[HN Gopher] Being a Noob
___________________________________________________________________
Being a Noob
Author : rcardo11
Score : 418 points
Date : 2020-01-29 13:48 UTC (9 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (paulgraham.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (paulgraham.com)
| jeisc wrote:
| The final lesson one learns is humility when one is pushing
| daisies!
|
| The difficulty in life is knowing what are the important things
| to keep from what we have learned.
|
| Learning without practicing is futility in such as experience is
| the mother of certitude!
| cjfd wrote:
| I can't say I share the feelings that PG is describing.
|
| I don't really mind being a noob at something I see as useful to
| learn. The feeling that I get in that case is a drive to find out
| what is up with that thing. In programming it is not always
| clear, though, that the new thing is that great or even that it
| should exist in the first place. This makes me then feel not to
| great. But it is more of a feeling of irritation at the thing
| that I suspect of not needing to exist.
| esch89 wrote:
| While I agree that taking risks and trying new things is
| important, there's this saying that rolling stones don't gather
| moss.
|
| If you keep moving from one thing to the next, you might become a
| jack of all trades but a master of none. And real accomplishment
| takes mastery.
| flyGuyOnTheSly wrote:
| >Farawavia
|
| I think Paul just coined a new fictional destination.
|
| (His blog is the only mention of that word indexed in Google
| atm.)
|
| I'm going to use that.
|
| Thanks, Paul!
| simonsarris wrote:
| I get a joyous, almost dreamlike experience out of being a noob,
| I love to try things for that feeling of difficulty. There is
| this rapt appreciation that comes with it, even if I don't
| personally get good at the thing.
|
| Ambling about like a dunce myself, trying to gain some knowledge
| or skill, and watching professionals do it makes me feel in awe.
| I am overcome with love for humans reaching for the divine, like
| Faust pondering future human goodness and joy of participation in
| human life (as he dies).
| cathyreisenwitz wrote:
| I wish PG would link to his sources.
| bambax wrote:
| If you're a constant noob, you're a tourist of knowledge. Actual
| competence takes time. In many fields, it takes a lifetime. In
| some fields, it takes more than one lifetime -- you can't achieve
| greatness if your parents weren't already knowledgeable.
|
| Being a noob is neither pleasant nor unpleasant. We are learning
| machines and curiosity is one of our main drives in life.
|
| Appearing as a noob can probably rub some people the wrong way.
| People who are, how should we put it? Ego sensitive?
| madsbuch wrote:
| Being a noob is more a feeling. You can have that feeling with
| two generations of experience while you are the most
| knowledgeable person alive in the field.
|
| When you do not feel like a noob anymore, you might become
| complacent. That, I think is the main problem.
| kharak wrote:
| What would be an example for professions that required at least
| two generations?
| klntsky wrote:
| Being a part of financial elite.
| segmondy wrote:
| Meh, I think post could have been a tweet. Learning new things
| will have you feeling like a noob. It's okay to feel like a noob
| and totally clueless, it's sign that you're learning. Learn
| often, embrace being a noob often.
| zackmorris wrote:
| There's a word for this: provincial.
|
| Trying to understand certain phenomena in these times (like the
| election and continuing support of certain presidents) can be
| utterly mystifying to academics, intellectuals and other mental
| explorers.
|
| But it helps to realize that half the country lives outside of
| major cities and their biggest concerns are mostly things like
| whether gas prices will go up, and real estate taxes, and if
| they'll have a job next year. The environment or corporate
| malfeasance or discrimination are so far below their radar that
| they can be considered second-order effects. They know their way
| of life and they want it to stay that way forever and they're
| certain that they sure don't want some far off know-it-all to
| tell them what to do.
| beering wrote:
| ... replied to wrong thread?
| yingw787 wrote:
| It's refreshing to hear this from an authority figure. My
| personal website https://yingw787.com has the Socratic creed "the
| only thing I know is that I know nothing". I try to live up to
| that ideal and not let my pride and ego get in the way. A
| constant fight, but one worth having.
| eralps wrote:
| > the more of a noob you are locally, the less of a noob you are
| globally.
|
| > if you stay in your home country, you'll feel less of a noob
|
| > And yet you'll know more if you move.
|
| I experienced this in the US when I was scheduling interviews for
| an internship with a US company. I had waited for the interviewer
| for half an hour and shoot them an email asking for rescheduling
| after they did not show up.
|
| Turns out I forgot the timezone difference. In all my (quarter-
| century)life, I had never needed to check timezone in the same
| country. Felt like the biggest noob. I know more in general now
| but, even for a simple thing like scheduling an interview, I
| became "locally" noob.
| mcguire wrote:
| That one has caught me out, too, and I've spent most of my life
| frequently crossing time zone boundaries (Central/Mountain and
| lately Central/Eastern).
| mark-r wrote:
| This gets an upvote from me just for introducing me to
| "Farawavia".
| kelnos wrote:
| I don't relate to this at all. Yes, I find being a 'noob'
| unpleasant, but for me it's not about something tugging at me to
| figure it out, at least not for intrinsic reasons, but because of
| some sort of inferiority complex. I don't like that the people
| around me know more than I do.
|
| And the idea that "the more of a noob you are locally, the less a
| noob you are globally" just feels like faulty logic. Any and all
| combinations of noob-ness are possible, and pretty likely, IMO.
| And regardless, this sort of statement just seems like advocating
| for being a jack of all trades, master of none. There's value in
| that to some people, but going deep on a subject or place also
| has value that shouldn't be minimized.
| qwerty242586 wrote:
| This is just disingenuous yogababble. :jonah hill going "nah"
| gif:
| Yhippa wrote:
| I read this twice and couldn't figure out the meaning of it.
| piinbinary wrote:
| I think this is roughly equivalent to "you'll learn more outside
| of your comfort zone [even though you'll feel like you know
| less]"
| duxup wrote:
| I changed careers and at 40 something I'm a noob again.
|
| It can be frustrating not knowing and I'll go down the path of
| analysis paralysis and procrastination sometimes. I'm a bit prone
| to that as in my previous career I kinda had things down pretty
| solidly.
|
| But I try to embrace it. Is this the right code here? No better
| way to find out than try things and see what happens....if it
| doesn't work, well I'm a noob, that is going to happen.
| (obviously these are somewhat educated / calculated risks, not
| just random)
|
| I like it. There's a freedom in not worrying if you're doing it
| right all the time and recognizing that doing it wrong is ok
| provided you learn.
| lsaferite wrote:
| How did you manage the drastic income change that comes with a
| late-life career change? I've considered it several times in
| the past, but with a family to support it's not really that
| feasible.
| duxup wrote:
| I received a generous severance package from my previous
| employer when they were bought by another company and waited
| out that event in order to support my family for a few months
| while I attended a coding camp (I studied a lot before and
| after but wanted some in person instruction).
|
| I managed to save a small stash of money as well on the side
| over nearly 20 years of work that I had as both an emergency
| fund and "one day I kinda want to do something different"
| fund.
|
| My wife works as well and while she doesn't make much
| (teacher) it helped of set some costs).
|
| The turnaround time from end of previous career to new job
| was about 8 months and that was probabbly the key. That's not
| too bad. I would have loved to go back to college for a more
| formal education but that was not an option due to the time
| commitment / I was a terrible college student when I was
| younger so i would have a lot to make up at a traditional
| college.
|
| As a n00b i was making very little at my first job initially
| but after proving myself my salary has risen quite quickly.
| I'm not where I used to be in terms of income, but I'm
| happier for sure.
| SimianLogic2 wrote:
| > The life of hunter-gatherers was complex, but it didn't change
| as much as life does now.
|
| I agree with this sentiment but draw a different conclusion.
| Stepping outside of your comfort zone as a hunter gatherer was a
| lot more dangerous -- new terrains, new plants that could be
| poisonous, new animals that could kill you. Tipping wrong or
| sticking your chopsticks in your rice bowl is unlikely to lead to
| death or dismemberment, but it's possible our nervous system is
| trained to send signals that it might.
| 0xdead wrote:
| The reasoning of the author is totally flawed. If you feel like a
| noob locally, there is no guarantee that you will not feel like a
| noob globally too. In other words, it's not always good to feel
| like a noob.
