On doing things other people can't | Hacker News Reader

On doing things other people can't

pathsensitive.blogspot.com

212 pointsnancyhua76 comments

One thing that the author focuses on is trying to predict what will be big in the medium to longer time horizon and preparing oneself to be competent in that while few others realize that "it" even exists.

I am a bit older than the author and have had some experience with this strategy. One specific example is creating an approach to latent semantic analysis that worked really well back in 2000. My partner and I couldn't get people with money to pay attention. We ended up putting it on the shelf and moving on. Around 2007 semantic gets really hot with VCs but we are each engaged elsewhere.

My point is that this strategy can suffer from being too early. You may eventually be shown to be right but you were too early or not persuasive enough to gain the benefit from the insight and work.

Still, I find myself much more intrigued with creating something new, or exploring the leading edge of some field than just grinding out the next iteration of the same old thing.

Maybe one day I will get the timing just right.

This is really insightful, there's a pretty large library of algorithms and approaches that have been sitting on the shelf for decades (or used in very few places) that become far more interesting with modern hardware. The recent resurgence with Bloom filters for example, a technology form the 1970s, used in a few database products, is now everywhere.

But there's also the curious problem of expensive and difficult to produce technology that doesn't have a market large enough to sustain it. Example, the crop of now dead or dying enterprise entity extraction companies. It turns out it's expensive to build those systems, but the market isn't that large, which forces the price up to try and survive, which then further reduces the market and so on into a death spiral. Nowadays people just try to get by with OpenNLP...which was easily bested by tools like ThingFinder and ClearForest a decade earlier.

The bloom filter thing is interesting - it was just useful enough to stay occasionally used, till what a decade ago when simple lookup needs exploded around key-value stores.

But I would suggest the "occasionally used" is as much a signal as anything - I'm wondering how to discover that signal.

With LSA, I believe it suddenly became hot in 2007 because the belcor patent was set to expire.

> With LSA, I believe it suddenly became hot in 2007 because the belcor patent was set to expire.

Which has interesting implications about the extent to which patents help or hinder innovation…

Young people tend to severely underestimate how much luck and timing play into success.

When I read, "When I was in 9th grade...and Googled..." I realized why the article sounded like it did.

I had an identical reaction. I'd like to think I'm above simple agism but someone who is 29-31 years old dropping life lessons seems hollow.

I was curious about his background and started googling him: http://www.jameskoppel.com/bio.html. He was a Thiel fellow in 2012 so he was less than 20 yrs old then. He is at most 23 yrs old now.

I saw some discussion about corporate onboarding recently, apparently the best person to help the new hire get onboarded is the person who was most recently onboarded themselves.

Maybe something similar applies to adult (or almost-adult) life?

I don't think so. The reason a recent hire is well suited to onboarding a new hire is because process of onboarding is very dynamic and changing and its a one time or at least rare thing in the life of an employee. The onboarding process the new employee is going to go through is likely completely different from what a employee might have gone through 15 years ago but is probably almost identical to want someone hired 15 days ago went through. It seems silly to me to compare who is best at providing help to complete a single, short, well defined task to who may be best at advising how to live a happy productive adult life. How could a fresh 18 year old adult possible give advice on how to balance your work and family life?

Edit: Now if you were to narrow the question to: What age of adviser is best for assisting a young high school grad with their transition to college life such a comparison might be more meaningful.

Being around 30 gives more-or-less a decade of experience at being an adult. Which is plenty of time to get your 10k expertise hours in if you haven't been completely slacking off the whole time.

You know the whole 10,000 hours thing is made up bullshit right?

Yep. :)

Which is pretty much what people do in their twenties.

A 30 year old will probably give better life advice to a 15yo than a 60yo for example.

I think it's about relevant experience at your level.

In fact, the secret of the not-as-young people is to manufacture the luck as much as they can and increase exposure to serendipity through consistent - well - showing up. And behind most lucky youngsters are diligent parents and support networks that know this lesson and apply it to their offspring, even if the offspring stay unaware.

I've heard this quote before in various forms but I don't like it.

The luck applies to those who are already doing everything right. The other people are "failures" because you can pinpoint where they were deficient. When I think about luck and success I picture a pool of highly educated, ambitious, type A people. Why does one of them become an industry tycoon billionaire while the others become merely wealthy? You can manufacture luck for the latter but not the former.

