5 ms·

This post is brief, but not fluffy. I wish he had dug more into the forces at work here. But it is an important point nonetheless. And we on HN could do bett

by pg 14y ago

This post is brief, but not fluffy. I wish he had dug more into the forces at work here. But it is an important point nonetheless. And we on HN could do better than merely dismiss it. We could try to dig into the underlying forces ourselves. E.g. not all hobbies consist of making the Apple I. So which do, and why? Are the things called hobbies two different types of work that are conflated by clueless observers simply because they're not the worker's day job? Or is there some amount of crossover between inventing the future and merely playing around? Instead the top comment is the forum analogue of a fluff post: a cynical dismissal based on some presumed bad intention on the writer's part.

_delirium 14y ago
The problem is that it is fluffy, and self-congratulatory: it just pats us on the back and says, what we do in our spare time is the future. We are the future! Our hobbies are tomorrow's serious endeavors! This is boring pseudo-intellectualism, and what techie forums always risk decaying into. The part you identify as having been left out is the entirety of what would be interesting in the analysis: any kind of specificity beyond flattering the greatness and prescience of our very-smart techie hobbies.
iamwil 14y ago
To start, I'm thinking of tests for things that aren't cultural trends, like the fist bump: I think some differentiators between the two types of work under the umbrella term 'hobbies' is: It's something where people are asking the question, "What can I do with this now, that I couldn't do before?" Hobbies like stamp collecting, or star wars trivia seem to fail this test. It's something where other people can build upon the hobby to do other things. Hobbies like being a foodie and MUDs seem to fail this test. As far as I can gather, it's people taking advantage of a new piece of knowledge or technology to try to figure out what new things it enables them to do.
gruseom 14y ago
The word "smartest" in the title misses the mark slightly in a way that exposes the idea to too-easy dismissal. The way people commonly use "smart" (high IQ, basically) isn't super-correlated with what Chris is talking about. Many high-IQ people are too locked-in to Achievement to bother with disinterested play. You can redefine "smartest" to mean "those who turn out to have been most ahead of their time", but that's circular and doesn't help identify the quality. The body of the post uses the word "hobby", though, and that's much better. Your hobby is the thing you do because you want to, whether or not anything comes of it and whether or not anyone thinks it's valuable. Hobbies are marginal, not one's main or proper thing (Woz was an engineer at HP). And they're often wild or eccentric. The main reason we wouldn't normally use the word "hobby" for important creative activity—that it seems too trivial—is actually a point in its favour. Incidentally, there's an earlier usage of the word "hobby" that was closer to what we now call "obsession" or "fixation". People would apologize for introducing their hobbies into polite conversation. One must also insist on the fact that very often nothing does come of this quality. To imagine otherwise is to allow no room for randomness.
- tripzilch 14y ago
  These two bits hit the nail right on the head: > You can redefine "smartest" to mean "those who turn out to have been most ahead of their time", but that's circular and doesn't help identify the quality. > One must also insist on the fact that very often nothing does come of this quality. To imagine otherwise is to allow no room for randomness.
Helianthus 14y ago
It's fluffy because it's brief. >And we on HN could do better than merely dismiss it. What, embrace it? I'll take self-deprecation over rejection of self-deprecation. >We could try to dig into the underlying forces ourselves. E.g. not all hobbies consist of making the Apple I. So which do, and why? Are the things called hobbies merely two different types of work that are conflated by clueless observers simply because they're not the worker's day job? Or is there some amount of crossover between inventing the future and merely playing around? Maybe if the article did that it wouldn't be so fluffy. It's fluffy because its terminology is closer to "Rock Star" than "Guitar Lesson." If you are still inclined to view jacques_chester's post as fluff, consider at least that _submission quality affects comment quality._ I know you're not likely to respond to my comment. I'm partially just wondering why you're wading into the field personally to address a meta point.
- iamwil 14y ago
  No, not to embrace it. But to ask and answer the more interesting question: "How do we differentiate between hobbies that changes the way the world does things, and hobbies that don't?" Let's say jacques_chester was right. It was fluff and self-congratulatory. What comes of it? There's nothing to take home there. But if we had moved the discussion to the more interesting question (that the OP failed to cover, but we also failed to discuss), then that has pretty wide implications of how we might tackle our life's work.
ljd 14y ago
From an evolutionary perspective, all these side projects represent mutations in technology. Environmental pressures are acting on these mutations to select the project that is a best fit for the masses and reward that best fit by reproducing it or as the author puts it, make it into our daily lives in ten years. So it may be impossible to build a model of what projects will turn out like the Apple 1 and which ones will never be heard of because if technology works like evolution then it doesn't have to be a linear progression forward. It's just whatever tool solves the problem today. From a personal perspective, I work on projects because I can't help myself. I see something that I would love to use and I need to build it. It's addictive. I'm not sure if there is much more to it than that.
jacques_chester 14y ago
> I wish he had dug more into the forces at work here. But it is an important point nonetheless. He was busy slapping all nerds everywhere on the back with reflected glory. You're just reading in what you wanted him to say and judging your desired reading, not the original. (Edit: and I did the same, fixating on the self-congratulatory fluff and ignoring the selection-biased hypothesis about making predictions.) > Instead the top comment is the forum analogue of a fluff post: a cynical dismissal based on some presumed bad intention on the writer's part. You're basically imputing to me a motive to impute a motive to Chris that in my estimation neither of us had. I mentioned Naïve Realism a while back in one of the various pitchfork debates (the Tesla test drive, I think). I think it's happening here too. But really, this post was self-congratulation. I've read similar fluff from marketers and advertisers who see themselves as the lever-pullers of capitalism, from student politicians about their destiny as masters of all creation, from lawyers about the utter indispensibility of their ancient craft, from engineers ditto ... ad infinitum. In all such cases they could have written the same stuff about how they were shaping The Future Of The World years ago. I'd be more interested in seeing the base rate on all the garage projects that go absolutely nowhere, achieve nothing and have no meaningful impact on the world. That would be most of them. Which is fine. But let's not pretend that since Woz was a genius, the rest of us are also in the same category.
