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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

#801

Post by RaceWon »

3131s wrote: post #413
floatrock wrote: post #325

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"The master has failed more times than the beginner has even attempted."

"A beginner practices until they get it right, a master practices until they can't get it wrong."

> "A beginner practices until they get it right, a master practices until they can't get it wrong."

You can get to the point where no one can see any mistakes. It appears perfect... But not to you. The only way to get to that point is to never be satisfied with your own performance, it could always have been a bit better, you could see that small error (or more likely--those small errors) that no one else could see.

Ayrton Senna talked about trying to drive the perfect lap using this anology: "It is like trying to tie your necktie so that both ends are exactly the same length; experience and practice say that you can do it--but you can't."

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

#802

Post by rsecora »

DapperZoom wrote: post #463
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…

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.

Your comment is food for the brain. :)

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

#803

Post by idoby »

"Once you've understood the core of your problem, the rest is merely millions of dollars and hundreds of thousands of man-hours"

My high school physics teacher, the only one who believed in me, whom I continue to disappoint every day by not achieving a Nobel prize in physics.

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

#804

Post by beagle3 »

kgin wrote: post #725
afpx wrote: post #306

Earlier quoted context omitted.

My life experiences don't match your mental model, sadly. Maybe it has to do with where and how one grows up? For example, I know with certainty that my parents, teachers, and first bosses were enemies. A lot of people on HN seem to have grown up in safe, nurturing, loving environments. But, remember that most of the world's people didn't. I don't mean to call you out - just saying that I would love to have had your…

I guess maybe it’s worth remembering that even if someone is an enemy it is in conflict with you, nobody thinks they are “the bad guy”. If you want to understand why someone does what they do, you can’t chalk it up just to “they’re evil” or “they’re crazy”. There’s some reason why they’re doing what they do and to them, they feel like they’re on the right side.

Indeed. I don’t know the origin, but I’ve heard it phrased as “no one is the villain in the movie that is their life”, or “no person is the villain in that person’s autobiography”

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

#806

Post by beagle3 »

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 was thinking “premature action ...” covers it, but it doesn’t properly match the stuff in your last paragraph.

The way I usually put it is “level and division of effort should match and be informed by the level of knowledge”, but that also doesn’t cover “move fast...” properly, because some people take that to mean “I don’t know enough, so I should move slowLy” whereas often it should be “I don’t know enough so I should experiment quickly”

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

#807

Post by hi41 »

abnry wrote: post #384

Focus on the theorem and its proof, not the name of the theorem. My background in mathematics and there is an unhealthy adulation of genius. Granted, praise of genius is warranted, but it becomes too much. One symptom of this is that almost every theorem is named for whoever discovered it. Gauss this or Euler that. Shannon this or Nyquist that. What can happen is you begin to think of mathematics in terms of making a…

Do you how to overcome the need for adulation. I for one constantly seek adulation. For the good of one's career, some say one has to constantly repeat their achievements. Evolutionarily we may do it because some will fall for it and support us thereby enhancing our chances of survival. But, I think I love adulation to the point of being mentally sick.

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

#808

Post by elliekelly »

cheezebubba wrote: post #349
abj wrote: post #85

The Elephant in the Brain A lot of common ideas about education, charity and laughter (we laugh because something is funny) are evolutionary useful lies we tell ourselves. "But while we humans often play by ourselves (e.g., with Legos), recall that we laugh mostly in the presence of others. So what communicative purpose does laughter serve in the context of play? Gregory Bateson, a British anthropologist, figured it…

This book shows that many of our institutions have both visible, socially-respected goals, but also hidden goals nobody likes to acknowledge. Example: Health Care Visible goal: Improve Health Hidden goal: Show how much we care ("kiss the booboo") This explains why much of health care is devoted to high-cost high-visibility interventions (like bypass surgery) and much less to lifestyle interventions (like diet/exercis…

I had a boss who used to say there was always a “good reason” and a “real reason” for doing something. A person will tell you the good reason but they won’t often admit the real reason. Sometimes not even to themselves.

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

#810

Post by bytematic »

purerandomness wrote: post #142

The 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.…

Alan Watts has a ton of stuff on this
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