Your raw incompetence is truly boundless. The vast majority of my comments were positive until this story fell a number of pages back, when the shills appeared in full effect, you being their master.
Your shadowban is pathetic. Flagging while leaving the utterly trollery of people like tptacek is...it is a marvel.
Oh my comments weren't moderated down -- while they occasionally dropped below zero, in this discussion I gained some 40 points overall. They were flagged, long after it left the front page, while the comically obnoxious replies by people like tptacek were left behind.
EDIT: Chuckle. dang has now shadowbanned me (though showdead will see this), demonstrating how much of a bitch he is for tptacek (the obnoxious troll) and patio11. Enjoy the shilling.
Even more flagging -- tptacek and friends are flagging off posts, leaving their ridiculous replies to things not actually said (the tactic of responding to things not actually stated, and then leaving their aghast reply. This is tptacek's thing). As mentioned they waited until this fell off the front page, when they could, 1984-esque, change the reality of the thread.
However much you might try to simplify this whole discussion for your weak attempts at clever retorts (that are never actually clever, though you seem to be convinced that they are), the root discussion was about those who preach success versus achieved actual success.
There is often (if not usually) a disconnect. It's a pretty important subject. The best part was when you comically claimed that I should be quiet about not charging $40K/week because somehow this made me a failure, which is so....utterly juvenile. I find it hard to believe that someone hasn't taken over your account.
You're a troll.
You are one the worst trolls on HN, and have been for years. You seldom address comments, instead resorting to comical misreads or misrepresentations (and if it doesn't get the immediate reaction from your adoring fanclub who've bought your weak gimmick, you edit until you do), in a way that almost always somehow ends up serving your own use of HN as a sales vehicle. 95% of your contributions have been snarky, completely disposable garbage replies.
I was clearly referring to a world where being skeptical makes one a troll. Yet again you've given a contrived, useless reply that completely misses the point or the context of the discussion, all so you can stand and triumphantly herald your great conquest. That is, I have learned, your thing, and a lot of people don't pay enough attention that you can get away with it.
and you should (again) stop doing it.
You should stop using Hacker News as your personal sales vehicle. This site and its community don't exist in the service of you.
If being skeptical makes one a troll, then in such a world of extremes, believing must make you a shill. In the world of polarized extremes it is the only option.
HN has been absolutely usurped to become the personal sales vehicles of a few people, and the raw gullibility of many in the crowd has reached incredible proportions.
That comment was flagged (despite sitting at a positive score), and you likely can't see it. That it is flagged is ludicrous, and just demonstrates the circling of the wagons.
Here was the actual comment-
This is a recurring theme of these sorts of replies (along with cries of jealousy or ad hominem attacks by people circling the wagons). "Factual", when the things I am questioning are based upon no demonstrated facts at all.
patio11 gave advice on consulting which, as a long time consultant -- rather successfully (but still not enough to start doling wisdom) -- I found completely at odds with the reality I've endured, but it's a big world so maybe I just fly in different circles. It was advice being conveyed to people looking to enter or already in the game, and is purportedly based upon real world success and feedback.
My first suspicion is that it's a piece obviously intending to draw attention to his newest venture (Starfighter, just as so many prior pieces were driven to focus SEO and attention on BCC, though we've seen that the return on that was miserable for the time invested and opportunity lost). That's always a warning side -- people often tend to aggrandize when seeking attention and link juice (and to find pat, sure-fire success formulas, because easy solution posts do best), and coincidentally that piece was linked to far and wide for the extraordinary claims. The second is that it is building a reputation at the cost of just words, which you can see throughout this thread: "Well BCC [a project that has seen so little success most people would have abandoned it long ago] was just for fun. He's really a super successful consultant." Because, the story goes, he was picking and choosing among clients shoveling money at him. $30K per week? $40K? Why not $50K? Just keep those rates hidden and escalating, biding your time and soon enough the money truck starts dumping.
