When we care about what someone else is drinking, we are attaching some small part of our inner peace to that person and their actions. Because we can’t control that person or what they drink, we risk feeling discontent when they don’t act in the way we’ve expected them to.

We allow ourselves to be affected by other people like this all the time. It’s a perfectly natural, human thing. Of course we should care about what our loved ones think. But when it comes to minutia—like what someone’s drinking—I can’t see any worthwhile reason to care.

Ask yourself, “How does this person’s decision affect me?”

— “What Do You Care?” — Quarter-Life Enlightenment

Linking to an old, but evergreen, post by a friend.

The speed someone listens to a podcast at doesn’t affect you. The smartphone platform of the person across from you at the coffee shop doesn’t affect you. Someone ordering soup at a restaurant doesn’t affect you.

When you’re about to write a polemic about something, ask yourself that important question: “How does this person’s decision affect me?”

Chances are it doesn’t.

Invariably, by speaking up, I’ll experience a new round of threats and harassment. The people doing this see themselves as noble warriors, not criminals. I’ll probably get more rape and death threats. I’ll be told I’m being dramatic. For pointing out the game media’s silence, behind closed doors these people will tell themselves what amazing allies to women they feel they are, and nothing will be done.

As a friend recently told me, “It’s a very dangerous time to be a woman with an opinion.”

—I’m Brianna Wu, And I’m Risking My Life Standing Up To Gamergate | Bustle

It’s possible you’ve seen this, already. If not, read it.

All of us men in the technology space, no matter how small our role, are to blame for what’s happening to Brianna Wu, to Zoe Quinn, Anita Sarkeesian, Randi Harper, and thousands of other women who have had their lives upended by horrible men on the Internet, and the tools that enable their abhorrent behavior.

It’s our job to turn the tools back upon them, and stop them. It’s our job to silence the attacks and abuse. It’s our job to make technology a safe space for everyone.

It’s our job, and we’ve been sleeping on it for the past decade-plus.

“I think you’re going to see a lot of failure in 2015,” says Benchmark Capital partner Bill Gurley, who sits on Uber’s board of directors. “If you’re a public company worth $3 billion and your stock trades down to $1 billion, you can survive it because you can still issue options to hire new employees, etc.  If it happens when you’re private, though, it becomes immediately harder to hire or to get incremental investment.”

— The Age of Unicorns – Fortune

The vast amounts of money piling into the high-risk world of VC should scare the hell out of you. Especially if you have a pension that’s being invested in it. The need for vast returns is inflating company values, and it’s not sustainable. Something has to give.

““Nobody is expecting to become rich from making odd music,” Herndon concedes. “But when we don’t compensate artists for the work they produce, they are forced to find other means to make a living – which will have consequences for the amount of people making work, the amount of time they have available to experiment, and ultimately, the risks they are prepared to take.””

— Bandwidth: streaming might be the future, but is it an unfair economy that exploits artists? – FACT Magazine: Music News, New Music.

I’ve long maintained that music streaming services are great for everyone except the people who make the music. Every interview on streaming music with musicians confirms this. Holly Herndon makes a great point that I’ve missed: the sort of music that succeeds on streaming services is the sort that can reach critical mass, and that is music which, by nature, is low-risk pop.

If you care about music, read this.

In Thiel’s world, “good enough” systems don’t get fixed—they are surpassed by new technology. But unsticking systems is not just a technological challenge. It’s a social and political challenge as well. Since the companies that profit from “good enough” systems have few incentives to change, change needs to come externally, from social pressure or political leadership, commodities in short supply in contemporary America.

As attempts are made to unstick calcified systems, hope may be found in a practice rarely celebrated by technological innovators: regulation.

— When ‘Good Enough’ Holds Back New Inventions – The Atlantic

The Valley attitude of technology over all, and ignoring the greater world and established systems of government and society will bite it in the rear one day. Hopefully sooner, rather than later.

No technology that catches on will do so from fiat alone.