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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?

#611

Post by dghlsakjg »

abdullahkhalids wrote: post #575
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.

I often see Harari and Graeber's being discussed at the same time, and I am always surprised. Harari write pop sci, a grand narrative with many liberties with both history and science. Graeber's books are heavily referenced pieces of work. Debt: The first 5000 years ends at 73% on my Kindle, because the remaining 27% of the book (144/534 pages) is references and footnotes. Their books are not in the same intellectual…

I find this interesting. I've read Graeber essays, but the only book I tried is "Utopia of Rules" and I found that it read as if he did exactly what you describe Harrari as doing.

It felt like he set up a windmill separate from reality to tilt at.

I do agree that Harari is great for thought piece stuff, I put him in the same category as Gladwell. Entertaining to read, but not to be trusted as a singular source.

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

#612

Post by rramadass »

Akronymus wrote: post #524
kippinitreal wrote: post #171

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That video did the same for me. I also like the reducible video for Fast Fourier Transforms as well as the Veratasium piece that shares some fun history. Reducible - FFTs the most ingenious algorithm ever https://youtu.be/h7apO7q16V0 Veritasium - The Most Important Algorithm of All Time https://youtu.be/nmgFG7PUHfo

The FFT is something I still can't quite grok, for some reason.

I guarantee that you will be able to "grok" it from this book: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=34207380

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

#613

Post by fortituded0002 »

chrisco255 wrote: post #348
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…

For #2, I would alter this to say: connections matter. We are more likely to pursue careers or interests if we know someone (and are friends with them or related to them) that is interested in the same thing or has had experience in the same thing.

That doesn't ring true for me. I was already pursuing careers and interests that my friends were pursuing. That didn't change anything for me mostly because my friends came from a very different background than me. It also doesn't solve issues like my old boss who opted not to have children because she wanted to move up the corporate ladder at a FAANG company. She said that there was no mental model on how to navigate having kids at the company. All of the ones that did were men whose wives stayed home and took care of everything. She (and I) question if it's even possible to do it.

Your comment reminds me a bit of something I heard years ago from a manager at Facebook claiming that the way to solve imposter syndrome was to have people select which teams and projects they worked on because they would be more motivated to work at it. Totally off from what my experience had been, but likely applicable to some people.

However, I'm not saying you are wrong and I'm right. I think what's surfacing here is that what I posted doesn't apply to everyone and what you are saying doesn't apply to everyone either. It likely helps different types of people in different situations.

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

#614

Post by BirAdam »

JackFr wrote: post #576
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.

But it’s all fictive boundaries. Don’t stop at countries and companies -nothing exists until it’s named.

This was my personal big breakthrough. I realized that humans deal with abstractions of things and not things themselves. Accordingly, most of what humans argue about isn’t even real, but rather only what is perceived through layer upon layer of abstraction.

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

#615

Post by geocrasher »

zwkrt wrote: post #607
whimsicalism wrote: post #550

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I find it interesting when people come from a long family line of narcissists (not uncommon) that they often attribute it to a cycle of being raised by a narcissist making you into a narcissist. it seems more likely that there is a genetic/biological basis for this personality trait

It’s possible but I don’t really buy it. There’s a very real sense in which narcissism is just a lack of acquired skills that most people have. That skill being the ability to see both the good things and the bad things about yourself and about others at the same time. If you’re raised in an environment where your caretaker teaches you they are always right (with severe consequences for pointing out they aren’t) then…

You hit it on the nail head with lack of coping skills. I had a grandmother who tried to compensate for the way my mother treated me by treating me like I was royalty. And my coping mechanism for being treated poorly at home was thinking that I was better than everybody else in some way. Combine those two with the fact that I was taught no coping skills, and yes I became a narcissist.

When I had my awakening, I was finally able to put to work some coping skills I learned the hard way, in a mental hospital. But once I realized the problem was me, the changes were instant. I was ready for change.

Unfortunately, some people have no such awakening. And I avoid those types of people like the plague.

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

#617

Post by superorganism »

BirAdam wrote: post #614
JackFr wrote: post #576

Earlier quoted context omitted.

But it’s all fictive boundaries. Don’t stop at countries and companies -nothing exists until it’s named.

This was my personal big breakthrough. I realized that humans deal with abstractions of things and not things themselves. Accordingly, most of what humans argue about isn’t even real, but rather only what is perceived through layer upon layer of abstraction.

I've had this revelation too but wouldn't describe it as a big breakthrough though sometimes it feels like it should matter more. Can I ask how you feel like this affects your day to day life?

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

#618

Post by joshuamorton »

zeroonetwothree wrote: post #568
bee_rider wrote: post #539

Earlier quoted context omitted.

While we shouldn’t fall for junk science, we also shouldn’t fall for cynicism as an excuse to stick to our priors. It might not replicate if you try to do so, but until someone does, we shouldn’t write it off.

Surely the burden of proof should be on the side making the claim?

And the claim in this case is "it does not replicate".

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

#619

Post by crackercrews »

zztop44 wrote: post #569
crackercrews wrote: post #417

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If I lived in a majority-Cholita area, I would not give it a second thought. If I lived in an area with not many Cholitas, I would wonder if there was a reason the group had only Cholitas.

Really? I live in Japan but am not Japanese. I speak Japanese and have many Japanese friends. I’d feel quite different about joining a hiking group that was 100% Japanese as opposed to one that had a mix of Japanese and non-Japanese people.

I don't have experience with Japan. But if I were in an English-speaking country I'd not give it a second thought.

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

#620

Post by abdullahkhalids »

dghlsakjg wrote: post #611
abdullahkhalids wrote: post #575

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I often see Harari and Graeber's being discussed at the same time, and I am always surprised. Harari write pop sci, a grand narrative with many liberties with both history and science. Graeber's books are heavily referenced pieces of work. Debt: The first 5000 years ends at 73% on my Kindle, because the remaining 27% of the book (144/534 pages) is references and footnotes. Their books are not in the same intellectual…

I find this interesting. I've read Graeber essays, but the only book I tried is "Utopia of Rules" and I found that it read as if he did exactly what you describe Harrari as doing. It felt like he set up a windmill separate from reality to tilt at. I do agree that Harari is great for thought piece stuff, I put him in the same category as Gladwell. Entertaining to read, but not to be trusted as a singular source.

Our models and explanations of the world are dependent on our belief system and the framework through which we look at. For example, a marxist's explanation of the economic system is very different from that of a neo-liberal. The two would not even agree on an ontology, yet alone the mechanism.

Graeber was a self-proclaimed anarachist. His books indeed have a different description of reality than the orthodox description of reality. If you don't agree with his description, then it will indeed look outlandish - the same way an atheist's and religious person's descriptions sound outlandish to each other. If you do agree with his descriptions, or at least that there are many different conceptions of the world, then his views are more reasonable.

Harari is not making scholarly arguments at all, so we cant even say much about his books.

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