| ChrisMarshallNY wrote:
| I don't mind PG's stuff. I don't care if he's a bazillionaire.
| I'm not looking for a dime from anyone, and I don't worship
| wealth. Lots of billionaires say stuff to which I'd rather give a
| pass.
|
| I don't really mind being a n00b. In fact, I seek it out
| deliberately. It does get me lots of sneers and micro-aggro; but
| we never learn anything new, if we don't try something new. I
| have a pretty thick skin.
|
| https://medium.com/chrismarshallny/thats-not-what-ships-are-...
| munificent wrote:
| _> Our dislike of feeling like a noob is our brain telling us
| "Come on, come on, figure this out."_
|
| Maybe I'm projecting from my own social anxiety, but I believe
| most of the negative sensation of feeling like a noob is being
| _seen_ to not know something.
|
| People want to come across as valuable to others and one way we
| do that is by offerring expertise. If we are seen to be noobs, it
| implies we may be less valuable to others because we don't know a
| thing.
|
| Unfortunately, _being_ a noob is a necessary precondition to
| actually learning a thing. It 's very hard to learn without
| putting yourself out there in some way and trying. So there is
| this tension between wanting to be comfortable with looking like
| an amateur so that you can immerse yourself in the kind of
| environments where rapid learning happens, while also wanting to
| come across as an expert at other times.
| grawprog wrote:
| >People want to come across as valuable to others and one way
| we do that is by offerring expertise.
|
| I've found the trick to getting over this is realizing no
| matter how good you are at something, there's always someone
| better and when you find yourself as the noob, you get to ask
| all the questions and learn and everbody will be ok with this.
| You also get to make mistakes, and everybody will be ok with
| this.
|
| I've recently found myself going from being the expert to
| bottom of the barrel noob again and honestly it's refreshing,
| there's no pressure on you, somebody else makes the decisions,
| you just kinda do what you're told and absorb knowledge, and
| when something goes wrong you don't need to figure it out. It
| does make a nice change, though it can be frustrating,
| especially when it's a situation when you know what to do, but
| nobody listens because you're the noob.
|
| You just have to remember, at some point you won't be the noob
| again and someone else will be, might as well enjoy it while
| you can.
|
| It's also kind of an interesting situation, I started my new
| job just after a younger guy who's only had one or two other
| jobs before. There's a big difference between the way the two
| of us learn and work just because of our gap in life
| experience. It made me realize there's different levels between
| even noobs based on a bunch of different factors.
|
| In the end though, i've found it best when you're the noob to
| just learn whatever you can as fast as you can, bring whatever
| knowledge and experience you can, but do it unspokenly through
| actions rather than words and eventually, without realizing it,
| you're not the noob any more.
| jsonne wrote:
| I do have an anxiety disorder so I absolutely get this. A big
| breakthrough for me through therapy was working on my self
| worth and realizing that I have inherent value. I can't speak
| for everyone but I was raised to believe that my worth was
| really only the sum of my actions in a very utilitarian sort of
| way rather than a deontological way. I suspect a lot of other
| young men in my generation were instilled with very similar
| values. If you know that you existing just as you are is
| valuable regardless then the social anxiety around not knowing
| something or being "perfect" tends to melt away (or it at least
| helps). Perfectionism is a lot more insidious than most folks
| realize. That said when you get to the place where you can get
| past that it's quite liberating.
| burntoutfire wrote:
| > I can't speak for everyone but I was raised to believe that
| my worth was really only the sum of my actions in a very
| utilitarian sort of way rather than a deontological way. I
| suspect a lot of other young men in my generation were
| instilled with very similar values.
|
| I feel for you, what a horrible philosophy to be raised
| under.
| AmericanChopper wrote:
| > Maybe I'm projecting from my own social anxiety, but I
| believe most of the negative sensation of feeling like a noob
| is being seen to not know something.
|
| I can anecdotally agree with this. In general, I don't care at
| all what people think about me (I still care if people think
| I've wronged them, it's more what they judgementally think of
| me), and I have never felt bad about being a noob, or being
| seen as a noob.
|
| I've learnt two languages through immersion, and I've been told
| I pick them up very quickly. Learning languages like that is
| basically repeating things you've heard, and then figuring out
| what everything really means through asking questions and a
| huge amount of trial and error... with lots and lots of error.
| Really I'm not any better at learning things than anybody else
| is, but because I didn't ever feel bad about making those
| errors, I'd wake up in the morning, and spend the whole day
| happily making "embarrassing" language mistakes. Which over
| time quickly became less and less common.
| aswanson wrote:
| The trick I've learned is to never assume I'm an expert, and
| always question basics. It's suprisingly easy to do, and makes
| honest the most paramount. Also, this perspective has made me
| look at folks who are always trying to convince others how
| expert they are as silly and annoying.
| mfkp wrote:
| As Jake the Dog once said, "Sucking at something is the first
| step towards being sorta good at something."
| Davertron wrote:
| I learned to play hockey about 5 years ago. Part of that was
| going to stick and puck sessions during the week, where I could
| basically do whatever I wanted; work on skating, stick
| handling, etc. Sometimes there would be literally no one else
| at the rink, and during those times it was super fun being a
| noob. I had a ton of stuff I could work on, and I would see
| progress from week-to-week. I started playing on a real team
| not long after starting to learn, and the games were the
| opposite. I just felt super embarrassed the whole time.
| miketuritzin wrote:
| I have thought about this phenomenon with regard to the
| internet a lot. Online it's easy to be exposed to videos and
| other content produced by people who are literally among the
| best in the world at anything. This means we start to measure
| ourselves against the most unforgiving yardstick imaginable,
| which makes being a noob (or even "normal") even more
| painful.
| MivLives wrote:
| The way I counter this mentally is by reminding myself that
| most people don't mind noobs, as long as they are actively
| learning and getting better.
|
| The only noobs people care about are the perpetual ones who
| need to be instructed on how to do things again and again.
| SkyBelow wrote:
| I think it depends upon their relationship to the noob. In a
| situation where the noob has a clear negative impact on the
| person, you can see a very negative reaction to noobs. Take a
| game like Dota 2 where a noob can be a handicap that can sink
| a team and how toxic the culture that game has developed.
| yason wrote:
| Work and hobby-wise, being noob is pretty much my life so far. On
| the rare occasions where I first think I know everything I do
| begin to worry as things I tend to work with rarely are that
| simple, really.
|
| Same with people at work. It's often better to be the dullest
| pencil in the box because if you end up being the sharpest one
| yourself you know there's likely nobody left to challenge you.
| lordleft wrote:
| I like this post. There are Socratic echoes here: "I know that I
| know nothing", though pg is making a different point. It seems
| cliche and low effort but often times deep truths ARE cliched.
| The older I get, the more okay I am with embracing my lack of
| knowledge in a domain. Now I see it more as a potential first
| step in future mastery.
| bob33212 wrote:
| As a teenager I frequently saw the way someone did something
| and assumed that person was stupid, now as an adult I
| understand how that person's domain of expertise may be very
| different from mine and I'm less likely to judge.
| james-imitative wrote:
| This a million percent.
| dangus wrote:
| Billionaire says a bunch of obvious shit, people lap it up as
| revelatory information, that's on my corporate America bingo
| sheet somewhere.
| posedge wrote:
| It's kind of nice to see that billionaires sometimes post
| obvious shit like the rest of us.
| kylestlb wrote:
| And his idea that this is some evolutionary trait is debatable.
| The uneasy feeling of not knowing something is probably more
| related to social proof and fear of judgment by others.
| Lionga wrote:
| Which are both evolutionary traits
| ekianjo wrote:
| > bunch of obvious shit
|
| There are not that many non-obvious stuff left to be said in
| the current state of the world.
| dangus wrote:
| Lots of interesting technical content on the front page.
|
| This is a post saying how learning new things is good.
| ekianjo wrote:
| > This is a post saying how learning new things is good.
|
| No, it was not just saying that. If that's how you
| interpreted it then you probably read it too fast.
| hans1729 wrote:
| > _This is a post saying how learning new things is good._
|
| At the same time, this is a post saying "I wonder why
| evolution discouraged a lack of confidence!"
