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Ask HN: Concepts that clicked only years after you first encountered them?

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Re: Ask HN: Concepts that clicked only years after you first encountered them?

#501

Post by Akronymus »

machina_ex_deus wrote: post #220

Learning history / literature in school is important. I was a total STEM math nerd in school. I used to frequently complain how I don't get what's the point of it, or how it's a waste of time and I'm learning nothing. I still think the emphasis of school was off, but I get the point of it now. Stories are like code for humans. You can't tell someone what it means to be good or bad, or to give them a course in philoso…

> Learning history / literature in school is important.

Really depends on HOW you learn it IME. If it's just regurgitating dates/names/whatever it isn't helpful at all, at least for me. If you establish that event x led to y because of z, it just clicks and suddenly makes sense.

For example, let's take hitlers rise to power: "He became the chancellor of germany in 1933" That is just about useless. "Hitler rose to power with the help of the nazi party, which was partially formed in response to the treaty of versailles' excessively harsh terms, leading to an extreme amount of inflation and a harsh drop in industry. This set the stage for hitler arguing to use a war as a means of getting rid of the penalties of versailles and bringing germany out from the slump"

For me, in school I was mostly taught the first variation.

Re: Ask HN: Concepts that clicked only years after you first encountered them?

#502

Post by metadat »

rgrieselhuber wrote: post #487
tootie wrote: post #413

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Sapiens by Harari covers this extensively. So much of human development is our ability to ascribe fictive boundaries and definitions to things. Rules, authorities, myths, money, culture, countries, companies. What are any of them? They're all made up. We could just stop believing in all of them tomorrow.

A convenient stance, I suppose, when discussing what to do with “useless eaters.”

> “useless eaters.”

Unfamiliar term. Turns out it is Nazi political slang.

https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/useless_eater

Re: Ask HN: Concepts that clicked only years after you first encountered them?

#503

Post by Berniek »

Accepting the fact that some people are just arseholes and it is no reflection on me. I used to worry that it was something I had or had not done that made them interact in the way they did. Now I will initially give them the benefit of the doubt, (bad day, tired, hangover) but if it continues I no longer interact with them and move on. I no longer even consider or think about them.

Re: Ask HN: Concepts that clicked only years after you first encountered them?

#504

Post by __turbobrew__ »

nivethan wrote: post #226
fortituded0002 wrote: post #196

1. Everyone is the main character in their own story. This manifest in all sorts of ways - from people not being there when you need them the most, from friends dying off as soon as proximity changes, to how and why get people get promoted in jobs. This isn't necessarily bad, but if you don't know how to navigate this it can be quite painful and confusing. 2. Representation matters. I knew this for a long time, but i…

2. Hits home for me as I’ve begun to realize the same thing. Not seeing any person of color in an activity makes it’s so I don’t want to be the first.

Are you willing to give some examples? I’m curious in what contexts people feel this way.

Re: Ask HN: Concepts that clicked only years after you first encountered them?

#505

Post by SamoyedFurFluff »

rajin444 wrote: post #295
fortituded0002 wrote: post #196

1. Everyone is the main character in their own story. This manifest in all sorts of ways - from people not being there when you need them the most, from friends dying off as soon as proximity changes, to how and why get people get promoted in jobs. This isn't necessarily bad, but if you don't know how to navigate this it can be quite painful and confusing. 2. Representation matters. I knew this for a long time, but i…

> 2. Representation matters. Strange, I had the opposite encounter. I realized the only thing keeping me from doing things was myself. There are definitely real barriers (hiring quotas, affirmative action, etc.) but without artificial constraints the only thing stopping you is you. You might feel a little uncomfortable but that's something easily overcome - and almost like a superpower when you realize you can overco…

Feeling uncomfortable is not what is a barrier. A barrier is an executive sexually harassing you to the point of suicide with no recourse. See: the blizzard fiasco. The riot fiasco. The Google fiasco. The Uber fiasco. Etc…

Re: Ask HN: Concepts that clicked only years after you first encountered them?

