Video Of The Week: Hating On People

Comments (Archived):

1. does the USV office have a red brick wall?p.s. Ty, learn to spell

   1. no, it is all sheet rocked

      1. improvise. put up a couple of twitter bird stickers and confess your idiocy.

2. Don’t worry, be happy.

3. that guy Ty Hudson is the biggest nerd and probably has 0 friends. He def has no life, no girlfriend, nothing.. He’s a complete fool.

   1. ah reciprocating on the hating. that’s not the right answer. i think simply outing it is the move.

      1. apparently it makes them stickier

   2. But you just complimented him in public (nerd is cool these days), and so did Fred by featuring him here at all.

4. Love it when people calling you an idiot use the wrong “your” in their bashing. Just perfect.

   1. “your an idiot”damn is that perfect

   2. Hahaha..

   3. Along similar lines….

      1. William please delete this. I don’t know why it was posted twice.

         1. done

         2. there were api changes pushed last night

5. Nothing like humor to diffuse 800 passionate comments from yesterday’s Black Friday post. I told you to stick to Feature Fridays!! 😉

   1. i am not a good listener. and a glutton for punishment.

   2. There are some fantastic immigration views and history scattered through that Disqus stress testing post. Highly relevant to my business.And a threat from the bartender to shut the bar.I do hope JLM sticks around!

      1. Epic post it was…regardless. JLM is the most Liked commentator here.

         1. epoch–maybe from afar.hostile and hateful and something to tune out for me.

            1. I tuned out of this comments section a long time ago. It feels less like a discussion and more like one-upsmanship; hard to have a conversation.

            2. Comes & goes.I miss your PoV Emily

            3. hey, I appreciate that. I have enjoyed talking with you, too.

            4. i’m sorry – what can I do to make the experience better

            5. Hey, sorry just saw this. I just posted on today’s (comment) post about what I think would help. It’s all-in, though, nothing a moderator can do. Ideally.

            6. Me too. Tuned out and moved on early yesterday. Wasn’t my scene.

            7. Like evey good bar, some nights, meh?

            8. Some nights in a bar, not so meh: http://youtu.be/aLYWDYxuKSYPaddy Chayefsky + William Hurt FTW.

            9. Exactly!

      2. It really bothered me that we actually didn’t get to talk about the fantastic posts and got mired in stress test stuff. Jeesus.

         1. When the bartender declares “last call”, sometimes disproportionate consuming ensues.

            1. maybe there should have been an early lock on the thread.

   3. I’m always amazed at how passionate the AVC gang is when it comes to policy and politics. Historically, are posts of that nature the most commented upon?

      1. typically yes.

      2. People who are ideological or emotional run up against a core group of logical / obstinate types.Not a lot of common ground for communication. Different languages ( psychologically ) spoken.

         1. i think it’s mainly that, since this isn’t primarily a political blog, it has an unusual diversity of political views among its commenters. Commenters on political blogs are more pre-sorted by ideology, so the comments are less heated.

            1. Good point Dave. Albert Wenger makes this point often: people rarely seek out information sources which challenge their views.

            2. Confirmation bias is all over the frickin web 🙂

      3. yes. And recently, more so.

6. Turns out this title could easily been that of yesterday’s post !

   1. it is. sending a message. not so subletly

      1. Fred – make sure you hear the message too. You jumped down Andy’s throat & you were offside.But, yes, there was an infestation of low grade commenters yesterday.

      2. IF NO ONE POINT OUT WHAT ACCEPTABLE, THEN EVERYTHING IS.

      3. wouldn’t hosting a conversation be more direct and probably more productive? I missed the connection until I saw this.

7. seems the hater didn’t read carefully. if I understand correctly, you divested AAPL on principle. there are plenty of folks out there who avoid investing in or using products from companies that have lost their respect.

8. Yup, it takes a real idiot to run the best performing fund in VC history. Can you sprinkle some idiot dust on me too Fred?

   1. i don’t believe that is true. the Accel Facebook fund, the KP and Sequoia Google funds, and the Benchmark eBay fund are all bigger than our 2004 fund. but i appreciate you saying that. that feels good!

