seems to be point at something nebulous at best.

Am I less authentic when I'm on an antidepressant that helps me cope with life? Am I less authentic if I'm forcing myself to be polite to a coworker I don't like? Am I more authentic when I'm alone and dancing to some song I like?

This reminds me of some content analysis research done on leaders. It basically splits the private life (journals, etc), public life (meetings, conversations) and the performative life (speeches, etc). I guess one could argue that the only time we approach authenticity is when speaking to ourselves...

</comment></comment><comment><USER64> I was watching the D-A-L anime the other day and thinking about this character

[https://date-a-live.fandom.com/wiki/Natsumi_Kyouno](https://date-a- live.fandom.com/wiki/Natsumi_Kyouno)

who has the power to become anything so decides to become what a kid would think is "flashy" and "cool" to cover up her own feelings of vulnerability.

</comment><comment><USER65> Yup, it's super helpful. An alternative abbreviation of my name is one I typically associate with shitty people (never met someone who went by that version of the name that I liked), so whenever I find myself wanting to engage in some form of negative behavior (even tame, like being a little lazy) I tell myself that that's what [abbreviated name] does, not me. Works pretty well.

</comment><comment> site-packages1 There was a joke about this in the show The Office, American version. I don't remember the specifics, but Andy was auditioning for an a role and it required him to put his eyes in the emergency eye wash . He was deathly afraid of this, which was characteristic. So the advice given to him was to play a character auditioning for a role that wasn't afraid of the eye wash.

</comment><comment><USER66> Does anyone here do this? Seems like a powerful thing - I might try it. I'll need to come up with some good names.

</comment><comment><USER67> This sounds a bit like "fixed role therapy" [1]

[1] [http://www.pcp-net.org/encyclopaedia/fixed-role- ther.html](http://www.pcp-net.org/encyclopaedia/fixed-role-ther.html)

</comment><comment><USER68> See also: David Bowie.

<comment><USER69> See also: Elton John

<comment><USER70> See also hunter s thompson.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER71> Yeah furries have figured this out for decades. It's also also extremely helpful to have an abstraction of yourself you can make edits to as experiments.

</comment><comment><USER72> That's what my friend says, too bad that nobody can see him therefore nobody listens to him.

</comment><comment><USER73> This sounds like a viable strategy...it certainly seemed to work for Norman Bates in Psycho.

</comment><comment><USER74> Is this also why ketamine is shown such good results treating depression?

</comment><comment><USER75> When you talk to yourself, do you say "I" or "we"?

<comment><USER76> and you? | I cannot quite remember if I even use any pronouns in internal monologue

</comment></comment><comment><USER77> See also, section III of [https://slatestarcodex.com/2020/06/01/book-review- origin-of-...](https://slatestarcodex.com/2020/06/01/book-review-origin-of- consciousness-in-the-breakdown-of-the-bicameral-mind/)

</comment><comment><USER78> So every aliased used in the internet.

</comment><comment><USER79> you mean like 4chan?

<comment><USER80> I've recently browsing 4chan again (only few specific boards) and I have the feeling it's the reverse: people there can state their opinions, totally disregarding how socially unacceptable it would be. Which means their alter- ego is probably the IRL one, which has to shut up a lot of thoughts to blend in society.

<comment><USER81> Christopher Poole did a Ted Talk 10 years ago on the value of anonymity online. Hiding a real-world persona has the power to create new and different things.

[https://www.ted.com/talks/christopher_moot_poole_the_case_fo...](https://www.ted.com/talks/christopher_moot_poole_the_case_for_anonymity_online/transcript)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER82> This is bad and will never allow the person to be free.

Merely the fact that an "alter ego" is needed points to the fact that the person experiences fear and anxiety towards something.

If he needs an alter ego to overcome that it is supression/dissociation. This will ensure that this person will never be free of it.

This only looks good on the surface, but in reality this will emprison the person for life.

Those who wish to come to the root of the issue will find many answers here:

Alice Miller: The Drama of the Gifted Child

Alice Miller: The Body Never Lies

<comment><USER12> It's also used by top performers the world over.

</comment></comment><comment><USER83> I can't be the only person uncomfortable interacting with someone who is obviously performing some role.

</comment><comment><USER83> I wonder when it will become taboo to know one's birth name.

<comment><USER76> can't tell if you indeed don't know about taboos about birth names or you are being ironic... It's hard to detect irony online

<comment><USER83> I actually am unaware about taboos regarding birth names. Please let me know of my ignorance.

<comment><USER76> Weird, I tried to google it and found almost nothing. I was sure many cultures had this tradition when they call their child a fake name, while keeping real name a secret. It is thought that evil forces cannot harm child if they don't know their real name.

All I could find was a paragraph on wikipedia:

All previously mentioned names fall into domestic category were used in family circle. However, when a person entered a broader social group (changing his occupation or place of residence), his name was replaced or supplemented by another. This sort of nickname exceeds family names in number - an adult has more distinct characteristics that can be used as a basis for a nickname than a child.</comment></comment></comment></comment>


Why it's healthy that Microsoft and Google are eating Apple's lunch - <AUTHOR> https://cpbotha.net/2016/11/02/why-its-healthy-that-microsoft-and-google-are-eating-apples-lunch/ <comment><USER2> eating apple's lunch how?

