Live data from Hacker News

You Don't Batch Cook When You're Suicidal (2020)

cookingonabootstrap.com

241–250 of 344 posts

Re: You Don't Batch Cook When You're Suicidal (2020)

#241

That's one big paradox. Coming from poverty, I work with plenty of talented people, but nowhere as talented as the people I've studied in shitty schools. Now most of those people from my poverty times continue to be poor, because of many problems poverty brought to them. I can clearly see that, and that I was the lucky one to find a way up many times. Yet, my new social circle believe that I'm talented because of my…

Coming from the middle class, I've never met anybody talented coming from a shitty school who didn't also get filtered into a gifted program at a good school. Maybe your school system just wasn't competent at filtering people? Those that I know who have made bad life decisions (kids too early, dropping out of college, leaving extremely supportive parents) could totally have been expected to based off looking at GPA/S…

In most poor countries, there isn't even such a thing as "gifted" programs.

And those that do, there's so much competition that people in deep poverty can never join it, you'd see mostly lower-middle class people.

Perhaps leave the US, travel for a while and you'll see that the average US life experience is very different in comparison to the rest of the world.

And to wrap up, a lot of gifted kids end up never having the opportunity to study in a school or environment that catapults them into any kind of gifted program.

Just be glad you were born American and start comprehending that you are lucky, but most of the world isn't. The best you can do.

Re: You Don't Batch Cook When You're Suicidal (2020)

#242
post #222

Earlier quoted context omitted.

We are almost sure that genetics (and perhaps nutrition) are the main determinants of IQ. We won't have a complete answer until most of the genes that affect intelligence are found. With regard to your specific question of if educational attainment is the main factor in causing IQ to increase, that would mean that everyone at high-school would have the same IQ because they all have the same educational attainment (in…

Genetics account for roughly half of the variation of intelligence between individuals. That leaves a ton of room for other factors, such as nutrition, health, and education, to create significant disparities.

Do you have a source for that claim? Might you be misquoting a different popular statistic that g accounts for roughly have of intelligence between individuals? Or perhaps the figure that intelligence is about 50% heritable?[0] It is important to note that heritability of a trait and the extent to which a trait is genetically caused are not the same. It is possible for a trait to be eg. 80% caused by genetics and only 60% heritable, even on the average. This can be the case where the trait is defined by multiple genes (and non-coding DNA) where the proportion of the different genes matters and where specific combinations of genes are necessary. Also heritability of intelligence has been reported as higher than 75%.

[0] Eg. https://www.nature.com/articles/s41380-021-01027-y#Sec8

Re: You Don't Batch Cook When You're Suicidal (2020)

#243
post #238

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You're going to need to do a lot of work to demonstrate that wealth is zero-sum, as it doesn't comport with any well-respected economic model I'm aware of. But even granting that, a government that creates a "survival floor" would protect against wealth-seeking in a world where it was zero-sum. The floor only needs to be high enough to allow people not to be held to the floor should they desire to participate in the…

Both activities happen in the same economy. Zero-sum or negative-sum activities are plenty. Asset speculation is one such area where the first, second and third order effects are all completely useless to society as a whole, and lack meaningful externalities. Yet people invent the most far-fetched fairy tales to explain why golden handcuffing the brightest math and physics phds to work for hedgies/hfts is a critical…

That's not true; speculation is the absorption of risk, an immensely useful financial tool. For example, farmers require speculators to secure guaranteed revenue from crops. Landlords create (yes, they create) housing for people who can't afford to purchase homes by ensuring capital flow into housing construction, among other things.

Investors take on risk in exchange for additional reward. The upside is the people who can't afford the risk have safe ways to protect themselves.

Re: You Don't Batch Cook When You're Suicidal (2020)

#244
post #237

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You're going to need to do a lot of work to demonstrate that wealth is zero-sum, as it doesn't comport with any well-respected economic model I'm aware of. But even granting that, a government that creates a "survival floor" would protect against wealth-seeking in a world where it was zero-sum. The floor only needs to be high enough to allow people not to be held to the floor should they desire to participate in the…

I'm sorry. I consider you either very sheltered from poverty, delusional or both.

Why would anyone give heed to such a vague, unsupported claim? Would you care if an Internet stranger simply declared you, "sheltered from poverty or delusional" without offering any explanation at all?

Re: You Don't Batch Cook When You're Suicidal (2020)

#245
post #61

This keeps happening to me. I read a feelgood story, visit the wiki page and then realize how muddy the water is: >> Monroe has been described as an "austerity celebrity". In a January 2023 interview with Simon Hattenstone in The Guardian, Monroe acknowledged that she had recklessly spent money given by backers; she claimed "I'd go online absolutely shitfaced and buy nice furniture." Granted most poor people do stupi…

I think the story highlights a problem irrespective of the messenger. Some people cannot help but judge and opine on other's behavior where they have no context, or any moral basis to render that judement. We do this all the time in private, but politicians, or public figures, use the same propensity to pass devastating and life hampering policies, or inflame public opinion against a group of people. All I'm really h…

I find this argument is utterly destroyed by the fact that the message is a complaint about the 'other side' telling her to modify behavior to spend less money. Yet her behaviors include some really egregious spending. How could I separate the two?

