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Reality has a surprising amount of detail (2017)

johnsalvatier.org

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Re: Reality has a surprising amount of detail (2017)

#161

Post by hinkley »

radarsat1 wrote: post #126
DanielBMarkham wrote: post #10

Something I've noticed now that we're all communicating online in written form: a lack of people saying "I don't know" It seems that everybody knows everything. Whatever the issue, a little bit of Googling and suddenly you know all there is to know. Even more wondrous, no matter what position you take on anything, some more search engine Kung Fu and you can find a hundred people willing to support you with arguments,…

> The more you have been rewarded in life for being smart and knowing everything, the more you felt intelligent, the less chance you had of making a startup work. You just weren't able to admit all the things you didn't know. I think there's something to this, but I want to present an alternative, which is that the more I know, the more I know what I don't know. And with regards to startups and business, the effect o…

It definitely seems to me like older entrepreneurs concentrate on either providing a service to established industry or on craftsmanship, selling a luxury good to a slightly older crowd.

They are over “you can be anything you want to, Billy” and they have justifiable fears.

But if you ran your own deli for years and ended up building your own bagel slicing machine because nobody else had one or they mangled too many bagels, why not sleep in a little in the morning and sell bagel machines instead? You know your customer because you were your first customer. You can just ask the deli owner in your head what they would like.

Re: Reality has a surprising amount of detail (2017)

#162

Post by dwaltrip »

k__ wrote: post #123
mhb wrote: post #63

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Competent Elites - The World is Stratified by Genuine Competence https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=16186279

lol, this guy is simply too much.

Eliezer Yudkowsky is quite smart with some deep understandings of the world (along with some less good ideas), as best I can tell. I've definitely learned interesting things or been sent down interesting paths from articles of his that I've read.

However, he would be served very well to work on eliminating the moderate pomposity that permeates much of his writing. He is also overly verbose sometimes. Fixing those two issues would reduce a lot of the beef he gets, I think.

Re: Reality has a surprising amount of detail (2017)

#163

Post by logfromblammo »

larrik wrote: post #98

I've actually built a few staircases, and it's a ton harder than it even sounds here. In fact, there's apparently carpentry competitions and building a stairway to code is the grand finale. The way he does it, with the angle brackets? That's the easiest way, and by far the weakest. The strongest way is to notch out 2x12's (ideally at least 3, with one in the middle). Oh, and no step can be more than 1/8" difference i…

They should do a tiebreaker/encore where the stair is also to be used by an achondroplastic dwarf with a stride length of 28".

That requires some futzing with the comfort formulas, and still trying to make that work with code and average-height people.

Re: Reality has a surprising amount of detail (2017)

#164

Post by dwaltrip »

hornbaker wrote: post #102
foxhop wrote: post #71

This is an incredible read, very thought invoking. I've never replaced stairs but I have learned enough of the "details" by repairing them (or being aware of them) to know it's a really hard to get right. A single 1/4 inch difference between two steps can feel wrong; a 1/2 inch difference and people will likely stumble or tumble down them on their first approach. Our intuition and pattern recognition impacts how we s…

A gif of what happens when one step is just slightly too high: https://imgur.com/hl3YWJD

This was the perfect strange comedy for my Friday morning, thank you for sharing!

Re: Reality has a surprising amount of detail (2017)

#165

Post by dwaltrip »

codingdave wrote: post #39
DanielBMarkham wrote: post #10

Something I've noticed now that we're all communicating online in written form: a lack of people saying "I don't know" It seems that everybody knows everything. Whatever the issue, a little bit of Googling and suddenly you know all there is to know. Even more wondrous, no matter what position you take on anything, some more search engine Kung Fu and you can find a hundred people willing to support you with arguments,…

Why would I jump into a thread, on any site, just to say I don't know? There are thousands of threads just on HN that I just let scroll by without participating because I don't know enough to add to the discussion. Explicitly calling out my lack of knowledge on every thread would serve no purpose to anybody. Online written communications will never follow the same patterns as direct communication, and that is a good…

There should be more eagerness to identify when problems and issues are more difficult and less well understood, as well as the nature of this difficulty/complexity -- even in online discussions. That is a valuable contribution.

Re: Reality has a surprising amount of detail (2017)

#166

Post by hinkley »

k__ wrote: post #41
DanielBMarkham wrote: post #10

Something I've noticed now that we're all communicating online in written form: a lack of people saying "I don't know" It seems that everybody knows everything. Whatever the issue, a little bit of Googling and suddenly you know all there is to know. Even more wondrous, no matter what position you take on anything, some more search engine Kung Fu and you can find a hundred people willing to support you with arguments,…

I think we have two problems at the moment. 1. Being right doesn't mean being smart. I met many people in my life that were smart or dumb, but their success had nothing to do with this. You can do the right things by accident. 2. Being rich often removes the need of being smart to varying degrees. People want to help you getting richer if they get a piece of the pie.

Science is frequently about explaining phenomenon that people stumbled on by trail and error.

(I think I see scientists forget this too often. There are things that are true that we don’t know. Being true and being sure are different things and you should respect people who are going to show you true things otherwise you will never learn.)

Re: Reality has a surprising amount of detail (2017)

#167

Post by appearsonline »

mikepalmer wrote: post #130
dekhn wrote: post #90

Earlier quoted context omitted.

no, that's combustion, clearly a chemical reaction. Sure, you can use a laser to cut paper, but the teacher was talking about scissors.

And... what are the huge implications??

Come on dekhn, we want to know

Re: Reality has a surprising amount of detail (2017)

#168

Post by [deleted] »

cicero wrote: post #122
codingdave wrote: post #39

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why would I jump into a thread, on any site, just to say I don't know? There are thousands of threads just on HN that I just let scroll by without participating because I don't know enough to add to the discussion. Explicitly calling out my lack of knowledge on every thread would serve no purpose to anybody. Online written communications will never follow the same patterns as direct communication, and that is a good…

Of course one shouldn't jump into a thread to say "I don't know", but if someone receives a response to a statement they made in a thread that points out a fact or point of view they hadn't considered, they should be willing to admit that they didn't know that, they were wrong, or that they realize they need to think more deeply about the topic.

[deleted]

Re: Reality has a surprising amount of detail (2017)

#170

Post by cecilpl2 »

DoofusOfDeath wrote: post #94
grigjd3 wrote: post #84

Earlier quoted context omitted.

As a person who basically made it through college without internet, I can tell you that I had just as much trouble admitting I was wrong when I didn't have access to the internet, perhaps more because I was younger and more hotheaded.

I've sometimes had the problem as well. Usually because my self esteem had been based heavily on believing that I'm really smart.

It sounds like you had equated being smart with knowing things.

My self esteem has also been heavily based on believing that I'm really smart, but I never had a problem admitting I didn't know something. "Smart" to me means my ability to learn, problem solve, and make connections.

One of the most significant factors in my success to date has been my almost eager willingness to admit my lack of knowledge, and to ask others to share their knowledge.

How else are you going to learn new things?

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