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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

#631

Post by bjoli »

DoreenMichele wrote: post #595
bjoli wrote: post #588

Earlier quoted context omitted.

When I say IQ I mean the number gotten to through something like WAIS or WISC (which start becoming unreliable above 130. It is almost as if it is hard to standardise a test for the 99.3rd percentile... :) ) Not the crap used most places. The only environment I know WISC from is cognitive disabilities testing in school, where it is used for two things: check whether someone has legal right to extra support and as a t…

However, what I do see is a society today that requires higher abstract intelligence than 20 years ago, which in turn had higher requirements than 20 years before that. This is partly a function of population going up. It means we need more complex systems for the world to be able to support that population and for human life to work. In the time of President Lincoln, the average education level of a woman was about…

I am not sure I agree with your analysis. I live in a country where most jobs requiring low-to-no qualifications have dwindled. I just googled a little and found quotes that 1 million jobs disappeared when most of the Swedish industry was relocated in other countries (due to lower salaries). This is in a country with 10 million inhabitants (with about 60% of those in "working age"). Sweden has among the lowest amounts of low qualification jobs in the EU.

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

#632

Post by koonsolo »

kmmlng wrote: post #623
koonsolo wrote: post #585

As a kid: Everything that you see was made by somebody. Someone had the idea, someone started a business for it, someone designed it, someone assembled it, etc. As an adult: Simulated annealing for your own life ( https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Simulated_annealing ) You start something by going all over the place, trying even crazy ideas. Then you start refining and refining, getting better at the details. This is the…

SA for your own life sounds intriguing. Do you have a concrete example that elucidates how this could be implemented? The concept still seems a little slippery to me.

Dating: give everything a quick try: Tinder, speeddating, okcupid, socializing (dancing classes). Then see what works best, and put your effort into that one.

Marketing: try everything before you start focussing on the best (I think the book Traction describes it like this).

When I was looking to make my own logo and pinned it down to hiring on fiverr, I let a few different artists do a quick, cheap sketch. Then I hired the best to do the full thing.

I think it comes down to: first, get a quick & cheap taste of everything ("go all over the place"), then slightly start focussing on the things that work for you.

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

#633

Post by DoreenMichele »

bjoli wrote: post #631
DoreenMichele wrote: post #595

Earlier quoted context omitted.

However, what I do see is a society today that requires higher abstract intelligence than 20 years ago, which in turn had higher requirements than 20 years before that. This is partly a function of population going up. It means we need more complex systems for the world to be able to support that population and for human life to work. In the time of President Lincoln, the average education level of a woman was about…

I am not sure I agree with your analysis. I live in a country where most jobs requiring low-to-no qualifications have dwindled. I just googled a little and found quotes that 1 million jobs disappeared when most of the Swedish industry was relocated in other countries (due to lower salaries). This is in a country with 10 million inhabitants (with about 60% of those in "working age"). Sweden has among the lowest amount…

At the risk of sounding argumentative, I fail to see how that's a rebuttal of anything I said.

I'm not trying to pick some kind of fight. I'm just talking on the internet with a stranger during a pandemic about a topic I know a fair amount about because it interests me. And that easily comes across as fighty and that's not really my goal.

So you aren't required to agree with anything. I'm not trying to "win" some argument. You said a thing. I responded. You chose to reply for whatever reason. Rinse and repeat and here we are.

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

#634

Post by dmichulke »

mam2 wrote: post #622

The trump 2016 election (and even the whole presidency) was a slap in the face for some people, but if you look objectively there seem to be a bunch of unconventional truths / ideas in it. Like - "Become a good person doesn't matter and can even look weak, being aggressive and though is more important". (I still remember jeb bush offended saying to trump that he will not 'bully his way to the presidency' while he was…

Regarding Redpill:

Word. Visit it, try it out and take what you want. This dominance thing also translates at least partially to relations between any human.

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

#635

Post by GistNoesis »

mattlondon wrote: post #409

Not really an idea, but I guess something of an epiphany: We were doing a basic physics class at school at maybe 12 or 13 years old. We were learning about Newton's laws of motion etc. One day we had a test and there was a question about why playgrounds often have rubber matting or tiles around the climbing frames or swings etc. Cue a load of waffly nonsense answers about "cushioning impact" or being "soft so it does…

Yeah the "Physics applies to the real world" idea.

