How to do things if you're not that smart and don't have any talent • Hacker News Board

Re: How to do things if you're not that smart and don't have any talent

#111

Post by sph » Tue, Jan 30, 2024, 1:32 PM UTC

Jensson wrote: post #90

sph wrote: post #83

Earlier quoted context omitted.

PSA for people that believe they are somewhat smart, have cool ideas yet seemingly no power whatsoever to actually work on them. If you believe you are chronically lazy and feel it is causing issues in your life. If you feel you are living at 10% your true potential: Get tested for ADHD. If that is your problem, know that the chemical fix for it is extremely effective. It's taken me 30+ years of self-hate, a suggesti…

Note that those pills fixes focus, not motivation. Even with pills you will fail if your motivation falters, just like regular people. I think the main tell of ADHD is if you feel you lack motivation to complete simple but tedious tasks that has high rewards that you really care about. In that case you don't lack motivation, you really care about the reward, you don't lack confidence since the task is simple, you jus…

> Note that those pills fixes focus, not motivation.

Very true, but focus is crucial. If you have focus, motivation is "just" about learning good habits. If you have focus, the Pomodoro technique works. If you have focus, the common advice to "just do 5 minutes" actually works. Without focus any form of habit is impossible.

I feel people believe stimulants are only useful to get through the boring tasks. The issue with ADHD is that you cannot muster the strength to do the meaningful stuff you want to do. That is the soul-destroying problem.

Re: How to do things if you're not that smart and don't have any talent

#112

Post by hasbot » Tue, Jan 30, 2024, 1:34 PM UTC

GeoAtreides wrote: post #104

sph wrote: post #83

Earlier quoted context omitted.

PSA for people that believe they are somewhat smart, have cool ideas yet seemingly no power whatsoever to actually work on them. If you believe you are chronically lazy and feel it is causing issues in your life. If you feel you are living at 10% your true potential: Get tested for ADHD. If that is your problem, know that the chemical fix for it is extremely effective. It's taken me 30+ years of self-hate, a suggesti…

PSA: take a look at CDC's symptoms for ADHD: https://www.cdc.gov/ncbddd/adhd/diagnosis.html No motivation to start cool new projects is not among them... Actually, reading all those symptoms really puts into the light the 'disorder' part in the ADHD. And here's a philosophical question to ponder: should we change[1] to fit society's expectations or should society adjust itself to our needs? Should we take drugs so th…

I don't care about society's expectations. I just want a fulfilling life. My procrastination and lack of motivation is a detriment. If microdosing amphetamine will get me there, I'm all for it.

Re: How to do things if you're not that smart and don't have any talent

#113

Post by the-chitmonger » Tue, Jan 30, 2024, 1:36 PM UTC

GeoAtreides wrote: post #104

sph wrote: post #83

Earlier quoted context omitted.

PSA for people that believe they are somewhat smart, have cool ideas yet seemingly no power whatsoever to actually work on them. If you believe you are chronically lazy and feel it is causing issues in your life. If you feel you are living at 10% your true potential: Get tested for ADHD. If that is your problem, know that the chemical fix for it is extremely effective. It's taken me 30+ years of self-hate, a suggesti…

PSA: take a look at CDC's symptoms for ADHD: https://www.cdc.gov/ncbddd/adhd/diagnosis.html No motivation to start cool new projects is not among them... Actually, reading all those symptoms really puts into the light the 'disorder' part in the ADHD. And here's a philosophical question to ponder: should we change[1] to fit society's expectations or should society adjust itself to our needs? Should we take drugs so th…

Since receiving an ADHD diagnosis and being medicated, your latter point was something that constantly had me putting away my meds for weeks/months at a time. My heart rate has been permanently elevated and I'm watching my diet with a microscope so my blood pressure doesn't skyrocket.

It honestly feels sick that I take this drug not to necessarily feel better (though I will concede that I can handle more of my passion projects on Adderall) but in order to best fit a standard established by business magnates like Henry Ford.

