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Ask HN: Name one idea that changed your life

• tmaly 7y ago
  I just saw a similar tweet thread last night https://twitter.com/orangebook_/status/1257710884719333376?s=20 https://twitter.com/orangebook_/status/1257710884719333376?s... Some gems in there.
• awat 7y ago
  "Before Enlightenment chop wood, carry water. After enlightenment chop wood, carry water".
  • maerF0x0 7y ago
    before with a frown, and after with a smile though?
  • aerovistae 7y ago
    What
    • kleer001 7y ago
      Any pursuit or attainment of enlightenment should be kept in relative place to everyday behaviour. Even the most holy of holy person (whatever your religion or creed) still has to attend to their basic needs.
    • JadeNB 7y ago
      I think the point is that enlightenment doesn't change what you do, only how you do (and/or perceive) it.
      • Dumblydorr 7y ago
        Is that the point? Or is it that enlightenment is grounded in the every day. That monks and Buddhist masters can simply sit and do basic chores and that's it, enlightenment is grounded next to the most basic human needs of fire and water and food.
        • deleted 7y ago
          [deleted]
        • JadeNB 7y ago
          I agree with you, but I see our phrases as different ways of saying the same thing. When you can perform the same mundane tasks in a way that brings meaning to, and takes meaning from, them, then you have found enlightenment.
        • Rury 7y ago
          It's that enlightenment doesn't change anything. People set out pursuing enlightenment to try to find fulfillment or happiness, but enlightenment is realizing that fulfillment or happiness is entirely dependent on your attitude towards things. Therefore, nothing changes from becoming enlightened, other than your decision to keep a positive attitude about the every day. As they say, you can choose to be happy, and mind over matter...
          • Loomx 7y ago
            This makes me think of a story I like: > Somewhere in the ocean is a place called the "Dragon Gate". Any fish that swims through the Dragon Gate turns into a dragon. However the Dragon Gate is invisible. Also, when a fish swims through it the fish doesn't look any different afterwards. And finally, after a fish has swum through the gate it doesn't feel any different, it just is a dragon.
    • carapace 7y ago
      First the mountain is a mountain, then it is not a mountain, then the mountain is a mountain. https://terebess.hu/zen/qingyuan.html https://terebess.hu/zen/qingyuan.html
      • DoingIsLearning 7y ago
        "Before I learned the art, a punch was just a punch and a kick, just a kick. After I learned the art, a punch was not longer a punch, a kick, no longer a kick. Now that I understand the art, a punch is just a punch and a kick is just a kick" - Bruce Lee
• splatzone 7y ago
  "Beauty is truth, truth beauty,—that is all Ye know on earth, and all ye need to know." from Keats' Ode on a Grecian Urn Realising that honesty and candour is the root of all good things has made me a much better musician and, yes, programmer and businessperson! I don't try to appear impressive or sophisticated any more, just tell the truth and speak sincerely, and it makes life much more manageable
  • Balgair 7y ago
    Emerson's take on Beauty is also pretty good: https://www.scribd.com/doc/15437251/Emerson-on-Beauty https://www.scribd.com/doc/15437251/Emerson-on-Beauty
• aaron_seattle 7y ago
  "Nothing is ever personal." The way people treat you, has nothing to do with you. They are just living out their own stories. Related idea: "You train others how to treat you." Think reinforcement learning as applied to training a dog. (And I love dogs, have the deepest respect for them). The concept isn't that different when applied to our social interactions.
  • aaron_seattle 7y ago
    You'd be surprised how hard it is to internalize the first principle. The mind can become very attached to the feeling of being attacked / rejected / overlooked / snubbed / etc.
    • folkhack 7y ago
      ...And with abuse patterns a lot of us had that ingrained at a super young age as a control lever our parents/guardians installed. I think a hard part of this is that people commonly abuse these mechanisms for control in social structures. I grew up with it, I experienced it in school, I've experienced it in relationships, and I've experienced it professionally. In so many ways it's human social nature to subvert each other and I think that's why so many of us get attached to those concepts. It's really hard to not get bitter and still let the good in =(
      • aaron_seattle 7y ago
        That sounds really rough man, I'm sorry to hear that. I too have struggled with being on the receiving end of other people's power trips. My curiosity on "what's really happening here, at the level of the brain" lead to some interesting reads. Chimpanzee behavior: when a higher ranked member is smacking and harassing a lower ranked one -- the higher ranked one is literally experiencing a rise in serotonin. Their dominance becomes a self-soothing behavior that relaxes them, makes them want to repeat the behavior. It's not hard to extrapolate this "very mammalian script" into whatever workplace situation where your counterparts are just lesser skilled at valuing the well-being of those around them. I think part of the paradox here is your counterpart can both "be a huge asshole" and also just be a mostly helpless automaton of their own harmful behavior, applying a lack of critical thought or self-reflection about their own impulses and tendencies. It's not that you're trying to reframe the situation into one where you are better than them, or that you pity them. Rather, it's just to recognize the sharp qualitative differences between the state of their mind, and yours. The Aurelius quotes: "The best revenge is to be unlike him who performed the injury." and (more dramatic than appropriate here, but all the same): "Today I shall be meeting with interference, ingratitude, insolence, disloyalty, ill-will, and selfishness – all of them due to the offenders’ ignorance of what is good or evil." -- i.e. of course these default behaviors are a starting feature of the human animal. I wrote a lengthier reply here, it may give you a possibly new way to reframe things: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23093457 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23093457
• dorkwood 7y ago
  Nick Cave, on writer's block: "My advice to you is to change your basic relationship to songwriting. You are not the ‘Great Creator’ of your songs, you are simply their servant, and the songs will come to you when you have adequately prepared yourself to receive them. They are not inside you, unable to get out; rather, they are outside of you, unable to get in." https://www.theredhandfiles.com/do-u-have-any-spare-lyrics/ https://www.theredhandfiles.com/do-u-have-any-spare-lyrics/
  • kjakm 7y ago
    That's interesting considering it sounds to me that he approaches songwriting like work rather than something he has a lack of control over: "He gets up early, goes to work in his office (a flat connected to his house in Hove), does an honest day’s work, returns home in the evening to his wife and kids, and starts out again the next day."[1] [1] https://www.theguardian.com/music/2008/feb/23/popandrock.features https://www.theguardian.com/music/2008/feb/23/popandrock.fea...
    • dorkwood 7y ago
      I don't see any conflict, personally. In the linked article, he goes on to say that songs "are attracted to an open, playful and motivated mind". To cultivate that, you need to show up.
  • bananamerica 7y ago
    I cannot fathom how this metaphysics would help me at all. And I’m both religious and a film major/screenwriter.
    • dorkwood 7y ago
      Maybe the flowery words obscured the message for you. If it helps, I first came across the quote in a blog post by Austin Kleon[0], an author, talking about people who say they have a book in them. "I never feel like I have a book in me. I always feel like there’s a book around me. It’s like I’m a planet and there’s all this space junk orbiting me, and all the junk starts smashing together and forming book chapters. My job is to grab that stuff around me and shape it into something." [0]: https://austinkleon.com/2019/06/06/its-not-inside-you-trying-to-get-out-its-outside-you-trying-to-get-in/ https://austinkleon.com/2019/06/06/its-not-inside-you-trying...
• stblack 7y ago
  "Always deliver superlative value, and your customers will take care of you." Changed everything.
  • chrstphrhrt 7y ago
    This can sometimes lead to burnout for me. When I blindly try to please no matter what, it also raises the bar of expectations. Sometimes people just want to feel superior and will take advantage, which can be hard to see in the moment.
  • Cerium 7y ago
    As a follow on - my grandpa often said to "give each customer the best you have at that moment." Selling goods or giving attention, if every customer gets the best you have none will have reason to feel bad towards you.
• KerryJones 7y ago
  "Do more and more with less and less until you can move a mountain with the push of a button." Advice I got from a born-low-class turned upper class -- richest man I know (and father of a highschool friend).
• ForrestN 7y ago
  Our thoughts are subconsciously motivated
  • rokhayakebe 7y ago
    Expand.
    • ForrestN 7y ago
      I think many people go through life uncurious about why an idea occurs to them, why they have a certain preference, why something makes them feel a certain emotion. The subconscious, for all its mysteries, offers the best chance of understanding the underlying forces that motivate our thoughts and behaviors. Realizing this and developing a curiosity about the reasons for my own thoughts and behaviors has totally changed my life for the better.
• dilandau 7y ago
  That doing the right thing, even when it seems unfair, even when I shouldn't have to, always works out for the best. Doing the selfish thing, even if I'm justified, even if it makes sense, ultimately never leads to getting what I want.
  • Balgair 7y ago
    The fastest way up the corporate ladder is not knifing people in the back, it's complimenting others behind their backs.
• elliekelly 7y ago
  Don’t accept a “no” from someone who doesn’t have the authority to give you a “yes”.
  • thomasfromcdnjs 7y ago
    Amazing, thanks.
  • mud_dauber 7y ago
    Perfect!
• scojomodena 7y ago
  Passive income. Or recognizing at least the goal of increasing your income/time ratio.
  • cactus2093 7y ago
    > the goal of increasing your income/time ratio. Not sure that's quite the right simplification of the appeal of passive income. Your time is fixed, the appeal of passive income for many is recovering more of your time. There's always more money you could make if you just get that next raise or promotion, so the most straightforward way to maximize your income/time is just to climb the corporate ladder and make more income.
    • maerF0x0 7y ago
      An interesting issue with climbing the corporate ladder is that often your time spent actually increases. I've yet to find a role w/ seniority that is less than 40 hrs a week. Some have even said that getting a promotion+raise can lead to less $ per hour because of a variety of factors such as more responsibility/time spent, increased requirement for dry-cleaning (suits or whatever)...
  • maerF0x0 7y ago
    out of curiosity do you apply this into expenditures too? ie spending time when it's expensive or spending money when its time intensive? Classic examples could be learning to do automotive work to save money and hiring out cleaning services to save time. (please ignore the specifics, but understand the concept).
  • Dumblydorr 7y ago
    You could increase your income to time ratio by getting a higher salary, no? Whereas passive income is about investing your income to make you money, which is agnostic of how much money you actually pull in due to salary.
  • mettamage 7y ago
    The cool thing about passive income is that there's a bit of a tax "trick" involved. Because I'd rather have 5 years of $20k passive income than $100k in 1 year. Well, I guess in SV it wouldn't matter, but in Amsterdam it does ;-)
• smoe 7y ago
  “Coming back to where you started is not the same as never leaving.” ― Terry Pratchett
• iluvblender 7y ago
  Not to be afraid of taking the road less traveled by. It is not going to be easy, but needs to be done.
  • kleer001 7y ago
    Lovely sentiment, and I agree. Also I learned recently the original poem was meant sarcastically: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sH3Y_-Hxh_Q https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sH3Y_-Hxh_Q
• AndrewKemendo 7y ago
  The OODA Loop [1] Air Force Colonel John Boyd came up with the OODA loop as a simplified way to explain a very complex system of observability and feedback that he developed. I read about this in the early 2000s and ever since I've been totally obsessed with the concept of learning, iteration and optimization - and it's the prime mover in my research and work motivations to this day. There are many parallel theories and concepts in Reinforcement Learning and Control Theory such as Sense Plan Act, but the fundamental system is the same. The OODA loop is often abused and the depth of Boyd's contribution to decision science has been underserved in my opinion. [1]https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/OODA_loop https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/OODA_loop
  • abhiyerra 7y ago
    This has been the most profound for me in terms of decision making. It is just so applicable to most decision making situations. Also led me to expand my mental models so I can be more certain about my decisions before I act.
• kyoob 7y ago
  My favorite thing about "Finite and Infinite Games" by James Carse is you can yadda-yadda the whole book: "There are two types of games. One could be called finite; the other infinite. A finite game is played for the purpose of winning, an infinite game for the purpose of continuing the play. [...] There is only one infinite game."
  • floatrock 7y ago
    Not familiar with the book, but a thing I heard recently that I think gets at the same idea and is one of those things that make you say hmmm was something like: "Your heartbeat is just the latest heartbeat in an uninterrupted line back to the original heartbeat." Doesn't really matter what spiritual or scientific tradition you use to define "original", and it doesn't mean that there weren't innumerable branches that ended up in a dead-end. But it gives a bit of perspective towards this infinite game.
  • hnick 7y ago
    > There is only one infinite game It's World of Warcraft, isn't it? :) Thank you for the quote. I get the point and it gives me something to think about as a gamer who often settles into the gamer equivalent of comfort food.
  • csense 7y ago
    > There is only one infinite game How could this possibly be true? I'm sure you could invent lots of non-isomorphic infinite games. In fact, couldn't just about any game be re-purposed into an infinite game by changing the win condition to "continue to play for an unbounded amount of time"?
• soneca 7y ago
  News == entertainment. Originally by Aaron Swartz http://www.aaronsw.com/weblog/hatethenews http://www.aaronsw.com/weblog/hatethenews Although I have slightly different takes from his and the level of avoiding the news might be different too, but the core idea that I follow these days is there. I used to think following the news was a mix of my duty as a citizen and important for my life, personal and professional. Now I believe it's quite the opposite, I better understand the world because I avoid the news. These days I think it is as much entertainment as Netflix or comics.
  • fredsir 7y ago
    I'd like to hear more about how you have implemented this. Do you not read any news? Some? How do you find out what's going on? I've been dabbling with this too, and my current state is that I don't consume any news or social media (twitter) that I cannot consume via my RSS reader, which in practical terms means I don't subscribe to any major news outlets, but instead subscribe to a smaller newspaper in my country that sends out daily newsletters which I then forward to my RSS reader that then shows it along regular RSS content - it's a feature of feedbin.com and it's a great feature!. Then I follow a lot of personal blogs, lobste.rs and HN, and then a curated list of twitter accounts, all via my RSS reader. The twitter thing is also a feedbin.com feature. And then I try to read books about a lot of different topics according to my mood, obviously. I get the feeling that any news that is not relevant to me after a month, six months, a year and so on, is probably not worth my time anyways except if it touches me directly, in which case I'll know anyways, so by reading books about, say covid-19 in a few years instead of news now, I'll get a much better picture of the whole thing than if I was intensely following the news every single day doing the pandemic. But fear of missing out does often present itself. It's a constant fight between my rational mind, and some kind of stupid, irrational thing that is also part of me.
    • soneca 7y ago
      It's not hard for me. I have a very low fear of missing out. I do end up consuming news, but always either through some sort of filter or directly (rarely), but realizing the role of entertainment in whatever I am watching. I use Twitter a lot, but I follow people who mostly don't replicate the news. I try to follow people that say interesting things. I read Hacker News a lot, but there is the explicitly idea to not replicate mainstream news here, so another good filter. I use Whatsapp a lot, but I am only in groups with friends and family, so another source of news, but filtered by people I care about. Maybe luckily, or even by my influence, these few groups are not just spamming news to me. I am not against the news, I don't particularly "hate" the news. I do inform myself through podcasts, a few that talk about books for example, so it is another filter to consume the news.
• maerF0x0 7y ago
  Compounding, growth etc https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=O133ppiVnWY https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=O133ppiVnWY Taught me the logical impossibility of the stock market to go up by x% per year, forever. Taught me that getting better today (however small) can give resources to getting better(er?) tomorrow. Taught me that many "experts" just say whatever to get voted in or to get a budget without regards to the absurdity of their own statements, and that many people eat up this kind of absurdity without fact checking / validating it.
  • maest 7y ago
    > Taught me the logical impossibility of the stock market to go up by x% per year, forever. I mean, it's just a number, at ofc it can go up x% every year. For example, consider the case where the currency gets aggressively devalued.
    • maerF0x0 7y ago
      we only care about the real return % which would account for what you're saying. Non-real return is meaningless
  • imrish 7y ago
    Man, I saw the whole video. Amazingly informative. Thanks you so much.
  • abetusk 7y ago
    For me, this type of thinking does the exact opposite in that it has a chilling effect on finding solutions and correctly assessing reality. While some of what Al Bartlett says is true, that unfettered exponential growth can't go on forever, other statements are misleading or outright false. He has a soapbox about limiting population growth now (in the US) [0], tied in to concepts of peak oil and other "dark green" talking points. This type of thinking misses the larger picture. The irony is that exponential growth happens all across the board, not just in population growth and energy usage but in innovation for more efficient energy usage and in finding alternative energy sources. Al Bartlett builds a straw man argument, saying "technological optimists assure use that technology will always solve all of our problems ..." [1] but this isn't true. The argument against Bartlett's statement is that we haven't hit the ceiling on energy that's available to us. This is one of the first issues I have with this thinking: if we were to take his argument at face value, limit population growth, turn down our energy usage and try to live with what we have, then we're setting ourselves up for failure as every other country on the planet shifts to solar because it provides cheaper energy (yes, even to coal) and will only get exponentially cheaper for a good period of time [2] [3]. Here's some simple arithmetic [4]: The average US household consumes 30kWh of energy a day. The available energy falling to the surface of the earth is about 700 * 10^12 kWh per day. That means, at US levels of consumption, the ceiling on just using the sun for our energy needs is 23 trillion people. The earth's population is 7.6 billion now. Even taking Bartlett's estimate of population doubling every 40 years, that's over 400 years of growth. This is zero-sum thinking and leads to all sorts of "us vs. them" mentality. My first thought is that these are the proto arguments for new forms of eugenics and other oppressive behavior. It also ignores the complexity of the situation of population in the US. I think it's pretty conclusive that strong public education and financial freedom lead to less children. In the US, we already are at sub-replacement but for immigration that boosts our population [5]. I would suggest you take Al Bartlett's advice and not let other people do your thinking for you [6]. [0] https://youtu.be/O133ppiVnWY?t=4042 https://youtu.be/O133ppiVnWY?t=4042 [1] https://youtu.be/O133ppiVnWY?t=3640 https://youtu.be/O133ppiVnWY?t=3640 [2] https://e360.yale.edu/digest/renewables-cheaper-than-75-percent-of-u-s-coal-fleet-report-finds https://e360.yale.edu/digest/renewables-cheaper-than-75-perc... [3] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Swanson%27s_law https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Swanson%27s_law [4] https://youtu.be/O133ppiVnWY?t=4070 https://youtu.be/O133ppiVnWY?t=4070 [5] https://www.cdc.gov/nchs/data/nvsr/nvsr68/nvsr68_01-508.pdf https://www.cdc.gov/nchs/data/nvsr/nvsr68/nvsr68_01-508.pdf [6] https://youtu.be/O133ppiVnWY?t=3332 https://youtu.be/O133ppiVnWY?t=3332
• new2628 7y ago
  Understanding is a poor substitute to convexity. There is no such thing as rationality of belief, only rationality of action. both by NN Taleb.
