44 ms·
I think the best thing that ever happened to me was realizing the thesis of this article and getting some humility. I used to be firmly in the software will ea
by robohamburger 10y ago
I think the best thing that ever happened to me was realizing the thesis of this article and getting some humility.
I used to be firmly in the software will eat the world camp. Turns out the world is pretty cool. If you still think like this: travel, study people and get outside.
Getting to know the world around you and people who are different than you will make you a better person and a better engineer.
- Nav_Panel 10y ago> Turns out the world is pretty cool. If you still think like this: travel, study people and get outside. I agree with the last two points, but why travel? Wasn't one of the points in the article that we're so busy trying to think broadly -- by going to faraway places and dreaming of general case solutions -- that we reject the small-scale case of the people already around you? Unless you mean travel to Bayview... From the article: > I am very suspicious of attempts to change the world that can't first work on a local scale. If after decades we can't improve quality of life in places where the tech élite actually lives, why would we possibly make life better anywhere else? ... We should be skeptical of promises to revolutionize transportation from people who can't fix BART, or have never taken BART.
- laughinghan 10y agoThe point in the article about thinking too broadly is a subpoint of the larger point about the hubris of believing we can solve faraway problems that we've never seen up close. Both focusing on the local problems that we can see up close, and getting out there and seeing those faraway problems up close, could arguably be antidotes to that hubris.