Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Ask HN: What are good life skills for people to learn?

news.ycombinator.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

251–260 of 277 posts

Re: Ask HN: What are good life skills for people to learn?

#251

Post by john4532452 »

gotaran wrote: post #211

If you're single, dating. Especially online dating. Depending on you upbringing, this is similar to personal finance, where nobody really teaches you what to do, and there's a lot of "seduction" or "red pill" toxic nonsense out there. Dating is also a relatively recent modern construct, and it's a skill that doesn't come naturally. There's a certain etiquette to it that might vary from place to place and in time you'…

I am skeptical of dismissing the "red pill" entirely. Feynman tested being jerk to get laid and it had worked for him. However he did not continue being jerk because he found it hard to be against his nature or he had moral dilemma about it. I forgot exactly why he stopped using the method

Re: Ask HN: What are good life skills for people to learn?

#252

Post by kwhitefoot »

MereInterest wrote: post #86
bserge wrote: post #68

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Eh, isn't that why language was invented? Late Stephen Hawking would've had a hard time with body language and even intonation. Fortunately, we have words that convey exactly what we want.

> Fortunately, we have words that convey exactly what we want. Words can be just as fuzzy as body language. Sometimes, this can be done intentionally, for dramatic effect (e.g. "The duke yet lives that Henry shall depose"). English can have syntactic ambiguity, which limits the understanding of a phrase. In the sentence "I saw the man on the mountain with the telescope.", was I using a telescope to see the man on the…

> metaphorical in the phrase "took his leave"

How so? Surely "took his leave" is quite literal, meaning he left. See https://www.lexico.com/definition/take_one%27s_leave

Re: Ask HN: What are good life skills for people to learn?

#253

Post by bitxbitxbitcoin »

snak wrote: post #240
biren34 wrote: post #124

1. How to spend less than you earn. Lots of people desire “financial freedom”, meaning they can spend what they want when they want it. Solving this via revenue leads to the hedonic treadmill, and you’ll never out earn your growing wants. Instead solve this by controlling your wants, and you’ve achieved financial freedom immediately. 2. How to take risks. Finding the balance between recklessness and absolute risk avo…

First time I've heard about "hedonic treadmill". Found a little bit of information about the concept, very interesting, but can't seem to find a similar concept/translation in spanish.

"No ser menos que los demás" seems to be the same concept as "keeping up with the Joneses." For "hedonic treadmill" I imagine something similar to "carrera de ratas" would be closest. Would be interested to hear if anyone else has an oft used translation!

Re: Ask HN: What are good life skills for people to learn?

#254

Post by ejolto »

m0zg wrote: post #237
ejolto wrote: post #234

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What do you do with all your extra spare time? Are you learning some skill or are you relaxing in some other way not related to technology?

There's plenty to do: I can have hobbies again. I have finished a lot of old projects in the past 6 months, some of which sat in my garage for almost a decade. It's really satisfying. I'm practicing on the guitar again, too. That alone will soak up all the spare time you might have.

That's cool to hear, and motivational. I'd like to learn how to play the guitar and how to draw. Getting started is challenging though, especially with the distractions from phones.

Re: Ask HN: What are good life skills for people to learn?

#256

Post by cweagans »

JMTQp8lwXL wrote: post #126
bob1029 wrote: post #104

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is by far the most important thing I can think of, followed shortly by being able to maintain a regular, high-quality exercise regimen. Meal prep is the key to keeping the discipline in terms of cooking cheap, high-quality meals for yourself. If you understand some fundamentals about how to store food and scaling recipes up, you can leverage your time very well. In a given week, I spend ~2 hours in the kitchen t…

I am envious of your food budget. A mere pound of chicken breast at my local grocery store costs ~$10/lb, though they range from about ~$5-10lb. However, at the cheaper end, the meat is a demonstrably lower quality, with odd texture issues due to chickens growing so fast (the condition is called 'woody chicken'). Your budget would get me 15 lbs of protein. That's just not enough food for 2 people (my household size).…

Depending on where you live, you might be able to buy live chickens and have them butchered for cheaper than $10/lb. If you get really lucky, you might also be able to find a farmer that raises, butchers, packages, and sells chicken directly. We've got a place like that here (Idaho), but it's really out of the way. When we shop there, it's usually 3-4 hours to get out there, buy a bunch of meat, and drive back. Really high quality stuff though -- it's a night and day difference from the stuff you buy at the grocery store. Same applies to beef, especially if you've got freezer space for large quantities. Occasionally, we'll split half a cow with one or two other families. It's a few hundred dollars of expense up front, but in return, you can be really picky about how the cows were raised, know exactly where the meat came from, get specific cuts of meat, etc.

