It lets enthusiastic people express their enthusiasm without overriding the crowd's preference.
Someone who is very knowledgeable or passionate can keep upvoting, but as their voting power dampens new voters will quickly overwhelm their vote. So it strikes a nice balance between leveraging people's passion and the wisdom of crowds.
I'm working on a bookmarking tool/web clipper that let's you organize sites you save by the search you used to find it. No tags or folders.
knovigator.com
It makes perfect sense that state of the art technological paradigms would inspire explanations of other areas of inquiry like human biology.
Creativity is the ability to apply patterns and abstractions learned in one context to another. Concepts learned at the cutting edge of one field of research quickly resonate in another.
We often see the information flowing the other way. Genetic algorithms, neural networks, robotic motion, and insect decision-making are some of the ways biology has influenced technology.
We are being farmed. We are given toys and distractions, in exchange we give up our time and consciousness to be propagandized to be a certain way and to buy certain things.
It's a system whose lifeblood is money around which our entire society is incentivized at the expense of happiness, human connection, and intellectual honesty.
I use to think that these are just symptoms of a system necessary for the sustenance of our fragile civilization. That we are victims of deprecated ideals, and that we will learn new ones and eventually correct course.
Now I understand that a minority of people in the world cynically manipulate the vast majority for their own personal gain, and until we realize this and organize we will never reach our human potential.
I meditate 2-3 times a week for about 20 minutes. My experience level is that of an advanced beginner.
I sometimes struggle to reconcile meditation's message of "just observe" with my discomfort at my level of achievement in life.
I realize that being too judgmental can be a sign of an unhealthy perpective on life. But I worry that being too content can dampen my desire to succeed.
That being said, I think meditation is one of my most important practices.
I think that if you spend 4 years learning web development, going to the relevant networking events, and being active in the local "hacker community", building applications, and blogging about your learning/building process, you will be in a much better position than if you go to college. Both, in terms of skills/knowledge, and debt.
The only downside is that you will be a less rounded person, because you will have missed much of the general and liberal arts education. But, if you are disciplined, and a curious person, this is also something the internet can deliver to you.
Being an introvert loner is not a permanent condition, and you can put in work to improve how you socialize and relate to other people.
Just like with any other worth-while self-improvement process this will require you to step out of your comfort zone.
A great way to to both improve your social skills and improve your job prospects is to start going to local networking events and meetups associated with the technologies you are interested in.
Set a goal for yourself to talk to atleast one or two new people. At first it will seem contrived, but think of it like going to the gym, and talking to people like exercise. Eventually as you improve, you will find that you actually enjoy it.
The point is that you have to expend conscious effort to improve this aspect of your life.