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Ask HN: What to avoid in life?

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Re: Ask HN: What to avoid in life?

#71

Post by decasteve »

malux85 wrote: post #12

Student loans. I understand it’s difficult, especially when you’re conditioned to get one since the conversation about college starts when you’re young, but I took one look at it. Saw it was going to be six figure sums, and said no way. Much to the horror of my siblings, parents, friends etc. Got a job doing help desk and within a year taught myself programming in spare time and landed a well paying job as a develope…

A big student loan is a terrible consequence for someone who’s looking to figure out what they want to do in life. There are better, less expensive, ways.

On the other hand, if you know what you want to do in life, and you can’t stand not pursuing it, don’t let a student loan stand in your way.

Re: Ask HN: What to avoid in life?

#74

Post by arcticbull »

sillysaurusx wrote: post #63
kabdib wrote: post #27

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I had a manager at Microsoft -- I called him a "practice manager" because he had little experience managing and was just given a handful of people to wrangle -- and it was absolutely miserable. He interfered with my technical decisions, undermined me in meetings, and did a really shitty job defending me in stack rankings. At one point, after he refused to supply me with a workstation that would work ("That's the comp…

You gave him a bad reference? That’s one of the more hurtful things you can do to someone. They were looking forward to the job, and companies have all the power. I sure hope he deserved it. After thinking it over, I think what’s happening is that you’ve never been in a position where you need a reference to get hired. I mean need , as in “I literally don’t have anyone available except them.” Being in that position j…

Some folks are actively harmful to an organization, and you certainly don’t owe one of them a positive review. Without knowing more, I mean, it sounds like the manager was digging pretty deep for references, meaning they were probably bad at their subsequent jobs too.

Finding a reference involves finding a single solitary human at your old job who didn’t outright hate you. If it’s that hard I mean...

Re: Ask HN: What to avoid in life?

#76

Post by morninglight »

Avoid taking "advice" from anonymous people on the internet. For example, let's say someone told you that coronavirus can survive for extended periods outside of a living body, and therefore, any packages you receive from China could be a health risk. Should you filter out this "advice"? Well, if it is just "advice", then you should look for substantiation. Without proof, it has little or no value. Now can someone tell me what to do with the package sitting on my front porch (please provide references).

Re: Ask HN: What to avoid in life?

#77

Post by c0restraint »

titanomachy wrote: post #34
malux85 wrote: post #12

Student loans. I understand it’s difficult, especially when you’re conditioned to get one since the conversation about college starts when you’re young, but I took one look at it. Saw it was going to be six figure sums, and said no way. Much to the horror of my siblings, parents, friends etc. Got a job doing help desk and within a year taught myself programming in spare time and landed a well paying job as a develope…

I loved learning math and physics with motivated peers and experts to guide us. I'm quite sure I would not have been able to learn the things I did on my own. I'm not sure what I would have done if I lived in a country with education as expensive as you describe. I hope that the US can find a way to help bright and motivated young people have a similar experience without taking on crippling debt.

Some community colleges in the US are $100-300 per course, and they offer most of those same core math & physics courses, without the crippling debt.

Re: Ask HN: What to avoid in life?

#78

Post by tempestn »

mojuba wrote: post #9

- Avoid borrowing money, be it in the form of credit cards or even worse, mortgage. I know this is not something you want to hear if you are on a mortgage deal already. But borrowing can limit your freedom in ways that are not immediately obvious. You trade your freedom for illusory prosperity. That said, a business loan for your business may not be such a bad idea. - If your plan is to become an entrepreneur, start…

Avoid credit card and other interest debt yes. But a blanket ban on mortgage debt is foolish. Sometimes it makes more sense to buy and sometimes to rent; there are multiple factors to consider to determine which is better. But there's nothing wrong with a mortgage when buying within one's means and when buying makes sense. (IE reasonable price to rent ratio, no plans to move for say 5+ years, etc.)

Re: Ask HN: What to avoid in life?

#80

Post by CM30 »

Renting.

Okay, I know that's not possible for everything. Renting a home is virtually a must in places with high housing prices, and a mortgsge is often needed when buying a house.

But in 95% of cases, renting something is a worse deal than buying it outright, and will leave you worse off as a result.

1. It's more expensive, especially in the long run. There's a reason so many companies have gone with the whole 'SaaS' model, and that's because it costs the customer a lot more to keep shelling out cash month on month.

2. It's a liability if you run into financial difficulties, since you have to either stop using said thing, or keep paying money you might not have/might need for more important things. Actual property can be sold instead.

3. And it's a security risk/livelihood risk that can be targeted by your enemies. The only reason stuff like cancel culture even 'works' is because so many companies would rather save their own reputation than stand by their csutomers, and because that can be exploited against others.

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