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How to get new ideas

paulgraham.com

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Re: How to get new ideas

#191

Post by iamwil »

TheOtherHobbes wrote: post #174
iamwil wrote: post #159

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Also, I think older people have seen more exceptions through experience, and know that sometimes, "dumb" questions don't have obvious answers.

There's an interesting phenomenon where middle IQ people see bright people as rather stupid. They can't see the extra layers of complexity and possibility that bright people can, so they read "Yes but...?" questions as naive and uneducated. Obviously I'm not suggesting all mature students are hyper-intelligent, but I do think it's not as easy to tell as it might seem to be.

Reminds me of Dan Luu's post about how people think he's pretty stupid.

https://danluu.com/look-stupid/

Re: How to get new ideas

#192

Post by Existenceblinks »

graeme wrote: post #181
Existenceblinks wrote: post #87

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm locked in my own personality trap. I don't understand why people buy shit and my toxic also think they are dumb sheep of some made up social values. And I can't change myself to get out of my trap. I always think what I'm going to sell to people has to be really good .. but I just realize it's about a lot of bullshit going on on marketing and sales and network effect vs pure functionality.

Here’s a quick tip: remove the word “bullshit” from your personality and assume that people aren’t morons. People obviously do do dumb things, and some stuff is obviously crap. But if you change perspectives a lot of stuff actually….makes sense? Like, looking at the world and seeing a bunch of bullshit is actually a flaw in your own thinking, not the world. Take fast food for example. Widely derided, clearly poisons…

Appreciate your effort. But I would say food is not a really good example. I can relate taste via tongue, it's something very understandable. I don't think I can trust bias(reasons) after bought something.

> The point is if you think everything is bullshit, your analysis is probably crap.

Yes, it is crap. Because as I say I most values I can't relate .. a lot of why

> But it has to meet a need

That's the problem. Most of the time I don't think they need it.

Re: How to get new ideas

#193

Post by Existenceblinks »

gizmo wrote: post #101
Existenceblinks wrote: post #87

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm locked in my own personality trap. I don't understand why people buy shit and my toxic also think they are dumb sheep of some made up social values. And I can't change myself to get out of my trap. I always think what I'm going to sell to people has to be really good .. but I just realize it's about a lot of bullshit going on on marketing and sales and network effect vs pure functionality.

You don't have to cynically exploit your customers just because that's what other businesses do. If you can make an excellent product that solves a real problem and charge a reasonable price for it you'll likely do pretty well. Sure, other people will become immensely successful by cheating or by gaming the system in some way. But what difference does that make? Just do your own thing.

> gaming the system

I think this is the point. Because the game is actually the psychology around why people buy shit. I can't make myself do that. For example. I can't ride the wave of hype because I don't believe its value is real or sustainable. Well a lot of excuse, right, that's why it's my trap.

Re: How to get new ideas

#194

Post by Existenceblinks »

sargstuff wrote: post #122
Existenceblinks wrote: post #87

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm locked in my own personality trap. I don't understand why people buy shit and my toxic also think they are dumb sheep of some made up social values. And I can't change myself to get out of my trap. I always think what I'm going to sell to people has to be really good .. but I just realize it's about a lot of bullshit going on on marketing and sales and network effect vs pure functionality.

long as it's legal/legitimate, does it really matter if can make enough $$$ to earn a living? nerf was last minute class project.

It doesn't matter. But as I said, I can't make myself do it. I can't made up beuatiful words to describe pseudo values that I can't provide. For example, I don't believe in productivity app like timer that records many activity in a day, but people do really buy it I couldn't make myself believe .. like really? So when something is obviously good to sell, and I think it's dumb, I guess I can't make myself sell the thing to dumb people. Ah.. it's a trap.