|
| Like, duh. I'm all for Paul, but pretty much any stoned
| teenager would be able to come up with this.
| dang wrote:
| Please don't snark or post shallow dismissals to HN. Those are
| two of the site guidelines, and commenters here need to follow
| them: https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html.
|
| Perhaps you don't owe billionaires any better (btw, is pg one?
| I had no idea), but you definitely owe this community better
| than this--much better--if you're posting here.
| gist wrote:
| Snark, agree not needed. But this:
|
| > Perhaps you don't owe billionaires any better (btw, is pg
| one? I had no idea)
|
| He means in a sense 'rich as croesus' is my guess not
| literally that he has more than a billion (arbitrary anyway,
| right?) amount of money. And for that matter even someone who
| owns a billion worth of stock is not like they have a billion
| of liquid cash but it's referred to (and has always been 'a
| billionaire').
|
| That said I think the parent comment expresses some of the
| sentiment of other comments (including my own) that what PG
| says it taken as more important than the same thing said by a
| nobody. (And not in particular that HN votes it up or not but
| just this general sense in the world that a 'halo' is not
| merit based which is what many people want to think success
| should be based on.)
| dekken_ wrote:
| related: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shoshin
| mjklin wrote:
| Zen Mind, Noob Mind
| finnjohnsen2 wrote:
| I've thought a lot about this.
|
| Every X years the tech and methods we know and use; get old and
| eventually useless.
|
| This is because we work with and live of something we made up
| ourselves. Computers, the internet. It just keeps changing. _We_
| keep changing it. Law and economics are other examples of
| studying things we make up ourselves.
|
| The opposite, say a botanist or physisist, studies nature and
| natural laws. How much does flowers, plants and vegetation
| change? Probably more than I think I guess, but nowhere near tech
| since science and nature doesn't change. Only our insight of
| nature changes.
|
| If you want to become a master, and not reverting to noob over
| and over - studying nature is a better bet than tech.
| ArtWomb wrote:
| I'm pretty good at keeping up with the SOTA in subjects like
| crypto, AI. But it's because I make an effort. And they interest
| me immensely. And it's easy with the wealth of information
| online.
|
| Where I find it harder to keep up is that esoteric knowledge of
| "the culture". What is current in music and movies and art. Even
| interacting with young people a lot. The velocity of relevance
| seems to have altered significantly.
|
| Another interesting take is returning to childhood passions. I
| used to be into sailing and thought if I have some free time I'll
| take it up as a hobby again. Maybe book a class in Annapolis MD.
| Or charter a small yacht for a day trip in Florida during spring
| break.
|
| But the world of sailing has just metastasized into a massive
| industrialized complex! Lexus has a concept luxury yacht. You can
| control the helm 100% using a Garmin Smart Marine Watch. There
| exist software platforms for archival wind data.
|
| Don't get me wrong, it's awesome. But there is an activation
| energy. And I am sure there are still single person Hobie Cats
| available. But it does make you feel as if you need to be all-in
| or else exist in a perpetual state of n00b-ishness ;)
| [deleted]
| louisswiss wrote:
| > I think the answer is that there are two sources of feeling
| like a noob: being stupid, and doing something novel.
|
| I very much doubt that being stupid correlates with feeling like
| a noob. In fact, my own experience of 'stupid' people suggests
| the very opposite.
| xorand wrote:
| There's a great book by Truesdell, named "An Idiot's Fugitive
| Essays on Science". According to Truesdell, the initial meaning
| of the word "idiot" was one who does not have preconceived ideas.
|
| https://www.springer.com/gp/book/9781461381877
| yesenadam wrote:
| Hmm I can't really see that sense here. But thanks, I shall
| check out that book, looks interesting!
|
| idiot (n.)
|
| early 14c., "person so mentally deficient as to be incapable of
| ordinary reasoning;" also in Middle English "simple man,
| uneducated person, layman" (late 14c.), from Old French idiote
| "uneducated or ignorant person" (12c.), from Latin idiota
| "ordinary person, layman; outsider," in Late Latin "uneducated
| or ignorant person," from Greek idiotes "layman, person lacking
| professional skill" (opposed to writer, soldier, skilled
| workman), literally "private person" (as opposed to one taking
| part in public affairs), used patronizingly for "ignorant
| person," from idios "one's own" (see idiom).
|
| In plural, the Greek word could mean "one's own countrymen." In
| old English law, one who has been without reasoning or
| understanding from birth, as distinguished from a lunatic, who
| became that way.
|
| https://www.etymonline.com/word/idiot
| xorand wrote:
| From http://www.perseus.tufts.edu/hopper/text?doc=Perseus:tex
| t:19...
|
| opp. to a professed orator, opp. a professed philosopher
|
| Comes from http://www.perseus.tufts.edu/hopper/text?doc=Perse
| us:text:19...
|
| where you can find: opp. public, my personal opinion, unique
| and different from others
| annoyingnoob wrote:
| I resemble that remark.
| james-imitative wrote:
| STFU, noob.
| dang wrote:
| Could you please stop posting unsubstantive comments to
| Hacker News? You've already done it quite a bit, and we're
| trying for a different sort of quality level here. The idea
| is: if you have a substantive point to make, make it
| thoughtfully; if you don't, please don't comment until you
| do.
|
| https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html
| rs23296008n1 wrote:
| I'm a bit suspicious of people who call me a noob when I'm
| learning something. Its too often a pejorative as if from on
| high. As if they were never a beginner. But its a lie. They were
| once a beginner. And they themselves have probably plateaued. To
| me its as bad as them bragging about their being a perfectionist.
| I don't appreciate perfectionism either because they tend to
| never finish anything.
|
| If being a noob is shameful then becoming good and then later an
| expert is made much more difficult than it should be. Mistakes
| and failures are also seen as shameful and must be hidden. If you
| can't be open about making mistakes and learning from them then
| you're more likely surrounded by idiots or jerks.
|
| Failure is part of learning. So if you aren't failing _at what
| you 're doing right now_ in some way, to some degree, then its
| not challenging enough for you. That is fine because sometimes
| the job needs to be done right because you're doing the
| performance. But if you aren't pushing hard into a space where
| mistakes and failures are actually possible then your goals
| aren't big enough. Likely stagnating.
|
| A stagnating expert is someone who is afraid of the next level.
| They are afraid of becoming a beginner again. Afraid perhaps to
| even get into the practice nets and practice batting or throwing.
| Afraid to practice scales or try some hard piece they've never
| played.
| [deleted]
| makach wrote:
| It's a good thing to think of yourself as a noob.
|
| I too think of myself as a noob. I believe it has to do about
| knowledge and experience. You know the old adage "The more you
| know, the more you know you don't know." To me this is very true.
|
| I was reprimanded the other day, by management because I said in
| a presentation "I don't know" when discussing how to solve a
| particular problem. When having a discussion there is a few rules
| that must be followed in order for you to have a meaningful
| exchange of opinions that brings you closer to some sort of
| consensus. One of these is principle of charity: "interpreting a
| speaker's statements in the most rational way possible and, in
| the case of any argument, considering its best, strongest
| possible interpretation." My manager did the the opposite of this
| principle and assumed that when I said "I don't know" that that
| meant that I was going to find out on my own and disregard his
| opinion and directive. What I meant was that "I don't know, let's
| gather a group of experts, let them gather information and
| interpret this in such a way that he can take a proper decision
| on what to do next."
|
| I regret that I wasn't this clear when communicating with him to
| begin with.
|
| To me, in IT nothing is more worse than someone who claim they
| know everything, have all the answers and don't want to listen.
|
| Recently on I recently read the quote "The greatest enemy of
| knowledge is not ignorance; it is the illusion of knowledge." I
| think this complements the above quote very well, and is
| something important that we all need to be aware of. To be a noob
| means at least you have the self-insight to understand that you
| have much more to learn, and that you are willing to collaborate
| with your colleagues to achieve more wisdom.
| zro wrote:
| > I was reprimanded the other day, by management because I said
| in a presentation "I don't know"
|
| Maybe it's because I'm still in the junior / recent-grad
| mindset, but my experience has been the opposite.
