5 ms·

I read your comment as “yes I prefer life to be easier and complacent over difficult and interesting.” Is this too coarse of an interpretation? I seem to agree

I read your comment as “yes I prefer life to be easier and complacent over difficult and interesting.” Is this too coarse of an interpretation? I seem to agree with pg: I’d much rather have good ideas and trouble “executing” because there are always smart people who can help me understand better, or execute better, or whatever; than being super smart and at the end of the day nothing to do with it. Reminds me of genius programmers, who can easily coast through interviews or jobs, but who’ve otherwise got nothing of their own to write or show of it. That’s not bad, it just means their smarts are in service to someone else’s ideas—which is OK!

gowld 5y ago
"there are always smart people who can help me understand better, or execute better," Not if everyone becomes an Idea Person like pg proposes! There's more to "do" than just "discover new things". What's the point of discovering new things if we don't use them for anything?
- reikonomusha 5y ago
  “Having ideas” isn’t “being an idea person”—the latter I hear colloquially to mean “spitballs superficial proposals that other people sort through”. I also don’t think what you suggest is what pg suggests. Einstein had ideas, but he didn’t just blather about them at a high level until some smart person did the “real” work. I also didn’t mean to suggest I’d rather “just have ideas”, I meant “I’d rather have ideas and a difficult time executing on them” as opposed to “being smart with no ideas at all.”
handrous 5y ago
I see it as a trade-off between "glory" and having an otherwise very nice life, as framed—trading "being smart" for "having some really good ideas", which is a rather odd trade, but I'm addressing the text in its own terms. Between "have some very good ideas" and "be even a little smart the entire rest of the time", if I can only choose one, yes, I'm strongly inclined to choose the latter. "Being smart" benefits me and shapes my very identity by affecting my perceptions and experience of everything, every waking second; having some very good ideas might make me money and make me known as "the guy who came up with X, Y and Z". Having both would be great, obviously! But if PG's presenting some weird "pick one" choice between the two, then claiming it's obvious which one a person would pick, yeah, I'm leaning toward, "no, your assertion and assumptions on which you're couching this entire line of argument are far too broad, it's 'be smart' by a mile and I doubt I'm alone in that choice". It's Achilles' choice, as I see it (though, again, it's a weird pair of things to ask people to choose between) and as much as I like reading about him, and as impressive as it is that we still know his name and what he did (taking the stories as true, and the character as real, for the sake of lending what he opted for the most possible appeal), thanks but no thanks.
- panzagl 5y ago
  It's like asking would you rather be a one-hit wonder punk band, or a world-class violinist.
- qqtt 5y ago
  I find it interesting how people want to characterize your choice between "living easy" versus "living interesting". Or "living simple" versus "living complacent". There seems to be this tendency to inject some negative connotations into the approach of "living simple" such as "it's not interesting", "it's not difficult", "you aren't challenging yourself", "you are being lazy", "you are being complacent". There seems to be something innate in people that needs to attack this alternative approach to life. It seems to be going over peoples heads that being personally smarter has the potential to enrich your own life in ways that being rich/being the "idea guy" don't. If you "aren't smart", it doesn't matter how much immense wealth you have, your personal relationships will be affected in some pretty fundamental ways. I think there is a philosophy at the heart of Y Combinator and their philosophy that "ideas and execution are everything" - you need to start from a creative place and can fill in smart people as tools to enable your vision later. A corollary to this attitude is that they look for passionate younger people and foster an approach which is work very hard during your younger years building on your idea. I find it relevant to share the Parable of the Fisherman from the 4 day workweek: An American investment banker was taking a much-needed vacation in a small coastal Mexican village when a small boat with just one fisherman docked. The boat had several large, fresh fish in it. The investment banker was impressed by the quality of the fish and asked the Mexican how long it took to catch them. The Mexican replied, “Only a little while.” The banker then asked why he didn’t stay out longer and catch more fish? The Mexican fisherman replied he had enough to support his family’s immediate needs. The American then asked, “But what do you do with the rest of your time?” The Mexican fisherman replied, “I sleep late, fish a little, play with my children, take siesta with my wife, stroll into the village each evening where I sip wine and play guitar with my amigos: I have a full and busy life, señor.” The investment banker scoffed, “I am an Ivy League MBA, and I could help you. You could spend more time fishing and with the proceeds buy a bigger boat, and with the proceeds from the bigger boat, you could buy several boats until eventually, you would have a whole fleet of fishing boats. Instead of selling your catch to the middleman you could sell directly to the processor, eventually opening your own cannery. You could control the product, processing and distribution.” Then he added, “Of course, you would need to leave this small coastal fishing village and move to Mexico City where you would run your growing enterprise.” The Mexican fisherman asked, “But señor, how long will this all take?” To which the American replied, “15–20 years.” “But what then?” asked the Mexican. The American laughed and said, “That’s the best part. When the time is right you would announce an IPO and sell your company stock to the public and become very rich. You could make millions.” “Millions, señor? Then what?” To which the investment banker replied, “Then you would retire. You could move to a small coastal fishing village where you would sleep late, fish a little, play with your kids, take siesta with your wife, stroll to the village in the evenings where you could sip wine and play your guitar with your amigos.”
danrocks 5y ago
> I read your comment as “yes I prefer life to be easier and complacent over difficult and interesting.” A bit unrelated but this reminded me of Slavoj Žižek's "Why be happy when you could be interesting?". https://bigthink.com/articles/why-be-happy-when-you-could-be-creative/#:~:text=%E2%80%9CWe%20don't%20really%20want,are%20inundated%20daily%20with%20%5B%E2%80%A6%5D https://bigthink.com/articles/why-be-happy-when-you-could-be...