- zosima 14y ago
  He coined a nice epigram I will remember. That is enough for the article to be interesting. What is the problem with being self-congratulatory? What is wrong with focusing on the positive and thinking that your hobby and life's work is worthwhile? Would anything be created if people were constantly doubting themselves and their creations? Would anything be better then? What harm would there be in people hoping to be the next woz? And with the low base rate of garage projects going anywhere, which we are all painfully aware of, don't you think it's better to give encouragement and hope. I do, and I think a dismissal such as yours is harmful to the greater cause of creating interesting ideas, programs and thoughts.
  - jacques_chester 14y ago
eri 14y ago
>a cynical dismissal based on some presumed bad intention on the writer's part I don't think jacq presumed bad intention or dismissed the post entirely. I appreciate someone calling out the combination of 'narrowness of vision' and a little self-righteousness. Chris' post was totally well-intentioned, but jacq's meta point adds value, as now there's the human component of self-importance in addition to the original point of the post
lifeisstillgood 14y ago
Several times in my career I have found myself learning and reading and suddenly finding that what I want to do next has no blog posts, or third party frameworks - I have reached the state of the art in one (tiny) direction. That is where the productive hobbies take you - to the point where to play some more you need to invent. At this point skills, available time all come to bear - but I now recognise this time - and refuse to waste the opportunities. Not easy to spot for oneself - spotting it as investment - no idea :-)
tripzilch 14y ago
> not all hobbies consist of making the Apple I. So which do, and why? which grain of sand, dropped onto the pile, caused the avalanche, and why? :) Must've been the red one. Last three times it was green green yellow red. Well, if you don't count the time when most of the top was already red, that stands to reason. > Instead the top comment is the forum analogue of a fluff post: a cynical dismissal based on some presumed bad intention on the writer's part. Personally I think, cynical as it may have been, the article does require a counterpoint to its "brief"-ness. I really disagree with these question/statements implying how surely there must be underlying causes why one hobby results in "inventing the future", and another does not, as if these causes have any validity outside our monkey brain's 20/20 hindsight. By that I mean, creative hobbies are great. And they should be encouraged, for people that like that sort of thing (which is probably 99.9% of the HN crowd, but believe it or not, not all people everywhere). A tiny few of those hobbies will turn out "inventing the future" (like the term btw). But there's two ways of going about that and there is no reason to believe that one has higher odds of being successful than the other (except for a very deep and very human desire to believe): You can either chase the dragon, imprint order onto the chaos that the future grows from, believing you can bend it to your will. Or you can just have some fun. Can't you do both? Why yes, you can. Buying lottery tickets, some people seem to greatly enjoy imagining they can apply their will to a random process. I don't know if they have creative hobbies, though (but I'm not judging). Or maybe interpretation of Tarot cards, that's both creative, and applying your will to a random process. ... come to think of it, it is also "inventing the future", in a different sense :)
EwanG 14y ago
On the off chance anyone actually reads this... :-) He somewhat, and you more so, get to a point that has been bothering me a fair bit recently. How much should I care about meaning in what I do in my spare time. Possibly due to my upbringing, until recently I felt that if I had spare time I should be doing things that could ultimately lead to a new career, or that at least would produce things that are important. IOW, not just play games but program them. Go out on hikes, and take photography in a way designed to allow the experience to be shared for possibly publication. However, the last couple of weekends I have forced myself (harder the first weekend than the last couple) to just veg and to play the two games I actually enjoy playing. In part because the critical reception to most of my "serious" stuff has been lacking, and in part because I'm wondering if trying to do "important" stuff is keeping me from refreshing like I am supposed to do on the days I'm not at my main job. To your point specifically, I would be curious to know whether the best use of our limited time (at least until we hit the singularity and then time becomes a different medium) is to be working on different aspects of ourself - or to try and fine ways to have fun devoid of any intended meaning?
- teeja 14y ago
  to just veg and to play the two games I actually enjoy playing. Really. I try hard to keep my tech-hobby time from being "productive". What I do with computers and/or sound is -fun- and the world'll be damn lucky if anything comes out of it but my amusement. When I was a kid I'd lay on the lawn staring at clouds (hard in winter) or run around everyone's houses and lawns with kids (several reasons that's no longer an option). Got another harness, go get yourself a horse.
- AutoCorrect 14y ago
  I don't know how old you are, but I'm in my mid-40s. For the longest time, everything I did was related to learning more about computers. Over the past couple of years, that changed - I found that I was no longer interested in learning new stuff so much. It's easy to pick up new skills, but I don't seek them out the way I did. I realized that I had completely forgotten what I LIKED to do, in favor of doing what I HAD to do to keep making money. I actually had to sit down and write a list of things I liked to do, and make sure to start doing them. It's easy to lose sight of why we are hear. No one ever wished they had worked more, as they lay dying. My point is, don't feel bad about doing what you want to do.