|
| The most striking difference for me between academia and
| industry is that now it's okay to not know things. In academia
| you're expected to have the answers and be able to reproduce
| them on tests and things; in industry it seems much more
| acceptable to admit ignorance so long as you plan on eventually
| getting an answer.
| makach wrote:
| In academia they usually know the answers on beforehand,
| unless you are doing a master or a PhD you must learn the
| basics and show that you understand the concepts of your
| subject.
|
| At work you have to use all your tools to continue to learn,
| and solve problems that has potentially never been solved
| before while considering cost-benefit with your solutions and
| making sure you do whatever it is you are doing with some
| sort of integrity in place.
| GistNoesis wrote:
| "the more you feel like a noob, the better." I am not convinced.
|
| With experience it should become rarer and rarer to encounter
| some things that makes so little sense that you feel like a noob,
| and you certainly shouldn't feel aimless.
|
| The more systems you explore, the bigger the toolbox you acquire.
| And there are not infinitely many existing tools because they
| once have been invented. And often these tools can be categorized
| by their operating principles which are even fewer. Because most
| disciplines overlap, the more you explore the faster the
| exploration goes.
|
| Sure, when you encounter something new you will need to gather
| some info before you are operational, but when you are enough of
| a generalist, you will have picked up enough heuristics to know
| who, where, and what to look for, and it shouldn't take long.
|
| Sure, we can dig and make any subject arbitrarily deep so there
| are infinitely many new things to explore and be amazed by.
| Staying humble, curious, honest and acknowledging that there are
| plenty of things that you have explored yet is also necessary.
|
| But if you disperse by being contempt of being a noob you risk
| becoming lost in a senseless experiencing of a chaotic mess, and
| not gather experience by seeing the order things could be
| arranged into.
|
| So when you feel like a noob, sort it out.
| cirgue wrote:
| > So when you feel like a noob, sort it out.
|
| I feel like this is exactly the point he's making: if you're
| not putting yourself in positions where you feel like a noob,
| you'er not engaging your skills to their fullest potential,
| because the 'sorting it out' part is the thing that's really
| good for you. Nowhere here does he say 'feel like a noob and
| stay that way."
| GistNoesis wrote:
| That's not my way of reading it. He seems to imply that
| feeling like a noob is normal due to the modern age
| complexity of this world. If I understand correctly he is
| telling go and don't be afraid of feeling like a noob.
|
| I'm saying if you feel like a noob, stop and fix it before
| exploring further or risk being lost.
|
| I take the contrarian opinion that even though there is
| growing complexity it is still orderly enough that once
| experienced enough feeling like a noob should be something
| akin finding a gem, or having a paradigm shift, which
| although you should be happy to find, it should remain
| occasional.
|
| I don't believe you need to feel like a noob to be engaging
| your skills at their fullest potential. In fact that's quite
| the opposite.
|
| It's akin to having bugs in software.
|
| Having bugs in software could be a symptom of engaging your
| skills to the max. But it's more likely the symptom of
| sloppiness that has accumulated.
|
| In fact when your software has bugs, you spend your time
| doing some bug fixing, instead of doing more interesting
| things.
|
| If you are in position that you are feeling like a noob, or
| have bug in software, try to understand what went so wrong
| that you are in this situation and try as much as possible to
| not be again (but keep exploring and building software). This
| is a symptom that you are working in a messy environment that
| is on a path to more mess where you will get lost.
|
| You won't sculpt a fine piece of art if you spend your time
| fixing your chisel every ten minutes.
| andrewzah wrote:
| > With experience it should become rarer and rarer to encounter
| some things that makes so little sense that you feel like a
| noob, and you certainly shouldn't feel aimless.
|
| Then you're not pushing yourself or trying new things. Noob ==
| newbie, so it applies even to experts who are learning things
| in an unfamiliar area.
|
| I felt like a noob when I learned about functional programming.
| Then I felt like a noob again when I started learning Haskell.
|
| I read about Coq yesterday and felt like a total and utter
| noob.
|
| I read about the `nom` lexing crate for Rust recently and felt
| like a noob getting up to speed.
|
| I still am a noob when it comes to using every unix utility: I
| recently learned about gnu parallel and read about xargs more
| finely.
|
| I never want to be in a situation where I never feel like a
| noob, because in computing alone that's basically impossible
| unless I'm not challenging myself.
| GistNoesis wrote:
| I agree that you want to attempt things that may fail to
| challenge yourself.
|
| But rewarding libraries (by using them) that make you feel
| like a noob is kind of rewarding an abusive behavior.
|
| Before you use something you probably should already have a
| good model of how it operates from a high level perspective,
| what you need to give them, why you are using them...
|
| The software should serve your need instead of forcing you to
| adapt conventions. If you invest time learning a bad software
| then the sunk cost fallacy will make you keep using the bad
| software and sunk-in more time.
|
| Exploring is hard, you should have a strategy for it, you
| should explore things in the right order so that exploring is
| easy, and you explore what you want. If your exploring
| strategy is to follow the steepest learning curve you will
| get lost in an infinite hellish mess like Sisyphus.
| andrewzah wrote:
| Nowhere did I state that I had to use any such libraries.
| The only reason I started learning nom, is because I
| received multiple recommendations to check it out.
| Regardless if I use it or not, it still was a fun learning
| experience.
| bonoboTP wrote:
| I interpreted the post much more broadly, way beyond software
| tools. There are tons of things in existence outside of
| computers, and each of us is a noob in most things. Just some
| examples that come to mind:
|
| Playing musical instruments and singing, yoga poses, barbell
| training with correct form, Buddhism, how to negotiate in an
| Arab bazaar, tax returns, training animals, riding a
| motorcycle, how to navigate forests, how to navigate the sea
| on a sailboat, how to direct and edit a movie, reciting
| poems, how to structure a novel, cooking and baking well,
| brewing beer, how the electric wiring works in a house, hobby
| electronics, how to build furniture, how to shoot guns and
| how they work, self defense and martial arts, fixing a car,
| hunting and fishing, BDSM and fetishes, finance products and
| the stock market, law and the court system in various
| countries, foreign languages, diet and nutrition, amateur
| radio, physics, painting, calligraphy, psychedelic drugs,
| networking effectively with important people, being a
| bartender or other service personnel, backpacking alone,
| raising children...
|
| Some may say "I may not have much practice in [particular
| thing], but surely it's easy, it's just [...]", but I really
| recommend reading that blog post called "Reality has a
| surprising amount of detail", which shows how many things
| there are to learn about simple sounding special cases (like
| building a staircase). All these things and hundreds more are
| rabbit holes with more and more branches of rabbit holes of
| communities, cultures, various levels of expertise attainable
| in each branch and subbranch etc.
| andrewzah wrote:
| Of course. In this case I specifically applied it to my
| professional domain, but this advice applies to every
| single facet of life. Life is also incredibly boring if
| you're not challenging yourself to do new things. Which is
| why I force myself to try new hobbies, events, programming
| languages. I almost always walk away glad that I pushed
| myself to expand and grow, even if I end up not enjoying or
| pursuing that thing.
| flyGuyOnTheSly wrote:
| My daily yoga practice has taught me to embrace challenging new
| poses (or situations in life) in a great new way.
|
| A paradigm shift, if you will.
|
| I used to look at challenging poses with dread. "Oh god, that's
| going to be uncomfortable..." or perhaps "There is no way I am
| strong enough to do that..." and I am always right. It is going
| to be uncomfortable and I am usually too weak to perform the
| asana with grace.
|
| But what really excited me upon learning recently... and what
| helps me pull through it every single time now is this:
|
| I am about to be able to move my body in a way that was never
| before possible... at least not possible since I was 6 years old
| or so most likely...
|
| If I can just bear through it...
|
| In a few weeks time I know I'll be able to move my body in ways
| that I never even thought was possible... and that's really
| exciting for a yogi!
|
| Trying new things is exhilarating!
|
| I feel sorry for my former self who dreaded them for far too
| long.
| stanferder wrote:
| A noob is simply someone who has found a new world to conquer.
| The result should be excitement!
| reilly3000 wrote:
| Great post. One thing that jumped out at me was the challenge
| that concurrency poses to PG and other VCs. When plenty of cash,
| speculation on platform adoption, and speculation on new
| financial markets all collide. Which tech is the right horse to
| ride, if any? Are coins part of terms sheets now? Are DAOs
| something we should fund?
