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Producer vs. Consumer

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Re: Producer vs. Consumer

#51

Post by AznHisoka »

swanson wrote: post #6

I find that this pattern works really well for me, even if it's not at the start of my day. When I get home from work, I try to "produce" something, like writing a blog post, exercising, or spending an hour coding a side-project. As a result, I don't have the mental guilt about watching a movie, reading HN, or playing xbox later in the evening. I find if I do things in the reverse order (come home from work, plop dow…

Or you could could perhaps do the fun activity afterwards? as positive reinforcement?

Re: Producer vs. Consumer

#52

Post by batista »

zeynalov wrote: post #31
batista wrote: post #24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Lots of producers dont consume much. And surely not 100x more than the average consumer. You think Linus goes on reading blogs and watching movies all day? Steve Jobs was quite a miimalist in how he lived. He even debated for months what furniture to buy -- and he lived for a while in an unfurnished apartment. A huge lot of musicians when asked in interviews say the don't listen to much music besides what they work o…

Sorry but I think you have no idea about Steve's personal life. Or you didn't understand what is being a consumer. Don't get me wrong, I'm not a Gates fan, I love Apple, I have 9 apple computers at home. Before 90s he was a cool geek, famous millionaire guy, consuming too much clothes. He had always trendy fashion look. He bought one of most expensive cars when he was in his 20s. A Porsche then Mercedes. In his dashi…

Sorry but I think you have no idea about Steve's personal life. Or you didn't understand what is being a consumer.

Sorry, but I have a pretty good idea. I've also read the book. I think it's you that you didn't understand what is being a "consumer" IN THE CONTEXT of this discussion.

It has nothing to do with buying expensive cars, suits, lear jets and stuff. It has nothing to do even with buying lots and lots of them. Even if Jobs had a garage with 1,000 luxury cars and a walk in closet with 10,000 designer suits it wouldn't matter at all in the discussion we're having.

I might have muddled the waters a little with the "no-furniture room" example, but the discussion we're having (and the original article on reddit too), is about producing vs consuming as a life balance. Not about having less. As for my "no furniture" argument, that was not meant to imply that not buying stuff matters, just that consuming was not his goal, whereas building products (and companies) was.

Nobody would argue that Job's life was much more about producing than consuming stuff. He din't spend his hours in luxury car shows, nor in fashion boutiques, he spend them thinking about business and products. And I'd say he even did so while staying in "expensive resort hotels". The main criterion is if the items consumed are the GOAL of your life or just DECORATION. To put it in other words, Jobs was no Paris Hilton, nor "Hoarders" material.

Re: Producer vs. Consumer

#53

Post by alecperkins »

joneath wrote: post #37

While I agree with the premise that being a mindless consumer is probably not a good thing, I strongly believe that consuming is just as important as producing. Exposing one's self to as many different ideas as possible is incredibly important to being able to produce high quality work. If we go with the definition that a person is the aggregate of their experiences, then most of these experiences are things we consu…

The majority of experiences may be consumption, but I would argue the more significant experiences are driven by production. I would also argue curation is in many ways more a facet of production than of consumption.

Also, I don't think it's so much about producer versus consumer (despite the title), but instead starting the day with easy productivity, to get into a mindset of getting things done. Consuming content is important, and can be very beneficial when curated well, but it's much easier to start consuming things than to start producing.

Re: Producer vs. Consumer

#54

Post by imgabe »

zeynalov wrote: post #22

This is a paradox. People create/produce because they want: 1. to be powerful. Being powerful makes them able to consume more, hence being more happy. People do everything to be more comfortable. 2. to solve peoples problems, make the world better place = to feed their internal ego, prove the world that he/she can be helpful. This is a subliminal instinct of humanbeing having the main goal is being powerful among oth…

Sometimes there's just something you want to exist that doesn't and you need to make it. Look at how many artists and writers toiled at their craft for their entire lives without any reward. I doubt many of them had the goal of becoming more powerful in order to consume more stuff. At least if they did, there were no doubt countless easier ways they could have gone about it.

Re: Producer vs. Consumer

#55

Post by hammock »

baddox wrote: post #34
techiferous wrote: post #26

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Nice question; I'll take a stab at an answer. Since consumers need producers and producers need consumers, you really can't argue that either one is inherently bad. However, I would argue that our intent should be biased toward producing, since producing helps us grow. Consuming in this context has connotations of passivity, and while rest is important, too much rest will make us weak. Also, when you are consuming yo…

Good points. I think a lot of it depends on the definition of "consumption." Most people use it pejoratively to mean "mindless consumption," but personally I don't think I engage in that much "mindless consumption." Sure, I surf reddit and hn, but most of my time online is spent either having conversations like this one, laughing at funny stuff (surely entertainment and comedy can't be all bad), or actively educating…

Doesn't matter whether it's mindless or not. Consumption is consumption. Educating yourself by reading programming articles could be considered an investment, which is the distinction you want to make here, but if it's not an investment towards future production, then it's still just consumption and not much different from playing Farmville.

