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You don't need to work on hard problems (2020)

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Re: You don't need to work on hard problems (2020)

#91

Post by serialNumber »

waynesonfire wrote: post #82
johnnyanmac wrote: post #46

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>One thing I've noticed with young and ambitious employees, is that many need constant feedback. If they don't get any direct feedback immediately, they feel left out in the cold, and don't know how to react. It's an increasingly cold world and some young people may legit get zero feedback outside of work. Ghosted on dating scene, ghosted by the remaining friends post graduation, and now feeling ignored at work. Add…

I guess society has decided better to ghost than be cancelled. Are you surprised?

I'm confused as to why you're bringing up "being cancelled" - it's not relevant to the conversation in the slightest.

Re: You don't need to work on hard problems (2020)

#92

Post by gspencley »

alkonaut wrote: post #20

I like working on complex problems. But I like making simple solutions. And making those is often hard . So you might say I like hard problems. > I could try to solve an easy problem as quickly as possible The "solve X as quickly as possible" is now the problem. Not just solve X. I And that sounds like a hard (therefore interesting) problem!

I've always been good at solving problems, if I weren't then I'd be a pretty bad software engineer. And I guess I don't dislike solving problems, if I did then same deal.

But I don't live for solving problems. Let alone "hard" problems.

I'm a "maker" (though I kind of hate that word). I like building things. If I'm not developing software then I'm making other stuff. Woodworking, theatre, props, clothing. Software applications are another thing to make and produce. Making new things always comes with a healthy dose of problem solving, but I don't get out of bed in the morning thinking "boy I can't wait to solve problems today .. I hope someone hits me across the face with a real stumper that's going to make my work a living hell until I can figure it out!"

For me it's more about whether or not I enjoy what I'm building, and would use the end product or at least can see the value it provides to others. Not so much about how many "challenges" there are in building it.

Re: You don't need to work on hard problems (2020)

#93

Post by Bhilai »

atomicnature wrote: post #10

I've always thought that people underestimate the mental acuity needed to find simple truths within complex systems and to use them to achieve useful results. Especially in academia, many professors, who are wedded to particular models, go so far as to dismiss simplicity without sufficient consideration. It was not always this way. Among the older philosophers, you can observe a strong affinity for simplicity. Figure…

I am not sure why people think of complexity as something bad or undesirable. Everything I can think is extremely complex and probably cannot be explained in simple terms without missing much of the context and beauty behind it. In my opinion, its not simplicity, its actually the complexity that adds beauty and meaning to everything.

Re: You don't need to work on hard problems (2020)

#94

Post by n4r9 »

coldtea wrote: post #45
n4r9 wrote: post #37

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Counterexample: "Find all prime factors of N".

I think you too take "solve an easy problem as quickly as possible" as meaning finding the fastest performing solution to the problem. I don't think that's what the author means. Thought TFA is a little vague about this: "Instead, I learned it was possible—and fun—to optimize on other dimensions, or play a different game. Rather than competing for an A+ on a hard problem, I could try to solve an easy problem as quick…

You're right, I misunderstood. Thanks for the gentle clarification.

Re: You don't need to work on hard problems (2020)

#95

Post by trashtester »

cableshaft wrote: post #15
atomicnature wrote: post #10

I've always thought that people underestimate the mental acuity needed to find simple truths within complex systems and to use them to achieve useful results. Especially in academia, many professors, who are wedded to particular models, go so far as to dismiss simplicity without sufficient consideration. It was not always this way. Among the older philosophers, you can observe a strong affinity for simplicity. Figure…

> Figures like Pythagoras, Newton, Descartes, Archytas, and various Indian philosophers, such as Shankaracharya, strongly favored simplicity. Easy to favor simplicity when the basics in your field hasn't been fully mapped out yet. Much harder to make a name for yourself when pretty much all the low-hanging (i.e. simple) fruit has been claimed already by people in the past. Most people probably feel they don't have mu…

> Easy to favor simplicity when the basics in your field hasn't been fully mapped out yet.

Partly this, and partly because average college professors are being compared to some of the greatest scholars of all time.

Figures like Einstein or Feynman were able to simply inherently difficult/complex problems well into the 20th century, and similar people are surely doing the same today.

But often a difficult problem needs to be understood the hard way before it can be simplified down to something that is easier to communicate.

