4 ms·

The Small Steps of Giant Leaps

11 points by TheAlchemist 4y ago

ash_grimnebulin 4y ago
'The position you find yourself in today is the accumulation of the small choices that you’ve been making for years.' False if one is born poor and all choices are crappy and the few ways out mostly rely on luck. This article assumes away a lot of the pitfalls inherent in its assertions.
- xcambar 4y ago
  I am very happy to see more people realise that "everyone can achieve greatness" is incomplete and thus wrong. The sentence ends with "...but not everyone is born equal and some will even meet insurmountable barriers". That being said, the article is quite apt on the power of compounding results. They are too often overlooked in daily life.
  - deleted 4y ago
    [deleted]
  - derbOac 4y ago
    I agree but the essay is so vague as to be meaningless. It's essentially saying "good positions are the result of consistently making the right decisions every single time all the time, over time." One way of reading that is in terms of persistence, another is in terms of luck or circumstance. It's tautological and the essence of survivorship and hindsight bias, rolled into one. Essays like this are infuriating, because they sidestep the hardest problem, which is knowing what all these correct decisions are in a chain of decisions. That they are unknowable — maybe undefinable, if you consider what a "good position" is — is what undermines the thesis of the essay. The candy bar example is trite and maybe illustrative: everyone ends up in poor health some day. It's death. Is that bad position the result of poor choices? Is someone who was a passenger in a plane accident at fault? Sure, you could say they made the wrong decision as to what flight to take — but is that the best way to think about the situation? Isn't it better to focus on helping them rehabilitate if they're still alive, and to prevent a similar accident from happening again? How is it helpful to blame the passengers?
hamilyon2 4y ago
Since early age I tend to think of a life not as a marathon, but as a very slow sprint. Everyone has the same speed, but can choose to turn. Everyone who turns the wrong way in the slightest, loses focus, always comes last. The good part is you have a few days, sometimes weeks of months to make a decision. The 100-meter sprint is done one meter a year.

11 points by TheAlchemist 4y ago

'The position you find yourself in today is the accumulation of the small choices that you’ve been making for years.' False if one is born poor and all choices are crappy and the few ways out mostly rely on luck. This article assumes away a lot of the pitfalls inherent in its assertions.

xcambar 4y ago
I am very happy to see more people realise that "everyone can achieve greatness" is incomplete and thus wrong. The sentence ends with "...but not everyone is born equal and some will even meet insurmountable barriers". That being said, the article is quite apt on the power of compounding results. They are too often overlooked in daily life.
- deleted 4y ago
  [deleted]
- derbOac 4y ago
  I agree but the essay is so vague as to be meaningless. It's essentially saying "good positions are the result of consistently making the right decisions every single time all the time, over time." One way of reading that is in terms of persistence, another is in terms of luck or circumstance. It's tautological and the essence of survivorship and hindsight bias, rolled into one. Essays like this are infuriating, because they sidestep the hardest problem, which is knowing what all these correct decisions are in a chain of decisions. That they are unknowable — maybe undefinable, if you consider what a "good position" is — is what undermines the thesis of the essay. The candy bar example is trite and maybe illustrative: everyone ends up in poor health some day. It's death. Is that bad position the result of poor choices? Is someone who was a passenger in a plane accident at fault? Sure, you could say they made the wrong decision as to what flight to take — but is that the best way to think about the situation? Isn't it better to focus on helping them rehabilitate if they're still alive, and to prevent a similar accident from happening again? How is it helpful to blame the passengers?

hamilyon2 4y ago

Since early age I tend to think of a life not as a marathon, but as a very slow sprint. Everyone has the same speed, but can choose to turn. Everyone who turns the wrong way in the slightest, loses focus, always comes last. The good part is you have a few days, sometimes weeks of months to make a decision. The 100-meter sprint is done one meter a year.