[HN Gopher] Ideas That Changed My Life
___________________________________________________________________
Ideas That Changed My Life
Author : Tomte
Score : 262 points
Date : 2020-06-07 09:13 UTC (13 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (www.perell.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (www.perell.com)
| weinzierl wrote:
| > _" 36. Creativity Begins at the Edge: Change starts away from
| the spotlight. Then, it moves towards the center. That's why the
| most interesting ideas at a conference never come from the main
| stage. They come from the hallways and the bar after sunset"_
|
| Made me think that, when in times of Corona lock-down where most
| conferences have gone online, there is no real place away from
| the spotlight anymore, no hallway talk and no meeting at the bar
| after sunset. We should have a replacement for that, but Discord
| chatter isn't it.
| ColinWright wrote:
| From the page source: <!-- This site is
| converting visitors into subscribers and customers
| with OptinMonster - https://optinmonster.com
| -->
|
| Well, maybe not.
| chance_state wrote:
| What does this have to do with this post?
| ColinWright wrote:
| It gives the sense that the whole thing is click-bait,
| designed to draw in the reader and then get them to sign up
| for for his mailing list. As I read the list I was thinking
| "This feels pretty content-free ... there are a few nuggets,
| but mostly it feels really fluffy."
|
| Then there's the sign-up form, and everything became clearer.
| Colour me cynical[0], but it's the reaction the post provoked
| in me, so I thought I'd share it with other readers here in
| case they felt the same way.
|
| I guess you didn't.
|
| [0] The power of accurate observations is commonly called
| cynicism by those who haven't got it. -- George Bernard Shaw
| dahart wrote:
| It's fair & fine to come to the conclusion that the content
| is fluffy (plus I happen to agree with that conclusion
| here.) On the other hand, does being cynical automatically
| make an observation accurate? I think the question by
| @chance_state above is legitimate, inclusion of a cloud
| service in the page source is not strong evidence of your
| conclusion. The problem is that the online services in the
| page source are not created by the author and cannot be
| assumed to reflect directly on the content, and that all
| pages on the internet are intentionally designed to draw
| traffic. How many pages do you read that don't have a
| signup form, don't invite the reader to subscribe, aren't
| offering a value exchange of some kind?
| ColinWright wrote:
| > _... does being cynical automatically make an
| observation accurate?_
|
| Not at all, and that's not the claim made by GBS. It's
| the converse, that things that are accurate and true are
| often incorrectly dismissed under the umbrella of
| "cynicism".
|
| > _I think the question by @chance_state above is
| legitimate, inclusion of a cloud service in the page
| source is not strong evidence of your conclusion._
|
| Agreed, but it did serve to crystallise the feeling that
| had been developing.
|
| > _... all pages on the internet are intentionally
| designed to draw traffic._
|
| Actually, that's not true. It' might be true in the world
| you inhabit, but most of the content that's directly
| relevant to my work is provided "as is", information and
| ideas, offered without a follow-up "Sign up for my weekly
| email".
|
| > _How many pages do you read that don 't have a signup
| form, don't invite the reader to subscribe, ..._
|
| For me, most of them. I suspect we inhabit different
| circles, mine isn't full of people trying to develop a
| following. This isn't a criticism, it's an observation. I
| do, however, feel that when I read many of the more
| popular items linked from HN and other tech forums that
| I'm walking through a carnival and being beset by hawkers
| and barkers.
| Havoc wrote:
| Weird how many times I've heard people mention the overton window
| in the past week. Don't recall ever hearing about it before
| taylorlapeyre wrote:
| makes sense though, have you seen twitter recently?
| kgin wrote:
| All of a sudden, I've been seeing people mentioning the Baader-
| Meinhof phenomenon everywhere
| randcraw wrote:
| 48 is wrong without qualification. A resource-rich country indeed
| _can_ become both economically powerful and it 's people
| empowered -- look at the US.
|
| 48 _is_ true only when two more constraints apply: 1) when the
| natural resources are few (like only oil or diamonds), and 2)
| when the resource is dominated by monopoly, especially when
| abetted by the gov 't, like Saudi Arabia or Russia, or 1970's
| South Africa.
| zeroxfe wrote:
| They say "tend to have less economic growth", not "always have
| less economic growth".
| archived22 wrote:
| 50 is too much. Reading about yoga these days. Seems like
| following 5 Yamas & 5 Niyamas or noble eightfold path may keep
| clear from most of the troubles.
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Niyama
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yamas
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Noble_Eightfold_Path#The_Eight...
| kgin wrote:
| > 48. Resource Curse
|
| I've seen this at work in people (including myself) as well.
| Wherever people have a natural, unusual strength that starts at a
| young age, they often have many underdeveloped abilities due to
| relying on their strength. (ex: smart kids never learn how to
| study and hit a wall in college)
| adrianN wrote:
| > The Second Law of Thermodynamics: The world tends towards
| disorder. That's why your room becomes messier and messier over
| time
|
| That's not how the second law works.
| clairity wrote:
| the second law says that there are statistically (infinitely)
| many orders of magnitude more ways to be disordered than
| ordered, so the inescapable tendency is from order to disorder.
|
| the same goes for a room. many orders of magnitude more ways of
| being disordered than ordered. it tends toward disorder without
| additional energy to keep it ordered.
| Yajirobe wrote:
| Except there is a conscious entity driving the room towards
| an ordered state.
| mbrock wrote:
| Speak for yourself
| pontus wrote:
| This seems like a reasonable analogy. What about it do you feel
| is wrong?
