Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Big Breakthroughs Come in Your Late 30s

m.theatlantic.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

91–100 of 111 posts

Re: Big Breakthroughs Come in Your Late 30s

#91

Post by cwaniak »

asabjorn wrote: post #75
cwaniak wrote: post #58

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm a Polish guy with US passport who spent many, many years in the USA and my feeling is as follows: In the US people complain about one single thing regarding the healthcare - cost. In Poland they'll complain about long waiting lists, not enough doctors, not sufficient care, basically everything is worse than in the US - except the cost. I for one don't think that the major objective of healthcare system is not to…

Most countries with socialized healthcare systems that I am aware of actually has a longer life expectancy than the USA. This is true for Canada, Germany, Norway, etc. I do not know if life expectancy is a measure for quality of health care, but it is at least an indicator of how good the general health is. On a personal note I would say that my experience with the US health care system has left a lot to be desired,…

> Most countries with socialized healthcare systems that I am aware of actually has a longer life expectancy than the USA. This is true for Canada, Germany, Norway, etc.I do not know if life expectancy is a measure for quality of health care, but it is at least an indicator of how good the general health is.

I agree. Actually Poland which is 2nd world country really, has better life expectancy that USA! However, this doesn't mean that Polish healthcare system is superior to American. This means that if all you do whole life is eating, stressing out at work, having no friends with family 2 time zones away, and zero exercise - even the best healthcare system in the world won't help you. So while I agree that people live longer in most civilized places than in the US, I still claim that the US healthcare system as long as money isn't a major concern for you - it is just the best system in the world, period. But even they can't help you if you have been on McDonald's diet foe the past 20 years and the most exercise you do is 10 meters from home to car.

> On a personal note I would say that my experience with the US health care system has left a lot to be desired, and I experienced the care as better in my native Norway. That said, my girlfriend is a doctor and her health plan seems a lot better so my experience can be anecdotal.

Not sure how good they would be about it in Norway, but in the US they diagnosed me with Ehlers Danlos type 2 in a matter of weeks while in Poland literally dozens of doctors I visited didn't know what's going on. In my particular case, where the condition in from 1 in 3,000 to 1 in 50,000 the major incentive to find out what's wrong with me for the doctors was really fear for me suing them. Again, money in this system really works both ways. I said my insurance company, you test me genetically for ehlers danlos or I sue your ass. They paid $6k for testing and I was tested positive. From perspective now I think that in Poland some doctors at least knew or suspected my condition but had no incentive to do anything. And money or loosing it is a great incentive.

Re: Big Breakthroughs Come in Your Late 30s

#92

Post by cwaniak »

dredmorbius wrote: post #68
cwaniak wrote: post #57

Earlier quoted context omitted.

And that was when $100 was an equivalent of 3 ounces of gold which is about $4k today. Barrel of oil and S&P500 had roughly the same price in gold then as they do today.

By CPI deflator, $100 in 1969 is worth $634.76 today. http://www.usinflationcalculator.com/ Not sure if that calls into question your statement, or suggests that the CPI is drastically understating inflation.

By CPI deflator we never doubled our (US) monetary base since 2007.

Re: Big Breakthroughs Come in Your Late 30s

#93

Post by dllthomas »

einhverfr wrote: post #77
jballanc wrote: post #45

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes, but as with most things in physics, the first signs that an idea is dead usually come decades before the ghost is truly given up. Take, for example, this work from 2012 that was still dealing with a variation on the "hidden variables" formulation: http://arstechnica.com/science/2012/10/quantum-entanglement-...

I think you have a larger problem though. A theory is (as Heisenberg explained in his book "Physics and Philosophy") an interpretation of data based upon unscientific, non-falsifiable, a priori assumptions on the part of the theorist. You can't really disprove something as nebulous as "hidden variables." That's not a falsifiable statement. What you can do is disprove some theory based on hidden variables. Such eviden…

My understanding is that any sort of local hidden variables have been ruled out (at least, if you want to preserve causality).

Re: Big Breakthroughs Come in Your Late 30s

#94

Post by dllthomas »

nostrademons wrote: post #46
_random_ wrote: post #29

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There is always a back-up plan of having kids, focusing on raising them well and hoping that maybe they will come up with something cool.

That's a really heavy load to put on your kids. They should be free to live their lives as they want to live them and not shoulder the weight of mommy & daddy's unfulfilled dreams.

Eh, that partly depends on how narrowly you define "something cool".

Re: Big Breakthroughs Come in Your Late 30s

#95

Post by JoeAltmaier »

nostrademons wrote: post #46
_random_ wrote: post #29

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There is always a back-up plan of having kids, focusing on raising them well and hoping that maybe they will come up with something cool.