   "manufacture the luck"

If you can manufacture it, it isn't luck, period. And you need some luck to succeed.

Your broader point stands though, you miss 100% of the opportunities you didn't show up for.

I think the idea is more like that saying "Opportunity is a meeting of luck and preparation". So maybe it's more like 'manufacture opportunity' by constantly showing up prepared.

I like that much better.

Luck is when things fall out better than you could reasonably have expected. Opportunities are something you can work for.

manufacturing the conditions for luck. Sheesh.

I think the distinction is important.

There is a pernicious lie we tell, culturally, about success as if it were a matter of worth and effort. The truth is most success has a strong element of luck, and many failures as well.

you're not looking at the right examples. Sure luck. But my colleagues who started companies who are 40 - 300 employes strong now, they did not do it by luck. They wanted something, knew how to do things better, took risks and made it. Then 15 years later somebody could say something about luck but it's almost insulting. However my colleauges would acknowledge luck, but in reality it was just a ton of the right decisions and service to others creates the momentum.

Luck is just probability, and the Law of Large Numbers says that low-probability events are much more likely to happen if you sample repeatedly.

No, luck is when your manage to get a sample that is much better than the expectation value. Of course this has to happen for some people, some of the time - but counting on it is irrational.

There is nothing lucky about merely resampling until in expectation you should see the result you want. That's just doing the work.

>There is nothing lucky about merely resampling until in expectation you should see the result you want. That's just doing the work.

That's just showing up.

You could also consider luck to be our sampling bias of only taking into account the successful outcomes.

The population as a whole that is attempting to determine the 'next big thing (tm)' does the majority of the sampling (with a small amount of resampling from those who manage a second or third try). We then read the stories of the successful outcomes and call it luck.

> If you can manufacture it, it isn't luck, period.

I'm not sure I agree with the statement.

It is possible that a certain outcome is attached to a certain action, but the link between the two is sufficiently hidden that the outcome seems like luck. Is it luck? It surely looks like luck, and behaves like luck. I would call it luck.

But of course for some people, that link might be a little more obvious. Those are the people that can "manufacture luck."

I would like to note, it's usually not a single action that generate luck, it's a set of complex actions, which is why it's hard to manufacture, and stays luck.

Yeah,

Unique technical skills generally aren't a great path to riches. The most uniquely skilled people in the world might be famous but they often aren't rich or at least not extremely rich.

Some combination of knowing what people want, being able to (directly or indirectly) organize people to create the thing, and knowing rich people willing to invest in your plan for doing it, is pretty the formula for most people gaining wealth in this society. There are other formulas but this is by far the most common and why fight the average if you're after success?

This idea is usually called the "failed simulation effect" in evaluating high school/college/grad school applications: http://calnewport.com/blog/2008/05/28/the-art-of-activity-in...

The basic idea is that there are a lot of things that are actually a lot more reasonable than they appear because in reality they build from a simple beginning that compounds through practice and persistence, just like anything else, but the reviewer never sees that. It's very effective when you see it.

On one hand it is an interesting statement about the amount of work required to accomplish something that is impressive to an outsider who doesn't understand the steps, but really these people really are somewhat unique merely by being enterprising enough to take advantage of the opportunities they had.

That is, I think after asking the people about the explicit steps involved, I would understand better, but I wouldn't be less impressed.

A lot of these seem to be about getting accepted into some high-achieving organizations, which will open up further opportunities. This is clearly very important. I would suggest one strategy to do this which involves startups:

MAKE A STARTUP THAT YOU ARE GOING TO FLIP

Once you have the mindset that you are going to exit in a few years instead of building the next google, you'll project many of the attitudes investors are looking for. Even if you have a huge idea that you're working on, don't bring it up when you talk about your smaller, flippable idea. Even better if technology or user base you developed in the "world changing" project can be used to give the flippable idea a big boost, making it seem to be making amazing leaps (which is actually true). Give away as much equity as you need to the most well-connected people who want to get involved. Network your way using the startup as the reason for everyone to cluster around. In short, build your own little organization, and attract people by selling to them exactly what they are looking for. Don't be greedy with the equity because your goal isn't to make huge amounts of money on the exit (even though you could every well exit with millions or a golden parachute) but to open doors and make connections.