by pg 14y ago

_delirium 14y ago

The problem is that it is fluffy, and self-congratulatory: it just pats us on the back and says, what we do in our spare time is the future. We are the future! Our hobbies are tomorrow's serious endeavors! This is boring pseudo-intellectualism, and what techie forums always risk decaying into. The part you identify as having been left out is the entirety of what would be interesting in the analysis: any kind of specificity beyond flattering the greatness and prescience of our very-smart techie hobbies.

iamwil 14y ago

To start, I'm thinking of tests for things that aren't cultural trends, like the fist bump: I think some differentiators between the two types of work under the umbrella term 'hobbies' is: It's something where people are asking the question, "What can I do with this now, that I couldn't do before?" Hobbies like stamp collecting, or star wars trivia seem to fail this test. It's something where other people can build upon the hobby to do other things. Hobbies like being a foodie and MUDs seem to fail this test. As far as I can gather, it's people taking advantage of a new piece of knowledge or technology to try to figure out what new things it enables them to do.

gruseom 14y ago

The word "smartest" in the title misses the mark slightly in a way that exposes the idea to too-easy dismissal. The way people commonly use "smart" (high IQ, basically) isn't super-correlated with what Chris is talking about. Many high-IQ people are too locked-in to Achievement to bother with disinterested play. You can redefine "smartest" to mean "those who turn out to have been most ahead of their time", but that's circular and doesn't help identify the quality. The body of the post uses the word "hobby", though, and that's much better. Your hobby is the thing you do because you want to, whether or not anything comes of it and whether or not anyone thinks it's valuable. Hobbies are marginal, not one's main or proper thing (Woz was an engineer at HP). And they're often wild or eccentric. The main reason we wouldn't normally use the word "hobby" for important creative activity—that it seems too trivial—is actually a point in its favour. Incidentally, there's an earlier usage of the word "hobby" that was closer to what we now call "obsession" or "fixation". People would apologize for introducing their hobbies into polite conversation. One must also insist on the fact that very often nothing does come of this quality. To imagine otherwise is to allow no room for randomness.

tripzilch 14y ago
These two bits hit the nail right on the head: > You can redefine "smartest" to mean "those who turn out to have been most ahead of their time", but that's circular and doesn't help identify the quality. > One must also insist on the fact that very often nothing does come of this quality. To imagine otherwise is to allow no room for randomness.

