In my case the choice was use student loan money to pay for living expenses (which were extremely meager) while in college or not go to college at all. It was part of my educational investment.
It was totally worth it, the loans are long paid off, and the investment has paid untold dividends in the form of a salary I wouldn't have the chance at if I didn't go to school.
I recently discovered a co-worker of mine who did not attend university for programming is paid nearly the same wage as myself, with $40,000 in debt due to higher education.
He went to a several month long intensive coding bootcamp, with tuition fees for the entire course is between $10-15k
For comparison, I am paid $58/hr with benefits, my co worker is paid $50.
Higher education is vastly overcharged and overrated.
Because in principle, all the same amount of resources could fund the same work and yet a far greater audience could get that much greater value without paywalls.
Paywalls are a compromise that dramatically reduces the overall benefit a work has in order to get over the freerider problem that public goods face.
Basically: the PAY part isn't the problem, the WALL part is.
I mean that it's not an absolutely set necessary conclusion that stuff can't get funded equally well without paywalls. It might require different cultural norms, different ways to organize people or many other solutions, but IN PRINCIPLE the resources are available and could be available without paywalls.
And other than securing funding, there's nothing else positive about paywalls (although I'll admit there's potential arguments around ideas like people appreciating things more when they have to pay for them — things that still don't anywhere near outweigh all the negatives that paywalls have)
I'd argue that it is an interesting element to the story. To add a little hyperbole, the wealth cascaded down two generations and helped enable a lifetime of serious scientific work that fundamentally changed the world.
If you don't insert this social "fluff", you come across as rude.
Where this social buffer comes naturally to most people, I get frustrated and annoyed by it. I just want to borrow the dang pencil sharpener and get back to work!
I have come to understand I don't resemble neurotypicals when it comes to this interaction (and it is likely that many others here on HN are not neurotypical either.) NTs enjoy this fluff, and it helps them feel connected to each other. When I don't play by their rules, I'm viewed as cold and callous.
So...I play by their rules, because even though I'm not NT in this way, I still have basic human needs of wanting to feel loved and desired, and I don't want to upset other people.
> If you don't insert this social "fluff", you come across as rude.
Isn't this a bit overstated? I'm pretty sure that you could also use bog-standard politeness markers (like, "could you please", "I would really appreciate it", "sorry about asking") and so on and so forth. (You might then come across as being a bit formal and old-fashioned, but certainly not rude!) The underlying motivation in both cases is that you need to make it very clear that you're not issuing an outright demand - and you do this by making it easy for Mike to say no (for any reason or no reason!) and providing plausible deniability. There are things that are closer to "fluff" in other contexts, but even they have their own explanation.
I think you might be right. But autistic people may find it difficult to determine these underlying motivations, I think because neurotypical people only intuit them because their instinctive preferences happen to line up with other peoples. If an autistic persons instincts don't give them the same reaction, then it will not be obvious to them that other people will have that reaction (unless they have learnt that this is a common reaction that people have). It can be easy to end up with an overzealous rule, to be on the safe side.
If the justification for something is stated in terms of something that also isn't important to or felt by the autistic person (for example politness), then it can be difficult to be sure what does or does not transgress the social rule.
It's more about culture than neurotype. There's nothing in human nature itself or in human instincts that says "people will feel uncomfortable when refusing something that a stranger of equal social rank is asking of them, unless they have been provided with plausible deniability". It's a feature of our current (Western) culture. And since autism tends to come with issues relating to general intercultural competence, it's no wonder that someone who's autistic would have trouble picking this up. But so would any non-native in the relevant cultural context!
This seems like a reasonable interpretation. People from other cultures may also be excused from cultural norms to some extent as people understand that they don't have the context. And I've definitely gotten very good at politely diffusing situations where I've accidentally crossed social boundaries (I have more problems when I take moral issue with the social norm, and thus am unwilling to go along with it).
I'm highly social. FWIW, I think a lot of standard social expectations are maladapted to modern life. They try to impose a facade of social connection where none really exists and it's problematic, and not just for "aspie" types.
Really? In the uk it would be perfectly acceptable just to say "excuse me" or name (to get their attention) and then "please can I borrow your pencil sharpener?".
But definitely empathise with the idea of playing along with to please other people.
- The whole concept of authority: Wait, so I should do what my teacher or my boss says, even if it's completely dumb, just because they have some social status?
- The idea that you should do anything other than tell people directly if you have a romantic interest in them.
- Many politeness or etiquette rules. I get that you shouldn't outright insult people. But I don't understand things like not starting to eat before everyone has their food, fighting over who is going to pay for something, insisting that others go through a door before you (this might be a British thing).
- Gender norms. Why does it make any difference which sex you were born? (other than things that depend on physical characteristics, or are influenced by hormone levels)
This isn't really to do with social norms, but another thing I do that I associate with autism/PDA, is that I have a strong inclination to interpret things literally. usually, I pick up on sarcasm/irony or implied meanings. But also, really often I don't (but I usually very quickly realise that I've missed something based on how people react to my response)
> - Many politeness or etiquette rules. I get that you shouldn't outright insult people. But I don't understand things like not starting to eat before everyone has their food, fighting over who is going to pay for something, insisting that others go through a door before you (this might be a British thing).
"... a worker negotiating a salary might begin with a eulogy of the employer, followed by a lengthy bargaining session consisting entirely of indirect, polite language – both parties are expected to understand the implied topic of discussion. Likewise, a shopkeeper may initially refuse to quote a price for an item, suggesting that it is worthless ... Taarof obliges the customer to insist on paying, possibly several times (three times), before a shopkeeper finally quotes a price and real negotiation can begin."
"Taarof plays a large role in the etiquette of food. If you go to any meal, are invited to any house for food, then you will be expected to eat seconds and thirds. You must eat to please the host but at the same time taarof demands that you can’t just go ahead and dig into the food ..."
> Symantec CA Distrust: Due to a history of malpractice, Firefox 64 will not trust TLS certificates issued by Symantec (including under their GeoTrust, RapidSSL, and Thawte brands). Microsoft, Google, and Apple are implementing similar measures for their respective browsers.
> Multiple tab selection: We’re excited to introduce multiple tab selection, which makes it easier to manage windows with many open tabs. Simply hold Control (Windows, Linux) or Command (macOS) and click on tabs to select them. Once selected, click and drag to move the tabs as a group — either within a given window, or out into a new window.
