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A Project of One’s Own

paulgraham.com

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Re: A Project of One’s Own

#171

Post by gonehome »

foobarian wrote: post #165
dpogorniy wrote: post #143

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's because parents are afraid that their child won't be competitive enough to have a decent life. If only parents were relaxed, if only they knew that their child can live full life without grinding through exercises. Then child just would pursue what they love, interested (unless it's unaffordable to their social strata). I wonder what we can do today to make this happen sooner. On the side note. There is a grea…

> If only parents were relaxed, if only they knew that their child can live full life without grinding through exercises. Isn't that how young people end up with liberal arts degrees saddled with debt they have little chance of ever repaying? I guess it might be a full life still but I haven't met many people in this position who enjoyed it.

I feel like there’s a middle ground? Encourage the child to do well and be honest about the importance of credentials/marketability of jobs without crushing their spirit?

I think the main issue is parents are largely ignorant of what’s important for a new generation - especially when things are undergoing radical technical change.

My fiancée is reading Walden - and there are comical similarities to a modern day van life Silicon Valley programmer. The industrial revolution left parents at the time clueless - something similar is happening again.

Re: A Project of One’s Own

#172

Post by cbushko »

chubot wrote: post #109
rossdavidh wrote: post #41

Jared Diamond, in his book "The Day Before Yesterday", talks about how children in Papua New Guinea when he was an anthropologist there would play at making a garden or raising pigs. The kid would have a toy, wooden pig, and then eventually be given a piglet, and then gradually their "play" would become more realistic until it shaded into adult work. My daughter, as a youngun', wanted to play "coffeeshop" where she w…

Yeah I'm pretty sure that Christopher Alexander makes this point in one of his books, maybe A Pattern Language He says that suburbs are configured "wrong", in a way that's antithetical to life. Because the children go to school somewhere nearby, where they are babysat, and the fathers (at that time) commute to work in the city. And the children have no idea what their parents do, and that is alienating. The configura…

You just sparked the thought in my head about how much has the pandemic changed this?

With myself working from home and my kids being virtual that they have been to see what my day to day is like.

I think they realize that I have too many meetings and how much it stops me from getting real/deep work done..

Re: A Project of One’s Own

#173

Post by opportune »

throwawayboise wrote: post #161
opportune wrote: post #141

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Grades still matter for the vast majority of people who aren’t born into mega rich families. Most people don’t become Silicon Valley entrepreneurs and even those that do benefit greatly from the pedigrees that academic achievement opens up (going to top colleges, working at desirable employers, although grades matter little there unless you’re right out of college). For everyone else grades are still used for trackin…

You've hit on it, grades matter right up until you're out of school. For most people, they matter for getting a first job (because there usually isn't much else to serve as a filter). After that, nobody will ever ask for or look at them again.

Most of the high paying professions outside of software require the degree and that first job to break into them. Sure for banking and consulting it’s not a hard requirement, but it’s much harder to get into them with bad grades or a degree from a non-target school.

It’s really only in the software bubble where people are able to prove themselves to break into it, due to various factors including engineers being in very short supply relative to demand for over a decade now. Sure nobody asks for my grades now that I’ve been out of college for a while, but they still look at where I went to college (based on high school achievement) and my first job (based on college achievement) and subsequent jobs (much easier to get because of where I worked at my first job), etc.

I just see this argument as very tone deaf because there are hundreds of millions of us regular people out there, and academic achievement is the most surefire way to get noticed and be given opportunities if you aren’t lucky enough to come from an important/influential family.

It’s not only about the grades themselves but how they pipeline the rest of your career and credentials. Rich people can shmooze and scheme to get some of those credentials and opportunities for their kids without the grades, but not us regular folk.

Re: A Project of One’s Own

#174

Post by lliamander »

chubot wrote: post #109
rossdavidh wrote: post #41

Jared Diamond, in his book "The Day Before Yesterday", talks about how children in Papua New Guinea when he was an anthropologist there would play at making a garden or raising pigs. The kid would have a toy, wooden pig, and then eventually be given a piglet, and then gradually their "play" would become more realistic until it shaded into adult work. My daughter, as a youngun', wanted to play "coffeeshop" where she w…

Yeah I'm pretty sure that Christopher Alexander makes this point in one of his books, maybe A Pattern Language He says that suburbs are configured "wrong", in a way that's antithetical to life. Because the children go to school somewhere nearby, where they are babysat, and the fathers (at that time) commute to work in the city. And the children have no idea what their parents do, and that is alienating. The configura…

I feel fortunate in that regard, in that I work from home and we homeschool our children[0]. Not only do they have a chance to see how adults work, but I they also get more opportunities to see how adults interact with each other in general. I also get a chance to be more a part of their childhood, which is a nice plus.