|
| Being far removed from SV and VC means I don't know what the
| actual questions are surfacing right now, but I do know that it
| is a perfect example of a situation where a "Beginner's Mind" can
| serve one well.
| quantumwoke wrote:
| I think this speaks to that time-old trade-off between expertise
| and generality. I can only speak for myself when I say that
| empirically expertise seems to pay off in job prospects,
| exercise, and love. Perhaps my risk heuristic function needs
| adjusting to focus on exploration?
| bloopernova wrote:
| My career, mostly as a sysadmin, has been defined by shallow
| and wide knowledge.
|
| One thing I've noticed, as I've progressed into a team lead
| position is that the shallow/wide is very difficult for the
| people who aren't as experienced as me. So my initial "just do
| it the way I did it!" was very, very wrong. I'm changing that
| attitude in myself to target folks as subject matter experts
| (sorry for corporate-speak!)
|
| This is relevant because it's actually difficult to try to
| learn 20+ years of wide/shallow stuff in 6 months. Who'd have
| thunk it? But people still try to chase that extra knowledge,
| thinking they have to somehow achieve parity with those much
| smarter or further along in their careers. (I don't consider
| myself much smarter, I'm a bear of very little brain)
|
| As they progress in their careers and experience, then the
| wide/shallow can be introduced.
| iapsngh wrote:
| It's the other way round for me. When I was young, I thought old
| people had nothing figured out. Now, though I'm not that old but
| I think young people need to figure out much more.
|
| Maybe it was because when I was young, I tried to have a go at
| things in spite of being a noob at many and being told not to
| 'experiment'.
|
| Now, when I see my children with the same train of thoughts, I
| remember those days and let them have theirs.
|
| I agree with PG > "the more of a noob you are locally, the less
| of a noob you are globally." And I kind of feel OK being a noob
| in a new place. Gives me the opportunity to explore without
| inhibitions.
| AlphaWeaver wrote:
| > The life of hunter-gatherers was complex, but it didn't change
| as much as life does now. They didn't suddenly have to figure out
| what to do about cryptocurrency.
|
| This line gave me a good laugh.
| persona wrote:
| Is there an inverse correlation between curiosity and the
| aversion of feeling like a noob? Exploring unknown
| areas/subjects/places may be a bigger driver than overcoming the
| 'noob feeling aversion'
| auggierose wrote:
| There is the assumption that people necessarily mind feeling like
| a noob. I don't really. What I dislike is a situation where I
| freely admit of being a noob and then people who know clearly
| even less about the situation than I do acting superior. Or
| people who know more than me now about it, but will know less
| than me in a month acting superior. Or, just people acting
| superior :-)
| ChrisMarshallNY wrote:
| There's a fundamental human need to feel better than others.
|
| It's not always a bad thing, as it is used as a carrot to bond
| teams and push for excellence (Think _" Semper Fi"_).
|
| But it is quite grating. The main thing that gets me, is when
| folks being superior either withhold information, or
| deliberately try to interfere with my learning.
|
| On StackOverflow, I have almost twice as many questions as I
| have answers. This doesn't really get me any respect.
|
| But boy oh boy, have I learned a lot.
| james-imitative wrote:
| On StackOverflow I have twice as many answers as I have
| questions. But yeah, same.
| ChrisMarshallNY wrote:
| I guess that I could up that, for myself, but I don't
| usually hang there to answer questions.
|
| I'm too busy writing code. I try to give back to the
| community, so I do answer a few. SO is a hugely valuable
| resource for me, and I sincerely appreciate the help that I
| get there; even when it is delivered with a sneer.
| rickbad68 wrote:
| Ya, I have both twice as many answers as questions and
| twice as many questions as answers. But keep plugging
| away guys, you'll get there.
| ChrisMarshallNY wrote:
| I have no idea why you made that post.
| bonestamp2 wrote:
| Agreed. I don't mind being a noob since I think it's perfectly
| ok to be a noob and I have a ton of respect for anyone else who
| is trying to learn something new.
|
| I got angry recently when I asked a question on amazon about a
| home improvement hardware item and one of the responses I got
| was something like, "This job is better left to a
| professional." They completely dismissed my question like
| everyone who works in that profession was born with this
| knowledge.
|
| I just wanted to know if it was possible to disconnect two of
| the pieces (and someone else confirmed it was possible, so it
| wasn't a dumb question after all). Not to mention, it was for
| an art project, so the "professional" quality/safety advice
| doesn't apply. That's when being a noob feels bad.
| chrisseaton wrote:
| Zen out. Let people act superior if that's how they want to act
| and don't worry about who knows more or who thinks they know
| more.
| mnsc wrote:
| Talking about zen, the concept "beginners mind" [1] is where
| this "feeling like a noob" is the desired state that will
| help you not get stuck in your ego when you get good at
| something.
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shoshin
| Pigo wrote:
| The last several years it seems I've encountered a lot less
| abrasive, condescending superior-intellect types. In the past
| I've worked with people with egos the size of the Sun. I've
| been wondering if I've just been lucky recently, or if
| there's just less of them out there.
|
| Then again, it could just be that I've learned to tolerate
| various personalities better as I've gotten older.
| k__ wrote:
| This is how we ended up with a bunch of rich but ignorant
| people calling the shots.
| chrisseaton wrote:
| I didn't say do what they say, or let them push you around.
| Just let them act how they want to act, and then go with
| what you know. Why does it matter to me if someone acts
| superior about a topic if I have my own confidence in what
| I know?
| k__ wrote:
| Because they will persuade people who don't know any
| better.
| [deleted]
| chrisseaton wrote:
| Just present how you see things and try to persuade them
| of your view then. Don't worry about how good the other
| person thinks they are.
| james-imitative wrote:
| What I dislike is a situation where I feel like I _ought_ to be
| a noob, or feel like a noob, or be acting like a noob, but
| other people treat like an expert who doesn't realise that he
| is acting like a noob.
| blueyes wrote:
| This is similar to the idea of Beginner's Mind in Zen. Shunryu
| Suzuki wrote about it in this book: https://www.amazon.com/Zen-
| Mind-Beginners-Informal-Meditatio...
|
| Which influenced Steve Jobs, among others. It's a great read.
| MattGrommes wrote:
| I don't know enough about the topic to have a real opinion on it
| but I dislike tying everything to how we "evolved". Not
| everything is based on evolution unless you say that our culture
| and society is based on evolution so it's true by association. It
| smacks of Deepak Chopra's tying his nonsense to words used in
| physics and saying it's all science.
| lappet wrote:
| Huh this essay seems really confusing. I can't figure out what pg
| is actually trying to say - it is short but talks about being a
| noob in roundabout ways. If this is so popular, perhaps I should
| get back to blogging again.
| rubyn00bie wrote:
| Heh. This guy ( _looks around sheepishly_ ) almost nailed it...
|
| For me the feeling of being a n00b is exciting and scary, but one
| I sort of constantly run towards because it's the one reliable
| indicator that I am growing. Further, the more knowledge I
| acquire only emphasizes how little I know sort of making this my
| steady state in life. I dig it, it's a reason to get up in the
| morning.
|
| The more you know, the less you know. In life as we acquire
| knowledge we leave the darkness and step into the light,
| fortunately (IMHO), each time we leave that darkness we find a
| new world, with each world new shadows we will have to emerge
| from, ad infinitum.
|
| The bounds of which we can know, like our universe is expanding,
| to not feel like a n00b, is to have stopped learning.
| The_mboga_real wrote:
| Delete. And ____ yourself.
| finnjohnsen2 wrote:
| Imposter syndrome. Feels bad.
| davidw wrote:
| This has to be something that people have studied.
|
| Novelty and new challenges are good for your brain. I'm positive
| that has been researched.
|
| As to why learning new things makes you a bit grumpy, I'd bet
| that has been studied too. Probably it's just that feeling of
| knowing you're not good at it - and maybe envy of those who are.
