Live data from Hacker News

Ask HN: Why can't I learn anymore?

news.ycombinator.com

91–100 of 326 posts

Re: Ask HN: Why can't I learn anymore?

#91
post #55

Earlier quoted context omitted.

deadlifting? no thanks.

Lifting weights doesn't translate to deadlifting. That's just one exercise of many. Weights and other exercise helped me. I don't deadlift though.

Deadlifting is fun and worth trying once. You don't have to do ridiculously heavy weights to get the lower body health benefits.

Re: Ask HN: Why can't I learn anymore?

#92
Yes, it's a well-established scientific fact that the age-related cognitive decline begins as early as one's twenties: [1][2][3][4]. As of now there really is no cure for this, except for trying various lifestyle interventions in hopes of modifying the slope of the curve in desired direction (standardized cognitive tests help one select the most favorable interventions). The obvious stuff - exercising twice weekly, cardio, sleeping well & enough, being less stressed help noticeably. Beyond this there is a trove of supplements and drugs that may, though likely not, help.

Naturally, highly intelligent people understand this unfortunate truth of nature pretty well, and plan their lives so as to decouple their living standard from their peak intellectual performance. Thus we see smart people becoming managers and investors/rentiers over time. Once your money works for you by virtue of compounding interest, not much intelligence is needed.

If we are bold enough to envision long-term solutions to this daunting problem, there really is no alternative to accelerating longevity R&D. If you are interested, feel free to read the FAQ: https://www.fightaging.org/faq

1. https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2683339/

2. https://sci-hub.se/https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/19231030/

3. (excerpt) https://de.catbox.moe/fk9ltz.jpg

4. (excerpt) https://files.catbox.moe/krktzk.jpg

Re: Ask HN: Why can't I learn anymore?

#93
post #59

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Not caring about work and just getting things done is what 90% of the population does. Do you really think they all need to check it with the doctor?

No? But I think I do. I loved coding, I loved my job, I loved technology. Now I don't. I did care about my job, and I wanted to get the projects done, Im just saying that now I find it hard to care about it and actually get those things done. I was just relaying my experience to OP - I think you might have taken that part of my comment the wrong way.

I think it's absolutely normal. There are few people who can retain spark about their field for longer than a couple of years (let alone decades). The rest of us is just trying to do a good enough job to make the boss and team happy, and go home.

Re: Ask HN: Why can't I learn anymore?

#94

I know exactly what you mean. As a counter point to the many "burnout answers" here which I completely agree with by the way. It could also be an example of "neuroplasticity" (hear me out). I'm 40 and been coding like it feels forever, I find it "relatively easy" to learn new frameworks or languages. What is much harder are new paradigms; example OOP vs functional. The last few months I've started to learn Clojure. M…

> The last few months I've started to learn Clojure. Man what a frustrating journey it has been !

I think calling this neuroplasticity is excessive. Clojure isn't trivial.

For a young person who doesn't know how to code it will also take significant time.

Knowing how to code means you have to re-evaluate/re-categorize a set of root assumptions which is objectively hard and there is not really a curriculum fine-tuned for your exact set of existing knowledge.

Maybe you're just more aware of the potential improvements you haven't achieved yet.

Re: Ask HN: Why can't I learn anymore?

#96
post #91
post #55

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Lifting weights doesn't translate to deadlifting. That's just one exercise of many. Weights and other exercise helped me. I don't deadlift though.

Deadlifting is fun and worth trying once. You don't have to do ridiculously heavy weights to get the lower body health benefits.

I don't disagree - I do it, but rarely. I find it does seem to activate every single muscle in my body.

Re: Ask HN: Why can't I learn anymore?

#97

i'd guess: - burnout - world stress - aging (you getting dumber) the burnout happens to everyone. whether you end up killing yourself, or taking a few months off, or switching careers completely or just internally like going to product, or getting fired/pushed out just depends on all the usual stuff - how stubborn are you? do you listen to friends? do you have friends? do you have any sane friends? and/or family? do…

> aging makes you dumber in the computing sense at least, and also because brain fog creeps in more quickly on a standard garbage western diet. saying this true thing got zuck some pushback ten years ago precisely because it was true, and it's more true today.