Helianthus 14y ago

It's fluffy because it's brief. >And we on HN could do better than merely dismiss it. What, embrace it? I'll take self-deprecation over rejection of self-deprecation. >We could try to dig into the underlying forces ourselves. E.g. not all hobbies consist of making the Apple I. So which do, and why? Are the things called hobbies merely two different types of work that are conflated by clueless observers simply because they're not the worker's day job? Or is there some amount of crossover between inventing the future and merely playing around? Maybe if the article did that it wouldn't be so fluffy. It's fluffy because its terminology is closer to "Rock Star" than "Guitar Lesson." If you are still inclined to view jacques_chester's post as fluff, consider at least that _submission quality affects comment quality._ I know you're not likely to respond to my comment. I'm partially just wondering why you're wading into the field personally to address a meta point.

iamwil 14y ago
No, not to embrace it. But to ask and answer the more interesting question: "How do we differentiate between hobbies that changes the way the world does things, and hobbies that don't?" Let's say jacques_chester was right. It was fluff and self-congratulatory. What comes of it? There's nothing to take home there. But if we had moved the discussion to the more interesting question (that the OP failed to cover, but we also failed to discuss), then that has pretty wide implications of how we might tackle our life's work.

ljd 14y ago

From an evolutionary perspective, all these side projects represent mutations in technology. Environmental pressures are acting on these mutations to select the project that is a best fit for the masses and reward that best fit by reproducing it or as the author puts it, make it into our daily lives in ten years. So it may be impossible to build a model of what projects will turn out like the Apple 1 and which ones will never be heard of because if technology works like evolution then it doesn't have to be a linear progression forward. It's just whatever tool solves the problem today. From a personal perspective, I work on projects because I can't help myself. I see something that I would love to use and I need to build it. It's addictive. I'm not sure if there is much more to it than that.

jacques_chester 14y ago

> I wish he had dug more into the forces at work here. But it is an important point nonetheless. He was busy slapping all nerds everywhere on the back with reflected glory. You're just reading in what you wanted him to say and judging your desired reading, not the original. (Edit: and I did the same, fixating on the self-congratulatory fluff and ignoring the selection-biased hypothesis about making predictions.) > Instead the top comment is the forum analogue of a fluff post: a cynical dismissal based on some presumed bad intention on the writer's part. You're basically imputing to me a motive to impute a motive to Chris that in my estimation neither of us had. I mentioned Naïve Realism a while back in one of the various pitchfork debates (the Tesla test drive, I think). I think it's happening here too. But really, this post was self-congratulation. I've read similar fluff from marketers and advertisers who see themselves as the lever-pullers of capitalism, from student politicians about their destiny as masters of all creation, from lawyers about the utter indispensibility of their ancient craft, from engineers ditto ... ad infinitum. In all such cases they could have written the same stuff about how they were shaping The Future Of The World years ago. I'd be more interested in seeing the base rate on all the garage projects that go absolutely nowhere, achieve nothing and have no meaningful impact on the world. That would be most of them. Which is fine. But let's not pretend that since Woz was a genius, the rest of us are also in the same category.

