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The word "failure" is used to mean two distinct things: 1) bad outcome, 2) made the wrong choices given the available information at the time. They are not the
by dsjoerg 12y ago
The word "failure" is used to mean two distinct things: 1) bad outcome, 2) made the wrong choices given the available information at the time.
They are not the same. Furthermore if you have no bad outcomes, you may be taking a suboptimal amount of risk, which would then be a failure in the second sense of the term.
- differentView 12y ago>if you have no bad outcomes, you may be taking a suboptimal amount of risk That is not the same as what blhack wrote, "If you're failing, you're doing something right." you: zero failures = doing something wrong blhack: any failure = doing something right blhack's statement is clearly ridiculous.
- blhack 12y agoYour understanding of what I said is also clearly ridiculous. In context, what I am saying is pretty obviously meant to be taken as: Failure is part of taking risk. Risk is part of doing things that are difficult. Doing things that are difficult is part of progress. Progress is something that I consider "right". And then put further into context, with regards to spectacular failures like the one today: Don't beat yourself up [engineers who worked on orbital] because the very difficult thing that you were doing failed. That is what makes that very difficult thing noteworthy.
- dang 12y agoThis is an example of how the signal/noise ratio on HN can be improved by the Principle of Charity: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Principle_of_charity http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Principle_of_charity. blhack's comment was ambiguous. Under some interpretations it is ridiculous, but under others it is sensible. By interpreting charitably, we can avoid a fair bit of two of the worst things on HN: abrasiveness and nitpicking. (Edit: and protracted disputes. So, three of the worst things on HN.)