Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Improving Ourselves to Death

newyorker.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

91–100 of 109 posts

Re: Improving Ourselves to Death

#91

Post by curun1r »

mziel wrote: post #6
the_greyd wrote: post #2

Very Interesting read. I'm someone who has been reading some self-help literature for the past year. Topics include Mindfulness, Buddhism, Stoicism, Social skills, Positive psychology, Habit forming, Assertiveness. I'm in my early 20s, and I justify this phase as un-learning the coping mechanisms/bad habits I formed in my childhood/teen years. Well intentioned but highly critical parents damaged my self-esteem; I als…

There's a lot of very bad pop-sci books on this topic. Do you mind sharing the ones you read and recommend?

Very Buddhist in nature, but I've really enjoyed everything I've read from Jack Kornfield. "A Path with Heart" is a good place to start.

Re: Improving Ourselves to Death

#92

Post by 0xBA5ED »

adamsea wrote: post #51
0xcde4c3db wrote: post #8

> Duckworth doesn’t think you need talent in order to become, as another of Duhigg’s books puts it, “Smarter Better Faster,” and neither do any of these other experts. According to their systems, anyone can learn to be more efficient, more focussed, more effective in the pursuit of happiness and, that most hallowed of modern traits, productivity. And if you can’t, well, that’s on you. The thing that really gets me ab…

I dunno about the no-consensus thing. It's kind of like saying "there's very little consensus about how to do frontend development with javascript." Well, perhaps in one sense, but in another sense there are some obvious paths (proven frameworks whether Angular, React, Vue, etc, proven and well-documented patterns/approaches - SPA, REST, etc), best practices, and things to avoid. And context matters, of course. When…

I choose to believe coffee is good for me on faith :P

Re: Improving Ourselves to Death

#93

Post by hodgesrm »

walshemj wrote: post #56
hodgesrm wrote: post #33

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Between about 1000 BC and 0 AD it seems as if humans worked out how to get along in life. I'm on your side in following Christian scripture but I think you can use any of the major texts that emerged during that time and get reasonable results. In fact my main beef with self-help programs is that they tend to regurgitate a lot of basic lessons that already exist in ancient texts in cleaner and more direct forms, such…

Have you read any classical history ? Thucydides records death camps in his history of the peloponnesian war.

It does not follow that people necessarily behave, even when they know better. We still have that problem today.

Re: Improving Ourselves to Death

#95

Post by goatlover »

jcadam wrote: post #4

tl;dr - I made it about two paragraphs in before I started skimming. It's a rambling an uninteresting rant against the self-help industry, which ends with a recommendation for another self-help book. I fail to see what point the author is trying to make. What is life but a struggle to become the best person one can be? And who cares if the quest kills us? We're all going to die anyway. What else were you going to do…

> What is life but a struggle to become the best person one can be?

That's one way to look at life. There are many others.

What is life but to raise kids? What is life but to have interesting experiences? What is life but to pursue pleasure? What is life but to have relationships with other people? Etc, etc.

Self improvement is just one goal that could make life meaningful. There are plenty others, and certainly not everyone is interested in self-improvement, or finds it necessary, or even possible in general (you could get in shape but does that really make you a better person?). For example, Ben Franklin tried to self-improve his virtue, but found that has effort didn't succeed.

And anyway, why are you so important that you need to focus so much effort on being better? You can if you want, but why do you need to?

Re: Improving Ourselves to Death

#96

Post by nradov »

coldtea wrote: post #65
nradov wrote: post #61

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You can save time by learning from the mistakes of others. I see no point in failing myself if I can do it right the first time by relying on expert guidance. For some things I do a single major mistake could leave me crippled or dead.

> You can save time by learning from the mistakes of others. Only barely. For important life decisions/paths, people only learn from their own mistakes (and often not even from those). Heck, Computer Science as a field itself forgets its own collected wisdom every new generation hits the market, and re-invents BS that other eras have tried and buried with another fad name. What's even worse, those "self-help" books a…

Speak for yourself. I have certainly learned enough from the mistakes of others to avoid many major mistakes in both life decisions and computer science.

