Maybe you should learn something • Hacker News Board

Re: Maybe you should learn something

#181

Post by B0laj1 » Sat, Jul 04, 2026, 7:42 PM UTC

Very impressive. In my own experience, starting something new is usually fun, just that sometimes it's like I'm burnt out or hyper focused on it. Let's say for example, I have a YouTube video that is an hour long, I watched the first 30mins the first day, on he second day, I watch the first half of the video again as a preamble but by the time I'm into the second half of the video, I loose focus and need to take a break again.

An attention span of 30mins seems too little to me. Any ways to incrementally work on this? Anyone with similar experience?

Re: Maybe you should learn something

#182

Post by dirteater_ » Sat, Jul 04, 2026, 7:53 PM UTC

> just find some starting point that doesn’t look like a sales funnel

this adds to the difficulty in getting started; so many times you start down a path, don't make good progress and hit a paywall or realize the path you started on is just marketing for some (not even valuable) learning resource

this is super common with language learning stuff, especially because AI makes it seem so cheap to produce learning content

Re: Maybe you should learn something

#183

Post by nyantaro1 » Sat, Jul 04, 2026, 8:22 PM UTC

B0laj1 wrote: post #181

Very impressive. In my own experience, starting something new is usually fun, just that sometimes it's like I'm burnt out or hyper focused on it. Let's say for example, I have a YouTube video that is an hour long, I watched the first 30mins the first day, on he second day, I watch the first half of the video again as a preamble but by the time I'm into the second half of the video, I loose focus and need to take a br…

I don't suggest auto diagnosing, but those could be ADHD symptoms. I have the inattentive subtype and it sounds similar to my experience. Unfortunately, I don't have any advice on this

Re: Maybe you should learn something

#184

Post by marginalia_nu » Sat, Jul 04, 2026, 8:39 PM UTC

Levitz wrote: post #180

marginalia_nu wrote: post #131

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Probably good to align mental and physical tiredness. Being physically tired makes rest feel very good. Being mentally worn out just kinda makes you feel like shit. It's a terrible state to be in, you don't want to do anything, but doing nothing also feels bad.

I'm almost certain people are different on this point, but I just want to put this out there in case it applies. A lot of our entertainments and hobbies, especially in urban areas, are mental to begin with. The most evident example would be scrolling on your phone, which evidently is 100% a mental thing, but there's a lot in this box, videogames, music, reading can all really demand a lot from you mentally. Explicitl…

Yeah this is largely my experience as well, and few things will raise your quality of life if you do have a mentally taxing life as having one or more hobbies that are physical and ideally requires you to get out of your head (gym kinda does that and if nothing else is a good sort of stress degauss, but dance is arguably even more fantastic as it literally will not work if you're in your head; not that one excludes the other).

Re: Maybe you should learn something

#185

Post by jambalaya8 » Sat, Jul 04, 2026, 8:47 PM UTC

Scarblac wrote: post #55

frankie_t wrote: post #52

It's a very common thing to blame the lack of time and "finding" the extra time by suggesting to give up phone or some other form of procrastination. But in my experience, time is almost never a problem. It's usually: - energy: learning requires much more than the other "bad" activities like phone - correct psychological state: procrastination is typically triggered as a response to anxiety for me, so any learning I…

But even then, it's still the phone, in my experience. It takes up so many hours but you also don't really rest, and it also tends to keep you up too long at night. If you can replace five hours of doom scrolling with an hour of doing nothing in particular, an hour more of sleep, some time staring at a book page or soduku, some more work on chorse, you'll most likely gain an hour or so to use on something that takes…

Wondering, which would you consider healthier, an hour scrolling on the phone or an hour watching a tv show (either a fictional one or talk show, either with commercials)?