Re: How to do things if you're not that smart and don't have any talent

#114

Post by Jensson » Tue, Jan 30, 2024, 1:38 PM UTC

hasbot wrote: post #106

Jensson wrote: post #90

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Note that those pills fixes focus, not motivation. Even with pills you will fail if your motivation falters, just like regular people. I think the main tell of ADHD is if you feel you lack motivation to complete simple but tedious tasks that has high rewards that you really care about. In that case you don't lack motivation, you really care about the reward, you don't lack confidence since the task is simple, you jus…

This recent study finds that amphetamines do help with motivation: https://www.jneurosci.org/content/43/41/6898 > I think the main tell of ADHD is if you feel you lack motivation to complete simple but tedious tasks that has high rewards that you really care about. You might be right, but, at least for me, the number of tasks that meet that criteria is too low to a useful metric.

They measure motivation by how hard the person works at achieving that goal, of course if you measure it that way the pills will "increase motivation". ADHD isn't a failure of motivation, it is a failure to put in effort doing stuff you are motivated to do. It doesn't magically make you motivated to do stuff you don't care about.

> You might be right, but, at least for me, the number of tasks that meet that criteria is too low to a useful metric.

Do you file taxes? Pay your bills? Those are simple and high reward tasks, every persons life is filled with such things.

Re: How to do things if you're not that smart and don't have any talent

#115

Post by sph » Tue, Jan 30, 2024, 1:39 PM UTC

GeoAtreides wrote: post #104

sph wrote: post #83

Earlier quoted context omitted.

PSA for people that believe they are somewhat smart, have cool ideas yet seemingly no power whatsoever to actually work on them. If you believe you are chronically lazy and feel it is causing issues in your life. If you feel you are living at 10% your true potential: Get tested for ADHD. If that is your problem, know that the chemical fix for it is extremely effective. It's taken me 30+ years of self-hate, a suggesti…

PSA: take a look at CDC's symptoms for ADHD: https://www.cdc.gov/ncbddd/adhd/diagnosis.html No motivation to start cool new projects is not among them... Actually, reading all those symptoms really puts into the light the 'disorder' part in the ADHD. And here's a philosophical question to ponder: should we change[1] to fit society's expectations or should society adjust itself to our needs? Should we take drugs so th…

I see where you're coming from, but comments like this are why it's taken me 30 years to understand there was something not exactly right with me. It doesn't help anyone because ADHD is something no one has completely understood, especially those that do not have it, and keep muddying the waters at any chance they get.

In my experience, if it has any value, ADHD is also lack of motivation to start new cool projects [1], despite you telling me that I'm wrong. Sorry for being curt, but I somehow have to add disclaimers and clarify every time I talk about it. It's a bit tiring.

Re: 9-5: that's also nonsense. Medication helps if you work in a cubicle, as well as to work on flexible hours and no bosses like I've had the luck to do lately. It does not necessarily make you into an effective drone.

--

1: The story is much more complicated, as it often is. I used to love starting new projects. 30 years of starting and never finishing does have its toll on the psyche, and I just internalised I am a lazy bastard that will never amount to anything, so I just stopped altogether. What does the CDC say about it?

Re: How to do things if you're not that smart and don't have any talent

#116

Post by mlrtime » Tue, Jan 30, 2024, 1:39 PM UTC

GeoAtreides wrote: post #104

sph wrote: post #83

Earlier quoted context omitted.

PSA for people that believe they are somewhat smart, have cool ideas yet seemingly no power whatsoever to actually work on them. If you believe you are chronically lazy and feel it is causing issues in your life. If you feel you are living at 10% your true potential: Get tested for ADHD. If that is your problem, know that the chemical fix for it is extremely effective. It's taken me 30+ years of self-hate, a suggesti…

PSA: take a look at CDC's symptoms for ADHD: https://www.cdc.gov/ncbddd/adhd/diagnosis.html No motivation to start cool new projects is not among them... Actually, reading all those symptoms really puts into the light the 'disorder' part in the ADHD. And here's a philosophical question to ponder: should we change[1] to fit society's expectations or should society adjust itself to our needs? Should we take drugs so th…

>or should society adjust itself to our needs?

Yes of course this one.