Windows killed its mobile phone offering Google has not proven it can manifactire a phone

<comment><USER3> Sales figures aren't even out yet so how can you prove either are a hit or a failure. Let's wait a year or two to see if the surface did in fact destroy the mbp.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> You can't hope for much discussion with these apple worshipping hipsters.

<comment><USER4> Downvotes to prove my point</comment></comment>


Why Steve Jobs Couldn't Find a Job Today - <AUTHOR> http://blogs.forbes.com/adamhartung/2011/02/18/why-steve-jobs-couldnt-find-a-job/

<comment><USER2> A glaring point that the article seems to forget is that Bezos, Jobs, et. al., are _founder_ CEOs. Not one of the individuals mentioned was a hire. I think that's an important distinction, especially with respect to the author's points on creativity.

 _"... remember that when Jobs returned to Apple in 1996, ... Let's just say he didn't have the benefit of the doubt. What he did have: the founder's courage to innovate despite the doubters"_

from: <http://bhorowitz.com/2010/04/28/why-we-prefer-founding-ceos/>

Edit to add quote

<comment><USER3> I think that's the point of the article- companies aren't hiring people who want to rock the boat, you have to find a way to do it yourself.

<comment><USER4> As a general rule, companies have never hired people who want to rock the boat. The point is that the article missed that point. Nothing is different about "today" vs. any time in the past.

<comment><USER5> That's the article's point: for the last decade companies have been talking up creativity and innovation and hiring like it was 1959.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> If Steve Jobs applied for your job by submitting his resume and waiting for you to invite him in for an interview, he literally wouldn't be Steve Jobs in any meaningful way. He would just be a guy named Steve who didn't finish college and seems to maybe want a job. So the whole premise is nonsense.

The better question is, "if Steve Jobs knocked on your door at 2am and jumped into a long speech about how your industry is begging to be disrupted, and how he is simply so manically focused on creating an incredible product in this space that he can't sleep and he'd probably work for free if that's what it came to" would you hire him?

I think most hiring managers would take a chance on that guy.

<comment><USER7> Actually, I'd probably threaten to call the cops. Passion or not, 2 am isn't the best time to make unannounced house calls.

<comment><USER8> No, Jobs would have co-opted the cops and they would have raided _you_.

[http://gizmodo.com/5524843/police-seize-jason-chens- computer...](http://gizmodo.com/5524843/police-seize-jason-chens-computers)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> This title twists the quote. It's asking the reader a rhetorical question whether they would hire Steve Jobs but immediately lists Bezos and other innovative founders. I don't think Steve could get a decent job even when he was young nor did he seek one.

<comment><USER10> Exactly. The answer to their question is as much "no" now as it was 20 years ago.

</comment></comment><comment><USER11> It's really quite simple, and in a sense I don't think big companies are behaving irrationally:

It's really hard to judge the potential of odd, creative people. There's a million people running around who talk like Steve Jobs did decades ago. Think about all the idea-people and 'mavens' you know.

Granted, I think the entire hiring system isn't even close to optimized and could be greatly improved.

<comment><USER12> True. I think it's more of a two-way street than the article lets on.

Think back to all of the most quirky, creative, interesting, boat-rocking people you've worked with or met. It's not a universal rule that these folks aren't very good at the "people" side of the equation...but a lot of them aren't. Furthermore, a lot of them have a marked distaste for toeing the party line. They derive more energy from challening assumptions than from accepting them. Or from reinventing the wheel, instead of using the wheel they've got on hand. They get bored or disgruntled very quickly if they're not being stimulated or challenged.

These traits might make for good startup founders, but they don't often correlate with corporate success. Especially at large, traditional, non-tech corporations. In such companies, politics rules the day. Your skill as a politician -- your ability to navigate the waters, network with the right people, kiss the right ass, and sell internally -- is what gets you ahead. Your inability to do so will prevent you from climbing as quickly, or as far, as the savvier operators.

Companies say they want more creative leaders, but all incentives are set up to reward politicians. At the same time, a lot of "creative" folks opt out of the game in the first place -- either through ineptitude at it, or through an avowed distaste for it. It's unfortunate, but it's true in many, many, many cases.

If there's any grand, karmic justice in the whole equation, it's that -- in theory, at least -- the more forward-thinking and "creative" companies will win out in the marketplace. Those companies that choose to be ruled by innovation, by results, and not by politics should outperform the companies that choose not to recognize (or even to suppress) their innovative thinkers. It's not as cut-and-dried as this, of course, but that's what those of us disheartened by these articles should hope for in the long run.

<comment><USER13> _Your skill as a politician -- your ability to navigate the waters, network with the right people, kiss the right ass, and sell internally -- is what gets you ahead._

This sounds like an ideal marketer skillset. Yes? No?

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER14> A mondern day steve jobs would be a cofounder he wont spend his time looking for one of these jobs the article mentions.

