131–140 of 464 posts
Ive been conflicted for 12 years now on what field to pursue. I’m between mechanical engineering because of my interest in materials and aerodynamics (I’d love to do research in this field), and software engineering (I don’t know what I’d do research in, but I like the idea of making tools people use). I work in IT/light software dev, and I think I’m inclined towards software because that’s where I’ve been building m…
As usual, this is both interesting but also so generalizing as to get frustrating in places. But it’s clearly well-meaning and earnest, which makes it easier to tolerate some of its annoyingly breezy certainty. Then there’s this: > Religions are collections of cherished but mistaken principles. So anything that can be described either literally or metaphorically as a religion will have valuable unexplored ideas in it…
I may have to steal that phrase (:
As usual, this is both interesting but also so generalizing as to get frustrating in places. But it’s clearly well-meaning and earnest, which makes it easier to tolerate some of its annoyingly breezy certainty. Then there’s this: > Religions are collections of cherished but mistaken principles. So anything that can be described either literally or metaphorically as a religion will have valuable unexplored ideas in it…
I think what's going on here is the theory that the purpose of religion is to create a trusted in-group separated from the out-group, with rules that make it difficult to casually join. [1] If you start from that premise, PG's footnote makes sense. But this ignores the fact that the largest religions really want as many members as possible and would be delighted if everyone followed their principles.
[1] See for instance: https://slatestarcodex.com/2014/12/24/there-are-rules-here/
This is a great article, but there are many, many people for whom this advice is going to lead nowhere or worse. They have often been to fancy universities and have often earned fancy degrees. But what they don't realize is that they've also been trained to respond to the praise of authority figures. The article touches on this point later, but emphasizes a different outcome.
If there's one thing that authority figures absolutely hate is a project that makes you excessively curious.
I'll speculate that those most affected by this perverse reward system will deny its influence over them most strongly. They won't realize that their motivation for projects stems from the enthusiasm that authority figure show or withhold. They will therefore conclude that the warning above does not apply to them. And they will have a very hard time.
I saw this first-hand in graduate school. At least half the students had never learned to disregard the level of the greybeard's enthusiasm when choosing projects. Unsurprisingly, they also did not understood the process of formulating a project idea. This was the half that had, by far, the hardest time. At the slightest hint of graybeard apathy for a project idea, they were onto something else.
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> offers scope for groundbreaking work Hah, and make sure to be a genius with a workaholic attitude, otherwise the 100 people that are like that will make the groundbreaking discoveries a few years before you. The more people alive and able to work on research, the higher the bar gets. For most people, implementing existing bleeding edge knowledge is already an achievement.
There's a Gauss curve. Simple stuff can be done by any idiot so there's going to be a lot of competition on that. Like picking strawberries, for any position there's 100 Mexicans (in the US) or Eastern European guys (in the EU) willing to do that for cheap. So getting good (skilled, educated) does decrease competition and increase one's chances of doing "great work". But from a point on you reach into the territory where there's just too much genius, semi-autistic high IQ workaholics that crowd some niche field and end up with the same 100 hulks for one job. Doesn't matter if it's picking strawberries or playing forward in Champions League, if you're not getting either you're still a loser.
So exception handling: if you invest a lot of effort into something make sure you get to reap some rewards even if you're one of the 99th guys that doesn't get to pick the strawberries.
Otherwise like a great Romanian scholar and philosopher once said: "Decât să lucri de-a pulea mai bine stai de-a pulea (Gigi Becali)". Loosely translated: "Rather than work your ass off for nothing, better sit on your ass for nothing".
There's a Gauss curve. Simple stuff can be done by any idiot so there's going to be a lot of competition on that. Like picking strawberries, for any position there's 100 Mexicans (in the US) or Eastern European guys (in the EU) willing to do that for cheap. So getting good (skilled, educated) does decrease competition and increase one's chances of doing "great work". But from a point on you reach into the territory where there's just too much genius, semi-autistic high IQ workaholics that crowd some niche field and eventually you end up competing with the same 100 hulks for one job. Doesn't matter if it's picking strawberries or playing forward in Champions League, if you're not getting either you're still a loser. It's a dog eat dog world, winners take all and there's no reward for the effort. If you don't win the big prize, you've wasted your life for nothing.
So exception handling: if you invest a lot of effort into something make sure you get to reap some rewards even if you're one of the 99 guys that doesn't get to pick the strawberries.
Otherwise like a great Romanian scholar and philosopher once said: "Decât să lucri de-a pulea mai bine stai de-a pulea (Gigi Becali)". Loosely translated: "Rather than work your ass off for nothing, better sit on your ass for nothing".
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Both are necessary. I think the difference is that Group A (keep things running) without Group B (explore new territory) would have kept us in the stone ages. However, that is not to understate their importance: a humanity consisting entirely of Group B would be much more unstable, and possibly have gone extinct. It's similar to the Rogue Bees: https://www.mrdbourke.com/what-if-you-did-the-exact-opposite... Although…
Could it be possible that there is also overlap between groups A and B, and the interdependence is what fuels societal progress more than “it’s all group B”?
Earlier quoted context omitted.
I am amazed how many people take their fortunes for granted and then preach about how they "worked harder than anyone else hence deserve much more than the others". You have to be incredibly lucky to get to that point. In case of chronic illness (like brain fog) you are pretty much destined to fail.
I’m also amazed how people will take a self-improvement article like this, and take it so personally. Like yes, pg was lucky to have a lot of things work out for them, but that doesn’t mean his advice here (which encompasses more than just “work hard”) is invalid for everyone just because it’s invalid for some people.
Fine as a motivational material but that's all this is.