      1. Somebody close to you gave me that info. So I just assumed it was true.Anyway, USV 2004 is in a very exclusive club….

      2. Being in a GOAT conversation is something no online hater will ever experience.

      3. I wonder how the Benchmark fund w/ Snapchat & Uber will stack up.

   2. Nothing to do with that loser Wilson. He’s just riding on the coattails of Brad and Albert.

      1. Peter, irony doesn’t really work on the interwebs.

         1. 🙂

9. Good and tasty fruit gets pecked…

10. Ah yes, the degradation of moral standards. Been going on for some time, fueled, in part, by the media and the veil provided by the internet and social media. Although unquestionably one has to look within for the appropriate filter. Certainly subjective. I wasn’t personally troubled by yesterday’s dialogue, but I could see how others were. Some comments were over the top and inappropriate, most however were just high spirited. There’s no need to put down someone who is responding to your comments. Being condescending or derogatory of others aren’t desirable attributes. Outside of that I’m fine…..but hey, this isn’t my sandbox.

11. Yeah. It doesn’t feel good. I never understood why people think it’s ok to go straight for ad hominem attacks if they don’t like your point of view. People act like they know your true views, your motives, your background. But I’ve come to accept it as a necessary consequence of being willing to have a public opinion. Help many, anger a few.

    1. Interesting and helpful to hear that it bothers you and Fred. (I am not an evil person, its not like I enjoy the two of you suffering lol). I say that because it is helpful to myself and I presume other entrepreneurs to realize that its natural / ok to be slightly bugged by others (publicly or otherwise) personally judging or criticizing in a harsh way. Like the conclusion you reached mark, it is something that has to be accepted, but it is helpful to see two individuals who have reached celebrity status / huge success (at leas within the investing / entrepreneur world!) struggle.. so I appreciate your candor as always!

    2. because they feel at a safe physical distance from their victim. face to face is another universe.

       1. https://www.youtube.com/wat…

    3. Piss off suster.

       1. too tired….

       2. LOL

    4. Help many, make a few sad people very jealous.

    5. It is not ok and never will be.It is just simple their weakness from their own “incapacity” for argumented response :)( I hope you can understand my not best english 🙂 )

12. I’m definitely not a celebrity, but have been viciously treated with respect to my work, my thoughts. I can understand though – it’s a mix of latent jealousy + ignorance, which makes some people feel threatened, even when no threat is present.

13. Bullying is probably the biggest reason why I have never been bullish on anonymous open services. But as you pointed out, linking comments to people’s real identities doesn’t deter some people from saying mean things either.I wonder if we can ever eliminate unwanted comments through the use of both sophisticated prevention (decentives to not post) and action (steps to remove posts) methods because ultimately, this can make or break your service. If all I saw on Twitter were mean tweets, I would not come back.Some examples that services can implement or are implementing:Prevention (before people post): public identity, connecting with friends (social pressure), highlighting only power users, showing users who you verify won’t abuse, automatically detecting abusive wordsAction (after people post): Manually deleting comments, algorithmically detecting comments and deleting them, banning users, detecting abusive users and secretly hiding their posts without their realization (Reddit did this effectively)

    1. All stuff that Disqus does or has done, BTW.

       1. What inning do you think we are in to solving this issue? Or at least reach the point where we simply can’t do any more.

          1. Batting practice.I say that not because current solutions suck, but because the future of AI holds so much more potential. Related… Not one size fits all; different communities have different issues. So I think most communities have a solution that’s satisfying 90%+ of their needs.

       2. if I asked what would be good options for politics day here, what would you say?

          1. Force people to argue against their positions.Have Fred post on potential Rep Pres nominees & JLM on Dems. Andy can do posts on community involvement…..

          2. I don’t follow what you mean

             1. what technology does discus have to diffuse bar brawls

             2. Comment Taser, aka ShanaC.

             3. Unrealistic expectation without mass community support.

    2. there’d be a problem where people who are normally well and good get very crazy over their side in politics – bans are out.

