The education industry is not doing its job? Who knew?! Me! Because I went through it and had my life ruined by it. I say this as a 30 year old man. I went to public school where the following happened:

- I was not only intellectually neglected, I was intellectually poisoned. The result was worse than if I had just been left by myself as far as education and intellectual development. They don’t just not do their job, they sabotage kids

- I was subjected to bullying that has had mental health ramifications that persist even now. Everyone knew and nobody did anything. The teachers don’t do anything and the admins don’t do anything. They watch knowingly as kids under their care are viscously bullied, doing nothing.

Teachers are stupid. There is no other way to put it. Public education is a free daycare service. The kids who succeed in public school succeed in spite of the teachers and their circumstances, not because of them. It is not an exaggeration to say that subjecting a child to public education is abusive. Look at the average Americans understanding of maths and geography — they are basically retarded compared to other western nations. But nobody cares and nobody does anything. Saying that any alternative is too expensive is bullshit. Utter bullshit. Take grandma, who is starved for human interaction, and move her in. She watches over the child while he does assignments given to him by you and while he is tutored by starving PhD candidates and undergraduates who are actually smart and passionate. They will do it for peanuts. I know I would have when I was a starving student. Socialize the child by engaging in social activities such as soccer leagues and other things. Sleepovers, whatever. I just invented a method of education that is guaranteed to give you better results than a public school and probably costs a similar amount when you account for all the therapy you’d have to pay for from the bullying and whatever.

You want to have a vague idea of other peoples lives, people who don’t matter to you in any real way, and you aren’t even getting the real status, just the image they want to project through the social media distortion lens. So you decide to sacrifice your privacy and mental health for it. Makes sense.

I say this with respect and for your benefit: this is the most cringe inducing product description I’ve ever read.

Ah, thanks for that feedback. Would you like to try your hand of writing a better summary here? It would be appreciated, as it's hard to improve from just a single word criticism (cringe).

"Product abc.xyz is like Facebook, without the suck."

"A cure for the common platform"

I'm suspicious that for the cringe might result from the suggestion that alternative points of view might have value.

Can you elaborate on the source of the cringe? I went to read it based on your description, hoping for a dose of cringe. In the end, I did not detect it.

To me it seemed like a decent introduction to a tool designed to help get people take a look outside of their bubbles.

I think it's from

> to playfully challenge perspectives, while unlocking achievements

Who's looking to "playfully challenge perspectives"? and "[unlock] achievements"? Discussions aren't generally a game, but this seems to pitch it that way. I don't know about you guys, but I think more often than not, discussions are a generally stressful thing that people do because they must. The description might benefit in changing to a somewhat more serious tone.

Also, talking of "unlocking achievements" gives the project a manipulative kind of feel. The description states what it offers to people, and in that is the mention of being able to obtain fake internet points in the form of achievements. Is fake internet points supposed to motivate one to join the project?

Anyway, I'm just trying to expand on what's probably cringey. It's still good work.

It’s this mainly. It’s not cringe because it’s stupid, it’s cringe to me because i think it’s naive. Baking in the playful aspect makes me imagine that the person creating this has this vision in his head that people are friendly and that playfully challenging each others perspectives will result in anything. People are invested in their perspectives and they aren’t going to change them — not in light of facts, logic, threats or playfulness. This guy thinks that playfully challenging perspectives is going to scale to more than a handful of people? It’s naive. Maybe I’m reading it wrong but that’s how I read it.

Also, the achievements angle is also cringe for me because achievements are a buzzword fad that makes me think the person behind this thing is not a very deep thinker, doesn’t appreciate the fact that it will look bad to advertise the achievements, and maybe is a person who has trouble thinking for himself and gets swept up into actually believing fads.

If I were going to write a description it would be something like this: a platform where people are given the opportunity to refine their opinions based on civil discussion with the assistance of a tasteful incentive scheme.

It seems to bring down to earth a bit. Reading criticism that is so personal can be upsetting. I genuinely hope that I have in no way upset this person. We all learn these hard lessons from time to time. I know I’ve had more than I can count.

Ah, let me see if I can add some details and re-adjust the wording:

"DTC is a community-driven live discussion platform that matches you one-on-one to challenge ideas. The experience is fun and quirky as users control talking virtual avatars and rate each other on their politeness. Achievements are earned for good behavior (via similar techniques Overwatch uses to curb aggressive behavior), while toxic behavior is flagged to be reviewed by moderators. Good behavior is also rewarded with points that allow further avatar customization and new environment unlocks."

Does this help?

Why would you need angular sand for electronics?