<comment><USER15> I dunno, I'm not sure VCs would be too keen to fund someone with the characteristics of the 1970s Jobs. Quasi-homeless, just returned from a "spiritual enlightenment" trip to India and now dresses in traditional Indian costume, experiments with LSD...

<comment><USER16> You can be a cofounder with all those attributes, regardless of VC. You could also create something so compelling that VCs would overlook any concerns like that when it got to that stage of needing further investment.

<comment><USER17> It's not as easy for startups to create vertically integrated hardware devices these days.

<comment><USER18> The time was right for the Personal Computer revolution in 1977. In 1997, it was the Internet revolution.

In 2007, it was the Social revolution.

There's always opportunity, you just need to find what is now worldchanging, which would be difficult, expensive, or plain impossible before.

<comment><USER19> And right now, I think we're going through the human revolution, where we use applications to make humans be better, and do better, and everything is centered around the human experience.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER20> The question really translates to: why companies are not taking risks today? The bigger risks are - the larger would be the profits from exploiting the risks. Creativity and innovation are huge risks but you you need to take them if you want to be successful today. "me too" strategy won't take you far. Apple is the best example for this point. Remember Steve Jobs announcing "year of copycats"?

<comment><USER11> One explanation could be that most people find that the pain of losing a set amount of money is greater in magnitude than the joy of making that same amount of money.

Also, it's simply political. When you have shareholders who all hold different beliefs and levels of risk-aversion, things get messy.

</comment></comment><comment><USER21> "And it's not clear America would benefit even if it tried maintaining these lower-skilled jobs."

Myopic on many levels. A week in an industrial fabrication shop would change the author's tune regarding skill levels required for modern manufacturing jobs.

<comment><USER22> He's not talking about that, he's talking about sewing buttons on things for 5 bucks a day.

</comment></comment><comment><USER23> What I find ironic is that in order to work for Apple today, you need a spotless academic record since gradeschool. I doubt very much that Apple would hire a Reed College dropout today.

<comment><USER24> That is not true. Apple is not like Google or Goldman Sachs. They do not ask for your GPA or care where you went to school.

edit: hate to be down-vote curious, but I would be interested to hear if someone has been rejected from Apple for having a poor GPA.

I've interviewed with Apple and nobody asked about my degree or GPA. It was the most on-topic job interview I've ever had. No weird brainteasers or annoying FizzBuzz questions. Just questions directly relevant to the position I was interviewing for. I have a handful of friends who work there who never finished college or have degrees in something irrelevant, like philosophy. Guys like Mike Matas and Mike Lee did not have degrees. The head of iTunes did not go to college at all.

<comment><USER25> _Apple is not like Google or Goldman Sachs. They do not ask for your GPA or care where you went to school._

By that definition, Google is not like Google.

<comment><USER24> Has Google stopped asking for GPAs?

<comment><USER25> There's a space for it on the application, but neither the recruiter nor interviewers appeared to care about my formal education at all. I don't know how much of a factor it plays in the decision process, but the idea that Google only pays attention to candidates with CS degrees from top-tier universities is false.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER26> _The problem starts with how Boards of Directors (and management teams) select – incorrectly, it appears – our business leaders..._

And as it happens, recently there has been debate about successors to Steve Jobs.

</comment><comment><USER27> It's funny how the points stated in this article will be so true for a Microsoft hiring manager. No disrespect intended. Disclaimer: I was an MS employee till last month.</comment>


Fogus: Minimum Viable Snippet - <AUTHOR> http://blog.fogus.me/2012/08/23/minimum-viable-snippet

<comment><AUTHOR> Enjoyed Rich Hickey's comment: [http://blog.fogus.me/2012/08/23/minimum- viable-snippet/#comm...](http://blog.fogus.me/2012/08/23/minimum-viable- snippet/#comment-69446)

<comment> qu4z-2 Me too, but possibly for other reasons (he's heard of blurbs, right?)

<comment><AUTHOR> Yes, I think there may have been a small tongue-in-cheek element...

<comment> qu4z-2 That's what I meant by "possibly" for other reasons. I wasn't sure whether you were enjoying it because of that. Sorry for doubting you :)</comment></comment></comment></comment>


Golden Ratio Discovered in Quantum World - <AUTHOR> http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2010/01/100107143909.htm

<comment><USER2> More on Golden Ratio in math:

Wolfram: <http://mathworld.wolfram.com/GoldenRatio.html>

Geometry: <http://www.cut-the-knot.org/do_you_know/GoldenRatio.shtml>

which includes the beautiful identity φ : 1 = 1 : (φ - 1)

</comment><comment><USER3> This headline is actually a key point revealed in the last issue of Echo:

<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Echo_(comic_book)>

Huge technical advances were made possible by reworking the mathematics of General Relativity and quantum mechanics using base-Phi.

</comment><comment><USER4> I want to look into this more, but I have to wonder- if you look hard enough for a number/ratio to appear, won't you find it almost everywhere? Seems kinda like a fortune teller asking you to look for the number '3'.