• TheAdamAndChe 7y ago
  Spaced repetition. It's a method of learning where you only get a reminder of material when you're about to forget it. I've found a way to use spaced repetition to self-learn maths without forgetting processes between obsessive cycles. I memorize names, birthdays, dates, locations, and anything else I want to remember much easier than before because of it. https://www.gwern.net/Spaced-repetition https://www.gwern.net/Spaced-repetition
  • pizzicato 7y ago
    Anki[0] is great for this, and it's free. [0]: https://apps.ankiweb.net/ https://apps.ankiweb.net/
    • RMPR 7y ago
      mdanki[0] can speed up the acquisition of new cards 0: https://github.com/ashlinchak/mdanki https://github.com/ashlinchak/mdanki
• vincentmarle 7y ago
  We have two lives, and the second begins when we realize we only have one. Confucius
  • JKCalhoun 7y ago
    I like that a lot.
  • mettamage 7y ago
    Oh man, so true, realized this when I became 25. Nowadays I talk to my grandparents about these things and they say "grandson, when I was your age I never thought about how it was to be 80 years old or any other age for that matter." I sometimes wonder how it is to be older. I also venture back to younger ages, and of course think about my current age.
• syncsynchalt 7y ago
  "Less is more" Applicable to programming, applicable to life. Covers everything from device convergence to PR reviews to retirement planning. I discovered that spending less on personal happiness brought me more personal happiness. Try it sometime, give yourself permission to give away half of your stuff and see if you don't feel better.
  • sharemywin 7y ago
    I remember when I used to work at a pizza shop the manager would always say "where here to feed them, not fatten them".
• BitwiseFool 7y ago
  “The universe is a cruel, uncaring void. The key to being happy isn't a search for meaning. It's to just keep yourself busy with unimportant nonsense, and eventually, you'll be dead.” Thanks Mr.Peanutbutter
  • shry4ns 7y ago
    Underrated comment. Bojack Horseman is one of the best shows out there :)
  • JadeNB 7y ago
    I guess that the bleakness is the point, but I prefer a more optimistic spin on the same thing: the key to happiness isn't a search for meaning, because the universe has none to offer. It is the creation of meaning for yourself—what you do has the importance you attach to it, neither more nor less.
    • BitwiseFool 7y ago
      That's exactly what I took from it too.
• woodruffw 7y ago
  It is impossible to think of anything at all in the world, or indeed even beyond it, that could be taken to be good without limitation, except a good will.
• frenchie4111 7y ago
  Good ideas are grown, not found.
  • screamingninja 7y ago
    what about inspiration?
• MichalSternik 7y ago
  Permaculture. First paragraph from wikipedia article: > Permaculture is a set of design principles centered on whole systems thinking, simulating, or directly utilizing the patterns and resilient features observed in natural ecosystems. It uses these principles in a growing number of fields from regenerative agriculture, rewilding, and community resilience.
• mistermann 7y ago
  We don't live in reality, or even "see" it directly. The reality that we live in is firstly based on perception of actual physical reality, and then also experienced/conceptualized via a proxy, which is a model of our perceived reality (and all the objects, people, and ideas within it), all implemented by a sophisticated biological neural network of sorts. An example of how you can test this theory is to observe conversations on forums, where you will find plentiful (and ultra-confident) examples of supernatural acts like mind reading, future predicting, knowing things that are not knowable, etc. Even more interestingly, these "beliefs" seem to be entrenched extremely deeply in the human psyche, and almost "protected" in some way, by some sort of process. Merely pointing out the obvious fact (the existence of this phenomenon) is highly unpopular. But even further, most people seem to be literally unable to even ponder the phenomenon, particularly in real-time. Abstract discussion seems much easier for most people, but rare is the person who can consistently walk the talk - personally, I only have one friend who can do it, across multiple domains (cross-domain capability is a key differentiator that separates those who can from those who cannot).
  • seanwilson 7y ago
    > Even more interestingly, these "beliefs" seem to be entrenched extremely deeply in the human psyche, and almost "protected" in some way, by some sort of process. My explanation for this is the brain has lots of mental shortcuts that help it make useful quick decisions when lacking complete information (like in survival situations), but these shortcuts break down in the modern world E.g. "everyone else is doing it so it must be good" is a decent rule of thumb when you don't have time to look into things but you have to resist this rule of thumb when seeking scientific knowledge, which isn't natural for many.
    • mistermann 7y ago
      Sure, these are simply heuristics..."rules of thumb" approximations, there are brazillions of them. I doubt there are many people here who aren't fairly familiar with the abstract concept. What I mean by the "protected" part is that even when talking to someone who is familiar with the abstract concept, who will readily acknowledge the existence of heuristics and inherent fallibility, even within themselves (while discussing the topic in the abstract that is), but when the topic is something else (a concrete topic like politics for example), and heuristics clearly assert themselves in the conversation, people will get "agitated" if the topic of heuristics is brought up.
• asdff 7y ago
  "Nothing in Biology Makes Sense Except in the Light of Evolution" Dobzhansky.
• seph-reed 7y ago
  Life is a paradox. The ultimate point is that there is no point. If you want something, the best way to get it is to not want it. You have to try to relax. Humans can handle cognitive dissonance, things don't have to be logical for us to believe. We can believe two things that can't both be true at the same time. If we didn't we'd die. Somehow life requires the ability to believe conflicting things... so in order to even begin perceiving reality, you have to be incapable of pure logic.
• crankylinuxuser 7y ago
  Reprap. From Adrian Boyer's start, we all can have the means of production on our desk. I can start with some plastic spool, and have finished structural pieces to do what I wish. It's the first major step to a replicator.
  • mLuby 7y ago
    It's amazing to me how little progress is being made in such an important area.
• mlamina 7y ago
  The Dichotomy of Control A concept I discovered when reading about stoicism. Focus on the things that you can control and disregard what is outside of your control. Sounds simple and obvious, until you apply it to everyday life and realize that most things you worry about are not under your control - other people's actions, opinions, politics, most external circumstances, really. What you can control however is how you react to those circumstances - your thoughts, actions and words, for example.
  • chartpath 7y ago
    I used to love Stoic thinking and read the usual primary sources a few years ago. I still do love it and practise it. However, I became more and more turned off by the modern company of success porn bros who use it as a kind of macho way to justify not caring about others. This is not the truth of it, as Stoic ethics is about concentric circles of concern emanating outward (family, friends, community, country). I wish there was more focus on that.
• mikro2nd 7y ago
  Iterated Prisoners' Dilemma
  • joyj2nd 7y ago
    Has a Nash Equilibrium for the first n-1 iterations if I remember correctly.
• matthewwk 7y ago
  "It's not done when you can't add to it, it's done when there's nothing left to take away." Ken Segall (former ad executive that worked with Steve Jobs) shared this during a talk in Ann Arbor at the Michigan Theater in 2018.
  • decebalus1 7y ago
    That idea is from Antoine de Saint-Exupéry, actually.
    • matthewwk 7y ago
      I figured it wasn't novel to Segall, but that is the first time I heard the line.
• sparker72678 7y ago
  Nothing (or nearly nothing) is black and white. It's shades of gray. Understand where _this thing_ is at on the spectrum.
  • bananamerica 7y ago
    IDK dude, some things seem black and white. The Holocaust, for example.
    • JKCalhoun 7y ago
      Yeah, seems to be just as much a fallacy to believe "all things are shades of grey".
    • kleer001 7y ago
      Only thing I can think of that's anywhere close is that without WWII we wouldn't have modern computers. Still, doesn't seem worth it. I say, using a computer, my entirely lively hood being based on computers.
    • deleted 7y ago
      [deleted]
• sparker72678 7y ago
  The greatest strengths are almost always also the greatest weaknesses.
• JKCalhoun 7y ago
  Language is thought. But like the chicken and egg paradox, how can one come before the other? I was incapable (I think) of formulating even the concept of "Gestalt" until I had heard the word for it, had it explained to me. Now I see the concept of the whole being greater than the sum of its parts everywhere.
  • Dumblydorr 7y ago
    Thought exists without language, does it not? How can dogs dream of sticks and walks and chasing squirrels? Can't cats see a high place and think about how to reach it, those aren't thoughts? The word Language comes from the word for tongue, language therefore is grounded in human ability to make complex thoughts borne out in simplistic squishy tongue air sounds. We could extend language beyond tongues though, if we think of binary or rust or gobbledygook made up languages impossible to speak. Those still Express thoughts, though they be divorced from tongues. So, IMO, thoughts are broader than language, which can come close to thought but can not adequately encapsulate the color red, a beautiful piece of music, or a cat's devilish designs.
    • joyj2nd 7y ago
      "Thought exists without language, does it not?" This is a very interesting question. The limits of my language are the limits of my mind. All I know is what I have words for.” Wittgenstein "How can dogs dream of sticks and walks and chasing squirrels?" Do Androids dream of electric sheep? :-) You may want to read the books mentioned here. I found it so impressive, I bought a first issue. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bicameralism_(psychology) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bicameralism_(psychology)
• lukifer 7y ago
  Learned Optimism & Explanatory Style: - Permanence: Optimists point to specific temporary causes for negative events; pessimists point to permanent causes. - Pervasiveness: Optimistic people compartmentalize helplessness, whereas pessimistic people assume that failure in one area of life means failure in life as a whole. - Personalization: Optimists blame bad events on causes outside of themselves, whereas pessimists blame themselves for events that occur. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Learned_optimism https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Learned_optimism
• ge96 7y ago
  You've only failed if you stop trying. In my case go homeless or die is what it means to fail. edit: granted I'm not trying to split an atom or something crazy like that, but yeah. The fear of failure is always in the back of my mind.(currently means lose job/debt or generally just making an ass of myself eg. in meetings/srum/professional convo)
  • joyj2nd 7y ago
    "Only the one who gives himself up is lost" Hans-Ulrich Rudel "Fun" fact: This guy was a convinced Nazi who basically destroyed two Russian tank divisions alone. I told this quote to an African American friend when he was struggling badly and had to go abroad for a job and it has inspired him ever since. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hans-Ulrich_Rudel https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hans-Ulrich_Rudel Beowulf has a similar quote: "fate often enough will spare a man if his courage holds"
    • ge96 7y ago
      trying to have me use Nazi's as a role model? ha /s They did build some cool stuff though
  • alok-g 7y ago
    >> You've only failed if you stop trying. There are more details to the above, which I've explained in my blog: https://alokgovil.com/winners-quit-strategically/ https://alokgovil.com/winners-quit-strategically/
• alexslobodnik 7y ago
  You must believe to see; not see to believe.
  • kgin 7y ago
    Can you explain this a bit more?
• dqpb 7y ago
  The tradeoff between exploration and exploitation.
• callesgg 7y ago
  Everything is a metaphor. Literally everything.
  • lucb1e 7y ago
    How did that help you or change your life?
    • callesgg 6y ago
      I made me see that what people say/talk about might not necessarily be right or wrong. Just metaphorical.
• dilippkumar 7y ago
  The Central Limit Theorem. It's hard to explain the precise way in which an understanding of the central limit theorem has changed my life. However, knowing how any random distribution sums up to a Gaussian has subtly changed how I perceive and comprehend the world around me. Over time, this has added to a significant number of choices and decisions that I've subconsciously made, informed only by rough estimates of a mean value and it's standard deviation.
  • abetusk 7y ago
    Just a word of warning, the central limit theorem is a bit misleading. Assuming the sum independent and identically distributed random variables converges to a distribution, that distribution is not necessarily the Gaussian, but a larger family called the Levy-Stable distributions [1]. Levy-Stable distributions are "heavy-tailed" in that far away from zero they behave like (inverse) power laws. This is probably why you see so many power laws in nature (gravity, "small-world" networks, income distribution, galaxy distribution density, etc.). This was one of the central themes of Mandelbrot's soapbox, that power laws were more fundamental than normal distributions. Mandelbrot gets remembered for the highly symmetric and pretty fractal pictures but those images (Koch curve, Dragon Curve, Sierpinski gasket, etc.) are like a focusing on a sine wave when talking about Fourier analysis. The central limit theorem applies to sums of random variables with finite variance [2]. Once you relax the condition of finite variance, or finite mean for that matter, Levy-Stable distributions are the more likely result. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stable_distribution https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stable_distribution [2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Central_limit_theorem https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Central_limit_theorem " ... Mathematically, if X ... is a random sample ... taken from a population with mean ... and finite variance ... the limiting form of the distribution ... is the standard normal distribution." (emphasis mine)
    • mturmon 7y ago
      On the other hand, for many systems the energy is related (in some way) to the square of the value. For example, voltages, currents, photon counts, etc. So if energy is finite, then you get CLT behavior.
• saadalem 7y ago
  “You live in a mechanical universe. It’s time to start understanding that.” I was disillusioned with myself. I was performing badly in highschool(even dropped out) I couldn’t understand why. I wanted so badly to do something epic. I feared being an average guy and living an ordinary life. I didn’t understand this advice at first. However, I decided that I couldn’t take the life I was living, so I decided to change. If you accept that the universe is essentially mechanical, then you accept that there is nothing actually standing in your way. You do not have inherent bad luck, and you aren’t cursed. Probably the best example of this is Elon Musk. The guy watched his entire fortune burn as his companies crumble. He worked 20 hour days. But what separated him was a very specific ability, and it wasn’t just his ability to work hard. “Most people when confronted with a disastrous scenario start to make bad decisions. When that happens to Elon, he becomes hyper-rational. I’ve never met someone with his ability to take pain.” This is a paraphrased quote from Musk’s biography, from a Tesla engineer who knew Musk personally when the company was on the verge of collapse. The ability to make hyper-rational decisions during hardship is one of the most important traits of a leader. This advice got me through that period. I understood that everything had a cause and effect, so I decided to change. Reading made me more prepared for anything. Building and making things made me more friends. The second you understand that we live in a mechanical universe is the second you are given the key to changing it. I may never become the next Elon Musk(asking myself how can I do it better, but that's another subject if you want to talk about it I'm happy to do so) but my life will be so much happier because I understand that it can change according to rules. Rationality and a cause-effect mindset is an incredibly tough road to go down because there are no easy answers. When you do, however… you can change anything.
  • fredsir 7y ago
    > Elon Obviously, it's also a good advice to be born with wealth from the blood of an emerald empire. Hyper-rational, being born wealthy. Great advice! Kidding aside. I'm just sick of people putting people like Elon up on a pedestal. Look at all the rich, successful people out there. How many come from wealth, and how many come from dirt poor conditions and just worked themself up? Working hard is good advice, but it doesn't guarantee success, quite the contrary. A lot of successful people never worked hard a single day in their life, and billions of people work hard their whole life and never come close to the kind of success the former enjoys. Hell, I guarantee that Elon is not even the hardest worker at his companies, even though he enjoys most of the fruit of the labour.
• kibwen 7y ago
  That you are the average of your five closest friends. In other words, if you would like to achieve or become something, surround yourself with people who are also focused on (or have already achieved) that goal.
• alchemyromcom 7y ago
  Reading about alchemy, especially the concept of transmutation, has inspired my life in numerous ways. I would also suggest reading The Kybalion which, if I recall correctly, is about Gnosticism more than alchemy? Anyway, it has some great general concepts to open up your imagination, plus the prose is beautiful.
• AirMax98 7y ago
  “Nothing, absolutely nothing, happens in God's world by mistake.”
  • downerending 7y ago
    That's a depressing thought.
• downerending 7y ago
  If your friends--or especially your SO--don't have your back, it's time to move your back. You deserve to have at least one person in your life that is always on your side. Especially for an SO, if they can't do that, get rid of them. Far better to be alone.
  • ryandvm 7y ago
    Not sure I agree with this. I don't want someone to have my back if I'm on the wrong side. I want my SO to challenge my ideas and to help me improve as a person, not to reinforce my bad ideas.
    • downerending 7y ago
      To me, "having my back" doesn't mean nodding yes to everything. It means starting with the strong assumption that I'm a pretty good guy. It means doing for me what someone who loved me would do. Kind of the opposite of an Internet troll. In any case, it's up to each person to set the mark.
  • dnautics 7y ago
    Forget your friends. You want a BOSS that has your back. If your boss doesn't have your back, it's time to move jobs.
    • downerending 7y ago
      Yeah, that's very, very true. Spent way too much of my career not knowing that. Once had a real bastard of a boss, back in the early days of the web. I put together a prototype web site, carefully describing it as such and as never even tested with multiple users. Without telling me, he put together a demonstration that involved 20 big-wigs hitting it at the same time. Without doubt he was hoping for a major failure. Was too dumb to see that coming. Take it from me: One whiff that your boss doesn't care for you? GTFO--immediately.
      • dnautics 7y ago
• jzwmowzzeayzzaj 7y ago
  Differentiation of Self https://thebowencenter.org/theory/eight-concepts/ https://thebowencenter.org/theory/eight-concepts/
• krapp 7y ago
  God's not real. We're just apes whose ancestors caught a lucky break when an asteroid flattened the dinosaurs 60 million years ago. We shouldn't even be here.
  • kleer001 7y ago
    Not a literal actor in time/space, for certain. That said I've come around to the usefulness of deification of ideals and the idea that not every moment should be lived in object-space, but also in drama-space.
    • krapp 7y ago
      >That said I've come around to the usefulness of deification of ideals and the idea that not every moment should be lived in object-space, but also in drama-space. I can agree with that. God as an idea is real in the abstract sense that all powerful ideas are real, and people believe in them, and treat them as real. But as someone who was raised in a (Christian, US Southern) religious background, I've come to believe that everything wrong with religion comes from taking it literally.
      • kleer001 7y ago
        > I've come to believe that everything wrong with religion comes from taking it literally I don't disagree, but would only refine your point. I think the pathology of religions come from several places: the inevitable divide between the environment in which they were written and the current world and not refreshing that original view quickly enough with enough wisdom, the projection of one's ethics on to other people, and, like you said, mistaking the metaphorical for the literal when it is not adaptive (which is difficult as sometimes feedback can take decades if not generations to hit). IMHO religions are like Swiss army knives. They've got a huge number of blades and tools. Idiots use Swiss army knives like a hammer and bang away and their problems. People that have only seen it used as a hammer miss out on its finer wisdom. And if one gets stabbed with it they're less likely to look openly upon the tool or kindly upon the user.
      • sdegutis 7y ago
• jcoletti 7y ago
  Steve Jobs' explanation of the simple, obvious truth that the world is made up of everyone's contributions and how much power each individual person has to contribute and influence it too: "Life can be much broader once you discover one simple fact, and that is: Everything around you that you call life, was made up by people that were no smarter than you. And you can change it, you can influence it, you can build your own things that other people can use. The minute that you understand that you can poke life and actually something will, you know — if you push in, something will pop out the other side — that you can change it, you can mold it. That’s maybe the most important thing. It’s to shake off this erroneous notion that life is there and you’re just gonna live in it, versus embrace it, change it, improve it, make your mark upon it. I think that’s very important and however you learn that, once you learn it, you’ll want to change life and make it better, cause it’s kind of messed up, in a lot of ways. Once you learn that, you’ll never be the same again.”
