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Producer vs. Consumer

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Re: Producer vs. Consumer

#61

Post by onemoreact »

nazar wrote: post #58
rquantz wrote: post #49

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 bac…

I am reminded of a basketball player to was practicing before an away game. He missed the first few shot's, paused made an adjustment and then made the next several shots. A reporter asked what he changed and he said "I noticed the basket was 2 inches to low." It's not that he is constantly aware of all the individual stages of every shot, it's just that he can make conscious adjustments to those subconscious processes.

The secret is not being aware of all the minor details, it's the ability to pay attention at the correct level of abstraction when there is a problem. I once had a horrible bug that after several rounds of testing seemed vary odd, until I got the ram swapped out on the test box and everything worked just fine. I don't assume RAM is faulty every day, but it's something to consider when no other option seems reasonable.

Re: Producer vs. Consumer

#62

Post by lurker17 »

baddox wrote: post #60
hammock wrote: post #55

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 i…

No one said consumption is "bad". All that's said is that consumption is dependent on "production", and "production" gets its value from "consumption" (even the producer ends up being the only consumer).

That wonderful book you read? It wasn't created by someone reading; it was created by someone writing. If everyone read Wikipedia and no one wrote Wikipedia, there wouldn't be anything to read.

Re: Producer vs. Consumer

#64

Post by specialk16 »

batista wrote: post #24
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…

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…

Quite the minimalist... sure, changing his Mercedes-Benz every 6 months.

Re: Producer vs. Consumer

#65

Post by specialk16 »

dan00 wrote: post #47
zeynalov wrote: post #31

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

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 dashing days at Apple and NeXT, he weared the most expensive Brioni suits. He had a Plane. A super expensive plane. Do you know why? He said: "What I really need is a plane where I can take my family to Hawaii…

He is saying that the statement...

>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.

...is factually incorrect.

Re: Producer vs. Consumer

#66

Post by jrockway »

parkerny wrote: post #57
jrockway wrote: post #27

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

I don't read books to "feel productive", I read them to take my mind somewhere else for a while. I don't get the whole "feeling productive" thing; if I'm being productive, I'm too focused on producing to feel anything.

Re: Producer vs. Consumer

#67

Post by jeremysalwen »

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…

> 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 other species. Being powerful - see point 1.

Speak for yourself. Actually, it seems like you already have spoken for yourself. What I mean to say is "don't pretend to speak for everyone when you are only speaking for yourself". It's mighty presumptuous of you to claim that you know the motivations of everyone in the world who is a producer.

My quote isn't the only example of this in your post, but it's the most egregious.

Re: Producer vs. Consumer

#69

Post by aceex »

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.

Hi, aceex from Reddit here.

Instead of "producer" and "consumer" I could have said "force of nature" and "hopeless stimulation junkie".

Whether or not you make anything of value to exchange with other people is not really important. How much you're consuming is also pretty irrelevant. The important thing is that your brain is in "make things happen" mode, not "stimulate me" mode.

I wasn't writing about economics, I wrote about you getting what you really want out of today and not having your attention and focus stolen.

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