How to Think for Yourself • Hacker News Board

Re: How to Think for Yourself

#721

Post by njarboe » Sat, Nov 28, 2020, 1:55 AM UTC

aerosmile wrote: post #692

mdorazio wrote: post #673

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Counterpoint: exceedingly few tech entrepreneurship companies are doing anything at all that is really new and "radically different". Most are doing rather small and unimaginative things that make money by doing some equivalent of selling more ads. If the GP commenter was working at, for example, SpaceX (a large aerospace company), I can 100% guarantee their work would be more meaningful and rewarding than at basical…

I 100% get where you're coming from, but allow me to offer a counterpoint to your counterpoint. I don't know anyone who works at SpaceX, but a bunch of my classmates went to work for ULA (their competitor). I imagine that SpaceX is better managed, but the nature of work is the same - you're either calculating things using conventional wisdom, or you're writing simulations or coming up with other ways to achieve highe…

ULA is definitely not like SpaceX and is not a competitor at this point. ULA is failing due to the exact problems that you describe and if your rocket is not reusable, it cannot compete outside government launches at this point. The only other rocket company that I see competing at the moment is Jeff Bezos' Blue Origin (and we are still waiting for the first New Glen launch). SpaceX is different with Elon Musk leading the engineering. Move fast, iterate, everyone working on the project should understand the whole vehicle so that people can see when making radical changes is the way forward. SpaceX was building carbon fiber pieces for their next rocket after the Falcon 9/Heavy, and completely scrapped that idea and went with a steel hull instead. About a year later the new design is going to launch up to 15km and land in the next few weeks.

Elon Musk comes from the start-up world and he is hoping to get to Mars himself, so he is in a hurry. I would say if you can get a job there, you should. If you have not already, check out reddit/r/spacex for lots of interesting stuff about the company and what they are doing. You might want to apply to work there if you are looking for a fast paced aerospace company.

There is also the startup called Boom that is working on building a supersonic passenger plane. They have just finished a smaller human-piloted supersonic test plane to prove out their ideas and hope to have the commercial airplane in service by 2025.

These companies are both run by people that started in software and then moved to aerospace without any other real prior experience in the field. Maybe you can have a similar route with founding a successful software company and then, with that success, found an aerospace one of your own. Good luck.

Re: How to Think for Yourself

#722

Post by ekianjo » Sat, Nov 28, 2020, 1:56 AM UTC

jolux wrote: post #632

ardit33 wrote: post #629

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't know, but I rather hear sporting/fitness advice from someone that won NBA finals, or the soccer World Cup, then just some random loser. The winner at least can tell you how they did succeed personally, even if they have no comprehensive studies with data. On the other hand, you are just a random guy from the internet, and offering advice with no data at all. You might be broke and posting from your mom's base…

Many successful people overrate their personal characteristics and underrate the degree to which they were merely in the right place at the right time and such. Fortune favors the prepared, of course, but I personally believe there are far more people in the world who are adequately prepared for success who do not succeed because they are under-resourced or poorly connected.

> which they were merely in the right place at the right time and such.

If you are successful several times against the odds it's probably not just mere coincidence anymore. You know, stats.

Re: How to Think for Yourself

#723

Post by LetThereBeLight » Sat, Nov 28, 2020, 1:56 AM UTC

lisper wrote: post #256

> There are some kinds of work that you can't do well without thinking differently from your peers. To be a successful scientist, for example, it's not enough just to be correct. Your ideas have to be both correct and novel. As someone who once made their living as a scientist, I can tell you from firsthand experience that while this is technically correct, the conclusion PG wishes to draw from this: > One of the mos…

>Being skeptical of the conventional wisdom can be useful, but keeping yourself intentionally ignorant of it is generally a bad plan.

Yes, I agree with this. It follows along the lines of the saying: You must learn the rules before you can break them. With that said, I have seen many 1st year graduate students spend weeks/months going through the literature only to come up with project ideas that are close derivatives of published works. This usually happens because a student put too much focus on absorbing the "conventional wisdom" of the field rather than starting with a question and seeing what research has already been done to address it.

However, there are plenty of scientists who disagree with this sentiment. I had a colleague who would quote Feynman, "I never pay any attention to anything by experts. I calculate everything myself." Maybe that works if you are Feynman, but I seem to recall John Preskill saying that he didn't think this mentality served Feynman well, at least in his later years.

Re: How to Think for Yourself

#724

Post by Geminidog » Sat, Nov 28, 2020, 2:01 AM UTC

aerosmile wrote: post #694

RIDDLERTHIS wrote: post #688

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What would have been the right time? When you were a student studying during your first degree or your second? In hindsight, I think it is almost dubious to assume that exposure to this article would have helped you at any given time in the past. It's quite possible you would not have come to the same realization about tech entrepreneurship had you not obtained your AE and had the experiences that you did.

Fair enough - one article alone probably wouldn't have had the full impact. But I am envious of the generation of current high schoolers who can read HN all day. After a year or so, I imagine you can reprogram your mind quite a bit. Back in the late 90s, access to information like this was much more limited.

Start up bros are becoming generic this space is filling up with garbage as well.

