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Feynman’s Breakthrough, Disregard Others (2017)

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Re: Feynman’s Breakthrough, Disregard Others (2017)

#41

Post by tonyedgecombe »

vast wrote: post #39
dmix wrote: post #29

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They’re called consultants. Every repackaged fad in software was pumped and sold by high paid consultants looking to sell the next buzz word to some big company who doesn’t understand software. A bunch of them even did it to “lean startups” here in Toronto and attempted to apply it to absolutely everything where it didn’t fit or was just lightly repackaged agile. They use it to get gov ‘innovation’ credit here too wh…

Just accusing consultants it too simple. This mindset is prevalent in whole software culture. Think leftpad.

Leftpad was an example where we should reinvent the wheel.

Introducing a dependency on an NPM module for so little returned value is a lot different from a physicist or mathematician relying on a peer reviewed result from another academic.

Re: Feynman’s Breakthrough, Disregard Others (2017)

#42

Post by garmaine »

notimetorelax wrote: post #36
garmaine wrote: post #30

Earlier quoted context omitted.

He’s talking about a chapter from Feynman’s autobiography where he explicitly practiced being an uncaring asshole and was surprised at the effectiveness.

Not sure if we talk about the same chapter, but I don’t think it’s fair to characterize this behavior as being an asshole. He realized that he cannot force himself to work on a big problem. Instead he needed to start small with some seemingly inconsequential problem. This later grew into a major discovery.

No I think we’re talking about separate chapters. Iirc (it’s been decades since I read it!) while dating after his first wife died someone advised him he was too “nice” and that women like alpha males who act like assholes. He decided to test that out both on his dates and professionally. He found it largely worked iirc—the dates were more successful, and people at work more responsive. But he didn’t like the kind of person it made him into so he stopped the test.

Still I suspect the experience must have ingrained in him an understanding of the effectiveness of not caring what other people think, even if you don’t have to be an asshole about it.

Re: Feynman’s Breakthrough, Disregard Others (2017)

#43

Post by dmitryminkovsky »

kragen wrote: post #27
DuskStar wrote: post #7

This feels like the sort of advice that increases the variance of outcomes more than the mean , if that makes any sense. It'll help some people, but also really won't help others. It's like... You'd need some serious disregard for the rest of the physics community to think you can figure out a reactionless drive. This is great if you actually can, but otherwise it's going to lead you to failure. In a lot of ways, get…

In fields like art, programming, and physics, you'd better be doing something weird . If you're doing something mainstream , the same thing thirty other people around the world are doing, you're all competing to make the same thing — paint the same painting, write the same text editor, prove the same theorem about black holes. Twenty-nine of you are going to get scooped by whoever is the hardest-working, the smartest…

When does weird become too weird? I’m building a non-instant messenger, for example.

Re: Feynman’s Breakthrough, Disregard Others (2017)

#45

Post by denzil_correa »

watwut wrote: post #20
DuskStar wrote: post #7

This feels like the sort of advice that increases the variance of outcomes more than the mean , if that makes any sense. It'll help some people, but also really won't help others. It's like... You'd need some serious disregard for the rest of the physics community to think you can figure out a reactionless drive. This is great if you actually can, but otherwise it's going to lead you to failure. In a lot of ways, get…

I don't think this was about disregarding everyone around all the time. This was something that helped Feynman to move in that particular situation when he was weighted down by other peoples expectations and what not. The story is at the point where he is already honored, known and has "outstanding popular touch". That is when he read a book and calls the wife in the middle of the night to say: "I think I’ve figured…

> It means that there are situations where you have to disregard others expectations, advice and what not.

And that’s the tricky part. In order to understand, which situation to disregard and which not.

Re: Feynman’s Breakthrough, Disregard Others (2017)

#46

Post by jeffhuys »

dmitryminkovsky wrote: post #43
kragen wrote: post #27

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In fields like art, programming, and physics, you'd better be doing something weird . If you're doing something mainstream , the same thing thirty other people around the world are doing, you're all competing to make the same thing — paint the same painting, write the same text editor, prove the same theorem about black holes. Twenty-nine of you are going to get scooped by whoever is the hardest-working, the smartest…

When does weird become too weird? I’m building a non-instant messenger, for example.

E-mail?

Re: Feynman’s Breakthrough, Disregard Others (2017)

#47

Post by dmitryminkovsky »

jeffhuys wrote: post #46
dmitryminkovsky wrote: post #43

Earlier quoted context omitted.

When does weird become too weird? I’m building a non-instant messenger, for example.

E-mail?

Rolled it out a bit as “email” actually but that proved confusing for people: “email” carries a lot of baggage, social and technical. Why do you say email? It’s instant.

Re: Feynman’s Breakthrough, Disregard Others (2017)

#48

Post by nabla9 »

vast wrote: post #24
taeric wrote: post #6

It is subtle that he didn't just dismiss others, per se. He specifically disregarded what they were working on. If he was brought in to consult or help, he was now working on it so would help. That is, he did not dismiss people. Or problems brought to him. He just did not worry about reinventing wheels. Odds are, other people are working on something and have made really smart contributions. Don't worry about that. T…

> He just did not worry about reinventing wheels. That is what annoys the fuck out of me with the software community. We actually reinvent constantly but everyone praises that we never should do it. It feels like a secret master plan of a hidden lobby that want to claim novelty and creativity for themselves.

Software is different. It's an implementation not an idea. You can't compare it to math, computer science, and physics, because irrelevant details matters.

Software is build relative to other software and used relative to other software. If you reinvent something already in use that is slightly incompatible with what already exists, you must also recreate all the other stuff from scratch.

Constant reinventing in software that starts from scratch with simple and clean software, then decade later it's finally useful but full of cruft just like the previous innovation with little or no benefit over it.

Another problem with software is the amount of uneducated innovators. Starting from 'scratch the itch' and not doing research is not a good idea.

Re: Feynman’s Breakthrough, Disregard Others (2017)

#49

Post by mbeex »

denzil_correa wrote: post #45
watwut wrote: post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't think this was about disregarding everyone around all the time. This was something that helped Feynman to move in that particular situation when he was weighted down by other peoples expectations and what not. The story is at the point where he is already honored, known and has "outstanding popular touch". That is when he read a book and calls the wife in the middle of the night to say: "I think I’ve figured…

> It means that there are situations where you have to disregard others expectations, advice and what not. And that’s the tricky part. In order to understand, which situation to disregard and which not.

In fact, the distinguishing characteristic is to act, not utterly understanding.

Re: Feynman’s Breakthrough, Disregard Others (2017)

#50

Post by watwut »

denzil_correa wrote: post #45
watwut wrote: post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't think this was about disregarding everyone around all the time. This was something that helped Feynman to move in that particular situation when he was weighted down by other peoples expectations and what not. The story is at the point where he is already honored, known and has "outstanding popular touch". That is when he read a book and calls the wife in the middle of the night to say: "I think I’ve figured…

> It means that there are situations where you have to disregard others expectations, advice and what not. And that’s the tricky part. In order to understand, which situation to disregard and which not.

That is where expertise, experience and actual knowledge comes to play. Which Feynman at that moment possessed. It is also relative, you can be both too much accommodating and too much disregarding. One person can move between the two extremes over his own life.
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