Questions, and Answers, from the man himself
I'll mostly agree with Erica on the system-gaming aspects of stats – with the exception of word count.
Since Quora itself could easily evolve into a blog-ternative site, and/or otherwise encourage people to write more often and more consistently, being able to track ones' own stats could be a useful metric in improving one's answers/posts over time, or even as a portfolio tool as part of a job search.
The same way you get anyone to stop hitting on you – clearly, concisely, and politely indicating that you are not comfortable with their advances, and that if they do not stop, it will affect your pre-existing friend/acquaintanceship.
I would say that there are layers to this question that go a bit deeper into the psychology of why people in relationships flirt with people outside it, but aside from handling the situation with respect and discretion, it's best to minimize your involvement as much as possible if you aren't interested in pursuing an affair.
How do you get a girl who's in a relationship to stop hitting on you?
You should never tell someone you miss them.
You should, instead, tell them about how much you look forward to seeing them again, about a new view you'd like to show them, restaurant at which you'd like to share a meal.
Giving someone the feeling that their absence is a loss to you is unhealthy, and in some cases may give them the impression that you are weak-willed and needy. Instead, show her that you are a fully-realized person in your own right – that you don't NEED her, but instead WANT her.
It's like the poem says:
Let her know she's in your thoughts,
when together or apart,
and you'll be sure often as not,
to also win her heart.
How do you tell a girl that you miss her without sounding too mushy?
Why don't more people allow themselves to enjoy that most prolific theater of the real, the most athletic of the performing arts, Pro Wrestling?
It's a marketing problem. People see both wrestling and "game" as low class and uncultured… At speaking to the baser senses, without any true depth or greater artistic goal. It's the ultimate expression of the American meme: we can't figure out how to have our sex without some violence to balance it out.
In reality, of course, things are always more complicated than that. The guy getting hit over the head with a chair is an actual guy, getting hit with an actual chair, most likely by one of his best friends in the world. He does it 6 days a week for a few reasons, and they aren't all money and a love of fisticuffs. He lives for the roar of the crowd, and the starry-eyed looks at signing events. He's an entertainer, a good one, and underappreciated for that effort, nearly to the point of direct insult.
Similarly, "game players" aren't just in it for phone numbers, or sex. There are even clearer delineations "within the community" – hardcore PUAs, the seemingly-heartless heartbreakers just 'in it to pin it, and on to the next'… There are "Social Artists", who are genuinely interested in the psychology and science of human interaction. That they often use the knowledge gained to their own benefit makes them merely human.
And at the "nobler end" of the equation, there are the many people living just at the outside of the "gamesphere", using all the same tactics and teaching, in slightly tweaked ways – growing peoples self confidence, helping them choose and thrive in a career that fits them best, instructing doctors/lawyers/police/the military in ways to present themselves less as hostile forces in peoples' lives, despite the fact that they usually only show up unannounced when something really bad has happened.
People don't hate on similar self-help gurus Tony Robbins, Tim Ferriss, Seth Godin, or even Oprah the way they hate on Mystery. But in a lot of ways, they're basically the same sensationalistic dude, saying the same thing:
Simply put, if more men understood in a rational way what "game" was, and how they could use it to improve their lives, they would. Unfortunately, the truth is so wrapped up in one stereotypically misogynistic, peacocked, and gimmicky subculture, that the teachings get thrown out with the taught.
Efforts to change that trend, thus far, have come off as too serious, or too abstracted from the social/sexual aspects of pickup arts that make them so attractive. The separation, too, puts a wall up between sexual expression and the rest of life. The same people who decry the rise of the PUA are the same ones lamenting the death of flirtation. We need to break down more of these walls, not build them up higher.
The answers thus far highlight a glaring issue for me: it's an apples and oranges comparison.
A startup and a product/app/service are two different things, in the same way that a production company and a movie are two different things.
In that context, I would suggest that the majority of small/nascent production companies ARE STARTUPS, with a lot of the same constraints on cashflow/competition for talent/being crushed by missing time to market/etc.
If you are a production company with a terrible bomb movie, and you don't die, you most certainly "iterate" on your processes and/or pivot on your next film to eliminate previous problems and enhance any USP you may have.
Taken at the product side of things, I'm a little more in agreement with the idea that "based on the scale required, getting a tech/web startup app/service from zero to break even is much less daunting a prospect.
Then again, the chances are that a movie that got to "real" breakeven by the time it hits, say, DVD release, is bound to do MUCH better over the course of its salable lifetime than the average startup's breakeven site/product/service. So, "easier" to produce may not translate into easier to monetize, for example.
Overall, I'd say the main stumbling block for most entrants in either arena is "what happens when you fail", and as others have mentioned or implied:
All of the above assumes more of a "traditional Hollywood" scenario – but as the recent Netflix deal indicates (not to mention a bevy of fairly successful youtube-originated shows), it's becoming easier to produce good quality entertainment at lower price points (though, admittedly, in non-traditional formats). So, I'd say based what we're seeing over time, and projecting into the future, the parallels between movie production and startup launch are going to outweigh the differences more and more five to ten years from now.
deano.com 