11 ms·

I had a little epiphany: Before the internet, and before people lived in large cities, the circle of people we came into contact might be only a couple hundred

• deleted 8y ago
  [deleted]
• spondyl 8y ago
  "When your circle of acquaintances is the whole internet, being in the top tenth percentile of anything takes years of determined effort." I like that a lot and I'm going to add it to my bag of quotes. You're definitely not wrong and it can often feel like any hobby is pointless when you're surrounded by hundreds, if not thousands of people (in online communities) who are striving for the same things.
• nixpulvis 8y ago
  Don't listen to the internet trolls, build connections with people who share common interests, and hopefully some of them will support you. I have personally found the older generations (I'm 25) to be more approachable. It's this that scares me. I'll bore you with a story from today. I'm building a coffee table for my new place. I got the top from Home Depot, and was looking for table legs. I was wondering around a vintage market and met this guy Jimmy, who has a studio down the street. He sold me 4 legs for $15 and gave me a bunch of great advise, telling me to text him when I was done with it. I assured him it wasn't going to be pretty, but he didn't care in the least. This is why I hate online shopping, and these are the interactions I cherish most.
  • rootusrootus 8y ago
    > I have personally found the older generations (I'm 25) to be more approachable. It's this that scares me. I think in general everyone gets more approachable with age. Somehow we all evolve bit-by-bit from asshole teenager to lovable old grandpa. Well, most of us at least. Ha! When you're young you care too much about things that don't really matter, and you eventually grow out of it. Sounds like maybe you're ahead of your peers. Maybe you just skipped the asshole teenager stage altogether? ;-)
    • ekr 8y ago
      Testosterone levels drop significantly with age, and that probably explains the lack of competitiveness and increasing agreeableness in older people.
      • rootusrootus 8y ago
        Perhaps, though testosterone doesn't really start to fall off dramatically until after middle age. In my own experience most people seem to have mellowed out significantly by the time they get into their 40s. Not everyone, of course, e.g. my 70 year old next door neighbor didn't evolve into a lovable old grandpa, he became a grumpy old man.
        • nixpulvis 8y ago
          We called my grandfather Grumpa.
  • wcunning 8y ago
    I can entirely agree on that experience. I got into machine tools, and in looking for pieces and accessories on craigslist, I ran into someone who's become quite a mentor to me. He rebuilds crashed CNC machines, serious ones worth hundreds of thousands of dollars. The skills he taught me for free, just because I was interested, are shared by maybe, maybe ten thousand people in the world. That kind of friendliness is hard to come by in anybody, but I definitely see it more in the older generations (I'm 27, he's in his very early 60's). As a sibling comment points out, I think some of that is the maturity that comes with age -- someone over 50 just doesn't have any interest in competing with a 25 year old on a hobby, or at least they have a much lower average interest in that competition. But some of it is just that at 25 you don't have enough time invested in a hobby or a pastime to have a whole lot to contribute to someone just getting into it. You also haven't spent years looking for other members of your weird, niche community. For a good, easily accessible example of this, stop by your local HAM radio club and talk to the definitely-older-than-your-average-startup-employee guys there about what it takes to get licensed and how many young people are getting into the hobby...
• goliatone 8y ago
  That is an interesting perspective. I think makes the ability to distinguish between intrinsic and extrinsic motivation/validation a must have existencial-survival skill.
• nopinsight 8y ago
  Did you mean top ten rather than “top tenth percentile”? Being the best 10% at something among all people on the Internet probably takes on average the same amount of talent & practice as among those in your tribe. Being the absolute top 10 is way harder as you said. Unless you were talking about being the top 10% among aficionados who have the most exposure in the relevant Internet community.
  • ascar 8y ago
    I did parse it as top 10% among people interested in a topic or activity.
    • Applejinx 8y ago
      The internet isn't interested in directing you to the top 10% of anything, in the event you're in the market. That's too many people, nearly all of the time. It is, however, very interested in directing you to literally the top ten (whatever thing) to save you the trouble of messing around with inferior, market-failing solutions. So you do have to be literally the top ten in the world (or on the internet). Because if you aren't, someone else is prepared to be (if only for a brief shining moment?)