Many startups eschew this route because they feel they must focus only on their world-changing business, and as a result, they miss all the low hanging fruit they could be getting.

Substitute the tech buzzwords for real estate ones and your terrifying comment could have come straight out of 2007. You shouldn't be building anything to "flip". That attitude does not lead to a society full of people doing productive things. It leads to a shake silo of charlatans doing their best to dupe VCs until the bubble comes crashing down on all our heads.

No. The idea is not to dump some bad mortgage on an unsuspecting buyer. It's to not be hesitant to give away enough equity to make sure the company grows as fast as it can and reaches influential people as a result. That brings you connections, a good track record (serial entrepreneur), and money. You can own 90% of your NEXT venture, while the previous one is managed by "not you" since you've given away equity to lots of people who now say "we'll take it from here".

After all, if so many people are actively looking for such entrepreneurs and screening for an "early exit" mindset, why not sell to them what they're looking for, and use it as a vehicle to get further in life?

While rather cynical, this advice captures the current zeitgeist. The alternative is of course ignore the VCs and their ways and just get on with building your business.

This is a good idea. Cal Newport has a similar suggestion, and often writes about thus under the heading "the psychology of impressiveness":

http://calnewport.com/blog/2010/03/26/how-to-get-into-stanfo...

I'd be interesting in hearing about other people doing this sort of thing.

I really like the insight in this article. It really boils down to being mindful of what you're trying to achieve versus established wisdom on how to achieve it. My grandfather used to say "There are many roads to your destination, try to pick one with a good view." Which, to be honest, I didn't appreciate until I watched the paths my kids chose to get to their destinations.

That said, people who choose to take short cuts (cheating, plagiarizing, or other work avoidance strategies) always annoy me, especially when they are successful at it. So where do you draw the line? Do you try to get into Harvard on your merits or do you have your Dad's company endow a chair there? The latter is certainly something not everyone can do.

Really like the outside activity ideas though, I had no idea that becoming a radio amateur in High School would have looked so favorable on my college applications. I just did it so that I could talk to people across the country for free (long distance telephone calls were expensive then :-)

On Franklin not drinking beer: One interesting thing about drinking water is that it actually made you weak and sick in the past. Romans knew that and used wine for this reason. Sider or beer were alternatives.

It was only after water infrastructure improved, specially filters in water, that people could drink water without issues.

When you travel the world, the most important thing you need is water purification tablets. I have traveled lots of countries and never got sick, but I have seen friends almost die because of drinking what they should not.

Things change over time.

#1. There is also doing things other people won't. Entrepreneurs tend to be willing to do anything. They're willing to survive discomfort, risk, and long hours, and complete unfamiliar tasks even if it means googling it from scratch. Leading is something people often won't do also, even though anyone can do it. Practice begins with doing, and so whether it's a deadline or a dream, if you have something pushing you to do things (and nothing is beneath you) you've just become capable of accomplishing what other's can't.

#2. This:

> what you get are communities that collectively have and share the best ways of doing things. So the way to get good at something is to simply find the right community and join it.

Take HN. If you can keep up with the conversations on here, you're pretty much guaranteed to be at the bleeding edge of IT. And the further away from SV the better probably... As HN literacy decreases per capita, you'll be further ahead of the local curve.

The only minimum is English, an internet connection, and a burning desire to build/code.

> The problem is the finding: every community wants to seem like them.

My heart goes out to those still stranded on /. (or rather, what has become of it). Why HN? The sparsity of the comments was misleading at first (though I was quickly enlightened as to why), but I am still pleasantly surprised every single day at the rate of which the original authors comment here. Sure, maybe they see their logs and hop on for the first time, but when we're not talking about other people, we are the people, and I find that to be a breath of fresh air. Plus, no ads. HN, I salute you.

> Plus, no ads

Well, except for the constant posts about YC classes & post postings for YC companies. Getting first crack at pretty much any startup and getting employees for those startups is worth way more than any ads that would ever be posted here.

>Take HN. If you can keep up with the conversations on here, you're pretty much guaranteed to be at the bleeding edge of IT.

That's... disturbing.

But it's true. And if you can understand reactions such as yours, you are really at the bleeding edge... It's not about right or wrong, but rather, knowing what is up. It's about knowing why people say the things they say. With an open mind, comments such as this can be just as enlightening.