(aside from this, fascinating math ;))

Re: Maybe you should learn something

#186

Post by gofreddygo » Sat, Jul 04, 2026, 8:50 PM UTC

marginalia_nu wrote: post #91

frankie_t wrote: post #52

It's a very common thing to blame the lack of time and "finding" the extra time by suggesting to give up phone or some other form of procrastination. But in my experience, time is almost never a problem. It's usually: - energy: learning requires much more than the other "bad" activities like phone - correct psychological state: procrastination is typically triggered as a response to anxiety for me, so any learning I…

(Author of the post) For energy, it both requires and pays dividends. It's a bit like working out in that sense. I think my intended takeaway was that you really don't need to have make the thing you're studying take a lot of time, that daily consistency matters more than pouring hours into practice and obsessing about it. Though in general, I do still think it's the phones and media diet that is the problem with the…

recently read a post on a moms' forum about her having a hard time getting her kid to practice violin and the skill plateauing.

the breakthrough was a trip to a relative's remote house with no screens / internet. Kid found violin better than other things to do. More Hours led to improvement. That fed on itself and kid spent more time with the violin and improved much faster.

The busier our lifestyle, the more cheap, meaningless pursuits we engage ourselves in, it all chips away at out natural ability to focus on one thing for long term and we're left with a recursive livelock of infinite choices laden with hidden opportunity costs.

how can humans from 1500 with everything stacked against them have better art sense and science insight than humans in 2026 ?

Re: Maybe you should learn something

#187

Post by k9294 » Sat, Jul 04, 2026, 8:51 PM UTC

What are some cool random things you've learned?

// you == the reader of this comment

Re: Maybe you should learn something

#188

Post by ChrisMarshallNY » Sat, Jul 04, 2026, 8:57 PM UTC

abalashov wrote: post #112

brookst wrote: post #105

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There are plenty of authoritative reference books full of errors. Teachers in every subject can be wrong, convincingly.

Yes, but human errors are based on genuine and elaborate misconceptions (or propagandistic intent), not squishy, facile "you're right to push back on that, I straight up made that up" type stuff.

I just apply the "Wikipedia model" to things like LLMs (and StackOverflow, which can be just as bad -but without the admitting error part).

I look for citations and footnotes. In many cases, accuracy isn't something that I worry about, as bad info becomes apparent, almost immediately. In cases where it matters, though, I may try a couple of verifications.

One problem with humans, is that we can be quite insecure, and will fight to the death to defend a provably wrong position, because we can't bear to be seen as in error.

Re: Maybe you should learn something

#189

Post by black_knight » Sat, Jul 04, 2026, 9:17 PM UTC

storus wrote: post #134

MrScruff wrote: post #101

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think what the parent post was saying is that there is a finite amount of useful mental function time in any one day, and once you’ve exhausted this any attempted learning will be pretty inefficient. Also some jobs will have a faster burn rate. Doing a workout is separate as it doesn’t draw on the mental energy pool.

From my experience, workout draws exactly from the same pool as mental effort, so after a tough day at work/school, there is little left for a workout and vice versa. Instead of brain spending its energy on thinking, it spends it on muscle/movement coordination.

I find it easier to work out when being mentally exhausted than doing something mentally challenging when physically exhausted. My main sport is climbing and it is perfect for a Friday evening when I am exhausted from my research and teaching job.

Also there are all these feedback loops. Staying active gives motivation to do mentally challenging things, and some of this mental energy can also be invested in learning new ways of staying active!

Re: Maybe you should learn something

#190

Post by Lwerewolf » Sat, Jul 04, 2026, 9:32 PM UTC

frankie_t wrote: post #52

It's a very common thing to blame the lack of time and "finding" the extra time by suggesting to give up phone or some other form of procrastination. But in my experience, time is almost never a problem. It's usually: - energy: learning requires much more than the other "bad" activities like phone - correct psychological state: procrastination is typically triggered as a response to anxiety for me, so any learning I…

Re: energy specifically - I think "psychological state" is the main thing. Once there's a will, there's a way. Make it not draining on your psyche to explore new stuff and you're good to go. This really is as simple as not watching random feeds.

Re: "taking things way too serious" - a general life advice is to be after the journey, not the result. Goes for career, sports achievements and anything along the lines. Worry about getting to some place/rank/etc in particular and it's an endless stream of despair. Worry about just enjoying the practice and not being afraid to rock the boat (i.e. try something outside _your_ beaten path) and you're set.

Actual intelligence is as useful as it gets nowadays, given that it's at a premium.