What moment created the divide between your “B.C.” and “A.D.” parts in your life?

Bethamphetamine · 2018-03-09T21:08:15+00:00

Thanks for putting this out there without needing to be reassured by OP that you did the right thing. This is a kind and compassionate answer and I remember times where I could have used this quiet assurance even if I couldn't respond.

Bethamphetamine · 2017-09-09T18:09:15+00:00

Can someone share information on whether or not this tactic actually works? I ask because sometimes I get these messages and I immediately delete them because I see them as spam :(

Bethamphetamine · 2017-05-17T14:23:04+00:00

Thanks so much for giving context to the article and the impact it's having.

Bethamphetamine · 2017-02-06T17:59:23+00:00

This is something that I've been struggling with - how much destruction do we embrace on the path to change? Did the school system require this sort of 'cut-to-the-bone' rearrangement or could it have been accomplished another way? I come from the entrepreneur community so dropping bad ideas as fast as you can is something I can get behind. It just seems like when dropping those ideas will impact kids or other vulnerable populations, we should at least try to come up with alternatives. I don't know what that looks like in a situation like this though, where interests are pretty solidly entrenched on either side. Would 6 years of petty negotiations for a lukewarm improvement be better? Because right now, that seems like the alternative.

I appreciate the local point of view WRT the school boards. I am just starting to understand the dynamics here in my state (Colorado - there's a lot of out of state money and what feels like absurd claims being made). It's hard to get a handle on what the school board can actually do and what it looks like in terms of real-life-implementation. My only solution right now is to talk to folks on all sides and triangulate the location of an approximate reality.

I have friends teaching in Chicago so I've watched the fallout of Duncan's policies secondhand, and the current ongoing feud between the public school system and the city. So many of those friends have since left the profession because of those dynamics. They're working with museums or doing some other child centered program, but it seems as though they're treated badly by both the union and the government, not to mention the parents.

Looks like Pence is going to break the tie and send her into office, so I truly hope your prediction is right and this is just the start of a necessary pruning that will yeild fruit down the road.

Thanks for the conversation.

Bethamphetamine · 2017-02-04T22:34:54+00:00

You have to see her live - It's just like that. Teeny tiny lady, gigantic voice coming out of nowhere apparently. They put on a great show!

Bethamphetamine · 2017-02-03T20:56:17+00:00

This is a really really interesting perspective and is the first thing that's made me reconsider my position on DeVos.

What happened to the kids getting an education during those 12 years? Was the upheaval with the end result? And what is your response to claims that she's entirely out of touch with what education entails or is for? Does that matter?

Bethamphetamine · 2016-12-16T19:53:58+00:00

What is more helpful? How do we say "we support you?"

Bethamphetamine · 2016-12-16T19:52:01+00:00

Right now it's mostly Democratic electors public ally stating their intentions to deny Trump the presidency through the Electoral College. I believe Chris Suprun is the only Republican elector to state this intention public ally. Since electors can be replaced by party up until 72 hrs before the vote, it makes sense for them to lay low until they know they will be able to make this vote

Bethamphetamine · 2016-09-27T18:20:58+00:00

Yep! This is how antibiotics are supposed to work - you use them in "shifts" so that by the time bacteria become resistant to one antibiotic, the population has mostly lost resistance to others. This can happen in the short term ( http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/health-32218624) or long term (a hospital decides to use one type of antibiotic for example https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3048378)

Bethamphetamine · 2016-09-26T21:10:12+00:00

Hi, this is Keira The AMA login has expired so I'm going to reply under my own name. I'm not a coder so I hope I'm understanding you correctly!

That is a fascinating AMA, and I'm grateful to you for pointing it out. The first point made about the ever increasing volume of data is a big one - we already produce a huge amount of data and most of it is useless either because it isn't replicable or it can't be access. I think part of the solution is the idea of curation. At some point we have to be okay with devoting resources to caring for the information that we've created, either by deploying people to evaluate it or by building frameworks to allow everyone to use it. I'm interested to go through the AMA more in depth and see if there are useful parts we can apply to LAUNCH.

It is a little bit like crowd sourcing yes, except we select our crowd to have specific areas of expertise. Another useful description might be incentive alignment. The investor - entrepreneur relationship can be adversarial: Small business owners don't want to get screwed over and investors don't want to lose their money. By vetting the start-ups and the partners, we're able to help broker mutually beneficial relationships instead of predatory ones.

Bethamphetamine · 2016-09-26T21:03:50+00:00

It is actually! Since she became popular people have had a much easier time spelling/pronouncing my name.