First they were successful for being an expert at optimizing a business. Now they're a high flying, top tier consultant that was so successful they hung up the hat.
Are those facts? The former we have empirical evidence to the contrary, and the latter is founded only in words. It does not matter how personally protective of him you may feel, this is being doled out as life proven advice, and it is critical that everyone, no matter how much they think someone is a part of the community, be critical and naturally skeptical. Advice founded in success needs to demonstrate that success, and there is just nothing there beyond hand waving. There are no "facts", but just claims.
Your demand that people shouldn't comment unless, effectively, they're a fan is simply outrageous and is the anti-HN. Someone donated lots of hours doesn't make their claims any more credible.
tptacek is, and has always been, one of the worst trolls on HN. He has gathered such a herd of followers that his nonsense replies (instead of actually replying to a comment he simply invents a ludicrous strawman that he so confidently, tut tut, strikes down) get a pass, if not upvotes, despite a grotesque conflict of interest. It is perverse, and should be shameful for anyone who clicks that arrow, but that's the illusion that it's some sort of success club.
This is exactly the sort of post that you find regarding quick fix solutions and Make Money Fast schemes. Don't believe in the magical cure-all nature of Trend Of The Week? So bitter and negative.
I have never said that he is lying. I have implied that the situation might be aggrandized/exaggerated, or a very atypical one-off, absolutely. I disagree with it as any sort of wisdom or example for 99.999% of consultants.
Say I am a gigolo and my rate is $100,000 per night. That is my "rack rate". My rate last year was $75,000 per night, and the year before it was $50,000 per night, but I really wanted to maximize my beautiful years.
I've decided to hang up the gigolo hat and focus on cooking, because I'm a passionate chef. I'm opening a restaurant, and you should visit.
That isn't a lie (okay the cook/restaurant part is): If a woman offered me $100,000 per night, I'd probably be okay with that situation. And you know I probably would have been good with $75K last year, and $50K the year before.
Of course, zero women have paid me for my services, but still that's my rate if they did. If I start writing a "Pricing Yourself As A Gigolo" series, however, some people will rightly call me on it. It has no bearing on reality, and is of no service to anyone.
Now you claim that there's all sort of evidence of these $10K, $20K, $30K, $40K per week engagements. There is none. Absolutely none, beyond a cofounder and a serial booster who suddenly claims to have lots of experience being a consumer of consultants. There is nobody writing about their consulting engagement, and indeed that whole aspect was left incredibly vague (random undefined privately owned companies that you probably haven't heard of).
To make it even more dubious, someone claiming those sorts of rates is naturally going to turn away pretty much every prospective client (again -- if they started Facebook or Skype or something, maybe. Being the person behind BCC and a high-karma HN account isn't as lucrative), so it's pretty convenient that these rates appear when he claims that he isn't interested in consulting anymore.
An individual consultant with as little reputation as patio11 (people really conflate HN fame for real fame, reminding me of that kid on Reddit whose mother called him "sort of a big deal"), may, as I mentioned, have lucked into an incredibly rare engagement where they were overpaid, and there is no way I can say that couldn't have happened, but there is absolutely no way, in this universe, that they can demand $30K per week without getting a laugh from the overwhelming majority of clients.
I'm not sure if the parent (irrigation) is "just trolling"
I have wasted far too much time on this topic (though I'm starting to feel like I wandered into a group of people discussing why "The Secret" is the cure for all things), however the "troll" bit grows tiring. Just as rationally, I can declare that I'm not sure if you're "just shilling".
the bigger figures get their share of undeserved hate around here
The bigger figures become untouchable, above reproach, around here. There are some figures who are literally toxic, but because they've become a part of the core group they can get away with it. And if you doubt or question them, you must be a troll.
This is fairly normal group behavior, of course. It's a "group is its own worst enemy" behavior. It's how groups become insular and delusional and self-supporting.