  • Tepix 7y ago
    I like that a lot. Thanks.
• p0d 7y ago
  Praying to God at a party 30 years ago changed my life. I guess I felt like I was broken on the inside and the idea that some higher power could help led me to pray while sleeping on someone's sofa. I was so into the idea I went on to work for a missionary organisation with no salary at 19. After 25 years in IT I am on an accelerator programme now and feel like I am 19 again... doing something out there with no money...hopefully I will enjoy being a startup as much as I enjoyed my first job.
  • Dumblydorr 7y ago
    What about praying to God changed your life? Were you religious before then? What led to the transformational moment?
• jpn 7y ago
  Bayes Rule.
• surfsvammel 7y ago
  That which seems very important today, will seem far less important tomorrow.
• stewfortier 7y ago
  Opportunity cost. It's relatively easy to measure how much an investment of time or money will "cost" in absolute terms. But it's pretty unnatural to try and define the opportunities you're not going to pursue and factor them in as a cost. Understanding opportunity cost has led me to make a few important decisions in my life that would have otherwise gone another way.
• abj 7y ago
  The Elephant in the Brain A lot of common ideas about education, charity and laughter (we laugh because something is funny) are evolutionary useful lies we tell ourselves. "But while we humans often play by ourselves (e.g., with Legos), recall that we laugh mostly in the presence of others. So what communicative purpose does laughter serve in the context of play? Gregory Bateson, a British anthropologist, figured it out during a trip to the zoo. He saw two monkeys engaged with each other in what looked like combat, but clearly wasn’t real. They were, in other words, merely play fighting. And what Bateson realized was that, in order to play fight, the monkeys needed some way to communicate their playful intentions—some way to convey the message, “We’re just playing.” Without one or more of these "play signals,” one monkey might misconstrue the other’s intentions, and their playful sparring could easily escalate into a real fight"
  • cheezebubba 7y ago
    This book shows that many of our institutions have both visible, socially-respected goals, but also hidden goals nobody likes to acknowledge. Example: Health Care Visible goal: Improve Health Hidden goal: Show how much we care ("kiss the booboo") This explains why much of health care is devoted to high-cost high-visibility interventions (like bypass surgery) and much less to lifestyle interventions (like diet/exercise). It also explains why many obvious changes that would improve the stated goal keep failing to be adopted - they hamper the hidden goals. Software example: Why do people keep estimating development task size assuming nothing goes wrong? And why do their managers not hold them responsible for continually slipping the schedules? Visible goal: Accurate estimates Hidden goal: Brag about how fast we are If accurate estimates were the only goal, then when schedules slip there would be a strong feedback loop to improve future estimates. My experience has been the opposite - the slip is blamed on something "no one could have foreseen" and everybody keeps estimating as before. To be clear, it's always a mix of the visible and hidden motives. Much of health care is actually about improving health. But acknowledging the hidden motives is vital to understanding how much of society works.
    • abj 7y ago
      This is a much better summary
• el_don_almighty 7y ago
  The more you scare people, the more they will pay you
• RivieraKid 7y ago
  Solipsism is correct.
  • downerending 7y ago
    For what it's worth, I agree.
  • kleer001 7y ago
    Correct, but worthless, from what I can tell.
  • carapace 7y ago
    Yes, but of whom?
• lostmsu 7y ago
  Bitcoin.
• kleer001 7y ago
  That destruction is easy, creation is hard, but the most valiant, boring, thankless, and difficult task, that we should all do to some extent, is maintaining.
• armandososa 7y ago
  I don't remember where I got it, but "do the important, not the urgent" help me focus my life. Also, the central message from (the otherwise mediocre) Coelho‘s The Alchemist novel teach me at 25 that I didn't have to conform to living the life of an unhappy low-grade employee for the rest of my life.
• daledavies 7y ago
  "Starting the work is two thirds of it." I wish I knew the source of this but my parents used to say it was a Welsh proverb.
  • ilikepi 7y ago
    Often I feel like finishing is the other four thirds.
• Balgair 7y ago
  "You're not co-workers, you're co-owners" and "you are both right, even when you are saying opposite things" This really helped my relationships with loved ones. It's not about chores and the lack of doing them. Or about who is right in an argument. It's about both of you deciding what to do as equals, accepting differences, and loving each other especially when you don't like each other right then.
• bobbydreamer 7y ago
  "Do what you made for" When my mind tells me this, I get energized and start to work and complete lots of things. This particular words gives me all the focus I need.
• deleted 7y ago
  [deleted]
• motiw 7y ago
  My personal realization that Evolution is the other “theory of everything”, with the exception of the laws of physics, evolutionary processes are shaping everything, including progress in science, economy, history, politics, ideas, social, emotions, religion, etc.
  • josephpmay 7y ago
    Have you read https://waitbutwhy.com/2019/08/story-of-us.html https://waitbutwhy.com/2019/08/story-of-us.html ?
  • gfodor 7y ago
    I came to the same conclusion, and here's the result: https://medium.com/@gfodor/evolutionary-simulation-theory-81154c392e77 https://medium.com/@gfodor/evolutionary-simulation-theory-81...
  • srl 7y ago
    This might be it for me too -- although it feels wrong to call this "one idea", because to me it's really a broad family of related ideas. There's some Jordan Peterson video where he sums up a social aspect of evolution as (paraphrasing slightly) "the thing that rises to the top of hierarchies is necessarily that thing which is good at rising to the top of hierarchies". CGP-Grey has a video discussing the version of this idea that applies to... well, to ideas, I guess. It's weird, because at some level I already knew everything he said, but that video nevertheless made quite an impact on me. It's not at all obvious to me that the laws of physics are an exception to this, by the way. Anthropic arguments are a sort of primitive form of evolutionary process (in the vein of "we're in this part of the universe because this is the part of the universe that could have us").
  • akimball 7y ago
    One should not too quickly provide an exception for the laws of physics. The underlying axioms which make evolutionary dynamics deducible elsewhere do not obviously exclude physical law.
• stareatgoats 7y ago
  That the existence of infinity and eternity is the most probable hypothesis.
• Dumblydorr 7y ago
  Ctrl + right arrow moves to the end of a word. Game. Changer.
  • DavidPeiffer 7y ago
    And paired with this: * Ctrl+backspace/delete to delete an entire word at a time. * Ctrl+shift+left/right arrow selects entire words at a time.
  • imwally 7y ago
    macOS has emacs style key bindings like this OS-wide. Ctrl+e: end of line Ctrl+a: beginning of line Ctrl+p: go up a line Ctrl+n: go down a line Ctrl+f: go forward a character Ctrl+b: go back a character etc...
• mettamage 7y ago
  The Wim Hof Method. I never had any issue with: - snow - rain (being soaked was in rare cases still an issue) - anything cold really Before that I was unhappy with whatever was cold. Now I'm neutral at worst and super exhilarated and hyped like I'm taking drugs (but legally) at best. The adrenaline rush is very strong and very real, and a lot of fun :) How I would pitch this to my younger 18 year old self: want insta-ten-percent more happiness without changing anything about yourself, but by simply learning a breathing technique? Learn the Wim Hof Method and never complain about being cold again!
  • kinkrtyavimoodh 7y ago
    Can you explain the method simply? I Googled and all the websites seem to be full of marketing BS.
    • starpilot 7y ago
      Take cold showers and do the breathing exercise. The first part was easy when I lived in LA, in Seattle it has been a struggle.
    • roter 7y ago
      From [0]: 30 cycles of controlled hyper-ventilation, followed by holding breath with lungs empty as long as possible, then deep breath and hold for 15-20 secs. [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wim_Hof#Wim_Hof_Method https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wim_Hof#Wim_Hof_Method
      • kinkrtyavimoodh 7y ago
        Interesting how closely this matches many Yogic breathing techniques.
    • mettamage 7y ago
      Some science behind it: https://www.pnas.org/content/111/20/7379 https://www.pnas.org/content/111/20/7379 Disclaimer: I was one of the guinea pigs. The method is found on YouTube actually. The hallmark of you performing the method well is that you can go longer without oxygen by timing yourself (my progression went from 20 seconds to after 16 rounds to 3 minutes -- by breathing out all air first and then not breath). I won't describe the method here as you're more helped with people overexplaining it than underexplaining it. One wouldn't teach a full programming language to a novice in one comment either. Disclaimer 2: I'm not a doctor.
• stillbourne 7y ago
  Skepticism.
• jasoneckert 7y ago
  As childish as it seems, this one actually stuck with me for over 20 years and makes me step back and relax in situations where bad thoughts can snowball and result in stress. Basically, it's a saying that a neighbour's 5-year-old son said once (likely repeated from his father): "It's better to be pissed off than pissed on."
• j_p_hackworth 7y ago
  The boot theory of economic inequality.
• kratom_sandwich 7y ago
  The idea of marginal utility (among other ideas of economic theory)
• monkeydust 7y ago
  2 minute rule. Only useful productivity tool I learn from reading dozens of books a decade ago. https://www.lifehack.org/articles/productivity/how-stop-procrastinating-and-stick-good-habits-using-the-2-minute-rule.html https://www.lifehack.org/articles/productivity/how-stop-proc...
  • jjice 7y ago
    This one is great. As a student, there are a lot of 2 minute tasks out there that are easy to push off, like adding something to a calendar or responding to an email. Mundane things that take very little time (generally speaking), but can cause much bigger problems down the road if not taken care of.
  • klohto 7y ago
    Midway through the article I was thinking it sounds exactly like Atomic Habits... Finished to read it’s from James Clear. I can recommend AH if you haven’t read it yet. It has quite more to say about this concept than just a short article.
• ilamont 7y ago
  "No one on his deathbed ever said, I wish I had spent more time at the office." - Paul Tsongas
  • avh02 7y ago
    I found this funny because the opposite thought also exists by Henry Royce (of Rolls-Royce), lifted straight from wikiquotes: >I have only one regret … that I have not worked harder. >Deathbed assertion, as quoted in Outlook Business, Vol. 3, No. 4 (23 February 2008)
• abetusk 7y ago
  "Premature optimization is the root of all evil" More and more, I'm realizing this applies more broadly than just for code. Abstraction is a form of optimization and shouldn't be done before the space has been properly explored to know what abstractions should be built. Standardization is a form of optimization and shouldn't be proposed until there's a body of evidence to support what's being standardized. Failure to validate a product before building it? Premature optimization. Build infrastructure without understanding the use case? Premature optimization. Build tools before using them for your end product/project? Premature optimization. This advice comes in different forms: "Progress over perfection", "Iteration quickly", "Move fast and break things", "Don't let perfection be the enemy of good enough", etc. but I find the umbrella statement of not prematurely optimizing to encompass them all.
  • movedx 7y ago
    > Build infrastructure without understanding the use case? Premature optimization. Hence my issues with micro services and Kubernetes/containerisation (by default.) I've always hated the fact people simply jump onto these technologies and methodologies as if they're automatically the right solution because everyone is talking about them. What they don't understand is that they're optimisations. You build a monolith and put it on one machine to begin with. No load balancer. Just a single EC2 instance with snapshots. As the customer count grows and demand increasing you scale it out... Now you're on two EC2 instances and might want to consider using RDS. You have an ALB and you're using ACM to offload TLS certificate management. More customers come along and the monolith begins to slow down, so you optimise the application this time... Now you have the most successful/popular parts of your application split out into separate components but still using the same database. You're still just running Docker on a few EC2 instances though. You don't need orchestration yet. But now your customers start demanding more features and changes on a more frequent basis. Also your customer count is rising more and more. You're now ready to scale out and re-architect things again... Now you've got 80-85% of your monolith split out into separate components, in Docker images, and you're using Kubernetes to orchestrate the whole thing because you need to iterate and deploy parts of the software on a near daily basis. Taking it slow and keeping things simple in the beginning allows you to focus (from a systems perspective) on stability and security, which are much easier when you have a monolith and two EC2 instances. As you need to iterate faster and more often you increase the complexity of the network to meet the needs of the development team. It becomes much harder to secure and manage, but the trade off is worth it. That's how you optimise your infrastructure over time. The only situation in which I would contradict my self on this point is if you're developing a product that you know will need micro services and K8s to begin with AND everyone on the team has extensive experience implementing an application in that manner.
• purerandomness 7y ago
  The idea that your mind is not you. That "thinking", as a process, is just a tool of your body, just like eyesight, for example. Listening to meditation and mindfulness practitioners like Jon Kobat-Zinn and Eckhart Tolle, I found it absolutely groundbreaking, for myself, to realize that the mind is an instrument that needs training and tuning, and sometimes can lead you astray, and can't be trusted unconditionally. Disassociating from my mind and understanding that my thinking is not my being has helped me in innumerable ways.
  • avmich 7y ago
    Do you think your premise is arguable? If yes, is it defendable?
  • wazoox 7y ago
    Related : you are more what you do than what you think. What you think mostly comes from what you do, and that determines who you are; act more, think less. Do things, don't overthink it.
    • TheSpiceIsLife 7y ago
      This reminded me of Revealed Preference Theory[1], which is about observing consumer choices, but the idea is broadly summed up as "It is not what you say, it is what you do that reveals what you want." or who you are. 1. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Revealed_preference https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Revealed_preference
      • deleted 7y ago
        [deleted]
  • TACIXAT 7y ago
    The other more Daoist end of this spectrum is that your mind and body are you. Through the power of will you control both of these. As a long time meditator the "I am not my body, I am not my mind" mantra has always bothered me. I am both of those and will shape both of those in my image. Dissociative practices will not bring me closer to my goals. The comparison to eyesight is strange too. If your eyesight is poor you can not really train it to be better. Through regular meditation practice, and practice in other areas (self-discipline) you can absolute shape your mind and change your thought patterns.
• ncfausti 7y ago
  The Growth Mindset. To briefly sum up the findings: Individuals who believe their talents can be developed (through hard work, good strategies, and input from others) have a growth mindset. They tend to achieve more than those with a more fixed mindset (those who believe their talents are innate gifts). This is because they worry less about looking smart and they put more energy into learning. Along with this goes embracing "feeling dumb" and pushing through. I don't understand something because I don't understand it...yet.
  • NewEntryHN 7y ago
    Hard work beats talent when talent doesn't work hard. But if talent starts working hard, it's game over.
    • adamsea 7y ago
      "Talent" is not always a there-or-not quality. IMHO it depends what we're talking about, and to what degree. Math genius, NBA player, obviously yeah you need some degree of inborn talent plus a crazy intense environment (for the NBA) in your youner years. But there's a huge range below "world elite" where "talent" is relevant, and it's not at all clear when it's a "you-have-it-or-you-don't" kind of thing. Same with hard work. Two people work hard; one person has a more efficient system, or a better teacher. It's not zeros and ones here imho.
    • quezzle 7y ago
      This hits the mark. Anyone can be moderately good at most things if they work and try hard. But to be truly exceptional it often requires built in talent.
    • edmundsauto 7y ago
      I think of it as more relevant to the inner game.
    • lutorm 7y ago
      But the only thing under your control is how hard you work. Do other people that are more capable than you exist in the world? Maybe. But how does that fact influence your actions?
• zkirill 7y ago
  Splitting (also called black-and-white thinking or all-or-nothing thinking) was debilitating well into my adolescence.
• endymi0n 7y ago
  Nobody tells this to people who are beginners, I wish someone told me. All of us who do creative work, we get into it because we have good taste. But there is this gap. For the first couple years you make stuff, it’s just not that good. It’s trying to be good, it has potential, but it’s not. But your taste, the thing that got you into the game, is still killer. And your taste is why your work disappoints you. A lot of people never get past this phase, they quit. Most people I know who do interesting, creative work went through years of this. We know our work doesn’t have this special thing that we want it to have. We all go through this. And if you are just starting out or you are still in this phase, you gotta know its normal and the most important thing you can do is do a lot of work. Put yourself on a deadline so that every week you will finish one story. It is only by going through a volume of work that you will close that gap, and your work will be as good as your ambitions. And I took longer to figure out how to do this than anyone I’ve ever met. It’s gonna take awhile. It’s normal to take awhile. You’ve just gotta fight your way through. — Ira Glass
  • teraflop 7y ago
    "Dude, sucking at something is the first step towards being sorta good at something." -- Jake the Dog
    • devin 7y ago
      When I was learning to play the game Go, someone told me that there's some old advice about "losing your first 100 games as quickly as possible". That's stuck with me. Another one is (and I don't even know if it's 100% true, but I don't much care) that a common housefly will change its path if it runs into a window more than twice. I strive to be better than a common house fly.
      • ISL 7y ago
        There is a photography adage that your first ten-thousand photographs are your worst. I'm not sure I agree -- sometimes you get lucky or circumstance is favorable -- but I am certain that my second ten-thousand photographs were better, on average, than my first.
• yizhang7210 7y ago
  “The desire for more positive experience is itself a negative experience. And, paradoxically, the acceptance of one’s negative experience is itself a positive experience. (p.9)” That whole book by Mark Manson: https://www.goodreads.com/work/quotes/48297245-the-subtle-art-of-not-giving-a-f-ck-a-counterintuitive-approach-to-livi https://www.goodreads.com/work/quotes/48297245-the-subtle-ar...
• floathub 7y ago
  Adaptation == Learning This was at the early stages of a lot of agent based modeling, genetic algorithms, etc., etc. And John Holland wrote a book called Adaptation in Natural and Artificial Systems[1]. The universality of the idea that "simple" adaptation is learning applied to a lot of different domains was crisp and very powerful. 1. (https://mitpress.mit.edu/books/adaptation-natural-and-artificial-systems https://mitpress.mit.edu/books/adaptation-natural-and-artifi...)
• Envec83 7y ago
  Intermittent fasting. These days I only have one meal a day
  • frosted-flakes 7y ago
    How has it affected you? Are you doing it for weight loss, or for other reasons? I had a month off work recently (unrelated to the pandemic), which I spent learning programming. During this time I never ate lunch, only a small breakfast and a normal supper. But now that I'm back at work and I'm on my feet all day, I have to eat, otherwise I get super hungry, lightheaded and generally lethargic. But I've discovered that I don't have to eat very much before I'm back to normal.
    • Envec83 7y ago
      I decided to do it to get healthier. There is overwhelming scientific evidence that fasting for long periods is good for you and that living by on 1200 cal per day increases your lifespan by 5 to 10 years. I lost a lot of weight, feel much better, and save money and time every day now.
    • pizzicato 7y ago
      Not the person you replied to, but you might find this comprehensive and plainly worded summary from the NIH interesting: https://www.nia.nih.gov/health/calorie-restriction-and-fasting-diets-what-do-we-know https://www.nia.nih.gov/health/calorie-restriction-and-fasti... An important caveat to bear in mind is that not all fasting diets entail calorie restriction (though many often do); it is calorie restriction that is linked to reduced inflammation and possible benefits to lifespan.
