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You are not running out of time

rahulbijlani.com

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Re: You are not running out of time

#51

Post by dkrich »

Great post- definitely one of the most insightful that I've read on Hacker News.

The other day I was thinking about why humans seem to be conditioned to ignore the failures, both their own and those of the people around them, often to their own detriment, while at the same time often quite accurately seeing the deficiencies of those closest to them. I concluded that there must be something evolutionary in that behavior, given that it is so prevalent in society.

But in any case, what is the alternative? To give up before you start? I know a lot of people who have gone that route, and overall it doesn't seem to be a recipe for success or happiness.

Re: You are not running out of time

#52

Post by nachteilig »

danilocampos wrote: post #24
nachteilig wrote: post #16

This seems really inappropriate for HN, to be honest with you. Please, with all due respect, leave this stuff for digg or reddit.

> This seems really inappropriate for HN, to be honest with you. Please, with all due respect, leave this stuff for digg or reddit. I'm always curious upon what basis comments like this are made. I mean, if the test for HN-worthiness is "nerds think it's interesting" and you have evidence that, say, 87 nerds find it interesting enough to make the top post, what's missing? Is this an odd myopia/literalism thing where…

That's sort of the theme of this site, no? We have reddit and such for this kind of writing.

Re: You are not running out of time

#53

Post by yrislerlhf »

Very good post, I like the use of two themes: playing games and building things. I think he places too little emphasis on the importance of games though, and to my ears, he is advancing a false dichotomy between game-playing and thing-building. Playing games to win them can be very satisfying.

There are a couple of games that are somehow larger: the great game of empire and the money game, measured by net worth, but others such as the tour de france and nascar provide the winners with substantial social status. As an aside, not sure where musicians fit into this world-view.

The separation of concepts of game player and thing builder are useful, but it is easy to go too far. Bill Gates is well known to be intensely competitive, and to suggest that he was somehow building something for the good of mankind is deluded. In fact, this paragraph is pure confusion regarding Bill Gates' leadership of Microsoft:

'''Even Bill Gates seems to have an opinion on this. “I’m a great believer that any tool that enhances communication has profound effects in terms of how people can learn from each other, and how they can achieve the kind of freedoms that they’re interested in.” And sure enough, he’s been building these tools all his life. All the money he made doing it? He’s giving it away. And he’s enjoying that process too!'''

Philanthropy is somewhat common behavior among highly successful people, at least in the USA, but to suggest that fortunes are made for the sake of giving them away is to confuse life trajectory with motivating beliefs.

The game is to win! Empires are built to crush other empires, and athletes build their bodies to defeat their opponents! This is Drama, and it is stuff of Life.

To win big one must build big, but if the aim is simply to build big, it is easy to drift off into cult territory like this guy: http://www.newyorker.com/reporting/2011/07/25/110725fa_fact_...

I am suggesting that the competitive context is useful not only for germinating the building of things but also for integrating them into the rest of society once they have been built.

Re: You are not running out of time

#54

Post by m_myers »

nachteilig wrote: post #52
danilocampos wrote: post #24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> This seems really inappropriate for HN, to be honest with you. Please, with all due respect, leave this stuff for digg or reddit. I'm always curious upon what basis comments like this are made. I mean, if the test for HN-worthiness is "nerds think it's interesting" and you have evidence that, say, 87 nerds find it interesting enough to make the top post, what's missing? Is this an odd myopia/literalism thing where…

That's sort of the theme of this site, no? We have reddit and such for this kind of writing.

"If your account is less than a year old, please don't submit comments saying that HN is turning into Reddit. (It's a common semi-noob illusion.)" - http://ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html

There is much more interesting (and useful) to hackers than pure startup and tech news.

Re: You are not running out of time

#55

Post by Yhippa »

grellas wrote: post #49

In a sense, each of us lives our life in Titanic style, setting forth in the confident assumption that we are unsinkable and placing an unduly high value on our capacity to meet any challenge, panicking (or at least feeling a sense of stoic distress) at the mid-point as it first truly hits us that we are about to slam into the iceberg of inevitable aging and decline, sweating it out over a seemingly interminable peri…

I try to humble myself often that I'm not invincible and that I shouldn't take tomorrow for granted but eventually I completely forget about it and I'm back to mundane life. I wish there was an easy way to be reminded without being rudely awakened to the fact that I'm constantly distracting myself from what's important in life.

Re: You are not running out of time

#56

Post by enjalot »

a3_nm wrote: post #7

> what do I want to see grow? What do I want to build? The problem is that in the vast majority of cases, unless you managed to build something successful by the time you die, then your work will die with you and nobody will care. The article makes the tempting assumption that progress is monotonic, and that the work that you do will eventually find its use. I don't think this is right -- the vast majority of stuff e…

I like this quote by Isaac Newton

"I do not know what I may appear to the world; but to myself I seem to have been only like a boy playing on the sea-shore, and diverting myself in now and then finding a smoother pebble or a prettier shell than ordinary, whilst the great ocean of truth lay all undiscovered before me."

Sums up the futility and the selfish enjoyment of a life of intellectual pursuit for me.

Re: You are not running out of time

#57

Post by abhaga »

I am reminded of what C P Snow wrote about the beautiful piece of writing called "A Mathematician's Apology" by G H Hardy:

A mathematicians apology is, if read with the textual attention it deserves, a book of haunting sadness. Yes, it is witty and sharp with intellectual high spirits: yes, the crystalline clarity and candour are still there: yes, it is the testament of a creative artist. But it is also, in an understated stoical fashion, a passionate lament for creative powers that used to be and that will never come again. I know nothing like it in the language: partly because most people with the literary gift to express such a lament don't come to feel it: it is very rare for a writer to realise, with the finality of truth, that he is absolutely finished.

Re: You are not running out of time

#58

Post by loire280 »

dasil003 wrote: post #48
tectonic wrote: post #44

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Hey reasonattlm, I just read through your comment history and it looks like every single comment is about life extension. While I sorely hope that your optimism turns out to be warranted, I also hope that you're living and enjoying your life today, on the off-chance that it's not.

I hope his optimism is unwarranted. While I certainly would have a hard time turning down the opportunity to live longer, I don't think greatly extending peoples lives will be good for the individuals, society or the planet. Life and death is a beautiful cycle; not something to be defeated due an overwhelming fear of death.

Death can never be defeated - besides accidents and catastrophes, there's always entropy - but life can have some interesting twists if your life extends longer and your mind extends further.

However, I think even a few small changes to mental capacity or an extension of life expectancy beyond 2-3x will make the recipients something other than human. Our brains have many quirks that limit our ability to reason, understand, or act rationally, but those quirks are essential to our humanity and our ability to love. I think for this reason alone, few will elect to have very drastic changes made to their minds or their lives.

Re: You are not running out of time

#60

Post by reasonattlm »

dasil003 wrote: post #48
tectonic wrote: post #44

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Hey reasonattlm, I just read through your comment history and it looks like every single comment is about life extension. While I sorely hope that your optimism turns out to be warranted, I also hope that you're living and enjoying your life today, on the off-chance that it's not.

I hope his optimism is unwarranted. While I certainly would have a hard time turning down the opportunity to live longer, I don't think greatly extending peoples lives will be good for the individuals, society or the planet. Life and death is a beautiful cycle; not something to be defeated due an overwhelming fear of death.

You'll have to explain a little harder how the great suffering currently afflicting hundreds of millions of people due to aging is both beautiful and good for them.

Or the hundred thousand people who died from aging in the past 24 hours: was it good for them as individuals? How about their families and companions?

In short, I don't think you've thought your position through particularly carefully.

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