[0] Don't worry, they socialize with plenty of other people

Re: A Project of One’s Own

#175

Post by asadlionpk »

brhsagain wrote: post #131

Good essay overall, but this footnote in particular stood out to me: > [2] Tiger parents, as parents so often do, are fighting the last war. Grades mattered more in the old days when the route to success was to acquire credentials while ascending some predefined ladder. But it's just as well that their tactics are focused on grades. How awful it would be if they invaded the territory of projects, and thereby gave the…

Wait so how do I 'not-force' my kid into programming these days? Our generation didn't have roblox, youtube and minecraft to distract us much.

Re: A Project of One’s Own

#176

Post by lliamander »

munificent wrote: post #155
omarhaneef wrote: post #120

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Same thought. PG gets held to a higher standard than anything else on here. If some random smart person put up the same article, everyone would congratulate them for at least the effort. I can't tell if PG's (cultivated) simple style makes people think the "idea" is simple. In any case, even if people don't like something, they don't usually go out of their way to tell the author, especially when it is something as p…

> PG gets held to a higher standard than anything else on here. He's unbelievably wealthy and created HN. That gives him an outsize influence that doesn't come from the merit of his ideas. Critique is a useful counterbalance to that effect so that his ideas get a level of weight more appropriate to their worth.

People joined HN because of the merits of his ideas.

Re: A Project of One’s Own

#177

Post by fearthetelomere »

rossdavidh wrote: post #41

Jared Diamond, in his book "The Day Before Yesterday", talks about how children in Papua New Guinea when he was an anthropologist there would play at making a garden or raising pigs. The kid would have a toy, wooden pig, and then eventually be given a piglet, and then gradually their "play" would become more realistic until it shaded into adult work. My daughter, as a youngun', wanted to play "coffeeshop" where she w…

There's a working theory that you could do this with anything. A cool story to read is the Polgar family. His daughters became some of the best chess players of their time.

>Polgár and his wife considered various possible subjects in which to drill their children, "including mathematics and foreign languages," but they settled on chess. "We could do the same thing with any subject, if you start early, spend lots of time and give great love to that one subject," Klara later explained. "But we chose chess. Chess is very objective and easy to measure."[3] His eldest daughter Susan described chess as having been her own choice: "Yes, he could have put us in any field, but it was I who chose chess as a four-year-old... I liked the chessmen; they were toys for me." [1]

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/L%C3%A1szl%C3%B3_Polg%C3%A1r

Re: A Project of One’s Own

#178

Post by corpMaverick »

This resonated with me. I have been developing software professionally for 32 years. And I am counting the days until retirement. I don't really want to retire, I want to own the work that I do. I don't care if it is boring or if somebody else tell me what they want. But having autonomy on HOW I do the work is what is important. And when I have that, may productivity goes through the roof and that is when I am truly happy.

Re: A Project of One’s Own

#179

Post by 99_00 »

brhsagain wrote: post #131

Good essay overall, but this footnote in particular stood out to me: > [2] Tiger parents, as parents so often do, are fighting the last war. Grades mattered more in the old days when the route to success was to acquire credentials while ascending some predefined ladder. But it's just as well that their tactics are focused on grades. How awful it would be if they invaded the territory of projects, and thereby gave the…

Tiger parents

A largely Chinese-American concept, the term draws parallels to strict parenting styles ostensibly common to households in East Asia, South Asia, and Southeast Asia. (wikipedia)

The idea behind tiger parents is that Asians earn more money. And it's true, but not the whole store.

But the problem is that average Asian incomes are pulled up by Indian-Americans. Chinese-Americans earn less than many European-Americans. So the whole concept is based on flawed logic.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_ethnic_groups_in_the_U...

Re: A Project of One’s Own

#180

Post by convolvatron »

gdubs wrote: post #124

Another aspect of personal projects is that if they’re truly enjoyable they can be a kind of salve for burnout.* If you feel like you can’t even open your IDE, a personal project can generate the excitement that reinvigorates your passion. There’s also less of a speed limit with personal projects — the things like: “before you go down that road let’s talk with X; hold off on that idea for now; let’s wait until...” Th…

I disagree about the sidenote. go for it. get as far as you can.
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