I am not a mathematician, so I also have no idea what I'm talking about- just gut instinct.

<comment><USER5> In the quantum realm, doesn't looking for something make it appear?

<comment><USER6> It may work the other way round --- if you don't look it doesn't appear. But you can't just make any stuff appear.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> I am pleased that the truth has prevailed. Nature is now accused of trying to undermine Mohamed El Naschie deliberately. This accusation is not frivolous. How else can we explain the blind vicious attack by certain doubtful blogs on the golden mean work of El Naschie and how Quirin Schiermeier the journalist working for Nature utilized these vicious attacks to write a completely unacceptable article in Nature. Then came the heavenly justice when a German professor von Storch complained on his blog that the Nature article of Schiermeier deliberately misquoted him. He was gentle enough to say that the harm was not great. However in principle the harm could have been great. No one has the right to smear the reputation of anyone whether deliberately or recklessly due to irresponsible journalism. Now to the burning scientific question. How does the golden mean enter into quantum mechanics. The answer is as simple as it is ingenious. Mohamed El Naschie reformulates quantum mechanics in spacetime following the same concepts used by Richard Feynman as well the classical work of Einstein. Since the building blocks of spacetime are his elementary random Cantor sets and because these random Cantor sets possess the golden mean as a Hausdorff dimension, the golden mean slips into the fundaments of quantum mechanics. Nothing that quantum mechanics is the most fundamental theory upon which science is based, the golden mean could rightly be described as the basis of science. From this reasoning the ideas which Ed Nash expressed in his previous comment follows effortlessly.

</comment><comment><USER8> There's a very good Ted Talk on E8. I don't understand how the appearance of Phi suggests E8 (if someone here understands this, please explain), but the first thing that came to mind was whether Garrett Lisi knows about this news yet:

<http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=y-Gk_Ddhr0M>

<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/E₈>

<comment><USER9> I understand that most particle physicists don't really take Lisi's work very seriously. Does this discovery lend more weight to his E8 theories?

</comment></comment><comment><USER10> This <http://math.ucr.edu/home/baez/week289.html> is what John Baez has to say about this

</comment><comment><USER11> This is just numerology. You can find all kinds of 'special' numbers anywhere, if you just try enough 'special' numbers on enough of 'anywhere'. This has no special significance at all.

<comment><USER12> Yes, I've seen Pi as well. Good Movie.

But I think they put a little more thought into it before publishing it in the Science journal.

<comment><USER11> I haven't seen Pi. I've studied physics. My point is that the fact that the 'golden ratio' is indirectly involved here, is completely irrelevant. The point is the E8 symmetry. Mentioning the golden ratio is just a grab for attention from laymen and it draws attention away from the actually interesting things, as well as giving those laymen the impression that what physicists do is numerology.</comment></comment></comment>


Engineers put Leonardo da Vinci's bridge design to the test - <AUTHOR> http://news.mit.edu/2019/leonardo-da-vinci-bridge-test-1010 <comment><USER2> better link from the mit folks working on project: [http://news.mit.edu/2019/leonardo-da-vinci-bridge- test-1010](http://news.mit.edu/2019/leonardo-da-vinci-bridge-test-1010)

sure, bridge may have worked, but did they actually have the capability to build it? suppose it's not very different than other arches?

<comment><USER3> Based on the description in the article: probably.

I at least believe it is plausible, though I'm not sure of the economics relating to if it would have been a good expenditure of resources.

I also get the feeling that this might be a "CompSci" style answer: the customer asked for X and Xn was proposed. In reality the customer's needs were actually Y0..Yn which would have been better served by Z. This doesn't change the fact that Xn is a good answer to the problem of X, it just wasn't really what the customer actually required.

<comment><USER4> Activating the civil construction mode of failures, I'd say that he probably sent the design for construction, but the people on the field didn't think it would work and built it like every other bridge they have built on their lives.

<comment><USER5> Or it's a fantastic bridge once fully assembled, but every piece is some special snowflake shape and has to be fitted precisely so it would be much harder to build than a traditional bridge.

<comment><USER6> Yup, there is no word on the tolerances that would have been required (especially when using realistic sized stone blocks, rather than 126 large blocks as done in the experiment).

<comment><USER7> No like there hadn't been massive engineering projects with ridiculous tolerances before. Ie: Roman Aqueducts, Cusco's walls.

<comment><USER5> It's certainly possible, but if there is an easier and just as sturdy option available it would be easy to see an engineer going "thanks, but no thanks" when handed this cocktail napkin looking sketch.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> It's a really beautiful design as well, I wonder if the beauty of well designed things is because we see they are well designed or intrinsic.

</comment><comment><USER9> I think that was proved 18 years ago: [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vebj%C3%B8rn_Sand_Da_Vinci_Pro...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vebj%C3%B8rn_Sand_Da_Vinci_Project)

<comment><USER10> The article mentions the Norway bridge. But says it was 'inspired', whereas this one is a 1:500 scale model of the original design

<comment><USER11> The Norway bridge was also wood while the MIT students argued it was intended to be stone.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> _" RELATED VIDEOS: Thinkware Q800 Pro Dash Cam Captures Accident"_

Yes, very related, Popular Mechanics. Keep pushing "video views" so the marketing team can show the executive team how great their engagement numbers are.

