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How to Be More Agentic

usefulfictions.substack.com

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Re: How to Be More Agentic

#11

Post by Podgajski »

thfuran wrote: post #9
Podgajski wrote: post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What’s with all the woo hoo here on HN? The very definition of the word luck goes against your “frame it on the wall” feely good saying. “success or failure apparently brought by chance rather than through one's own actions.” but I guess you’re also saying that people who get cancer are just letting it happen? Maybe they should’ve investigated the edges. You see there are two types of luck, good luck and bad luck. Ho…

"Apparently" doesn't mean "actually".

so what? That doesn’t change what I’m saying.

Re: How to Be More Agentic

#12

Post by brudgers »

gumby wrote: post #4
Podgajski wrote: post #2

[flagged]

Luck happens to those who let it. Random opportunity comes along, you happen to be in a position to take advantage of it, and you happen to see it as it arrives.

Being in position to take advantage of opportunities is the luckiest thing that can happen to someone.

Lucky for us, it's turtles all the way down.

Re: How to Be More Agentic

#14

Post by Podgajski »

zer00eyz wrote: post #10
Podgajski wrote: post #2

[flagged]

There is that old lottery promo "you can't win if you don't play". There is this quote: "You miss one hundred percent of the shots you don't take. Even though there is only a 1-5% probably of scoring". There is the saying 9 times down 10 times up. Getting lucky is a function of trying, as well. Saying you have to get "lucky" isn't about luck, it's about a mentality of keep at it.

Playing the lottery versus not playing the lottery doesn’t change your luck, it changes your odds.

If two people play the lottery the same amount of times and one person wins way more than the other, You would say one person was luckier than the other.

Re: How to Be More Agentic

#15

Post by Podgajski »

FredPret wrote: post #13
Podgajski wrote: post #2

[flagged]

That’s a losing attitude. To make the most of life, you’ve got to take charge of it, luck or no.

Who says I’m not taking charge of life? I just know the role that luck has to play in life as well. That way when I’m not lucky I don’t keep all that blame on myself or when other people are unlucky I don’t blame them for their failures. Because who the hell knows?

Re: How to Be More Agentic

#16

Post by abadpoli »

Podgajski wrote: post #8
yamrzou wrote: post #6

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You can directly control the amount of luck you receive: “Your Luck Surface Area, is directly proportional to the degree to which you do something you're passionate about combined with the total number of people to whom this is effectively communicated.” How to increase your luck surface area (2010) — https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=25968751

The very definition of the word luck goes against what you’re saying. “success or failure apparently brought by chance rather than through one's own actions.” This is a saying that sounds good, but makes no sense. For example, how do you change your luck of getting a coin to flip 90% of the time on tails? So you would say that one was lucky if they flipped a coin 10 times and nine times out of 10 It landed on tails w…

> You can increase your opportunity, but your luck never changes.

Exactly. Congrats, you have realized what the point of the article is.

Re: How to Be More Agentic

#17

Post by Podgajski »

abadpoli wrote: post #16
Podgajski wrote: post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The very definition of the word luck goes against what you’re saying. “success or failure apparently brought by chance rather than through one's own actions.” This is a saying that sounds good, but makes no sense. For example, how do you change your luck of getting a coin to flip 90% of the time on tails? So you would say that one was lucky if they flipped a coin 10 times and nine times out of 10 It landed on tails w…

> You can increase your opportunity, but your luck never changes. Exactly. Congrats, you have realized what the point of the article is.

No, I didn’t miss the point of the article, I’m expressing the fact that she totally negates luck in anyone’s life circumstances, that it is all about agency. After all, you have to have some amount of luck to have agency in the first place.

Re: How to Be More Agentic

#18

Post by samstave »

>“manifest determination to make things happen.”

In my family, my mother always called this as "Reality Bending" (no relation to airbender) -- but they referred to Jobs' "reality distortion field"

My father had this to great effect.

My brother has it to a certain degree.

I used to have it in spades when I was younger - but I have become "will-power" complacent in my older years, which snowballs into to depression.

I certainly feel getting dumber as I age - which is in part to the fact that I had a vast amount of information relating to my job when I was younger in my head - but now a ton of the knowledge I once had on quick access is simply obsolete.

Here is a quick example.

When I was ~20 someone I knew had accidentally changed ALL the display UI elements in Windows 95 to black.

Just by memory I could hit start and navigate to settings and display and fixed it back to normal - all by memory.

I couldnt even tell you where any of those setting were as fast on W95 today even if I had the machine in front of me and access to google.

Re: How to Be More Agentic

#19

Post by abadpoli »

Podgajski wrote: post #17
abadpoli wrote: post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> You can increase your opportunity, but your luck never changes. Exactly. Congrats, you have realized what the point of the article is.

No, I didn’t miss the point of the article, I’m expressing the fact that she totally negates luck in anyone’s life circumstances, that it is all about agency. After all, you have to have some amount of luck to have agency in the first place.

Ok never mind you did entirely miss the point of the article. Shame.

Re: How to Be More Agentic

#20

Post by nick__m » 

  Assume everything is learnable
This made me think of late grandmother who used to say : "c'est faite par du mondes" which roughly expand to "a person did/learned/discovered that so there is no a prioi reason that I cannot do so myself". That's the greatest value she passed unto me. When I feel that I cannot do something, I think about that phrase and persevere.
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