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Being too ambitious is a clever form of self-sabotage

maalvika.substack.com

51–60 of 221 posts

Re: Being too ambitious is a clever form of self-sabotage

#51
This syndrome is called "eternal child" (puer aeternus) in psychology.

You were destined to great things. You were exceptional as a child, you learnt to associate your great potential with all the good in yourself, you built your identity around it. You were ahead of your peers in elementary school, whatever you applied towards - you exceled at.

So you value that potential as the ultimate good, and any decision which reduces it in favour of actually doing something - you fear and avoid with all your soul. Any decision whatsoever murders part of that infinite potential to deliver something subpar (at best - it's not even guaranteed you achieve anything).

Over time this fear takes over and stunts your progress. You could be great, you KNOW you have this talent, but somehow you very rarely tap into it. You fall behind people you consider "mediocre" and "beneath you". Because they seem to be able to do simple things like it's the simplest thing in the world, while you somehow can't "motivate" yourself to do the "simple boring things".

When circumstances are just right you are still capable of great work, but more and more the circumstances are wrong, and you procrastinate and fail. You don't understand why, you focus on the environment and the things you fail to achieve. You search for the right productivity hack or the exact right domain that will motivate you. But any domain has boring repeative parts. Any decision is a chance to do sth OK in exchange of infinite potential. It never seems like it's worth it, so you don't do it.

You start doubting yourself. Maybe you're just an ordinary lazy person? Being ordinary is the thing you fear the most. It's a complete negation of your identity. You can be exceptional genius with problems, you take that any time if the alternative is "just a normal guy".

Re: Being too ambitious is a clever form of self-sabotage

#52
post #27

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is the disconnect between proponents and detractors of AI. Detractors say it's the process and learning that builds depth. Proponents say it doesn't matter because the tool exists and will always exist. It's interesting seeing people argue about AI, because they're plainly not speaking about the same issue and simply talking past each other.

I usually see the opposite. Detractors from AI often refuse to learn how to use it or argue that it doesn't do everything perfectly so you shouldn't use it. Proponents say it's the process and learning that builds depth and you have to learn how to use it well before you can have a sensible opinion about it. The same disconnect was in place for every major piece of technology, from mechanical weaving, to mechanical c…

> But at heart the objections are about the fear of one's skills becoming economically obsolete.

I won't deny that there is some of this in my AI hesitancy

But honestly the bigger barrier for me is that I fear signing my name on subpar work that I would otherwise be embarrassed to claim as my own

If I don't type it into the editor myself, I'm not putting my name on it. It is not my code and I'm not claiming either credit nor responsibility for it

Re: Being too ambitious is a clever form of self-sabotage

#53

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I usually see the opposite. Detractors from AI often refuse to learn how to use it or argue that it doesn't do everything perfectly so you shouldn't use it. Proponents say it's the process and learning that builds depth and you have to learn how to use it well before you can have a sensible opinion about it. The same disconnect was in place for every major piece of technology, from mechanical weaving, to mechanical c…

> But at heart the objections are about the fear of one's skills becoming economically obsolete. I won't deny that there is some of this in my AI hesitancy But honestly the bigger barrier for me is that I fear signing my name on subpar work that I would otherwise be embarrassed to claim as my own If I don't type it into the editor myself, I'm not putting my name on it. It is not my code and I'm not claiming either cr…

Unfortunately the majority don't think like this and will take whatever shortcut allows them to go home at 5.

Re: Being too ambitious is a clever form of self-sabotage

#55

This syndrome is called "eternal child" (puer aeternus) in psychology. You were destined to great things. You were exceptional as a child, you learnt to associate your great potential with all the good in yourself, you built your identity around it. You were ahead of your peers in elementary school, whatever you applied towards - you exceled at. So you value that potential as the ultimate good, and any decision which…

Oh God

So, what is the lesson here?

Gotta let go of pride and risk it for the biscuit (ship something)?

