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How to Be More Agentic

usefulfictions.substack.com

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Re: How to Be More Agentic

#181

Post by Podgajski »

FredPret wrote: post #167
Podgajski wrote: post #158

Earlier quoted context omitted.

On the average, only those prisoners could keep alive who, after years of trekking from camp to camp, had lost all scruples in their fight for existence; they were prepared to use every means, honest and otherwise, even brutal force, theft, and betrayal of their friends, in order to save themselves. We who have come back, by the aid of many lucky chances or miracles - whatever one may choose to call them - we know: t…

I'm frequently astonished by the sheer force of some people's desire to be unhappy. Viktor Frankl is an amazing example of someone taking an absolutely shit situation and applying some agency to it to make it better. My entire point is even he had good and bad luck, and chose not to focus on that, but on his zone of control, his agency. If it is in fact your contention that Viktor Frankl - Viktor Frankl - was lucky ,…

I’m not calling him lucky, he called himself lucky. I literally just showed you the quote where he said he was lucky.

I’m not demeaning his agency everything is written but if he wasn’t lucky, we wouldn’t be able to read anything he wrote about his experience.

Re: How to Be More Agentic

#183

Post by the_only_law »

Podgajski wrote: post #7
gumby wrote: post #4

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Luck happens to those who let it. Random opportunity comes along, you happen to be in a position to take advantage of it, and you happen to see it as it arrives.

What’s with all the woo hoo here on HN? The very definition of the word luck goes against your “frame it on the wall” feely good saying. “success or failure apparently brought by chance rather than through one's own actions.” but I guess you’re also saying that people who get cancer are just letting it happen? Maybe they should’ve investigated the edges. You see there are two types of luck, good luck and bad luck. Ho…

> What’s with all the woo hoo here on HN?

It’s mostly pseudo-intellectual posturing. Code monkeys desperately striving for some perceived superiority.

Re: How to Be More Agentic

#184

Post by Biganon »

marcellus23 wrote: post #171
nick__m wrote: post #155

Earlier quoted context omitted.

it's the way it's spoken where I reside.

My French knowledge is a little rusty but I was under the impression there would be no phonetic difference between monde and mondes (and possibly fait and faite, though I'm less sure about that).

"fait" being pronounced "faite" is a telltale sign of Québec or Acadie if I'm not mistaken

Re: How to Be More Agentic

#185

Post by FredPret »

Podgajski wrote: post #181
FredPret wrote: post #167

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm frequently astonished by the sheer force of some people's desire to be unhappy. Viktor Frankl is an amazing example of someone taking an absolutely shit situation and applying some agency to it to make it better. My entire point is even he had good and bad luck, and chose not to focus on that, but on his zone of control, his agency. If it is in fact your contention that Viktor Frankl - Viktor Frankl - was lucky ,…

I’m not calling him lucky, he called himself lucky. I literally just showed you the quote where he said he was lucky. I’m not demeaning his agency everything is written but if he wasn’t lucky, we wouldn’t be able to read anything he wrote about his experience.

Great! You've circled your way around to agreeing with me.

A man in the most unlucky circumstances looked for the ways in which he was indeed lucky, and then went on to turn that into a good outcome.

Pure agency. Luck had nothing to do with it.

Re: How to Be More Agentic

#186

Post by dambi0 »

a_c wrote: post #179

Side topic, I understand "agency/agentic" means "taking matter at own hand" but I have problem understanding why. In principal-agent problem [1], an agent is someone acting on principal's behalf. Conflicts arise when the doer, the agent, has more influence to the result, which the result may not align with that of a principal. Shouldn't having more "agency" means acting on people's behalf on steroids? Why one would w…

Does your confusion arise because you are generalising a specific definition of agency.

Re: How to Be More Agentic

#188

Post by marcosdumay »

drekipus wrote: post #178
marcosdumay wrote: post #144

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is a wild oversimplification. And very dangerous if you try to apply to people in more complex situations.

Dangerous?

Yes, dismissing mental and health problems can make people not seek treatment, further increase them, or at more extreme cases even physically hurt people.

Dismissing social problems can have the equivalent of all those consequences, and even worse ones.

Re: How to Be More Agentic

#189

Post by bongripper »

There are some interesting points in there, but the author sounds like a bit of a narcissistic jerk.

> In many contexts, the way to get good feedback is to give people a way to provide it anonymously. Anything else creates friction by layering on social dynamics. To get honest feedback, you want to make it as comfortable as possible for people to give it. You also want to make it easy to find -- I have a link to my feedback form in my Twitter bio, and get a few comments a week through it.

> I imagine resistance from some people on the grounds that anonymity frees people to be assholes, but in my experience they rarely are. 90% of what I get in my inbox is either nonsense or nice -- I get lots of “keep up the good work!” type messages

So 10% are assholes, and the rest are "nonsense" or nice - does she get any actual criticism in her "feedback inbox" (kind of a strange concept in my opinion in itself)?

Also, all of the accomplishments she bragged about in the intro are from business. Impressive as they may be, it seems a bit narrow minded to be only focusing on that part of life when recounting what you are most proud of.

Re: How to Be More Agentic

#190

Post by bongripper »

blueyes wrote: post #74

This piece about how she lives, by her husband Sasha, is also great: https://sashachapin.substack.com/p/things-you-learn-dating-c...

>I told her that she was a really inspiring person, and that I would keep her in my life indefinitely whether or not we ended up together

Whats wrong with men

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