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You must read at least one book to ride

ludic.mataroa.blog

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Re: You must read at least one book to ride

#101

Post by ludicity »

kelseyfrog wrote: post #70

> This led me to Betty Edward's Drawing On The Right Side Of The Brain, a book whose title profoundly upsets me as someone that left psychology due to the field's horrendous epistemology. I was hoping that the author revisited this at the end of the piece. We see this line of thinking on HN all the time. Perhaps judging an entire field solely on epistemic grounds is a form of all or nothing thinking?

I'm the author. I've been meaning to write something about this, but for context, I was a very strong psychology student, completed my degree, learned most of my early computer science/statistics from a clinical neuropsychologist, and can get a clinical license in about two years if I want to do that. I'm like, still deeply into psychology in many ways.

But the epistemology of the median practitioner and academic is ridiculously low. I'm now convinced that they're not actually that worse than other fields though, it's just that clinicians lead a feedback mechanism as obvious as an exception being raised so they never improve to some baseline floor.

Paul Meehl's influenced me deeply on this topic, as did Gregory Francis' critique of Paul Piff's (great name) terribly conducted yet ultra successful work.

Re: You must read at least one book to ride

#102

Post by ludicity »

talencorimas wrote: post #90

>Then there are engineers (and people in every profession) who never try for the entirety of their careers, and this is the majority of every profession. I find this pretty ridiculous. It's just that the standards are pretty low in IT. And being a good programmer just isn't a job requirement in the industry. I don't know a single case where a someone got fired for writing bad code.

Through the blog I get to meet a lot of people from all walks of life, and this has broadly been the consensus, with some exceptions. "Never try" is maybe unique to I.T, "remain fundamentally incompetent or try incorrectly" is very common.

I was horrified to hear surgeons say that they view their field this way. Lawyers seem to be a bit more optimistic on average, but I still hear horror stories now and then. But yes, the floor varies field-by-field, though the broad point I want to make is that I.T is not uniquely bad.

See: HR, recruiters, real estate agents, etc. I had a friend's birthday party where he and all his guests worked in hospitality, and the stories I heard did not at all indicate that the industry is run sensibly.

EDIT: Oh, and of course, I talk to journalists now and they say the exact same thing once the microphone is off.

Re: You must read at least one book to ride

#103

Post by ludicity »

hermitcrab wrote: post #42

I know people like to say "work to live, don't live to work" but I find it quite depressing to work with people who aren't interested in their job and make no serious effort to improve.

We meet again! And yes, I try to keep the reading to 9-5, at least on technical topics. My team is free to read as much as they want when they're benched, and we tend to read in pairs so that we have discussion partners.

Although since we don't know if the businesses is successful yet, we'll see if that's economically rational!

Re: You must read at least one book to ride

#104

Post by ludicity »

asdasdsddd wrote: post #30

I absolutely hate reading tech books, I feel like my soul is getting sucked thru my eyes, but it's shocking funny how much better you can reason about the world with just a couple of philosophy books.

Peter Singer, even though I'm not really a utilitarian, really helped my thinking skills at university. Formal logic and political philosophy were probably the two greatest units I ever took!

Re: You must read at least one book to ride

#105

Post by Unlisted6446 »

kelseyfrog wrote: post #91
Unlisted6446 wrote: post #88

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Well, there's a couple of things going on, right? One is whether we it's a bad idea to judge an entire mass of literature because of its epistemology and the second is whether the OP's claim that psychology has horrendous epistemology is valid. I'd say that judging an entire mass of literature because of its epistemology makes logical sense. However, in practice, it's not possible to make a judgment as to 'what the e…

We can start by asking, "What are the epistemologies that exist within psychology?"

Well that's a thorny question, now isn't it? I mean, if it was so clear what 'epistemologies' exist in any field, then there would be little need or interest in the study of philosophy and history of science, no? If it was clear, then I think one would simply state what the epistemology of the field is.

That philosophy and history of science are so successful seems to suggest that the way of the scientist is both multifarious and difficult to pin down. I'm skeptical about using either the conscious report of the practitioner of psychology or the labels we may ascribe to their behaviors to triangulate on what their epistemology could be.

Re: You must read at least one book to ride

#106

Post by ludicity »

thundergolfer wrote: post #31

I love this guy's cynicism and no-bullshit attitude. As someone who lived in Melbourne and has suffered Deloitte's "technology" department, the frustration and anger is warranted. Like everyone else, Australia has tech brain drain and loses its best software engineers to USA. But unlike almost everyone else it's a very rich country and so can still afford to spend billions of dollars training and deploying engineers…

Author here! Firstly, thank you for the kind words.

And secondly, this is quickly becoming apparent. I'm trying to run sales in Australia, my whole network is here, etc, but most of our good leads are at American companies. I know some smart Australians, but there's less appetite for quality work here, because that would require changing things and that's too much risk for people who just want to tap out and retire.

