Ask HN: Does reading HN ever make you feel like shit? • Hacker News Board

Re: Ask HN: Does reading HN ever make you feel like shit?

#81

Post by baxter » Thu, Jul 22, 2010, 10:24 AM UTC

photon_off wrote: post #42

galois wrote: post #36

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What makes you think you're talented? You say people have always told you you were a smart kid. Do you have any actual achievements to back this up? I come on here and find that the vast majority of people are well below my intelligence level. I find that this site is basically a bunch of talentless wantrepreneurial pundits. I come on here to test my patience with idiotic circlejerks - praise Apple, bash Facebook, on…

I cannot know whether or not you would qualify my abilities as "talent". The way you've constructed your response leads me to believe that if I told you I won the Nobel Prize in Javascript, you'd list stupid things that Nobel Prize winners have done. Even if this site is mostly "talentless wantrepreneurial pundits," which has some truth to it, you're not the slightest bit overwhelmed at the amount of high quality inf…

My awesome comment counter just went up by one.

Re: Ask HN: Does reading HN ever make you feel like shit?

#82

Post by patio11 » Thu, Jul 22, 2010, 10:25 AM UTC

I would suggest competng with yourself rather than other people. I cannot write a fuzzer in C, have conversations in French, or buy a house with my petty cash. Many here can do these things. I can, however, totally paste the 25 year old me in web app programming, marketing, etc. Start pasting yesterday's you today.

Re: Ask HN: Does reading HN ever make you feel like shit?

#83

Post by jonny_noog » Thu, Jul 22, 2010, 10:29 AM UTC

malkia wrote: post #2

Yes, but I don't care. Please come to the video game industry :) There is always need of someone that knows MySQL, LAMP, etc.

Please come to the video game industry :) There is always need of someone that knows MySQL, LAMP, etc.

That's actually news to me... interesting. So there's still a lot of demand for web sites/apps created in support of games, or are these technologies being used in less obvious and more embedded ways?

Re: Ask HN: Does reading HN ever make you feel like shit?

#84

Post by binarymax » Thu, Jul 22, 2010, 10:39 AM UTC

mian2zi3 wrote: post #54

Yes, but for the opposite reason. I usually walk away wondering why I wasted my time here when I could have been learning something or, even better, creating something.

There is rarely a time when I walk away from HN without having learned something, which is why I continue to visit.

Re: Ask HN: Does reading HN ever make you feel like shit?

#85

Post by c00kie » Thu, Jul 22, 2010, 10:41 AM UTC

revorad wrote: post #76

I used to think like that, especially when I hung out on LessWrong ( http://lesswrong.com ). Then I decided my aim in life is not to be the best at everything as an individual. My aim in life is to do great and useful things, on my own or with help from others. Once I started seeing things in that way, it became really exciting to find so many people, much more intelligent and talented than me. I can learn from them,…

Look at the last post on lesswrong.com, they seem to agree :)

Re: Ask HN: Does reading HN ever make you feel like shit?

#86

Post by matrixownsyou » Thu, Jul 22, 2010, 10:41 AM UTC

I felt the same way until i read a post from a HN user about "being mediocre and it's OK". Not being a rocket scientist doesn't mean i can't build great stuff too, i'll just never do something like this :) http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9u0qlIoSSkQ

Re: Ask HN: Does reading HN ever make you feel like shit?

#87

Post by c00p3r » Thu, Jul 22, 2010, 10:47 AM UTC

The same mantra - launch (yourself) early (fast) and evolve (practice!). ^_^ Just do it.

The goal is to develop a proper habits (of focusing and concentration) and increase self-esteem through them. Practice makes you "perfect".

Most of those people just started early and spent more time practicing. ^_^

Re: Ask HN: Does reading HN ever make you feel like shit?

#88

Post by sgt » Thu, Jul 22, 2010, 11:26 AM UTC

sidyadav wrote: post #15

The way I look at it, I'm just glad that there people somewhat like me who are doing, working on, and talking about smart things, and some of them who are succeeding. You have to realize, the kind of people that hangout on this site are fairly similar: they have entrepreneurial aspirations (and drive -- or they would be reading more fun/non-practical news sites like Reddit and Digg), most of them can design or code o…

Hear hear.

Re: Ask HN: Does reading HN ever make you feel like shit?

#89

Post by gawker » Thu, Jul 22, 2010, 11:34 AM UTC

Hey there,

On the contrary, I feel rather inspired by the audience of Hacker News. Reading stories about how people have done it, the mistakes they've learnt and their advice has given me renewed confidence in myself to go out and do it. Typically people who are successful are normally those we see on tv but reading the success stories and just how brilliant people there are on here, it's a true inspiration. HN is probably my most favourite place on the web hands down. Thanks to all of you! It keeps me humbled - never ever think that I am fantastic at something or even if I am, there are other people out there that can do just as well and I should never ever brag or boast about it. HN keeps me grounded and keeps me driving. I love it.

Re: Ask HN: Does reading HN ever make you feel like shit?

#90

Post by chegra » Thu, Jul 22, 2010, 11:35 AM UTC

I try to run my own race. I generally see HN as a place to assess what moves I can make giving my ability and background. I talk about it in my Queen Theory blog post: http://chegra.posterous.com/the-queen-theory

For me it's a pleasure to see so many people doing awesome things, cause it implies I can too.

To put some numbers behind it, having an IQ greater than 120 does nothing to improve someones chances of winning a Nobel prize. I think it's the same thing here, it's a matter of just choosing something to work on.