| lm28469 wrote:
| The only reason your room gets messier and messier is because
| you are messy, there is no law and physics has nothing to do
| with it. It just makes you feel smarter because you can use
| "thermodynamic" in a sentence
| clemParis wrote:
| You can tidy your room and the mess (that they mistake for
| entropy) would be reduced. The 2nd law of thermodynamics
| states that in an isolated system the entropy is always
| increasing (or at best constant), so the room analogy does
| not work.
| amelius wrote:
| Tidying it requires external energy, which is what is
| happening (unless the person stays in the room in which
| case the mess will become even bigger).
| testing312 wrote:
| Tidying your room would be adding energy to the system, to
| make it tidy. This is still in line woth thermodynamics
| where adding energy can decrease entropy
| AtHeartEngineer wrote:
| You have to add energy to make it messy as well
| dasil003 wrote:
| "Tidy" is a subjective quality, not an objective physical
| one. It does take mental energy to tidy a room, and
| without that effort it will tend to get messy through
| use. As long as you don't confuse mental energy for
| physical energy and tidiness for entropy in the literal
| sense, then the analogy works surprisingly well.
| jotm wrote:
| Quantum Mechanics: stuff that takes form only when observed.
| That's why you can't find your keys or phone sometimes, or plug
| in a USB cable. :D
| benjohnson wrote:
| It's much simpler to simulate your universe if we only have
| to render what you're observing. I remember the days when we
| had to keep deleting telescopes and microscopes until we had
| enough processing power. Trains caused a lot of scenery to
| pop in before the new algorithm - we tried telling customers
| that the increased speed would kill them.
| [deleted]
| dghf wrote:
| > 20. Bike-Shed Effect: A group of people working on a project
| will fight over the most trivial ideas. They'll ignore what's
| complicated. They'll focus too much on easy-to-understand ideas
| at the expense of important, but hard to talk about ideas. For
| example, instead of approving plans for a complicated spaceship,
| the team would argue over the color of the astronaut's uniforms.
|
| That's not quite what I understood by the bike-shed effect. In
| the version I heard, although the approval committee would indeed
| descend into endless arguments over the colour of the astronauts'
| uniforms, the complicated spaceship would get passed through on
| the nod: no one on the committee understands the technical
| details of the latter, so they defer to the experts, while they
| all grasp, and can make a contribution to, a decision on the
| former (or at least think they can).
| m463 wrote:
| Your explanation seems to agree.
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Law_of_triviality
| blickentwapft wrote:
| >>> Robustness Principle: Be conservative in what you do, be
| liberal in what you accept from others. It's a design guideline
| for software and a good rule for life:
|
| My understanding is this is flat out wrong and bad for software
| development. Design software that is rigid in both what it
| accepts and sends. Loose standards lead to incompatiblities and
| chaos. Tightly define. This is not to say that your design should
| be inflexible, but for example a specification for data
| interchange should not accommodate loosely or incorrectly
| structured data.
| mongol wrote:
| This is also called Postel's Law after Jon Postel who worked on
| designing TCP. I think it has merit.
| hirundo wrote:
| "8. Talent vs. Genius: Society is good at training talent but
| terrible at cultivating genius. Talented people are good at
| hitting targets others can't hit, but geniuses find targets
| others can't see."
|
| If you can find targets others can't see, you may be a genius. Or
| delusional. Check your prescription interactions for clues.
| atsaloli wrote:
| "Talent hits a target no one else can hit; Genius hits a target
| no one else can see."
|
| https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Arthur_Schopenhauer
|
| See also blog post on this (talent vs genius) at
| https://www.brainpickings.org/2016/06/29/schopenhauer-genius...
| cryptica wrote:
| >> The world always makes sense. But it can be confusing. When it
| is, your model of the world is wrong.
|
| That was my mistake when I first heard about Bitcoin and
| cryptocurrencies.
|
| I was assuming that the economy was efficient and relatively fair
| and that made me see Bitcoin as a bubble. My assumption about
| economic efficiency was very wrong... Then I took the time to
| learn everything I could about the Federal Reserve Bank and money
| printing. I'm not going to make that mistake again.
| benjohnson wrote:
| Something I've noticed: There's been some things that I
| initially thought were bubbles. But they seemed to work - I
| even started doubting myself. Turns out they were just longer
| lasting bubbles.
| superkuh wrote:
| >40. Penny Problem Gap: Economists assume demand is linear, but
| people's behavior totally changes once an action costs money. If
| the inventors of the Internet had known about it, spam wouldn't
| be such a problem. If sending an email cost you $0.001, there'd
| be way less spam.
|
| Or, more likely, the internet as we know it would not exist and
| it'd just be some crappy failed commercial venture where
| everything cost money and it never took off. Building commerce
| into protocols is a terrible idea.
| elchin wrote:
| Peter Thiel's Zero to One makes a good case for #10
| booleandilemma wrote:
| I've noticed there's been a trend of people capitalizing on
| teaching others about "thinking how to think", more or less.
|
| But does it really work, or does this stuff just make you better
| at winning an argument?
|
| My concern is that people are going to go around collecting
| mental models and they're going to use them to justify their
| stupid decisions.
|
| Some examples that come to mind:
|
| https://fs.blog/
|
| https://jamesclear.com/feynman-mental-models
|
| https://www.lesswrong.com/
| [deleted]
| quietthrow wrote:
| I am big (closet?) fan of Farnam street blog and came across it
| many years ago as it was connected to munger and buffet (who I
| still remain a fan of). The funny thing is I know FS has good
| content and I subscribe to the free newsletters for years now
| but I have never really read them except for the occasional one
| here and there. They just go into a special folder with my
| hopes that I will get to it and I don't want to lose out
| (fomo!). What follows may be poorly articulated but will try
| anyway as I could use help with this.