It would have been neat to see more pictures of... the bridge.

<comment><USER13> Ok, let's use the MIT press release instead. URL changed from [https://www.popularmechanics.com/technology/infrastructure/a...](https://www.popularmechanics.com/technology/infrastructure/a29426711/da- vinci-bridge/).

<comment><USER14> It's almost worth building the ability to submit additional sources of the same story and being able to vote them up till they become the main link

<comment><USER13> Who would identify which submissions are the same story?

<comment><USER14> I think it's just done by voting, anyone could submit an alternative link, but it would need X upvotes to be promoted to the primary link.

I can see how this might not work so well with contentious stories, but when it's just linking to the primary source vs a poorly written article on a secondary source it might improve the experience.

This is also true when something is paywalled but there are alternative versions.

Edit: In my mind it's an additional facet, rather than just being done in comments. Maybe it's not even visible unless you're a high karma individual.

<comment><USER13> Yes, this is close to the various scribbles in my head on this topic, which hopefully we can turn into working software one day.</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment>


Has anyone thought much about search engine optimization? - <AUTHOR>

<comment><USER2> The SEO Industry and practices are fundamentally against the goals of search engines. I wouldn't want to base my business on something that Google's core product aims to destroy.

<comment><AUTHOR> The SEO industry is broader than that. When I said SEO strategy I was thinking the white hat variety.[0]

[0] <http://www.silverdisc.co.uk/articles/seohats/>

</comment></comment><comment><USER3> We're going to be creating tons of fresh local content. From a little test we did by starting a local blog it wasn't hard to get ranked well in google and the searchers are already coming our way.

</comment><comment><AUTHOR> My partner and I are trying to learn the right strategy for SEO these days. Does anyone here think about it? If so, what have you done or what are you planning to do?

<comment><USER4> The right strategy for your company depends on many factors including what sort of traffic can your website support and if you plan to roll out your site slowly to work out the kinks (many beta launches are quiet and quite effective). If you don't have the content to support and engage your users, then you are wasting time and money. SEO strategies should be reflective of your overall business strategy.

If you're looking for basic SEO info and how to do it, here is a cool link: <http://www.portentinteractive.com/seo_3.htm.></comment></comment>


Craigslist hacked? - <AUTHOR>

Going to http://www.craigslist.org redirects to a youtube video. <comment><AUTHOR> Aha nevermind! [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8651303](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8651303)</comment>


The Blackmail/Extortion Business Model - <AUTHOR> http://www.kevinohashi.com/01/02/2011/blackmailextortion-business-model

<comment><USER2> Great post, well worth reading. But blackmail's such an ugly word. He should have called it the Fishpaste/Extortion Business Model. [http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/BlackmailIsSuchAn...](http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/BlackmailIsSuchAnUglyWord)

<comment><AUTHOR> I will keep that in mind, fishpaste business model.</comment></comment>


The race to the finish for self-driving cars - <AUTHOR> https://www.axios.com/the-race-to-the-finish-for-self-driving-cars-2454991741.html <comment><USER2> The article seems incomplete since there is no mention of Waymo (even if it just says "unknown date"</comment>


Inside a Completely Transparent Company - <AUTHOR> http://www.inc.com/jeff-haden/inside-buffer-company-complete-transparency.html

<comment><USER2> I think this is a great experiment. I'm curious to see it play out.

One of things at Google was that they told you a formula for compensation (base + (bonus target % * personal multiplier * company multiplier * median salary)) But then they chose to keep the "median salary" and "personal multiplier" secret. At which point you had no idea if your manager was being truthful at all with you about your compensation.

The weird thing was, _the lack of transparency_ was a bigger issue than the money. Everyone I knew (anecdotal I know) didn't "care" what their bonus amount was but they cared a lot if they were being lied too. I tried and failed a couple of times to communicate that issue to the 'engineering council' (which decided such things).

So I think that this choice Buffer has made would certainly make people like me much more comfortable with the communications from our management.

</comment><comment><USER3> Am I the only one who would hate such a system? I could see, if I were a manager there, a lot of downside to this. "Why does Jenna make 15% more than I do and we have similar jobs? I sleep less than she does, I'm here on extra days, I haven't taken a vacation day in years. I want a raise to reflect this."

It would seem to me to open a huge can of worms to have to manage through. And then it would almost be a race-to-the-bottom in some ways: I make the same as Jake, but he gets in later and leaves earlier.

Not to mention, especially with hiring, there's very little room for negotiation, whether as a hiring manager or a potential employee. If someone is high-value, you run the risk of bringing in a new employee where (s)he is making a good bit more than the rest of the engineers, which could lead to the situation I mentioned above.

<comment><USER4> I wouldn't care about the transparency on salaries and that type of thing, I think that has significant benefits. I wouldn't be willing to participate in the sleep sharing, or personal improvement tracking. I find that to be very creepy, unrelated to work, and intrusive. I don't find it that surprising given how much people overshare on social media though.

