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

Cognitive Distortions of People Who Get Stuff Done (2012) [pdf]

pdfs.semanticscholar.org

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

51–60 of 160 posts

Re: Cognitive Distortions of People Who Get Stuff Done (2012) [pdf]

#51

Post by adnzzzzZ »

cncrnd wrote: post #48
eeeuo wrote: post #42

Earlier quoted context omitted.

To outright dismiss the possibility of chance affecting people's lives for a cute one-liner is pretty silly.

To summarize, the link says that luck is real but you are better off thinking that it isn't real since that will affect your behavior in a more positive way. Still not sure I agree in this case (you can think luck is real bit still behave optimally) but it could be a helpful way to think in other scenarios.

It's not about correct in one scenario or another, it's about having a low resolution view of the world that will be helpful. As the PDF states, https://vgy.me/C7hfiH.png, "cognitive distortions are filters or lenses that influence thinking, shape interpretation of reality, basis for action". Truly convincing yourself that luck isn't relevant is one such cognitive distortion that is a very helpful way of guiding your actions through life.

Once you get into any specific situation and you need a higher resolution view of things then you can look at the situation as it should be looked rather than defaulting to the low resolution view that luck doesn't matter.

Re: Cognitive Distortions of People Who Get Stuff Done (2012) [pdf]

#52

Post by scarejunba »

GW150914 wrote: post #50
scarejunba wrote: post #37

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Possibly true but doesn't affect the outcome. If you can do some things to increase the likelihood of success with low cost, the fact that success is dominated by things you can't change doesn't matter. There are no guarantees, only actions that mildly bias one outcome over another.

Except, does it bias the outcome at all? If you do a meta study of a thousand different medications that work, you’d discover the single most common ingredients are starch or cellulose. Clearly it’s worth taking either or both to stay healthy! Of course this ignores the fact that they’re just filler, the active ingredients are the tiny fraction of the total recipe that are actually pharmacologically active. The prese…

Well if you were entrepreneur-material you would have been able to extrapolate off the limited information ;P

Re: Cognitive Distortions of People Who Get Stuff Done (2012) [pdf]

#53

Post by kowe4i3tg »

adnzzzzZ wrote: post #40
rossdavidh wrote: post #29

Hypothesis: the "people who get stuff done" are a subset of a larger group with the same personality and talents, but without as much luck. Those other people are known by unprintable names, because they have no great successes to make people ignore the fact that they're jerks.

Stop using luck as an excuse for your failures and other people's failures. https://github.com/SSYGEN/blog/issues/38

The gist of your link is "luck is real, but delude yourself so you won't give up."

Fuck that. Luck is real. And I won't give up. It's called taking a leap of faith. You don't have to lie to yourself in order to take risks.

Your solution is harmful. If people stop believing in luck, then everyone who fails just didn't try hard enough.

Re: Cognitive Distortions of People Who Get Stuff Done (2012) [pdf]

#54

Post by scarejunba »

austincheney wrote: post #5

Strange how many people believe this is a self-description until they see it in somebody else. Most people, despite their self-delusions, are not this and are actually deeply offended when they do see it or blindly follow it, such as the worship around Steve Jobs.

Haha true enough. I imagine everyone is like this to some degree. Otherwise you'd never get anything done. But selecting some language framework over the opposition of your peers and seeing it succeed is way different from removing keyboards from a phone.

Re: Cognitive Distortions of People Who Get Stuff Done (2012) [pdf]

#55

Post by hueving »

jf- wrote: post #44
kebman wrote: post #41

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Examples of luck: - Being born into a good family. - Winning the lottery. Luck: Something you cannot affect yourself. If luck is your only game, prepare to be disappointed. Also: 70 percent of lottery winners, end up broke just a few years later. Question: Is having good luck actually bad luck? Or does it trigger bad behaviours that rich people don't have? ... I think this well and truly debunks any notion that luck'…

That’s a rather simplistic notion of luck. The success or failure of any new business is largely up to luck, simply due to the number of unknowns: market demand, marketing strategy, economic conditions, access to resources, access to talent. It is also not a fact that if you build a perfect, shining example of the thing you had in mind that it’s automatically successful. And people aren’t ‘terribly afraid of freedom’…

Other than a change in 'economic conditions', the rest of those issues can be avoided with adequate business research.

Just because most technologists don't doesn't mean it's actually such an unknown.

Re: Cognitive Distortions of People Who Get Stuff Done (2012) [pdf]

#57

Post by JetSpiegel »

hyperpape wrote: post #38
scarejunba wrote: post #37

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Possibly true but doesn't affect the outcome. If you can do some things to increase the likelihood of success with low cost, the fact that success is dominated by things you can't change doesn't matter. There are no guarantees, only actions that mildly bias one outcome over another.

Why think the cost is low? I suspect there are a lot of people with founder type personalities who have wasted tons of money, time and goodwill chasing their ambition.

Those people are losers, so the message never comes out, ensuring survivorship bias.

Re: Cognitive Distortions of People Who Get Stuff Done (2012) [pdf]

#58

Post by madrox »

I have mixed feelings about this. While I do feel this maps closely with my own observations, this also generally describes the cognitive distortions of young people. I wonder if the hidden correlation here is that SV is mostly led by the young and not the old.

Re: Cognitive Distortions of People Who Get Stuff Done (2012) [pdf]

#59

Post by adnzzzzZ »

kowe4i3tg wrote: post #53
adnzzzzZ wrote: post #40

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Stop using luck as an excuse for your failures and other people's failures. https://github.com/SSYGEN/blog/issues/38

The gist of your link is "luck is real, but delude yourself so you won't give up." Fuck that. Luck is real. And I won't give up. It's called taking a leap of faith. You don't have to lie to yourself in order to take risks. Your solution is harmful. If people stop believing in luck, then everyone who fails just didn't try hard enough.

Maybe you shouldn't be in the "Cognitive Distortions of People Who Get Stuff Done" thread if you don't like the idea of deluding yourself of things that might not be entirely true.

>Your solution is harmful. If people stop believing in luck, then everyone who fails just didn't try hard enough.

This is only harmful if you aren't willing or prepared to take responsibility for your actions.

Re: Cognitive Distortions of People Who Get Stuff Done (2012) [pdf]

#60

Post by jf- »

hueving wrote: post #55
jf- wrote: post #44

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That’s a rather simplistic notion of luck. The success or failure of any new business is largely up to luck, simply due to the number of unknowns: market demand, marketing strategy, economic conditions, access to resources, access to talent. It is also not a fact that if you build a perfect, shining example of the thing you had in mind that it’s automatically successful. And people aren’t ‘terribly afraid of freedom’…

Other than a change in 'economic conditions', the rest of those issues can be avoided with adequate business research. Just because most technologists don't doesn't mean it's actually such an unknown.

Prove it.
Post reply on HN