|
| I don't read FS cos I feel like I need to spend proper time
| behind it to read and learn what is has to share. It's like
| studying read it and then perhaps take some notes and keep them
| handy to reference later. Then on top of this it has so many
| articles I feel I have no strategy to keep up. And then there
| is the whole when will I really use it if I need to go look it
| up / reference it In order to use it. This whole approach
| sounds twisted to me. And as someone on this thread said it's
| essentially me learning how to think Which may be
| subconsciously tells me I am bad at thinking. I can say thst
| for the last decade i feel like I am on a quest to improve
| myself so that then I can be "smart". In a way this had lead
| for me for the last decade or so to pursue reading / finding
| content on the web (largely through ask hn and the likes) that
| is about optimizing or making myself better. And I find that I
| have consumed a lot but may have not really realized it's gains
| from a career or other tangible perspective.
|
| Is anybody else in a similar boat? Sometimes I feel these are
| all time wasters disguised as things that can be helpful. May
| be a better approach is to just do things and then when you are
| stuck on a problem then go consult there types of sites to see
| if they have a solution to your problem. In that is where real
| growth might happen. I feel like the approach I current have is
| the other way around - let me find all the "general solutions"
| and (become "smarter" ) and then apply it to whatever I do.
|
| Am I wrong here in think thst is whole chasing after self
| improvement is a real discretion from doing real things thst
| will actually make me "smarter"?
| capableweb wrote:
| > they're going to use them to justify their stupid decisions
|
| I'm sorry, but isn't this the whole point of using mental
| models for your decisions? What's stupid is all up to you, but
| if I reasoned together some decision based on some model that I
| think works for me, it's hardy stupid for me.
|
| I always saw the point of these mental models is to use them to
| justify my "stupid" decisions, and have some structured way of
| reaching that decision instead of just "because I wanted to".
|
| Disclaimer: I don't really follow any mental models myself,
| except the model my organic brain comes up with on the fly, so
| don't let me tell you how others use these mental modals.
| maxerickson wrote:
| The argument is that it is a facade, that the structure isn't
| really guiding the decision.
| naasking wrote:
| It doesn't have to. As long as it provides reasonable
| justification for a decision, that's better than no
| justification at all, eg. Like the OP said, "because I
| wanted to".
| coldtea wrote:
| No justification is obviously better (and more accurate)
| than a BS justification that merely "sounds reasonable".
| naasking wrote:
| I disagree not only with your conclusion but your
| premise: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23450913
| maxerickson wrote:
| How is a false justification reasonable or better than
| admitting that the choice is arbitrary?
|
| (especially in the framework of the comment I replied to,
| where they are talking about the process being internally
| useful. Of course it may be useful to bullshit someone
| else, but that's a different thing.)
| naasking wrote:
| Because at least you put some thought was put into it,
| which again, is better than no thought at all.
|
| Consider your question applied to math: how is a false
| mathematical argument for believing a theorem better than
| just believing it for no reason at all? It's clearly
| better because you can actually point out the flaw in the
| specific argument.
|
| If someone accepts a mental framework and is faced with a
| choice they want to make, either:
|
| 1. They can find no justification for a choice they want
| to make, at which point they are more likely to question
| whether their choice is justifiable, or their mental
| framework is sufficient. Either outcome should be
| encouraged.
|
| 2. If they find a justification that's valid in the
| framework, then they have an explicable basis from which
| to convince others they made the right choice.
|
| 3. If they find a justification that's fallacious, then
| pointing out either how the framework is incomplete, or
| their argument within the framework is incorrect is far
| more likely to change their minds than simply claiming
| their choice was wrong and trying to explain why from
| _your own framework_ , which they haven't accepted (and
| likely won't without a lot more convincing).
|
| Ultimately, applying thought to a problem is always
| better than no thought.
| coldtea wrote:
| > _I 'm sorry, but isn't this the whole point of using mental
| models for your decisions? What's stupid is all up to you_
|
| Parent assumes there's an objective reality, and that, (even
| judging by one's own purposes and goals, and not the other
| person's), one can make stupid BS decisions that work against
| themselves and their goals...
| loughnane wrote:
| I think it was Jefferson who said something to the effect of
| "if you want to know what's true, look at what all the great
| religions agree on"
|
| Similarly, people have been writing about thinking for a looong
| time, so rather than jumping from framework to framework it's
| good to read a few old books and see what the authors agree on.
|
| I'm not an expert on what those agreements are, but off the top
| of my head:
|
| -be more prepared than your competitor -master principles and
| you can select your methods -don't have rigid tactics, things
| always change so adapt accordingly. -chain is as strong as its
| weakest link - etc
| lcuff wrote:
| I stopped subscribing to the Farnham street blog because it was
| too overwhelming, frankly. There are a ton of good ideas out
| there. Using the 80/20 rule (Pareto principle), I grabbed one:
| Charlie Munger says "I never allow myself to have an opinion on
| anything that I don't know the other side's argument better
| than they do." Applying it to current events, I (very
| intermittently) tap into broadcast news, but watch both CNN and
| Fox News. Then I fact-check them both. It's pretty interesting.
| I personally have limited bandwidth learning and applying
| better thinking techniques. It's a slow process to learn new
| ones.
| MrBuddyCasino wrote:
| I've followed him for some time on Twitter. Now convinced he's
| a Bullshit Vendor, to put in Talebian terms.
| smnrchrds wrote:
| He has at least one seminal article that I know of:
|
| https://www.perell.com/blog/what-the-hell-is-going-on
|
| Previously discussed with 220 comments:
| https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=19413852
|
| The first few paragraphs are not good and may be difficult to
| read through. But after that, things start falling into place
| and the rest of the article is absolutely great. But I agree
| that the other articles by the author may not have the same
| level of quality.
