Maybe not the place to admit it but I'm more of a Naval fan myself...
Who is that, where can it be read?
Twitter @naval.
Ask HN: What are good resources for life advice?
121–130 of 167 posts
Re: Ask HN: What are good resources for life advice?
#122Zen mind, beginner's mind - Shunryu Suzuki. I don't think it's life advice. But, it certainly had a profound impact on my life. As an entrepreneur, I found the best way to learn about life is to read biographies of successful people, especially the ones that speak of the transformations. Shoe Dog - Phil Knight Benjamin Franklin, Steve Jobs, Albert Einstein - Walter Isaacson
>Zen mind, beginner's mind - Shunryu Suzuki. I don't think it's life advice. But, it certainly had a profound impact on my life. Just wanted to second this. One of the few books that has actually changed the way I view everything in life, and led to a years long deep dive into eastern philosophy.
Third here. I was talking about this book just yesterday on HN and also briefly with my team at work. It's definitely not life advice, but it also helped me change the way that I view most things in life.
Re: Ask HN: What are good resources for life advice?
#123I was going to suggest Dr. Peterson, but Ctrl+F revealed a veritable graveyard of downvoted comments about him already. That's too bad. So I'll go with Steve Pavlina's [0] work instead. Steve Pavlina's blog is a mix of solid personal development advice mixed with a journal of his self experimentation. His most interesting work is on belief systems, and on deliberately installing new belief systems to improve your lif…
I used to love Steve's writing (back in the game developer days and some after). But I got the impression that he was becoming more and more eccentric/crazy. I haven't read his articles in a while, so maybe they are more sane now.
About 10 years ago Steve seemed really on the level of someone like Joel regarding software development and general life advice.
Now it seems Steve is all crazy stuff.
For example this is Timecube level thinking: https://www.stevepavlina.com/blog/2019/02/your-10-dimensiona...
Re: Ask HN: What are good resources for life advice?
#124Earlier quoted context omitted.
If there’s nothing more to it, what place does it have in a self-help book, or in any book? Why bother saying it? What interest should it hold for me? This continual argument I hear from people that he’s just “describing how things are” seems self-defeating - it makes him sound as boring as someone who goes around saying “the sky is blue, the sun is hot”. Yeah, and? So what? There’s no point engaging with or listenin…
> Why bother linking the concepts to gender? Well, it looks like the main reason is that it offends people, and some people seem to find that worthwhile in and of itself. You´re missing the point. No one is (or at least I am not) saying that he is merely making a "factual observation" and that´s just that. But you are ASSUMING what his motives are as if you´re some type of mind reader. And of course his motives must…
> The tough part for me to communicate here is how _ironic_ your assumption here is. You are _literally_ doing what Peterson argues is the feminine and chaotic. You are playing the role of the overprotective mother.
I don't know if irony is the right word for it, but I find it interesting that you've been arguing that Petersons man-order/woman-chaos is somehow not normative and negative to women, and then go and use 'feminine and chaotic' in a pretty much purely negative way.
What I find more interesting is that this exemplifies what bothers me about Peterson schtick. So much of what he says isn't actually saying all that much, because it's couched in "one could argue that", "I'm just observing x", "an interesting thought" style statements, while at the same time the very choice of statements seem to imply something nonetheless.
The frustrating thing is that I find much of this 'implied' message rather concerning, but it's difficult to talk about because he (and his fans) can deny all of it. Or accuse me of reading too much into his words, vilifying him, etc.
I think this comment expresses my unease with Peterson quite well (the whole thread/discussion is worth reading): https://www.reddit.com/r/IAmA/comments/8m21kw/i_am_dr_jordan...
And then there's the famouns Contrapoints video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4LqZdkkBDas
To be clear, I'm not accusing you personally, of all this, just that your comment reminded me of these thoughts. Furthermore, I ultimately do not know the details of what Peterson believes (I mean, who does?), and if his book and talks help people improve themselves I'm all for that.
Re: Ask HN: What are good resources for life advice?
#125Earlier quoted context omitted.
It's pretty hard to avoid the reactionary politics when consuming Peterson, but if you can yeah you get mostly tried-and-true basic self-help advice.
It's funny. He took like one political stance and then got labeled awful things. We can just skip past the trans thing. It's ok. For those that don't know: he interpreted a law that was passed in Canada as compelled speech law and decided that was a line that shall not be crossed, no matter the presumed benefit. That line happened to coincidentally involve trans people and, well, it's the late 2010s, so that speaks f…
He takes quite a few political stances...
Re: Ask HN: What are good resources for life advice?
#126Earlier quoted context omitted.
I did read it. I decided not to take life advice from someone who writes, about a two-year-old child: “I picked him bodily off the playground structure, and threw him thirty feet down the field. No, I didn’t. But it would have been better for him if I had.” It’s a ‘joke’, but it’s a weird joke. I believe he thinks this over-aggression makes him seem dominant and powerful; in reality, a grown man getting so furious at…
> This is the lobster equivalent of Fifty Shades of Grey, the fastest-selling paperback of all time, There is something strange about that book being so popular. I think one can argue that women have been socialized to want aggressive men so that becomes a common fantasy vs it's a biologically based phenomenon. I wonder if there is a way to compare how popular the book is in relation to how strongly stereotypical the…
> I think one can argue that women have been socialized to want aggressive men so that becomes a common fantasy vs it's a biologically based phenomenon
Or it's just a popular form of easily consumable 'taboo'. No need to theorize about women secretly wanting violent relationships when there's a much simpler explanation on the table.
Re: Ask HN: What are good resources for life advice?
#127I was going to suggest Dr. Peterson, but Ctrl+F revealed a veritable graveyard of downvoted comments about him already. That's too bad. So I'll go with Steve Pavlina's [0] work instead. Steve Pavlina's blog is a mix of solid personal development advice mixed with a journal of his self experimentation. His most interesting work is on belief systems, and on deliberately installing new belief systems to improve your lif…
I disliked Peterson before it was cool. He's just a charlatan taking advantaged of disfranchised young white men like every other pseudo alt-right movement.
Re: Ask HN: What are good resources for life advice?
#128Go out and explore the world and try meet interesting people ;) no better resource then that
Re: Ask HN: What are good resources for life advice?
#129Earlier quoted context omitted.
On the other hand, someone here mentioned Viktor Frankl, who had been through a lot worse than what Aaron Swartz faced, and survived. Which one of them is more qualified to give life advice?
Both are qualified to give life advice based on their experiences. In fact, others are also qualified. Good life advice usually stems from struggles that one has gone through. There doesn’t need to be a scale or measure on who is more qualified.
What if you need to choose only one?
Re: Ask HN: What are good resources for life advice?
#130Not sure if spending time on life advice is better than on life itself.
By reading such resources and articles, I learned from the mistakes that the authors painfully learned themselves or observed in their lives. Putting what I learned from them into practice would save me so much time and money, by not repeating those mistakes or at least minimize them. They are my mentors across different space and time.
What makes you think you would have repeated those mistakes?