If meat is important to you in your diet, I highly recommend looking around for something like that! It's a bit of work but I've found it to be extremely worthwhile.

Re: Ask HN: What are good life skills for people to learn?

#257

Post by m0zg »

ejolto wrote: post #254
m0zg wrote: post #237

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There's plenty to do: I can have hobbies again. I have finished a lot of old projects in the past 6 months, some of which sat in my garage for almost a decade. It's really satisfying. I'm practicing on the guitar again, too. That alone will soak up all the spare time you might have.

That's cool to hear, and motivational. I'd like to learn how to play the guitar and how to draw. Getting started is challenging though, especially with the distractions from phones.

Exactly. Every time going gets hard there's a temptation to just fire up the browser or youtube. You have to make a conscious effort to _not_ do this. You have to also be _bored_ to do anything of value. It's very easy to be entertained nowadays. Similarly to cake, entertainment is good only in moderation, though.

Re: Ask HN: What are good life skills for people to learn?

#258

Post by mod »

gamechangr wrote: post #228
mod wrote: post #221

Earlier quoted context omitted.

1: In 2002, long before I was a dev, I made about $14,000, working at a local YMCA. I had plenty of money. I paid rent (shared), I went out to eat a couple times per week (mainly the $13.50 all-you-can-eat crab at the chinese place), and I spent my leisure time how I wanted--for me that was primarily gaming, fishing (from the shore), programming, and coaching youth sports. I drove a beater car and did not have any lu…

Just curious - $60k for 40 acres and a home What state are you in and how far from a big city?

It's in the Ozarks, and it's 2.5 hours from Little Rock, 90 minutes from Branson. So quite far.

Re: Ask HN: What are good life skills for people to learn?

#259

Post by gotaran »

mailshanx wrote: post #233
gotaran wrote: post #211

If you're single, dating. Especially online dating. Depending on you upbringing, this is similar to personal finance, where nobody really teaches you what to do, and there's a lot of "seduction" or "red pill" toxic nonsense out there. Dating is also a relatively recent modern construct, and it's a skill that doesn't come naturally. There's a certain etiquette to it that might vary from place to place and in time you'…

Can you recommend any resources to learn this better?

I like Hinge's blog: http://hingeirl.com/. It has some solid tips. Besides that, I haven't found anything else too useful and mostly learned by putting myself out there and making a ton of mistakes. That's not to say there might be some other useful material out there.

I'd be weary of taking advice from reddit or similar communities. Most people who frequent those forums and give advice tend to be plagued with relationship problems themselves.

Of course, dating in a Covid-19 world might be tricky, and it's not something I feel is worth the effort, though YMMV. (fwiw, I used to think the same about online dating, and I was completely wrong.)

Re: Ask HN: What are good life skills for people to learn?

#260

Post by gotaran »

john4532452 wrote: post #251
gotaran wrote: post #211

If you're single, dating. Especially online dating. Depending on you upbringing, this is similar to personal finance, where nobody really teaches you what to do, and there's a lot of "seduction" or "red pill" toxic nonsense out there. Dating is also a relatively recent modern construct, and it's a skill that doesn't come naturally. There's a certain etiquette to it that might vary from place to place and in time you'…

I am skeptical of dismissing the "red pill" entirely. Feynman tested being jerk to get laid and it had worked for him. However he did not continue being jerk because he found it hard to be against his nature or he had moral dilemma about it. I forgot exactly why he stopped using the method

Gell-Mann seemed to insinuate that Feynman just made up most of his stories [1]. And even if they were true, he lived in a different era. Social norms have evolved considerably since then.

Still, IME it's clear that gender dynamics are clearly in play today. Men tend to take the lead most of the time in heterosexual relationships. I feel most of it is still nurture and not nature; I heard in Europe gender roles are less prominent in dating vs. the US.

By "red pill" or "seduction" advice, I meant snake oil silver bullet advice. There aren't any shortcuts.

[1] https://blogs.scientificamerican.com/the-curious-wavefunctio...

Post reply on HN