  • wtracy 8y ago
    You know, I meant the top tenth percentile, but you have a point. It's easy on the internet to see how many people are performing better than you, and not just how many people are worse than you. I guess I was thinking in terms of being in the top tenth percentile of people showing off in that area. Someone else in the thread put it in terms of being in the top tenth percentile of piano players in r/piano. But yeah, being in the absolute top ten probably is closer to capturing what our monkey brains are expecting.
• NeedMoreTea 8y ago
  Which may explain the apparent rise of imposter syndrome and other internal crises of confidence.
• notSupplied 8y ago
  I think this is exactly what happened with physical attractiveness in the TV era. Suddenly we are bombarded with images of the most beautiful people in the world, and everyone had become much more insecure about their looks ever since.
  • disqard 8y ago
    This is a great observation. Makes me want to revisit McLuhan and Postman's writings.
• laurieg 8y ago
  I have often had the same thought. I feel like people's identity is being lost in a sea of brilliance. As soon as you pick up a guitar you are comparing yourself to the best in the world on youtube. I sometimes yearn my schooldays, safe in the knowledge that I was the best at math and that it didn't matter that I couldn't play football.
  • 0x8BADF00D 8y ago
    But it doesn't matter. Your life doesn't matter at all. You will be dead one day. Nobody will remember you on a long enough timescale. So why care?
    • jjjensen90 8y ago
      Life has whatever value you give it. I'm an atheist and I love being alive. Being remembered is an arbitrary goalpost. Being sentient is a gift, and being dead one day is a gift too.
    • lihaciudaniel 8y ago
      That is nihilism approach. there is always , I don't want to push my agenda, karma.
    • unit91 8y ago
      Have you considered that this belief system is unlivable? Or maybe deep, down inside, you don't actually believe it? If you believed it, and you were consistent, why did you post what you did? If you don't matter (I think you do matter tremendously), and if nobody who reads it matters, then your post doesn't matter. But you do matter. And so do we. And you know it because you spoke up. Why do you matter? That's the question. Because you were created in the image of God.
      • larkery 8y ago
        There's another solution to this question (or maybe the same one in different words). I believe something similar, but I still do things - why do I do things? Why write this message? The question seems like a show-stopper. Then again, the trees I can see outside my window don't believe pointing their leaves at the sun matters or bears meaning, nor do the planets consider turning in their orbits. Nevertheless, they continue to do these things! What is the difference between me, and these other systems? Why do I need to Ultimately Matter to live?
• ErikAugust 8y ago
  Getting into running sums it up for me on a personal level. When I ran my first marathon, I was the only person in my close friends and family that had ever ran one. Just running one was exceptional. At that point, you feel proud to be the runner people know personally but there's not a lot to talk about in depth. Then I got faster. I qualified for the Boston Marathon. My times put put me in the top 1-2% of anyone running them. This is a running goal that more "serious" runners associate with, at least. It's still bit broad, but it's relatable. Then I went longer. I ended up outright winning an ultramarathon as well as some other top finishes. In the region of the US I lived, there wasn't too many people doing exceptionally better at those kind of events. The community was small and inclusive enough where I felt like I fit in somewhat. Then I moved to Colorado. There are lots of professional and competitive runners. I realized I wasn't national class, but perhaps competitive locally. Again, I fit in with a small group of people. Then finally, I found some popular running message boards that focus on all types of running, but with a large emphasis on the world class. Everything I have done is dime a dozen in this realm. There is a very large "community" - but it comes with lots of negativity, jealousy, and gawking at world class athletes. There's a couple sweet spots in there where I feel a decent combination of achievement and community, but comparing myself to the whole world (and all of history) doesn't seem to do it for me.
  • bo1024 8y ago
    I can relate to this, but I think that also if you go through it, and come out the other side, you gain some perspective and appreciation. It forces you to ask yourself why you're doing it, if you'll never be the best. You can learn to appreciate effort, dedication, and enjoyment for their own sake, and recognize this in others of all abilities. In running for example, comments on Letsrun notwithstanding, most very good runners seem to grok this after a while.
    • ErikAugust 8y ago
      This is a important point to make. I’ve asked myself, “Even if you never achieved another PR again, or even raced again, would you still run?” The answer is “Yes.” I’m lucky enough to have this happen to me in a couple other disciplines so I came into it with more perspective. LetsRun also has thr NCAA Division I focus, and that is a pressure cooker environment I was never a part of, and I think shapes a certain worldview there.
