1. A small number of accomplishments really mean something, but you often won't know which ones. I started three companies and two were successes, and even though they comprised more than two decades of my life, I feel like I remember a grand total of six important hours between them. Meanwhile, I still remember the shed I built for my father in the first summer after college. Whatever seems unimportant, you will care about the most.
2. The thing you do today, you will probably do tomorrow. I've wasted a lot of time, but most people I know have wasted lots of time, and it's because of the tendency to make an exception of the present day, which either excuses laziness or pathological busyness, which is a form of the same thing. "I'll do it tomorrow." But tomorrow it will be today. It's always today.
3. Ethics matter. I don't believe there's any life after this one, but I find myself ruminating on what I've done. In 2015, I had a lot of interaction with a startup incubator you know well, and ended up sitting in the discussions and planning around banning and erasing a young programmer we considered a threat to our financial interests, due to his concerns about authoritarianism in technology. In retrospect, he was harmless, but an example had to be made. The decision was made to ban him here, try to get him fired though I don't know if we succeeded, and attack him with sockpuppets on Reddit, and it seems to have worked because you don't hear his name much.
Ten years later, I'm still stuck thinking about this. Am I the kind of person who does shitty things? I was. Am I still? How would I even know?
I don't believe that faith is an out, or that you can apologize or donate your way out of past behaviors. You will always be the person who has done what you have done.
4. Be kind to animals. There are few joys like having a dog. I always refused when my ex-wife wanted one, and she got one after we separated. For her, it was probably an upgrade.
5. I developed a knack for founding companies, but I never learned how to build communities. They aren't the same thing. You might have three hundred people at your company and you truly feel like they are your village, but they're not. Circumstances will change, and people will move, and in five years, most of them will not remember your name.
That's probably enough for now. My mind goes between periods of racing and long spells of languid acceptance. All humans end up in the place where I am, and I hope you reach it with fewer regrets than I have.
Don’t think for a second saying this so vaguely atones for what was done. You have a 50% chance of dying yet you will hide the names of the people that did this still? I still think you have an ethics problem…
I hope the best for you and your future though. There is room to still grow.
Ten years later, I'm still stuck thinking about this. Am I the kind of person who does shitty things? I was. Am I still? How would I even know?
Corporations and governments often get flak for doing shitty things, but ultimately it’s still people within those corporations and governments doing shitty things. “Just doing my job” is not really a legitimate shield to hide behind and I give OP credit for recognizing this even if a bit late.
Thanks for sharing the advice and best wishes with the surgery.
There's something a bit odd about confessing that you were part of an institutional attempt to cancel a specific person, without naming the person or what their specific concerns were, or what specific institution this was; and also claiming that the reason you regret this now is because they were "harmless" rather than "correct".
Someone who in 2015 was concerned about "authoritarianism in technology" possibly came from a cluster of political perspectives that is relatively close to my own; and also possibly came from a cluster of political perspectives that I am relatively opposed to. It's hard to tell which from just that wording and the fact that someone with institutional power in 2015 wanted to cancel them.
I'm certainly curious for more details about exactly what happened here. I imagine it would compromise your anonymity to say more, and depending on the details it might even be bad for that person.
I’m pretty sure I know who you are.
Of course you will make it, and if not, you wont care anyway. You'll make it. I'll wait for the pics.
PS: But take that existential eye-opener serious and use it (you might later forget and drift from that in everyday-default-mode). You could print and frame this post to make it unforgetable.
Jesus Christ, dude. I'm going to be honest with you. While I feel bad for you in your current state, this is a pretty disgusting thing to have done. Have you tried to make any of it better? I mean, you could name this programmer (assuming that wouldn't make it worse), and you could definitely name the incubator and everyone involved in this decision. I'm guessing this kind of thing is quite common.
If you just want someone to tell you that it's okay, I'm not going to be the one to do that. Be as sorry as you want, but what have you done to make it better for him? Even part of this post reads a bit patronizing ("In retrospect, he was harmless..."). Not "this was intrinsically wrong and we shouldn't have done this", just "he wasn't even a threat to take down". My God, dude.
I wish you well because there are vanishingly few humans I wish to see truly suffer. If you make it, I hope you work towards righting the wrongs you've done.
You should set this right while you still can. God or the afterlife isn’t a reason to try and be less shit. The reason is that our shit accumulates and makes a hellish cesspool on Earth if we don’t. Good luck.
These are the kinds of questions I’m pretty familiar with. It’s entirely possible to reset, but it takes work and courage.
Good luck!
> Ethics matter.
> I don't believe there's any life after this one...
> I don't believe that faith is an out, or that you can apologize or donate your way out of past behaviors.
Why would it matter if there is no life after this one? If there is no life after this one, maybe you should just "get over it".
Even though life can be cruel, there seems to be an overarching goodness built into the universe that benefits those who float in its current.
Because for as long as we are capable of caring, we should care that other people have to live with the consequences of our actions.
Although you can't completely undo the past, you can choose to do things to make it right. People do change. Your attitude is self-defeating and is setting you up to act on more bad impulses in the future.
I was on the receiving end of similar treatment for several months on StackOverflow. It made me angry but eventually I just accepted and kinda felt bad for the people doing it. Your admission makes it seems like it wasn't worth it.
Hope the surgery works out in your favor.
Serious, non-troll question: why bother?
If there isn't any scope outside of the current perceived existence, and we're all so much "smart dirt", then the difference between kindness and malevolence seems moot.
Note: I do subscribe to an explicit meaning to life, so this is posed more to express bewilderment at the alternative than reveal any anxiety on my end.
"What goes around comes around" suffices for me.
Call it "ethics", call it "maximizing outcomes for all involved stakeholders", call it "karma", "good business", or "kindness"...whatever you call it, I don't think it's difficult to find your own personal justification for it if you want to.
Except I’m another human of your kind who found this post. It moved me. So there is meaning in your suffering that goes beyond you and reflects in someone else’s experience.
We are all doomed, but at least we can see each other along the way, clap hands and cry “we lived!”
I hope you pull through.