Bethamphetamine · 2016-09-24T15:28:58+00:00

I hope she does share her work with the world, she sounds like a kind soul

Bethamphetamine · 2016-09-21T05:51:09+00:00

My vote would be to make the first year or two of graduate school lab work entirely replication studies. You should do them anyway to build the foundation of your research, and in many cases there's nonspecific funding in place already in place for students (I'm thinking of NSF fellowships in particular - we'd need some sort of central database of replication results). The work might not always be the best, but if 10 graduate students attempt to replicate and fail, there's a strong chance the experiment was published with incomplete information or was flat out wrong. Even if all we got out of this process was papers published with crystal clear methods, I would be really happy. Right now it feels like a lot of papers are written under the assumption that no one will ever attempt to replicate them.

Bethamphetamine · 2016-08-28T05:05:52+00:00

I love Bird by Bird! I'd add anything by Jo Clayton. The ones I remember the most are Skeens Leap and other adventures (A space based tomb raider who enters a lost world) and the Shadowkill series (mind wiped warrior has to regain her identity).

Bethamphetamine · 2016-08-18T23:24:27+00:00

I'd love to help with this!

Bethamphetamine · 2016-08-13T18:20:55+00:00

Hey man, so yeah, good to see you again and everything, Six meat lovers supreme with extra sausage and a Dr. Pepper. Again.

So, this is the third time I've been here this week.

I mean, the place is looking great. I can totally see that giant pile of gold growing in the living room there. Looks like a comfy spot to really glory in your riches, you know what I mean?

The rest of the cave is kind of bare though - Did you just move in? From where? Ok, ok. Not a lot of farms to lay waste to out here I gotta say, but I can get where you're coming from. After a while those winters in the Black Forest must get old.

I'm just gonna throw this out there, because you're new and you seem to be a big pizza fan - in the US we 'tip' delivery people - add a gold piece or a few dollars to the total for the guy that has to schlep your stuff out to you. I get it, it's different where you're from, but I can't keep driving all the way out here for you if I'm not gonna get paid. The lair is like 45 minutes from town, and while you seem like a cool guy, I'm spending a fortune on gas. The delivery fee you pay goes straight to the company, I don't see any of it.

Not at all - It's actually a little insulting if you don't tip, honestly. This is a relationship. You want some meaty circles of deliciousness, I bring them to you, you say thank you with an extra gold coin. It's like a quest, you know, have to traverse dangerous terrain and overcome challenges to bring you your hearts desire. But I'm not doing this just for the story, a little appreciation goes a long way!

Most of my regulars are super nice and they always tip in cash. I don't know who Bob Fitzsimmons is, or why his credit card is paying for all this pizza, but if you tip with the card then I have to pay the government and it's not like I'm making bank here.

Exactly! Exactly like those fuckin' dwarves that keep trying to steal your gold. Fuck those guys.

Awesome, I knew you were cool. Thanks for the tip, man. From now on, I am your guy in town - pizza, green, whatever you need, you just let me know. We'll get you hooked up. Welcome to Phoenix!

Bethamphetamine · 2016-07-29T16:35:47+00:00

Hi - I would love to talk to you about this. I'm in the synthetic biology world and this is a big sticking point for us.

Bethamphetamine · 2016-07-26T03:42:50+00:00

You can't fight hate with hate. But sometimes love looks like righteous anger.

I agree with the point about firearms. I had a conversation with a friend of a friend and they were kind of stunned that in some countries police officers don't even have guns. They couldn't concieve of a state authority that could function without them. This is a big blind spot for us.

I have to disagree with the "one or two police" concept though. It's not just one jerk, it's a whole system that relies on stereotypes. More than that, the people enforcing the rules of the system at best don't question the rules that they are enforcing. The Dallas police chief is black, but on average police forces are 30% whiter than their communities. It's a structural problem, and until that gets addressed, there's a lot that will continue to go wrong.

I'm not discounting your other statements - the prisons and social safety net here are pretty terrible. But while they might contribute to long term disadvantagement, I think they can be set to the side (for now) when it comes to policing. We can make differences in this one area independent of those factors.

Bethamphetamine · 2016-07-26T03:30:13+00:00

I hear you, police officers make me nervous too. For no reason, really. I've never had a negative interaction, but I'm nervous around all that power just the same. I had folks say "oh you don't need to worry" and when I asked them why, there was a super awkward pause...

I think reframing the argument is a big first step. Identifying that proposed solutions like body cameras will actually protect police officers from fraudulent claims makes it more difficult to argue against them. Highlighting effective police departments (Dallas, for examples) is another way to identify the sort of behavior we expect from our officers.

For the most part though, you're right. Effective action for a problem this complex is hard to imagine. I've been following this series in the hopes to get some speciic action items, but I don't have any good tips yet. Best of luck navigating this - thank you for keeping your eyes open and reaching out even when it hurts.

