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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?

#741

Post by muzani »

glitcher wrote: post #535
muzani wrote: post #174

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Ejector seat account (or financial freedom as some call it), might not be the solution. Flow is still everyone's main source of happiness. There's the "dark horse" path that few follow: https://lsi.gse.harvard.edu/dark-horse

That project page is really short on details. I'm left wondering when did it start, what the projected "long-term" target might be, how the results are going to be compiled, and if any of the data collected so far might be available. Any idea if there is more info somewhere online without having to email the professor?

Oh, the book is here: https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0062683632/

I use the page as a directory for people who have gone down unique paths. Then see what they have done.

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

#742

Post by muzani »

kazagistar wrote: post #512
davnicwil wrote: post #347

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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…

I mean if a system is bad and anger helps to change it for the better, then it seems like that's fine. Anger, outrage, etc are all systems as well, that you shouldn't be "angry" at, right? The rejection of the utility of emotion is itself irrational.

Anger is a way for your body to pool resources for a fight. It destroys the body in a sense, for short term gain. If you do not act upon that anger, it becomes less effective, and only serves to sabotage yourself. Save the anger for actual wars you intend to fight.

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

#743

Post by muzani »

ploxolo wrote: post #575
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…

This is key! I think one thing that is missed is that the systems that exist at a given point in time tend to be successful (at least in a Darwinian sense of the word) and stable. >The same way a river meanders towards the sea This is something to keep in mind when trying to change it. What if the aspect you are trying to change is key to its continued existence as a successful system? It probably will resist this as…

The river metaphor is appropriate here. Many people adjust systems to fit their needs, not necessarily the needs of others within it.

Often you can just add a 'plugin' or 'extension' to it without modifying the system, to extract more out of it but not change it. Ironically, when too many attempt to simply patch it, that's what causes real changes.

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

#745

Post by crimsonalucard »

ncmncm wrote: post #720
shadowprofile77 wrote: post #696

Earlier quoted context omitted.

For your first part, define "unfairly". A billionaire or multimillionaire might be benefitting from many advantages in life that others didn't get but this does not negate their capacity to organize capital and labor in a way that creates a business which otherwise wouldn't exist in the first place to give jobs to all those workers. This is not something just anyone or some collective of workers can pull out of a hat…

You can tell it is unfair just by the outcome. It doesn't matter how clever you are or how hard you work, you are not personally creating 10,000 times as much value as the next bozo. You lucked into a good deal, and the only moral behavior is to spread the good luck around. You cannot manage a big income without creating or supporting some number of jobs, so there is no virtue on it.

Even when they "lucked" into it, you have to think about the actual physical creation of that wealth and the fact that it cannot be created by one man.

Taking unclaimed gold sitting on the ground untouched by anyone is luck.

Taking 10 billion dollars sitting on the ground is not just luck. Other people had to create that wealth with their work and for you to own it means you are taking it from them.

10 billion dollars compared to the amount of work a human can output in his lifetime is obscene in scale. Anyone who owns that much money might as well have "taken" it from the ground as no amount of work from one man can justify that much wealth.

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

#746

Post by crimsonalucard »

shadowprofile77 wrote: post #696
crimsonalucard wrote: post #684

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Let me be frank. If you are a plutocrat, you are at fault. You are at fault because you have the ability to redistribute your wealth which you know was unfairly gained. No amount of work by a single person can generate the wealth possessed by the top 0.1%, for someone to be that rich you had to have people work for you and you have to exploit their work and take an unfair share. That is reality. The people who benefi…

For your first part, define "unfairly". A billionaire or multimillionaire might be benefitting from many advantages in life that others didn't get but this does not negate their capacity to organize capital and labor in a way that creates a business which otherwise wouldn't exist in the first place to give jobs to all those workers. This is not something just anyone or some collective of workers can pull out of a hat…

>As for the second part in italics, the idea that a middle class somehow can exist at all before a capitalist economy developed is absurd. Other parts of that quote are emotional dreck and as for said "plutocrats" being job creators, well, in many cases this is exactly what they are, whether you like it or not. This doesn't mean they're above criticism, but cheap, populist class warfare arguments are no good solution to anything economic or social.

It is emotional dreck, I'll give you that but that's not the important part of the quote and that's not why I posted it.

The important part of the quote is that the person saying it, is a plutocrat himself.

Watch the video.

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

#747

Post by ncmncm »

crimsonalucard wrote: post #745
ncmncm wrote: post #720

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You can tell it is unfair just by the outcome. It doesn't matter how clever you are or how hard you work, you are not personally creating 10,000 times as much value as the next bozo. You lucked into a good deal, and the only moral behavior is to spread the good luck around. You cannot manage a big income without creating or supporting some number of jobs, so there is no virtue on it.

Even when they "lucked" into it, you have to think about the actual physical creation of that wealth and the fact that it cannot be created by one man. Taking unclaimed gold sitting on the ground untouched by anyone is luck. Taking 10 billion dollars sitting on the ground is not just luck. Other people had to create that wealth with their work and for you to own it means you are taking it from them. 10 billion dollar…

Yes. Besides blinding amounts of luck, billions also need a heavy admixture of coercion. Microsoft didn't just luck into its monopoly, it also maintained it through decades of strong-arm anti-competitive abuses. Amazon has driven tens of thousands of small, local businesses into the ground, and continues abusing its employees. It would be very easy for Amazon to treat its employees well, but it chooses not to. It would be somewhat less easy to root out counterfeit merchandise, but it instead participates in deceiving its customers. Is that luck? Hard work?

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

#749

Post by mnsc »

dang wrote: post #724
mnsc wrote: post #699

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You are not the OP my reply was directed to but I'll answer your question. > Have you ever told a woman, after coitus, how you ran the same Game on them that you've run dozens of times before? ... They'll usually just laugh it off / not take it seriously. Nope. But to my defense I haven't had a single ONS so I don't know how my bedside talk would be in that situation. I don't see myself as a dick so I don't think I w…

Please don't respond to a bad comment with a worse one, especially not by crossing into personal attack. Doing that helps nothing. https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html

Those guidelines are the best on the internet and has stopped me from writing many comments! But sometimes still someone ticks me the wrong way and I venture down to the low levels and fight the ogres ogre-way. When that happens I usually feel appropriately ashamed and quit internet a couple of days to be able to return with the energy required to follow the guidelines again!

Thank you for your patience/work!

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

#750

Post by crimsonalucard »

triangleman wrote: post #748

Hey man, I had a great retort for your self-loathing comment on that climate change thread. And then you went and deleted it!

I didn't see it. I deleted my comment because it was getting negative karma and I'm hovering on the borderline right now.
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