Re: How to get new ideas

#195

Post by Existenceblinks »

agumonkey wrote: post #171
Existenceblinks wrote: post #87

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm locked in my own personality trap. I don't understand why people buy shit and my toxic also think they are dumb sheep of some made up social values. And I can't change myself to get out of my trap. I always think what I'm going to sell to people has to be really good .. but I just realize it's about a lot of bullshit going on on marketing and sales and network effect vs pure functionality.

yeah we have to blur it out... your excellence can be sold but only to a few, the rest will want various degrees or simplicity, cost etc anything in that game requires a lot of planning to make something livable that can be sold at many groups over many years so you can finally get enough leverage to move the minds along some value axis

I think most thing sold because of lust. Example: 1) avatar generator by ai 2) my local aunties bought iPhone Pro Max just to facebook and chat .. and of course taking pictures.

Re: How to get new ideas

#196

Post by graeme »

Existenceblinks wrote: post #192
graeme wrote: post #181

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Here’s a quick tip: remove the word “bullshit” from your personality and assume that people aren’t morons. People obviously do do dumb things, and some stuff is obviously crap. But if you change perspectives a lot of stuff actually….makes sense? Like, looking at the world and seeing a bunch of bullshit is actually a flaw in your own thinking, not the world. Take fast food for example. Widely derided, clearly poisons…

Appreciate your effort. But I would say food is not a really good example. I can relate taste via tongue, it's something very understandable. I don't think I can trust bias(reasons) after bought something. > The point is if you think everything is bullshit, your analysis is probably crap. Yes, it is crap. Because as I say I most values I can't relate .. a lot of why > But it has to meet a need That's the problem. Mos…

Sure but that's an empathy problem. If you intend to sell anything to anyone you need to change your whole perspective.

For example, say someone goes buys a mac because they think the software is pretty and they like having things managed. You can't argue they are mistaken because you could get a linux machine with freedom for much less. They don't want such a thing.

Conversely, say someone buys a Linux machine because they like getting inexpensive tools and they enjoy fiddling with software. You can't say they are wrong because they could spend much less effort on computing by buying a mac.

There are no mistakes in either choice if they align with preferences. Here's an example of a mistake: buying a linux machine for ease of use, or buying a mac for maximal control over your machine.

So ask yourself: are the people making a mistake by having different preferences from you, or are they actually making a mistake on their own terms?

Re: How to get new ideas

#197

Post by yehNaw »

bob1029 wrote: post #93
gizmo wrote: post #42

Most things are strange, missing, broken for mundane reasons that you can't do much about. The space of new ideas is huge, but almost all new ideas are bad. One strategy I really like is to think of technologies you couldn't build 5 years ago but are just barely possible today. That's where yesterday's bad ideas become today's good ideas. For example, laptops and phones produced 20 years of incremental improvements i…

> One strategy I really like is to think of technologies you couldn't build 5 years ago but are just barely possible today. Streaming gaming is something I am still laser-focused on. Our networks are only getting faster. I feel there is a gigantic opportunity here that is being passed up by efforts like Stadia. To do this thing correctly, the game engine itself needs to be developed with these concerns in mind. Expec…

Frankly I think the appetite for socializing online is dying.

If a machine in 5-6 years can leverage AI to render an entire unique universe of AI driven characters why sit in an MMO full of gold farmers, normalized, repetitive meme spammers aka other people who browse the same normalized social media?

Y’all have a good life, but I don’t need to know you all personally, nor did I ask you to solve these “problems” looking to be sold for coin.

Re: How to get new ideas

#198

Post by lossolo »

bob1029 wrote: post #137
cjwebb wrote: post #126

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What kinds of things do you think has to change with game engines? Sharding would have to happen to handle geographic distance between people, wouldn't it? I’m curious to hear your thoughts.

You can still do things like client-side prediction with streaming, but imagine if you controlled all of the clients and could always trust them. You could have the actual simulation running in a big bunker in Ohio somewhere on entirely synchronous terms ( The game concept itself can be engineered around vertical scale constraints. For instance, imagine flight routes in WoW. If the cost to take a flight was modulated…

> but imagine if you controlled all of the clients and could always trust them

This will eliminate a few checks like teleporting/wall passing etc but you still can't trust the client, rest will shift to ML based cheating methods:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DlsBaQWfE58

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