I just finished Founders at Work by Jessica Livingston, cofounder of YCombinator. I strongly recommend it for anyone who is thinking about doing a startup. The book consists of a collection of interviews with company founders. Some of the interviewees were extremely successful; others achieved a good modest success quickly, followed by a buyout; and others seemed like they were on a path to success but then failed.
One clear message from the book is that taking VC money is very decidedly not always a good thing.
Another depressing trend was how many companies startup, expand, and do very well, then are bought out by BigCorp, which then fails to manage them correctly, so the product effectively disappears.
Death Is Optional A Conversation: Yuval Noah Harari, Daniel Kahneman [3.4.15]
http://edge.org/conversation/yuval_noah_harari-daniel_kahneman-death-is-optional
The money quote:
...KAHNEMAN: You seem to be describing this as something that is already happening. Are you referring to developments such as the plans to do away with death? That absolutely would not be a mass project. But could you elaborate on that?
.HARARI: Yes, the attitude now towards disease and old age and death is that they are basically technical problems. It is a huge revolution in human thinking. Throughout history, old age and death were always treated as metaphysical problems, as something that the gods decreed, as something fundamental to what defines humans, what defines the human condition and reality.
Even a few years ago, very few doctors or scientists would seriously say that they are trying to overcome old age and death. They would say no, I am trying to overcome this particular disease, whether it's tuberculosis or cancer or Alzheimers. Defeating disease and death, this is nonsense, this is science fiction.
But, the new attitude is to treat old age and death as technical problems, no different in essence than
Everything is heritable:
Politics/religion:
Statistics/AI/meta-science:
...Why is this interpreted as taking (similar) religious beliefs more literally
Because if you don't literally believe that the ritual will win you useful-in-real-life god's favor, each sacrifice reduces your chances to survive and prosper.
Is there a quantitative argument to be made that more beliefs were more literal in older times
If you want to get numbers involved, you first need to specify (with numbers) what does "more literal" mean.
Because if you don't literally believe that the ritual will win you useful-in-real-life god's favor, each sacrifice reduces your chances to survive and prosper.
The same could be said about most religious rituals. There are various theories of signalling honesty, in-group commitment, and riches though costly sacrifices.
Why ascribe the change in sacrifices, for example, to a less literal modern religious belief, rather than to a less central role for modern religion, or sacrifice becoming less important compared to other religious behaviors?
...If you want
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