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Ask HN: How did you decide what problems to solve in your lifetime?

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Re: Ask HN: How did you decide what problems to solve in your lifetime?

#301

Post by jadbox »

colordrops wrote: post #172
jadbox wrote: post #149

"Do what you love" is a common phrase, but I've found an opposite technique. Find the things that bugs you most (that you talk about, focus on, debate about) and allow yourself to become a solution. I've found that the problems I tended to be naturally be bothered by ended up making great career choice(s) for me.

What problems have you made career choices out of if you don't mind me asking?

No problem.

I started my career in CS with zero knowledge of what I really wanted to do out of college. However back in early 2000s, I was extremely frustrated of how difficult/buggy online banking portals were for managing my finances, so I decided to get into Fintech for a couple years. Eventually that led me to designing a nationally awarded banking portal that was ahead of its time in relation to its online features.

Then I became a gamer as a young adult, and decided to get into social/mobile gaming as I couldn't find any games on those platforms that really catered to a traditional gamer. I ended up building a few real-time action-rpgs and strategy games that ran within the browser and on mobile.

Then I got really technical in driving better gaming/interactivity in the browser, because I was hitting so many annoying limitations. So I joined the Adobe's Flash and open standards team to push these boundaries. We managed to add 3D gpu rendering to Flash, and while making progress with browser standards for better native multimedia-related features.

Now for last few years I've started to expand outside software and dive really into academic political philosophy, and I became really concerned with the current polarization in the US, and it's total lack of real genuine communication between people of differencing views. So (plug) I'm creating a self-funded startup that's a live debate platform called https://DinnerTable.Chat that hopefully provides a helpful communication medium for authentically discussing viewpoint differences (as it is, after all, an emotional journey to change one's mind). I don't know if this will work, but I've always trusted my intuition of following the desire to solve things that bug me.

Re: Ask HN: How did you decide what problems to solve in your lifetime?

#302

Post by selestify »

stinos wrote: post #26
nsomaru wrote: post #20

The focus should not be on "what," but on "why." I just got this advice the other day and it's liberated my thinking. I was (am) stuck in a rut believing that if I just find something I am passionate about it would alleviate the sense of purposelessness that pervades. Not so. Some people can work just for material benefit to themselves and their families. However, eventually that juice runs out because money is just…

The focus should not be on "what," but on "why." So, like a good git commit message :P Jokes aside, good point and imo the number one answer to the question. Not sure why you got a dwonvote even. If you're ok with material benefits then yeah, anything goes of course. But that only gets you so far and indeed real value seems to lie beyond that. It took me alomost half a life to realize it, but altruism really does giv…

What does "real value" mean to you?

Re: Ask HN: How did you decide what problems to solve in your lifetime?

#303

Post by jadbox »

lucb1e wrote: post #204
colordrops wrote: post #172

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What problems have you made career choices out of if you don't mind me asking?

Same question here. It sounds like it could be good advice, but a few sentences is rather vague. An example would be very interesting.

Will do

edit: see my reply: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=18839530

Re: Ask HN: How did you decide what problems to solve in your lifetime?

#304

Post by selestify »

nsomaru wrote: post #79
RHSeeger wrote: post #62

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Some people can work just for material benefit to themselves and their families. However, eventually that juice runs out because money is just not useful beyond a point. Admittedly, material benefit to myself and my family isn't the only reason I work. However, the argument that "money is just not useful beyond a point" isn't a strong one in my mind. I'm in my late forties right now and make a reasonable sum of mon…

Right, let me clarify. Let's define three realms of experience for the sake of conversation: (physical/material), (emotional), (intellectual). For simplicity let's assume that all human experiences may be categorised thus. Now, what can money buy? Only things on the physical level, that is, _sense experiences_. Sights, sounds, smells, tastes and touches. That's it. Money can't buy love or knowledge. Maybe a library,…

> But don't make the mistake of thinking your wellbeing/happiness is dependent upon XYZ externally.

What do you base your well-being or happiness in?

Re: Ask HN: How did you decide what problems to solve in your lifetime?

#306

Post by brandonjm »

I experienced this with my PhD topic decision. My focus generally is VR/AR and I was considering looking at health care applications or haptic tech. In the end I decided on haptics because it seemed more interesting however I have often thought my research could have had more impact had I chosen healthcare. Since starting, my haptic research has subsequently opened up doors into possible health applications and research anyway. This was effectively a middle ground because my research is what I want to do but I can still contribute to something that feels objectively more important.

So based on this, my suggestion would be to do what you want, and see if you can find applications in things you think should be worked on.

Re: Ask HN: How did you decide what problems to solve in your lifetime?

#307

Post by killjoywashere »

I always went after the hardest unsolved problem I could find. This has often ended in pain and heartache but that taught me about some things to look for in a problem. Some key bits of advice:

1) Prepare like your life depends on it. It does. Your time may not come for 40 years, but if you're not prepared, you'll never know. So study hard. This is where Paul Graham's "swim upstream as long as possible" comes in.

2) Knowing how to code makes you a code monkey, human materiál, an interchangeble part. Same with doctors, lawyers, etc. They're essentially interchangable. If you know something else, (medicine, geology, rockets, whatever) then knowing how to code makes you a magician. In both realms.

3) Develop a 5,000 year old mind. Understand where you are in the world, and where the world is, so when your critical opportunities arrive, you will recognize them and know what to do.

4) Most successes come around age 50. If you're 20, 25, 30, 40, and think you've seen what there is to see, you probably have.

Re: Ask HN: How did you decide what problems to solve in your lifetime?

#308

Post by nsomaru »

selestify wrote: post #304
nsomaru wrote: post #79

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Right, let me clarify. Let's define three realms of experience for the sake of conversation: (physical/material), (emotional), (intellectual). For simplicity let's assume that all human experiences may be categorised thus. Now, what can money buy? Only things on the physical level, that is, _sense experiences_. Sights, sounds, smells, tastes and touches. That's it. Money can't buy love or knowledge. Maybe a library,…

> But don't make the mistake of thinking your wellbeing/happiness is dependent upon XYZ externally. What do you base your well-being or happiness in?

A metaphysical explanation would be lost here. Username at gmail

Re: Ask HN: How did you decide what problems to solve in your lifetime?

#309

Post by [deleted] »

adim86 wrote: post #187

It is great that you are thinking of this and from my experience, it will continue to come up even after you have solved this one and you become more of an expert in the path you have chosen. Something to help with the paralysis is to note that you are in a very privileged position. Majority of the world is not plagued by this issue because the problem they have to solve is how to survive. So, in other words, there i…

[deleted]

Re: Ask HN: How did you decide what problems to solve in your lifetime?

#310

Post by pier25 »

hopler wrote: post #227
capocannoniere wrote: post #217

Paul Graham wrote an essay on this topic, aimed towards high-school students. His advice: stay upwind http://www.paulgraham.com/hs.html > Instead of working back from a goal, work forward from promising situations. This is what most successful people actually do anyway. > Suppose you're a college freshman deciding whether to major in math or economics. Well, math will give you more options: you can go into almost any…

That sounds like "life your life in analysis paralysis, and never decide to actually do anything"

The contrary, actually.

The future is unknown, and we are actually making decisions for our future self. When you're 18 or 25 you don't even know what interests you will have when being 35 or 40, at least I didn't know.

What Graham is saying is to make decisions that will allow you more choices in the future.

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