The identification and vilification of external enemies. Religious veneration. HN in a nutshell.
It would be an interesting exercise to remove names from comments for a while and see how they do. I suspect the exercise would surprise some people.
Further, some of the biggest names around here are masters of self-promotion. As much as we can cheer on "transparency", it isn't so selfless when it's used to farm SEO, or to fish for consulting engagements. I'm actually surprised BCC didn't go for much more simply for the pagerank value.
This post has fallen off the front page, with which it will be dominated by the herd and I expect a rapid moderation influx that sees anything other that raw praise fade to transparency.
Instead you are employing classic and cowardly character assassination techniques.
This is the "untouchable" argument that attempts to short circuit any critical discussion. If skepticism is a character assassination, then hopefully we're all assassins.
There is literally nothing Patrick or his defenders can do to refute your claim (mostly because you refuse to make one).
Nor is there any specific thing I can do to disprove their claims. A bit of a catch-22, isn't it? As incredibly uncommon as their claims of success in the consulting world may be -- and I'm not saying this out of the blue -- it is possible that somehow they lucked into a series of incredibly generous clients who saw BCC as such a success that they gave a blank check. I have never seen an individual consultant without an incredible reputation (and being famous on HN != being famous) make anything near what they claimed, but it remains possible.
Pretty much anything is possible. If someone claimed to have achieved alchemy (theoretically possible via fusion), I similarly couldn't possibly say "no, they're lying!".
It's possible. I think it's incredibly improbable, but it is simply impossible for me to say that it's a lie.
your attitude is probably limiting your success. Nobody likes negativity, or working with negative people.
My earnings are within the top 0.5% in the US. I am very respected in my industry. I mean, you don't have to believe this, and you rightly shouldn't believe this. But the thing is that I'm not trying to sell you me, my startup, my business, or a product -- tptacek keeps trying to denigrate the fact that I'm anonymous, as if their own raw self-promotion were more pure and credible. I saw some claims that struck me as fantasy, so I questioned them.
Skepticism, or real experience, is not the same as negativity. Nor is gullibility the sign of positivity.
Further, judging my "attitude" by a position on extraordinary claims seems a bit specious.
"Two more paragraphs and not a single testable claim."
More attempts at prejudicing claims, which is sort of your comment habit.
FACT: you are a cofounder with Patrick
FACT: it would be good judgment for you to stay away from these threads. You lack good judgment.
FACT: you are trying to lever HN fame into startup success
FACT: Patrick's posts about consulting -- which sort of came out of nowhere, suddenly telling of incredible consulting success -- are extraordinarily atypical. The single and only support for them is you, and people who have never done consulting but imagine up some scenario where it seems reasonable.
FACT: Those posts drew lead-up attention to "Starfighter", that startup that you are a partner in. I mean, it must be a sure win initiative if someone is going to eschew $50K/week consulting engagements (I saw the story linked far and wide, people amazed at the elite consultant earning that sort of rate) that are easy to come by for it. The audience lines up.
Your tactic of simply dropping prejudicing claims gets a pass on here because you earned the "security guy" goodwill. On most sites you would have been exiled as a troll long ago.
Harass him? What an outrageously transparent attempt to prejudice the audience, which in this case happens to also be for your own benefit as well: Good judgment would have been that you should stay away from these threads (for those who don't know, tptacek is a cofounder, with patio11, of their "turn HN fame into value" startup), but instead you come rushing in guns blazing.
I found the consulting story incredibly dubious. None of the facts meshed, and I find those sorts of pie in the sky stories to actually be destructive to people entering or in the industry. If you find skepticism "harassment" -- does fame on HN make one untouchable -- you have a very perverse sentiment of what that is.
It is notable that you're also, and many would say much more importantly, speaking as a current startup partner (also benefiting from any attention these extraordinary claims derive) and from a similar "famous on HN" perspective.
