In terms of work I’ll look at the overall purpose of the organization. Does it exist soley to make money? Does it do so at the detriment of others? Or does it contribute positively somehow towards the improvement of peoples lives?
Ask HN: How did you decide what problems to solve in your lifetime?
91–100 of 460 posts
Re: Ask HN: How did you decide what problems to solve in your lifetime?
#92Work on AI for chemistry. It has applications to both Energy and Healthcare. Where are you based?
Re: Ask HN: How did you decide what problems to solve in your lifetime?
#93Money amd free time. I won't work on things I fundamentally disagree with but what's important to me is life outside of work. I try to maximise my income and the availability of non-work time. As a contractor this is what I get to do, make a packet and take a few months off here and there. People with a drive to achieve in a particular area may be after a different sort of satisfaction in life I guess.
that's a defeatist attitude. If you had unlimited money, how would you spend your time? that's how you will find what to work on.
Re: Ask HN: How did you decide what problems to solve in your lifetime?
#94Earlier quoted context omitted.
My biggest issue with 80,000 hours is that it's a rational, but radically uninspiring advice in the end. It is a framework for those who buy into "don't follow your passion advice", and try to maximize their utility function instead.
A fair criticism. Personally, I've spent enough time around folks who followed their passion and seen where it got them that I'm 100% on board the utility function train.
Oh how I would LOVE to know more! Can you give examples?
Re: Ask HN: How did you decide what problems to solve in your lifetime?
#95AI will probably be instrumental in solving healthcare, and abundent clean energy is one of the most important factors for a population's health, wealth and prosperity, do what you love. Would have been tougher if you were wanting to play violin.
Re: Ask HN: How did you decide what problems to solve in your lifetime?
#96Sometime during my undergrad in Chemical Engineering, I figured out that I wasn't really good at that and couldn't imagine the rest of my life as a chemical engineer. I had some interest in Neuroscience but didn't really know how to transition to that.
Four years ago, During a chemical engineering research internship at a Canadian University, I stumbled upon Geoff Hinton's Lecture on deep learning. I don't remember much about what he said but I was fascinated. I started looking at more related lectures at http://videolectures.net/. I wasn't understanding much, but I was making some progress.
After I returned from the internship for another year at college, I focused entirely on learning whatever on the internet has to offer on Computer Science and AI / ML. My grades tanked but it frankly didn't matter to me. I would watch lectures, read books and read papers. After a while, I started forgetting stuff I had read. I figured I should be writing it down and having a strictly disciplined approach towards self-learning.
I started writing things down by pausing videos. It was not a good experience and my handwriting would start getting messier, the longer I wrote. I figured I should be writing in Latex. Started making notes in Org-Mode which export to a Tufte Latex Book. IMHO Tufte Latex Book templates are amazing.
I also made a lot of Anki Decks. But I don't think I ever used them more than once. There was not really a drive to do these things. I mean these were obviously important to learning something but they weren't really the things I was interested in.
The more videos I watched, the more I became convinced that the video-based platform is a bad way of learning online. They provide quick introductions but for deeper stuff, you need to read books. That's when I realized that there is a gap in the education platform offering online.
I had some thoughts about what should be the ideal system look like. I made a small script in python that teaches the user using in somewhat Socratic method, makes notes for him, generates flashcards from notes and reminds him of when to revise by calculating the Retention Score using Ebbinghaus Formula[1]. That was two years ago. I decided to pursue the idea. Quit my job a year back to concentrate full time. Right now it does a lot more. I will release soon. And bot's name is Primer. A personal tutor.
I am convinced that a bot which teaches difficult things is what the world right now. I might be wrong but it is something I can see myself working on improving the rest of my life.
I think writing all this doesn't really help you, but my point is pretty simple. Pursue things that you feel require your immediate attention or what you think you feel like doing right now. It may lead to somewhere else and which in return will take you somewhere else. But if you pursue enough randomly seemingly unconnected things, it may result in you finally have an idea which you would be convinced worth pursuing your life. Just my two cents.
P.S: I know I should be releasing early and getting feedback. I have consciously chosen to ignore that advice for a while.
Re: Ask HN: How did you decide what problems to solve in your lifetime?
#97[deleted]
Re: Ask HN: How did you decide what problems to solve in your lifetime?
#98I think you can't really consciously decide what you want to do with your life. Life happens to you: "You can't connect the dots looking forward; you can only connect them looking backwards. So you have to trust that the dots will somehow connect in your future. You have to trust in something – your gut, destiny, life, karma, whatever." - Steve Jobs You can however increase the odds of things coming on your path that…
Hear hear. Life happens to you. All you can do is try to make sure you enjoy the ride. When you are younger you think you can have it all, but that isn't the case. So many things can disrupt your path, the list is endless. Best advice is to follow your instincts, not your rationale. Life isn't a choice. It's some sort of roadtrip. You don't know how or where it will end and what will happen along the way. You may decide what to do and what to pursue but you can never steer your emotions. Just try to enjoy the ride.
Re: Ask HN: How did you decide what problems to solve in your lifetime?
#99I got some good advice about a decade ago, which I've used for guidance and, on reflection, has served me well. You're not well-positioned to understand the core nature of problems, and which are most important, from the outside. Until you have this clarity, do what you can to become part of the core community driving the thinking in your field of choice. There's a strong case for the social importance of many problems in energy and AI, and likely enough there are problems that would interest you in healthcare. So my answer is to not worry so much about which field you dive into, and focus more on trying to get to the center.
As someone who has been orbiting two poles of education and CS for my whole career, I'd also suggest reflecting on why energy and AI are currently more attractive to you than healthcare. There doesn't have to be a reason, but sometimes I feel like the attraction of pure science fields is that they don't involve the messy human issues that come with social science, like identity and culture, power and your own positionality.
Re: Ask HN: How did you decide what problems to solve in your lifetime?
#100Earlier quoted context omitted.
A fair criticism. Personally, I've spent enough time around folks who followed their passion and seen where it got them that I'm 100% on board the utility function train.
Oh how I would LOVE to know more! Can you give examples?
Join a startup as a soon-to-be father, following your dreams, and have the thing explode in your face, then finally recover and get a job at a megacorp (a week before the baby is due)?
Utility for the win! Following your dreams is fun and all, but the risk/reward ratio is just way out there.