      • Envec83 7y ago
        Agreed. I should have been more precise stating that I adopt both fasting and calorie restriction.
  • hnick 7y ago
    Were you a breakfast eater before you started? The thought of food usually makes me queasy before around noon. So I naturally slipped into intermittent fasting before I knew what it was.
• Mindless2112 7y ago
  "You can use your laptop power brick as a foot warmer." Not quite so grand as some ideas here, but still... my feet are warm.
  • frosted-flakes 7y ago
    Along the same lines, my new (to me) Apple Thunderbolt display generates a ridiculous amount of heat, and the vents are on the bottom, right above my keyboard (I have the display on a VESA mount). Which is great, because my hands get cold easily and my office doesn't get very warm. It won't be very fun come summer though.
    • rukuu001 7y ago
      Similarly, my 2015 MBP huffs hot air out from between the keys on the keyboard when it's overheating. Horrible in summer (I got a heat rash, then an external keyboard) but great in winter. edit: formatting
  • Loomx 7y ago
    This idea might not have changed my life, but it changed my day :-) (Within seconds and for the better; what more could you ask for?)
• gfodor 7y ago
  What are the most important problems in your field? If you're not working on them, why not? From Hamming
• jjice 7y ago
  Ignorance can be bliss. Didn't change my life, but has definitely helped me in a lot of cases, especially recent times. Generally speaking, I can't affect what is currently happening in the news, despite how upsetting it might be, and it won't even affect me in a lot of cases. I try to consume little information for things I don't care about or will have a negative effect on me as a way to spare myself from anxiety. I've gotten a lot of shit for this in the past from people saying "you just don't stay informed?" or "it's your civic duty to know what's happening in the world!". If information is really important for me to know, I'll see it. If it doesn't end up on one of the few media sources I consume, it probably won't affect me. I got this idea from MMM [1], which was inspired by The Four Hour Work Week. [1] https://www.mrmoneymustache.com/2013/10/01/the-low-information-diet/ https://www.mrmoneymustache.com/2013/10/01/the-low-informati...
  • jjice 7y ago
    Edit: Just saw this link on here and this is great blog post about just this. http://www.aaronsw.com/weblog/hatethenews http://www.aaronsw.com/weblog/hatethenews
    • dullroar 7y ago
      And this: https://www.raptitude.com/2016/12/five-things-you-notice-when-you-quit-the-news/ https://www.raptitude.com/2016/12/five-things-you-notice-whe...
  • js2 7y ago
    Erik Hagerman is on a four year news blackout: https://www.nytimes.com/2018/03/10/style/the-man-who-knew-too-little.html https://www.nytimes.com/2018/03/10/style/the-man-who-knew-to...
    • klenwell 7y ago
      Article date: March 10, 2018 He swore that he would avoid learning about anything that happened to America after Nov. 8, 2016. ... Mr. Hagerman begins every day with a 30-minute drive to Athens, the closest city of note, to get a cup of coffee — a triple-shot latte with whole milk. He goes early, before most customers have settled into the oversize chairs to scroll through their phones. Life finds a way I guess.
• sizzzzlerz 7y ago
  Pursuit of knowledge should be a goal until your last breath. Never stop learning. Learn about new things that aren't necessarily related to your career. Use what you learn as a launching pad to explore even wider areas.
  • david927 7y ago
    “Live as if you were to die tomorrow. Learn as if you were to live forever.” ― Mahatma Gandhi
• brianliou91 7y ago
  Chase curiousity, don't chase money
• toohotatopic 7y ago
  When you are surrounded by assholes, chances are that it's you who is the asshole.
• alexpetralia 7y ago
  Probability distributions.
• mLuby 7y ago
  "Homo Economicus": that we all act out of rational self-interest, subject to mental and physical constraints (though few are conscious of the reasons they act as they do).
  • movedx 7y ago
    > we all act out of rational self-interest That's why the (global) economy can exist and function as it does: the desire for things.
• telesilla 7y ago
  "She who chases two rabbits catches none" - Confucius, apparently. Keeps me on task.
• deltaveedaddy 7y ago
  All these responses are pretty good, and there's some valuable lessons in there. I thought of a simpler idea than most others have. Honestly, coroutines. Coroutines challenged everything that I had learned about programming at the time with something different, this made my program more powerful than just one line running after the other. It was mind-blowing to me as a young man, and I remember the impact setting me towards a journey of learning.
• MattGrommes 7y ago
  When I was 12 I saw a kid on a local tv show who was autistic and had intentionally started cataloging facial expressions and body language because he couldn't do it automatically like most people. I remember thinking "You can do that!?" I was very similar to him and that tv show started me on the path of trying to figure out how to get past my mental limitations, which has significantly improved my life.
• fegu 7y ago
  "Keep your identity small." From a Paul Graham essay.
• cwkoss 7y ago
  All ideas/technology are living organisms: - they reproduce imperfectly through a two stage process. - First they 'infect' a human (human sees tech or is told idea), then they replicate when that human manifests or speaks that idea to others - Through this imperfect replication, ideas/tech evolve over time If we believe life is inherently valuable, we should consider our stewardship of the kingdom of ideas.
• denzil_correa 7y ago
  “One day Alice came to a fork in the road and saw a Cheshire cat in a tree. ‘Which road do I take?’ she asked. ‘Where do you want to go?’ was his response. ‘I don’t know,’ Alice answered. ‘Then,’ said the cat, ‘it doesn’t matter.” ― Lewis Carroll, Alice in Wonderland
  • jiggunjer 7y ago
    Another part I like: “'Then you should say what you mean,' the March Hare went on. 'I do,' Alice hastily replied; 'at least–at least I mean what I say'”
• darkerside 7y ago
  This might be super basic, but... assume positive intent. Your parent is not your enemy. Your teacher is not your enemy. Your boss is not your enemy. The other team at work is not your enemy. The corporation is not your enemy. The other political party is not your enemy. Or, more accurately, YOU are not THEIR enemy. At best, you're an NPC in their game. Many of them probably even want to help you, because you are another person in the world, and that feels good. I take back what I said about this being basic. The first steps (learning your parent, teacher, boss are on your side) is pretty basic. But applying this concept to more complex systems, like corporations and communities, can be pretty advanced. But at the end of the day, what it means is that, most of the time there isn't a conspiracy against you, there are simply incentives that you don't understand.
  • TACIXAT 7y ago
    I agree with this, it's much better to collaborate or collude when possible. The one exception is that corporations are absolutely my enemy.
  • rsp1984 7y ago
    Most of us (non-sociopaths) don't get to choose our enemies though. They choose us.
    • yissp 7y ago
      Honestly, I think the majority of us don't have any enemies at all. We might imagine we do, though.
      • deathgrips 7y ago
        Everyone has enemies but might not know it yet because their enemies don't have the power to act on their malevolent desires.
        • darkerside 7y ago
          This seems like paranoia
• aazaa 7y ago
  Favor interrogative-led questions over leading questions. A leading question attempts to get the listener to agree or disagree with a premise you feed to them. An interrogative-led question often begins with the words: who; where; what; when; why. Imagine the responses to these two questions: - "Did you like the movie?" (Leading) - "What did you think about the movie?" (Interrogative-led) How do each of these questions make you feel? How comfortable would you be saying something you think would displease the asker in each case. What kind of responses are possible/likely in each case? Of course, you can always be talking to someone who's not interested in talking. It's possible to answer either question with a word or two. So there's some assumption of willingness to participate. Even so, you can still sometimes use carefully-chosen interrogative-led questions to find reasons for the disinterest. Asking good interrogative-led questions is essential for above-average results in many pursuits: science; engineering; interviewing; and negotiation; to name a few. It can also be an important way to de-escalate tense situations. I've found it especially useful when talking to subject matter experts when trying to learn something about areas I know little. Here's an actionable way to apply the idea. The next time you find yourself asking a question that doesn't begin with {who, where, what, when, why}, stop yourself and rephrase it to begin with one of those words. What differences do you notice in how the conversation goes compared to similar conversations you've had in the past?
  • ghayes 7y ago
    I also find a similar technique useful when searching online. If you search "do Aliens exist?" or "does teflon cause cancer" you're guaranteed to find articles that match the bias of your question. Instead, search "extraterrestrial life" or "teflon health effects" or similar terms that are likely to match articles that both agree and disagree with the premise in question. You will end up significantly more informed from the results.
    • brian_cloutier 7y ago
      The most significant time that I made this mistake was during the attempted coup in Turkey. I was living close to Istiklal Street, and I was woken up by a very loud boom. I was pretty sure it was a sonic boom but wanted to make sure. The smart thing would have been to search for "Explosion Istiklal" or maybe even "Boom Istiklal". Instead, I searched for "Bomb Istiklal", and of course I found the 7 people who had leapt to conclusions. It took me a while to realize I also needed to search for other alternatives, that was a good lesson in the availability bias.
• yizhang7210 7y ago
  The Tyranny of Structurelessness. My shallow interpretation of it is essentially: wherever there's a group of people, there's politics. https://www.jofreeman.com/joreen/tyranny.htm https://www.jofreeman.com/joreen/tyranny.htm
• ronilan 7y ago
  The misguided idea that there is more than one sense of something being someone’s data, and that thus, some how, the public has eternal right to any comment I make in Hacker News. As expressed here by Paul Graham https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=6813226 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=6813226 and enforced with blind loyalty by Daniel Gackle who repeatedly refuses to delete my stuff instead spending his nights examining and debating the minute details of my words deciding which should or should not be deleted. If this misguided idea never existed, HN would be like all normal web services, the user would have a delete button and my life would be better. But, the idea and the power position it allows are here, and my life is changed for the worse.
• olalonde 7y ago
  That free market capitalism is a good system that works. I grew up in a family that pretty much believed the opposite so I probably never would have become an entrepreneur otherwise. I mainly credit Milton Friedman's "Free to Choose" series for persuading me, as well as some of Paul Graham's essays.
  • chrstphrhrt 7y ago
    What are your thoughts on the welfare state and its compatibility with your freedom? What do you think about homelessness?
    • olalonde 7y ago
      HN is probably not the best medium to discuss this but the "Free to Choose" series I mentioned touches on those issues and is available for free on YouTube. It's still quite relevant today despite its age.
• dullroar 7y ago
  One that knocked me upside the head once was, upon remarking "That's going to take a long time, like a year" to accomplish something, as if that made it not worth doing, being told, "That time is going to pass anyway." In other words, you can either start working towards it now, and be in a better place in a year, or let that length of time discourage you and then, when next year rolls around, still be discouraged. So just start.
• michaelrpeskin 7y ago
  Antifragility Or more specifically, just getting the term for it. I spent years trying to articulate in my own mind many of the ideas in Taleb's book, and once I had a word for it I could see it everywhere and actually start to change my life to take advantage of the chaos in the world. Basically: you can't control what happens to you, but you can set your life up so that the natural variability of the world can be used to your advantage. I can't do it justice in an HN comment, but it's one book and one idea that has changed my life.
  • qlk1123 7y ago
    I read this before Black Swarm, but Antifragility should have been read later. When I read Antifragility, the idea is cool and convincing, and it did change the way I understand things, especially the essential difference between organic things and engineering systems, but still I always felt like it is a puzzle missing some pieces. I am almost finishing my Black Swarm read now. It turns out that it is the missing pieces. I wonder what Taleb will say if someone can present software engineering practices to him.
  • choma 7y ago
    Never heard about this. I'm starting to read some things and it seems interesting. Thanks! And about this: > Or more specifically, just getting the term for it. I spent years trying to articulate in my own mind many of the ideas in Taleb's book, and once I had a word for it I could see it everywhere It is called Hypocognition, I recently read about it here [1] and here [2], and that blew my mind. [1]: https://aeon.co/ideas/hypocognition-is-a-censorship-tool-that-mutes-what-we-can-feel https://aeon.co/ideas/hypocognition-is-a-censorship-tool-tha... [2]: https://psyarxiv.com/29ryz https://psyarxiv.com/29ryz
  • jiggunjer 7y ago
    Sounds like stoicism?
    • DoingIsLearning 7y ago
      Taleb's book and premise doesn't just cover human behaviour and mindset in a Stoic philosophy although there are common points. It covers wider systems: Politics, Biology, Innovation, Economy, Life decisions, etc. I suppose the book's premise is more about finding out how a system can be setup such that it is either resistant to or improved by variability, uncertainty, and unknowns. A real world biology example would be the multi-purpose shape of the beak of a crow versus the specialized beak of humming bird. The humming bird is more succesful in specific environment but it is more fragile if this environment were to collapse. The crow maybe not be as optimized but is "Anti-fragile" to eco-system changes. I am simplifying but that is the central premise. The book goes into a lot more depth specially when re-visiting ancient history across different human eras and the 'lessons learned' from those periods.
• eranation 7y ago
  Bell's theorem, proving Einstein's intuition was wrong, and that quantum mechanics does have some sort of a spooky action at a distance, (this or that the moon is not necessarily there when you don't look at it). E.g. we have either no locality (cause and effect can't propagate faster than light), or no realism (things don't have a "realness" until measured, e.g. the wave function mode of particles), or superdeterminism (everything is predetermined, no free will, nothing is random, not even the random behavior of quantum particles that seem the most random thing in the world)
• vmception 7y ago
  Credit Default Swaps good times
• carapace 7y ago
  There have been many. (I collect ideas.) The single most important and far-reaching idea that changed my life is simple to state: All are One. Oddly enough it was Hofstadter's GEB[1] that clued me and not a religious or spiritual book. Somehow I directly intuited that the "strange loop" at the core of each being was none other than the Universal "strange loop" at the core of everything. "Thou art That." The thing that is both speaking and being said. You have a body but you are not your body; you have emotions but you are not your emotions; you have thoughts but you are not your thoughts; you have will but you are not your will. You are that which is awareness: Being-Consciousness-Bliss Sat-Chit-Ananda.[2] From this, all morality and ethics flow easily and firmly. One can walk down the street and watch the expressions on peoples faces change as they are observed from this context or viewpoint. Toughs melt into shy little boys and old ladies smile. On the subject of bliss: it's not an emotion. It's more like gravity or electricity, fundamental and physical. (Just something I wanted to record.) [1] "Gödel, Escher, Bach: an Eternal Golden Braid" https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gödel,_Escher,_Bach https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gödel,_Escher,_Bach [2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Satcitananda https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Satcitananda
• avmich 7y ago
  The rocket science is not a rocket science. Meaning that we sometimes habitually consider something hard because it used to be hard, or it became known to be hard. But with time passing, sometimes things like that change. The literal rocket science is a prime example - we reached orbit in 1957 using technology which is very modest by today's standards. It's still hard to launch a satellite - but it's so, so much easier. Knowing that, SpaceX approach suddenly becomes practically the most logical.
• Sohcahtoa82 7y ago
  Don't sweat the small stuff. And it's almost all small stuff. If you're finding yourself stressed out about something, ask yourself...will it have a significant impact on your life within the next month? Will you even remember it in a year? If you can truly adopt this mentality, it cures road rage. Okay, so some asshole cut you off in traffic. Why lose your mind over it? It won't even have an impact on your day, let alone a month. Even something more significant like a minor car collision. Yeah, you might be out your car for a few days while it gets repaired, but once it's resolved, life returns to normal. I'm lucky that even this COVID-19 crisis hasn't significantly affected my life. The only difference is that I'm working from home and cooking more rather than eating out all the time. A vacation and two conventions have been cancelled, but life goes on.
  • groby_b 7y ago
    Life always goes on. Until you're dead. But then you won't care. (Flippant advice given to me a long time ago, but with a lot of truth buried in it) It's just important to remember that most of us care how life goes on. And so "the small stuff" suddenly spirals into big stuff, because you didn't pay attention. So, be careful to label things "small stuff" unless you can't influence them. You can't fix idiotic driving, so the idiot driver? Small stuff. The fact that every driver on the road is potentially an idiot, or, worse, actively out to get you? A really important reminder. Focus on what you can control, dismiss the rest.
  • frankus 7y ago
    I've started keeping an Anxieties Journal. When something is worrying me, I add it to a checklist that I review every so often (checking off things that retrospect are NBD). Adding it tends to get it off my mind, and then periodically reviewing things I'm no longer anxious about tends to put in perspective what's currently on my mind.
  • NaOH 7y ago
    > Don't sweat the small stuff. And it's almost all small stuff. The comparable idea I repeat to myself: "There are problems and there are inconveniences. Recognize the difference."
  • 7y ago
• pacomerh 7y ago
  "No One Knows What They're Doing" This gave me more power to make stronger decisions and feel on the same plane as everyone else. I used to think there where people that had everything figured out
• 0xFFC 7y ago
  Courage Alexander Solzhenitsyn
• arminiusreturns 7y ago
  If information equals knowledge, and knowledge equals power, then secret information is secret knowledge and hence secret power. (of course if correct and applied correctly). One I learned at a young age is that you can learn to absorb the good traits of people around you while avoiding picking up bad traits (mostly around the idea that just because you don't like what a person does in area Y, doesn't mean they can't be good teachers/mentors etc in other areas). Rejection for single issues is a major problem in todays society I think.
• lootsauce 7y ago
  My opinions are not mine and they are holding me back. Give multiple and opposing views equal respect and disdain at the same time. Treating a thought as your own, as an opinion "you hold" greatly holds you back from a great deal of valuable perspective. Of course you surely hold some world-view and gauge things from that position but try to cultivate more of these positions as if you were someone else. Don't get your sense of self so wrapped up in all the thoughts and ideas that flit about in your brain. You will surely be a different person in 1, 5, 10, 20 years and may well have a completely different perspective then. There is very little original thought, mostly there is just repetition and re-contextualization of the same old stuff. That is not a bad thing but you should really divest yourself from being emotionally wrapped up in opinions (yours or others) and treat them as the conclusions of research papers with small sample sizes. Now when you converse with someone, stop thinking about "your" response, and just listen, really listen to what they are saying and try to really understand where they are coming from so you can integrate that into your thinking.
  • pedalpete 7y ago
    I think you may mean "My opinions are not me", or "I am not my opinions" gives you the space to separate your identity from your thoughts, giving you the freedom to change.
    • MichailP 7y ago
      I heard similar phrasing used by one psychotherapist that I admire, "I am different from my wishes" and "I am different from my (past) behavior". He once said jokingly that if someone realizes that, he can give them a "60 year warranty on their mental health". What I also find interesting is that this idea is rather old, it can be found in Christianity, for example, where "devil is tempting you", that is thoughts and wishes you have might not be your own (but from some demon tempting you). It may sound a bit silly in modern times, but it boils down to the same idea.
