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The days are long but the decades are short (2015)

blog.samaltman.com

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Re: The days are long but the decades are short (2015)

#81

Post by hammyhavoc »

JadedEngineer wrote: post #66

Here's something these posts never touch on: dealing with the inevitable routine and the boredom that comes with it. You always read that life is short, seize the moment, etc. and I call BS. I like to think I did all that, I'm well under 40 and have really travelled the world, succeeded professionally, lived in 10 countries, did everything I ever wanted to do. And now what? The problem with achieving things is that y…

Then you're one of the lucky few.

The truth is that a dream isn't meant to be reached or achieved, it's meant to inspire people to do more than just sit around under trees smoking pot all day. It's a nice lie they tell themselves as to why they're trading time with their families for time at the office.

Re: The days are long but the decades are short (2015)

#82

Post by jwestbury »

et-al wrote: post #71
JadedEngineer wrote: post #66

Here's something these posts never touch on: dealing with the inevitable routine and the boredom that comes with it. You always read that life is short, seize the moment, etc. and I call BS. I like to think I did all that, I'm well under 40 and have really travelled the world, succeeded professionally, lived in 10 countries, did everything I ever wanted to do. And now what? The problem with achieving things is that y…

How did you do these things, though? E.g. traveling is incredibly easy nowadays with smartphones and flying by plane. Have you biked across Euroasia with no internet access and and paper guidebooks? There's a good chance that magic of not knowing what comes next will come back when you ditch the GPS and internet. btw, I know the other commenters mean well with sharing their experiences, but to be blunt, folks should…

> There's a good chance that magic of not knowing what comes next will come back when you ditch the GPS and internet.

Of course, with everyone else having GPS and the Internet, it becomes much harder to find somewhere to sleep, because the amazing places you may have discovered fifty years ago will now be fully-booked months in advance.

Re: The days are long but the decades are short (2015)

#83

Post by boring_twenties »

notch898c wrote: post #16
MattRix wrote: post #6

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Clearly it isn’t, since this is a good list.

It's a good list for under 30s probably. Taking care of demanding and constantly shifting needs of young children easily bombs half this list.

Perhaps "don't have children" should have been the first suggestion.

Re: The days are long but the decades are short (2015)

#84

Post by garbagecoder »

burcs wrote: post #7
garbagecoder wrote: post #5

0. Thirty is too young to give life advice.

This is a bad take. It's like paying people based on years of experience vs. talent and output.

I strongly disagree. Sometimes just experiencing the passage of time is a requisite and that has nothing to do with you not being appreciated for your talent.

Re: The days are long but the decades are short (2015)

#85

Post by garbagecoder »

boring_twenties wrote: post #83
notch898c wrote: post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's a good list for under 30s probably. Taking care of demanding and constantly shifting needs of young children easily bombs half this list.

Perhaps "don't have children" should have been the first suggestion.

Definitely shouldn't do that blind. That's good advice. The kind someone over 30 would give. (=

Re: The days are long but the decades are short (2015)

#86

Post by comte7092 »

atleastoptimal wrote: post #34

Should a prerequisite to every successful tech person advice list include "Be 99th percentile IQ or higher"? All these people go to schools and work environments where they exclusively interact with incredibly intelligent people. Do they really know just how mediocre the average person is? Or is the average person implicitly written off with respect to any sort of prodigious success.

The hubris on this site never ceases to amaze.

That one would assume these people are solely in the place they are due to exceptional intelligence and merit and not a combination of luck, connections and a degree of hard work and talent just shows how much of a bubble tech is.

The meritocracy myth rages on.

Re: The days are long but the decades are short (2015)

#87

Post by pfannkuchen »

comte7092 wrote: post #86
atleastoptimal wrote: post #34

Should a prerequisite to every successful tech person advice list include "Be 99th percentile IQ or higher"? All these people go to schools and work environments where they exclusively interact with incredibly intelligent people. Do they really know just how mediocre the average person is? Or is the average person implicitly written off with respect to any sort of prodigious success.

The hubris on this site never ceases to amaze. That one would assume these people are solely in the place they are due to exceptional intelligence and merit and not a combination of luck, connections and a degree of hard work and talent just shows how much of a bubble tech is. The meritocracy myth rages on.

If you are smarter than 99 out of 100 people, there are still millions of people as smart as you in USA alone. If someone said 99.999th percentile I would agree with you, but IME being smarter than 99 out of 100 people is not that high of a bar.

Re: The days are long but the decades are short (2015)

#88

Post by comte7092 »

pfannkuchen wrote: post #87
comte7092 wrote: post #86

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The hubris on this site never ceases to amaze. That one would assume these people are solely in the place they are due to exceptional intelligence and merit and not a combination of luck, connections and a degree of hard work and talent just shows how much of a bubble tech is. The meritocracy myth rages on.

If you are smarter than 99 out of 100 people, there are still millions of people as smart as you in USA alone. If someone said 99.999th percentile I would agree with you, but IME being smarter than 99 out of 100 people is not that high of a bar.

Excluding 99% of the population from applying fairly generic advice from listicle isn’t that high of a bar?

Re: The days are long but the decades are short (2015)

#89

Post by pfannkuchen »

comte7092 wrote: post #88
pfannkuchen wrote: post #87

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If you are smarter than 99 out of 100 people, there are still millions of people as smart as you in USA alone. If someone said 99.999th percentile I would agree with you, but IME being smarter than 99 out of 100 people is not that high of a bar.

Excluding 99% of the population from applying fairly generic advice from listicle isn’t that high of a bar?

I am assuming that the advice given is not just to get any tech job at all, but to be highly successful in the field. Clearly, below some analytic intelligence level, being highly successful in engineering is not a realistic or useful pursuit. Where that threshold is would be up to debate, certainly. I think most would agree it’s above 90th percentile, at least. Calling it 99th might be hyperbolic, sure, but I don’t think it’s intensely out of touch or anything. It’s like if an NBA player is giving advice about how to succeed in a basketball career. Presumably they are speaking about succeeding in the NBA or at least college level basketball, not some rec league. And, if you are 5’5”, while it is not strictly impossible for you to succeed, it is probably not realistic for you to pursue it. The advice is implicitly aimed at people who stand any chance at all of making it into the NBA.

Re: The days are long but the decades are short (2015)

#90

Post by nuancebydefault »

SoftTalker wrote: post #17
angarg12 wrote: post #11

On 5): The most transformative step in my journey up the class ladder was when money stopped being a source of problems and instead became a way to solve problems.

I have plenty of money (relatively speaking, I don't make FAANG money but I don't worry about paying the rent or saving for a rainy day). I have real trouble spending it though. It almost causes me physical pain to spend money on something I don't regard as essential. I don't like to travel, or eat expensive meals, or go to movies, concerts, shows, etc because I hate to spend the money on it. Don't know what the root…

I think a lot of people are like you described (say 5 per cent), but not many dare to admit, fearing of coming across too boring or greedy or whatever.

I think being content with what you have and what you buy, the fulfillment of fixing things has much more value than fancy stuff that is fancy today but gets outdated quickly.

Also "experiencing things" seems overrated these days. As if scratching things off a bucket list has lots of value.

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