| CaptArmchair wrote:
| Well, I read the article. It's not that great.
|
| Why? Because it's a mix 'n match of quotes, bits and pieces
| and observations cobbled together to support the thesis
| that digital technology will disrupt how information - and
| therefore our thinking about the world - is controlled.
|
| It's not that he's factually wrong about what he's saying.
| Rather, it's that the article lacks any references to a
| foundational understanding of historical dynamics and
| current affairs regarding economics, politics or economics.
|
| Everything he discusses has a historical context steeped in
| competing ideological, economical and political theories
| that have shaped the world since World War 1. And yet, he
| makes no mention that background whatsoever. On the
| contrary.
|
| For instance.
|
| > Like a fish in water, we're unaware of the integration
| between our education system, the corporate structure, and
| our media environment.
|
| Uh. No. There's very much awareness about this among those
| who have participated in this debate and who are extremely
| worried about the state of education in America. And it's a
| debate about investing in public infrastructure, the
| advantages and drawbacks of free market dynamics in
| education and the long term impact on future generations.
|
| For instance, Mary Sue Coleman, president of the
| Association of American Universities and former president
| of the University of Michigan and the University of Iowa,
| wrote in the Washington Post back in 2016:
|
| > Public higher education is at a tipping point in the
| United States. It is an essential public good that is
| suffering from an unprecedented erosion of public support,
| with potentially devastating consequences for our students
| and our economy.
|
| > If our country continues to disinvest, we will be
| abandoning an essential feature of American democracy. This
| is what is at risk: the means to educate the broadest
| possible swath of our society, for the betterment of
| society, with full public support. Public institutions,
| especially, educate large numbers of students from all
| walks of life -- particularly low-income, first-generation
| and underrepresented students. We cannot lose sight of
| that, particularly as our society grows more diverse.
|
| > We need to remind ourselves as a nation of higher
| education's true value and its return on investment, not
| only to the individual but to society. Our collective
| progress and prosperity hinge on quality higher education.
| It is the strongest argument we have for lifting up our
| public support of this critical public good.
|
| Robert Reich, former Secretary of Labor, has voice his
| concerns at various times about the impact of education
| economics on higher education:
|
| For instance, in 2010 -
| https://robertreich.org/post/2420649887 - and in 2012
| -https://robertreich.org/post/18496069594.
|
| Even John Oliver pointed out in 2015 how nefarious
| standardized testing is on the quality of public education,
| how it is driven by market economics.
| https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=J6lyURyVz7k
|
| And then there's the policies of current Secretary of
| Education Betsy DeVos which haven't done anything but
| accelerate the overall decrease of quality in education and
| contributed to the overall widening of the equality gap in
| american society. As evidenced in this scathing article
| from The Guardian: https://www.theguardian.com/us-
| news/2019/dec/27/betsy-devos-...
|
| Those are just a few examples. Education is a huge topic in
| it's own right with very heated debates in their own right.
| Buried below those highly visible examples are large groups
| of lobbyists, experts, unions, companies, non-profits,
| activists, academic researchers,... who have produced
| entire libraries filled with theories, frameworks, models,
| opinions,... that describe this field.
|
| Simply referring then to "digital technology is going to
| disrupt the monopoly on information" is quite a
| reductionist view of that complexity.
|
| And that's just the part of his essay that touches on
| education.
|
| The fact that the article lacks a clear understanding of
| the historical complexity that underpins the construction
| of his theory about the current state of American society,
| is of less concern to me.
|
| When I read this, it stood out to me as written by someone
| who has a background in media. On LinkedIn, he mentions
| that his education is a BA in Media & Arts. Now, there's
| aboslutely nothing wrong with that. But his background
| clearly define his writing. Someone who has a degree in
| education studies or social studies will arrive at a very
| different take on american society.
|
| However, what truly concerns me is that instead of going
| deeper and doing the research, looking for context and
| these debates, interviewing people and looking for
| insights, he chose to write in isolation and conjure his
| own theory on american society and the role of media,
| education and politics.
| vikiomega9 wrote:
| There are steps to learning and copying is one of them, and if
| someone is willing to acknowledge this that's a win. The
| problem is when people decide someone else has done the heavy
| thinking for them and they just have to copy-paste mental
| models, as you're alluding to.
| rwnspace wrote:
| The primary material on Lesswrong is a mixed bag, but certainly
| some of it is very interesting even to people with training in
| Philosophy.
|
| Indeed you can thank Dennett's 'Intuition Pumps' for providing
| a source of legitimacy to those people who want to take the
| mental model stuff Very Seriously.
|
| The same stuff can be mis-leading or well-leading. People will
| be people. Give it a few years and I half-expect a Mental-
| Models-cum-pseudo-Magickal Qabbalistic cottage industry to
| appear. Or at least a handy reference system, such as
| [Yudkowsky 24:10]...
| 11thEarlOfMar wrote:
| It was literally true that my mother had taught her children
| that emotion should play a major role in making decisions. That
| generally meant identifying wants and then pursuing them,
| regardless of whether we should.
|
| I led my life with that approach until I had an epiphany about
| 10 years ago. It was inspired by my exposure to 2 people[0].
|
| Between 2009 and 2012, I encountered several people who were
| very smart, but expressed their intelligence in a different way
| than I was familiar with. One I met personally, the other
| through media (YouTube, etc.) I realized at one point that what
| they had in common was this: their explanations and reasoning
| were precisely sufficient. They expressed themselves with
| exactly the right amount of evidence, logical flow and correct
| reasoning such that virtually everything they claimed was
| unassailable. I found myself strongly attracted to this type of
| thinking and in a short time, started second guessing all of my
| analysis and decision making and discarding any points that
| were not clear thought. It wasn't just emotional wants that
| were discarded, but in many cases, incorrectness as well.