</comment></comment><comment><USER5> While I'm not sure about the "radically transparent" bit, I do like this statement:

 _It might sound crazy, but we see see customer support as the new marketing department. And so far it's working great for us._

We do this as well, for a product that has a low per-seat price, and it's a huge competitive advantage.

<comment><USER6> "We do this as well, for a product that has a low per-seat price, and it's a huge competitive advantage"

Bingo. It really is a huge competive advantage. I mean, do you know anyone who likes going through those automated voice calls, or has to be put on hold for 15 minutes to just speak with someone about a discrepancy?

You could argue that companies like Zappos wouldn't have been as successful if they didn't value customer service so much. It's the same with non-tech companies like Nordstrom's, Patagonia or Whole Foods. People like being treated well and they remember that the next time they shop.

</comment></comment><comment><USER7> Very interesting to see that being transparent with salaries is so taboo in the states. Many parts of Europe (I know firsthand Sweden is like this) it's completely normal and acceptable to tell people your salaries.

</comment><comment><USER8> This is too cool...good for you guys and way to actually go through with all this!

In terms of culture, I would say Google is still considered a role model but in terms of transparency, I have not heard of nor seen a company operate like Buffer so guys are definitely setting the bar high!

What about open constructive criticism, though? I guess it is a sensitive point, yet one that seems to be in Buffer's reach. For example, are you guys transparent (or close enough) such that employees can call each other out in front of everyone? I know many people may see this as inappropriate but hey, they also probably see sharing salaries as inappropriate.

</comment><comment><USER9> I've always loved the way Joel and Leo have taken a completely different path to success. Instead of working themselves into a wreck they've chosen self- improvement so they work more efficiently rather than just more hours.

</comment><comment><USER10> Very cool. Can someone at Buffer share their formula for salary and equity?

It sounds like a stable system, and I'm sure many of us would find it really helpful.

</comment><comment><USER11> Awesome. More companies should do this. Interestingly a practice some governments follow. Sweden, Norway and Finland make everyone's salary, tax details and net worth public. Norway also makes the records available online.

</comment><comment><USER12> I love it. There are more and more examples coming out every day. I've helped SumAll.com figure this out. It's a lot of hard work, but well worth it in the end. It doesn't hurt that I love Buffer as well. Great job!

</comment><comment><USER13> tl;dr they turned "How to Win Friends and Influence People" into a company culture.

A book that was written in 1936.

I feel like this is the equivalent of a 17 year old going nuts for Ayn Rand.

The reality is every _employee_ is different, and the culture should embrace that. Instead of trying to reshape how a person is wired, why not shape how your company's goals are defined and let people use whatever means necessary to get there?

Take a developer with an extremely low social drive who needs cold, hard facts to get on board with an initiative. Buffer's culture would completely conflict with how they're wired because it relies heavily on face-to-face interaction and all the "soft talk" would likely be perceived as manipulative by them. On the other hand, a highly socially-driven person like a sales rep would _need_ said encouragement to thrive.

That's my point; there's no one culture that fits everyone, so focus on the higher-level goals and missions of the company than the attitudes of the people.

Use your interviewing prowess to identify team fit instead of hiring based on skills and shoehorn them into the culture.

All this culture is doing is homogenizing a workforce. Debate isn't a bad thing.

</comment><comment><USER14> Great to see you guys promoting being more transparent!

</comment><comment><USER15> buffer's employee turnover #s might be a signal of how well their type of transparency is working for employees.

anyone know?</comment>


Connecticut moves to help low-paid workers hurt by noncompete rules - <AUTHOR> https://www.ctpost.com/politics/article/CT-moves-to-help-low-paid-workers-hurt-by-13745423.php <comment><USER2> I feel a simpler solution(given many American politicians hatred of worker rights) would simply be that you have to pay any employees bound by non compete clauses for the period of the non compete clause.

And they should be paid for 8-10 hours a day, 7 days a week - the non compete clause prevents them from working for a "competitor" every day of the week.

That will quickly get rid of non competes that aren't actually necessary for anything other than wage suppression.

<comment><USER3> People get around that by splitting pay into salary and bonus. Then they just pay salary during the non-compete.

Other fun things are enforcing the noncompete at the employer's discretion. You never know if you're out for a month or a year and they can change their mind mid way through.

<comment><USER4> As with pensions [for civil servants] it should be the average of the last 3 years of compensation (e.g. W-2 take-home).

<comment><USER5> That's not how it works for civil servants either. Bonuses (signing and retention) are not factored into high-3. It's salary plus locality, not w2.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> None of the arguments in favor of noncompetes are convincing. There are legitimate downsides to getting rid of noncompetes, but there are solutions for all of them, e.g. using NDAs to protect trade secrets.

Some say eliminating noncompetes would hurt businesses, but consider that California banned noncompetes back in the late 1800s (yes, really) and has the largest economy of any state.

When low-wage workers are involved, noncompetes are a form of coercion pure and simple.

<comment><USER7> I firmly believe that prohibiting things is rarely a good idea.