Re: You don't need to work on hard problems (2020)

#96

Post by sph »

Verdex wrote: post #76
sph wrote: post #64

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Excellent insight. Let me add: > Ghosted on dating scene, ghosted by the remaining friends post graduation, and now feeling ignored at work. > Add on no third place to go to and how work is increasingly ceasing to be a second place with wfh and you just have a loneliness sandwich. And all around them, a social media full of hucksters and fake personas that should how successful they are. Build something, and get inun…

> The older I get, the more I blame the internet for most of our current societal ills. I watched a lot of star trek when I was young. At some point it became hard to go back and re-watch because of the advent of social media and the 'modern' web. Social media was so obviously going to be a massive part in everyone's lives that it felt weird that it wasn't present in our star trek future. Sure, star trek had a world…

> continued technological progression without social media because everyone agrees 'never again'

We didn't say "never again" when we first threw rocks at a rival tribe and saw the aftermath. We didn't say "never again" after millions of people died in world wars. It is beyond optimistic that one day we'll look at Twitter and say "no more of that."

What if the Great Filter is light-speed communication and dissemination of ideas? The odds of a physical lifeform able to deal with the implications of that discovery from day 1 are infinitesimal.

Re: You don't need to work on hard problems (2020)

#97

Post by sph »

piva00 wrote: post #73
sph wrote: post #64

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Excellent insight. Let me add: > Ghosted on dating scene, ghosted by the remaining friends post graduation, and now feeling ignored at work. > Add on no third place to go to and how work is increasingly ceasing to be a second place with wfh and you just have a loneliness sandwich. And all around them, a social media full of hucksters and fake personas that should how successful they are. Build something, and get inun…

> The older I get, the more I blame the internet for most of our current societal ills. I am a Millennial, but a digital native no more. Similar to the conclusion I got to in the past 5 years, I'm in my mid-30s by now and been steadily removing myself from being a "digital native" back into the real world. It was immensely enlightening to grow up on the internet, see it appear and flourish, being taught by so many an…

> Maybe I'm just getting old

You know, I don't think we are. We are in our 30s, and the only generation that has grown right in the middle of the pre- and post-internet world.

We have seen how life was before, how socialising functioned, and we still adopted this world-changing invention with the fresh excitement and energy of a teenager.

I feel we might be the only ones to truly understand what we have gained. And what we have lost.

Re: You don't need to work on hard problems (2020)

#98

Post by waynesonfire »

serialNumber wrote: post #91
waynesonfire wrote: post #82

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I guess society has decided better to ghost than be cancelled. Are you surprised?

I'm confused as to why you're bringing up "being cancelled" - it's not relevant to the conversation in the slightest.

because the alternative to ghosting is to say something. and saying something may result in being cancelled.

Re: You don't need to work on hard problems (2020)

#99

Post by Tainnor »

sph wrote: post #96
Verdex wrote: post #76

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> The older I get, the more I blame the internet for most of our current societal ills. I watched a lot of star trek when I was young. At some point it became hard to go back and re-watch because of the advent of social media and the 'modern' web. Social media was so obviously going to be a massive part in everyone's lives that it felt weird that it wasn't present in our star trek future. Sure, star trek had a world…

> continued technological progression without social media because everyone agrees 'never again' We didn't say "never again" when we first threw rocks at a rival tribe and saw the aftermath. We didn't say "never again" after millions of people died in world wars. It is beyond optimistic that one day we'll look at Twitter and say "no more of that." What if the Great Filter is light-speed communication and disseminatio…

> We didn't say "never again" after millions of people died in world wars.

We did, that's why the League of Nations, the UN and the EU were created.

I'm not saying we're doing an incredibly good job, but at least some people are trying.

Re: You don't need to work on hard problems (2020)

#100

Post by seagullriffic »

robertlagrant wrote: post #4

It's true. Since starting in health tech, the areas of which are sometimes technically interesting, but not in a cutting edge sort of way, I feel a lot more motivated. Three women I know personally have used (and totally loved) the app we made for gestational diabetes, and half the NHS uses it to manage this type of patient, so the total number of people helped just keeps going up. I think of it as something to put o…

I hope to encourage those motivated by reading this to come to the next NHS Hack Day! https://nhshackday.com/
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