Ask HN: What is your biggest problem?

Being unemployed. i have over 2 years experience as a content writer for blogs and websites. But I don't know how to communicate with clients as a freelancer. Currently i have no new projects and is depressed. I live with my father and i do not contribute anything to the monthly budget.

The urge to compulsively check Hacker News.

I have to fix my ADHD cause I can barely work. Think my meds don't work anymore and I'll end up going abroad to buy different ones. (only 1 kind locally)

BD (bipolar disorder) interferes too, can't find stability. Had to change meds (difficulty recalling words & little dumbed down) and just went ~1.5 month depression. Am kinda stable again, but not really normal stable (starting to forget how life was before BD).

Together with those have to fix my NPD personality disorder. Now this is a tough one.

But can't fucking read a fucking NPD book cause of the ADHD. It's complex.

Figuring out how to get back to being a freeloader.

For maybe the last 15 years or so I've been blocking or avoiding ads. uBlock origin is probably the most valuable product I use as well as AdBlock Plus before that. I know I know! I'm morally bankrupt! Thats how people make money on their content. That's what makes the internet go round. But I can't help myself. I just can't stand advertisements. Where I can I pay to avoid ads like Netflix or Youtube Premium I do. But beyond that I've used ad blockers and various tricks over the last decade and a half to nearly completely avoid advertisements in my life. It has been delightful. I feel like I'm happier for it and have saved who knows how much time and attention by doing so. I've always said that for any given service if I couldn't figure out how to block the ads I would just stop using it and read more books or something instead. Short of that there is almost no ceiling for how much I am willing to pay to use an ad-free version of a service.

That strategy has been pretty effective and continues to be today. But whereas the deal used to be "we have content you want, but the trade is that you have to look at our advertisements" it seems like that deal has shifted a bit in the last couple years. Now it's more like "we have the content you want, but it's in a walled garden of really addicting algorithms." So even though I don't see ads on Reddit, Youtube, or whatever - thats no longer enough. I'm still finding my time and attention being taken up by this really addicting content that is optimized for engagement and leaves me no more informed and usually less happy.

The thing is the good content is still out there! In fact there is probably more of it than there ever was even though it doesn't feel that way now. For now I've stopped using reddit and feel much happier for it. I try all these little tricks with Youtube to use it in a way where I don't get sucked into that engagement trap but it's pretty tricky.

All the well known tricks like uninstalling the app and using it in the browser or turning off notifications feel like trying to smoke 3 cigarettes a day or eat just one potato chip. They work moderately well but I often find myself slipping. It's also a constant willpower battle that is it's own drain on time and attention.

I've considered giving up the lot of it like I used to threaten I would do if I couldn't block ads anymore. Just read more books and so on. But I don't want to! What I want is to have my cake and eat it to. I want to go back to being a freeloader where I get the interesting content that I love without paying for it with my time, attention, and well-being, in a labyrinth of engagement.

I want an algorithm blocker that works like an adblocker. Maybe using machine learning to identify content that fits the bill. It seems somewhat unrealistic honestly. I'm not exactly sure what you're training the algorithm on in order to get that. Also maybe ML isn't the path there. Maybe there is another clever way to do it. I'm not sure. But I do think about it from time to time.

Short of that I've also considered trying to shift the sources to sites that have interesting and novel content without being so addictive and negative. Random wikipedia articles or random github repositories, that sort of thing.

Thinking about the biggest problem I have this was the most concrete one I could come up with. It's hard to quantify just how much value I would get out of a solution if it was as big of a benefit for me as adblockers have been up to now.

I hope I can feel your pain. I just moved to Austin without GF(s)/FWBs, a friend network, or any social media other than anon posting here and there. I am noticing the females here are more receptive per attractiveness and cool factor compared to the relative to the west coast, but not as much as outlying college towns nearby, and that's okay. I'm looking for more than getting eye f'd "lucky" by a Texas Tech or State cheerleader, unless she's also a microbiology postdoc, reads Vonnegut or Nabokov, or welds reclaimed metal art installations. I can't, and never could, stand party people who do nothing by float down the river of time without delving into anything substantially.

Don't get married unless being together for a long time (10 years plus), require it for legal reasons, and not without a prenup.

Don't let anyone move anything in without a palnup. See also: Bill Maher.

Never see a girl without a condom, and always take it with you.

The tests are, much like a close friend:

1. Would you die for them?

2. Would you kill for them?

3. Do you trust them with your life?

4. Are you better together than apart? (Are they much more beneficial to you than a liability?)

5. After the 3 year mark, do you still miss them the most of anyone? Must get past New Relationship Energy (NRE) to see if there's more than infatuation holding things together.

6. Hopefully, they're within a standard deviation or two of intelligence and have some common interests, but these can be learned and explored together with open-mindedness and willingness to try the unfamiliar.

7. Develop your skills and lifestyle. People who do the bare minimum to satisfy the label of a database administrator and expect to land a supermodel astronaut are woefully unrealistic. For example, I've been restoring a mid 80's VW camper soup-to-nuts except for major bodywork and upholstery fabrication, getting into paramotoring, and looking at dance studios for ballroom dance with the goals of Viennese waltz, dusting-off Argentine tango, and salsa. And I cook like a m'f'cker, which is probably why I need to lose 40 lbs. / 22 kg. of nasty-ass cutaneous fat, cut calories/do IF/up protein, and hit the gym like corona is going to close it forever. :)

Unfortunately, like hiring or investing, there doesn't seem to be a scalable way of pairing people or due-diligencing them thoroughly enough to lead to trust and compatibility. It seems only with focused filtering and meeting say many hundreds people (as the calibration phase of the optimal search strategy algorithm) that there would be enough worthy opportunities to pursue.

->> Ask lots of questions and listen.