14. Onwards and upwards Fred!

15. As Warren Buffett likes to say I buy into companies and not stock prices. You did the right thing and sold it because of personal conviction. Nobody holds a crystal ball, not for startups, not for stocks, not for anything at the end of the day it comes to two things luck and perseverance. All these same haters now are criticizing Buffett for getting into IBM, short sighted fools, I can’t wait to see when IBM is @ $210…It is interesting how life works out the smart people keep it quiet and just execute and the fools/dumb people hate and criticize

16. Maybe tie a swear/hate tipping jar to each comment that is that. Each time a comment is made that crosses the line, the commenter is required to tip $100 or 300,000 bits, and since the proceeds go to CSNYC, it’s a good thing. Or the comment is deleted after 1 hour, unless the author edits it and tones it down. Just thinking out loud. Haters beware…or be wealthy.

    1. Haters don’t pay. They steal.

    2. I do think we need to do something – what specifically I have no idea, and i don’t think it can come from fred. It has to come from everyone as a communal norm, otherwise it won’t be taken seriously.

       1. Trying to define each “hate” statement in some public way could devolve pretty quickly to a nightmarish brawl.Probably the most frequent conversation I have at work is about the need to Cowboy/Cowgirl up and address a conflict.Problems in a community (and work is a community, too) arise because people turn away from addressing behavior that doesn’t align with community norms.It might feel easier to act like a bystander than it does to actually address the behavior. This serves as tacit approval: the behavior will continue, or grow.Here? People who are “known” should be pulled off to the side and addressed. People who aren’t yet known should earn the “delete” key from the mods. People in the community should use the flag button so that mods can see community sentiment about what has crossed the line.These actions align with the principle to “praise publicly, criticize in private,” as flagging and deletes aren’t announced. An offline email exchange or conversation is private.It’s an important workplace principle, and equally applicable to any civil community.

    3. Damage deposit!

    4. $100 seems a bit pricy, but I like the idea. The difference between free and 1 cent is a big jump per the freemium school of thought.

17. That’s a nice video.Interesting that one of the tweets picked up was @jack (the belly button comment) though.

18. Want to understand how horrific the “gun rights” and 2nd amendment people are? Watch what they do to gun control advocates.http://youtu.be/xg2uEWESJAo

    1. i got to admit, funny, but, can I have one less politic day?

19. AVC by the week:MBA MondaysTipping TuesdaysWhatever WednesdaysThick of it ThursdaysFeature Fridays Silly SaturdaysSurprise Sundays

    1. MBA Monday are in the rear view mirror

       1. …replaced by Mystery Mondays

       2. Stick to what is on your mind.You have had a great week here, this week.Haters gonna hate.Chris Rock – ‘Hurt people hurt people.’

       3. IMHO You should do what they don’t teach you in MBA School Mondays. I’ll do the first post on sales.Best regards

20. Hating on people, the subject here, is different than other behaviors that folks are directly or indirectly referencing here… and often conflate in other conversations about bad actors. The following things are different, and hence require different tools or tuning to address them:Hating (related: insensitivity)TrollingSpammingSwearingImpersonatingOff-topic’ingSHOUTINGDifferent personas for the most part. On today’s topic, I think you’re referring to the very specific behavior of insulting a person one disagrees with instead of attacking their point of view. (debate me, don’t hate me)

    1. I have one simple rule: Sticking to the subject matter, not the subject.

    2. love that.

    3. can we turn this into a post? also we should add – demeaning, inflaming, using extremes of language without purpose for shifting and framing your oppistion to purposely getting them angry.(though I still think the worse is when you purposely wear down someones self esteem to get what you want from life experience…)

       1. +1000

       2. It definitely merits tomes of discussion on its own.

    4. Hating is more insults & name calling.That would be the mole on your Cindy Crawford of a comment.

       1. First, don’t be hating on Cindy, you idiot.(jk)Second, I agree with you more than you agree with yourself 😉 I didn’t intend to imply that hating wasn’t insults and name calling; I took that as a given. I called out insensitivity as ALSO hating, because I don’t think some people would have thought of it as well.

          1. 🙂

    5. +1000 to @ShanaC’s suggestion.You imply here — and I agree — that we’re talking about a behavior, not about people.This is an important discussion!