But until then I need to feed my family and not get fired for not working. And I'm not talking the difference between 99 and 100 [and getting fired]. I'm talking almost 0 to 100, meaning paralyzed with dread from starting any significant task.

Re: How to do things if you're not that smart and don't have any talent

#117

Post by GeoAtreides » Tue, Jan 30, 2024, 1:39 PM UTC

j7ake wrote: post #88

kypro wrote: post #55

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It really depends what you're referring to as tech work here... Low IQ people in my opinion are almost incapable of tackling certain technical problems – generally those which require complex maths or reasoning ability. That said, most tech work isn't that. In fact, most tech work isn't even technical. Designers or product owners are tech workers, but don't necessarily need to be "smart". And even the technical roles…

Can you give a concrete example of tech work that a "low IQ person" would not be able to tackle?

Writing an embedded C program using ESP-IDF that polls a Bosch BME688 sensor, feeds it Bosch BSEC library (compiled for ESP32, of course) and then pushes the response to an AWS mqtt queue.

Re: How to do things if you're not that smart and don't have any talent

#118

Post by lloydatkinson » Tue, Jan 30, 2024, 1:40 PM UTC

MontgomeryPi2 wrote: post #92

The article made me think of General Kurt von Hammerstein-Equord's officer classification: "I distinguish four types. There are clever, hardworking, stupid, and lazy officers. Usually two characteristics are combined. Some are clever and hardworking; their place is the General Staff. The next ones are stupid and lazy; they make up 90 percent of every army and are suited to routine duties. Anyone who is both clever an…

Wow - seems very apt for software engineers too.

Re: How to do things if you're not that smart and don't have any talent

#119

Post by corethree » Tue, Jan 30, 2024, 1:43 PM UTC

Jensson wrote: post #73

corethree wrote: post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Given how people on HN think they're so smart I'm surprised this article got voted up. Usually it's some article about how high IQ correlates with people who drink water. They just vote up the article for self validation. Now it's an article for the Narutos of the world. Guess a good number of people think they're stupid. I think both sides are wrong.

You must be new here, hard work beating talent is an extremely popular topic. People mostly reads these and see themselves as the superior side, if it is an article about hard work beating talent people see themselves as the hard worker, if it is an article about smart people doing X then of course the reader is on the smart side etc. So an article on how most hard work is wasted since it wasn't well thought out woul…

No there's a lot of articles on IQ and intelligence. Less on hard work. Mainly because most people on here are programmers and the job and interview is related to intelligence. People who take pride in there programming skill think they're intelligent.

As a programmer myself I think most programmers are average. Programming isn't a very hard job imo. It doesn't require a huge amount of intelligence hence the reason why it's one of the few occupations that can be entered without a degree, with self training, or a bootcamp.

People think this is a field that requires high intelligence. This is false. It's a field that requires slightly above average intelligence mostly. It depends on your specialty but for the typical web dev software engineer it's more closer to average.

Re: How to do things if you're not that smart and don't have any talent

#120

Post by JeremyNT » Tue, Jan 30, 2024, 1:44 PM UTC

sph wrote: post #83

paxys wrote: post #14

From my experience in the tech industry I can say with utmost confidence that "not smart"/"talentless" people who are determined and hard-working lead to significantly better real world results than geniuses who are lazy, unmotivated or overall not action oriented. The vast majority of problems at any company are easy and don't need any big technological breakthroughs to solve. They are instead held back by (1) lack…

PSA for people that believe they are somewhat smart, have cool ideas yet seemingly no power whatsoever to actually work on them. If you believe you are chronically lazy and feel it is causing issues in your life. If you feel you are living at 10% your true potential: Get tested for ADHD. If that is your problem, know that the chemical fix for it is extremely effective. It's taken me 30+ years of self-hate, a suggesti…

> PSA for people that believe they are somewhat smart, have cool ideas yet seemingly no power whatsoever to actually work on them.

Well, in some organizations it's pretty easy to feel like you have no power. The org structure almost seems built for it.

Related to the OP here, I'm a huge fan of the phrase "it's easier to ask permission than forgiveness." The rules as you think you understand them are almost never the real limits of the possibility space.

Figuring out the right rules to break is a hell of a skill.