gowld 5y ago

"there are always smart people who can help me understand better, or execute better," Not if everyone becomes an Idea Person like pg proposes! There's more to "do" than just "discover new things". What's the point of discovering new things if we don't use them for anything?

reikonomusha 5y ago
“Having ideas” isn’t “being an idea person”—the latter I hear colloquially to mean “spitballs superficial proposals that other people sort through”. I also don’t think what you suggest is what pg suggests. Einstein had ideas, but he didn’t just blather about them at a high level until some smart person did the “real” work. I also didn’t mean to suggest I’d rather “just have ideas”, I meant “I’d rather have ideas and a difficult time executing on them” as opposed to “being smart with no ideas at all.”

handrous 5y ago

I see it as a trade-off between "glory" and having an otherwise very nice life, as framed—trading "being smart" for "having some really good ideas", which is a rather odd trade, but I'm addressing the text in its own terms. Between "have some very good ideas" and "be even a little smart the entire rest of the time", if I can only choose one, yes, I'm strongly inclined to choose the latter. "Being smart" benefits me and shapes my very identity by affecting my perceptions and experience of everything, every waking second; having some very good ideas might make me money and make me known as "the guy who came up with X, Y and Z". Having both would be great, obviously! But if PG's presenting some weird "pick one" choice between the two, then claiming it's obvious which one a person would pick, yeah, I'm leaning toward, "no, your assertion and assumptions on which you're couching this entire line of argument are far too broad, it's 'be smart' by a mile and I doubt I'm alone in that choice". It's Achilles' choice, as I see it (though, again, it's a weird pair of things to ask people to choose between) and as much as I like reading about him, and as impressive as it is that we still know his name and what he did (taking the stories as true, and the character as real, for the sake of lending what he opted for the most possible appeal), thanks but no thanks.

panzagl 5y ago
It's like asking would you rather be a one-hit wonder punk band, or a world-class violinist.
qqtt 5y ago
I find it interesting how people want to characterize your choice between "living easy" versus "living interesting". Or "living simple" versus "living complacent". There seems to be this tendency to inject some negative connotations into the approach of "living simple" such as "it's not interesting", "it's not difficult", "you aren't challenging yourself", "you are being lazy", "you are being complacent". There seems to be something innate in people that needs to attack this alternative approach to life. It seems to be going over peoples heads that being personally smarter has the potential to enrich your own life in ways that being rich/being the "idea guy" don't. If you "aren't smart", it doesn't matter how much immense wealth you have, your personal relationships will be affected in some pretty fundamental ways. I think there is a philosophy at the heart of Y Combinator and their philosophy that "ideas and execution are everything" - you need to start from a creative place and can fill in smart people as tools to enable your vision later. A corollary to this attitude is that they look for passionate younger people and foster an approach which is work very hard during your younger years building on your idea. I find it relevant to share the Parable of the Fisherman from the 4 day workweek: An American investment banker was taking a much-needed vacation in a small coastal Mexican village when a small boat with just one fisherman docked. The boat had several large, fresh fish in it. The investment banker was impressed by the quality of the fish and asked the Mexican how long it took to catch them. The Mexican replied, “Only a little while.” The banker then asked why he didn’t stay out longer and catch more fish? The Mexican fisherman replied he had enough to support his family’s immediate needs. The American then asked, “But what do you do with the rest of your time?” The Mexican fisherman replied, “I sleep late, fish a little, play with my children, take siesta with my wife, stroll into the village each evening where I sip wine and play guitar with my amigos: I have a full and busy life, señor.” The investment banker scoffed, “I am an Ivy League MBA, and I could help you. You could spend more time fishing and with the proceeds buy a bigger boat, and with the proceeds from the bigger boat, you could buy several boats until eventually, you would have a whole fleet of fishing boats. Instead of selling your catch to the middleman you could sell directly to the processor, eventually opening your own cannery. You could control the product, processing and distribution.” Then he added, “Of course, you would need to leave this small coastal fishing village and move to Mexico City where you would run your growing enterprise.” The Mexican fisherman asked, “But señor, how long will this all take?” To which the American replied, “15–20 years.” “But what then?” asked the Mexican. The American laughed and said, “That’s the best part. When the time is right you would announce an IPO and sell your company stock to the public and become very rich. You could make millions.” “Millions, señor? Then what?” To which the investment banker replied, “Then you would retire. You could move to a small coastal fishing village where you would sleep late, fish a little, play with your kids, take siesta with your wife, stroll to the village in the evenings where you could sip wine and play your guitar with your amigos.”

danrocks 5y ago

> I read your comment as “yes I prefer life to be easier and complacent over difficult and interesting.” A bit unrelated but this reminded me of Slavoj Žižek's "Why be happy when you could be interesting?". https://bigthink.com/articles/why-be-happy-when-you-could-be-creative/#:~:text=%E2%80%9CWe%20don't%20really%20want,are%20inundated%20daily%20with%20%5B%E2%80%A6%5D https://bigthink.com/articles/why-be-happy-when-you-could-be...