| yesenadam wrote:
| Sigh. Do such low-effort posts from other people as these recent
| pg ones ever appear on the HN front page?! Guess I just won't
| click on them in future. It's depressing to see -because I
| _really_ love many of his essays on non-startup subjects, and
| learned a lot from them, and probably will again next time I read
| them.
|
| edit: oh, now its #1.
| [deleted]
| SamReidHughes wrote:
| If you're into completionist reading of blogs, every post is
| just as important as every other one.
| gargs wrote:
| Someone(he) must have just read 'Range'.
| tompccs wrote:
| A lot of people need reminding of:
|
| https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html
| yesenadam wrote:
| >A lot of people
|
| Hi. :-) I guess that includes me? Not sure who else you're
| talking about[0]. That's an ominous, vague, passive sentence
| there. I can't see I've offended the guidelines, except
| possibly _not being kind_ , _shallow dismissal of other 's
| work_..I have a feeling you meant "Please don't complain that
| a submission is inappropriate" but I don't think I'm doing
| that exactly. More complaining/disappointed about excess
| votes and deficient quality, I guess. I did think it was
| worthless so I flagged it as advised.
|
| [0] Possibly yourself? Among your most recent few comments
| are ones beginning _If you 'd bothered to read you'd realise
| that the.._ and _Are you serious?_
| happy-go-lucky wrote:
| > Do such low-effort posts from other people as these recent pg
| ones ever appear on the HN front page?!
|
| You can expect to have control over something you created.
| TrickyRick wrote:
| Yeah, I'm inclined to agree. This is just common sense written
| down in a few sentences. Provides nothing new to anyone.
| heinrichhartman wrote:
| I don't mind them at all. If Paul writes anything, I want to
| know about it. So please upvote so it gets to my attention.
|
| Also note that Pauls blog is blazingly fast and does not have
| ADs/Cookie Conent/Tracking madness. I don't click Medium links
| anymore b/c all that bloat + crap. With blogs like this, I am
| back to HN in less than 5 seconds if I don't like the content.
| na85 wrote:
| >If Paul writes anything, I want to know about it
|
| Here you go: http://paulgraham.com/rss.html
| dangus wrote:
| Do you want to know about it because he's a billionaire that
| might fund your hot dog recognition app or because he's said
| anything particularly revelatory?
|
| Because I for one and sick and tired of wealth worship in
| this country.
|
| The post is not interesting and shouldn't be on the front
| page.
| Reedx wrote:
| That's ridiculously dismissive and just smacks of sour
| grapes.
|
| Are many looking to read what the Waltons say?
|
| No, this isn't wealth worship. The reason why people pay
| attention to folks like PG and Buffet is because they've
| repeatedly proven to have useful insights. Does that mean
| everything they say is of great value? Of course not. But
| their batting average is strong and they offer a lot of
| free wisdom. It's a good idea to learn from those who have
| things to teach, and Paul is a good teacher.
| mAEStro-paNDa wrote:
| > Are many looking to read what the Waltons say?
|
| Have you ever been inside a Business College?
| [deleted]
| bnjms wrote:
| Why, do they worship the Waltons of today? Or do they
| focus on Sam Walton and Walmart itself?
| Reedx wrote:
| I'd be surprised and suspicious of those colleges if
| they're teaching based on the Walton heirs... Sam would
| be a different story, but wasn't who I was referring to
| with the present tense of "Waltons say".
| heinrichhartman wrote:
| Well, first of all, he created this whole site. This would
| be enough for me to be of interest.
|
| Also I enjoy his books and essays, in particular the ones
| about LISP.
|
| I don't know about his financial situation. And frankly I
| don't care.
| Kiro wrote:
| I think it's interesting and it has spawned interesting
| comments (except this thread). Why do you get to decide
| what's interesting or not just because you begrudge
| billionaires?
| dec0dedab0de wrote:
| I want to know because many of his essays are insightful.
| This one in particular was a bit short, and to me an
| obvious premise. However, there may be some people who
| would benefit from hearing that it is good to be in
| situations where you have to learn new things.
| frandroid wrote:
| It should only get voted up if it's insightful, but the
| top parent here bemoans our fellow hackeroos' upvoting
| reflexes...
| scarejunba wrote:
| This is a website run by a startup incubator. Seems like
| the wrong place for no wealth worship. Essentially, I don't
| understand why you chose this place if you sort of don't
| like it.
| brootstrap wrote:
| Agree with some points there Drangus. I am stoned to the
| bone and 'shiiiiiittt' that was some deep stuff. What if
| being a noob is better than being pro??? Maybe that idea
| works for some cases , but i definitely want to work with
| professional software devs not noob coders. What do you
| think Dingus? (hope you are a T&E fan. might as well just
| take your sister to prom ya dangus she's a girl too!)
| devchix wrote:
| > Because I for one and sick and tired of wealth worship in
| this country.
|
| Amen brother! As I was leaving the house this morning I
| caught a snippet of something about Oprah being on a tour;
| top tickets are in the thousands of dollars. Nothing
| against Oprah but what does she have to say that is
| actionable and I haven't heard before, that I (or anyone,
| really) should pay to hear? I think it was Gore Vidal (rest
| his crusty vituperative heart) who wrote that Americans
| think proximity to wealth eventually confers it on them,
| especially if they f*-- it. Paraphrased obviously, am not
| about to google it at work.
| hindsightbias wrote:
| I asked a supporter of the present POTUS what possible
| opposition candidate he would vote for. He said Oprah.
| His even more conservative wife agreed. I started to
| laugh before realizing they were completely serious.
|
| It was so out of box to me that I think it speaks to how
| a large portion of the electorate prefers personalities,
| particularly those who "created" something.
| ekianjo wrote:
| > because he's a billionaire
|
| Why is someone being a zillionaire even a variable to judge
| whether something was interesting or not?
| kick wrote:
| That's exactly the point! This post is a generic, pretty
| universally-recognized point, written by a billionaire,
| and is only the length of a handful of tweets.
|
| The only possible criteria that a post this small and
| with this little substance would get upmodded for is the
| billionaire bit, and possibly that people are just
| upmodding 'pg without checking the actual content (I've
| seen a few people talk about how they use upmodding as a
| 'read later' function).
|
| I don't even mind that it was, but the comment makes a
| decent point.
| bnjms wrote:
| It is the point. But it isn't the billionaire bit that
| matters. It's that PG is a celebrity on HN. He wrote this
| forum and most of the early posts were his blog posts. HN
| used to be all startups and tech all the time. Before
| Y-Combinator was successful PG was already a celebrity
| here who would get auto voted up. Before that it was /.
| Then Reddit I guess but I missed the golden year for
| Reddit. There are other HN celebrities PG just happens to
| be the founder.
|
| This isn't _Billionare_ worship it is celebrity worship.
| And it 's caused because PG has written enough things
| insightful enough that people can feel their minds
| changing as they read, that they will reflexively upvote.
|
| I hate seeing anti-wealth rhetoric on HN. If the point is
| wealth doesn't matter then the criticism ought to be more
| substantive then 'aye, he's just popular because he's a
| billionaire'. HN is one of the only places I know of
| where ambition has been celebrated. I get that startups
| and the startup culture didn't turn out to be a necessary
| good thing so there's some cynicism there. But we can do
| better than demonizing the money, a result, rather than
| causes.
|
| (Anyway, I think I'd like to join lobste.rs)
| dmurray wrote:
| I don't think it's the "billionaire bit", it's celebrity
| in general, and specifically celebrity in fields that HN
| readers find interesting.
| noxToken wrote:
| There's a good chance that a millionaire came from old
| money. That doesn't make them inherently interesting. The
| ones who are self-made, the anomalies in that population,
| are more likely to be interesting.
| coldtea wrote:
| Old money are mostly out of the rat race, more distant
| from the need of self-marketing, and usually with better
| education and taste (in fact, it's almost proverbial that
| old money have better taste than the "nouveaux rich").
|
| All kinds of writers, artists, scientists etc were once
| from that group.
|
| So it's more probable to listen to something interesting
| from an old money millionaire who inherited wealth, than
| from a self-made one (which would tire you with self-
| promotion and gloating about their business acumen,
| bravado, and hardships they had to overcome).
| wajdiben wrote:
| It's the world we are living in nowadays. I subscribed to
| Seth Godin's newsletter and I receive a post everyday
| from him. I admire Godin but the quality is shitty.