    • kortilla 7y ago
      No, that’s something very different. The point GP is trying to make is that most opinions people hold on things are not actually their own formed conclusions, they are just regurgitations from authorities they trust. This happens excessively in politics. Suddenly a huge chunk of a political faction will have the same “opinion” on a complex topic they have no day-to-day interaction with or previous educational coverage. When you try to dig deeper on these topics people hold such fervent “opinions” on, it turns out that it’s just a restatement of what they heard from a friend/talking head.
• cecilpl2 7y ago
  Always, always, stop people to ask them questions. Whenever they do something you are surprised by or say something you don't understand, ask them to explain. I never fail to get a positive response. Sometimes you feel silly if it was a simple thing, but you get used to that easily, and now you know that thing for the rest of your life.
• pagade 7y ago
  You don't HAVE to finish reading a book.
• GistNoesis 7y ago
  Here is a smart one : Being wise is better than being smart.
• Dowwie 7y ago
  Effectuation: https://innovationenglish.sites.ku.dk/model/sarasvathy-effectuation/ https://innovationenglish.sites.ku.dk/model/sarasvathy-effec... Entrepreneurship is a process. Effectuation helps to explain how opportunities are not just discovered but made.
• acrophiliac 7y ago
  You don't have to believe your thoughts.
• na85 7y ago
  Money really does buy happiness. To a point, anyways. Vacations, homes in safe neighborhoods, the best schools for your kids, drugs, hookers, technology gadgets, early retirement, just about anything is more accessible if you are wealthy. The day I realized this was a disappointing day.
  • bloodorange 7y ago
    Having the things you mentioned (or easy access to them) only frees you up to see if you are happy and to figure out what will make you happy if you aren't. They don't, by themselves, make you happy.
    • na85 7y ago
      Disagree. If I couldn't afford to live in a safe neighborhood and was always worried about my kid getting shot on the way home from school I would be miserable and stressed out. Moving to an area with a lower violent crime rate would objectively make me happier. If I was wealthy enough I could simply not work, and spend my days hanging out with my daughter and spouse. That would objectively make me happier.
• reubenswartz 7y ago
  We don't get a practice life. There's no "play again." Make the most of it.
• imakwana 7y ago
  Stumbling upon "Latticework of Mental Models" concept of Charlie Munger [1] really helped me over the years to develop mental clarity, ignore noise and focus on fundamentals in many aspects of life. [1] https://fs.blog/intellectual-giants/charlie-munger/ https://fs.blog/intellectual-giants/charlie-munger/
• kladskull666 7y ago
  Toilet paper.
• TeaVMFan 7y ago
  "Write Once, Run Anywhere" * The concept is powerful, and at the time Java popularized it, Java was the only practical system where it worked. C, C++ and scripting at the time were heavily environment dependent, with little hope of non-trivial code running unmodified elsewhere. * The effort Sun put behind it (compatibility testing, enforcement, massive testing suite using a wide range of hardware and operating systems) made it actually work. * It continues today in frameworks like TeaVM (http://teavm.org http://teavm.org) that let Java and other JVM languages target the browser.
• searchableguy 7y ago
  Selfishness is a strong motivator and one that remains consistently in your life. You will change your country, city, neighbours, partner, community, and company once you are no longer satisfied with them. The motivation to improve those is temporary. The motivation to improve your life and you remains till the day you die. The want to live healthier, happier, and better. The distinction is important because motivation resulting from my selfishness is responsible for things I do for others. That means, I am only improving myself by bettering the environment I live in and everything that exists in it but my end goal still remains a better me.
• medell 7y ago
  Everything is a remix
• lutorm 7y ago
  Stoicism.
• lutorm 7y ago
  That every dollar you spend directly translates into pushing your financial independence further into the future. I hadn't really reflected on becoming financially independent as a real possibility, but now I'm mentally bookkeeping spending against being locked into needing to work longer. The real revelation was when I realized that this "save 20% of your income for retirement" advice that's thrown around is totally backwards. Your income is not the yardstick, your spending is. Rather than scaling your spending to your income, spend what you need and save the rest. If you have a tech salary, that likely means you'll be financially independent much, much, earlier than traditional retirement age.
  • throwaway7281 7y ago
    I lived like a student when I was a student and did not change much of my lifestyle and could not be happier. I usually save 2/3 of my salary and do not miss anything. My runway today is about 15 years.
• formercoder 7y ago
  No one is out there to help me (other than family). Everyone is trying to advance their own interests and wealth. Once I learned that this was true above all else, I started pushing my own life forward as opposed to waiting to be pushed.
• throwaway7281 7y ago
  As a German, the idea that mass murder and high tech are different sides of the same coin has shaped my world view forever (after reading Dialectic of Enlightenment and On the Critique of Instrumental Reason). Horkheimer red-pilled me on our western societies and I'm grateful for it.
  • el_dev_hell 7y ago
    I mean this sincerely: WTF does that mean? Mass murder is the opposite to technology?
    • throwaway7281 7y ago
      Germans learn about the history of the Third Reich in detail and I always asked myself: how could this happen? Smart, hard-working, intelligent, compassionate, literate people start to plan industrial murder of millions of people on the basis of what exactly? Now, here's the thing. Progress is not that shiny guiding light. It is an extreme force, especially a force to control things, especially nature. The Third Reich planned mass murder, as it were a railroad track or lunar landing - the form was exactly the same and they did not understood: that this similarity in form revealed and forever merged the idea of progress to the most inhumane behavior and destruction. If that does not make sense, I encourage you to just read a bit about the concentration camps or the Third Reich in general. Good timing, too - we have 75th anniversary of V-E Day coming up.
      • tim333 7y ago
        Bad though that was, massacres and genocides go back millenia and went on without much tech involved. eg https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Genocides_in_history#Neanderthals https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Genocides_in_history#Neanderth..., Pinker's stuff, the book Demonic Males on how chimps do it
    • hnick 7y ago
      Two sides of the same coin generally means complementary items that may seem unrelated, not opposites. An English teacher I had banged on about theme and style being two sides of the same coin when writing. The example here would be that mass murder is not really as effective without technology, whereas technology enables us to flip to mass murder quickly even if we previously didn't consider it. They are complements.
• alfiedotwtf 7y ago
  Clean your desk before you do work
• throwaway_pdp09 7y ago
  Decency, summarised. The tale of the man who wanted to know what the torah meant in TL;DR form. Various rabbis chased him off for asking until he came to rabbi Hillel who told him "That which is repugnant to you do not to to others. That is the whole of the torah". There are many forms of that[0] but for some reason this one stayed with me strongest despite being an atheist. [0] At the other end of the scale but just as fine: "Be excellent to each other!"
• simonebrunozzi 7y ago
  Exponential growth. Learned properly when I was maybe 7 or 8 years old. I was learning about the game of chess, and the story describes that the reward for the inventor was one seed of grain on the first square, double that on the second, double that on the third... and so on.
• ignoramous 7y ago
  I am going to cheat a bit and give you three things that have had a lasting impact on me: First is this quote from Lincoln, "I hate that man. I must get to know him better". This has helped me shed biases and prejudices that stop me from liking someone on the first few interactions. Instead of shunning them, I seek to know them better, in the hope that I see past the veil and reach out to the actual human on the other side. This ties in nicely with Stephen Covey's quote, "We judge ourselves by our intentions and others by their behaviour." Second thing that has stuck with me is this zen-koan about a disciple having a tough time forgiving their master for a sin [0]. The koan ends with the thought that the disciple who's holding on to resentment, disapproval, outrage, disappointment, grudge is really the one who's in distress and enduring the punishment and not the master. It is really powerful, at least to me. If I liberally tie it to the 'broken windows theory' [1], it explains to me why such resentments over time aren't simply good for me, personally, despite how few the broken windows may be, they need to be fixed. And the third is producer v consumer mindset [2]. Do not consume excessively, refrain from stifling the production line with tendency to consume all day, every day. [0] https://medium.com/@soninilucas/two-monks-and-a-woman-zen-story-c15294c394c1 https://medium.com/@soninilucas/two-monks-and-a-woman-zen-st... [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Broken_windows_theory https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Broken_windows_theory [2] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=3555237 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=3555237
  • admiral33 7y ago
    Thank you for that Lincoln quote. I went to a very diverse University (Upstream, Red Team) and one of the hunches I've walked away with is that at the core of prejudice is a missing friend on the other side.
    • TheSpiceIsLife 7y ago
      > Upstream, Red Team Forgive my ignorance, what does this mean in this context?
      • quchen 7y ago
        It's the battle chant of Rutgers University :-)
• krisroadruck 7y ago
  Around 10 years ago I figured out the vast majority of mid and upper level management have no frickin clue how to do the thing they're tasked with doing, no capacity or desire to teach themselves, and will gladly fork over $250/hr or more to work with a consultant or agency who will help their immediate supervisor never catch on to that fact. Learning this took me from an overly-qualified low earning tech and marketing generalist employee to a very high level earner doing agency and solo consulting work pretty much overnight. Wish I had figured this out a few years earlier than I had but just happy I figured it out at all.
• Waterluvian 7y ago
  A decade of success against steep odds later, I ran into the high school teacher who I idolized and who helped me actually achieve something. Most teachers tolerated me or insulated the rest of the classroom from me. But he put in the effort to get me engaged with something that got me to sit down and try. I was excited to show him what his work had helped me accomplish. He had two things to share with me: 1. He doesnt remember me. 2. That he felt I was smarter than him, hearing what I was working on. It hit really hard. And when I recovered it made me realise that all relationships are ephemeral if you aren't there to foster and cherish them. There's also a lesson in there I'm trying to parse. About how I always saw him as this brilliant teacher. But he's just a guy.
  • toufka 7y ago
    But it's also much more than that - he's not just a guy, he's one of just a few guys that put in the effort to do their job well and honestly. And that positive daily effort had profound effects on the lives of people he cared about. (And conversely, those that did not put in that effort did not create profound and positive wakes). And that idea can be paid forward. There are plenty of times one doesn't get to go back and thank their mentors and those that inspired them. But that practiced and daily support of others really can lead to outsized positive effects - that we might not ever hear about. And if you step forward with the idea - the more people that work to support others in their daily routine, even without obvious immediate benefit, the more those wakes can become entire waves that lift everyone upwards.
    • Waterluvian 7y ago
      It's so true. I started mentoring a robotics team and I doubt I'll remember most of the kids. But wow it's so soul filling to watch them learn.
    • iamgopal 7y ago
      Paying forward is such a powerful concept. I know where I am being fairly successful is due to tons of people to whom I may not pay back, but doing the similar helpful gesture to other people is so empowering. Hopefully the link never breaks.
• withinboredom 7y ago
  I don’t know if I read this somewhere or was told it: “you can do whatever you want, as long as you accept the consequences and can pay the price.” I find the hardest part discovering what to do, but even that has a price and consequences ;D
• rrival 7y ago
  - Time spent working on myself (exercise, personal development) seems to improve my business - Adding value for others is the best way I've found to achieve greater success - (and this is very recent) consider price as a measure of value, like a liter is a measure of volume
• meiraleal 7y ago
  - I don't need to eat every day
• canada_dry 7y ago
  Mindfulness. Lately I've been reading/listening to Eckhart Tolle. I'm a recently retired (IT Exec) and wish I'd have adopted some of these ideals earlier in life e.g. stop fretting over the future and dwelling on the past. Stay firmly routed in the moment and savour it.
• andrey_utkin 7y ago
  The most important thing to know about your tasks is WHY you need to do them. Connecting my TODO list items all the way to Maslow's categories of needs has resolved all of my task motivation, categorization and prioritization struggles. Corollary, which you hear sometimes in investors' blog posts: not all problems are worth the effort, only valuable problems are.
• kunle 7y ago
  Engage your core when doing any physical activity. Might be the difference between success and injury.
• Rury 7y ago
  It is impossible to have a thought that does not stem from another thought or your senses (seeing, hearing etc.) To demonstrate: it is impossible to imagine a color that is not some combination of colors you've already seen before. Trace any idea to their origin, and you'll realize all ideas are founded upon by what you have already seen, heard etc. New ideas can only come from discovery via the senses, or are thus simply a new combination of old ideas... Your reality is limited by what you can sense and remember. "The limits of my language mean the limits of my world" - Ludwig Wittgenstein
• TwelveNights 7y ago
  We may harm ourselves or others around us for nothing but the feeling of control in our lives. I remember reading somewhere that eating disorders were an example of simultaneously losing and gaining control and, though I haven't had an eating disorder before, I could see how the same logic could apply to other actions.
  • chadcmulligan 7y ago
    I have come to the conclusion that pretty well everything negative in human society is about control - religion, business, management, politics, even, as you say, food. It's all about some one doing something that makes me uncomfortable, so I have to control it, once you realise this it's very freeing.
• andrewstuart 7y ago
  Get angry, but first decide if it matters.
• f0ok 7y ago
  "Are the people I'm following going where I wanna go?" Earl Nightingale
• mncharity 7y ago
  The idea that science education is profoundly and pervasively dysfunctional. It was a slowly accumulating realization. There was Feynman's critique of rote memorization in Brazil[1], but ok, Brasil isn't CaTech. And Mexico high-school graduates having TIMSS scores similar to US high-school dropouts, but oh well, that's Mexico. And news media have a trope, like "Harvard MBA students don't know what causes Earth seasons", but that's merely misunderstanding the nature of expertise -- if someone last studied a topic in middle school, then a middle-school-like understanding shouldn't come as a surprise. Similarly for grad and undergrad, professors and grad school. MIT and Harvard graduates being unable to light a bulb with a battery and wire[2], that seemed more bizarre. But by the time I saw Eric Mazur's (Harvard, intro physics) "it became clear that in spite of high evaluations, and in spite of good performance, my students were not really learning very much"[3], it didn't come as a surprise. Though it could still felt odd, for a time. Talking with first-tier medical school graduate students, with no clue how big blood cells are, beyond "really really small". Asking first-tier astronomy graduate students, "a five-year old asks you 'I'm told the Sun is a big hot ball [...] what color is the ball?'"... and of the very few who didn't get it wrong, half-ish learned it as "common misconceptions in astronomy education", rather from their own, atypically extensive and successful education. A follow-up of "what color is sunlight?" repeatedly produces these cute, not "aha!", but "uh oh" moments... the "that doesn't make sense, does it..." of two conflicting bits of unintegrated knowledge colliding for the first time. I no longer find it even slightly odd when a physical sciences gradate student tells me the Sun doesn't have a color, or is rainbow color. A person's understanding very rapidly becomes ramshackle as they move beyond their active research focus. And education content is pervasively authored beyond that. Far far beyond. Chemistry education research describes chemistry education content using adjectives like "incoherent". To be fair, rote education in Brasil and elsewhere achieves... something, some societal value. And ours does too, and more of it. But now when I occasionally encounter someone who thinks of science education as working... it's become an exercise of empathy and imagination to picture how that might be a plausible description of the world. [1] From "Surely You're Joking[...]" "In regard to education in Brazil, I had a very interesting experience." https://v.cx/2010/04/feynman-brazil-education https://v.cx/2010/04/feynman-brazil-education [2] "Minds of Our Own" clip https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ng5qzH39nyg https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ng5qzH39nyg full 1997 https://www.learner.org/series/minds-of-our-own/1-can-we-believe-our-eyes/ https://www.learner.org/series/minds-of-our-own/1-can-we-bel... [3] Eric Mazur's "Confessions[...]" https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WwslBPj8GgI&t=920 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WwslBPj8GgI&t=920
• lisper 7y ago
  1. Lisp code is not text. An S-expression is distinct from the serialization of that S-expression into text. This is the unique feature that distinguishes Lisp from all other programming languages. 2. Measurement and entanglement are the same physical phenomenon. 3. Most people's lives suck. This is a big reason they sometimes act like dicks.
• nazgulnarsil 7y ago
  When you have finished doing konmarie externally, begin doing it internally.
• WalterBright 7y ago
  I am responsible for what happens to me. (I.e. I am not a victim.) Accepting responsibility is very empowering, as it implies I can do something about it. Being a victim is dis-empowering, as it means you are helpless. (People who read my posts will recognize this as a consistent theme. Being a victim is a choice. I choose not to be.)
  • m463 7y ago
    in a similar vein, "Be the change that you wish to see in the world." - Mahatma Gandhi. (or in your case, "D the change...")
  • losvedir 7y ago
    See also: Locus of Control[0]. [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Locus_of_control https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Locus_of_control
  • jiggunjer 7y ago
    My version: Our state in life is for a large part a consequence of our choices, including times we chose non-action. Each choice has a risk vs reward, and the dice won't always be in your favor.
  • JackFr 7y ago
    What’s funny is that I find this much easier to do in the large than in the small. A layoff at work or a seriously ill child engendered a stoic “This is the way the world is, and you deal with it rather than cursing the unfairness or wishing it was some other way”. On the other hand, when my bread gets stuck in the toaster? Rage at the the universe and despair for my miserable and forlorn situation.
    • WalterBright 7y ago
      Oh, everyone is allowed a rage at the universe moment :-)
• rsecora 7y ago
  The concept of "Unknown Unknowns" changed my approach to life for better. I was one of those laughing to the famous speech [1] the very first time I heard it. After a few days, I begin to grasp the epistemological truth in it, making me humbler. Today in every system I work on, I know there will be risks unexpected and possible, and the system shall be resilient and with physical negative feedback in case control loop fails. Same in private life, I do not expect luck and I try to minimize kurtosis in all known scenarios (hoping it somehow covers the unknown unknows). [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/There_are_known_knowns https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/There_are_known_knowns
  • DapperZoom 7y ago
    Relatedly, I was struck by philosopher Bernard Longergan's concept of one's horizon. He distinguished three classes of questions: - The questions one can raise and answer satisfactorialy - The questions one can raise, but can not yet answer - The questions one is not even able to raise One's intellectual horizon sits between the second and third categories. You can only think of humanity's horizon in this same sense.
    • rsecora 7y ago
      Your comment is food for the brain. :)
  • Mizza 7y ago
    I've written about this before, but the thing that always gets overlooked about this quote is the "unknown-known" corner of the truth table: the things we take for granted, but do not ever think about. These are what we _really_ need to worry about. In the case of Rumsfeld, it was the prisoner abuse, the civilian casualties, the torture, the blowback, ISIS.. In our lives this can be structural inequalities, the way power manifests in systems, Conways's law, all that. The big one, of course, is the environment. We're all fully aware that we're in the middle of a complete ecological collapse, and that without drastic action and change in both our habits and the geopolitical world order, our grandchildren will inherit a nearly uninhabitable Earth. Yet we all continue on as if nothing is wrong..
• cagenut 7y ago
  Class consciousness. So so so so much hypocrisy and confusion over seemingly contradictory things people say and do have a remarkably tendency to suddenly make sense when you apply rudimentary class analysis. You don't even need to know what marxism or socialism are, much less agree with them, but if you haven't gotten the hang of basic class consciousness you're missing a key reality-rubric in life.
