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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

#601

Post by jacobush »

endymi0n wrote: post #573
worldsayshi wrote: post #558

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't see how you can learn anything without such taste. To learn you have to be able to know what can be done better. Or someone tells you. I think the point here is diminishing returns. When you're younger or rather a beginner you can make bigger leaps because you're learning the rough basics. When you're an expert and you can still tell that it's not good enough it can take months or years to make you reach that…

Parent seems to refer to taste _being in the way_ of learning (not the lack of it) and I definitely get the sentiment. Sometimes I catch myself thinking about the stuff I could have learned when I was young: I had a C64 and I could have learned assembly programming, if I just had met anyone with an actual disk of an assembler program and my library had a book about it, nothing of which was the case. But then again, i…

Or in my case, likely distracted by some random stuff on youtube.

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

#603

Post by DoingIsLearning »

jiggunjer wrote: post #505
michaelrpeskin wrote: post #206

Antifragility Or more specifically, just getting the term for it. I spent years trying to articulate in my own mind many of the ideas in Taleb's book, and once I had a word for it I could see it everywhere and actually start to change my life to take advantage of the chaos in the world. Basically: you can't control what happens to you, but you can set your life up so that the natural variability of the world can be u…

Sounds like stoicism?

Taleb's book and premise doesn't just cover human behaviour and mindset in a Stoic philosophy although there are common points. It covers wider systems: Politics, Biology, Innovation, Economy, Life decisions, etc.

I suppose the book's premise is more about finding out how a system can be setup such that it is either resistant to or improved by variability, uncertainty, and unknowns.

A real world biology example would be the multi-purpose shape of the beak of a crow versus the specialized beak of humming bird.

The humming bird is more succesful in specific environment but it is more fragile if this environment were to collapse. The crow maybe not be as optimized but is "Anti-fragile" to eco-system changes.

I am simplifying but that is the central premise. The book goes into a lot more depth specially when re-visiting ancient history across different human eras and the 'lessons learned' from those periods.

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

#604

Post by dgb23 »

JackFr wrote: post #461
aazaa wrote: 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.

In a job I had as a student, I had to sell a product over the phone. My boss told me to ask a couple of obvious leading questions first. The point was to get the customer to say „yes“ a couple of times, before trying to sell the product.

I was very ineffective and got fired after a week.

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

#605

Post by dgb23 »

abetusk wrote: post #137

"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…

Also YAGNI

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

#606

Post by JackFr »

WalterBright wrote: post #330

I am responsible for what happens to me. (I.e. I am not a victim.) Accepting responsibility is very empowering, as it implies I can do something about it. Being a victim is dis-empowering, as it means you are helpless. (People who read my posts will recognize this as a consistent theme. Being a victim is a choice. I choose not to be.)

What’s funny is that I find this much easier to do in the large than in the small.

A layoff at work or a seriously ill child engendered a stoic “This is the way the world is, and you deal with it rather than cursing the unfairness or wishing it was some other way”.

On the other hand, when my bread gets stuck in the toaster? Rage at the the universe and despair for my miserable and forlorn situation.

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

#608

Post by 317070 »

"Life is unfair." Simple, but for me it was an important insight. I used to think I deserved things, and now I know that while that might be true, you still need to be assertive to get them. There is no karma or divine intervention which will put a finger on the balance to make sure everything in life (love, friends, opportunities, adventure) is shared equally. And it goes multiple ways.

First, don't expect life to be fair and give you what you deserve. It won't. Don't expect other people to be fair towards you either. They might, and they might not.

Second, it is not always your fault when you are in a bad situation, because life is in fact unfair. Shit happens.

Third, be assertive to handle the unfairness. You need to stand up for yourself to get your fair share. And stand up for others to get theirs.

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

#609

Post by jk563 »

nstart wrote: post #575

From my father: No matter how correct you are, you won't get anywhere by making the other person feel stupid. He gave me this after we went together to a conference on communication and I found the presenter to be making some rather doubtful statements. I asked questions and tried to break the presenter in the QnA session and when I didn't get what I wanted, I left. I was 15 at the time. So, I forgive myself but stil…

> So, I forgive myself but still cringe hard whenever I remember it.

This has actually resonated with me as advice in its own right. I have wasted a lot of time worrying about past mistakes that I have made, wishing I could change the past etc. I'm not so bad for it now, but still struggle sometimes and worry myself with what people think of me now remembering what drunk (and sober) me did at university 10 years ago (and at other times in my life). This line has helped reframe it a bit in my mind: it's ok to still cringe at how I behaved and forgive myself for it - the former does not rule out the latter.

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

#610

Post by kieckerjan »

sanfranciscoave wrote: post #593

The quote "We often suffer more in imagination that we do in reality" has really stuck with me. I consider myself to be a bit of an introvert and this idea has helped me tremendously with networking and meeting new people. I often project the worst casinario in my mind, but in reality, outcomes are almost always positive and enjoyable.

“I've had a lot of worries in my life, most of which never happened.”
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