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I feel the trick with this heuristic is that it is only measurable post hoc. It could be argued that things don't have value until they exist[0], which takes wo

I feel the trick with this heuristic is that it is only measurable post hoc. It could be argued that things don't have value until they exist[0], which takes work. And plenty of things aren't valuable, until they are. So in that light, it's about oracle, or luck, directing your hard work towards efficacy. "Work Hard" is the only advice you can give without perfect knowledge of the future. We usually just leave out the depressing second half of the aphorism: "but sometimes it won't matter." [0] I can hear the entire finance industry starting to interject all at once

WalterBright 4y ago
I believe the word you're looking for is "risk". Nothing is guaranteed.
- dmreedy 4y ago
  I believe I choose my words carefully. You are correct that nothing is guaranteed. Now reconcile that with your position. What is "smart work" in light of risk?
  - WalterBright 4y ago
    > What is "smart work" in light of risk? Just what I said. Do things that create value.
    - dmreedy 4y ago
      And if the work you did is not "valuable", at the end of it, it is by definition not smart? Or does some smart work go unrewarded? And by complement then, does some un-smart work get rewarded? If I flip a coin and say, "it will come up heads", was the act of flipping "working smart", when it does? Is it feckless hard work when I get tails instead?
albntomat0 4y ago
I think your view doesn’t consider that we can make informed estimates for the future, with plans specifically for if we’re wrong. I can choose which programming languages and other technical skills I learn based on current use, as well as estimates for their future. I could become an expert in the wrong JavaScript framework, but learning Typescript and React is far more likely to be valuable than learning to be a telegraph repairman.
- dmreedy 4y ago
  You're not wrong! There's plenty of ways to constrain the hypothesis-space of the future. They do tend to be very bad at accounting for rapidly changing contexts. But beyond that, I think the conversation here is around output being sacred. By the definition of "value" I think we're all sort of taking as implicit here, Facebook would be just as valuable over telegram as it is over the internet. Obviously that's ludicrous in its particulars, but I just mean to say that the "value" doesn't necessarily correlate with the tools used to produce it in this context. It's not the craftsmanship that's "rewarded", it's the sale. Maybe sometimes you can sell better if you're invested in better tools, but I could work for a decade on a completely novel and beautifully crafted and executed widget that absolutely no one wants.
  - albntomat0 4y ago
    My point is that working smart involves predicting and then frequently validating that what you’re producing has value. The upstream conversation centers on individual workers and how much they get paid for their labor. Learning in demand skills likely to stand the test of time will get a worker higher pay, due to employers needing those skills to produce value for their customers. This also means the worker keeps track of what skills are desired, and acts accordingly if things change. In the case of someone working for a decade on something novel, but ultimately unwanted, there are still many ways to work smart. Did they try to validate their idea with a test audience? Could they have built a lesser featured minimal viable product in half the time, to test if it has value? Did they properly plan resource allocation, in both time and money? Or did they burn everything they had, well past their original plan? I agree that “working smart” is not a foolproof way to achieve success, but the conversation up the thread focused solely on luck.

WalterBright 4y ago

I believe the word you're looking for is "risk". Nothing is guaranteed.

dmreedy 4y ago
I believe I choose my words carefully. You are correct that nothing is guaranteed. Now reconcile that with your position. What is "smart work" in light of risk?
- WalterBright 4y ago
  > What is "smart work" in light of risk? Just what I said. Do things that create value.
  - dmreedy 4y ago
    And if the work you did is not "valuable", at the end of it, it is by definition not smart? Or does some smart work go unrewarded? And by complement then, does some un-smart work get rewarded? If I flip a coin and say, "it will come up heads", was the act of flipping "working smart", when it does? Is it feckless hard work when I get tails instead?

albntomat0 4y ago

I think your view doesn’t consider that we can make informed estimates for the future, with plans specifically for if we’re wrong. I can choose which programming languages and other technical skills I learn based on current use, as well as estimates for their future. I could become an expert in the wrong JavaScript framework, but learning Typescript and React is far more likely to be valuable than learning to be a telegraph repairman.

dmreedy 4y ago
You're not wrong! There's plenty of ways to constrain the hypothesis-space of the future. They do tend to be very bad at accounting for rapidly changing contexts. But beyond that, I think the conversation here is around output being sacred. By the definition of "value" I think we're all sort of taking as implicit here, Facebook would be just as valuable over telegram as it is over the internet. Obviously that's ludicrous in its particulars, but I just mean to say that the "value" doesn't necessarily correlate with the tools used to produce it in this context. It's not the craftsmanship that's "rewarded", it's the sale. Maybe sometimes you can sell better if you're invested in better tools, but I could work for a decade on a completely novel and beautifully crafted and executed widget that absolutely no one wants.
- albntomat0 4y ago
  My point is that working smart involves predicting and then frequently validating that what you’re producing has value. The upstream conversation centers on individual workers and how much they get paid for their labor. Learning in demand skills likely to stand the test of time will get a worker higher pay, due to employers needing those skills to produce value for their customers. This also means the worker keeps track of what skills are desired, and acts accordingly if things change. In the case of someone working for a decade on something novel, but ultimately unwanted, there are still many ways to work smart. Did they try to validate their idea with a test audience? Could they have built a lesser featured minimal viable product in half the time, to test if it has value? Did they properly plan resource allocation, in both time and money? Or did they burn everything they had, well past their original plan? I agree that “working smart” is not a foolproof way to achieve success, but the conversation up the thread focused solely on luck.