• l0c0b0x 7y ago
  Knowledge, by itself, isn't power. The sharing of knowledge is power.
• alexpotato 7y ago
  This line which, apparently, came from a famous con man: Interviewer: "Sir, how did you get these otherwise worldly, intelligent and sophisticated people to give you whatever you wanted?" Con Man: "You see, everyone has something that they desire above all else. If you can give them that thing, or appear to be able to give them that thing, they will give you whatever you want in return."
• kasey_junk 7y ago
  “The internet is going to be a big deal”
• dmitshur 7y ago
  For me, the most life-changing idea I've been exposed to continues to be from Bret Victor's¹ 2012 talk titled "Inventing on Principle"². The idea is that in addition to the two well-known paths to live one's life, there is also a third, less well-known path. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bret_Victor https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bret_Victor [2] https://vimeo.com/36579366 https://vimeo.com/36579366
• arunbahl 7y ago
  Everything is temporary. This is a central tenet in a variety of approaches and philosophies, from religions (it's one of the Marks of Existence in Buddhism) to cognitive behavioral therapy — but few ideas have changed my thinking, resilience, self-control, and happiness as much as this one.
  • rantwasp 7y ago
    well said. in the end nothing lasts and yet impermanence is one of those things that always seem to catch us by surprise
  • nocman 7y ago
    > Everything is temporary. Therefore, at some point, some thing(s) will be permanent, because otherwise, the axiom "Everything is temporary" would be permanent. Oh crap. :-D
• mwfunk 7y ago
  One thing that’s been super meaningful for me is the notion that if you don’t put something into words, either in speech or in your head or on paper, you don’t know anything about it, even if it’s a feeling or a belief or an intuition deep within you that you’ve held for as long as you can remember. The act of simply putting a thought into words makes it immediately obvious to you if you really understand it or not, and if not, where your blind spots are. If the thing you’re concerned with is an unresolved problem or a question, simply articulating the problem or the question can make the solution or the answer obvious. Just going through the process of putting it into words, one way or another, and being sure you’ve settled on the most concise and accurate description of it you can muster, will often make so many things that were hazy obvious, and can reveal to you areas of haziness in your own thinking that you may not have been aware of. Rubber duck debugging is one result of this. Rubber duck debugging is based on the observation that by the time you’ve explained your bug to someone, often times you figure out your next steps before they even respond. Just articulating your problem in the form of a question asked to someone else will sometimes reveal the answer to you.
  • ignoramous 7y ago
    This works surprisingly well. I think to also pays to master a language for the same reason to be able to articulate thoughts precisely to self and to others. Tangential: https://fs.blog/2012/04/feynman-technique/ https://fs.blog/2012/04/feynman-technique/
  • m463 7y ago
    Well, it's been said the best way to learn something is to teach it to someone else. But you're right. Just making a presentation for nobody is a great way to learn something on many levels.
  • _0ffh 7y ago
    I once heard something along the lines of "to learn to express yourself properly is to learn to think". Sometimes our understanding of something is a muddle of unstructured thoughts and hunches. To express yourself properly you need to organize these. After you did that, things are often much clearer.
• advertising 7y ago
  I was raising money and met this zen style investor for lunch to talk about some issues we were having, basically complaining and blaming and things like that, he interrupted me and said - “Be careful the stories you tell yourself because they will eventually become true” It hit me that I really was telling these stories of how the company was or where the business was going in a negative light and things were simply becoming more and more negative because of me. So be careful!
• openfuture 7y ago
  Time is the absence of balance
• daniel-thompson 7y ago
  Actor-observer asymmetry. Briefly, it's the idea that when we observe others, we're more likely to attribute their behavior to the nature of their personality than to their circumstances or situation, and that we do the opposite when judging our own behavior. Example: You drive your car faster than the speed limit. You're probably doing it because you feel like you have a reasonable need (you're late for something, etc), not because you just inherently like to be a jerk and drive too fast everywhere. On the other hand, if you see someone else speeding, you're more likely to think they're doing it because they're just an unsafe asshole, and less likely to think they're doing it for a legitimate reason. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Actor%E2%80%93observer_asymmetry https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Actor%E2%80%93observer_asymmet...
  • vehementi 7y ago
    When I commit the fundamental attribution error it's just because I'm distracted, but when others do it's because they're lazy idiots
• indymike 7y ago
  There doesn't have to be a loser. Win-win is an option.
• pizzicato 7y ago
  Outside of work, to create at least as much as I consume. I'm trying to pick up writing as a hobby to shift my creation:consumption balance. Edit: Related to that, I've been writing brief notes on interesting articles I read for the past few years. This has two advantages: 1) It helps me to read critically, and 2) It forces me to be more intentional about the articles I read - one way to combat the deluge of information
• tootie 7y ago
  Kurt Vonnegut, Mother Night: "You are what you pretend to be" Nobody knows what you think or what you intend. Only what you do and what you say. On the flip side, you should judge people on their actions and not their hidden intentions.
• abnry 7y ago
  Focus on the theorem and its proof, not the name of the theorem. My background in mathematics and there is an unhealthy adulation of genius. Granted, praise of genius is warranted, but it becomes too much. One symptom of this is that almost every theorem is named for whoever discovered it. Gauss this or Euler that. Shannon this or Nyquist that. What can happen is you begin to think of mathematics in terms of making a mark and having something named after you, and not actually about the objective beautiful reality of the mathematics before you. The mathematics is greater than the discoverer--it certainly isn't owned by them! Or to put it another way: Focus on the joy of the task at hand, not on the hope of adulation from the task well finished. It is a good way to reduce anxiety.
  • hi41 7y ago
    Do you how to overcome the need for adulation. I for one constantly seek adulation. For the good of one's career, some say one has to constantly repeat their achievements. Evolutionarily we may do it because some will fall for it and support us thereby enhancing our chances of survival. But, I think I love adulation to the point of being mentally sick.
    • abnry 6y ago
      It is quite possible your career will suffer if you don't value adulation highly. It is a strong motivator to do well. It is sort of necessary to get adulation in order to get promoted. That said, the costs of valuing adulation are too high and I've observed an even pathological need to seek praise in myself. It wasn't overt praise seeking but it was buried in there. The way I fight my need for adulation is with my Christian faith. There is a higher purpose and higher goal than success in my life.
• boston_sre87 7y ago
  Memory is graph based, not a dictionary of key/value pairs. You learn and retain information more easily by making many connections to information.
• obamasbrother 7y ago
  >Nov. 8, 2016 this is funny, I did the same thing for the 8 years preceding my brother's elevation
• tasty_freeze 7y ago
  In junior high school, at the end of the brief morning announcements broadcast to all classrooms, the principal would end with some quote. One stuck with me, and was something like this: The character of a man is revealed by how he behaves when he knows he won't be caught.
• motohagiography 7y ago
  "Is."
• eointierney 7y ago
  Why?
• stevenj 7y ago
  Spend less time looking at a screen. Spend more time outside and/or around people I enjoy. (Note: I'm more extroverted than introverted.)
• mattlondon 7y ago
  Not really an idea, but I guess something of an epiphany: We were doing a basic physics class at school at maybe 12 or 13 years old. We were learning about Newton's laws of motion etc. One day we had a test and there was a question about why playgrounds often have rubber matting or tiles around the climbing frames or swings etc. Cue a load of waffly nonsense answers about "cushioning impact" or being "soft so it doesn't hurt" etc from everyone in the class. The teacher berated us: Force = mass X acceleration - reduce the acceleration and the force goes down too. A lightbulb went off in my head - suddenly science actually meant something in the real world rather than just being something your learnt at school. This was how the world worked. The fact that this moment still sticks out in my mind suggests that it was probably quite a formative moment for me and I guess changed my outlook on the world quite significantly. (... but then there was also a sort of philosophical existential thought about the "tyranny of equations" we end up living our lives by if we like it or not!)
  • GistNoesis 7y ago
    Yeah the "Physics applies to the real world" idea. I like its corollary. Mac-Gyvering your way through life. I remember getting strange looks when to light some candles for a birthday cake, I used paper and an induction hob. Using a siphon to remove the water from a washing machine. Bending small locks open. Pulleys and rope tricks. There are similar epiphanies in physics, when you realize those chemistry formulas, atoms and molecules are like real object just real small. That those chemistry rules, are just statistical mathematics calculation shortcuts for modelling what's happening to large quantities of small objects. Phases of matter : solid, liquid, gaz : you can transform any matter between those states. Water is not the only liquid. You can melt plenty of metals. You can vaporize away the matter you don't want. You can freeze liquids into solids by cooling them.
• graycat 7y ago
  The fast Fourier transform and related topics in stochastic processes.
  • charliemil4 6y ago
    I’ve read your comments and am floored with what I read - if you’re up for making an acquaintance who has 1/10th your expression but knows what you’re doing is real... shoot me an email in the bio.
• austincheney 7y ago
  For me its practical application of objectivity: Any person who touts the superiority of their proposed opinion is not somebody you should trust. Any given opinion is superior or not on its merits. That distinction is the difference between a subjective person and an objective person.
• bushido 7y ago
  The thing I dislike the most about other people is often something I do myself. So when dealing with any people-related issues, the first thing I do is reflect if it's something I do myself. If it is, then I try to determine if its something I like about myself; if I like it, I try not letting it bother me again; if I don't like it, I change it.
• aswanson 7y ago
  Math is the eternal truth. Any physical implementation of a solution to a problem relies on the manipulation of abstract symbols. Math is truth, the rest is details.
• vincentli2010 7y ago
  have a secret - peter thiel
• vincentli2010 7y ago
  bitcoin
• tomhoward 7y ago
  The power of the subconscious mind. Without actively seeking it, I happened to stumble on this idea about 8 years ago, at a time when I was struggling with some pretty big problems in my relationships, career and physical+mental health. Since then, I've been living "as-if" the biggest factors that influence my reactions, choices and outcomes are in my subconscious, and that by continually undertaking practices that identify and resolve subconscious fears, biases, resentments, attachments, etc, I can keep my life on a steady path of improvement. Over 8 years on, so far so good. It also helps me to be more understanding and patient with others, when I can remind myself that this applies in different ways to all of us, and that everyone is doing the best they can in the moment. Related: the idea of living "as-if" something is true, even if it isn't true yet, or it's unknown (but testable) whether it's true or not. I.e., building a business for market conditions or technologies that don't exist yet but are reasonably likely to within a reasonable timeframe, and/or that may be more likely to come to exist through your work. Or thinking/operating in a way that may not be consistent with existing laws/norms/established science, but in doing so you help to change said laws/norms or make new scientific discoveries. Obviously, considerable risk management is necessary with this approach.
  • hammock 7y ago
    What are these "practices that identify and resolve subconscious fears, biases, resentments, attachments, etc"?
    • tomhoward 7y ago
      Sincere thanks for your interest. I've learned not to get into the details here, because it can too easily trigger boring/repetitive arguments with cynics. But I'm happy to share my experiences directly via email, and also I'm now hosting a Discord group with other hacker types talking about this stuff. You're welcome to email me (address in profile) if you're interested to know more.
  • JackFr 7y ago
    Is that fake it til you make it?
• manytimesfail 7y ago
  Everything that happens to me is a consequence of decisions I have made based on decisions others have made based on decisions others have made... Everything is playing out how it should.
• harshdeep 7y ago
  Reading Joseph Albahari's Threading in C#. Must read for .Net Developer.
• ekianjo 7y ago
  This sentence from Fight Club has had a long lasting impact on me: "The things you own, end up owning you".
• fortran77 7y ago
  Rust's "borrow checker" https://doc.rust-lang.org/1.8.0/book/references-and-borrowing.html https://doc.rust-lang.org/1.8.0/book/references-and-borrowin...
• mortenjorck 7y ago
  I’m still only somewhat recently down this particular path, but it’s proven to be one of the more profound realizations I can remember: You can’t guilt yourself into doing things you want to accomplish. You’ll always resist and make excuses. The only way is to enjoy the act of doing them. Fighting procrastination, whether by guilt or rewards, is a losing game. Instead, cultivate an appreciation of the task you’re resisting, however complex or banal it may be. Learn to enjoy the micro-accomplishments of each moment. Instead of the dopamine hit of procrastination, train yourself on the dopamine trickle of sustained action. It’s not an all-at-once change, but for me, at least, it’s had a very concrete effect so far.
  • AlexCoventry 7y ago
    Yes, realizing this was a key breakthrough for me.
  • pashamur 7y ago
    Flow by Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi is a really good book to that effect. And has some practical tips on how to learn to enjoy doing things you might not otherwise.
• eldacila 7y ago
  if it's only one, then it is the idea that "the word creates objects", or that "creating a word, makes the object", and the power of language for example, you can take some time to study a language, until it becomes impossible for you to not understand it when you perceive it, it becomes a part of you, of both your cognitive self and your subconscious, and you can encapsulate all of that, saying that "you grok the language" you can also see this in a lot of places, instead of "the study of the properties of matter in relation to heat and temperature", you can say "thermodynamics", and you instantly convey a lot of meaning and this has "given me" some moments where "a lot of pieces fall into place", like understanding that a less general version of this, is the Abstraction taught at CS classes, where it is about computational systems, and hiding implementation details, rather than the more general idea of encapsulating the understanding complex ideas, in short sentences (or words) it's the title of an Essay I had to read in high school, when I read it, rather than the message it was supposed to convey, which is how language gave women a lesser standing in society, I got really interested in the title, in Spanish it's "La palabra crea objetos" there are also others, like how "you don't really have to do anything, other than deal with the consequences of your decision to do, or not do something", you don't have to eat, but if you don't, you have to deal with the consequences, it gave me a more concrete feeling that that our choices shape our lives and how everything is connected, in the way that when there was a terrorist attack in NY, thousands of miles away, in another country the price of fish and shrimp dramatically drops, in that the space station's parts were influenced by the Roman Empire, and in that war has driven a lot of the development of science and technology
• bobbysands88 7y ago
  The Bitcoin whitepaper. It's the American constitution of the internet.
• shaunxcode 7y ago
  Love is the law. Love under will.
• intopieces 7y ago
  If you're the smartest person in the room, you're in the wrong room. I am not one tenth as talented as the people I work with on a daily basis. That they give me the time of day I am grateful for. It's what keeps me coming back.
  • 3fe9a03ccd14ca5 7y ago
    I’m actually really relieved when the smartest person in the room (their words) leaves. We can have fun, drink beer, and share war stories without feeling judged by peers who haven’t spent enough time in self reflection.
    • nocman 7y ago
      That really sucks -- assuming that person really is the smartest person in the room. You said "their words", which kind of makes me think you don't agree, but I'm not sure. But for the sake of discussion, let's assume they actually are the smartest person in the room. Unfortunately having that disctinction sometimes means the same person is also the most arrogant person in the room. And that's very unfortunate. I have had the good fortune to be employed at multiple companies where I worked with some very smart people. I almost all of those cases, the smart people I worked with were easy to talk to, generous with their time, and happy to help me pick up new things, and think about things I might not have otherwise. If you're very smart, please be one of those kind of people. You'll be happier, you can help make others around you better, and the world will be a better place because of it. Like in the rest of life, what matters most is what you do with what you've got.
• grayed-down 7y ago
  The covid lockdown.
• srl 7y ago
  I don't have a name for this. A person can make a statement "X", and X can be true, but the person's act of claiming "X" was in no sense caused by "X" being true. In my head I call this "causal disconnection" or similar phrases, but it's not a good name. The underlying idea here is that, when you are told "X", it's useful to think about the causal chain that resulted in you being told "X". Is the truth of X a powerful force in that chain? Is it one of many competing forces? Or is it, perhaps, totally irrelevant? In some sense this is a Bayesian viewpoint on the question "suppose somebody makes a claim -- how much should you update your probability that that claim is true?" Politics obviously abounds with this, but a good non-political example is pop-sci rumors. For instance, I often hear the claim that cicadas sleep for prime-numbered years because that minimizes the probability of overlapping/conflicting/getting-caught-by other species (explanations vary). Now, without making much effort to evaluate the truth of this statement, think about what causes people to make this claim. Well, clearly, it sounds very good, so it'll spread quickly (as a meme). Now, what if the claim was false -- how much would that fact impede its spread? Probably not so much. (Somewhat remarkably, this suggests a concrete reason to be wary of oft-repeated claims. The fact that a claim is often repeated suggests that it spreads quickly. The reason you're hearing the claim, then, may be because it spreads quickly, and not so much because it's true.) It's really important that the truth or falsehood of the claim has nothing to do with the question of the nature of the causal chain underlying the claim. A related idea is that one must have great respect for -- and fear of -- social processes. I'm far from fully appreciating the consequences of this. This is also related to another comment in this thread about evolutionary processes, because those are often the causal forces behind people making claims.
• humaniania 7y ago
  This is Water https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8CrOL-ydFMI https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8CrOL-ydFMI
• w3mmpp 7y ago
  The idea of impermanence in Buddhism that completely changed the way I've been seeing the world and myself.
• flipcoder 7y ago
  "Be proactive, not reactive." and "Effectiveness is more important than intelligence."
• brightball 7y ago
  “The test of first rate intelligence is the ability to hold two opposing ideas in the mind at the same time and still retain the ability to function.” - Dwight Whitney Morrow I heard that quote sometime around age 18 and it has always stuck with me to a degree that impacts how I view everything. It’s made a habit of trying to understand both sides of hard topics...which often leads to frustration with people who only want to understand one.
  • jerry1979 7y ago
    I have heard this quote credited to tons of different people. I still like it.
• daxfohl 7y ago
  The recognition that the greatest success of modern marketing is having subconsciously convinced us that things are harder than they are, and there's a right way to do things. I can't run a server without AWS. I can't run an email server without O365. I can't clean a toilet without toxic blue stuff. Lots of things are actually pretty easy and cheap, and whatever makes you happy is the right way to do it.
  • kevmo314 7y ago
    I recently started a vanilla js project and I've gotta say I'm pretty happy with it. Granted, it's sitting on top of an Electron + Webpack stack so I don't have to worry about compatibility, but hey, small victories, and both of those were to solve explicit problems I ran into in the project, not just a choice because I was comfortable with them.
• pecantree 7y ago
  Things happen because they can. Like a vacuum that gets filled, just because it can be filled. (The thought came at a time of mental rut, and thinking that I cannot contribute further to the idea I had) Things get discovered/invented just because they can. If you were to stop existing at this moment, it'd still get made. The best you can do is accelerate the process. If it can exist, it will be brought into existence. The only thing you can influence is the time at which it'll start existing. Basically led to me pacing down my life and stop living with the constant stress of "I got to make it or it'll never exist".
• orsenthil 7y ago
  Self-Discipline. Specifically, a book called "How to do what you want to do" by Dr. Paul Hauck has influenced and shaped my thinking.
• whatsmyusername 7y ago
  The 9 alignments from the Baldur's Gate series.
