Exponential growth. Learned properly when I was maybe 7 or 8 years old. I was learning about the game of chess, and the story describes that the reward for the inventor was one seed of grain on the first square, double that on the second, double that on the third... and so on.
Ask HN: Name one idea that changed your life
291–300 of 839 posts
Re: Ask HN: Name one idea that changed your life
#292I am going to cheat a bit and give you three things that have had a lasting impact on me:
First is this quote from Lincoln, "I hate that man. I must get to know him better".
This has helped me shed biases and prejudices that stop me from liking someone on the first few interactions. Instead of shunning them, I seek to know them better, in the hope that I see past the veil and reach out to the actual human on the other side. This ties in nicely with Stephen Covey's quote, "We judge ourselves by our intentions and others by their behaviour."
Second thing that has stuck with me is this zen-koan about a disciple having a tough time forgiving their master for a sin [0]. The koan ends with the thought that the disciple who's holding on to resentment, disapproval, outrage, disappointment, grudge is really the one who's in distress and enduring the punishment and not the master. It is really powerful, at least to me. If I liberally tie it to the 'broken windows theory' [1], it explains to me why such resentments over time aren't simply good for me, personally, despite how few the broken windows may be, they need to be fixed.
And the third is producer v consumer mindset [2]. Do not consume excessively, refrain from stifling the production line with tendency to consume all day, every day.
[0] https://medium.com/@soninilucas/two-monks-and-a-woman-zen-st...
Re: Ask HN: Name one idea that changed your life
#293"Premature optimization is the root of all evil" More and more, I'm realizing this applies more broadly than just for code. Abstraction is a form of optimization and shouldn't be done before the space has been properly explored to know what abstractions should be built. Standardization is a form of optimization and shouldn't be proposed until there's a body of evidence to support what's being standardized. Failure to…
I'm at a big slow non-tech corp and as much as I would prefer "move fast and break things," I can't see it working here. "Move fast" becomes "hurry up and wait" as you end up being dependent on another group's input (10-20 people total get involved, 3-10 meetings) to move forward on something. You end up trying to over-plan because it lets you schedule things to happen in parallel. Everything has to be a huge depth first search because being on the wrong track can cost months and even be fatal. By the time you figure out it won't work, you're way behind schedule and restarting would take another 10+ meetings to coordinate. You have to exhaustively evaluate every path beforehand because it's so slow to right the ship, at an institutional level.
Re: Ask HN: Name one idea that changed your life
#294That every dollar you spend directly translates into pushing your financial independence further into the future. I hadn't really reflected on becoming financially independent as a real possibility, but now I'm mentally bookkeeping spending against being locked into needing to work longer. The real revelation was when I realized that this "save 20% of your income for retirement" advice that's thrown around is totally…
I lived like a student when I was a student and did not change much of my lifestyle and could not be happier. I usually save 2/3 of my salary and do not miss anything. My runway today is about 15 years.
Re: Ask HN: Name one idea that changed your life
#295As a German, the idea that mass murder and high tech are different sides of the same coin has shaped my world view forever (after reading Dialectic of Enlightenment and On the Critique of Instrumental Reason). Horkheimer red-pilled me on our western societies and I'm grateful for it.
I mean this sincerely: WTF does that mean? Mass murder is the opposite to technology?
Re: Ask HN: Name one idea that changed your life
#296Around 10 years ago I figured out the vast majority of mid and upper level management have no frickin clue how to do the thing they're tasked with doing, no capacity or desire to teach themselves, and will gladly fork over $250/hr or more to work with a consultant or agency who will help their immediate supervisor never catch on to that fact. Learning this took me from an overly-qualified low earning tech and marketing generalist employee to a very high level earner doing agency and solo consulting work pretty much overnight. Wish I had figured this out a few years earlier than I had but just happy I figured it out at all.
Re: Ask HN: Name one idea that changed your life
#297As a German, the idea that mass murder and high tech are different sides of the same coin has shaped my world view forever (after reading Dialectic of Enlightenment and On the Critique of Instrumental Reason). Horkheimer red-pilled me on our western societies and I'm grateful for it.
That's an excellent point, and most likely lost on 99.99% of tech enthusiasts. If I could get people in science and engineering to understand one concept deeply, that'd be it - that grand narratives of progress are often used as tools of oppression, including mass murder; especially for those whose stories don't fit neatly into the overall plot. Power regimes co-opt key constituencies (such as technocrat/builders) with these progress narratives to preserve the order of the world.
Re: Ask HN: Name one idea that changed your life
#298The Growth Mindset. To briefly sum up the findings: Individuals who believe their talents can be developed (through hard work, good strategies, and input from others) have a growth mindset. They tend to achieve more than those with a more fixed mindset (those who believe their talents are innate gifts). This is because they worry less about looking smart and they put more energy into learning. Along with this goes em…
It's a neat idea and I like the mindset, but the research is very likely false. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Carol_Dweck#Criticism
The title states "Name one idea that changed your life."
I haven't considered the research, I'm just talking about the positive changes I've seen in my life as a result of changing my mindset from "I can't do this because I'm not smart enough" to "this is hard, but I will learn it."
In the case of the former I was a non-starter. With the latter, everything becomes much more accessible.
Re: Ask HN: Name one idea that changed your life
#299A decade of success against steep odds later, I ran into the high school teacher who I idolized and who helped me actually achieve something. Most teachers tolerated me or insulated the rest of the classroom from me. But he put in the effort to get me engaged with something that got me to sit down and try. I was excited to show him what his work had helped me accomplish. He had two things to share with me:
1. He doesnt remember me.
2. That he felt I was smarter than him, hearing what I was working on.
It hit really hard. And when I recovered it made me realise that all relationships are ephemeral if you aren't there to foster and cherish them. There's also a lesson in there I'm trying to parse. About how I always saw him as this brilliant teacher. But he's just a guy.
Re: Ask HN: Name one idea that changed your life
#300The idea that your mind is not you . That "thinking", as a process, is just a tool of your body, just like eyesight, for example. Listening to meditation and mindfulness practitioners like Jon Kobat-Zinn and Eckhart Tolle, I found it absolutely groundbreaking, for myself, to realize that the mind is an instrument that needs training and tuning, and sometimes can lead you astray, and can't be trusted unconditionally.…
The other more Daoist end of this spectrum is that your mind and body are you. Through the power of will you control both of these. As a long time meditator the "I am not my body, I am not my mind" mantra has always bothered me. I am both of those and will shape both of those in my image. Dissociative practices will not bring me closer to my goals. The comparison to eyesight is strange too. If your eyesight is poor y…
While there are obvious flaws with the analogy (like any analogy), I think the comparison with eyesight (or touch, etc.) is about making people think of the mind as more of a sensory organ. One that gives you input that may or may not be useful to you, rather than as something that defines you.
I don't really see that as a dissociative practice, but more as the prerequisite for being able to start on the long term journey of challenging and changing your thought patterns.