       1. For sure

21. Since we’re sharing examples…This post and the comment section came to mind yesterday: http://avc.com/2008/09/page/4/

    1. I remember that shot in that speech turning my stomach. Beneath McCain was what I thought. Just before I became an AVCer.Great link Andy – great post Fred. Heileman is the real thing.

    2. Ah yes, the smoking gun. Nobody’s perfect. To err is human. We all can learn from this. “Be kind, rewind.”

       1. And we could all use a dose of thicker skin.

          1. or a mute button. i wish Disqus had one right now

             1. how about we have a discussion about how we all talk in politics threads…….

          2. whatever happened to sticks and stones can break my bones but words will never hurt me? I remember when I would complain/whine to my mother that someone made fun of me (note: I got made fun of a lot) she would give me a whack and ask me what hurt more. I learned to stop whining about name calling.

    3. you can call me “Ken” any time you want Andy

       1. Lol it took me a sec

    4. Ah, there are several varieties: There are receptionist Barbies, HR Barbies, waitress Barbies, teacher’s assistant Barbies, candy striper Barbies (the one about 16 I had when I was sick at about 7 I still remember!), rental car Barbies, middle school Barbies, college freshman Barbies, Subway girl Barbies, McD’s Barbies, likely Starbuck’s Barbies, etc.! Maybe someday there will be software Barbies, but there may be some problems here, e.g., a real Barbie doesn’t have to work hard enough to write software!I’d feel ashamed at such sexism except I didn’t create Barbies and, thankfully, Mother Nature did! Thank you, thank you, thank you. And I do suspect that Mother Nature knew just what she was doing!Besides, my emotions are to be protective, etc., toward Barbies. It’d be just awful to think of a Barbie crying or even unhappy. Besides, Barbies really brighten and pretty up the world! Happy Barbies, happy world! I wish every girl could be a really happy Barbie, or at least most girls, and at least every girl happy — long way to go on that.

22. only insecure, selfish, uncaring people would send such tweets, sad, just sad……

23. Fred, I applaud you for brining this issue up.As the comedian Pete Holmes said, “If you are ever feeling too good about life, that life is right and wholesome, just go to YouTube and read some comments. That will bring you down quickly.”Imho, I think we have a socially corrosive cocktail in our culture. One ingredient: our culture is very punitive, much more so than other cultures. We love to tear people down. Why is that? Second ingredient: the effect of mass media, as predicted by McLuhan who predicted that mass media would move us from a period of growing rationalism to emotionalism and tribalism. We certainly see that in the various political tribes. Lastly, base, ‘low’ behaviors surface in our social, anonymous realms. It’s a potent tool.The obvious question: can we not do better?

    1. WHEN THERE NO CONSEQUENCE FOR HATE, HATE WINS.

24. Thank you, yes this is terrific. Great power in humor and laughter, and always a strong response to bullying which is what these trolls do.

25. Fred,After a bad product launch, it became daily practice for me to get hated on directly by name by voice talent for almost 4 years. I am no celebrity, not even close.I earned respect though by people I respect. Thats more important. Still made me fear checking my email somedays.I often found peace in reading this blog.Thanks for that. The intelligence is a nice break in the action.

26. “Everybody pities the weak; jealousy you have to earn.” – Arnold Schwarzenegger. Is this some kind of therapy?…instead of flushing the slush into the stream of anonymity….why?

    1. Is that really an Arnie quote? it is very good.

27. Hysterical..

28. I believe in showing mercy on the ignorant and not sure I agree with calling them out like this

29. I love haters who do not know when to use an apostrophe.

30. THE ONLY THING NOBODY HATE IS NOTHING.DON’T BE NOTHING.

31. Ignore people who can’t grammar 🙂

    1. WITH SOME EXCEPTIONS.OR ELSE.

       1. HAHHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAI mean…. YES, YES, DEFINITELY 🙂

32. ME, GRIMLOCK, READ THIS ON USV.COM.http://theoverspill.wordpre…SEEM RELEVANT.IF NO ONE STOP THE BAD, BAD DRIVE AWAY THE GOOD.IT TRUE IN EVERY MARKET, THAT INCLUDE SOCIAL ONES.