|
| One area that benefited quite a bit from this was in my
| investments. The best performing investments I've made were
| executed since that epiphany.
|
| [0] (I prefer not to name them, lest I be disregarded as a
| fanboy, but the clues are in the comment)
| hackingthenews wrote:
| I honestly can't tell who you are talking about. And I
| _really_ want to know...
| benjohnson wrote:
| One of the people he's referencing has become a political
| Rorschach test - people see what they want to see and don't
| actually look at what the picture is trying to convey.
| hackingthenews wrote:
| Now I am even more interested, but still have no idea.
| TheSpiceIsLife wrote:
| Bah. Don't fall for this kind of _bullshit_ manipulation.
|
| > _[0] (I prefer not to name them, lest I be disregarded
| as a fanboy, but the clues are in the comment)_
|
| Cite your sources mate. If they had such a profound
| affect on you, surely you can link to something they've
| said or written as an example.
|
| But I'll bite: is it Eliezer Yudkowsky and Warren
| Buffett? Elon Musk and Steve Jobs? I want to get
| progressively more psychotic and unhinged as my guesses
| progress. Is it Slavoj Zizek and Donald Trump?
|
| Paul Graham and Richard Stallman?
|
| I don't believe in personalities. Wisdom is perishable.
| 11thEarlOfMar wrote:
| Paul Graham, Elon Musk.
|
| Buffett qualifies, not Jobs.
|
| It's not about personalities, take them or leave them.
| It's the way they convey their thinking when solving
| problems. YMMV.
| TheSpiceIsLife wrote:
| Couldn't you have just said their names in the first
| instance?
|
| Are you now also going to point us to some examples of
| why you think these two are good candidates?
| 11thEarlOfMar wrote:
| I don't have time to find the better examples, but this
| is one Musk has talked about for many years:
|
| https://www.cnbc.com/2018/04/18/why-elon-musk-wants-his-
| empl...
|
| What's interesting, and I didn't know this until I
| scanned this article, is that Reed Hastings also uses a
| First Principles approach. I mentioned my stock picks got
| better. I bought TSLA in 2012 and NFLX in 2013.
|
| For Paul Graham, his body of essays is a great source for
| how he thinks through problem solving in general, and he
| takes on more than just science or tech related topics:
|
| http://www.paulgraham.com/articles.html
|
| Since you mentioned Warren Buffet, any of his annual
| shareholder letters is a good source:
|
| https://www.berkshirehathaway.com/letters/letters.html
|
| He's a sample from 2009:
|
| "From the start, Charlie and I have believed in having a
| rational and unbending standard for measuring what we
| have - or have not - accomplished. That keeps us from the
| temptation of seeing where the arrow of performance lands
| and then painting the bull's eye around it."
| quietthrow wrote:
| Huge fan of Elon and Warren buffet. But I always wonder
| would they be who they are by lurking on HN trying to
| improve themselves? And they certainly didn't get where
| they are by being on hn or similar forums. Even thought I
| don't know them personally I feel The way they built
| their knowledge was in Avery different way thst you and I
| might be going about based on the click baity thread we
| are talking at currently. In that sense may be HN is a
| waste of time too?
|
| The more I think about this the more I feel is thst we
| have it wrong. I think what they have is focus. I think
| what we have is distractions by virtue of seeking things
| thst improves us and on the internet there are so many of
| them that one may be all over the place. He who chases
| two rabbits catches none.
| 11thEarlOfMar wrote:
| I see it a bit differently. Some people get on a cycle of
| taking action, reviewing the results, and learning to
| improve the results of their next action. All three of
| those I cited have that in their DNA (or so it seems to
| me). Learning from others is a key aspect of that
| approach. In reviewing the results, and even before
| taking the action, search for how others have approached
| the same problem. Not necessarily to copy them, but to
| identify what worked and adopt it, what didn't work and
| avoid it, then, synthesize and move forward to the next
| challenge.
|
| A Musk quote that stuck with me came in the midst of one
| of his Twitter escapades wherein he was regularly
| attacked for seemingly erratic, likely sleep-deprived
| statements. He came across as very defensive to a
| reporter who asked him if he felt he could accept
| criticism. He responded, "How do you think rockets get
| into space?" He may not be so concerned about how Wall
| Street perceives his character, but when it comes to
| SpaceX, and likely all of his serious endeavors, he's
| relentlessly critical of solutions.
|
| Hacker News is just one source to get ideas, learn new
| things and practice rational thinking. Folks around here
| are more than happy to help hone your skills. If you can
| carry that into daily life, you'll catch a rabbit or two.
| quietthrow wrote:
| I agree with what you say and perhaps what I am trying to
| say ineloquently is they have focus on what they want to
| do first and when they need a solution they go searching
| for it leveraging what others have done and reviewing it
| etc. I can't speak for you but I am a regular visitor to
| hn and the content it shows and in that sense I am here
| first looking for ways to improve and then hoping to
| apply what I have learned to something when it's needed
| and may be it will never be needed. Former is focused to
| unfocus as needed and latter is unfocused to focus
| someday. If that makes sense.
| TheSpiceIsLife wrote:
| Thank you for the more comprehensive response.
| toyg wrote:
| One is likely Jordan Peterson.
| coldtea wrote:
| > _I've noticed there's been a trend of people capitalizing on
| teaching others about "thinking how to think", more or less.
| But does it really work, or does this stuff just make you
| better at winning an argument?_
|
| Depends. There's stuff you learn by experience, and there's
| stuff that you learn by studying.
