Why friction is necessary for growth

You’re probably just reading / listening to the wrong stuff.

Go sit through a dozen escape artist podcast episodes, and find a top metal band in whatever subgenre you’re complaining about.

(Eg: swing/disco -> Diablo Swing Orchestra, classical/electronic -> igorrr, folk -> finntroll/faun, pop->poppy’s “I disagree”, musicals -> amaranthe, rock -> sumo cyco, variety -> babymetal, middle eastern -> bloodywood, etc.)

> Overcoming friction leads to growth. Comfort leads to stagnation.... I’ve come to believe that with the rise of convenience and comfort, it becomes harder for us to reach our potential.... A certain level of convenience can lead to efficiency gains. Automation is important for a reason. Too much convenience though, that's a killer. When friction was inherent in the system, applying ourselves led to growth as we overcame that friction.

There's some kind of logical flaw in all of this where "growth" is circularly defined as the overcoming of friction.

In a world where one could snap their fingers and magically have everything, would "growth" be impossible?

Conversely, just throw out all your technology and live in the woods and re-implement and re-discover agrarian tools and techniques: amazing growth!

The point is that in my opinion "growth" defined in this way is not a helpful goal.

Building/creating/producing something that is more cheap/efficient/better than an existing tech should be the goal, regardless of whether or not there is friction involved in creating it.

Friction in current technology may or may not be a signal that therein lies opportunity. It's not a given.

The comment is fairly condescending, and I don't think it is up to the standards of HN.

Of course, you may like whatever you want, but if you compare Pink Floyd and Zeppelin to the current landscape, I don't think we find an equivalent quality and vision today. And not because current musicians (outside the playback- and autotune-heavy artists of today) are bad, but because of the hanging fruit I was referring to.

Movies today? Books? I am not finding great quality, but it is possible that, compared to others, I have a more refined palate.

Can I make a distinction between "friction" and "effort"?

If you're riding a bike up a hill, you can't go up without effort. But not all of your effort is actually moving you up the hill -- some of it is being lost in friction: inefficiencies in your muscles, friction in your gears and wheel and chain, wind resistance.

Similarly, you can't learn anything without effort; but it's often the case that effort you put in ends up wasted: if you're learning a language, time spent looking for content rather than studying content is friction; effort spent forcing yourself to read something that's too hard is effort you could have spent more profitably elsewhere.

Put that way, we should minimize friction, so that we can maximize the amount our effort goes towards actually growing.

Great distinction! Ideally, friction occurs at the edge of your ability instead of on tedious tasks where you learn nothing, and it's more like work.