    1. Tis true my friend, tis true

       1. EVERYTHING ME SAY IS TRUE.IT LAW OF PHYSICS.

    2. very true, unfortunately the way to stop it is to get people to talk about the fact that this is bad. Getting people to open up is really difficult. They have to want to change on some basic level, or see some other value as more important than what they are doing now.*sigh*

       1. OR MODERATE THEM WITH FIRE UNTIL THEM STOP.

          1. high potential for burnout of the Shana-human*. You’re getting into ugly fights.*actually this is a common problem with site moderators and community managers, and why there are services that are basically apis for moderation with humans involved. Not only that, said same services apparently give away counseling because people will be awful to each other on the internet. it is extremely emotionally tough to break up fights or decide if something is “ok” enough for the internet.

             1. Haters gonna hate – just help them do it somewhere else.First rule of security systems – they don’t stop break-ins, they just stop break-ins at your house.

          2. this is video of the week. http://www.musicmistro.com

       2. Yeah truth be said,people should be decent

          1. IF “SHOULD” HAVE NO DIRECT BENEFIT, MOST HUMANS NOT DO IT.

          2. DEARSIR,THISIS A GENEUANE advertisement COMPANE JOIN FREE ….AND EARN3000/- TO 10000/- PER MONTH,https://www.paidverts.com/r…https://www.paidverts.com/r…https://www.paidverts.com/r…Please join this link and go to follow setupsetup01 clcik follow link and Registrationsetup02 logain your account and go to paid ad(16) click and click 25BP+and threeline copy and paste one by oneprocessto advertiment click butensetup03 open new window wait 30 Second tipe in in word and conform adFORANY PROBLUM TO MISS CALL MY PHONEHARISHANKAR 9929540515 8104764023