|
| It is an example of what happens when you feel the urge
| to say something for the sake of saying it.
|
| And all of this makes me think that maybe somehow there
| is more randomness to wealth Creation and distribution
| than we already acknowledge.
| coldtea wrote:
| Because that's how people often treat it (whether they
| should or not).
|
| You're implying that since it's not actually a variable
| (X being rich = X having something interesting to say),
| it can't function as a variable.
|
| But it very much can. Whether it should or shouldn't be a
| variable, for many people it functions as one.
|
| The same way people buy music or watch movies of "good
| looking" actors and musicians, even though being "good
| looking" is not a variable to judge whether a song/movie
| is good or not.
|
| So, since this (treating wealth/beauty/fame/etc as a
| variable as to whether something is interesting) exists,
| and is often prevalent, it makes sense to wonder when
| someone listens to somebody else X that is
| rich/beautiful/famous whether they merely listen to X
| because he is those things (and not because X has
| something interesting to say).
| carlhjerpe wrote:
| This text gives me comfort in that the fact that I feel
| like a noob in many topics should be an encouragement to
| learn more, rather than give up because the wealthy
| people are superhuman and I'm not.
| [deleted]
| jimbokun wrote:
| In Graham's case, writing interesting content had more to
| do with him becoming a billionaire, than people thinking
| what he says is interesting because he's a billionaire.
|
| Sure, he was relatively wealthy from the sale of ViaWeb.
| But the popularity of his writing is what led to
| YCombinator and then to him becoming much more wealthy.
| munchbunny wrote:
| I agree - while I normally find Paul Graham's posts very
| insightful, this post definitely feels like one where, if it
| were written by someone with no name (such as myself), the post
| would get maybe a few votes at best.
|
| It's a useful reminder, but it doesn't stand out. Anyone and
| everyone these days gives advice about learning voraciously,
| whether or not anyone listens or does it.
| [deleted]
| [deleted]
| bloopernova wrote:
| I liked it. Correlating the feeling of hunger vs abundant food
| leading to being overweight against the desire to know as much
| as everyone else. That worked for me, yes it's common sense,
| but sometimes it helps to have things spelled out clearly for
| you to have a small epiphany about yourself.
| words_meanings wrote:
| It shows that idolizing is universal.
| jannyfer wrote:
| I like seeing that people like pg can have the same feelings
| that I do, reminding me that everyone is human.
| ticmasta wrote:
| Why did you ever think he was more than human?
|
| This is kind of what the original criticism highlighted....
| idclip wrote:
| I think ita endearing because im in a similar place as an expat
| and a technical refugee.
| yayitswei wrote:
| PG doesn't have to share anything, he could just be enjoying
| time with his family. I for one am delighted that he still
| posts.
| kristianc wrote:
| It's also worth pointing out that this kind of overblown
| humility also tends to work out a lot less well for you in life
| if you don't already have a billion dollars and founders
| hanging on your every tweet.
| gist wrote:
| > ever appear on the HN front page?
|
| They appear on the front page because of the 'Newman effect'. I
| just coined that term for back in the day what made Paul
| Newman's salad dressing successful and has since been copied as
| a formula by many celebrity brands. Basically if you have two
| salad dressings on the shelf in a supermarket people will pay
| attention and potentially buy the one that they notice for a
| reason that is not even related to the quality of the product.
| And as everyone knows in sales or marketing (or should know)
| getting your message across and getting listened to is
| (arbitrarily I am making this up) half the battle. [1]
|
| Of course Paul Newman had other things going for him as well.
| He could get the supermarket to consider his product because of
| the halo around him as a movie star. He could get top quality
| people to help with the product as a result of being a movie
| star. He even (iirc) pioneered (or at least popularized) giving
| profits to charity (from memory). But much of the success was
| for sure dependent on his name recognition which made it more
| likely that people would try the product (same thing happens
| with why stars are featured in movies obviously although with
| Netflix that is becoming less important for sure).
|
| [1] This is also what an intro does for you it gets the person
| to listen to what you have to say which you might not even get
| the chance to do if you are just cold calling.
| tirumaraiselvan wrote:
| I think it might just be an algorithmic thing. He has one of
| the top karmas in HN.
| diehunde wrote:
| He didn't post it
| ellyagg wrote:
| Low-effort here means "short"? There's nothing wrong with
| short.
|
| I find these essays, even the short ones, useful and
| insightful. I hope PG is not unduly influenced by the recent
| backlash to his publishing more.
|
| I came to this community originally largely due to his insights
| and the particular culture he nurtured here. The recent uptick
| in his contributions is welcome.
| empath75 wrote:
| A large part of the audience here wants to get money from pg
| and people like him and find articles like this useful for
| trying to make money from SV vcs.
| coldtea wrote:
| > _Sigh. Do such low-effort posts from other people as these
| recent pg ones ever appear on the HN front page?!_
|
| All the time. Both "personal insight/self help" stuff, and all
| kinds of low-effort development posts. So?
| yesenadam wrote:
| >All the time.
|
| I guess I'll really regret asking for a few examples of that!
| But here goes - Some evidence for that claim? Recent links?
| (This site has stuff that made the front page I think, if
| that helps https://hckrnews.com/ )
|
| By low-effort, I meant..the combination of bland content,
| first-draft-quality style, and very short. I don't think I've
| seen anything that short on here, and it's high on the
| blandometer too, though some people on this page say they got
| value from it. (Aw I feel bad criticizing now, hopefully he
| takes his own advice not to read HN pages about one's own
| stuff..)
|
| edit: Ah, someone on this page mentioned Seth Godin, which
| reminds me he had a blog-post linked recently (not sure if it
| made the front page) - even shorter, and _much_ less to say.
| _One of the most popular blogs in the world!_ It said.
| Amazing. My first exposure to him. Well, maybe he used to be
| good, I don 't know.
| tallgiraffe wrote:
| Disagree. It's very important for people feeling like "noobs"
| to realize that it's okay, even desired. PG is a legend and
| have him clearly state so is refreshing, and necessary.
| grawprog wrote:
| >Do such low-effort posts from other people as these recent pg
| ones ever appear on the HN front page?!
|
| To be fair, yes regularly.
|
| Maybe it's supposed to be a meta essay, an essay about noobs
| that reads like it was written by a noob?
| ceilingcorner wrote:
| I for one find it absolutely _hilarious_ to watch people take
| these 'essays' seriously. I have nothing but respect for PG in
| regards to his work with startups, but when he wrote this essay
| [1] on the field of philosophy, it should have been a sign to
| everyone to stop and question the author when he talks about
| anything other than startups or computer science.
|
| 1. http://www.paulgraham.com/philosophy.html
| yesenadam wrote:
| Well, I liked that philosophy essay. (About me: I've read
| philosophy for decades and most of my university studies have
| been in philosophy.)
| elamje wrote:
| I wonder if his recent uptick in posts that seem a little less
| substantive means he is going to announce something new soon.
| abegnoche wrote:
| he's getting old and it shows sadly :/
| sbilstein wrote:
| lol literally the opposite of his twitter feed in which he revels
| in telling people what to think and do. that's the opposite of
| noob mentality. pg jumped the shark.
| Kuiper wrote:
| I'm not sure I relate to Paul Graham's experience of finding
| being a "noob" unpleasant -- if anything, I find it's the
| opposite, because any time you're a "noob," there's so much low-
| hanging fruit to pick.
|
| New city? There's a bunch of cool/fun things to do that you
| haven't tried yet. New hobby? Hop onto Youtube and there's
| hundreds of hours of "explainer" videos made by passionate
| hobbyists looking to share their favorite parts of that hobby
| with you. New to a particular field? Other people have probably
| already done the work of curating the 1% most interesting,
| important, and fascinating things to learn about. It's easy to
| feel like you're making progress when you're starting from zero.
|
| I recently bought a guitar and started playing Rocksmith -- think
| Guitar Hero, but with a real guitar hooked up to your computer,
| with learning tools designed to help you learn how to play songs
| of your choosing, along with lessons covering everything from how
| to play power chords to the very basics of how to hold your
| guitar when sitting vs standing. I'm a total noob when it comes
| to playing guitar, but I've enjoyed every part of my time with
| Rocksmith, from the very first moment I plugged in my guitar and
| let the software step me through the process of tuning it.