Re: Being too ambitious is a clever form of self-sabotage

#56

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I usually see the opposite. Detractors from AI often refuse to learn how to use it or argue that it doesn't do everything perfectly so you shouldn't use it. Proponents say it's the process and learning that builds depth and you have to learn how to use it well before you can have a sensible opinion about it. The same disconnect was in place for every major piece of technology, from mechanical weaving, to mechanical c…

> But at heart the objections are about the fear of one's skills becoming economically obsolete. I won't deny that there is some of this in my AI hesitancy But honestly the bigger barrier for me is that I fear signing my name on subpar work that I would otherwise be embarrassed to claim as my own If I don't type it into the editor myself, I'm not putting my name on it. It is not my code and I'm not claiming either cr…

> If I don't type it into the editor myself, I'm not putting my name on it. It is not my code and I'm not claiming either credit nor responsibility for it

This of course isn't just a moral concern, it's a legal one. I want ownership of my code, I don't want to find out later the AI just copied another project and now I've violated a license by not giving attribution.

Very few open-source projects are in the public domain and even the most permissive license requires attribution.

Re: Being too ambitious is a clever form of self-sabotage

#57

> the "taste-skill discrepancy." Your taste (your ability to recognize quality) develops faster than your skill (your ability to produce it). This creates what Ira Glass famously called "the gap," but I think of it as the thing that separates creators from consumers. This resonated quite strongly with me. It puts into words something that I've been feeling when working with AI. If you're new to something and using AI…

I'm confused. I often say of every genAI I've seen of all types that it is totally lacking in taste and only has skill. And it drastically raises your skill floor immediately, perhaps all the way up to your taste, closing the gap. Maybe that actually is what you were saying? But I'm confused because you used the opposite words.

To me the argument also only makes sense as you understood it.

Re: Being too ambitious is a clever form of self-sabotage

#59
post #27

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is the disconnect between proponents and detractors of AI. Detractors say it's the process and learning that builds depth. Proponents say it doesn't matter because the tool exists and will always exist. It's interesting seeing people argue about AI, because they're plainly not speaking about the same issue and simply talking past each other.

>It's interesting seeing people argue about AI, because they're plainly not speaking about the same issue and simply talking past each other. There's actually some ground truth facts about AI many people are not knowledgeable about. Many people believe we understand in totality how LLMs work. The absolute truth of this is that we overall we do NOT understand how LLMs work AT all. The mistaken belief that we understan…

I couldn't agree more, and not just on HN but the world at large.

For the general populace including many tech people who are not ML researchers, understanding how convolutional neural nets work is already tricky enough. For non tech people, I'd hazard a guess that LLM/ generative AI is complexity-indistinguishable from "The YouTube/Tiktok Algorithm".

And this lack of understanding, and in many cases lack of conscious acknowledgement of the lack of understanding has made many "debates" sound almost like theocratic arguments. Very little interest in grounding positions against facts, yet strongly held opinions.

Some are convinced we're going to get AGI in a couple years, others think it's just a glorified text generator that cannot produce new content. And worse there's seemingly little that changes their mind on it.

And there are self contradictory positions held too. Just as an example: I've heard people express AI produced stuff to not qualify as art (philosophically and in terms of output quality) but at the same express deep concern how tech companies will replace artists...

Re: Being too ambitious is a clever form of self-sabotage

#60

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is exactly why I’m wary of ever attempting a developer-focused startup ever again. What’s not mentioned is the utter frustration when you can see your own output is not up to your own expectations, but you can’t execute on any plan to resolve that discrepancy. “I know what developers want, so I can build it for them” is a death knell proportionate to your own standards… The most profitable business I built was s…

> letting perfect be the enemy of good. My attempt to improve the cliche: Let skill be the enemy of taste 2 issues here. Neither can be developed (perfected?) in isolation, but they certainly ramp up at different rates. They should probably feed back into each other somehow, whether adversarially or not

The issue as the article points out is you can grow taste much much faster by only engaging in consumption, which leaves skill in the dirt.
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