Re: Producer vs. Consumer

#56

Post by ashokn225 »

I think whether it's addiction of media, drugs, or even Facebook, most people are aware of what they're doing. This notion that we're unaware of our addictions, that "denial is the first mistake" is all bullshit. People are particularly rational (in their own respective idea of what rational is) when it comes to addictions. It's just a cost benefit analysis. The cost is time and the opportunity cost of what we could be doing versus the benefit of being connected, consuming information (even social), or the high. How each of us weighs those options is a deeply subjective thing, but to say that we're not aware or that "we have a choice" to be producers, with that pedantic tone, is just wrong.

Re: Producer vs. Consumer

#57

Post by parkerny »

jrockway wrote: post #27
baddox wrote: post #20

I'm curious: why exactly is being a "consumer" such a bad thing? I'm not necessarily saying I disagree, but I'm having trouble coming up with an explanation, and it seems like everyone is simply assuming that consumption is a bad thing.

I don't think it's a bad thing, but the things that are easy to consume take time and don't provide much benefit. Nobody would say that spending a couple of hours reading a novel is a waste of time, but reading HN is probably not as good a use of time. (The difference, in my mind, is that reading edited long-form literature is going to help you write better, while reading a bunch of casual comments about the latest I…

Actually, pg says just this in his essay How to Do What You Love: "Except for some books in math and the hard sciences, there's no test of how well you've read a book, and that's why merely reading books doesn't quite feel like work. You have to do something with what you've read to feel productive."

http://www.paulgraham.com/love.html

Re: Producer vs. Consumer

#58

Post by nazar »

rquantz wrote: post #49
nazar wrote: post #42

Earlier quoted context omitted.

On the other hand, in the "Talent is Overrated" by Geoff Colvin it says, that any task thats gotten automated (on subconscious level) is not getting you better or even bringing you one step down. Simply putting, if you are coding without stretching yourself, if you don't put much thought in it and do it almost subconsciously you are not learning anything. He suggest to avoid acquiring habits for the things you want g…

I haven't read Colvin, and I don't know what he bases that assertion on -- it may be well supported, but on its face it sounds absurd. You can't get better at anything as long as you still have to think about the things on which it is based. For example, when playing a stringed instrument, if every note you play gets bogged down in what you have to do to make that note happen (place the finger down quickly, with a po…

Thank you for sharing your opinion. I do agree with you, and maybe what I was trying to say and what you are saying are different things.

I couldn't find the exact citation from the book, but I will try to write down what I remember.

Colvin explains that with an example of Tiger Woods. He says that Tiger never subconsciously hit the ball. When he starts the movement of the arm to hit the ball and someone from the background screams, he can stop his arm halfway, and then after he is no longer distracted, he hits again.

Normally, when a mediocre player starts moving his arm in order to hit the ball, he no longer able to stop halfway through the action of arm swinging. And usually he would miss, because of concentration loss. He addresses that kind of behavior due to automation of some actions. He says that after some action has gotten automated, person performing it has almost no control over it. He also gives example of the professional car drivers and average drivers. Average driver will not be able to control the dangerous situation on the road due to the fact that his actions are almost automated. While professional drivers are able to see the situation much earlier, and steer and break more efficiently, because they are in better control of situation due to less automation of driving action (Less habit more conscious control).

I hope I could convey his words clearly, because I am not a native English speaker

Edit: Regarding programming, I noticed, the more code I write subconsciously, the more stupid bugs I get. Sometimes I write mysql_real_escape_string() instead of mysql_fetch_array() and then wonder whats gone wrong. I even look at the line with this bug for several minutes, until I stop, look away for a bit, and try to switch from autopilot to manual mode. After I fire up my real brain, I spot the bug in seconds, and have a stupid smile for a half second or so :)

Re: Producer vs. Consumer

#59

Post by angkec »

keeptrying wrote: post #44

So if you consume a lot of web content in a day u sometimes get into a funk which is seriously hard to break out of. Ie you dont really want to sleep even.. Just keep consumng... Its very weird ...Has anyone else had this problem? Does anyone know why this happens and ggod ways to stop it from happening.

Get outside and away from computer for a few days. Then come back and go straight to work.

Re: Producer vs. Consumer

#60

Post by baddox »

hammock wrote: post #55
baddox wrote: post #34

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Good points. I think a lot of it depends on the definition of "consumption." Most people use it pejoratively to mean "mindless consumption," but personally I don't think I engage in that much "mindless consumption." Sure, I surf reddit and hn, but most of my time online is spent either having conversations like this one, laughing at funny stuff (surely entertainment and comedy can't be all bad), or actively educating…

Doesn't matter whether it's mindless or not. Consumption is consumption. Educating yourself by reading programming articles could be considered an investment , which is the distinction you want to make here, but if it's not an investment towards future production , then it's still just consumption and not much different from playing Farmville.

I still don't agree. I don't think knowledge for the sake of knowledge is such a bad thing. I feel happier when I learn things, even if the things are unlikely to help me be productive in any measurable capacity. I will go on Wikipedia binges on bizarre topics like fighter aircraft or quantum mechanics, and it makes me happy even though I certainly don't retain any real expertise of the subjects. I guess that makes it "entertainment" more than anything, but I think that's fine.
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