Back in the day, I remember seeing the Japanese ./ site and being disappointed by the quality of submissions and comments compared to the English site. Now I look at HN and feel the same about /. And if anything comes along that makes me feel that way about HN, that is where I'll be... But until then!

It really isn't. I've wandered onto random IRC channels and found myself bathed in realms of technical knowledge that simply don't come up here, and made more genuine connections.

No one community is at the center of things. Ever. It's not how the world works. The best you can get, as leading edges go, is little glimpses of a new idea in a limited space, before it's had any chance to diffuse. Media aggregators come much, much later in the lifecycle. For a certain slice of tech, HN may be professionally necessary - but otherwise it's not that advantageous.

Not center of course. Just one edge is probably more accurate.

But I don't think you realize just how hard it is for a normal person to randomly hop on an IRC channel and be bathed and be able to keep up with it and make friends. If HN feels redundant then consider that serious validation of your competence and the league you are in. I tip my hat.

Can you give examples of some good ones?

We've roughly doubled the number of college degrees earned (of all types, from Associates to Masters) since 1980: http://nces.ed.gov/programs/digest/d14/tables/dt14_318.10.as... (the population of the US has only grown by about 40% in that time period, which means there's also about a 40% increase in per-capita degrees earned.) Having a degree has become less and less of a "do something other people can't" prospect, and therefore less of a useful signal to employers.

Be self sufficient. The degree is fantastic, but build something while you're getting the degree that you can show future employers. Sorry but your thesis isn't "something". Nobody can make money on your thesis. Build a tool/product/something. I know this is difficult in most industries, but in the software (and even IoT) space it's ridiculously easy. I'm not talking about the thing you built while you interned at "XYZ". I'm talking about an idea you had (even if there's already 1000's of the same thing out there) that you planned, implemented, launched, supported, and marketed. It's fine if it makes $0. You want to show an employer self sufficiency and results. Show them what you can do to make them money.

I'll use this comment as a mental exercise for the sources of power that I found. Disclaimer: I'm no sources of power expert ;) Just a person who's intrigued.

- Meditation: nowadays it seems a bit more mainstream, but I still think doing Vipassana or other body-scan related techniques is a source of power. The idea of emotional intelligence felt like a concept, but when I actually felt a tangible improvement, I understood the concept intuitively.

- Mental simulation: this is more a generalization of meditation. But if psychology shows you can learn to play piano just by vividly imagining it, it has merit, since you can now learn it anywhere.

- Specialized communities: Hacker News is a prime example. It's the first time I learned so much about tech (despite studying CS). Evaluating a community is a matter of its own though.

- Interdisciplinarity: this is more domain specific but it works for me in uni. I learned my academic writing thanks to psychology classes and learned LaTeX from CS. Combining the two allowed me to improve my writing in ways I never imagined. A natural consequence is that I get higher grades during interdisciplinary courses (e.g. serious games).

- Geo-arbitrage: we all know this one. Living in a cheap country (e.g. somewhere in Asia), while working for an expensive country such as the US.

- Good peer to peer teaching: I owe all most of my dating skills to one person who taught me after years of small successes and reading a lot on the topic. Finding the right teacher is the hard part.

- Six degrees to separation: I tried it once as an experiment. I didn't reach the person I wanted to reach, I was impatient as well. But I got a lot further than I thought. The hardest thing is that you don't know the full topology. So my best guestimate was to contact the hubs (people that know many people), and Facebook will show you who your hubs are :)

While I've never done this type of thinking before, here it goes. My bets for new sources of power: - Machine learning: I think there are enough applications that haven't been explored yet. I mean small projects. For example, machine learning algorithms to write awesome music to MIDI and then you adapt it to your taste as a music producer.

- Game development for the Rift: it's not massively adopted yet and game-design approaches need to be reinvented a bit.

Anyone who wants to share or give feedback? :)

It's funny, based on the title, I was expecting to read an essay about remembering that other people don't have the same advantages you have and can't do what you do, even if it seems easy to you. It seems like the author hasn't had that insight yet?