As a big tech worker I find it insane that so much focused intellectual effort of my colleagues is poured into creating "metoo" competitor products and optimizing ad revenue. We finally live in an age where we have the necessary scientific tools to tackle the hardest problems, such as aging, and yet we mostly waste our efforts on rewriting a product that will be forgotten in a few years.

What saddens me most is pretty smart people who prefer to ignore the reality of aging and disease and feed themselves and others with various life-affirming copes.

Re: Ask HN: Why can't I learn anymore?

#98

Yes went through this. Early 30s my dad died, completely changed my view on what I was doing. He was self employed and successful. I started to hate working for someone else. I really started to dislike being a developer. Kept trying to find a way out. Was depressed that being a Dev eats my life, all free time I felt I should be learning technologies Anyway fast forward nearly a decade and I'm really happy in my job.…

You had a depressive episode, and you recovered. It's not getting older, but the fact that time heals most brains just like exercise and antidepressants do. About 70% recover within 12 months [1] [1] - https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/12204924/ Edit: OP said "Was depressed that [...]" and also mentions death of a loved one. Even if I'm wrong, personally I really wish someone mentioned MDD as a possibility to me earlie…

Not attacking you in particular but responding to a sentiment evoked by your comment, that I think is all too common:

The pathologization of everything is what's abnormal.

So, what happened? Guy went through some grief, had normal emotional responses, understandably reconsidered what's important and felt suffocated in a workplace as an employee, after facing the fact that his dad spent a huge chunk of his life in a similar situation and then was gone...highlighting how many missed opportunities there were in that retirement that his dad worked for and never got to enjoy. It's a completely normal emotional Arc to go through and I think it would be abnormal cognitive processing to not go through those emotions and thoughts in the face of an event like that.

Subsequently the guy probably found a new relationship and then, falling in love and he forgot to some extent about the depth of the sadness, and life began to take on a new hope, brightness and meaning and, like he said, he had a kid and that would have changed his perspective again... and now he's happy what he's doing and appreciative, and grateful.

Maybe him going through the trauma of losing his father did result in him making some sort of subtle internal attitude adjustments or discovering a perspective that ended up with him having more joy in life. That's one way that challenge in life is supposed to work.

Anyway so that's the story: the guy had a completely normal Arc and then what does society make it mean? Society (or the extent to which our culture pathologizes normal experience), makes it mean that it this guy's arc must be abnormal or the guy must be mentally ill or it must be depression.

That's the crazy thing. People come along and say, oh my God that's depression, or that's some sort of mental illness. And it's like, no it's not: that's someone experiencing normal human emotions and living for real in their life and feeling it and thinking about it.

The idea that normal is just a constant smooth tone of some collection of happy emotions and an upward trend and then anything else is like depression or any sort of reconsideration is some sort of abnormal, or mental illness kind of case, I mean that is the sick, crazy thing and I think it's a sickness, it's a mental illness, of our Society... at least the extent to which our society has a culture that views people's individual emotional arcs as abnormal.

Re: Ask HN: Why can't I learn anymore?

#99
It could be mental burnout. But you could also get your blood levels checked!

Once in my mid-30's, I found that my mind wasn't as able as it used to be. I could write code fine, but as you, I struggled with learning new things.

It turned out that the hemoglobin level in my blood was low, so my head wasn't getting enough oxygen. The cause was colon cancer. The tumour had been bleeding into my colon for months. Other causes for losing blood could be ulcer (caused by certain bacteria, stress, too much coffee, fatty food, other stomach irritants), or gluten intolerance (unlikely, but does happen).

Re: Ask HN: Why can't I learn anymore?

#100

Yes went through this. Early 30s my dad died, completely changed my view on what I was doing. He was self employed and successful. I started to hate working for someone else. I really started to dislike being a developer. Kept trying to find a way out. Was depressed that being a Dev eats my life, all free time I felt I should be learning technologies Anyway fast forward nearly a decade and I'm really happy in my job.…

You had a depressive episode, and you recovered. It's not getting older, but the fact that time heals most brains just like exercise and antidepressants do. About 70% recover within 12 months [1] [1] - https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/12204924/ Edit: OP said "Was depressed that [...]" and also mentions death of a loved one. Even if I'm wrong, personally I really wish someone mentioned MDD as a possibility to me earlie…

I mean... you're extrapolating very hard. The results are not controlled for a completely unchanged lifestyle. Plus, the study specifically shows that people undergoing primary/mental care recover sooner.
Post reply on HN