• jrvarela56 7y ago
  Happiness depends on the discrepancy between expectations and reality. Your mind has a simulated copy of reality. The more you develop opinions about the future based on this copy, the more likely that they are out of sync by the time the future comes. Seeing these two as separate, and their distance as something that hurts, has made me wary of elaborating my expectations. I dream about stuff I consider important and this category shrinks with age. I’m not saying don’t plan/dream/hope. Just pick your battles and focus your efforts on the ones you decide to keep. Otherwise, just go with the flow.
• av501 7y ago
  The principle of non-violent communication (NVC)[1] completely changed my approach in life to stressful situations. Practicing the same with my family, friends, work colleagues changed my life. Changed the way I approach situations. Allowed me to also apply it in reverse where I am now able to lead those stressed with me towards a NVC path. I am trying to understand their fundamental base need rather than just focus on what they are saying. This allows those around me also to become in tune with themselves and I can see it on their faces when they get the aha moment. I've received simple thanks sometimes for this so I know it is not just me that finds it useful. Works wonderfully well with toddlers as well! The whole premise that kids are stupid or don't understand stuff also gets upturned when you apply NVC to communicate with them or help understand their point of view. It wasn't easy, took months before it became habit, just had to keep it going. Even now sometimes I forget and my lizard brain pops up from years of conditioning that will take some time to undo. But am I so happy I found out about it. [1] https://baynvc.org/key-assumptions-and-intentions-of-nvc/ https://baynvc.org/key-assumptions-and-intentions-of-nvc/
• tempestn 7y ago
  Don't worry about remembering facts; instead, seek to understand how and why things are the way they are. By understanding deeper reasons behind things, the facts will make contextual sense, and will be much easier to recall, or if necessary, to deduce. This can apply essentially anywhere, from physics formulas to historical events to programming conventions to political actions.
  • jiggunjer 7y ago
    This is called abstraction.
• mirimir 7y ago
  I'm distinct from the voice in my head.
• nstart 7y ago
  From my father: No matter how correct you are, you won't get anywhere by making the other person feel stupid. He gave me this after we went together to a conference on communication and I found the presenter to be making some rather doubtful statements. I asked questions and tried to break the presenter in the QnA session and when I didn't get what I wanted, I left. I was 15 at the time. So, I forgive myself but still cringe hard whenever I remember it. This advice had and continues to have a really long lasting impact on me (especially in getting me out of my incredibly arrogant stage in life) and my relationships with people. I can still be critical of things while maintaining respect for the other person's context and intelligence. I've found that also helps a lot in disconnecting ego amidst a debate.
  • keiferski 7y ago
    Nick Carraway, is that you? In my younger and more vulnerable years my father gave me some advice that I've been turning over in my mind ever since. "Whenever you feel like criticizing any one," he told me, " just remember that all the people in this world haven't had the advantages that you've had."
    • ehnto 7y ago
      Along the same lines: Just because someone doesn't know something, doesn't mean they know nothing. We all come across information in different orders at different times. If you jump to the conclusion that someone is not worth your time because they didn't know something you know, then you might not engage with an otherwise good person.
  • WinonaRyder 7y ago
    > No matter how correct you are, you won't get anywhere by making the other person feel stupid. I came to the same realization some time after an incident at Uni... In a Uni class I tried to correct the lecturer about some Unix/Solaris? feature using my Linux knowledge and when he wouldn't agree, I basically ignored everything he taught for the rest of the class. I think it was maybe something about file systems and IIRC I looked it up after (realizing what a dick I was) and I found that I was indeed correct, but I still feel bad about the way I acted to this day. Although, in my defense, earlier in the class I had to show a whole bunch of students how to exit Vi/Vim so as you can imagine, I was already starting to feel like some kinda Unix god at that point.
• ct520 7y ago
  You CAN have your cake and eat it too.
  • renjimen 7y ago
    Fun note: it's one of these proverbs that people know the context for but not many (at least, not me until recently) really understands why it means what it does. Apparently it's because the old English usage of "have" included to keep/retain something, so it goes that you can't simultaneously eat your cake and keep it for later.
• mroche 7y ago
  Not sure where this originated, but I learned it from one of my martial arts teachers growing up: You know what you know. You know what you don’t know. You don’t know what you know. You don’t know what you don’t know.
• DeepYogurt 7y ago
  The concept of opportunity cost.
• sdegutis 7y ago
  The idea that maybe there really is a God after all, and that it's a cop out to assume that, just because it's unlikely for us to know for sure, therefore no breadcrumb trails about God or religion are really worth following. I'm unable to describe the magnitude of the amazingness of the world I found, simply by wanting to believe that God is real, and then finding out that the Resurrection actually did happen. Anyone who does enough research on this topic and has a good and honest heart will eventually become Catholic. God how I wish I had looked into this years earlier, but I didn't because I assumed it was just too unlikely to be worth investigating. What an awfully powerful fallacy.
  • kgin 7y ago
    > Anyone who does enough research on this topic and has a good and honest heart will eventually become Catholic This is a big claim. You're saying that anyone who isn't catholic either hasn't done enough research or doesn't have a good and honest heart?
    • sdegutis 7y ago
      There's a third option: that enough time hasn't passed. I said they will eventually become Catholic. A person generally can't understand multiplication until they understand addition.
      • kgin 7y ago
        I guess my question is why. What makes it inevitable?
        • sdegutis 7y ago
          Because it’s based around facts, hence an honest heart, and benevolence, hence a good heart. If a person looks into the Resurrection and whether it happened, they will inevitably become a Bible believing Christian, and when they ask where the Bible came from and who has the right interpretation of it, they will become Catholic.
• macawfish 7y ago
  evolution
• gdubs 7y ago
  “In the beginner’s mind there are many possibilities, but in the expert’s there are few.”
• cdcarter 7y ago
  From Buckminster Fuller, retold to me by Brandur Leach: > Do more and more with less and less until eventually you can do everything with nothing. [https://brandur.org/minimalism https://brandur.org/minimalism]
• pjs_ 7y ago
  Someone once told me that you can tell you are close to burnout when you think that everyone around you is an idiot. You must be burning out because it's not plausible that literally everyone you encounter is an idiot! I like it because it is a logical construction that can be deployed even when your own perception is distorted by stress. It has definitely functioned as an effective safety alarm and I'm sure prevented some chaos more than once.
• elixanchor 7y ago
  Every cool thing from the underground ends up mainstream in a predictable pattern. Article: https://meaningness.com/geeks-mops-sociopaths https://meaningness.com/geeks-mops-sociopaths
• LouisSayers 7y ago
  My Grandmother once told me: "If you want to work at a company, dress like the people that work there. Because those are the people that the company hires." I've used this general philosophy in my life to pass courses at university, win competitions, and get through job interviews. I don't know if my grandmother meant this in a literal sense, or was hinting at the fact that (as Tony Robbins says) success leaves clues. When you understand what people are looking for, the game becomes a lot easier - you simply need to mould yourself and your communication to fit a winning persona.
  • saltking112 7y ago
    One would argue the ability to mold yourself, letting go of your ego in the process, is where the challenge lies for many.
    • tim333 7y ago
      You could think of it more as acting the part.
  • PodCurator 7y ago
    Wouldn't a counter argument be that the MOST successful people do not do what others do and define their own path. I.e. it's great if you're optimizing a game for a particular outcome but if you're creating a new game following what other people do may just leave to the average (of whatever group)?
    • deathgrips 7y ago
      The most unsuccessful people also follow that strategy.
    • LouisSayers 7y ago
      I don’t see any conflict with pushing to do something extraordinary. If you’re going to do something out of the ordinary, you do what successful out of the ordinary people have done. You put on their uniform and put in the work. It’s a simple strategy, but that’s not to say the process is at all easy.
• janwillemb 7y ago
  Two sets of ideas: 1. Getting Things Done (David Allen) as a system to organize and reorganize my life, 2. How to win friends and influence people (Dale Carnegie), as a way of treating other people
• bherms 7y ago
  A few things: Adults are just winging it. The ones who don't seem like they are pretend the hardest. The world is only as cruel as you help make it. Be kind.
• DoreenMichele 7y ago
  Milestones instead of deadlines for the creative process. Worry about hitting a certain benchmark, not a certain date.
• smckk 7y ago
  Weeks. Segment your time to complete things into weeks. Months have too much wiggle room and days are too tight. Most people don’t even have the weeks option displaying on the digital calendars (phones, laptops) they use. For long term projects of any kind using the week as a unit of time is the best way to cross the finish line. This is possible for personal projects and for entrepreneurs. If you can get into this time frame in an organisation you are going to have a much easier time with your projects. Another important point is not to overload the time either, if you end up completing something within a few days do not move to the next phase within that week. Stick to the schedule.
  • hmd_imputer 7y ago
    In my current company, we have a "calendar week" based schedule. Everything is planned based on that time segmentation principle. For example, "the start of production is planned for calendar week 45" - that is it, no month, no quarter no date - simply, the 45th week of the year.
• r34 7y ago
  Not sure if "idea", but the word that comes to my mind is "meditation".
• l0b0 7y ago
  Our minds are enormously flawed: - There's a certain fidelity to any memory which you just can't get beyond, and the vast majority of memories are nowhere near that. - Our memories warp and decay with time. - Even our most logical thought processes have a really hard time grasping provable things like the Monty Hall problem and exponential growth. - Cognitive biases are everywhere.
• JetBen 7y ago
  Sexual misconduct
• adamredwoods 7y ago
  Seek content-ness, not happiness. Happiness comes later. In my early-twenties, I kept thinking that I always wanted happiness, and if I wasn't then something was wrong. I later realized that it was the pursuit of something that I could never attain that was draining and I realized that was the wrong path. I cannot attain perfection. So I decided to look for a better life-path that I could sustain, feel comfortable, and be content for long periods of time. Happiness comes later, naturally almost. It comes in small packets sometimes. Sometimes I don't even notice. It's a concept that I read once in Ray Bradbury's Dandelion Wine, where the grandmother did not want to go into this box and see the world, because if she saw things she wanted but couldn't attain, she'd be unhappier than she currently was. This concept can be explained further with the parable of the fisherman and the businessman. I also think this is one of the ideas behind the movie "Mr. Holland's Opus", which took me years to understand.
  • c-oreills 7y ago
    Your last paragraph reminds me of this research on more advertising leading to less contentedness: https://hbr.org/2020/01/advertising-makes-us-unhappy https://hbr.org/2020/01/advertising-makes-us-unhappy Showing us what we don't have makes us question and think less of ourselves. It's the same mechanism that can lead to lower mood after seeing everyone's carefully curated lives on social media. Everyone around me is happy all the time, why aren't I? Once you're concious of that bias, it becomes a bit easier to weather, but also uncomfortable in a different way. Personally, we want to share pics of our baby smiling with our friends, but will that make them feel worse when their baby cries for hours? We've been sharing experiences more openly with new parent friends so they understand it's not all rainbows all the time, and have been grateful for others who have done the same to us and reassured us that everyone's taking the bad with the good.
  • kieckerjan 7y ago
    Happiness is haphazard, something you snatch from the maws of life now and then, mostly by accident.
• areweforreal 7y ago
  "Find an excuse to win" I had an attitude of quitting early or pausing on the first obstacle I faced. I used to think of it as "This is not my area of expertise" or "Let me wait for other person to confirm this" or "This is too hard, let me give myself some time" etc. Unknowingly, I used to look out for excuses to no give my 100%. Somewhere I read this quote, and that's where I realized the stark difference of mentality I had. From then on, it's really changed my life for good.
• js8 7y ago
  Rationality is self-contradictory, and part of your own motivations will always be irrational. As a consequence, at some level, you have to stop worrying about economic consequences of your actions on you. It is, in particular, rejection of utility maximization as a human motivator, because there has to be something more, something that cannot be measured. And empirically, it seems that people who we recognize as creators or inventors have mostly not done the things they have done for pure economic profit, but they have been driven by something else, that cannot be explained in economic terms. Also related to this is my earlier comment: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=22964404 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=22964404
• deleted 7y ago
  [deleted]
• PhilAtHN 7y ago
  There is a lot of time spent waiting that can be used for learning, thinking or other useful activities. If we just spend a little time each day improving our lives, it adds up.
• vehementi 7y ago
  I forget where I got it from - a biography of an old professor I think And the way he explained not holding on to things was "I had my turn being 19. I had my turn being 40. Now it's my turn to be 85". I did those things, nothing can change that -- I don't need to keep doing them lest I lose my worth or something.
• deleted 7y ago
  [deleted]
• hutzlibu 7y ago
  Giving, without expecting something in return. I used to be very calculating, if I do this, what will I get from person X, what will person Y think of me. Now I just do, what I want. What I think and feel is right. And I give freely, of what I have. Sharing feels good.
• kalonis 7y ago
  There are no adults in the room (https://letterstoanewdeveloper.com/2019/08/12/there-are-no-adults-in-the-room/ https://letterstoanewdeveloper.com/2019/08/12/there-are-no-a...) During my career I was always looking for some senior developer to guide me in my work. I was hoping someone has figured everything out and could tell me whether my solutions where good or bad. It frustrated me that most of them did not really have a clue and could not help me. I blamed it to my company which would not invest the money to hire really good senior developers and switched employers. I hoped to find better learning opportunities there (which I thought meant better guiding). But it was the same everywhere: The people who I thought had everything figured out seemed to be just as clueless as me. It took me some time to realize this is the norm. There is no one who has the perfect understanding of everything. There is a lot of uncertainty to any solution you try out. Accepting the uncertainty and acting accordingly is the true meaning of "seniority".
• deleted 7y ago
  [deleted]
• mdonahoe 7y ago
  Recursion
• andersthue 7y ago
  That our responses and our negative relational feelings are based on out own choice - Nobody makes me feel angry, victimized, as a failure - it is always my choice to feel those feelings. It is not always i am able to choose not to feel it, but i always know i am feeling it because of my own choosing.
• tiborsaas 7y ago
  Procrastination is an emotional problem. https://www.bbc.com/worklife/article/20200121-why-procrastination-is-about-managing-emotions-not-time https://www.bbc.com/worklife/article/20200121-why-procrastin...
• franze 7y ago
  Changing feedback loops has a much higher impact on a system than changing variables.
• Tepix 7y ago
  “Everything in moderation, including moderation.” -- Oscar Wilde I've found it to be an excellent philosophy to live by.
• 0x8BADF00D 7y ago
  Execution matters more than an idea.
• deleted 7y ago
  [deleted]
• perlgeek 7y ago
  A famous golfer once scored a hole-in-one after not playing tournaments for some time, only focusing on training. A reported asked "Surely that was luck? You cannot train for a hole-in-one reliably." To which the golfer answered: "Yes. But the more I train, the luckier I get." That has stayed with me. Whenever I complained about bad luck (at least in my internal monologue), I started wondering what would have happened if I had trained more, be better prepared etc. Really helped me to shift a bit towards growth mindset.
• orisho 7y ago
  1. That getting good at something can sometimes be quick; if you have the right background. But when it's not quick - that doesn't mean you can't get good. It simply means it's a process. Experiencing the part where I'm bad at something as simply the "beginning of a progress bar" and knowing it's going somewhere, and that practice is necessary allows me to persevere and not experience frustration or a feeling of inadequacy. I would tell this (along with a real life story to match about myself) to my employees whenever they got discouraged. As a team lead, I would often do the same work they did, so they compared themselves to me, thinking something should be easy for them just because it's easy for me at this point in time. I would tell them it's not a fair comparison to make - I have several years of additional experience doing this compared to you, and I've done this a thousand times, while they're doing this the first time. Of course it appears easier to me - I've had practice, and that's all the difference between them and me, not intelligence or some other trait they have no direct effect on. 2. Evaluating my own and others' ideas through a set of explicit criteria (asking yourself "what does the solution to this problem need to solve in order to be considered adequate?") keeps me from falling in love with my ideas or solutions to problems. For example, my specific implementation for some software might look good to me. If someone else shows up with a different solution (e.g. during code review), then those criteria are the questions I need to ask them to verify that it is indeed a better solution, and that it doesn't overshoot what's needed. If it is better by those criteria, then there's no reason not to toss my idea aside and use theirs. Of course, this concept also applies to the criteria themselves - someone else might convince me that my criteria are wrong, by noting that some of them are not explained by a greater goal (such as the larger task at hand -- the company's mission, turning a profit, etc.), and so on.
• koonsolo 7y ago
  As a kid: Everything that you see was made by somebody. Someone had the idea, someone started a business for it, someone designed it, someone assembled it, etc. As an adult: Simulated annealing for your own life (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Simulated_annealing https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Simulated_annealing) You start something by going all over the place, trying even crazy ideas. Then you start refining and refining, getting better at the details. This is the optimal way for anything: dating, starting companies, creating products, learning something new, investing, ... .
  • kmmlng 7y ago
    SA for your own life sounds intriguing. Do you have a concrete example that elucidates how this could be implemented? The concept still seems a little slippery to me.
    • mam2 7y ago
      Dating: it's better to try many partners to know what you like / don't like before commiting. Imo it's a better way to keep people together than religion.
    • koonsolo 7y ago
      Dating: give everything a quick try: Tinder, speeddating, okcupid, socializing (dancing classes). Then see what works best, and put your effort into that one. Marketing: try everything before you start focussing on the best (I think the book Traction describes it like this). When I was looking to make my own logo and pinned it down to hiring on fiverr, I let a few different artists do a quick, cheap sketch. Then I hired the best to do the full thing. I think it comes down to: first, get a quick & cheap taste of everything ("go all over the place"), then slightly start focussing on the things that work for you.
    • beagle3 7y ago
      This is also known as “gradually shift from exploration to exploitation”
• fit2rule 7y ago
  All culture is a lie which only persists through re-telling.
• itshonza 7y ago
  Mental health has `health` in the name for a reason - it can deteriorate and there is no shame in needing external help to heal. Realizing this after listening to an interview with one of my favorite musicians really helped me approach my (at that point) deteriorating mental health from a different perspective and feel better.
• sanfranciscoave 7y ago
  The quote "We often suffer more in imagination that we do in reality" has really stuck with me. I consider myself to be a bit of an introvert and this idea has helped me tremendously with networking and meeting new people. I often project the worst casinario in my mind, but in reality, outcomes are almost always positive and enjoyable.
  • kieckerjan 7y ago
    “I've had a lot of worries in my life, most of which never happened.”
    • progre 7y ago
      This sounds like every John Green-vlog ever
• ivantopalov 7y ago
  I read this in a book once: "Never settle for anything less than you know you deserve". Sounds simple and obvious, but when you are under pressure it is easy to give up and convince yourself you're not good enough for whatever it is you are aiming at. It always pays to aim higher. The thing you want to achieve may be hard, it may take a long time, it may not even be entirely possible, but if you keep telling yourself you don't deserve this or that sooner or later you start believing it and then your chance of achieving it is completely destroyed.