Admittedly, I didn't have to know she made such an egregiously bad decision with her money to know she's wrong. I judged that immediately upon starting the essay because it's yet another angry rant against trivial financial advice that makes no difference and that no one forces you to take. The defensive and personal tone lets me know.

"The lady doth protest too much, methinks."

Happens every few months/years, people get up in arms about the Suze Orman meme advice to stop buying $5 coffee. If you're this angry about advice you're under no obligation to take, I know you're getting drunk and spending hundreds of dollars buy Bored Ape Yacht Club NFTs or have some expensive substance addiction (e.g., cigarettes or weed) you could cut but choose not to. The anger is just so personal it's impossible that it's not coming from self-hatred.

Re: You Don't Batch Cook When You're Suicidal (2020)

#246
post #219

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The problem is that sometimes humility and compassion are not what's needed. Sometimes a person needs a kick in the pants. A close friend willing to tell you to stop impulse buying furniture, or get a fucking job, or get off your ass and work out. The tricky part is knowing when which tactic is called for.

Have you ever told a friend that and them respond with something along the lines of, "You know, I'd never thought of that. I'm just going to go get a job. Thanks!"? Me neither.

You don't tell your friend to get a job. You tell your friend they sound like a miserable fuck and some of their problems are of their own making.

Re: You Don't Batch Cook When You're Suicidal (2020)

#247
post #180

Earlier quoted context omitted.

And a lot of people would be very wrong. There’s a floor to survivability, below which you can’t keep yourself alive, but there is no ceiling. If everyone is above the floor, there’s no reason for concern about those looking for the ceiling. In the future we’ll pull people up to the floor, but that doesn’t require attaching a ceiling. The will never be a successful society that substantially punishes achievement abov…

You're wrong. Fundamentally it requires redistribution and a complete change of mindset.

A shallow dismissal is less valuable than an excellent critical comment. Please share with me (and others) what's wrong with my thinking. I'm trying to be transparent about my reasoning in child comments, so hopefully, you will have enough to work with.

Re: You Don't Batch Cook When You're Suicidal (2020)

#248
post #246
post #219

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Have you ever told a friend that and them respond with something along the lines of, "You know, I'd never thought of that. I'm just going to go get a job. Thanks!"? Me neither.

You don't tell your friend to get a job. You tell your friend they sound like a miserable fuck and some of their problems are of their own making.

I'm glad I'm not your friend.

Re: You Don't Batch Cook When You're Suicidal (2020)

#249
post #227

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The issue is, a lot of the people at the top engage in business practices that actively disenfranchise people at the bottom. Their wealth actually comes from those people who have so little. Stop peddling this absolute fabrication that there's unlimited wealth and the super rich should be left get richer still.

You're going to need to do a lot of work to demonstrate that wealth is zero-sum, as it doesn't comport with any well-respected economic model I'm aware of. But even granting that, a government that creates a "survival floor" would protect against wealth-seeking in a world where it was zero-sum. The floor only needs to be high enough to allow people not to be held to the floor should they desire to participate in the…

If the people who ran that study were really as smart as they pretend to be, as they are from Harvard, they would understand how even their own thoughts, the language they speak and so on, all happened because they were lucky.

Let me repeat to you, as you seem unable to read and comprehend what I have previously written, it can be reading comprehension issue, so I won't judge you negatively like Harvard, an elitist school would, here it is:

Talent is everywhere. It's abundant. There is an immense amount of hard-working people that even if they don't believe in "zero-sum", get nowhere. They still wake up every day early, work much harder than you ever will in your life, but are still in a shithole and this situation will stay as it is until they perish.

That study was done by one of the most well-known universities, full of privilege in a country that managed to have its reigns on the world for so long, an empire.

Let's think together. It would be strange if either the study or the University would conclude that people work really hard. And are as talented as the people able to attend Harvard, but because they were unlucky and that the world is unfair, they couldn't.

That would be a big counterargument to Harvard's selection process, it wouldn't feel it's a really deserving university, nor that the creator of the study is as good as he believes to be. Why would anybody want to pay for its overpriced curriculum that are literally books you could buy it at Amazon? I'm not saying it is all fake, but you can understand how much reputation is bought, not acquired.

You aren't special, nor the thought of zero-sum thinking is what creates poverty. People are drawn into those ideas, not because of stupidity, but lack of luck.

Stop pretending you have so much control of yourself and your thoughts, read more science and you'll see how all those conclusions you believe to be true are really naive.

Re: You Don't Batch Cook When You're Suicidal (2020)

#250
post #248
post #246

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You don't tell your friend to get a job. You tell your friend they sound like a miserable fuck and some of their problems are of their own making.

I'm glad I'm not your friend.

Right back atcha.
Post reply on HN