• Maximus9000 8y ago
  I agree. To be fair, it's not new (only magnified). I remember a kid in highschool in the 90's. He was the best in our entire highschool at math. Any math contest in our school, he would win it. He go accepted into Aerospace engineering at an elite university. Suddenly, his math skills were only mediocre compared to his new peers. He became depressed after this. He was always the "math guy"... now what is he? That was in the 90's.
  • ascar 8y ago
    I think it helps in such cases to remember that just being in such a position puts you in the top and being mediocre across very talented peers is an achievement. It always helped me when moving up ranks in activities, when I hit my ceiling.
    • ivanmaeder 8y ago
      Also reminds me of the idea of fixed vs growth mindsets. > Suddenly, his math skills were only mediocre compared to his new peers. He became depressed after this. With a fixed mindset, you think your ability is static and so it can get you down when you stop being at the top. With the growth mindset you know that your ability is not static and can get better with effort. Think of the opportunity he had to learn from his new peers. Hopefully he got over the depression.
  • r_c_a_d 8y ago
    My tutor at university understood this very well. In my first week he told my tutor group "At school you were all the best, now it is likely that half of you are below average". Another thing I noticed at university was "improvers syndrome". When I took up some new sport or hobby, I always thought I wasn't progressing very well, because I was comparing myself to the people around me who were all improving too. It was only at the start of a new year when lots of newbies arrived that I realised how much I had progressed.
    • distances 8y ago
      > My tutor at university understood this very well. In my first week he told my tutor group "At school you were all the best, now it is likely that half of you are below average". This was told to us as well, with a reminder that some of us never had to do much work in high school -- this was about to change. There were multiple people who just didn't know how to study any more, and dropped out. Personally, I almost gave up programming in university when I saw there are others who are so much better than me, thinking I'm missing some innate gift they had. I'm glad I soon realized that I'm actually one of the better ones anyway, just not the absolute top of the class I was used to being in my small home town.
• qwertay 8y ago
  This is why software development is such a great space. Its quite easy to find a task that no existing software does or the existing software is bad. You don't have to be the worlds best developer but you can make stuff that people will use because you are the only one making it. With a painting you are getting compared to every other painting, with a program you are compared to other programs for the same task.
  • akhilcacharya 8y ago
    I disagree. There are gradients to the type of engineer you are and the type of employer you have (or are, in the case of the HN crowd), how much you make/raise, etc.
    • qwertay 8y ago
      I'm talking more about as a hobby. In a weekend you can write a useful script or website with a fairly low level of skills.
  • TeMPOraL 8y ago
    > This is why software development is such a great space. Its quite easy to find a task that no existing software does or the existing software is bad. Maybe I hail from an alternate universe, but on my planet, everything that's obviously worth doing in software is already being done by 5 different startups and 20 open source projects (I'll grant that it's often done badly, though). How do you find "tasks that no existing software does"? On my planet, I'm learning to settle for "doing better", or "doing more fully", or "being more accessible in environment X".
    • mbel 8y ago
      It's even better. Start a project for fun in existing field and people will question why did you even start it. Projects X, Y and Z already exist and have features A, B and C which you haven't implemented yet, how dare you?
    • qwertay 8y ago
• tfehring 8y ago
  Great point. I'll add that even within communities that are narrower than the whole Internet, we probably have more context-specific relationships than we did in the past, and that we compare ourselves to others within those contexts. I'm almost certainly not in the top 10% of coders on HN, or in, say, the top 10% of pianists on r/piano. There's a decent chance that I'm in the top 10% of pianists on HN and the top 10% of coders on r/piano, but I don't compare myself to others in those communities on those terms.
• thatfrenchguy 8y ago
  > Today, it's hard to get praise for anything we do Interestingly, since I started working in the US, I found that it is actually hard to get critisicm for anything: « honest feedback » is definitely not something that is culturally ingrained: most people will never talk to your face about the things you do wrong at work. And at the same time I found that my family and my friends are the harshest ones about what I do too.
