How to increase your luck surface area (2010) • Hacker News Board

Re: How to increase your luck surface area (2010)

#201

Post by stouset » Tue, Feb 02, 2021, 8:46 PM UTC

sokoloff wrote: post #90

stouset wrote: post #54

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Your observation about young people with four-figure net worths thinking it’s rational to gamble it all on options is pretty much this week’s equivalent of those living paycheck-to-paycheck “investing” in the lottery. The bigger problem is that this is rarely just a one-time decision to gamble. And repeatedly doing this is statistically pretty certain to lose you significant amounts of money—particularly when compare…

I agree with your points on trading frequency, but I still think Robinhood is good for people rather than bad. I think the alternative destination for a lot of that Robinhood money isn’t “Vanguard VTSAX” but rather slightly positive lifestyle inflation/expenses. To the extent that’s the case, all the gamification and reinforcement is creating a behavior that’s better than the likely alternative. (Returns are not good…

I've been debating a lot in these comments, but I do want to take the time to appreciate this point of view. It's definitely one I hadn't considered.

If Robinhood is getting people who otherwise wouldn't save to invest, even if they're getting worse returns than they would at somewhere like Vanguard, then I could definitely reconsider my perspective that they're a net-evil. I'm not entirely sure I buy that story, but it's absolutely a reasonable perspective and one I'll keep in mind in the future when evaluating new information about Robinhood.

Re: How to increase your luck surface area (2010)

#202

Post by throwaway2245 » Tue, Feb 02, 2021, 9:40 PM UTC

stouset wrote: post #200

throwaway2245 wrote: post #181

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This helps, but not that much. (Assuming your risk assessment is correct) Suppose a shock happened right before I planned to shift into a safer portfolio. What do I do then? The only really correct answer is: "well, I didn't need that money anyway."

There shouldn't be an exact moment you switch to a conservative portfolio. As you get nearer to retirement, you gradually rebalance. Often this is as easy as simply placing new contributions in safer investments. Less often it just involves exchanging one set of funds for another, say once per year. Again, Target Retirement funds handle this completely transparently for you and require literally zero hands-on involve…

> This is quite simply nowhere near as hard as you're making it out to be.

I'm going to quote a (sarcastic) reply to another of your comments:

"This is easy. Just find a job that pays you $350,000 a year."

If you have plenty of wealth and income, then it's easy.

But then, if you have plenty of wealth and income, it doesn't really matter what you do.

Re: How to increase your luck surface area (2010)

#203

Post by Judgmentality » Tue, Feb 02, 2021, 10:14 PM UTC

stouset wrote: post #198

Judgmentality wrote: post #144

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Okay. So when you say: > Billionaires can remain solvent longer than you can remain irrational. It just sounds really disingenuous when we're talking about Melvin Capital and you agree they're going to lose all their money. Nobody is claiming all billionaires are going away because of this trade. The point is some billionaires will lose money on this trade.

That's the point you're making. The point I'm making is that Melvin is going under, a few Redditors will make money if they get out in time, but the eventual impact of this will be a different set of billionaires gets richer while most Redditors are going to be stuck holding the bag. Which isn't exactly the "Reddit gets rich off of evil billionaires" narrative that's being sold. And it makes the diamond hands strateg…

Again, for many people it's not about making money.

And many (most?) people are aware that billionaires will still get rich on this trade.

You keep explaining this to me as if it's something I don't already know. The part you are failing to understand is we hold fundamentally different values.

Diamond. Fucking. Hands.

Re: How to increase your luck surface area (2010)

#204

Post by Nevermark » Wed, Feb 03, 2021, 2:14 PM UTC

dehrmann wrote: post #73

Nevermark wrote: post #44

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I hate to say “Bitcoin” because of its high risk, short track record, volatility, faddish aura, etc, but: I believe it’s filling a gap beyond being a better gold-like asset. Better gold = digitally portable, 24 hr liquidity, digital literate friendly, fixed cap, transactions (even with its limits), decentralized control, etc. But the solidly fixed cap is more profound than I think most people recognize. Potentially,…

> fixed cap This makes it more like a collectable (say, baseball cards) than a currency. The number is capped and some will be lost. It has value as long as people are interested in it--scarcity does not imply value. It also has a short track record and could run into issues if miners collude, there's a DDoS attack, or someone with a lot of resources reverses transactions, hurting confidence in it.

Baseball cards are valued for being distinct. Bitcoin for being fungible (despite a traceable blockchain history).

Baseball cards are not divisible.

I know of no situation in which collectibles are viable for transaction, but Bitcoin is. (Despite limitations in transaction numbers, speed of confirmation and transaction fees.)

So I don’t think that’s a good comparison.

Re: How to increase your luck surface area (2010)

#205

Post by postit » Wed, Feb 03, 2021, 11:55 PM UTC

ghaff wrote: post #105

postit wrote: post #63

I struggle a lot with advertising my work outside the company. I'm the kind of engineer that will get anything done regardless of the tech (or people/process) complexity, and I always end up watching someone else in the team going to conferences to present my work. Random reasons random, but mostly because my inner klout is way bigger than my outer persona.

Do you not want to be the person presenting or are you being prevented from doing so for whatever reason. (And if the reason is something like presentation skills, do you care enough to do something about it?)

Most of my work is per contract on which I've usually signed a non-disclosal.

Re: How to increase your luck surface area (2010)

#206

Post by jlevers » Thu, Feb 04, 2021, 6:02 PM UTC

kharak wrote: post #183

jlevers wrote: post #106

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Cal Newport has a book that discusses this this called So Good They Can't Ignore You, which I found really interesting. His thesis is basically that the people who are most satisfied with their work are those who stuck with something until they got really good at it, regardless of whether it was the topic they were "most passionate" about (passion can be fickle, IMO).

I have been doing coding for some years now. Went from terrible to average and sometimes even good. Still no passion. And I'll never be one of the really good devs, my learning speed during work isn't high enough. I know what to do to get better, how to practice. But that would require huge time investments during my after work hours. And for what? Doing more of the same I don't really like, so that my employers prof…

I agree that it's not necessarily true that everyone can become world-class at their job, but I think most people have the intellectual capability to become really good, if expending the necessary effort is worth it to them. In my opinion, a lot of being good at something is just being conscientious about it. Most of us will never be John Carmack, but there's a lot of space between "good" and "world-class."

It seems like maybe your goals in life don't line up with becoming "so good they can't ignore you?" I don't intend that as an insult in any way -- everyone has different priorities in life, and I don't know you, so it's also possible that you _are_ "so good they can't ignore you," and the book is incorrect.

Re: How to increase your luck surface area (2010)

#207

Post by jlevers » Thu, Feb 04, 2021, 6:06 PM UTC

plutonic wrote: post #165

jlevers wrote: post #106

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Cal Newport has a book that discusses this this called So Good They Can't Ignore You, which I found really interesting. His thesis is basically that the people who are most satisfied with their work are those who stuck with something until they got really good at it, regardless of whether it was the topic they were "most passionate" about (passion can be fickle, IMO).

Does this not imply that they are satisfied with their work for largely social, extrinsic reasons (as opposed to intrinsic ones)? Cal seems to argue that people can only be most satisfied if they are better than everyone else at some niche task. I wonder how this is any different than winning at the "rat race" that so many people seem to harp against? Is Cal then in support of the "rat race" ?

I don't think that what I said implies that, no.

Even outside of work, don't you find it satisfying to do something you're really good at? A dumb example: I love skiing, and the better I get at it, the more fun I have doing it. It's not because I enjoy showing up the people around me -- using my skills just becomes more enjoyable the better I get.