• ivantopalov 7y ago
  I read this in a book once: "Never settle for anything less than what you know you deserve". Sounds simple and obvious, but when you are under pressure it is easy to give up and convince yourself you're not good enough for whatever it is you are aiming at. It always pays to aim higher. The thing you want to achieve may be hard, it may take a long time, it may not even be entirely possible, but if you keep telling yourself you don't deserve this or that sooner or later you start believing it and then your chance of achieving it is destroyed.
• k4ch0w 7y ago
  No one is thinking about you. That stupid thing you said in the meeting, the thing you did in middle school, that pimple on your face that feels huge. It's entirely in our mind and everyone else is too focused on themselves to ever see or think about the silly things you're embarassed about.
  • idkwhoiam 7y ago
    >No one is thinking about you That hurts
    • JoeAltmaier 7y ago
      ...and it also helps, when you get out the other end of the ego tunnel. Lets you be truer, and freer.
  • kgin 7y ago
    This hasn't been my experience. I know tons of people who just revel is recounting stories about things other people did that were stupid or mad them angry for some reason, even years after the fact.
  • deleted 7y ago
    [deleted]
• b3lvedere 7y ago
  A project is not done unless all the people who have to support it have access to all the information they need. I have witnessed a lot conversations where support could not help them because support did not have the right information. This made a lot of people very angry. So i started applying this rule more and more. Now only some people (mostly project leaders) are sometimes angry.
• cl0rkster 7y ago
  peace
• hydandata 7y ago
  People do not understand exponential growth.
• 317070 7y ago
  "Life is unfair." Simple, but for me it was an important insight. I used to think I deserved things, and now I know that while that might be true, you still need to be assertive to get them. There is no karma or divine intervention which will put a finger on the balance to make sure everything in life (love, friends, opportunities, adventure) is shared equally. And it goes multiple ways. First, don't expect life to be fair and give you what you deserve. It won't. Don't expect other people to be fair towards you either. They might, and they might not. Second, it is not always your fault when you are in a bad situation, because life is in fact unfair. Shit happens. Third, be assertive to handle the unfairness. You need to stand up for yourself to get your fair share. And stand up for others to get theirs.
  • tim333 7y ago
    Also it can be unfair in positive ways - you can get better than you deserve.
• RajSinghLA 7y ago
  A bowl is most useful when it is empty.
• RajSinghLA 7y ago
  Your external world is only a reflection of your inner state.
• zzzzer 7y ago
  Doing everything the same day I thought about it. Creating my robot website changed my life https://personalrobots.biz https://personalrobots.biz
• codegladiator 7y ago
  Practice is not the same as execution
• mam2 7y ago
  The trump 2016 election (and even the whole presidency) was a slap in the face for some people, but if you look objectively there seem to be a bunch of unconventional truths / ideas in it. Like - "Become a good person doesn't matter and can even look weak, being aggressive and though is more important". (I still remember jeb bush offended saying to trump that he will not 'bully his way to the presidency' while he was doing exactly that) - "The person who talk the louder set the stage" Funnily i was visiting "the red pill" subreddit.. it has become a very toxic subreddit but some of the concepts (like the concept of "frame") described on the sub explain trumps election. They basically say that women are basically only attracted to any display of "strength" and "dominance", wether it's good or bad. Kinda shocking, and you don't want to believe it until you try it
  • dmichulke 7y ago
    Regarding Redpill: Word. Visit it, try it out and take what you want. This dominance thing also translates at least partially to relations between any human.
  • hmd_imputer 7y ago
    there is a saying, although very vulgar, "if you f* you will be loved if you love you will be f*d"
• sesm 7y ago
  The basic function of a healthy psyche is to withstand reality and adapt to it. (don't remember the author, it's a common concept in psychotherapy circles)
• wasnthere 7y ago
  “Ever tried. Ever failed. No matter. Try again. Fail again. Fail better.” - Samuel Beckett
• BiteCode_dev 7y ago
  There are a thousand ways to suffer, and I don't know most of them. The more I grow, the more I discover new ways people fight their own battle. Every time I think somebody had it easy, I end up dead wrong. There is just so much I didn't know about. I even recently realized it's very common to deeply suffer without being conscious of it, and yet being unhappy because of it. It's a terrible curse, because deep down some part of you knows there is something wrong but you cannot put your finger on it, and yet it affects your whole existence. People just mechanically don't think about it so they can make the best out of life. It makes you feel much closer to people, much more tolerant, and you suddenly understand a lot more about the choice they make and the things they do.
• rayalez 7y ago
  Since people seem to be sharing their favorite quotes, I'll share a couple of my own. It's kind of like a litany to repeat in difficult situations, replace placeholders as needed: “What is true is already so. Owning up to it doesn't make it worse. Not being open about it doesn't make it go away. And because it's true, it is what is there to be interacted with. Anything untrue isn't there to be lived. People can stand what is true, for they are already enduring it." "If [scary thought] is true, I want to believe that. If [scary thought] is not true, I want not to believe [scary thought]. Let me not become attached to beliefs I may not want. If I'm living in a world where [scary thought] is true, that’s what I have to believe, I have to know what’s coming, so I can stop it, or in the very worst case, be prepared to do what I can in the time I have left. Not believing it won’t stop it from happening." "I am not afraid. I am not afraid because if I let myself get too scared I might not be able to do what needs to be done. And I'm not the type of person who backs down. I am the type of person who does the right thing, even if it's hard. Right now, the right thing is to [x]. And even if it doesn't work, I'll just do the next right thing, and the next, and the next. I'll keep on trying until I figure out a way."
• badsavage 7y ago
  open-source software
• otikik 7y ago
  "Let's have a child!"
• dcminter 7y ago
  "Say yes more" - from reading the book "Yes man" by Danny Wallace. It's a light and not-too-serious read, but I was much influenced by that central message. It got me outside of my comfort zone and the resulting experiences changed my life in lots of positive ways.
• cmod 7y ago
  Not everything in life has to be solved, and in fact many things can't be solved. If you do enough therapy you begin to understand the fuzzy traps of the mind, and catch it falling into the "we must solve this" loop. Often times the answers to many of our problems are obvious (that doesn't mean not-complex; i.e., an alcoholic often knows the best way to improve the quality of their life), and people aren't dumb, but they can't commit to the "solution." As soon as you break from obsessing over solutions, you begin to break down habits and reasons why you're in the position you're in. Which has the corollary effect of, eventually, "solving" it. Once I got good at noticing "solution loops" in my own mind I began to notice it in the conversations of friends. It's amazing how many people are stuck in sometimes multi-year loops. And so now, for life problems of a more macro scale: I a) never try to solve anything for anyone, and b) try to gently guide the conversation away from finding an explicit solution to better understanding why they may be in the position they're in. This sounds simple / reductive, but it's one of the most powerful ideas / tools I've discovered in the last few years.
• mlboss 7y ago
  Ego is a myth. Everything is connected and is one. Our mind creates boundaries and give names for practical reason.
• jklepatch 7y ago
  Pick your battles.
• TheChetan 7y ago
  I read somewhere on the internet that, "If grass is greener on the other side, you aren't watering enough". Sure some people get lucky, but on the long term, the ones who consistently make better decisions and work harder are the ones who are benefitted more often.
• hartleybrody 7y ago
  Jeff Bezos has a great interview where he talks about his decision to leave his cushy Wall Street job and start a website selling books. He talks about how he used a "regret minimization framework" where he projects himself into the future and imagines which decision he would regret the least. I have used this technique multiple times myself to help with otherwise fraught or overwhelming decisions, and I think it's a great way to shift your frame of reference. Interview where he describes it here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jwG_qR6XmDQ https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jwG_qR6XmDQ
  • JoeAltmaier 7y ago
    As a trick for solving a single problem, ok sure. That sounds like chess, where a failure loses the game. Not the same risk of failure in life decisions (well, skydiving maybe). To minimize later regret sounds terribly hesitant, cautious and small. So many other ways to organize your life: joy maximization is one for instance. There's the money thing. And character should come in there someplace, not just utilitarian nonsense. Einstein(?) said it this way: "When I want to make a decision, I flip a coin. If I'm disappointed in the outcome then I know I wanted the other choice." Sounds about like the same thing (only a century earlier)
• milanspeaks 7y ago
  "Don't become a philosopher until you become rich."
• brailsafe 7y ago
  1) Give yourself time, not too much and not too little, to spend alone. Then spend as much as you can with or talking to others who would return the gesture. 2) Most work, especially in tech, isn't that important and won't change anything, so reduce your sacrifice for some company. Whatever SaaS thing you're working on to save small business owners 5 minutes a day just isn't worth your mental health, and some aspects of American industrialism is toxic af. I used to think of Apple as a world changing product designer, but later I realized that it's just a company with a vaguely interesting story, and one that does make well-designed objects, but most people could do without their iPhones for a long time and be better off.
• aklemm 7y ago
  The concept of Comparative Advantage unlocked a helpful perspective on politics for me. It led me to shed a series of errors in thinking by confronting me with the idea that a lot of critical political issues are complicated and non-obvious. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Comparative_advantage https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Comparative_advantage
• dgritsko 7y ago
  "It is always better to not have a problem than to mitigate it", from this article that John Carmack wrote several years back[1]. In the context of the article it feels almost like a throwaway line, but I've found it to be deeply profound and it has since affected how I choose potential solutions in almost any situation. Should I do the "quick fix" (mitigating a problem), or would it be better if the problem _didn't exist in the first place_? [1]: https://www.wired.com/2013/02/john-carmacks-latency-mitigation-strategies/ https://www.wired.com/2013/02/john-carmacks-latency-mitigati...
  • rkangel 7y ago
    This is a great line in the C/C++ vs higher level language debate on memory safety.
• veets 7y ago
  My wife once told me "no one wants to listen to you talk" when I was preparing to give a speech. It is obvious now, but I had never really thought about it. Her point wasn't that no one cares about what I have to say but that when I am done talking no one will think "I wish he would have talked longer." When I interact with others, I try to spend most of my time understanding their viewpoint rather than talking at them about my viewpoint.
• jlengrand 7y ago
  For me it was this : (job) interviews are not a one-sided judgment of your worth and value as a person where you have to do your best to convince the party, but a discussion of whether what the opposite side is searching for is in line with what you have to offer as a person / company. It's not obvious at all, especially early in your career but it has really changed the way I handle interviews in very positive ways. It's OK to get refused, it's even expected actually. And even if it doesn't work out today, taking the meeting with proper framing can bring opportunities further down the road. Some friends are now hired in positions I was chased for, and it's a win :). Kalzumeus has been an inspiration for me on all those things couple years back : https://www.kalzumeus.com/2012/01/23/salary-negotiation/ https://www.kalzumeus.com/2012/01/23/salary-negotiation/
• jll29 7y ago
  recursion.
• iansowinski 7y ago
  Realizing that time speeds up for us when we grow up. Maybe this sounds obvious and silly, but thinking not only how short life is, but also how faster and faster it passes by gives you something. (I had to pick one idea though!). Here some article: https://qz.com/1516804/physics-explains-why-time-passes-faster-as-you-age/ https://qz.com/1516804/physics-explains-why-time-passes-fast...
• orasis 7y ago
  The past and future are memory and fantasy. There is only this now.
• deleted 7y ago
  [deleted]
• dqpb 7y ago
  Information theory
• greendestiny_re 7y ago
  Astrology.
• iamgopal 7y ago
  Nofap.
• setgree 7y ago
  When learning something, trying to reward myself when I feel stupid or frustrated, because that generally means I'm doing something difficult that will pay off long-term. I think of this as another 'habit to unlearn from school' (https://www.lesswrong.com/posts/48WeP7oTec3kBEada/two-more-things-to-unlearn-from-school https://www.lesswrong.com/posts/48WeP7oTec3kBEada/two-more-t...). For most of my life, I did what came easily, and I got a lot of praise and reward in those areas. I neglected the things that made me feel stupid or frustrated, and I think that consequently, my education is not as well-rounded as it might be. Or, like Jake the Dog says [0]: "Dude, sucking at something is the first step to being sorta good at something." https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=smgQiGABQMs https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=smgQiGABQMs
• cseguin 7y ago
  "Never waste a chance to pee" -- grandpa def changed my life for the better
• DanielBMarkham 7y ago
  Profound Ignorance. The more you think you know, the less able you are to learn anything. Being profoundly ignorant doesn't reduce your ability to do anything in life, but it can be uncomfortable for both yourself and others around you. We like thinking we know things, we like hanging with people who know things, whether anybody knows anything or not.
• takinola 7y ago
  Try to be truthful to others. Always be truthful to yourself. Recognizing reality is a surprisingly difficult thing. Our perceptions are clouded by bias, wishful thinking and outright deception. The truth is the only foundation from which you can faithfully apply judgement to address any situation.
• arendtio 7y ago
  "When dealing with people, let us remember we are not dealing with creatures of logic. We are dealing with creatures of emotion, creatures bristling with prejudices and motivated by pride and vanity." ― Dale Carnegie I think my friends would say that I am rational and calm under fire. I always knew that people have emotions and just thought, that I am pretty good at handling mine. However, the more I thought about the quote above, the more I realized, that only about 10%-20% of my decisions are rational. The other 80%-90% are driven by my emotional state and my mind just saying 'Do what you like, it's not critical'. Accepting that humans are mostly driven by their emotions helped me understand and predict their actions.
• sapir 7y ago
  what do you think about it? https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=G8Bt3jEhIwA https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=G8Bt3jEhIwA
• lifebeyondfife 7y ago
  There are two versions of you: the experiencing self and the remembering self. If you only pleasure the experiencing self then you make lots of short term decisions e.g. it's the experiencing self who enjoys the cake, but the remembering self gets almost no benefit from it. Worse, they have to deal with the consequences of the extra calories. I'd convinced myself that there were things I didn't like so I wouldn't do them anymore, like travelling for long holidays. But after hearing this idea I realised sometimes the pain and inconvenience of being away from home, and being stressed by travel is a temporary pain for the experiencing self. The remembering self however gets lifelong benefit. I use this model to analyse the cost/benefit to each persona which helps make better long term choices.
• ncmncm 7y ago
  The Sunk Cost fallacy, with the peripherally related Opportunity Cost.
• deleted 7y ago
  [deleted]
• chenpengcheng 7y ago
  open your mind
• charwalker 7y ago
  The simplest version is my best choice is the one that, given your possible choice, provides me the greatest outcome or the basis of Game Theory. Everyone is working both together and against each other and taking other choices into account can educate your decisions and lead to better outcomes for all.
• peguin3 7y ago
  Understand that failure is not the opposite of success. Failure is an essential part of success. Once you succeed, no one will remember your failures anyway. Microsoft wasn’t Bill Gates’ and Paul Allen’s first business venture. Who remembers that their original Traf-o-Data business was a flop? The actor Jim Carey was booed off many a stage while a young comedian. We have electric light bulbs because Thomas Edison refused to give up even after 10,000 failed experiments. If the word “failure” is anathema to you, then reframe it: You either succeed, or you have a learning experience. --Steve Pavlina
• digitaltrees 7y ago
  Paul Graham - maker vs manager schedule. It instantly explained why I was frustrated with certain work environments and my own habits. Reid Hoffman - his cofounder, in a video course at Stanford called blitz scaling, talks about a unique strength Reid has to focus on only the most important task and ignore all other tasks. He says, in the start up phase of a company there is literally too much to do, and for many this is overwhelming because they look at a growing list of tasks and they can become incapacitated. Reid can focus on the the bon fire, and ignore all the small bush fires without stress. For me personally, I felt broken for a long time. I worked as a lawyer and every task was almost equally important so there was always a long running list. I was overwhelmed and not as good as peers. I am honestly only able to focus on the existential bon fire tasks so when I saw this I felt instant clarity and validation. As a start up founder it’s been a super power and when the company transitions to a stable growth phase I know to hand it to someone that can focus on a broader task list. The common principle of both is accept yourself and find a context where your strengths shine. We live in a culture that emphasizes certain traits and we can feel bad about our characteristics that seem to deviate but in reality they might be unique strengths if we were in different circumstances.
• activatedgeek 7y ago
  Side note: This is probably a good place to discover mental models.
• cityzen 7y ago
  Love how @naval answered like 600 times
• mertnesvat 7y ago
  Kiichiro Toyoda was a good engineer and thinker. I learned from him to ask 5 whys when there's a problem. Changed my understanding about understanding, have found my self in multiverses. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Five_whys https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Five_whys
• idoby 7y ago
  "Once you've understood the core of your problem, the rest is merely millions of dollars and hundreds of thousands of man-hours" My high school physics teacher, the only one who believed in me, whom I continue to disappoint every day by not achieving a Nobel prize in physics.
• saltcod 7y ago
  Something I follow now, but didn’t until I was 35 or so: rise early. A lot of very good things follow from just doing this.
• albertine 7y ago
  Wanting to improve my handstands by easily tracking them, I came up with an app idea to leverage voice to work out. Not only is the idea becoming real, but I learned so much that I would not have been able to learn in daily job. More about it: https://www.handstandquest.com/ https://www.handstandquest.com/
• ca98am79 7y ago
  Consciousness may not come from the brain
• jv22222 7y ago
  Hyper Iteration This concept changed my life and career in a big way! I first heard about hyper iteration (my name for it) in a story[1] about Paul MacCready, a guy who built the first human-powered airplane. He achieved this goal by changing how he attacked the problem. Rather than focusing on the larger goal, he built a machine that enabled him to test new human-powered flight theories on a daily basis. This enabled him to run hundreds of tests. The other teams trying to achieve this goal took 6-12 months for each iteration. With regard to startups our entire startup journey consists of a loop of asking one single question: If I do this, will it work? As we build we ask that one question over and over again: - Will this new feature help me get more customers? - Will advertising on Facebook help me make more sales? - Etc. The faster we can iterate each answer to that question, the faster we can achieve great things! So basically, just always think abut any task you have to do and work out is there a faster way to get the answer? i.e Spend 9 months building a mobile on demand platform to deliver coffee and see if people want the service? Or spend a week printing up business cards with "we deliver coffee" and hand them out in the street. See if anyone calls. 9 months vs 1 week to start learning about that particular product ;) But really it works in many contexts, just spend some thinking time to find the absolute fastest way to iterate at all times. [1] https://signalvnoise.com/posts/2861-how-nature-and-naivet-helped-paul-maccready-build-a-human-powered-airplane-in-only-six-months https://signalvnoise.com/posts/2861-how-nature-and-naivet-he...
• godDLL 6y ago
  That's easy. You're actually tripping all of the time. Except when you're not. And you know when you're not. But you don't know when you are. You can stop tripping for a moment, any time you like. I find it easy to do with Wim Hof breathing, but I'm sure there are other ways of getting that. Point is, then you find out that you were tripping. Or you were being led.
• deleted 6y ago
  [deleted]