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Being too ambitious is a clever form of self-sabotage

maalvika.substack.com

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

#71

Post by gsf_emergency_2 »

whatevertrevor wrote: post #60
gsf_emergency_2 wrote: post #48

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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.

I've heard that one way to pace is to... only consume your own stuff (aka dogfooding :)

More grown-up way to do it is to consume your mates' stuff?

(Trying to go from where TFA left off)

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

#72

Post by Shorel »

ants_everywhere wrote: post #42
Loughla wrote: 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.

Unless I can become a millionaire just with those skills, they are in a limbo between economically adequate and economically obsolete.

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

#74

Post by jahewson »

MichaelZuo wrote: post #23
cl42 wrote: post #12

In the spirit of July 4, John Lewis Gaddis explores a similar theme in "On Grand Strategy". This is one of my favourite explorations, where he compares Abraham Lincoln and John Quincy Adams: > Compare Lincoln’s life with that of John Quincy Adams. Great expectations inspired, pursued, and haunted Adams, depriving him, at critical moments, of common sense. Overestimations by others—which he then magnified—placed objec…

It almost seems like a tautology. e.g. By definition the 99.9th percentile person cannot live a 99.999th percentile life, if they did they would in fact be that amazing.

John Quincy Adams was arguably such a 99.999th percentile person though.

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

#75

Post by hackable_sand »

pedalpete wrote: post #9

What is "too ambitious"? Are there dreamers who overthink and never get anything done? Absolutely! Are there also people who do what other people regularly say is impossible? Also an absolute yes. Ambition has nothing to do with it. There are doers and there are talkers.

Griffith from Berserk is "too ambitious" but yeah they got things done I guess.

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

#76

Post by james-bcn »

thehappyfellow wrote: post #17

It's closely related to another truth: Unconstrained curiosity is a vice, not virtue.

Sorry I don't consider this a "truth" at all.

Unconstrained curiosity is a superpower. Some of the greatest people in history have had immense curiosity. Think Newton, Darwin, Feynman. In fact pretty much any great scientist is great because of their wide curiosity. It's often the crossover between things that seem unrelated where the breakthroughs lie.

It's a joy to have "the pleasure of finding things out" and I pity anyone who lacks it.

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

#77

Post by arresin »

thrwwXZTYE wrote: post #68
wordpad wrote: post #55

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Oh God So, what is the lesson here? Gotta let go of pride and risk it for the biscuit (ship something)?

There's no lesson. It's hard. Your brain will search for the silver bullet to skip the boring self-improvement work and feel good NOW. It'll likely detach your current self from your past self (I was bad, I discovered this, now I'm great, exceptional and heroic again). Then you'll again avoid the boring day-to-day work (becaue you feel exceptional again) and fail again. Everything you know is material for your brain…

> Put a breakpoint in that callback. Try to notice every time it triggers. At first just notice it, notice what it urges you to do.

Damn I love this advice phrased like this.

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

#78

Post by ido »

chatmasta wrote: post #38
meander_water wrote: post #26

> 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…

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…

    a developer-focused startup
I'm sorry to tell you it doesn't just apply to developer-focused startups!
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