33. I post enough in various fora to get called stupid, an idiot, a Fox News fan-boy, etc. From this, I’ve learned some lessons:First, when they say “your an idiot”, just notice that they were dumb enough not to know to say “you’re an idiot”. For a reply, might just point that out.Second, name calling, e.g., “idiot”, is not a very effective criticism. In a reply, can point this out.Third, an angry reader commonly will attack the person, not what they wrote. Then for a reply can just point out that in thinking that the topic of the discussion was really about you they are badly confused.Fourth, can ask for data, facts, sources, references, etc., and such a response will slow down nearly everyone calling names because, really, since they resorted to calling names, likely they are not good enough with thinking, facts, words, and communications to do real thinking, give relevant facts, etc. Basically you are being attacked by a weak opponent, an idiot.Then responding with data, facts, sources (of course, really always should have these available), etc. can be quite effective. E.g., typically they won’t read the sources and will be reluctant to say more for fear of being embarrassed by saying something strongly contradicted in a source they didn’t read.Or, go back to playground attitudes: When a person points a finger at you, they are pointing three fingers at themselves. Or “Sticks and stones, …”. Or, more responses not too difficult to formulate.Sixth, can remind self that “God sure must have loved the common man because he made so many of them.”, and, at least in many respects, do not want to be a common man in the street.Seventh, realize that making progress in thinking, understanding, accomplishments, etc. starts to set one apart, making a lot of progress sets one apart more, and being really the best at something necessarily puts one in a position where they are alone. Or, “It’s lonely at the top.”. Part of the price of success.Eighth, understand that for a lot of people it’s really easy for them to get jealous.Ninth, quickly see, e.g., from the video clip, that a lot of the attacks are, really, just total nonsense. E.g., Paltrow is clearly a very beautiful woman, e.g., as in the curious Sky Captain and the World of Tomorrow. [See, I gave some supporting data!]And for tenth, of course, can’t hope to please all of the people all of the time. Then necessarily it follows that sometimes some of the people won’t be pleased and will be pissed. Ah, standard little bumps on the road of life!I’m not much on hating people, but at times I’ve been attacked:(1) At FedEx, I wrote some software that responded effectively to some serious concerns of the BoD and saved the company. Then my manager started to get jealous, cut me out and off, and tried to get me fired. Soon I saved the company a second time, and my manager was really pissed. I was working on three important problems to do much more for the company, and I needed to bring the BS from my manager to a head. So, I called a meeting of the top management. My manager kept saying that he was not able to come to the meeting and that, therefore, I could not hold it. I just told him not to come. He came. Everyone else also came. I presented all three problems I was working on. One became my Ph.D. dissertation. One became the Ph.D. dissertation of another person and part of a major theme in airline operations since then. And one became something of a part of the avionics business. Good problems. The top management listened carefully. My manager attacked me, and the CEO attacked my manager and defended me. I got a transfer and a promotion. My former manager got a slot about 2000 miles away. In that fight, the manager lost.In graduate school, I got attacked by some profs. One was in computer science and didn’t like it that I had done some good work in computing. Another prof blew it on an important issue in mathematical statistics. Another prof had an error on a test; I asked for and got a makeup as an oral exam in front of several profs and got a “High Pass” on the subject. Soon I did some research in the subject and wrote a paper I later published. The department Chair also attacked me. In two years, the Chair was demoted and an emergency, temporary Chair was brought in and a new outside Chair was hired. Later the old Chair left. All the other profs were gone in one year. Some new profs were hired, and one of these, a famous guy, served as Chair of my Ph.D. committee. The attackers lost.At another company, I was attacked, continually, for months by a guy in management. There was just something wrong with him. Finally he had a subordinate walk me out the door. The next day, the subordinate was demoted out of management. Two weeks later the main enemy was ‘reorganized’ by him and his group of 55 being put one level down in the organization chart to engineer two levels of management to take action on the guy. He was given a six month performance plan which he failed, and he was demoted out of management. The attackers lost.Lesson: It’s possible to win against attackers, but, as in most wars, even a victory can be expensive.To heck with such nonsense: I became an entrepreneur where my main need is just to write software that will please thousands, millions, maybe billions of people. They just need to like my software and not me!I can write software! And I believe I can write (and now have written) some software that will please a lot of people. But, very much I do not want to be famous.In writing this software, I’m just one guy, working alone. So, I know how to be and work alone. No one will take my work very seriously until the results of the work make it beyond obvious that they should take the work seriously. Fine: I’m the only one who really understands the work, and in case people like my software that fact will help as a barrier to entry. Besides, if very many people understood how to do my work, then I’d have a lot of competition.E.g., apparently plenty of people know how to do something like Uber since today CBInsights wrote that there are “27 Uber alternatives”.So, for the success I want, I want a lack of competition, and for that it is nearly necessary, including now, that I be the only one who understands the work, that is, that I be alone. Net, being alone is nearly necessary for the success.So, even if I am successful, no biggie, I will be eager to remain largely anonymous. Fine with me. So, I’ll get known at the bank where I deposit the revenue, at the Chevy dealer who sells me a Corvette and an SUV, at a few restaurants, some expensive, most not. Otherwise, anonymous. I don’t want to give up my anonymity. So, I’ve got next to nothing on LinkedIn or Facebook and there with pseudonyms, no e-mail address at Hacker News, no blog, not on Twitter or Google+, never login to Google or let Google have a cookie, etc.If my success gives me some free time, which I hope, then there’s a lot in mathematical physics and music I want to do! And I do not want to be famous. Anonymous, not famous, not many people calling me an idiot!

34. I can understand not wanting to be a celeb but let’s face it, you are a celebrity. Even though you may get more requests to sign checks than autographs. And, you are probably also a brand.

35. https://www.youtube.com/wat… of my favs

36. Winston Churchill had some awesome comebacks to detractors. Would have love to have seen him on Twitter.

37. When they have no arguments then they do like that.I love the video 🙂

38. When they have no arguments then they do like that.Video is great 🙂

39. Great

40. freedom of speech…it might not always be nice, pretty or accurate but it has led us to the information era and this moment to comment! great piece by JK.

41. Laughed out loud :)Hey, he should bring on @femfreq to read the death and assault threat tweets she’s gotten for criticizing the representation of females in games. I’m sure @sarahcuda has some gems, too. Oh, that probably wouldn’t be funny.OK, I’ll stop buzzkilling (and maybe topic-jacking). This was super funny.

