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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

#561

Post by bjoli »

AlexCoventry wrote: post #452
NewEntryHN wrote: post #162

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Hard work beats talent when talent doesn't work hard. But if talent starts working hard, it's game over.

Talent is too vague a concept to be useful.

Intelligence as measured by IQ on the other hand is a very well defined concept. It is a quite good predictor of all kinds of life "success" (however that is defined). It is not fluent.

Of course it is not everything, and there are lots of idiots who believe so. However, the whole "you can do anything if you put your mind to it" is is not true. The people who are the worst off in society (and I live in "socialist Sweden") are the people with weak theoretical ability, but still within what is called average intelligence. The have the worst mental health, the worst physical health, the worst economical situation and the highest criminal record.

The idea that working hard solves everything (from the right) and the idea that intelligence does not matter (while politically mainly catering to the middle class - the left) have made society a worse place for a large chunk of people.

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

#562

Post by Mizza »

rsecora wrote: post #332

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…

I've written about this before, but the thing that always gets overlooked about this quote is the "unknown-known" corner of the truth table: the things we take for granted, but do not ever think about. These are what we _really_ need to worry about.

In the case of Rumsfeld, it was the prisoner abuse, the civilian casualties, the torture, the blowback, ISIS..

In our lives this can be structural inequalities, the way power manifests in systems, Conways's law, all that.

The big one, of course, is the environment. We're all fully aware that we're in the middle of a complete ecological collapse, and that without drastic action and change in both our habits and the geopolitical world order, our grandchildren will inherit a nearly uninhabitable Earth. Yet we all continue on as if nothing is wrong..

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

#564

Post by pusiko »

devin wrote: post #182
teraflop wrote: post #170

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"Dude, sucking at something is the first step towards being sorta good at something." -- Jake the Dog

When I was learning to play the game Go, someone told me that there's some old advice about "losing your first 100 games as quickly as possible". That's stuck with me. Another one is (and I don't even know if it's 100% true, but I don't much care) that a common housefly will change its path if it runs into a window more than twice. I strive to be better than a common house fly.

If at first you don't succeed, try two more times so that your failure is "statistically significant"

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

#565

Post by rukuu001 »

frosted-flakes wrote: post #174
Mindless2112 wrote: post #157

"You can use your laptop power brick as a foot warmer." Not quite so grand as some ideas here, but still... my feet are warm.

Along the same lines, my new (to me) Apple Thunderbolt display generates a ridiculous amount of heat, and the vents are on the bottom, right above my keyboard (I have the display on a VESA mount). Which is great, because my hands get cold easily and my office doesn't get very warm. It won't be very fun come summer though.

Similarly, my 2015 MBP huffs hot air out from between the keys on the keyboard when it's overheating.

Horrible in summer (I got a heat rash, then an external keyboard) but great in winter.

edit: formatting

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

#566

Post by PodCurator »

LouisSayers wrote: post #512

My Grandmother once told me: "If you want to work at a company, dress like the people that work there. Because those are the people that the company hires." I've used this general philosophy in my life to pass courses at university, win competitions, and get through job interviews. I don't know if my grandmother meant this in a literal sense, or was hinting at the fact that (as Tony Robbins says) success leaves clues…

Wouldn't a counter argument be that the MOST successful people do not do what others do and define their own path. I.e. it's great if you're optimizing a game for a particular outcome but if you're creating a new game following what other people do may just leave to the average (of whatever group)?

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

#567

Post by aaronbrethorst »

starpilot wrote: post #347
darkerside wrote: post #192

This might be super basic, but... assume positive intent. Your parent is not your enemy. Your teacher is not your enemy. Your boss is not your enemy. The other team at work is not your enemy. The corporation is not your enemy. The other political party is not your enemy. Or, more accurately, YOU are not THEIR enemy. At best, you're an NPC in their game. Many of them probably even want to help you, because you are ano…

On the internet, everyone assumes bad faith. Like the kid staring at the native american guy, not everything is intended to be malicious (and so he successfully sued CNN for defamation). I think there's a theme of "Person supports X" and every commentator who is predisposed to disliking that person, twists X into the worst possible form.

The kid (wearing a MAGA hat who happened to be in Washington, D.C. from Kentucky to attend an anti-abortion rally, with his school.)

https://www.vox.com/policy-and-politics/2019/1/23/18192831/c...

Also, the suit with CNN was settled out of court without any disclosure of terms on either side. https://www.washingtonpost.com/lifestyle/style/cnn-settles-l...

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

#568

Post by gridlockd »

karmakaze wrote: post #327
gridlockd wrote: post #186

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Worse yet, most people have bad taste and actually can't tell good and bad design work apart, so you're really spending all that effort to please a minority that you're unfortunate enough to be part of. https://xkcd.com/1015/

Blub paradox applied to taste is even harder to deal with because people without it want to believe it doesn't exist. Programmers can eventually move along the spectrum.

I used to scoff at Blub, but with the experience I gathered, I came to the conclusion that with all things considered, it is actually Blub that is the most powerful language.

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

#570

Post by deathgrips »

yissp wrote: post #256
rsp1984 wrote: post #225

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Most of us (non-sociopaths) don't get to choose our enemies though. They choose us.

Honestly, I think the majority of us don't have any enemies at all. We might imagine we do, though.

Everyone has enemies but might not know it yet because their enemies don't have the power to act on their malevolent desires.
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