|
| I've found it incredibly edifying largely because the experience
| of picking up an instrument and learning how to play it has
| reminded me of what it's like to learn a completely new skill
| from scratch -- I think spending a week with Rocksmith has not
| only taught me guitar basics, but also given me a refresher
| course on how to learn a new skill.
|
| In fact, I wonder if this can lead to its own problem -- someone
| who gets too much pleasure from the experience of being a noob
| and may turn into a dilettante, moving from hobby to hobby
| without ever taking the time to spend years cultivating a deep
| expertise. Which, I suppose, is fine on a certain level, but
| there are definitely times when I've procrastinated and hidden
| from the intimidating prospect of achieving mastery in a field
| where I already have a lot of experience, and instead spent that
| time venturing into new fields where there's still low-hanging
| fruit for me to pick.
| pigscantfly wrote:
| To add my two cents, I've studied half a dozen languages over
| my life and managed to become fluent in three, give or take. My
| favorite part of the process is always the first few months,
| when new concepts come the quickest and one sees major progress
| made every day.
|
| In the end, I think the learning process for almost any skill
| follows an S-curve, and that initial takeoff is always the most
| intoxicating period for me. That said, I've spoken about this
| with others in my classes, and most of them find this early
| period more daunting and relish later stages, when their
| footing has become solid.
| TopHand wrote:
| If someone has completed a process even only once, they may have
| some insight that an old timer has missed. It's always a good
| idea to listen to a "noob". You may learn something. Noobs also
| may have the best ideas about improving a process. They haven't
| fallen into the "we've always done it that way" mind set as of
| yet.
| cushychicken wrote:
| Man, the hate is thick on the HN comment ground today.
|
| Lots of august people are very afraid of looking or feeling
| stupid. Ask anyone in a product development meeting to take a
| firm stance on the technical feasibility of a product feature and
| you'll get a lot of hemming and hawing about it whether the
| details are feasible, and very few people willing to put their
| neck out and say "Yes, we can do it." Because if you're wrong,
| you've spent some of your political capital in a way that fixes
| in everyone's mind: "Well, the last time we listened to
| cushychicken, we fucked up!"
|
| The angle that I think pg is missing is: when can you safely be a
| noob, without torpedoing your credibility?
|
| That's a much more difficult and interesting question.
| balfirevic wrote:
| > and very few people willing to put their neck out and say
| "Yes, we can do it."
|
| Why would you want them to say it if they don't actually know
| it?
| cushychicken wrote:
| I suppose my point was that people with the expertise to know
| how to do so are typically reluctant to stick their neck out
| and say so in front of a crowd.
|
| I should know. I'm one of those people. I very rarely agree
| to a feature without ironclad certainty (e.g. a working
| prototype in hand) that it can be done.
| qntty wrote:
| > Man, the hate is thick on the HN comment ground today.
|
| Am I the only one who's really annoyed by these kind of vague,
| middlebrow dismissals? If you want to say something, just say
| it. Let other people judge whether it's a more compelling
| perspective than other comments.
| yesenadam wrote:
| >Am I the only one
|
| No.
| cushychicken wrote:
| I'm very annoyed by what appears, lately, the rush to
| criticize and tear down other people's thoughts and posts.
|
| It's one of my least favorite characteristics of the tech
| community. Many people will come out of the woodwork to say
| "You can't".
| DataWorker wrote:
| That's the point. If someone is never a noob, that's bad, and
| if you confer greater credibility to noob-averse people, you're
| not thinking optimally. Fight the urge to assign greater
| credibility to those who are afraid to be noobs.
| cushychicken wrote:
| >Fight the urge to assign greater credibility to those who
| are afraid to be noobs.
|
| ...but conversely, someone who is afraid to be a noob is
| likely deeply experienced in _something_.
|
| It does create a very interesting natural tension.
| harrisreynolds wrote:
| I think this is a great post. Value isn't a function of length.
| For me value of content like this is a function of insight.
|
| While the insight from this article may be obvious to many
| commenting here and be of less value, in the broader world this
| idea is not obvious.
|
| And while I love and respect everyone commenting, including the
| negative comments, I am wondering if some may have a higher view
| their insight on this topic than is real.
|
| Metrics may help here:
|
| - How many languages do you speak? - How many countries have you
| spent at least 3 days in? - How many books do you read per year?
|
| The higher these numbers to more you likely can appreciate this
| post.
|
| Your humble fellow HN reader,
|
| --Harris
| xxandroxygen wrote:
| that's a strange kind of gatekeeping to assume that these
| metrics are the measure of a reader's enjoyment of this post.
|
| yes this is a great post, and makes a great point quickly. why
| do you need to bag on those who haven't met these arbitrary
| metrics?
| [deleted]
| shannietron wrote:
| This sounds like a corollary to the Dunning Kruger Effect!
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dunning%E2%80%93Kruger_effect
| nickjj wrote:
| I like the feeling of being a noob. It means I have something new
| to learn and discover.
|
| Asking questions, whether it's to Google or another person is a
| very rewarding process when you eventually find an answer.
|
| I would have thought most people in the tech industry would think
| like this since it requires so much ongoing learning and feeling
| like a noob every time a new library / framework comes out. Maybe
| not?
| aazaa wrote:
| > It's not pleasant to feel like a noob.
|
| Some people live to feel like a noob. It's a rush. They seek the
| feeling out. When they stop feeling like a noob, the rush goes
| away and they look for something else they can be a noob at.
|
| These people have trouble finishing projects. Given enough energy
| and creative thought, they can be quite successful. But the the
| key is self-awareness.
|
| Noobophiles who deny their tendency can strangle a project or
| company. They can find it hard to let go when success itself is
| the novelty.
| taf2 wrote:
| The problem is being a noob doesn't sell. So yes approaching life
| as a noob but if you want people to buy your shit - you best not
| appear a nub
| alexpetralia wrote:
| Success sells. PG has achieved success, so he can freely
| endorse a noob mentality. But take a loser and add a noob
| mentality, and you're only signaling a bigger loser.
|
| This is not to say a noob mentality is counterproductive -
| quite the contrary - but that it's not always optimal to
| flaunt.
| [deleted]
| [deleted]
| amelius wrote:
| I think this misses that the word "noob" (or at least its
| negative connotation) is mostly used in comparison to _other_
| people, and doesn 't apply at the boundary of human knowledge.
| Newton wasn't a "noob" because he didn't know about relativity.
| He probably didn't feel like a "noob". He was just very curious.
| chrisseaton wrote:
| I think noob (short for 'new boy' where I come from) just means
| that you're new to an institution, like a school, or today an
| open source community. It doesn't imply anything to do with
| competence.
| Izkata wrote:
| Probably just multiple people with different understandings
| of the word. For example, I picked it up from StarCraft
| multiplayer in the late 90s/early 2000s, where there were
| levels:
|
| newb(ie) - New to the game (typically doesn't know what
| they're doing).
|
| noob - Currently not good at the game, but is trying to get
| better (usually lots of overlap with "newb(ie)").
|
| n00b - Insult for someone who isn't good at the game, and is
| not trying to get better. Often deludes themselves into
| thinking they're already good at the game.
| mentat wrote:
| I think his assertion is that Newton did feel like a noob. I
| tend to think pg's right. He's done novel enough things that he
| has an informed view. My experience with novel though less
| significant investigation and problem solving shows the same.
| chooseaname wrote:
| > It's not pleasant to feel like a noob.
|
| This needs to be qualified. If I'm a noob at something and I find
| the right person to help me understand said something, it can be
| an amazingly rewarding experience and not at all unpleasant.
| tartoran wrote:
| I love beginner's mindset and usually takes me quite far as I
| don't have any idea what the proper limits are. However, I do
| find it unpleasant when a more advanced person explains
| advanced concepts that are not gradpable yet even though they
| make sense. I need to digest it myself first. And ocasionally I
| find the advanced person who articulates exactly what I was
| stuck at but was unable to ask for help
___________________________________________________________________
(page generated 2020-01-29 23:00 UTC)