That you are riding the same initial wave of energy that was The Big Bang, and that it is responsible for every single decision, impression and feeling that you have in your life. That's the epiphany that I had while listening to Alan Watts.
Ask HN: What's your greatest epiphany?
61–70 of 124 posts
Re: Ask HN: What's your greatest epiphany?
#62I have a few off the top of my head: - Learned helplessness is one of the biggest enemies to learning, but it's insidious in that sufferers don't recognize it. Often, I'll try to teach someone something, and I'll know for sure that they can and will grasp a concept, but they'll just stop short on their own accord, chalking failure up to their own (imagined) inherent inability rather than a specific situational lack o…
This was nice to read. Thanks for that!
Re: Ask HN: What's your greatest epiphany?
#63Two people want to share a cake. The reasonable person asks for half the cake, the unreasonable person asks for the whole cake. They compromise and split the difference - the unreasonable person gets three quarters of the cake and the reasonable person gets a quarter. [I wish I knew the origins of this - I heard it years ago.]
What you're talking about is something like (if not exactly) game theory. I read somewhere (no source sorry) that humans in normals situations DON'T actually behave like that.
They generally come to a mutually satisfactory conclusion, normally kindness (apparently inherent in human society) surfaces quickly.
Intelligence would perhaps suggest it's most efficient not be a dick in the long run.
Re: Ask HN: What's your greatest epiphany?
#64Exercise feels good.
Caveat: This is true only after you get over the initial, minor and yet discouraging hump where exercise is only tiring. Ramping up is key, and don't let anyone dictate how slow / easy you start. Then increase gradually, where how gradual is determined by how much better you think you can do.
I had to start running slower than the slowest part of the couch-to-5k program (a.k.a the most newbie program to get into running) to get my breath and body used to it. Now I can run 5k no problem.
Re: Ask HN: What's your greatest epiphany?
#65I've had a couple of memorable epiphanies. The fact that they are programming related probably says something about me but heck, I can't change that. Epiphany 1: one day I realized that Bresenham's line algorithm wasn't just a way to draw lines. In reality, it linearly interpolates values over a range. Example: get the gradient/color values along a horizontal line from x0,color0 to x1,color1. Epiphany 2: The 2nd big…
So for the second part, maybe you can sum it up in a pithy way by saying "Sometimes it's more cost effective to know your flaws than to be perfect".
Re: Ask HN: What's your greatest epiphany?
#66Rule of 72 (basic personal finance that should be taught in high school).
Re: Ask HN: What's your greatest epiphany?
#67Two people want to share a cake. The reasonable person asks for half the cake, the unreasonable person asks for the whole cake. They compromise and split the difference - the unreasonable person gets three quarters of the cake and the reasonable person gets a quarter. [I wish I knew the origins of this - I heard it years ago.]
But, you said two people want to share a cake. According to the scenario only one of them does.
Two people have to share a cake, and one of them wants to.
Re: Ask HN: What's your greatest epiphany?
#68Earlier quoted context omitted.
Was lack of food a factor in either the English Civil War or the American War of Independence? [NB I'm listening to the excellent "Revolutions" podcast at the moment http://www.revolutionspodcast.com/ ]
I know little about European history, but I would argue that the American War of Independence was more a formality than anything. Britain's influence was already waning and the colonies were mostly self-sufficient at that point. The hand that fed them wasn't Britain, so independence was simply a matter of not letting a third party take money out of your pocket any longer.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/No_taxation_without_representat...
My understanding that it wasn't the amount of tax - which was actually quite low, but the fact that they did not (and arguably, could never have) any meaningful representation within the power structures that raised these taxes.
Re: Ask HN: What's your greatest epiphany?
#69People think to create an AirBnb or Twitter, they have to be really smart. However, you really don't need to be that smart to build a massive company. You need a certain IQ of around 110-120 to understand science or how markets work, but after that it's only a matter of how much you believe in yourself/how bold you allow yourself to be.
Being smarter might actually be harmful as the human brain isn't good at filtering all the impressions that the person feels with a higher IQs. For instance, a high IQ often comes with social anxiety, autism and other mental restrictions that lessen the person's capability.
For IQs above 140, people become more specialized from what I've seen. They might be very useful to solve specific problems such as curing cancer/inventing the theory of relativity, but they have a hard time executing a bigger vision involving hundreds of employees and knowledge across numerous fields as one needs to create a startup.
I believe the sweet spot, where a human being can have the biggest impact on the world is somewhere between 130-140. This is an IQ, where a person can understand pretty much everything, but isn't overwhelmed by all the input it gets.
Re: Ask HN: What's your greatest epiphany?
#70Everyone I meet is not better than me.
Don't forget Thoreau's quote that he could learn from everyone. I think the problem is thinking of people in terms of rankings. Some are better at some things than others but that should not translate into being better than others. It's a hard distinction to make because the the latter is shorter and more convenient to grasp.