I'm putting all my work and in-person sales time into Australia, and we're still walking away with American clients despite the timezone differences and other obstacles. In Australia, the line has thus far been "I know we should do better, but no one will ever approve spend when they just want to wait out the clock for a new job". This is probably common in the U.S too (it's common everywhere), but the line with American clients has more typically been "We need this done to a really high standard because we think it's competitive advantage - can you start tomorrow?"

Re: You must read at least one book to ride

#107

Post by ludicity »

MinimalAction wrote: post #34

This resonated with me so many of my thoughts recently. This inherent lack of skills that could never make up to the best of the best, even with garangutan amount of efforts, is a depressing thought. On the other hand, one can be sufficiently ahead of the competition if they find that one resource and master it well. How does one go about finding them? I often resort to asking real folks via email, recommendations on…

Author here! You might like David Whyte's writing on "genius". It's sad when you want to be the best of the best in a specific thing, but almost anyone can blend their natural aptitudes in a few distinct fields to the be "best of the best" in something unique.

I'm an okay programmer, and the general opinion from clinical mentors here is that I'd be an above-average psychologist if I wanted to get into it, but I'd be one of the only professional software/professional psychologists in the country if I multiclassed.

For finding resources, I'm souring on some Hackernews material as I become more skilled and cure some Gel-Mann Amnesia, but generally speaking it's still a great place to look for book recommendations.

Another great tip is to check Goodreads lists from people you admire, or to find recommendations that include other material you find good. For example, I like Taleb's Black Swan. I found Keith Johnstone's Impro from a Reddit comment that that included Black Swan in the list, and repeat that trick ad infinitum.

Re: You must read at least one book to ride

#108

Post by globalnode »

ludicity wrote: post #96
skybrian wrote: post #29

He's a good writer, but I think he underestimates the implicit skills that an experienced engineer has that beginners don't have. Sometimes it just seems like common sense, but it isn't, and the result is often a lack of empathy. To build up that empathy, being around children or the elderly probably helps. Also, helping a relative who is struggling but you're on their side . Also consider the difference between a na…

Thank you for the kind words on the writing! And the implicit skills are important, it's just that reading a book is, broadly speaking, a very strong indicator of ability and a great starting point. The best engineer at my consultancy doesn't really read books due to S-tier ADHD, but has a massive amount of lived experience and has read enough documentation/high-tier blog posts that there's probably some equivalency.…

> how do you know what books to read?

I'm teaching myself linear algebra after failing the official class. I bought Strang's book and to me it was like reading the rantings of a madman (edit: ofc I mean "to me", as he is an accomplished mathematician), nothing made sense and it seemed all over the place. Which is strange because he seems always so highly recommended in that field. Its a visual subject for gods sake make some use of pictures! -- Anyway, not giving up I bought another one, this time from Lay and Macdonald and its like I'm reading a different subject. It makes logical sense and uses pictures to illustrate geometric points effectively without going overboard. So yeah, I cannot agree more. Sometimes its the right book you need, not just any book.

edit: In summary, we need good bullshit detectors to avoid being drowning sleepwalkers ;)

Re: You must read at least one book to ride

#109

Post by ludicity »

wiseowise wrote: post #69
keybored wrote: post #33

Oh right, it’s the dominating Matlab piledriver[1]. 1+ book, playing the guitar, having this one weird hobby, being a semi-pro gymnast—insert whatever you want from your life experience in order to have a story frame to justify a long rant about how you are so good without even trying (or everyone else is a moron). Reading is more of a facilitator and a start. Practicing is what makes things fall into place. And bein…

> 1+ book, playing the guitar, having this one weird hobby, being a semi-pro gymnast—insert whatever you want from your life experience in order to have a story frame to justify a long rant about how you are so good without even trying (or everyone else is a moron). Credit where credit is due.

Hah, I wish I could take credit for that, but the writing is pretty explicitly a claim that you can 80/20 a lot of domains (see Dan Luu's writing on Overwatch), then you spend a billion years practicing. I wonder how people are reading this stuff and going "Wow, it's all so effortless for this guy!"

I'm like, extremely untalented at many things and compensate with effort.

Re: You must read at least one book to ride

#110

Post by ludicity »

slothtrop wrote: post #14

Prefacing that I agree - The returns probably manifest at a senior level, where job security is already a non-issue and one has the privileges and power to make this knowledge actionable. This could be why the readers find it redundant and stick to coasting. I'd like to finish reading the Algorithm Design Manual, SICP and others, but it won't get me my next job, because I won't even be in the same room as someone who…

Yeah, this is probably a sad truth. Something weird is that, as a consultant now, no one asks me to jump through hoops. They just talk to me, I provide sensible guidance and insight, then we get paid to work.

I have absolutely no idea why companies roughly know how to hire private consultants at a bajillion dollars a day, then basically bully people with Leetcode or lame panel interviews, but they do.

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