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Ask HN: Name one idea that changed your life

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Re: Ask HN: Name one idea that changed your life

#701

Post by rkangel »

dgritsko wrote: post #700

"It is always better to not have a problem than to mitigate it", from this article that John Carmack wrote several years back[1]. In the context of the article it feels almost like a throwaway line, but I've found it to be deeply profound and it has since affected how I choose potential solutions in almost any situation. Should I do the "quick fix" (mitigating a problem), or would it be better if the problem _didn't…

This is a great line in the C/C++ vs higher level language debate on memory safety.

Re: Ask HN: Name one idea that changed your life

#702

Post by veets »

My wife once told me "no one wants to listen to you talk" when I was preparing to give a speech. It is obvious now, but I had never really thought about it. Her point wasn't that no one cares about what I have to say but that when I am done talking no one will think "I wish he would have talked longer."

When I interact with others, I try to spend most of my time understanding their viewpoint rather than talking at them about my viewpoint.

Re: Ask HN: Name one idea that changed your life

#703

Post by tim333 »

317070 wrote: post #608

"Life is unfair." Simple, but for me it was an important insight. I used to think I deserved things, and now I know that while that might be true, you still need to be assertive to get them. There is no karma or divine intervention which will put a finger on the balance to make sure everything in life (love, friends, opportunities, adventure) is shared equally. And it goes multiple ways. First, don't expect life to b…

Also it can be unfair in positive ways - you can get better than you deserve.

Re: Ask HN: Name one idea that changed your life

#704

Post by ignoramous »

jacobush wrote: post #601
endymi0n wrote: post #573

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Parent seems to refer to taste _being in the way_ of learning (not the lack of it) and I definitely get the sentiment. Sometimes I catch myself thinking about the stuff I could have learned when I was young: I had a C64 and I could have learned assembly programming, if I just had met anyone with an actual disk of an assembler program and my library had a book about it, nothing of which was the case. But then again, i…

Or in my case, likely distracted by some random stuff on youtube.

It is best of times, it is the worst of times.

There's so much educational content on YouTube, I envy my brother who has access to courses from CMU, MIT, and Stanford, and countless other presentations he can learn from. Kids, on the other hand...have it worse, ironically, when they should be the ones benefitting the most from all the accelerated learning on offer.

Re: Ask HN: Name one idea that changed your life

#706

Post by gfodor »

fredsir wrote: post #499
gfodor wrote: post #167

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Being born into wealth helps, but it also hurts. If you have something to lose, its harder to take risks. Elon put all of his wealth on the line for SpaceX and almost lost it. Anyone, from him down to the person who scrapes together pennies to start a risky business to make a better life for themselves, deserves respect for taking risks to achieve their dreams.

Elon knows that money is something he can always get, because he has gotten them before. Also his family is rich. He knows that worst case is he goes to them and get some millions and back to work again. Rich people aren’t taking any real risks by using their money. The people taking the real risks are those putting their lives and livelihood on the line every day, doing the dangerous, back breaking, mind numbing wor…

Yes, I’m aware of this meme, which echoes loudly on twitter, yet it’s still wrong.

Re: Ask HN: Name one idea that changed your life

#707

Post by momokoko »

silveroriole wrote: post #540
aazaa wrote: post #193

Favor interrogative-led questions over leading questions. A leading question attempts to get the listener to agree or disagree with a premise you feed to them. An interrogative-led question often begins with the words: who; where; what; when; why. Imagine the responses to these two questions: - "Did you like the movie?" (Leading) - "What did you think about the movie?" (Interrogative-led) How do each of these questio…

I assume people are meant to find the second question easier to answer? But I don’t know why. The first gives you some vital information for pulling this interaction off successfully. It tells you the speaker liked the movie (or hated it, depending on tone of voice), so you’d better think about how vehemently you want to disagree with them. The second sounds like a trap! If you say “boy, it sucked!” and the speaker l…

The point is to shift conversations from opinion to insight.

Instead of getting someone’s opinion about something, which is ultimately subjective and of little benefit, you are trying to get unique insights into the subject that you may have not considered which can be very beneficial.

Re: Ask HN: Name one idea that changed your life

#708

Post by jlengrand »

For me it was this : (job) interviews are not a one-sided judgment of your worth and value as a person where you have to do your best to convince the party, but a discussion of whether what the opposite side is searching for is in line with what you have to offer as a person / company.

It's not obvious at all, especially early in your career but it has really changed the way I handle interviews in very positive ways. It's OK to get refused, it's even expected actually. And even if it doesn't work out today, taking the meeting with proper framing can bring opportunities further down the road. Some friends are now hired in positions I was chased for, and it's a win :).

Kalzumeus has been an inspiration for me on all those things couple years back : https://www.kalzumeus.com/2012/01/23/salary-negotiation/

Re: Ask HN: Name one idea that changed your life

#709

Post by paganel »

darkerside wrote: post #674
paganel wrote: post #667

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's easier to believe that when the person saying that grew up in a system where there was no effective penury, where serious economists/experts used to say (and still do) "relax, not everything is a zero-sum game" (which it's how I imagine most of the Western economies/societies view themselves, i.e. as non-zero sum games). But I for example grew up in a society (Eastern Europe before 1989) where my dad had to wake…

You're right. Those environments exist. Most of us who can sign onto HN and post comments are not in those environments. If you still act like you are, you'll be left behind by your peers who cooperate with each other, treat their superiors as partners, and give generously to those who need help. It's simple game theory. The prisoners dilemma has multiple equilibria, but you don't find the optimal one unless you take…

> It's simple game theory. The prisoners dilemma has multiple equilibria, but you don't find the optimal one unless you take the less rational choice once in a while.

I also agree it's simple game theory, but ignoring the HN audience for a moment you're probably assuming that the non-zero sum situation will still continue to hold at a society-wide scale for large parts of the world (at least for the "former" Western world).

The present covid crisis has proven that to be false, what with countries/states members of the same political union (the EU, different US States) fighting for limited medical resources in the early stages of the pandemic. We'll probably end up in similar scenarios if and when the climate crisis will worsen, reducing the availability for resources for many of us.

Re: Ask HN: Name one idea that changed your life

#710

Post by abj »

cheezebubba wrote: post #349
abj wrote: post #85

The Elephant in the Brain A lot of common ideas about education, charity and laughter (we laugh because something is funny) are evolutionary useful lies we tell ourselves. "But while we humans often play by ourselves (e.g., with Legos), recall that we laugh mostly in the presence of others. So what communicative purpose does laughter serve in the context of play? Gregory Bateson, a British anthropologist, figured it…

This book shows that many of our institutions have both visible, socially-respected goals, but also hidden goals nobody likes to acknowledge. Example: Health Care Visible goal: Improve Health Hidden goal: Show how much we care ("kiss the booboo") This explains why much of health care is devoted to high-cost high-visibility interventions (like bypass surgery) and much less to lifestyle interventions (like diet/exercis…

This is a much better summary
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