I am withholding judgment on whether living in the USA long term is worthwhile until I've lived abroad for a period of time and then returned. To this end I am taking a job in Shanghai next July (moving from NYC), which is by far the craziest thing I've ever done. I don't expect to find China my new home per se, rather I hope the experience will be a stepping stone to living as a citizen in the wider world in my life thereafter.

I am a USA citizen, born and raised here, so it will always be "home," no matter where I am, however in my ideal future I won't feel "trapped" by that. The USA is one of many countries, full of wonderful people and awesome sites, cultural heritage, and so on. In the long term that is how I expect to experience it -- as its own entity, with its own good and bad sides, and not something that traps me in any way.

All that said, I don't think there is any escaping the global economy and the powers that run it, no matter where you go. A lot of those powers are concentrated in the USA, but I truly believe that most of the people who will ultimately reshape the world for the better, at least in the next 50-100 years, are not.

hello

The evidence is mounting that the brightest, most productive people stay off the web. It's just not worth their time, plus it doesn't develop good habits of mind. It's amazing that a staple of the advice I see in self-help books nowadays is "read books." Really? People need to be told this? Then again, I don't really read books that much. I try to, and I do it all the time for school, but it's not the default use of my free time.

Brb, quitting the internet.

Update: I tried this on my gf a few times. Got it right the third time. She said she hallucinated that she was a jellyfish.

Jeez the Gawker commenters are bitter.

I think there is some merit to this practice, although I must say the fact that they are charging for this is unfortunate. I can see how the "cult" label makes sense in light of this fact.

Otherwise though I think there is something to genital massage that is more than just sexualized "jerking off," and that the ensuing interpersonal bond is absolutely desirable.

Okay so I skimmed Ch.9 Section 4 of his paper. I'm not really qualified to say whether he knows what he is talking about, but it sounds valid. Furthermore: holy crap, it would be so incredible if he were right.

On a different level: I'm really inspired by this article, because I didn't even know there were people out there who were thinking about problems like this. It really gives me hope for my own intellectual ventures as well as for the future of humanity.

I think the reason that most users don't "participate" is actually a simple issue, and not necessarily one that can be "fixed." At least in my own case, I don't participate because I don't have much free time and the time I do have is prioritized to reading rather than posting. I often find discussions to which I believe I could make a quality contribution, but I decide against participating because (in my own estimation) the time it would take for me to say what I would want to say is not enough to justify the quality of the contribution I would make.

Another way of looking at this situation is that I simply don't invest as much time in using Hubski as other, more "active" users. That is, I am simply a more "casual" user. In this paradigm there isn't really a problem to fix; users are coming to the site from a diversity of life situations, so it is simply impossible that everyone will be participating at a high level.

Just my $0.02.

This is an interesting idea. I see this transformation of marriage into a semi-open relationship as just another step towards the obsolecence of marriage altogether.

The institution of marriage originally (a long-ass time ago) came about as a tool for men to manage their property and their family, which were virtually the same thing. Now that we live in an age where property is personalized and people (supposedly) don't own other people, I would argue that the whole arrangement is really unnecessary.

It is common knowledge that rates of divorce are higher than they were 50 years ago in countries like the US and UK, and furthermore that rates of marriage are declining.

So as I said, after reading this article I am more convinced that people today are more and more willing to challenge or even ignore "traditional" (read: monogamous) marriage. In the next 50 years it will be fascinating to see how couples who choose to live together and not marry are perceived by mainstream society.

This is great, thanks guys. I'll also check out the info bar.

Super neat, thanks!

When I saw this I clicked the #tiltshift tag excited to find more... and found no more.

Then I went to Google and searched "astronomy tilt shift" and "space tilt shift" and found... disappointingly little.

I guess what I'm trying to say is that if you made this, please make more. It is awesome. You are awesome.

Damn that is sharp. If only I had $16k and somewhere to put it...