None of the facts of this story mesh at all. Your obviously biased support of it doesn't really tip the balance (beyond to the people obviously already smitten), and it's questionable that you thought it good judgment to weigh in.
Snake oil salesmen would put shills in the audience who would profess the magic of whatever the cure was, because of course they also benefited from the rubes. Make cynical comments (did I question your consultancy? How did this become about you?), or declare what people should or should not comment on on HN, but understand that this site, and this community, is not yours for exploitation.
It seems like you are saying "Patio11 clearly is lying about his consulting rates and the sale of BCC proves it."
The root of this thread is someone who is a little surprised at how small of a transaction the sale of BCC was. Despite all of the transparency, a lot of people had a much greater sense of success, and it is a little like finding out that the stock guru had a yearly return of 2%. That is neither here nor there, and I have no comment or interest in BCC and related ventures, and was only tangentially commenting on the notion of inflated success, and with that reputation for wisdom/knowledge.
On the consulting side, I'm not saying that he's lying, however many people defensively jump to that conclusion. More generally I am saying that history has shown that a lot of people do lie (embellish, exaggerate, etc) to get attention, which leads to a situation where the onus of proof is on the speaker, increasingly so when there are extraordinary claims. I found the post about consulting simply extraordinary, and I have no reason to give anyone a pass just because.
This sounds like a variation of the "you're just jealous" reply, which is an easy, convenient retort to virtually all skepticism for even the most incredible claims. When we want something to be true, the easiest way to undermine doubts are to cry jealousy.
Super weight loss regime. Visit with aliens. Top secret NSA/CIA/FBI/FSB clearance. Quintuple black belt. No-effort muscle building technique. Endless success with the ladies. Exponential stock market success. All demonstrated by just words?
Doubts and questions = jealousy. It is the charlatan's ally among human denial techniques.
This is a recurring theme of these sorts of replies (along with cries of jealousy or ad hominem attacks by people circling the wagons). "Factual", when the things I am questioning are based upon no demonstrated facts at all.
patio11 gave advice on consulting which, as a long time consultant -- rather successfully (but still not enough to start doling wisdom) -- I found completely at odds with the reality I've endured, but it's a big world so maybe I just fly in different circles. It was advice being conveyed to people looking to enter or already in the game, and is purportedly based upon real world success and feedback.
My first suspicion is that it's a piece obviously intending to draw attention to his newest venture (Starfighter, just as so many prior pieces were driven to focus SEO and attention on BCC, though we've seen that the return on that was miserable for the time invested and opportunity lost). That's always a warning side -- people often tend to aggrandize when seeking attention and link juice (and to find pat, sure-fire success formulas, because easy solution posts do best), and coincidentally that piece was linked to far and wide for the extraordinary claims. The second is that it is building a reputation at the cost of just words, which you can see throughout this thread: "Well BCC [a project that has seen so little success most people would have abandoned it long ago] was just for fun. He's really a super successful consultant." Because, the story goes, he was picking and choosing among clients shoveling money at him. $30K per week? $40K? Why not $50K? Just keep those rates hidden and escalating, biding your time and soon enough the money truck starts dumping.
First they were successful for being an expert at optimizing a business. Now they're a high flying, top tier consultant that was so successful they hung up the hat.
Are those facts? The former we have empirical evidence to the contrary, and the latter is founded only in words. It does not matter how personally protective of him you may feel, this is being doled out as life proven advice, and it is critical that everyone, no matter how much they think someone is a part of the community, be critical and naturally skeptical. Advice founded in success needs to demonstrate that success, and there is just nothing there beyond hand waving. There are no "facts", but just claims.
Your demand that people shouldn't comment unless, effectively, they're a fan is simply outrageous and is the anti-HN. Someone donated lots of hours doesn't make their claims any more credible.
Your shadowban is pathetic. Flagging while leaving the utterly trollery of people like tptacek is...it is a marvel.