|
| Thinking how to think is somewhere in between - you learn a lot
| of it by experience (e.g. when you get duped in a certain way,
| you learn to recognize the pattern and avoid it), but you miss
| a lot too. And even the things you learn, you might merely
| apply subconsciously or practically, without really
| understanding them.
|
| So having some kind of teacher / book / course into it makes
| sense, as much and in the same way it makes sense for math or
| chemistry or driving.
|
| Generally any subject in which someone can be much better at it
| than you, and the principles of which can be communicated,
| makes sense to be taught...
|
| That said, there are all kind of crap teachers online, people
| who make those mental models into some rigid dogma (either
| teachers or students), people who discovered/came up with some
| thinking models / mental guidelines and think they're the next
| Aristotle, and so on. If they make money off of ads or selling
| courses, I'ld stay well away...
|
| One particular pet peeve is how people discover the "logical
| fallacies" and force them upon any conversation, when part of
| mastering conversing with humans is to know when and how to
| apply or break strict logical consistency - and understand
| context and applicability.
|
| When someone a friend tells you not to go with X's proposition
| because they're not trustworthy, they're a criminal, etc, their
| talk might be an "ad hominen" and the proposition might be
| great in itself.
|
| But the result of trusting X might still be bad (e.g. they
| might use what's a great proposition to their advantage to dupe
| you), and that's the point your friend tries to convey.
| jotm wrote:
| Tbf self improvement content is as old as Web 2.0
| TheSpiceIsLife wrote:
| Way older than that. There's very little difference between
| the the modern concept of _Self Improvement_ and _religion_.
|
| Except, maybe, that people change mental models more
| frequently than they change underwear.
| ThomPete wrote:
| You can't teach people how to think. Like everything else only
| once it gets applied to do learn how to use it i.e. like
| everything else if you don't practice it's mostly useless
| because you have developed the intuition for using it (and even
| when you do it's still a lot of practice and you will still get
| it wrong.
| dahart wrote:
| > My concern is that people are going to go around collecting
| mental models and they're going to use them to justify their
| stupid decisions.
|
| If I look beyond blog posts about how to think, your sentence
| seems like an accurate description of human behavior. Isn't
| this what has always happened, haven't people always used
| mental models they've collected to justify stupid decisions?
|
| I'd be curious to hear more about the alternatives, or how and
| where to find balance. And I mean this seriously and expect
| it's a hard-to-possibly-unanswerable question. We have a
| limited ability and time to construct our own mental models
| about everything, and we are exposed to other's mental models
| at all times through communication. It's not possible to be
| completely independent about ideas. It's only possible to build
| on, practice, and prove out maybe a few ideas that came from
| others during a lifetime.
|
| "Does it really work?" I think is a great and essential
| question, and for many of these items in the list, the answer
| has to be yes for someone in some context. Maybe the question
| is when do they work, and will they work for me?
| deegles wrote:
| Reminds me of one of my favorite quotes:
|
| "So convenient a thing to be a reasonable creature, since it
| enables one to find or make a reason for every thing one has
| a mind to do." - Ben Franklin
| adverbly wrote:
| To me, it seems like a lot of these "systems" do actually work,
| and can lead to "good thinking". But, they all seem to suffer
| from the same flaw, which is that they seem to work better for
| the creator of the system than they do for adopters. "Good
| thinking" for many is still likely worse than what no system
| would yield.
|
| Why is this the case? I think a good guess at the reason might
| be
|
| 1) The very act of creating a system is itself a meaningful
| practice which improves thinking
|
| 2) People document systems which they found natural to
| themselves, and therefore are a better fit for themselves than
| others.
|
| Until I see someone "invent" a system which has broad success
| that goes beyond the inventor's own success, I'm not going near
| any of these systems with any degree of seriousness.
| toyg wrote:
| 3) people who adopt someone else's thought-system are
| effectively admitting they are bad at thinking. They will
| likely continue to be bad, no matter how refined the system
| is.
|
| You can get Leo Messi to teach me football but my first touch
| will still be sub-par.
| bigfoot675 wrote:
| What is your point here?
|
| If you are saying that you need to practice and find
| methods that work for you after being taught by Messi, you
| could apply the same concept to thinking. Sports, like most
| other things, consist of both a theoretical and practical
| aspect. Getting Messi to teach you the theoretical side of
| the sport should not be seen as a replacement for
| practicing the sport itself, and the same can be said for
| thinking.
| smackay wrote:
| 4) It's not possible to express a thinking system
| sufficiently clearly in writing - after all we've been
| thinking for far longer than we've been writing.
|
| 5) (related) The assumption that all aspects of thinking
| are conscious. The eureka moment, sleeping on a problem or
| just taking a distracting shower suggest otherwise.
| dahart wrote:
| > 3) people who adopt someone else's thought-system are
| effectively admitting they are bad at thinking. > You can
| get Leo Messi to teach me football but my first touch will
| still be sub-par.
|
| Isn't that conflating practice with thinking? You would
| also never invent football on your own if you'd never heard
| of it. If you want to be good at football, letting Leo
| teach you is likely to be a lot faster and produce better
| results than not learning from anyone.
|
| Everyone adopts thought systems from others, you do and I
| do. Failing to admit that is to be actually bad at thinking
| and fail to admit you're human. It's not possible to have
| only original thoughts, and even if it was, it wouldn't be
| practical.
|
| Try to be honest with yourself and think about how many
| things you know for certain, that you weren't taught by
| someone else. How many facts do you know that you've
| verified yourself first hand? How do you know the sun is 93
| million miles away, or that there are electrons in your
| CPU? I trust scientists who've studied it and thought about
| it, I haven't verified those things myself. How do we even
| understand words and speak languages? As children, we
| learned everything about the world from others, including
| how to think.
