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Things I Should Have Known at 20

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Re: Things I Should Have Known at 20

#101

Post by yason »

The thing I knew when I was 20 is to take everything with a grain of salt and think it through yourself and refit the lesson in your life. What's true in someone else's life often isn't true in your life. I knew it but I just didn't believe it.

As an adult, I know that's more true than ever and I'm able to believe it, yet only partially. I'm working on it.

When you think things yourself then you're not bound by the limits that other people before you have set. You don't need to be bound by "what's true and what's right": you can rediscover your own life in a very different setting. But it's a courageous path and I'm not always so courageous. I'm working on it.

Re: Things I Should Have Known at 20

#102

Post by nadam »

tensor wrote: post #68

Number two is flat out wrong. The majority of knowledge that you need to know is not bleeding edge and does not become outdated by the time a curriculum is formed. In fact, you can't even understand the bleeding edge research without first understanding what came before it. If by institutions, we are talking about universities, then they are one of the best places to access vast amounts of information and experts on…

"Perhaps if people bothered to learn a fraction of what is available in just the computer science or engineering departments of their university we wouldn't see the same old 50 year old technologies being reinvented again and again."

The problem is that for most people (be it salaryman or enterpreneur) knowing a lot of computer science (and other academic stuff) is irrelevant. I mean knowing the basics is good, but learning a lot of it is irrelevant compared to other things (connections, social skills, dealing with pressure, dealing with boredom, capacity to see through complex systems, luck, experience, talent (in fact different kinds of talents)). Even the companies which seem to prefer academic kind of knowledge in fact prefer (and test for) raw talent of some kind.

Of course if your goal is to do research, academy is extremely important. Otherwise (for example if your goal is financial independence) not that much (beyond the basics, but talented people learn the basics pretty quickly).

Re: Things I Should Have Known at 20

#103

Post by hackerblues »

StavrosK wrote: post #98
pg wrote: post #67

Any book worth reading is worth reading slowly.

Why? If you're reading for leisure, sure, but if you're reading for information or experience, it makes sense you'd want to read as many books as possible, hence as quickly as possible.

If you're trying to gain information and experience then it is silly to try to optimise for "How many pages have I looked at?"

You need to come to terms with what the author is claiming, critically evaluate the argument used to support those claims, and then decide the relevance of this new perspective on the world (eg, how will you implement it in your life?)

This all takes time.

Re: Things I Should Have Known at 20

#104

Post by timclark »

pg wrote: post #81
yelsgib wrote: post #72

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What's the slowest book you've read?

There are several different types of reading slowly. Math is slow because you have to work things out as you read it. Books written very long ago are slow because I read them like a detective, looking not just at what the author means to say, but also at what he's saying implicitly about how things were at the time. Other books I read slowly because they're so good I don't want them to end. I used to have to make a c…

They keep going with the same level of quality until the very end. Even the three draft chapters of the unfinished 21st volume left me wanting more.

Re: Things I Should Have Known at 20

#106

Post by epo »

rauljara wrote: post #18

The list is all phrased as commands. I can't stand that. There is no one way through life, and I wish people didn't act like just because it worked for them it will work for everyone. Find people that are cooler than you and try to be even cooler than them seems like a particularly terrible command to give in general. So many of the people I admire the most just don't care so much about image. And I've met too many p…

Can you even read? It is entitled "...things I should have known", not "things you must do" or "things I am commanding you to do".

And for the record I am much older than him and his suggestions are pretty good ones.

Re: Things I Should Have Known at 20

#109

Post by walterworm »

_pius wrote: post #55
rauljara wrote: post #18

The list is all phrased as commands. I can't stand that. There is no one way through life, and I wish people didn't act like just because it worked for them it will work for everyone. Find people that are cooler than you and try to be even cooler than them seems like a particularly terrible command to give in general. So many of the people I admire the most just don't care so much about image. And I've met too many p…

The list is all phrased as commands. I can't stand that. There is no one way through life, and I wish people didn't act like just because it worked for them it will work for everyone. I've heard this sentiment before and I don't get it. If it makes you feel better to have authors qualify every sentence with "In my opinion ...," you ought to simply imagine it there, not force that kind of timid writing on everyone els…

'In my opinion' isn't the only alternative to blank statements. One can explain one's ideas or provide some evidence.

Re: Things I Should Have Known at 20

#110

Post by hmottestad »

_pius wrote: post #55
rauljara wrote: post #18

The list is all phrased as commands. I can't stand that. There is no one way through life, and I wish people didn't act like just because it worked for them it will work for everyone. Find people that are cooler than you and try to be even cooler than them seems like a particularly terrible command to give in general. So many of the people I admire the most just don't care so much about image. And I've met too many p…

The list is all phrased as commands. I can't stand that. There is no one way through life, and I wish people didn't act like just because it worked for them it will work for everyone. I've heard this sentiment before and I don't get it. If it makes you feel better to have authors qualify every sentence with "In my opinion ...," you ought to simply imagine it there, not force that kind of timid writing on everyone els…

When I was taught about conflict resolution in secondary (yes, we have classes on that in Norway) the main theme was to separate fact from personal opinion.

The best way to do that (according to my teachers) was to ground your argument in a fact and apply your opinion in an obvious way. Ie. I think the goverment is .... because they .....; Rather than: The goverment is ....

Any scientific paper knows this, which is why they cite a dozen other papers. So then you can say "I think B because this person found out A".

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