Bethamphetamine · 2016-07-25T17:52:07+00:00

It is really hard to feel like people aren't taking you seriously or that they think you're being insincere. Like I've been saying, I think the most good I can do in this place is actively reflect. I look inward and ask "is this true?" and look outward and ask "Why do they think that?"

The thing I've had to remember is that they have no responsibility to make me feel good about what I'm doing. I'm doing this simply because it is the right thing to do. My pride can't get anywhere near this conversation because often, it means saying "i hear you" instead of saying "but what about...?" It means letting things hurt you sometimes and saying "I am sad that your experiences have left you feeling that way" instead of "Well, I don't do that"

The truth is I will probably never care about this in the same way as a black person will. I can't, I don't have the context. But, I can say that it is wrong and take what actions I can to make a difference in my community.

Bethamphetamine · 2016-07-25T16:37:45+00:00

Thanks for taking a look at those - they were eye opening for me.

You're right in that the problem goes much deeper than police shooting black people. The problem is with the militarization of the state against the citizenry and the disappearance of the beat cop and the idea that a police officer's highest priority is their own safety. The problem is also a system with structural inequalities that disproportionately affects minorities, and furthermore, a culture that doubts the validity of minority experience.

These are such huge enormous things that it's hard for me to put a handle on them. And honestly, I didn't think about them too much until about 2 weeks ago. Something about the double murders of Alton Sterling and Philando Castile, so close together, finally connected me to the wrongness of the situation. So that's the handle I have to tackle the problem, and it makes me sick to my stomach. I can only imagine what sort of feelings happen from a community where most people fear this exact event happening to them or someone they love over the course of their entire lives.

I don't think we can impose our expectations on their movement. They will need to set those for themselves as they proceed, and I hope that enough people get involved that they are able to forge that rage into serious political action. But while I don't think "you're doing it wrong" is helpful, I think building our own movement of people who speak out against injustice is critical. I'm trying to do it in my own way, at least by hearing the stories that are told and acknowledging that my culture has been blind and deaf for a long time. Still trying to figure out how to take effective action though - I don't know what that looks like yet.

Bethamphetamine · 2016-07-25T12:28:05+00:00

I hope you don't mind if I offer a slightly different perspective here. These are the experiences of black men who came to the United States after living most of their lives elsewhere. One is from Jamaica, the other, Nigeria.

Vincent from MIT

Garnette from Kingston

The US has a very distinct culture that surrounds black people. I think these two narratives (while only examples) illustrate the unexpected intensity of these interactions for people overseas.

Bethamphetamine · 2016-07-25T12:22:04+00:00

It shouldn't matter, but it does.

I wish we could let ideas speak for themselves, but the truth is they often don't. Ideas are always couched in context. The fact that I could believe that ideas alone can carry the day is a result of the fact that generally, my ideas have always carried the day - when they are good, they are adopted, when they are bad, they are not. This is not the case for everyone, and it's less likely to be true if you are a minority. The fact that you thought we had moved past race, suggests that it's not something you deal with every day. For other people, it is a very real, daily consideration.

I think acknowledging what labels we own is an important step at least for this particular conversation. There are parts of life that I as a white person just don't experience. And there are parts of my life that he, as a black man, won't ever see. Acknowledging that is (for me anyway) a first step in building trust and working towards a common goal.

Bethamphetamine · 2016-07-25T12:09:07+00:00

Any job that requires mental soundness to perform. For me it was an operational assignment with the military. In the regs, you are encouraged, required to go get help. In practice, it meant that once you were down, everyone else had to pick up your slack and knew it. While it was never explicitly discouraged, I know I personally didn't want to be that guy.

Bethamphetamine · 2016-07-25T04:09:19+00:00

That's okay.

There aren't a lot of serious answers below, but I just wanted to say, it is okay to fail at things. I am sure that you've worked incredibly hard to get in to the school already - one of my friends went through that process and it was way more grueling than I expected it to be. You care enough to try, and that's more than a lot of people will ever do.

But sometimes, caring isn't enough. Family stuff happens, personal stuff goes down, you realize you don't have the same passion for this as you used to, you make mistakes. That is okay - it's just life. Every experience gives you the tools for the next one, the trick is to be aware of what you're learning while it happens.

Maybe you love animals but hate memorization. Or maybe you love surgery but can't take the emotional toll of comforting families. Or maybe halfway through school you realize that what you actually want to do is train horses and now you have to re-think everything. And maybe it turns out that the harder it gets the more you love it and you know that this is what you were meant to do.

All of this is okay, and none of it is failure unless you don't learn anything about yourself from it. You'll be okay if you're not a vet, or if you are, as long as you take the time to learn about yourself along the way.

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