Re: How to Think for Yourself

#725

Post by warlog » Sat, Nov 28, 2020, 2:09 AM UTC

ekianjo wrote: post #722

jolux wrote: post #632

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Many successful people overrate their personal characteristics and underrate the degree to which they were merely in the right place at the right time and such. Fortune favors the prepared, of course, but I personally believe there are far more people in the world who are adequately prepared for success who do not succeed because they are under-resourced or poorly connected.

> which they were merely in the right place at the right time and such. If you are successful several times against the odds it's probably not just mere coincidence anymore. You know, stats.

Unless you have VCs betting on the same horse... Accrual of advantage, etc etc.

You also likely have funds to float you for longer.

You also likely have a network to leverage/exploit.

These external things all can stem from a lucky first go.

Re: How to Think for Yourself

#726

Post by ATsch » Sat, Nov 28, 2020, 2:10 AM UTC

Absolutely insufferable, I can't even hate-read this article.

Re: How to Think for Yourself

#727

Post by bayonetz » Sat, Nov 28, 2020, 2:14 AM UTC

dougmwne wrote: post #163

dijit wrote: post #39

So, I might have a controversial opinion here. My mother raised me to think for myself, it was a heavy emphasis of my upbringing and important for her. However I'm now in situations where the world is divided and asking questions (in order to make my own mind up) is considered some kind of admission of guilt for being part of the "other". For example: Asking someone why they think immigration is good/bad. If it's a b…

I think questioning someone's ideology or beliefs to their face has never and will never win them as a friend. These things generally aren't rationally founded anyway. If you ask about some political issue, you're going to get regurgitated talking points and tribalism, not a thesis. I think it's quite rare to meet someone willing to suspend belief for a bit and engage in unbiased debate, or at least I haven't met too…

If they aren’t “fastidious about truth” probably. If they are, and they know you are being “curious”, you will likely have a cool, engaging conversation on your hands.

Re: How to Think for Yourself

#728

Post by jonfromsf » Sat, Nov 28, 2020, 2:14 AM UTC

gtsop wrote: post #653

Accept the duality of your human nature. You think as a collective and as an individual at the same time. It's a matter of budget. When you do things that don't matter too much to you, you are damn happy to think exactly like the next guy, reusing the existing knowledge as is without a second thought. For instance: how do you boil an egg? For all I care, I leave it in boiled water for 10 minutes. I am more than happy…

Boil it for 8 min 30 seconds. Cool it in cold water for 60 seconds right after.

Re: How to Think for Yourself

#729

Post by Geminidog » Sat, Nov 28, 2020, 2:16 AM UTC

The unconventional independent minded people on HN are the people who are banned and voted down.

While this group of people includes individual with new ideas, it also includes flat earthers. The same emotional confidence that allows you to have revolutionary ideas is the same one that allows you to be a flat earther.

If you posted your idea on HN and you find that the idea is voted up by a lot? It means a lot of people agree with you, the thought is therefore not independent or unconventional. Does your post get voted down? Well it's pretty much by definition a very independent idea.

In general, unconventional independent minded people fight an uphill battle.

Re: How to Think for Yourself

#730

Post by rytor718 » Sat, Nov 28, 2020, 2:24 AM UTC

ardit33 wrote: post #629

ryeguy_24 wrote: post #615

Am I the only one is getting pretty bored of "formula for success" content? This essay and other's like it, without evidence or data, implies that some of us know the formula for success. I get it, the things that change convention are unconventional at first. This is the definition of unconventional. I agree with the general vector of his essay but this is just boring to me. Here is my formula for success (in case a…

I don't know, but I rather hear sporting/fitness advice from someone that won NBA finals, or the soccer World Cup, then just some random loser. The winner at least can tell you how they did succeed personally, even if they have no comprehensive studies with data. On the other hand, you are just a random guy from the internet, and offering advice with no data at all. You might be broke and posting from your mom's base…

This is an almost ironic response to the article for a couple of reasons that caught my attention (read: not a bad response, just somewhat ironic).

The first was mentioned by someone else in the thread whose response i can't find again due to opening this in a different device: why is it more valuable to hear advice from winners than, say, a failure from their mother's basement as you put it? In relation to the article's key point, that's very conventional (hence the irony) :)

The second thing I noticed was the assumption that a successful person knows their success or could explain it to anyone -- I haven't found this to be true and can personally attest that I can rarely explain my own to someone else. But there are definitely other reasons I can't, not least I'm just a poor explainer.

I found the article intriguing for a lot of reasons, not least of which is I always see a bit of myself in nerd content like it. I found myself thinking of all the conventions I absorb and recall when I realized I'd absorbed them. On the other hand, I'm renown in my family and among friends as completely unconventional and am generally The Weirdo. The resolution of that tension is intensely interesting to me. How I see all the conventions in myself, but near no one else seems to see it that way at all.

More to the point: given the option, I'll read the advice of a failure in a heartbeat and ponder it for days. I've never found advice from "pros" or success stories to be nearly as interesting. If you can, explain why opinions from winners is more interesting to you. Genuinely intrigued and curious to hear a different perspective.