  • Radim 8y ago
    Mandatory "How things are VS What people say" graph: https://twitter.com/RadimRehurek/status/857454177106116608 https://twitter.com/RadimRehurek/status/857454177106116608
  • glandium 8y ago
    I didn't know the US had its own version of the Japanese honne/tatemae https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Honne_and_tatemae https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Honne_and_tatemae
• agumonkey 8y ago
  Goes the other way, lots of people reported that their oddity finally found other similar people to share it to. I don't think internet really made a difference about group size. Even a large town (-pole) would make your life minuscule, and I have to live in a small place to see how much it affects life (peacefulness or not, efficiency, calmness)
  • jplayer01 8y ago
    Even a small town is far, far larger than the tribes in which we evolved. The amount of our history which involves sich large communities only encompasses something like 1% of our evolutionary history and should be considered in that context.
    • agumonkey 8y ago
      Sure but I think that to an extent you can have healthy superposed groups and lifestyle. After a threshold the city becomes some kind of factory.
• skrebbel 8y ago
  The solution is niches. Super Mario speedrunning, Demoscene, extreme knitting, and so on. Once you found a niche (of a niche, of a etc) that fits your interests, you're golden.
  • neuronic 8y ago
    Isn't it mostly chance that people discover their niche? In light of that, the people who happen to never find theirs are just lost.
    • smolder 8y ago
      It's interesting to me how your language implies everyone has a niche out there that's best for them, and they just need to find it. A lot of people have a similar mentality about relationships, that you have to find the right one. I think it can be harmful to use this lens, as it's easy to excuse a failure as a "bad fit", a losing gamble in the lottery, something unavoidable and absolute, rather than the result of personal actions and circumstances together. Attributing outcomes to your own actions is the way to self improvement and greater success, because it puts the focus on things you control.
• lnccl2j653l2 8y ago
  I disagree. Our brains have expectations, evolutionary speaking. They don't care about the size of our communities, I think. Our brains still expect you to climb the dominance hierarchy; it will give you a dopamine boost when you do so, and a shot of cortisol when you degenerate. I think that mediocrity is a bad thing and that the internet promotes progress. Yes, you have to be better now to be noticed, and yes, chances are that, now, most people give up, but isn't this a kind of social natural selection? If you give up because of, say, HN critics, you should improve.
  • jplayer01 8y ago
    Maybe you should read up more on existing theory and science before disagreeing with something that is entirely uncontroversial. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dunbar%27s_number https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dunbar%27s_number
    • lnccl2j653l2 8y ago
      Fair point. You tore the first sentence of my argument to shreds, thank you for that article! However, "Dunbar's number is a suggested cognitive limit to the number of people with whom one can maintain stable social relationships," and I am not talking (neither is OP) about maintaining relationships.
• neuronic 8y ago
  A bit late to the party, but this quote is striking in light of your comment: “Don't think about making art, just get it done. Let everyone else decide if it's good or bad, whether they love it or hate it. While they are deciding, make even more art.” ― Andy Warhol
• matt4077 8y ago
  Percentiles are already normalized to group size. So no: it's just as hard to be among the top 10% in your field in Billings, Montana, as it is in all of the world. Of course your mechanism works in absolute terms, but then it rests on the dubious case that for any chosen activity, only one person in the world can be the best. That would relegate almost all people to helpless inadequacy, which I find not only a rather depressing prospect, but also not quite supported by actual lived experience.
• Applejinx 8y ago
  That's a very good insight. To make matters worse, once you're on a global level (or internet level) you find that practically everybody so driven to be that top performer is a monster… or at the very least, has a bunch of toxicity relating to the pressure they impose upon themselves to attain that top performance. Those who aren't prepared to have the toxicity… drop out, before becoming the very top performer. The larger the pool of competitors, the more obvious this effect. By now, with globalized commerce and global internet, it's pretty obvious.
  • galfarragem 8y ago
    I went to a top competitive field (at the time) in a top university in my country. A place where every student was the best in his former school. Resuming: a competitive field in a competitive school. You can imagine the rest, I feel even embarassed to tell extra details. I have to admit, high competion feels good at times and is addictive but in the end it was just an illusion: the field lost importance (Architecture) and people slowly - nobody wanted to be the first to abandon ship and assume a defeat - acknowledged how patetic was to compete 24/7 for nothing. Nowadays I can see how toxic that environment were.
• meko 8y ago
  That's true. I spent a few years trying to make it as a dance music producer, and I was constantly working my butt off writing music and doing sound design. My work was never even close to being good enough because you really do have to be the best or among the best in the world at what you do. how could I hope to compete with people who had years more experience and resources than I did from across the globe? I'm still a little bitter that I couldn't make it work but at least I have a healthier relationship with my music now.