|
| Isn't this is a feature, not a bug? We learn from each
| other over time, and we'd be nowhere without people having
| adopted and then built upon the thought systems of others.
| toyg wrote:
| _> Isn 't that conflating practice with thinking?_
|
| "Thinking" is the practice of thought.
|
| To be honest, I thought (eh) we were talking about
| "thinking" as "reasoning" (and mostly in an original
| sense).
|
| Obviously if you redefine the concept as "having any
| thought whatsoever", then anything goes. I personally
| don't consider "reading a fact in a book" or "associating
| sounds to concepts" as "thinking" in the terms of the
| upthread conversation, but you clearly do.
|
| I don't think (eh) we can agree on much in this
| conversation given the premises.
| dahart wrote:
| > "Thinking" is the practice of thought.
|
| Oh, is that what you meant when you said "my first touch
| will still be sub-par."?
|
| > I personally don't consider "reading a fact in a book"
| or "associating sounds to concepts" as "thinking" in the
| terms of the upthread conversation, but you clearly do.
|
| I don't think you can learn philosophy without learning a
| language. I don't think you can learn the scientific
| method without first learning some scientific facts.
|
| Please elaborate, where would you draw the line between
| facts+language, and "reasoning"?
| oh_sigh wrote:
| Couple that with so much advice that encourages people towards
| action with their current worldview and not introspection and
| then action, and it isn't too surprising that we end up with
| discussion-via-screaming-match as the standard in a public
| forum.
| petra wrote:
| Well, mental models are basically the BuzzFeed of thinking
| tools. So no wonder it has become a trend.
| lallysingh wrote:
| It's mostly intended to make people feel smarter by reading
| fancy clickbait.
| oldsklgdfth wrote:
| Overall interesting ideas, but I think he did a disservice to
| this one.
|
| > 47. The Medium Is the Message: We pay too much attention to
| what is being said. But the medium of communication is more
| impactful. For example, the Internet's impact on humanity has a
| bigger influence than anything that's said on the Internet.
|
| The concept here is that the character of the medium defines the
| types of ideas that can be transmitted through it. An example is
| how writing promotes logical and structures ideas, where
| television invokes emotion.
|
| For more info, check out the wiki:
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_medium_is_the_message
|
| EDIT: a relevant example is comparing HN and fb. The are both
| internet-based and have high-speed responses. However, HK is text
| based and all ideas must be written in a way that is clear to the
| reader. FB has text, but also has the like/heart/laugh/hate
| button. I think this encourages "a response", whether you can
| articulate it or not. Also fb has images. Memes can be used,
| which are quite ambiguous and not a structured, logical
| statement. The different environments are a consequence of the
| rules that define the medium.
| toyg wrote:
| It's not just a disservice, he flatly got the concept wrong (or
| misrepresented it).
| m463 wrote:
| I'm reminded of that scene from Annie Hall...
|
| ALVY: Well, that's funny, because I happen to have Mr.
| McLuhan right here. So ... so, here, just let me-I mean, all
| right. Come over here ... a second.
|
| _(Alvy gestures to the camera which follows him and the man
| in line to the back of the crowded lobby. He moves over to a
| large stand-up movie poster and pulls Marshall McLuban from
| behind the poster.)_
|
| MAN IN LINE: Oh.
|
| ALVY: _(To McLuhan)_ Tell him.
|
| MCLUHAN: _(To the man in line)_ I heard what you were saying.
| You-you know nothing of my work. You mean my whole fallacy is
| wrong. How you ever got to teach a course in anything is
| totally amazing.
| oldsklgdfth wrote:
| It's a very subtle concept. I do a pretty poor job explaining
| it to friends all the time. I think of it as an extension of
| "to a person with a hammer, everything is a nail". There's
| only so many ways to use a hammer. There's only so many ways
| to use smoke signals, or twitter or a picket sign or a sitcom
| to convey an idea. The main takeaway is that they are all
| tools, each with their specific use.
|
| Understanding Media by Marshall McLuhan [0] is where the
| phrase is first seen, but it's a dense book and tough to read
| at times. It's quite theoretical, kinda like he's developing
| an information theory of communication mediums.
|
| Amusing ourselves to death by Neil Postman[1] is more
| specific to written text and tv, but is a much easier read
| and very eye-opening.
|
| [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Understanding_Media
|
| [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Amusing_Ourselves_to_Death
| dghf wrote:
| > 12. Demand Curves Slope Down: The harder something is to do,
| the fewer people will do it. For example, raise the price of a
| product and fewer people will buy it. Lower the price and more
| people will buy it. Economics 101.
|
| Not always as true as you might think. There are Veblen goods
| [0], luxury status symbols for which the high price is part of
| the attraction.
|
| More controversially, there _may_ be Giffen goods [1]. Imagine a
| poor part of the world, where an average family spends half of
| its food budget on some cheap staple -- bread or rice or whatever
| -- and half on meat and fresh fruit and vegetables, but the
| staple part of the diet provides three-quarters of their
| calories. If the price of the staple rises , then their food
| budget will no longer provide enough calories. The only way they
| can make up the deficit is by buying less meat /fruit/veg and
| more of the staple: in other words, as the price of the staple
| rises, so demand for it goes _up_.
|
| [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Veblen_good [1]
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Giffen_good
| jacknews wrote:
| I don't mean to be too cynical, but I would like to know HOW
| these 50 buzz-phrases changed the author's life.
|
| Perhaps the key to change is actually this blog post. If it
| generates enough traffic.
| quietthrow wrote:
| Totally agree. This is a classic clickbait title. Few months
| ago I came across a good resource that deconstructed the syntax
| of click bait sentences. Can't find it now but came across this
| which you can try it for yourself
| https://www.contentrow.com/tools/link-bait-title-generator (I
| tired "mental models" and got pretty good results).
