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Ask HN: What's the most life-changing blog post you've ever read?
81–90 of 118 posts
Re: Ask HN: What's the most life-changing blog post you've ever read?
#82This is Water by David Foster Wallace https://fs.blog/david-foster-wallace-this-is-water/
This was a great read. The guy who wrote the Cracked article linked above should probably read this.
Re: Ask HN: What's the most life-changing blog post you've ever read?
#83Earlier quoted context omitted.
I think they predate that by a lot, and I don't think it was anything to do with the ultra wealthy. IMO people talking about political correctness often miss an important point though: that what's believed to be acceptable is largely derived from an actual philosophy that is changing over time, which develops and evolved as society processes new ideas in the background. That processing happens online and in communiti…
Respectfully, I think your take that this "has nothing to do with the ultra wealthy" is exceptionally naive. We know with absolute certainty that much worse atrocities happen in places like Russia and China. What makes you think that the US is immune to that kind of thing? We don't have quite the same problems and they aren't so obvious. But every once in a while, the curtain comes down and you get to see how things…
I'm not saying there aren't, like, various propaganda machines meddling with society. Just that people underestimate the power of dynamical systems to do things without coordinated action. Ideas coordinate on their own with requiring some sort of agent to be "pulling the strings".
> don't forget that democracy is something you fight for every day.
No it's not? Democracy is a steady state that we mostly ignore every day. Over time it tends off course and when it gets too astray we correct it.
Re: Ask HN: What's the most life-changing blog post you've ever read?
#84ADHD - A Lifelong Struggle https://gekk.info/articles/adhd.html This article made me question if the author was describing my life rather than their own, so I went and got checked for ADHD. 2 years, a diagnosis, and a medication regime later, I'm absolutely fucking slaying it and it was this article that sparked the change.
Ditto for me! I find meds efficacy kind of wanes once my brain gets used to it, but even just knowing led to a big shift in how well others can support me and make adjustments that make all the difference.
Re: Ask HN: What's the most life-changing blog post you've ever read?
#85Earlier quoted context omitted.
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.
It really does. How should the world change so that your "thoughts and prayers" make meaningful impact? They are meaningless things that religious people tell themselves make an impact, when it's the people handing out food that stops starvation not "thoughts and prayers". Why the hell should I hire you when you want to learn Python but haven't done anything, when I can find people who can show they understand the fu…
Did you stop reading after the first sentence then dive into a diatribe?
Considering people as only being valuable if they can do something for tou is something you don’t have to do.
You aren’t going to change all of society, but you can change what you do.
Re: Ask HN: What's the most life-changing blog post you've ever read?
#86Earlier quoted context omitted.
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 consideri…
I don’t have to change society to make the world a better place, though.
Just because someone else doesn’t care if Randy is a good dad or Jane is a pleasant person to interact with doesn’t mean that I’m limited from caring. Life doesn’t have to be transactional, we are encouraged to live that way - but there is no law of nature that says you have to not give a shit about people unless they can do something for you, there’s no law of nature that says you cannot appreciate people’s efforts.
This stuff really isn’t that hard.
Re: Ask HN: What's the most life-changing blog post you've ever read?
#87https://www.mrmoneymustache.com/2012/01/13/the-shockingly-si...
This is exactly the post I was going to mention.
Now, at age 41, for some reason I can't stand his writing, which I find pugnacious and lacking self-reflection. But at the time in my 20s, his classic early posts on MMM hit me just at the right time, and made such a deep impression on me.
Possibly his writing style is highly effective at introducing a new unfamiliar perspective.
Re: Ask HN: What's the most life-changing blog post you've ever read?
#88The Almanack of Naval Ravikanth. https://www.navalmanack.com/ I count Ravikanth as one of my gurus. From working as a professor in a medical school to starting up a small microSaaS, I attribute it all to Ravikanth who condensed everything one needs to know into a few tweets, followed by its expansion on his podcast. Now, I preach seeking of Specific Knowledge to all my students and the principle of leveraging bots th…
Where's the blog post? I just see an ad for a book.
Re: Ask HN: What's the most life-changing blog post you've ever read?
#89Re: Ask HN: What's the most life-changing blog post you've ever read?
#90https://www.cracked.com/blog/6-harsh-truths-that-will-make-y...
How has that worked out for you? To me, having a boss that screams "Close or you're fired!" is having a shitty job. Having an internal voice that screams "Close or you have no value!" is having a shitty life.