42. Are you really going to argue with what economists are saying about the economy? You are doing the same thing as climate deniers and creationists. You benefit from their labor and yet you criticize them for endangering the economy? How dense are you? And yeah some will get higher paying jobs; this simply means that they deserved those jobs more than the citizens. They certainly won’t be competing for jobs with college graduates since they will not have graduated from college. Don’t worry. Most of them won’t have the skills to apply for higher paying jobs so you’ll still be able to feel superior after the executive action goes into effect.

43. …strange how one group can love a person, place, and/or thing, that another group hates, while possibly being the best of friends together from each group. It might be like this: love and hate, is like frog and toad. There’s a good chance both might pee on you, but with one, it’s okay, because it’s not as ugly and you won’t get warts.

44. Even Julia Roberts gets hated upon (so much that she avoids The Internet)! Live with it, Fred! 🙂

45. hey all

46. stop it…or i’ll delete you too…. keeping with the hate theme today 🙂

47. that’s fred’s line

48. Exactly. Not all critics are equal…or equally motivated, or even well informed. Sometimes, it makes you stronger, but it doesn’t change you.

49. Yes, 6 years in local government was quite eye opening for me. Saw the best and the worst in people come out during town meetings and online.

50. Agree + 1000.Consider the source.

51. This is a serious question. Why are school boards so f’d up? Of the ten or so I’ve seen they are all a mess.

52. IF NO ONE PISSED OFF YET, TRY DO SOMETHING THAT MATTER.

53. “Good artists copy; Great artists steal”Without Googling (which would be cheating), who said that: Steve Jobs, TS Eliot, van Gogh, Jack Welch, Picasso, Shakespeare or Gandhi?

54. oy…that’s serious. let’s not go there with stories of those doing that with a gun.

55. You just did

56. right ! he was a great artist.

57. would you like me to delete that YouTube song you posted? i loved that song.

58. Welcome to the double media post club, Charlie

59. it is good.

60. Done…Gee this thread is looking like silly talk now.

61. I think we’re good now. Welcome to Silly Saturdays.Can I go back to finishing my coffee now?

62. yeah, ‘let it go’

63. he’s neutral now, i think, because relevant to yesterday. As opposed to calling people out from yesterday, and pouring fuel on that person

64. Recruiting good and talented people to run for the unpaid positions is difficult. I am in the process of doing so now for my town and most people decline. I think it’s a combination of a few things:1. The trend towards longer hours in professional jobs (lawyers, etc.) makes participating in the process logistically difficult. You really need a 9-5 and understanding employer. If you’re on a school board or town council you actually need to attend your meetings and if you don’t then contracts don’t get approved, construction gets delayed, employees miss their raises, etc. so you can’t attend to a last minute “work emergency” without large adverse impact on your community.2. You also need an understanding family and support of your friends. We ask most candidates to raise $1K towards their campaign from friends and family and to commit 8 hours a week to walking door-to-door to meet with voters in addition to other meetings to do things like approve mail pieces or website copy.3. Observing the in-fighting and general negative tone of political campaigns causes many to self-select out of the process for lack of desire to subject themselves to that.4. Because of 1-3 the people that do select into the process often lack the appropriate background and expertise to meaningfully advise and participate in the administration of a school system. Thus many simply rubber stamp the recommendations of the administrators and get into conflicts with those that choose to exercise independent judgement.

65. WANT BEST PEOPLE FOR IMPORTANT JOB? THEN NO MAKE JOB TERRIBLE ONE NO ONE WANT.

66. Community organizations seem to attract people who are seeking to be heard.My hypothesis: some aren’t being heard in other domains of their lives. So it raises the stakes for them. Over the years, I’ve seen people’s outsized (IMO) reaction to discussions that don’t go their way — as though someone had threatened their mother.(Had a fascinating experience on a board of a local community organization. #neveragain)

67. Ah, as in the famous Paul Harvey, “So God Made a Farmer”, you need “a farmer”!And in a Superbowl ad,http://www.youtube.com/watc…

68. also true.

69. And as they say “No one ever built a statue of a critic”

70. True. But some critics evolved to become leaders, eg Mandela, Ghandi, etc. Critiquing is a phase that is followed by action, no?

71. Hate so bad its funny sohbet odaları picture occured lol :))