I like its corollary. Mac-Gyvering your way through life.

I remember getting strange looks when to light some candles for a birthday cake, I used paper and an induction hob.

Using a siphon to remove the water from a washing machine.

Bending small locks open.

Pulleys and rope tricks.

There are similar epiphanies in physics, when you realize those chemistry formulas, atoms and molecules are like real object just real small. That those chemistry rules, are just statistical mathematics calculation shortcuts for modelling what's happening to large quantities of small objects.

Phases of matter : solid, liquid, gaz : you can transform any matter between those states. Water is not the only liquid. You can melt plenty of metals. You can vaporize away the matter you don't want. You can freeze liquids into solids by cooling them.

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

#636

Post by BiteCode_dev »

There are a thousand ways to suffer, and I don't know most of them.

The more I grow, the more I discover new ways people fight their own battle.

Every time I think somebody had it easy, I end up dead wrong. There is just so much I didn't know about.

I even recently realized it's very common to deeply suffer without being conscious of it, and yet being unhappy because of it. It's a terrible curse, because deep down some part of you knows there is something wrong but you cannot put your finger on it, and yet it affects your whole existence.

People just mechanically don't think about it so they can make the best out of life.

It makes you feel much closer to people, much more tolerant, and you suddenly understand a lot more about the choice they make and the things they do.

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

#637

Post by globular-toast »

WinonaRyder wrote: post #592
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…

> No matter how correct you are, you won't get anywhere by making the other person feel stupid. I came to the same realization some time after an incident at Uni... In a Uni class I tried to correct the lecturer about some Unix/Solaris? feature using my Linux knowledge and when he wouldn't agree, I basically ignored everything he taught for the rest of the class. I think it was maybe something about file systems and…

I think both of you failed to learn from each other there. He had an opportunity to learn from you but refused it. For me, every person presents an opportunity to learn, but I maintain a filter for each person because there are varying levels of bullshit and presence of a little knowledge about certain things. I consider it one of my talents that I can quickly and effortlessly gauge these levels for people and discover what it is I can learn from them and what I definitely can't learn from them.

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

#638

Post by rayalez »

Since people seem to be sharing their favorite quotes, I'll share a couple of my own. It's kind of like a litany to repeat in difficult situations, replace placeholders as needed:

“What is true is already so. Owning up to it doesn't make it worse. Not being open about it doesn't make it go away. And because it's true, it is what is there to be interacted with. Anything untrue isn't there to be lived. People can stand what is true, for they are already enduring it."

"If [scary thought] is true, I want to believe that. If [scary thought] is not true, I want not to believe [scary thought]. Let me not become attached to beliefs I may not want. If I'm living in a world where [scary thought] is true, that’s what I have to believe, I have to know what’s coming, so I can stop it, or in the very worst case, be prepared to do what I can in the time I have left. Not believing it won’t stop it from happening."

"I am not afraid. I am not afraid because if I let myself get too scared I might not be able to do what needs to be done. And I'm not the type of person who backs down. I am the type of person who does the right thing, even if it's hard. Right now, the right thing is to [x]. And even if it doesn't work, I'll just do the next right thing, and the next, and the next. I'll keep on trying until I figure out a way."

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

#639

Post by globular-toast »

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…

I would also add to that: adopting tools before you need them. Premature optimisation.

Too often I see people adopting tools just because it's the latest fashion or because they've seen their friends use them. But do you actually need them? The need should come first. For two reasons. First, you might simply not need that tool, so why not keep your life more simple and make it easier for developers to work on your project? Second, if all you have is a hammer, everything looks like a nail. Grow your project first, decide what tooling you need later. Otherwise you'll be constrained by the limitations of your tools. Some projects will need completely custom tooling, many won't, but you won't know until you get your teeth into the damn project.

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

#640

Post by WalterBright »

JackFr wrote: post #606
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.

Oh, everyone is allowed a rage at the universe moment :-)
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