Just require a business to keep paying an employee his salary and benefits during the non-compete. A business has a secrets to guard. An employee has a family to feed. All is fair.

<comment><USER8> These are probably functionally equivalent for most employees... and especially the low-level employees that the article is talking about.

Plus, there are real downsides to your approach. It puts the onus on the employee to collect from the employer, which is best-case arduous and worst- case more expensive than it's worth with most of the money going to a billboard lawfirm anyways.

Your approach might make sense in the mid six figures and up, but for low-wage or even low to mid middle class workers, outright nullification would be way more effective.

<comment><USER7> Sorry, functionally equivalent to what?

I don't think it will involve collections or anything like that. You just keep receiving your monthly paycheck.

No paycheck - no non-compete.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> About time. IMHO non-competes are inappropriate for anyone outside of C-level executives (who are well compensated for accepting such terms). For low-wage workers non-competes are just pointlessly cruel.

<comment><USER10> How do you define "well compensated"?

<comment><USER9> At the high end, the typical CxO golden parachute that can be equivalent to several years of pay. At the low end, additional stock options or bonuses at the time of signing.

Either way, an incoming CxO has a lot more negotiating leverage (and usually experience) to ask for such things than fresh graduate looking for his first job. Low wage employees usually have no negotiating leverage at all and must accept the contract as-is or remain jobless.

Edit: I'm definitely not against banning non-competes for everyone. But a candidate for a C-level executive position is much more likely to have the resources and the knowledge to negotiate fair concessions or compensation for accepting a non-compete.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> Outlaw non-competes for ALL workers. Rely on NDAs.

</comment><comment><USER11> So you want noncompete. That's fine. But then it should work both ways. You don't want me to compete with you. Well, I don't want you to compete with me either. So for one year after I leave the company I am not allowed to work for your competitors and you are not allowed to hire my competitors (workers with the same skill set) on the same position. Deal?

</comment><comment><USER12> What do people and politicians in right-to-work states think of non-compete clauses? Aren't these workers being prevented from working the jobs they can get using the skills they've acquired in a similar way?

<comment><USER13> California has prohibited non-competes since forever. And by 'prohibit' I mean, they refuse to enforce them. I've signed many non-compete agreements, and you know what -- they don't mean anything. Might as well use them as toilet paper.

</comment></comment><comment><USER14> Just burn the whole "non-compete" thing with fire nationwide as far as I'm concerned. Basically mandate that if a person is subject to a non-compete, she needs to be paid the pre-departure salary and bennies for the duration of the non-compete. Essentially, your noncompete becomes a yearlong Hawaii vacation. I'd totally go for that. Some employers, in cases where non-compete is justified, would too. And where it's not justified, fuck them with a cactus.

</comment><comment><USER15> This is a step in the right direction - my understanding is though that most non competes aren't enforceable to begin with, even outside of California.

</comment><comment><USER16> This only applies to those making less than 2x the CT minimum wage, including heathcare costs. That's currently 40k or less per year.</comment>


Joy and Pain of Using Google BigTable - <AUTHOR> https://syslog.ravelin.com/the-joy-and-pain-of-using-google-bigtable-4210604c75be <comment><USER2> This matches my experience with BigTable, down to the short-duration failure spikes.

I feel that something should be said on the plus side of the ledger here. I'm the solo founder of a company that indexes huge amounts of fine-grained information. Bigtable is the key technology that let me start my company on my own: it soaks up all the data we can throw at it, with almost zero maintenance. Even within the stable of GCP technologies it stands out as being particularly reliable.

My biggest "problem" with BigTable is the lack of public information on schema design - which in this context is mostly the art of designing key structures to solve specific problems. I've come up with sensible strategies, but much of it was far from obvious. I can't help but feel that there should be a body of prior art I could draw on.

<comment><USER3> Disclosure: I work on Google Cloud Bigtable.

You might find this talk from a recent Google Cloud event useful in this regard:

Visualizing Cloud Bigtable Access Patterns at Twitter for Optimizing Analytics (Cloud Next '18) [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3QHGhnHx5HQ](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3QHGhnHx5HQ)

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> Random inside joke I overheard about ten years ago:

"It's called BigTable, not FastTable or AvailableTable!"

...It's probably a _bad_ idea to evaluate 2019's BigTable based on the joke, but my puerile mind still find it amusing. :)

</comment><comment><USER5> We are a user of BigTable, 30k writes/sec and 300k reads/sec, and compared to the other managed services (Pub/Sub, Memorystore, etc), it has been the most stable by far, but we have to scale up our node count at times when we don't think we should have to (based on the perf described in the docs) as well as the latency/errors described in the article. They also added storage caps based on node count last year that increased our costs dramatically.

The Key Visualizer has been a huge help but there's still not enough metrics and tooling to understand when things do go wrong or what is happening behind the scenes. Luckily we have a cache sitting in front of Bigtable for reads that allows us to absorb most of the described intermittent issues because cost has prevented us from doing any sort of replication.