#506

Post by __turbobrew__ »

alphydan wrote: post #347
ShredKazoo wrote: post #305

Earlier quoted context omitted.

As a white guy, I'd certainly encourage you not to worry about this -- if we're talking about an upper middle class, professional-ish activity, you can be fairly sure that all those white people feel self-conscious about their group being so white and would welcome you to join them. Anyway, I'd be interested to hear more about the psychology of this. I remember when I was growing up in the 90s and 00s in California,…

The better question to ask yourself (you the white guy), is would you join a group [insert som hobby like hiking] composed 100% of Cholitas. If yes, are you sure? if not, why not? *Not singling out Cholitas, but it's a group that may feel "other" to you.

I regularly attend yoga classes where I am the only man. It doesn’t bother me.

Re: Ask HN: Concepts that clicked only years after you first encountered them?

#507

Post by Akronymus »

khaledh wrote: post #140

YAGNI and KISS. When I was a junior developer I used to overthink and overdesign solutions, most of which was never needed. It took many years and a lot of battle scars to realize that less abstraction is more. Today I see a lot of juniors do the same mistake and I ask them to revise their designs to keep it simple.

My boss constantly repeats that an 80% solution is what we should strive for, for the most time. It has to be good enough, but not perfect. It's easy to get bogged down by trying to make it the best it can be.

Re: Ask HN: Concepts that clicked only years after you first encountered them?

#508

Post by Invictus0 »

dudeinjapan wrote: post #499
Invictus0 wrote: post #491

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Women that dedicate their careers to chess still dramatically underperform men at the professional level. There is even a different rating level and title system for women: women earning the "women grandmaster" title need 200 fewer ELO points than the grandmaster title for men. No woman has ever won the World Chess Championship, and there are far fewer female GMs than male GMs.

How do women and men do versus AI opponents, i.e. without any gender? Wonder if chess.com has the data?

Badly? AI is vastly superior to human capability, no human wins

Re: Ask HN: Concepts that clicked only years after you first encountered them?

#509

Post by crackercrews »

yieldcrv wrote: post #468
crackercrews wrote: post #428

Earlier quoted context omitted.

So even with all the BLM advocacy, there is no pipeline for Black people with MBAs from Ivy League schools? That doesn't fit with what I've seen in other industries. Companies fell all over themselves to hire Black people. Is this not happening in MBA-land?

read it again, its not about getting hired, its about getting capital and decision making roles that skip the corporate ladder. these have an overrepresentation of Ivy League MBAs in them with a pedigree that has nothing to do with promotions. People see the Ivy League MBA as key to this and aren’t interested in the other things an MBA can do. The jobs these disillusioned alumni have were attainable without the MBA.

Your original claim was much broader:

> despite their ambitions the BIPOC people I know haven’t been able to reap any professional benefits from it

Re: Ask HN: Concepts that clicked only years after you first encountered them?

#510

Post by lumb63 »

satvikpendem wrote: post #398
machina_ex_deus wrote: post #220

Learning history / literature in school is important. I was a total STEM math nerd in school. I used to frequently complain how I don't get what's the point of it, or how it's a waste of time and I'm learning nothing. I still think the emphasis of school was off, but I get the point of it now. Stories are like code for humans. You can't tell someone what it means to be good or bad, or to give them a course in philoso…

Regarding literature, I'll give an opposite opinion. Being forced to read the classics in school led me to not caring about them at all because I just couldn't relate at all, I had not had the requisite life experience for them to make an impact on me. Now, being an adult and having the life experience, reading them again makes me think more deeply and I can actually relate. So I think in school, we actually shouldn'…

Not only this, but also the impact having to read something has on enjoyment. There are books like To Kill A Mockingbird that I didn’t care for in high school simply because I had to read it. When I revisited it years later of my own volition, I enjoyed it greatly.
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