| amelius wrote:
| Yes. Title should be more like "fortune cookies that I've read"
| or "collected quotes" or something.
| hn_throwaway_99 wrote:
| Now I feel like there's a good automated "Inspirational
| Advice Blog Generator" to be made, a la
| http://hkessner.com/wats1020-dom-basics/
| TheSpiceIsLife wrote:
| I have a text file I've been keeping since 2003 full of
| "things other people said."
|
| One day, maybe, I'll get around to tizzy it up and start a
| blog with some witty as fuck domain name and retire on the
| shoulders of every else's hard work.
| MacroChip wrote:
| You've caught my attention. Care to share it? I promise I
| won't host it. If you put the source quotes on github it
| could be a cool project that you accept pull requests to.
| And that does not preclude you from still making a good
| website out of it.
| pomatic wrote:
| One motto I have: never trust an author that does not honour an
| unsubscribe link.
| [deleted]
| nzealand wrote:
| __The Pareto Principle __is key for scaling a business.
|
| 80% of the revenue comes from 20% of the customers.
|
| Segment your customers to shift low revenue customers to low cost
| channels.
|
| And it scales, depending on your unique Pareto Curve.
|
| 4% of your customers generate 64% of your profits.
| hliyan wrote:
| Not sure why some commenters have been put off by this. I
| actually learned a few things (and was reminded of a few other
| things I had forgotten) while going through this list. The stuff
| I disagreed with, I just skipped over.
|
| What I liked:
|
| 19. Planck's Principle
|
| 20. Bike-Shed Effect (had almost forgotten this)
|
| 21. Table Selection
|
| 23. Gall's Law (worth a reminder)
|
| 24. Hock Principle
|
| 39. The Paradox of Consensus
|
| 49. The Paradox of Abundance
| specialist wrote:
| TLDR: These items are conversation starters, questions to ask
| oneself (and each other) when considering something.
|
| Ya, I liked this list. It has some personal faves, which drew
| me in to read the whole list. So that worked.
|
| These are cliches, parables, observations, open ended
| questions. They're barely descriptive, much less prescriptive.
|
| Just more tools for the mental toolbox. No different than 48
| Laws of Power (which most definitely are not "Laws", but
| marketing FTW) and the like.
| paulcole wrote:
| > The stuff I disagreed with, I just skipped over.
|
| Guaranteed a podium spot in this year's HN Accidental Slogan
| contest.
| motohagiography wrote:
| Regarding 8, cultivating talent vs. genius - I'd argue an
| increasing majority of what we call genius nets out when we
| control for the effect of crazy meeting survivor bias.
|
| As someone familiar with all of the listed ideas, I get the sense
| these contrarian proverbs form a kind of modern hacker subculture
| tribal knowledge. What I've noticed is that none of the most (or
| least) successful people I know think this way, it's like a view
| from the outside or the middle.
|
| Maybe the co-incidence of financial success and a mind full of
| gnomic aphorisms is no better than random too?
| meagher wrote:
| Mental models are useful when you use them. Not so much when you
| talk about them.
|
| The idea of having a favorite mental model is fine if you are
| talking about them abstractly.
|
| But I envision a whole bunch of people using the wrong models in
| loads of situations simple because they like the idea of them.
|
| Your brain more often than not picks a pretty good one without
| having to even think about it.
| sidcool wrote:
| I like most of the ideas. But unsure which are pragmatic. Like
| avoiding competition. I don't get it. ELI5 anyone?
| saucymew wrote:
| It reminds me of Thiel's "Zero to One" that competition is for
| suckers, aim for true monopoly power.
| ehnto wrote:
| > For example, raise the price of a product and fewer people will
| buy it. Lower the price and more people will buy it. Economics
| 101.
|
| There are of course exceptions, and knowing your demographic is
| important. I worked for a company that released a skincare
| product at an affordable price point, and no-one bought it. They
| raised the price, and people started buying. It was because they
| were in a premium product niche, so being affordable made the
| product look bad in comparison to other products on the shelf,
| and people looking to buy that product used price to qualify the
| products quality.
| qznc wrote:
| > 50. The Map Is Not the Territory: Reality will never match
| the elegance of theory. All models have inconsistencies, but
| some are still useful. Some maps are useful because they're
| inaccurate. If you want to find an edge, look for what the map
| leaves out.
|
| This applies to all these 51 points.
| curation wrote:
| The concept of Differend -> A wrong or injustice that arises
| because the discourse in which the wrong might be expressed does
| not exist. This technology of Western Civilization retains
| coherence via a white supremacist patriarchal order based
| economic system. Racism is deciding what dies, guaranteeing
| profits. All meaning has been surgically drained over centuries
| of enmity leaving only the calculable.
| cryptica wrote:
| >> Parkinson's Law: Work expands to fill the time available.
| People don't want to look like they're lazy, so they find extra
| tasks to tackle, even if they're trivial.
|
| This can easily be fixed with the right project management
| approach and incentives. This problem is mostly relevant in
| corporate settings where there are no clear individual incentives
| for delivering results.
| booleandilemma wrote:
| Also, at least at the places I've been, finishing a task early
| just means you're "rewarded" with more work.
| paulorlando wrote:
| I've been slowly working my way through understanding a tiny
| fraction of systems that reveal the world. Doing it partly from a
| humanities perspective, where I look into examples from history
| and art as much as tech and business. It's incredibly
| overwhelming and wonderful. This is the way I spend my early
| mornings and walks. I know what you mean about the "how to think"
| blogs though. I'm just trying to teach myself how to think or at
| least notice underlying systems. (This is what I've been writing:
| https://unintendedconsequenc.es/blog/)
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