zosima 14y ago
He coined a nice epigram I will remember. That is enough for the article to be interesting. What is the problem with being self-congratulatory? What is wrong with focusing on the positive and thinking that your hobby and life's work is worthwhile? Would anything be created if people were constantly doubting themselves and their creations? Would anything be better then? What harm would there be in people hoping to be the next woz? And with the low base rate of garage projects going anywhere, which we are all painfully aware of, don't you think it's better to give encouragement and hope. I do, and I think a dismissal such as yours is harmful to the greater cause of creating interesting ideas, programs and thoughts.
- jacques_chester 14y ago

eri 14y ago

>a cynical dismissal based on some presumed bad intention on the writer's part I don't think jacq presumed bad intention or dismissed the post entirely. I appreciate someone calling out the combination of 'narrowness of vision' and a little self-righteousness. Chris' post was totally well-intentioned, but jacq's meta point adds value, as now there's the human component of self-importance in addition to the original point of the post

lifeisstillgood 14y ago

Several times in my career I have found myself learning and reading and suddenly finding that what I want to do next has no blog posts, or third party frameworks - I have reached the state of the art in one (tiny) direction. That is where the productive hobbies take you - to the point where to play some more you need to invent. At this point skills, available time all come to bear - but I now recognise this time - and refuse to waste the opportunities. Not easy to spot for oneself - spotting it as investment - no idea :-)

tripzilch 14y ago

> not all hobbies consist of making the Apple I. So which do, and why? which grain of sand, dropped onto the pile, caused the avalanche, and why? :) Must've been the red one. Last three times it was green green yellow red. Well, if you don't count the time when most of the top was already red, that stands to reason. > Instead the top comment is the forum analogue of a fluff post: a cynical dismissal based on some presumed bad intention on the writer's part. Personally I think, cynical as it may have been, the article does require a counterpoint to its "brief"-ness. I really disagree with these question/statements implying how surely there must be underlying causes why one hobby results in "inventing the future", and another does not, as if these causes have any validity outside our monkey brain's 20/20 hindsight. By that I mean, creative hobbies are great. And they should be encouraged, for people that like that sort of thing (which is probably 99.9% of the HN crowd, but believe it or not, not all people everywhere). A tiny few of those hobbies will turn out "inventing the future" (like the term btw). But there's two ways of going about that and there is no reason to believe that one has higher odds of being successful than the other (except for a very deep and very human desire to believe): You can either chase the dragon, imprint order onto the chaos that the future grows from, believing you can bend it to your will. Or you can just have some fun. Can't you do both? Why yes, you can. Buying lottery tickets, some people seem to greatly enjoy imagining they can apply their will to a random process. I don't know if they have creative hobbies, though (but I'm not judging). Or maybe interpretation of Tarot cards, that's both creative, and applying your will to a random process. ... come to think of it, it is also "inventing the future", in a different sense :)

EwanG 14y ago

On the off chance anyone actually reads this... :-) He somewhat, and you more so, get to a point that has been bothering me a fair bit recently. How much should I care about meaning in what I do in my spare time. Possibly due to my upbringing, until recently I felt that if I had spare time I should be doing things that could ultimately lead to a new career, or that at least would produce things that are important. IOW, not just play games but program them. Go out on hikes, and take photography in a way designed to allow the experience to be shared for possibly publication. However, the last couple of weekends I have forced myself (harder the first weekend than the last couple) to just veg and to play the two games I actually enjoy playing. In part because the critical reception to most of my "serious" stuff has been lacking, and in part because I'm wondering if trying to do "important" stuff is keeping me from refreshing like I am supposed to do on the days I'm not at my main job. To your point specifically, I would be curious to know whether the best use of our limited time (at least until we hit the singularity and then time becomes a different medium) is to be working on different aspects of ourself - or to try and fine ways to have fun devoid of any intended meaning?

teeja 14y ago
to just veg and to play the two games I actually enjoy playing. Really. I try hard to keep my tech-hobby time from being "productive". What I do with computers and/or sound is -fun- and the world'll be damn lucky if anything comes out of it but my amusement. When I was a kid I'd lay on the lawn staring at clouds (hard in winter) or run around everyone's houses and lawns with kids (several reasons that's no longer an option). Got another harness, go get yourself a horse.
AutoCorrect 14y ago
I don't know how old you are, but I'm in my mid-40s. For the longest time, everything I did was related to learning more about computers. Over the past couple of years, that changed - I found that I was no longer interested in learning new stuff so much. It's easy to pick up new skills, but I don't seek them out the way I did. I realized that I had completely forgotten what I LIKED to do, in favor of doing what I HAD to do to keep making money. I actually had to sit down and write a list of things I liked to do, and make sure to start doing them. It's easy to lose sight of why we are hear. No one ever wished they had worked more, as they lay dying. My point is, don't feel bad about doing what you want to do.