Re: Improving Ourselves to Death

#97

Post by kristofferR »

codingdave wrote: post #90
kristofferR wrote: post #82

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A main one would be a focus on the internal world (self-image, thought processes, confidence, inner peace), Christianity is often too focused on acting correctly instead of thinking correctly/crafting a good personality in my view. Buddhism is stereotypically more focused the other direction. Christian mediation isn't really a thing for example. Please note that I don't want to get into a stupid pedantic discussion a…

> I don't want to get into a stupid pedantic discussion about what Christianity may or may not contain/touch on Except that you clearly don't know all the teachings, so pre-dismissing anyone helping you learn the parts you think are missing seems short-sighted. That being said, you are partly right... In general, Christianity answers the question of "What do I do?", while Buddhism answer "How do I do it?" But there a…

A discussion about whether everything knowable about the universe is already known/that a single source can contain all the wisdom there is?

You're right, I'm not really open to discussing about that and I'll stand by my statement that people who reject new wisdom are intellectually dishonest.

I don't see how being open to new wisdom and science would make someone less spiritually enlightened. However I'm very interested in hearing why you (seem to) think so, that is fascinating to me.

Re: Improving Ourselves to Death

#98

Post by isoskeles »

trowawee wrote: post #40

I'm a little frustrated at the tossed-off reference to Plato and Aristotle at the beginning - "The good life may have sufficed for Plato and Aristotle, but it is no longer enough." - because I feel like that ignores the fact that both Plato and Aristotle, along with a lot of philosophers, actually had a lot to say about physical fitness. Plato was a champion wrestler, and both he and Aristotle viewed physical educati…

I don't think the point of what was written is to say that physical fitness is unimportant and that philosophers thought it was just for jocks. It's rather that we're currently facing an emerging culture of striving for perfection that wanders somewhere between insanity and oppressiveness, that it's often used as a marketing ploy, and that it's perhaps (ironically) not very healthy.

I don't know what it's like where you live, but it's cultish where I am. People aren't just trying to improve themselves, they live for it. It's stifling. I figure it's not quite as bad away from Silicon Valley.

You can't just be a person who likes to try different foods, you have to try all the different foods, accumulate Michelin stars (of food you consume, not produce, of course), learn how to use a sous vide, etc.

You don't just go to the gym, you go to the $250 gym. In your $500 gym outfit. You go every day. And every night. For four hours. You go on a serious food cleanse, etc. etc. Your body is chiseled.

You don't just go to therapy. You go to CBT. You do scream therapy. You do MDMA and LSD therapy (I don't know if that's a thing, I made it up). Go meditating. Go to Burning Man. You're one with the universe. You get the idea.

I'm not going to rewrite the article, but the behavior is real. It's "work hard, play hard", no, work hard, everything hard, to the extreme and logical conclusion. Physical fitness is just one small part of the culture.

Re: Improving Ourselves to Death

#99

Post by skrebbel »

tonystubblebine wrote: post #77
jcoffland wrote: post #54

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> there are a couple of hidden things that contribute to you feeling self-critical that aren't your fault. This is the start of 100s of self-help books. Mainly, IMHO, because it's such an attractive pitch, not because it carries any truth.

Are you saying self-help books criticize you because they think it's in their business interest? Authors may try that. But thankfully, you feeling bad isn't actually good for their business. All of my data on headlines in my publication says the articles always do better if they are framed in the positive rather than in the negative. I'm constantly telling authors not to say they're out to fix you... rather we're her…

I enjoyed reading your comment, but I think the GP meant that many self-help books start by saying "if you feel self-critical, it's actually not your fault".

Re: Improving Ourselves to Death

#100

Post by skrebbel »

stinkytaco wrote: post #16
beat wrote: post #13

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's not "self help", but anything by Alan Watts will help you think of "self" in a very different way. And again, not self-help, but I love recommending Shop Class as Soulcraft , by Matthew B Crawford, for reconsidering your relationship with work and finding joy in your career. The full book is worth reading, but this essay link gets the gist of it. https://www.thenewatlantis.com/publications/shop-class-as-so...

I'll offer a dissenting opinion on the book. I read it, enjoyed it, but thought "this should just be an essay". Then I found the essay and feel it communicates the essential point.

I mostly stopped reading non-fiction books because of this. You have to wrestle through seven chapters of introductory bullshit because the author gets to the point, just because a blog post doesn't sell for $20.

I wish there was a culture where good essays would actually sell for $20. Something with a "perceived value per word" review score maybe.

Post reply on HN