No, actually you are wrong! I’ve been an ev freak for a long time. Lots of people made EVs. Are you going to say next that Tesla didn’t do anything because karma was making evs as well ten years ago? Tesla absolutely did drag everyone else kicking and screaming, besides Nissan and some others. Tesla was the first company to make a serious ev that looked like a normal car and claimed to be like a normal car, not some niche golf cart like the leaf. Tesla was the first one to encroach on ice territory in this way, and everyone hated them for it. The other car companies hated them, the New York Times hated them and wrote false stories about the model s, even top gear got in on the action and staged a battery failure on their review of the roadster. Gawker maintained a death watch on Tesla. People in general loved to hate Tesla. I remember very clearly because as a Tesla “fan boy” in 2010 I didn’t make very many friends to say the very least. To EV people who were watching all this happen a decade ago, and there weren’t many of us back then, the overwhelming consensus was that Tesla was the only one pushing things forward and they got enormous pushback from every other entity in the automotive industry as a whole besides a few people. Nissan was not pushing things forward. They made a golf cart that looked like an insect. They showed no signs of making a real sedan like Tesla. They didn’t build charging infrastructure. I’m sorry man but you are flat out wrong. Go ahead and call me fanboy, it won’t make you any less wrong.

As someone who has owned both the Leaf and the Model S I agree with this. The only value of the Leaf was it was a very inexpensive but embarrassing way to get a carpool lane sticker in the Bay Area. It could not drive at highway speed for any material distance so “commuter’s golf cart” is accurate.

But now the Model S is the best sedan on the road at any price, and I’ve driven the 2019 BMWs and others. The interiors are cluttered up with incoherent “luxury” features to try to justify the price point, but nothing works that well together except for the drivetrain itself. I don’t want a crystal shifter knob and eight different buttons to lower the rear seats and a head-up display that occasionally knows the speed limit and iPads protruding from the seat backs and a lane-keeping feature that randomly jerks the wheel. This stuff makes the retracting door handles on the Tesla seem almost practical.

I do want a car that drives great and looks great and minimizes maintenance and running costs. No ICE drivetrain can deliver the same acceleration thrill as the Tesla drivetrain, so what’s the point? The only thing left is range and hauling power, so pickup trucks, vans, and for now, SUVs.

Tesla’s lack of “incoherent luxury” is so refreshing to me too. It’s incidental but very nice.

No number of additional premium features can compensate for an overall worse driving and ownership experience. It’s basically a new class of car. I was very skeptical but that’s the truth.

Of course, some won’t value what it can do, but the hate over minor details is not justified.

That's really depends on what you want from a car, doesn't it? For me, all personal and IMHO, of course, multi-month repairs over trivial issues, having to plan your trips around charger stations, and, yes, lack of luxuries that are by today not out of place even in in midrange cars costing less than half the price of a model S... that's not minor issues.

And of course I am too old and cynical, and want my stick shift back, but the driving experience in Model S was very much blah. That's one of those things that you can do well only if you know how to build cars, not computers on wheels.

As for ownership experience, maybe it is that bad with BMW, although I doubt it, but I've never had any problems with Audi, and it has been far more pleasant than what I've heard of Tesla...

It's incredibly short-sighted to not call the Nissan leaf a serious EV, just because you happen to not be in the target market. I understand there is some frustration and venting in your post, but there is no reason for being derogatory about products that happen to not be targeted at you, or at California. California is not the center of the world, and neither are you.

What's a niche golf cart is the US is a mainstream car in France (or Japan). There's a reason why Renault's equivalent of the Nissan Leaf, called Renault Zoe, is even smaller than the Leaf: it's tailored to the French urban market.

Interestingly the German market is probably more vulnerable to Tesla than the French one (since after all this is about BMW). Tesla is after the like of BMW, Mercedes, Audi, Lexus, etc. But not the like of Renault, Peugeot, Nissan, Honda, Volkswagen, Opel, Fiat, etc. (Though of course Volkswagen owns Audi, so it's not all that simple...).

As a New-Yorker (currently, hopefully not for too long) I stand on the side: I don't even have a valid US driver license. I mean, what could I possibly do with a car in NYC?

What a bunch of nonsense. I never said the leaf isn’t a serious ev. I said it’s a golf cart because that’s what it is. It can barely make it on the highway and has a very limited range. Some people want that. Most people want something like a Toyota Corolla (literally most people according to sales) and nobody in the ev community had tried to challenge the corolla segment until Tesla. That’s all I’m saying. I’m not saying that the leaf isn’t “serious.” What is even the point of your comment? Did you even read into the context and sentiment of my comment? I said nobody made a good looking, long range ev and pushed it with charging infrastructure until Tesla did it. What does that have to do with a bunch or rude Parisians driving around in clown cars? Nothing. Go back to France.

Doubling down on it being a golf cart sure sounds like you dont think it is a serious EV to me, unless you think golf carts are serious EV's.. Just saying.

Leaf is a shitty car, for car people.

But huge majority of people aren't car enthusiasts, so they don't care. They want affordable and easy way of moving from point A to point B.

Getting car people excited is great. But you need to target average joe if you want to change the world.

Leaf was a bad car for the average joe, too.

I'm sure it was perfect for some people - just like a smart car. But it would fall down for typical daily usage for lots of people who don't care about cars, but do have a highway commute, say.

I just wanted to go from my house in Berkeley to Palo Alto and back without having to stop and recharge for an hour at Whole Foods.

It was an ok car if you never, ever needed to use a highway.