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Ask HN: Name one idea that changed your life

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Re: Ask HN: Name one idea that changed your life

#461
post #193

Favor interrogative-led questions over leading questions. A leading question attempts to get the listener to agree or disagree with a premise you feed to them. An interrogative-led question often begins with the words: who; where; what; when; why. Imagine the responses to these two questions: - "Did you like the movie?" (Leading) - "What did you think about the movie?" (Interrogative-led) How do each of these questio…

I was taught that by a sales guy. Never ask a yes/no question. Don't ask "Are you satisfied with your current provider?" rather "What do you like/dislike about your current provider?". The wrong answer to a yes/no question ends the conversation.

Re: Ask HN: Name one idea that changed your life

#462
post #363
post #193

Favor interrogative-led questions over leading questions. A leading question attempts to get the listener to agree or disagree with a premise you feed to them. An interrogative-led question often begins with the words: who; where; what; when; why. Imagine the responses to these two questions: - "Did you like the movie?" (Leading) - "What did you think about the movie?" (Interrogative-led) How do each of these questio…

I hear suggestions like this occasionally, and I don't get it. Apparently sentences like "Did you like the movie?", which sound to me like perfectly neutral questions, actually have a slant. Which way is this question leading me to answer? How can I tell? "Yes" and "No" seem equally acceptable answers here. I don't see how either one would "displease the asker", without knowing more about the situation.

You are right that there are two acceptable answers to the question. How does this compare to the number of acceptable answers to the other question?

Re: Ask HN: Name one idea that changed your life

#463

The concept of "Unknown Unknowns" changed my approach to life for better. I was one of those laughing to the famous speech [1] the very first time I heard it. After a few days, I begin to grasp the epistemological truth in it, making me humbler. Today in every system I work on, I know there will be risks unexpected and possible, and the system shall be resilient and with physical negative feedback in case control loo…

Relatedly, I was struck by philosopher Bernard Longergan's concept of one's horizon.

He distinguished three classes of questions:

- The questions one can raise and answer satisfactorialy - The questions one can raise, but can not yet answer - The questions one is not even able to raise

One's intellectual horizon sits between the second and third categories. You can only think of humanity's horizon in this same sense.

Re: Ask HN: Name one idea that changed your life

#464

Nobody tells this to people who are beginners, I wish someone told me. All of us who do creative work, we get into it because we have good taste. But there is this gap. For the first couple years you make stuff, it’s just not that good. It’s trying to be good, it has potential, but it’s not. But your taste, the thing that got you into the game, is still killer. And your taste is why your work disappoints you. A lot o…

John Mulaney said the same thing about stand up. Its far, far easier to recognize good work than it is to do it. It may be be years before your ability matches your taste.

Re: Ask HN: Name one idea that changed your life

#466
I don't have a name for this. A person can make a statement "X", and X can be true, but the person's act of claiming "X" was in no sense caused by "X" being true. In my head I call this "causal disconnection" or similar phrases, but it's not a good name.

The underlying idea here is that, when you are told "X", it's useful to think about the causal chain that resulted in you being told "X". Is the truth of X a powerful force in that chain? Is it one of many competing forces? Or is it, perhaps, totally irrelevant? In some sense this is a Bayesian viewpoint on the question "suppose somebody makes a claim -- how much should you update your probability that that claim is true?"

Politics obviously abounds with this, but a good non-political example is pop-sci rumors. For instance, I often hear the claim that cicadas sleep for prime-numbered years because that minimizes the probability of overlapping/conflicting/getting-caught-by other species (explanations vary). Now, without making much effort to evaluate the truth of this statement, think about what causes people to make this claim. Well, clearly, it sounds very good, so it'll spread quickly (as a meme). Now, what if the claim was false -- how much would that fact impede its spread? Probably not so much.

(Somewhat remarkably, this suggests a concrete reason to be wary of oft-repeated claims. The fact that a claim is often repeated suggests that it spreads quickly. The reason you're hearing the claim, then, may be because it spreads quickly, and not so much because it's true.)

It's really important that the truth or falsehood of the claim has nothing to do with the question of the nature of the causal chain underlying the claim.

A related idea is that one must have great respect for -- and fear of -- social processes. I'm far from fully appreciating the consequences of this. This is also related to another comment in this thread about evolutionary processes, because those are often the causal forces behind people making claims.

Re: Ask HN: Name one idea that changed your life

#469

If you're the smartest person in the room, you're in the wrong room. I am not one tenth as talented as the people I work with on a daily basis. That they give me the time of day I am grateful for. It's what keeps me coming back.

I’m actually really relieved when the smartest person in the room (their words) leaves. We can have fun, drink beer, and share war stories without feeling judged by peers who haven’t spent enough time in self reflection.
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