<comment><AUTHOR> Interestingly, for us scaling up doesn't really solve the short term unavailability. It seems to be only somewhat related to load as it does seem to hit more often at high traffic times but we have also seen it at low traffic times.

Putting in that cache is a great move. Cache is challenging for us as we get hits over a very wide range of keys.

</comment></comment><comment><USER6> Reading the article the following quote got my attention "you should always keep things simple even if your tools allow for more complex patterns".

I follow the "it is perfect when you don't need to remove anything else" rule in most systems/processes/functions/tasks in life (not only IT systems). I am happy to see in this cluttered space called IT there are many more like-minded people who see that too much is TOO much.

<comment><USER7> Obligatory, "Does this function bring you joy?"

<comment><USER8> It's a beautiful thing that this comment exists :-D

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> As another (former) user of cloud bigtable (migrating from cassandra) we saw almost identical results. Great performance when it works, but regular periods of unavailability (this was around 2-3 years ago at this point). Interesting to hear that they still have the same problems. Had a similar experience spending time with the cloud bigtable team but they never really got to the bottom of it.

<comment><AUTHOR> Yeah, it was quite frustrating trying to figure out what was going on. Up until replication was released, it makes it a real non-starter for a lot of use cases. With replication you can combat the problem and it does give you great performance (when it isn't giving you random errors).

<comment><USER10> When I was at Google, you were not supposed to serve end users straight out of BigTable. You had to do extra work: request hedging against multiple replicas (Jeff Dean has mentioned this up in public many times, with numbers on long- tail latency impact), some in-memory caching if appropriate, etc. In other words, you had to protect end users from Bigtable: after all, its original target was the web crawling and indexing pipelines. The problem is that, as you both say, it works very well the vast majority of the time, so people tended to get spoiled and/or make assumptions. Which is why Spanner was created.

As to those hiccups, unless they last for minutes or hours, in which case you might have a case of data corruption (BT is paranoid and rereads data right after any kind of compaction), most of the time they might be explained by, in approximately increasing order of badness:

\- an orderly tablet server restart, e.g. for a binary update or because a Borg machine is undergoing a kernel update

\- a tablet server crash: a software crash or a hardware one (this is bad, because there's a timeout that needs to be hit before a new server can take over the shard. The BT paper has details about the recovery protocol.)

\- heavy load on the master, while either of the previous two are happening

\- I don't think any of the various types of compactions would normally block reads/writes, but with some abnormal traffic patterns you might be able to make the tablet server suffer

\- slowness at the lower layer, GFS/Colossus (although it mitigates a bit against this by having two separate log files into which it can write)

\- Chubby outage

\- power outage affecting a good chunk of or the entire cluster

<comment><AUTHOR> This is great feedback. Thanks for this. We have heard the same thing particularly about using multiple clusters. They only started offering it last year though!

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> Worth noting his original reason for moving away from DynamoDB is outdated. DynamoDB added an "adaptive capacity" feature to handle hot partitions.[1]

[1] [https://aws.amazon.com/blogs/database/how-amazon-dynamodb- ad...](https://aws.amazon.com/blogs/database/how-amazon-dynamodb-adaptive- capacity-accommodates-uneven-data-access-patterns-or-why-what-you-know-about- dynamodb-might-be-outdated/)

<comment><USER12> It's still expensive though, right?

<comment><USER11> Compared to what? You'll have to be more specific.

Definitely adaptive capacity targets the primary reason people had to overprovision DynamoDB. It changes the entire calculation and obsoletes all the advice you might have heard based on experiences prior to late 2017.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> "Unfortunately, we do multiple operations on Bigtable in one request to our api and we rely on strong consistency between those operations."

I feel like "strong consistency" is misused here. Strongly consistent is relevant only in a distributed environment. Its usually solved by using paxos/raft between the replicas. Bigtable only has had best-effort replication, so I am not sure its being mentioned here. I think they are looking for the term serial, that their queries have to be executed in a specific order for a particular user request.

<comment><AUTHOR> Bigtable is a distributed database. It does best effort replication across regions, hence eventual consistency. But within a region it is still distributed across nodes and provides strong consistency.

</comment></comment><comment><USER14> I really, really, really hate unexplained problems like the one described here. Not in storage but any facet of computing. It's true that the systems we build and work on are complex, but they are also ultimately deterministic, and there is a reason why something goes wrong like TFA describes. Ideally we would seek to understand our systems before continuing to add features to them, but of course the real world often doesn't work that way.

This would be a super frustrating situation for me, particularly when you're not given the tools you need to diagnose in the first place, _and_ you loop in support but they still can't help you identify what's wrong.

Years ago, I worked on a .NET system that sometimes would respond super slowly and we didn't have a concrete explanation for why. As in TFA, we developed a kind of religion about it. "Oh, it must be JITting", that sort of stuff.</comment>


China is installing surveillance cameras outside people's front doors - <AUTHOR> https://edition.cnn.com/2020/04/27/asia/cctv-cameras-china-hnk-intl/index.html <comment><USER2> "Winston Smith, present yourself in front of the telescreen!"

</comment><comment><USER3> ummm...ring?</comment>