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How to Be More Agentic

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Re: How to Be More Agentic

#31

Post by nick__m »

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.

If luck is a stable quantity for a given individual and it's range is ]-1,1[ you are right.

But if luck is a quantity that fluctuate and is positively biased, (a reasonable a priori seeing that most people succeed at something) or that it's range is ]0,1[ , you are wrong and willful exposure to opportunities increase your total amount of wins.

Re: How to Be More Agentic

#32

Post by thfuran »

Podgajski wrote: post #11
thfuran wrote: post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"Apparently" doesn't mean "actually".

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

So that definition you keep posting doesn't say what you're saying it says. That which is apparently not caused by one's actions might, in fact, be largely caused by one's actions. Yes, there are things that are not in your ability to control and perhaps you could call that "true luck", but even your given definition admits labeling things that can be affected by personal actions as luck.

Re: How to Be More Agentic

#33

Post by steveBK123 »

nick__m wrote: post #20

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.

I actually work for a guy like this now and at first I didn't quite get what he was doing, but I really like it now. He comes from a non-technical background but can code enough to be dangerous now.

He loves talking to experts in every facet of what we do, and just start from the most basic foundational questions. He has absolutely no ego about embarrassing himself by the basics of questions he asks and no shame about digging in with follow ups.

It's actually quite a powerful thing. Experts love to explain things if given the space. You also start to realize how narrow and sometimes shallow expertise is, and it lowers your own anxiety.

Re: How to Be More Agentic

#34

Post by joh6nn »

abadpoli wrote: post #19
Podgajski wrote: post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

I think Podgajski is trying to make the following argument:

Assume a standard 2-axes scatter plot, with a randomly placed horizontal line that represents chance/luck. The scattered points represent opportunities.

Any opportunity that occurs above the luck line is successful, anything below it is unsuccessful.

Above a given threshold of luck, maximizing opportunities is a good strategy because there's a high likelihood they'll pay off.

But if your luck is too low, then maximizing opportunities will still result in a larger number of successes, but at a much greater cost. A more efficient strategy might be to invest more resources in the successes you actually get.

I'm not picking a side here, just trying to bridge a potential disconnect in the discussion. Podgajski, please correct me if I've misrepresented your position

Re: How to Be More Agentic

#35

Post by stvltvs »

danenania wrote: post #30
nick__m wrote: post #20

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.

Something else I find encouraging, and the reason, basically, that "everything is learnable" is that all knowledge, no matter how complex, is composed of fundamentally simple parts. Just as complex tasks or complex movements are composed of many simple steps or movements. This is what makes the maxim that "you don't understand something unless you can explain it in simple terms" true.

Yes, and this has its limits. Many true experts in their fields would struggle to explain their field simply. I like to think I'm an expert in my work, but how many times have I explained to my wife what I do in simple terms, and she still has no idea what I do?

Complex ideas often get distorted or lost in simple explanations.

Re: How to Be More Agentic

#36

Post by Podgajski »

kevindamm wrote: post #21
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…

The confusion, I think, is that many people see opportunity as luck, especially so when that opportunity was grasped by someone else. Also even if luck is a stable quantity, it's helped by attempts at success.

No, you’re wrong, luck isn’t helped by anything. It’s just luck. You can change all the opportunities you want but if you have bad luck you have bad luck if you have good luck you have good luck.

Other words, the odds don’t care about your luck.

Re: How to Be More Agentic

#38

Post by drakonka »

nick__m wrote: post #20

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.

I always assumed everyone assumed everything was learnable. Realizing this (i.e., that being everyone's default belief) might not be the case is kind of blowing my mind a little right now.

Re: How to Be More Agentic

#39

Post by kwhitefoot »

inglor_cz wrote: post #26
Podgajski wrote: post #2

[flagged]

Few people are constantly unlucky, like, day after day after day. Most of our lives are stochastic enough that luck and bad luck, on average, balance out. A random walk in both directions. "Oh, and being rich helps your agency quite a lot." - Yeah, if you can manage your wealth, but if a stupid person somehow gets a lot of money, my bet would be on them losing those in spectacular way within a few years.

> Few people are constantly unlucky,

But quite a few people feel constantly unlucky. And for some this distorts their behaviour in such a way as to make them even unluckier.

Re: How to Be More Agentic

#40

Post by jvanderbot »

drakonka wrote: post #38
nick__m wrote: post #20

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.

I always assumed everyone assumed everything was learnable. Realizing this (i.e., that being everyone's default belief) might not be the case is kind of blowing my mind a little right now.

You can learn anything you want, but really wanting is the hardest part.
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