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Ask HN: What has your work taught you that other people don't realize?

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Re: Ask HN: What has your work taught you that other people don't realize?

#421

Post by thisisbrians »

celticmusic wrote: post #411
muzani wrote: post #114

Everything is a system. The economy, society, relationships, nature, traffic. You don't need math to reverse engineer a system. You just need to pay attention to it. You can say the right words to make a date happy. You can figure out which lane is the fastest route, better than Google Maps can. You don't need an app or data - your brain is a wonderful data processing machine. Don't be angry at the people who are ben…

> Everything is a system. The economy, society, relationships, nature, traffic. This very much screams "when all you have is a hammer, everything looks like a nail" to me.

A hammer and a nail is also a system.

In all seriousness, though — what alternative do you propose? When nothing seems to violate the laws of physics, we can make sense of things using our understanding of those laws.

Re: Ask HN: What has your work taught you that other people don't realize?

#423

Post by notduncansmith »

davnicwil wrote: post #347
muzani wrote: post #114

Everything is a system. The economy, society, relationships, nature, traffic. You don't need math to reverse engineer a system. You just need to pay attention to it. You can say the right words to make a date happy. You can figure out which lane is the fastest route, better than Google Maps can. You don't need an app or data - your brain is a wonderful data processing machine. Don't be angry at the people who are ben…

> Don't be angry at the people who are benefiting from a system, or at the system itself. Most just end up that way, the same way a river meanders towards the sea This is absolutely brilliant, going to favourite it and steal your quote! The only thing I'd contribute is to also think about the system from your perspective, wherever you've ended up. Zoom out. Think about how you got here. How much of it is truly delibe…

> Think about how you got here.

I would add that, when asking yourself questions, make sure it’s your intellect and not your ego answering. They’re part of the same machine, but sometimes they give very different responses to the same question. Be suspicious of any answer that’s easy to accept.

Re: Ask HN: What has your work taught you that other people don't realize?

#424

Post by JadeNB »

52-6F-62 wrote: post #307
pryelluw wrote: post #268

Earlier quoted context omitted.

To a poet everything rhymes.

Yet rhyming poetry is a relatively modern form. Who said that line?

It's the "every problem is a nail" statement in slightly different guise.

Re: Ask HN: What has your work taught you that other people don't realize?

#425

Post by celticmusic »

nkrisc wrote: post #327

How important it is to be able to inhabit another person's viewpoint and see things from their perspective. So much time and effort is saved in doing so. Much of my job has become translating and mediating between stakeholders going around in circles, because each one believes their viewpoint represents the entirety of the issue. They can not understand one another because they assume the other understands everything…

this post is a bit of an oxymoron to me.

You say you're great at seeing other perspectives, but then you dehumanize them by calling them stakeholders (a term that is the new "resource").

They're people. Call them people.

Re: Ask HN: What has your work taught you that other people don't realize?

#426

Post by prometheus76 »

roenxi wrote: post #103
collyw wrote: post #65

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Having worked filling shelves in a supermarket, I disagree that it applies to every field.

People can master nearly anything and stand out; boring physical labour is actually one where there are obvious things to be amazing it. It may not earn people a pay raise, but there will be a noticeable and impressive difference between an expert shelf-stacker and someone killing time for money. That being said there are a lot of jobs where I have difficulty imagining what mastery looks like; say in an automated, lo…

When I was a young man, I was working at a children's museum, and one of our guests got sick by the front door. I was dispatched to clean it up. While cleaning, (no customers were around at the time), I flippantly said, "Where's the dignity in this?" An elderly woman who was working as a volunteer at the museum overheard me and said, "The only dignity a job has is the dignity you bring to it."

Re: Ask HN: What has your work taught you that other people don't realize?

#427

Post by muzani »

shantly wrote: post #405
muzani wrote: post #165

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I've done all kinds of jobs. I'd take a 14 hour physical labor job over a 8 hour mental labor job anytime. Mental labor is painful... in the form that stalling the main thread of something is. But that's data entry. Development is much less mental labor, and I'd agree with the 4-5 hours/day assessment. Most people can't actually do this, which is why a lot of people hate math. Math class is dealing with intense focus…

I'd put the desirability hierarchy something like this, best to worst: 1) mixed labor (mental, physical) 2) moderate, varied physical labor 3) jobs that are mostly just being present and don't make you pretend to work most of the time 4) mental labor 5) jobs that are mostly just being present but do make you pretend to work most of the time 6) repetitive moderate physical labor 7) repetitive sedentary labor 8) hard p…

Yeah, I think the repetitive part is what drives us crazy.

The worst jobs are probably done by prison labor and slaves. 8, I would actually classify as dangerous labor, things like how prisoners are made to peel garlic which corrodes their fingernails and teeth.

Re: Ask HN: What has your work taught you that other people don't realize?

#428

Post by TallGuyShort »

celticmusic wrote: post #411
muzani wrote: post #114

Everything is a system. The economy, society, relationships, nature, traffic. You don't need math to reverse engineer a system. You just need to pay attention to it. You can say the right words to make a date happy. You can figure out which lane is the fastest route, better than Google Maps can. You don't need an app or data - your brain is a wonderful data processing machine. Don't be angry at the people who are ben…

> Everything is a system. The economy, society, relationships, nature, traffic. This very much screams "when all you have is a hammer, everything looks like a nail" to me.

It's a bit like saying everything can be modeled. What do economists, biologists, and traffic engineers increasingly use to do their work? Models. An awful lot of things are actually nail-like for this particular hammer.

Applying it to relationships and society feels like a slippery slope. People are still people. But there's definitely cases where the analogy is useful, and maybe even spot-on.

Re: Ask HN: What has your work taught you that other people don't realize?

#429

Post by aksx »

anotheryou wrote: post #262
muzani wrote: post #114

Everything is a system. The economy, society, relationships, nature, traffic. You don't need math to reverse engineer a system. You just need to pay attention to it. You can say the right words to make a date happy. You can figure out which lane is the fastest route, better than Google Maps can. You don't need an app or data - your brain is a wonderful data processing machine. Don't be angry at the people who are ben…

how do you think about politics and capitalism than? can the system still be simplified enough to grasp it well enough to change it? where would an individual who has grasped it find the power to change anything? capitalism seems super stable for now one of the most sad thoughts I heard: if you try to change the system to the better you might keep it from hitting the wall and actually stabilize it

Capitalism is the way a system set of connections between subsystems and politics is a way to reorganize a system from within itself.

> can the system still be simplified enough to grasp it well enough to change it?

That would be a model of a system not the system itself, and as George box said "All models are wrong, but some are useful"

> where would an individual who has grasped it find the power to change anything?

If an individual is able to change connections between subsystems, they can change the behavior of the higher level system. But the impact of the change is dependent on the systems being changed.

Re: Ask HN: What has your work taught you that other people don't realize?

#430

Post by ameister14 »

Psyladine wrote: post #371
muzani wrote: post #114

Everything is a system. The economy, society, relationships, nature, traffic. You don't need math to reverse engineer a system. You just need to pay attention to it. You can say the right words to make a date happy. You can figure out which lane is the fastest route, better than Google Maps can. You don't need an app or data - your brain is a wonderful data processing machine. Don't be angry at the people who are ben…

>If you don't fix a system, few will. Most people are reactive to it and try to live with it as background noise. I'd add: If you want to know why a system remains broken, look to who profits by its brokenness.

It's not always who profits - often it's who will it cost to fix it and generally what will the effects of fixing it be. Inertia is powerful, so perceived cost will result in people who are actively harmed by a broken system deciding they don't want it fixed.
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