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Ask HN: What's the most life-changing blog post you've ever read?

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Re: Ask HN: What's the most life-changing blog post you've ever read?

#71

Post by inglor_cz »

dolni wrote: post #8
jslabovitz wrote: post #3

'A Quick (Battle) Field Guide to the New Culture Wars' https://www.ribbonfarm.com/2018/03/06/a-quick-battle-field-g... Less about the specifics of the battles being mentioned, but rather: 1. Battles can be real even if they don't involve actual physical fighting. If I, like the author of this post, am a pacifist, it's best if I try to stay disengaged or uninvolved. 2. Many people play a certain role in a battle, and…

I think at least some of the battlefronts talked about by this blog post were started by the ultra-wealthy in the US to draw the peasants attention away from Occupy Wall Street. That was the last "big thing" before identity politics took center stage. It pits us all against each other instead of pitting us against the rich. China and Russia are likely responsible for some of these battlefronts, too.

While this is a plausible idea, I wouldn't underestimate other explanations.

Since about forever, some people became preachers or prophets who attracted crowds and destabilized entire empires. That was true even in the days when most people were poor and illiterate.

Current social networks give a lot of platform to such preachers, and find them an ample audience, because controversy drives attention and attention sells ads.

Quite logically, we get a lot more commotion and political radicalism than before such systems came to be.

Re: Ask HN: What's the most life-changing blog post you've ever read?

#72

Post by caminante »

DesiLurker wrote: post #69
thebigspacefuck wrote: post #14

https://www.cracked.com/blog/6-harsh-truths-that-will-make-y...

Meh, the glengerry glen ross one gets forwarded every couple of years by hustle bros. IMO its total BS, its predicated on what I call the 'don't outrun the bear, outrun the fattest camper' ideology. I know this will not be appreciated here, but, the problem with hustle mindset is that as labor you only have your time to trade for money. the hope hustle-bros have is that do it enough and they'll make it to 'capital cl…

Well, you didnt frame it, right.

ABC isn't BS.

It's akin to Agile's "working code over comprehensive documentation."

Hustle porn is a more vague, aspirational grind till you make it. Whereas, ABC tells you to fail fast.

Re: Ask HN: What's the most life-changing blog post you've ever read?

#74

Post by runjake »

piloto_ciego wrote: post #29
cm2012 wrote: post #22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Cracked had some amazing articles

This is a great article, but arguably the world doesn’t have to be this way. We don’t have to accept this as the status quo. Learning to both realize this that this article is true then reject this as “ok” and acceptable is the next step. Sure, other people might not care about all these things, but you can make the world less shitty if you care about those things.

> We don’t have to accept this as the status quo.

I think the challenge here is that we as a society aren't going to reach consensus on this, thereby nullifying the point. As the article mentions, half of the people will take the scene one way, and the other half of people will take it another way.

FWIW, I take it a seemingly opposite way from you, despite not identifying as a "hustler" or "techbro" or even considering myself a "go-getter".

Underneath the societal scaffolds we build on top of it, nature is brutal. It's important to always keep that in mind.

Re: Ask HN: What's the most life-changing blog post you've ever read?

#77

Post by i_am_programmer »

aspenmayer wrote: post #16

How To Be Alone by Tanya Davis https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=k7X7sZzSXYs

Aw that was lovely to watch, thanks for sharing.

I moved to a foreign country a few years ago and I've still not managed to make any friends. I've never had an issue doing things alone but having to do almost everything I find interesting alone was a little sad at first. It still is, but less so.

Re: Ask HN: What's the most life-changing blog post you've ever read?

#78

Post by navane »

navane wrote: post #53
tschwimmer wrote: post #11

Meditations on Moloch: https://slatestarcodex.com/2014/07/30/meditations-on-moloch/

Thank you. The best thing I've read this year, easily. However, halfway the post instead of going all metaphysical and try to create a garden, isn't the logical conclusion that individual gains in the rat race trump any grand plan you might have? Is it about the balance between being the best rat and finding a community to create a garden? If you garden by yourself, isn't that just being a rat with extra steps?

After some more thought, I think the detour that is required before this gets all grand strategy is looking more in depth at the ratting strategy.

All the examples quickly settle on a static state, skipping the inertia of the dynamic state that precedes it. And it is in that dynamic state that the rats manage to get their gains.

There are many steps between "Tim decides not to use the purifier in his fish farm" and "So many people don't use their purifiers so that Tim doesn't have any gains anymore". That takes s long time, and after that it's something else. Because it's not the purifier that sets Tim appart, but his attitude.

I think this is a general trap, where the static state makes something look obvious one way, but the trick is in the dynamics of inertias, and the time it takes to reach the static state.

Re: Ask HN: What's the most life-changing blog post you've ever read?

#79

Post by aspenmayer »

i_am_programmer wrote: post #77
aspenmayer wrote: post #16

How To Be Alone by Tanya Davis https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=k7X7sZzSXYs

Aw that was lovely to watch, thanks for sharing. I moved to a foreign country a few years ago and I've still not managed to make any friends. I've never had an issue doing things alone but having to do almost everything I find interesting alone was a little sad at first. It still is, but less so.

As someone who has had to make friends in new places multiple times, key to me making friends in almost every case were:

finding mentors and work/industry contacts online and IRL and then meeting them socially to see where they go and what interesting things there are to do locally

meeting local journalists, writers, authors, and musicians and going to their shows, events, exhibitions, and sharing tips and scoops

riding public transit, skateboarding, bicycling, and walking around a lot, doing street photography of the environs and interesting people, their fashion, and pets, and generally drumming up a conversation with anyone to get them talking about people in their life, about their own life, their work, their hobbies lived reality, and material conditions

going to makerspaces and hackerspaces, libraries, and basically any large public gathering place/space/event that is even remotely interesting to me or anyone I’d like to meet, and making and breaking stuff in public

It’s basically the FORD method and a numbers game to make the odds work out.

F - family O - occupation R - recreation D - dreams

There’s also one I recently learned called HEFE which is also useful.

H - hobbies E - entertainment F - food E - environment

https://www.reddit.com/r/socialskills/comments/aep2h8/why_fo...

Re: Ask HN: What's the most life-changing blog post you've ever read?

#80

Post by glonq »

runjake wrote: post #70
glonq wrote: post #68

This is from a million years ago, so is technically a 'letter distributed via usenet', not a blog post. I would be impressed if somebody is able to find a copy of it again. Like many young developers, I once aspired to be a game developer. But then I read a public letter by somebody at Origin Systems (possibly named Bill Armintrout?) who explained what a grind it is to work in the game industry and how [humorously] m…

Possibly it, or at least related? https://www.ibiblio.org/GameBytes/issue18/misc/origin.html

That seems to be exactly it. Nice job; thx!
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