That's a really heavy load to put on your kids. They should be free to live their lives as they want to live them and not shoulder the weight of mommy & daddy's unfulfilled dreams.

I know what you mean, but kids normally shoulder a huge wad of parental expectations - its called culture and we couldn't live without it. Rename 'unfulfilled dreams' as 'values' and now it can be a good thing.

Re: Big Breakthroughs Come in Your Late 30s

#96

Post by JoeAltmaier »

onmydesk wrote: post #25

As someone in my late 30s I think the main reason is this- Its time then to stop fking around and just get it done. It dawns on you at this age where you are in your life, how far you've got to go and it annoys you that thus far you didn't get 'it' done yet. You're not staring death in the face but you're close enough to feel its influence. If not now when? That spurs you on, beyond any motivation you ever had at any…

But Thoreau also wrote of the value of living in the moment. So don't get too worked up about the destination.

Re: Big Breakthroughs Come in Your Late 30s

#97

Post by sireat »

It goes without saying those achieving breakthroughs have been building up to that moment basically all their adult (and most likely teenage) life.

As a soon to be 40 year old jack of many trades but master of none, I am still looking for someone achieving anything meaningful starting from scratch later in life.

What I mean by this is someone achieving a mastery of some skill, when one has not done deliberate practice previously.

I suspect the answer is that unless you have been building your inner pattern recognition for basics of your field of expertise since late teens/early twenties, you are unlikely to get very far starting at the later age.

For example Einstein already had fluid mastery of calculus at 15 (just like Feynman), which was a nice building block for later work. I am not even going to start on Von Neumann.

Re: Big Breakthroughs Come in Your Late 30s

#98

Post by rurban »

cwaniak wrote: post #91
asabjorn wrote: post #75

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Most countries with socialized healthcare systems that I am aware of actually has a longer life expectancy than the USA. This is true for Canada, Germany, Norway, etc. I do not know if life expectancy is a measure for quality of health care, but it is at least an indicator of how good the general health is. On a personal note I would say that my experience with the US health care system has left a lot to be desired,…

> Most countries with socialized healthcare systems that I am aware of actually has a longer life expectancy than the USA. This is true for Canada, Germany, Norway, etc.I do not know if life expectancy is a measure for quality of health care, but it is at least an indicator of how good the general health is. I agree. Actually Poland which is 2nd world country really, has better life expectancy that USA! However, this…

> Actually Poland which is 2nd world country really, has better life expectancy that USA!

Which is easy to explain the US also being just a 2nd world country. The difference is that the US standards are falling and the other 2nd world countries are mostly rising.

Re: Big Breakthroughs Come in Your Late 30s

#99

Post by sobes »

flibertgibit wrote: post #70

There may be hope for me yet according to this, but at the moment, I really have no fucking clue what to do. My early thirties were filled with great ideas for startups. My early fourties are filled with depression that I'm past my prime, don't have the energy, risk tolerance, or money to do a startup, and don't have money to go back to school, so it really doesn't matter what my passion is. Somehow I still need to f…

Just because you find a passion, doesn't mean you have to spend money on it. There are an insane amount of free learning resources online (in tech/dev, which I'm assuming what your pro background is). Similarly, I'm seeing an increasing number of bootstrapped startups (they just don't make as much noise as the funded ones).

My twenties were about realizing and coming to terms with the fact that there are people who are smarter, more clever, and more knowledgeable than me. My thirties are about figuring out how to work with these people as much as possible. I do feel that I'm late to the game on this. If I got over my ego earlier and/or had a more collaborative mindset I'd be in a better spot.

Keep looking for that passion. But don't do it alone. Once you find it, it'll be with a group of people "better" than you to help you figure out what to do with it. :)

Re: Big Breakthroughs Come in Your Late 30s

#100

Post by run4_too »

JoeAltmaier wrote: post #96
onmydesk wrote: post #25

As someone in my late 30s I think the main reason is this- Its time then to stop fking around and just get it done. It dawns on you at this age where you are in your life, how far you've got to go and it annoys you that thus far you didn't get 'it' done yet. You're not staring death in the face but you're close enough to feel its influence. If not now when? That spurs you on, beyond any motivation you ever had at any…

But Thoreau also wrote of the value of living in the moment. So don't get too worked up about the destination.

That's not contradictory to what the quote says. In fact, "do it now" is pretty much exactly what he's saying when he says most men die with the song still in their heart.

Moot point however, the quote is a missed one. He never said this.

Post reply on HN