aleles Posted March 24, 2014 Posted March 24, 2014 Hi everyone! I couldn't pick one location so listed all three I spend most of my time in. I'm an entrepreneur, software engineer, co-founder of a few start-ups and kiteboarder! I have gone from almost no interest in politics to "why there is so much corruption in Russia and people are protesting" to "hmm... it's not much better even in the US" to Libertarianism. Then I read "Everyday Anarchy" and it all clicked! Right now I'm going at 1.5-1.7 speed through Stefan's podcasts from the beginning hoping to catch up asap and also applying the new knowledge to my relationships. The results are fascinating! Being a mathematician I was always baffled why there are so many political ideologies, parties and movements that almost all claim the same final goal, but propose opposite solutions. Feel free to ask me anything, I hope to meet many interesting people here. Cheers! Alex PS My phone looks like this now, creepy lol
Tony Crowe Posted March 30, 2014 Posted March 30, 2014 Welcome Alex. That's dedication! (Catching up on the podcasts at increased speed.) I don't understand this part: Being a mathematician I was always baffled why there are so many political ideologies, parties and movements that almost all claim the same final goal, but propose opposite solutions. I thought all political parties were fundamentally similar in that they make ludacrous promises, do the opposite, and help us blow our collective wealth. I do know there is a difference and that is that they spell their party's name differently. What does math have to do with? That's pretty cool you want to implement what you have learned in your life. Can you tell me what challenges you have faced when trying to live your values? Are your values any different than the people around you? Again, welcome! Hope to hear from you soon. -TC
aleles Posted March 31, 2014 Author Posted March 31, 2014 Thanks Tony! I agree, all parties are fundamentally similar in their methodology. They also claim to have similar end goals such as improving the standard of living, growing the economy etc, however they often offer completely opposite solutions to achieve the same goals. What baffled me is that it feels like a lot of people believe that opposite solutions can still lead to the same goal. They think that none of the solutions is objectively false and they don't question how opposite solutions officially coexist and attract great numbers of supporters. One challenge that I particularly enjoy is to have empathy for all people and don't slide into bitterness thinking that we are surrounded by morally corrupt idiots who don't understand basic logic. I had the best success in conversion so far with my wife (lucky me). Out of my few close and 500 online friends I found some who respond well to libertarian ideas. Another challenge is to maintain a relationship with business partners. I'm excited to join the board!
Tony Crowe Posted April 2, 2014 Posted April 2, 2014 Are we bringing pink back to men's fashion? (reference to our images) One challenge that I particularly enjoy is to have empathy for all people and don't slide into bitterness thinking that we are surrounded by morally corrupt idiots who don't understand basic logic. I like your mentality there. Maybe with better communication methods we can reach people a little easier and make our case. The ones who firmly commit to a violet ethic can really get lost anyway, right? Being a mathematician... Like you formally studied mathmatics? If so, that's really cool! Is there a particular focus you have with math? I'm an entrepreneur, software engineer... Also, very cool! I'm currently working within a technical environment including OSX, Debian, and Windows operating systems, JavaScript on the client and server, Redis, and CouchDB. Those are some of the technologies I'm employing at the moment in my consulting work. How do you get down? ] -TC
aleles Posted April 2, 2014 Author Posted April 2, 2014 Haha, yes, exactly, bringing pink back to men's fashion! I agree, improving communication methods should be one of the top priorities with the focus on practice. Stef has some good info on it here and there, but I think it's not enough (or I haven't got to it yet). People who find libertarian ideas get excited and eager to talk about with everyone. Here's where they get shut down. I can think of numerous cases that I could have presented much better with the "curious" approach rather than "this is all state propaganda and here's how the reality works". In Russia we didn't have Computer Science as a separate major, it was a specialty of the Math major. I graduated with a degree in Math but in reality it was a Computer Science degree with an extensive math background. Currently I mostly work with asp.net mvc, but I spent a few years with c++ and java in the past. What kind of consulting do you do? Do you work as a contractor?
Tony Crowe Posted April 2, 2014 Posted April 2, 2014 Ah, thanks for pointing out the unification of math and computer science in Russian education. I was not formally educated in this area so I'm not sure how it works where I have lived. The type of consulting that I do would be characterized by cycles of sales, planning, development, testing, and releases. Sometimes I have worked by contracts and other times I just have a good rapport with the people I work with and we don't use formal contracts. I have also used ASP.NET MVC in depth and I think that the .NET + SQL paradigm is a very powerful platform to build applications on. When I diversified platforms the friends and acquaintances I had who worked exclusively within the Microsoft technology paradigm were not very supportive of me using other technologies. I experienced a sort of code bigotry because of my choices to expand the solutions I was able to offer my customers. Ultimately I was able to transcend the single employer, single operating system, single framework barrier and move onto embracing computing fundamentals instead. There's something for me to love about the hard work people have poored into each and every system. I'm not in any way saying what I did is better. I think it's just to point out that I wanted to see what was out there in order to know if I was offering the right solutions to my customers and to preserve my coding sanity! And, if any of that type of stuff is interesting to you please do get in touch. I like to hear about other's experiences who are focused on doing work in this field. (Especially the ethically minded.) -TC
aleles Posted April 4, 2014 Author Posted April 4, 2014 I think I know what you are talking about. Some people like to feel allegiance to a special club and to be proud of it, it's like patriotism. I like open source myself, but historically my commercial projects tend to be more Microsoft oriented.
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