It's really sad, but in one way kind of laughable, to see so many ostensibly bright students wasting their time cramming useless crap into their brains for AP history and calculus tests, and doing socially acceptable "extracurricular activities," all so they can get into socially acceptable or "impressive" universities where they can pay obscene tuitions and try to figure out what they want to do with life. Compulsory K-12 education is really bad for smart students who know what they love to do and what they're good at, because it's a massive, needlessly competitive distraction. Not all smart kids need to learn the details of calculus or chemistry or history, it turns out, because not all smart kids want to be math professors or biochemists or historians! Who woulda thought?!

-----

Oh, you're a talented young engineer? You can write a program in 3 minutes to approximate nearly any integral? Fuck you, we don't even teach programming in high school. In fact, such witchcraft is prohibited here. Instead, spend half a year of your life memorizing these integration tricks because we're definitely still in the 19th century. Speaking of which, don't forget that you have a big history project due tomorrow because you will no doubt be required to distinguish between Greek column types when you're in the real world!

Oh, you have a natural gift for writing? Too bad you don't know what a gerund or past participle is! You must be dumb! Let me tell you: In the real world, it is imperative that you be capable of diagramming sentences. Yes, you deserve to fail grammar tests even if your grammar is impeccable in practice.

Oh, you taught yourself conceptual aerospace engineering in elementary school? Fuck you and your creativity and advanced knowledge; you must follow directions to the point in engineering class to build this cardboard rocket! Engineering is all about following directions!

-----

Yeah, I've seen some nasty things in school.

I hope I see the day when students don't feel pressured to learn things just to make the grade or "keep up" with the fierce competition. Maybe young people will increasingly realize that competing to be #1 in the Great Conformity Competition is really dumb because it actually makes them less competitive where GPAs don't matter.

Imagine where you'd be if you were given the chance and encouragement to really focus on the things you loved while growing up. Young people should not be led to believe that there is one correct path for everyone.

How could you possibly write a program that "approximates nearly any integral" without having learned calculus in the first place. I by that I don't mean to "spend half a year memorizing" any tricks. (If that's what they taught you, I am sorry to say you had a pretty awful teacher and you should seek to educate yourself elsewhere).

Oh yes, I forgot about the 3 minute part. You didn't write anything from scratch. You just at best googled for a math library and hooked it up to your hello world program... if not downloaded the whole damned thing from easy-Aplus.com!!!

Nevermind, rest assured that grownups never had to learn anything in order to build the infrastructure you happen to enjoy today.

First, these are all exaggerated cases, inspired by experience. I appreciate the infrastructure a great deal, but I'm saying that there's a tremendous amount you can do if you focus on learning concepts and have a computer. School doesn't even care if you understand concepts; memorization is usually sufficient. And anyone who understands basic conceptual 1-var calculus and programming can indeed easily write functions in plain C that perform numerical integration and derivation because the hard part about calculus is putting up with the countless algebra tricks that are not obvious to mortals. Don't know how to manipulate that monstrous algebraic expression to take the limit? Good thing your computer can use some tiny floats. People who are not going to be math/physics professors or NASA physicists who need to plan a Mars voyage to the nearest nanometer would really benefit from focusing on the concepts instead of algebra. And my calculus teachers were pretty superb, by the way.

I guaran-fuckin-tee you that Earnest Hemingway knew what a gerund is.

Those "integration tricks" are introducing you to some of the most basic fundamentals of mathematical thought. Pay attention, kid, you'll have a lot harder time picking up maths in the future if you let it slip now.

Actually, most algebraic tricks in calculus, which are what make it challenging, are pretty unnecessary to know if you can program a computer or use existing math software. Conceptual tricks, on the other hand, which might be more aptly called "conceptual applications," should be understood and derived. The unfortunate thing is that many students get so accustomed to memorizing tricks that would indeed require really advanced math abilities and lots of time to derive that they gloss over valuable concepts that they should actually understand very well.

No, not actually.

I only used the word "trick" because you did. There are NO TRICKS in math. If a practitioner uses the word "trick" its because he's being facetious or joking. The algebraic manipulations which you find challenging are absolutely essential to master inside-out to be able to follow more advanced mathematical reasoning. You'll see these "tricks" again in a profoundly more generalized form if you study Algebra again (abstract algebra, that is).

There is utility in doing algebra on your computer when you're dealing with literally pages for one expression. That is done to save time and reduce the probability of errors-- and NOT because you "can't" otherwise do it. Even then, you'll need to manually sanity-check the work using skills you learned doing all those tedious problem sets.

Memorizing culture is a social issue and an issue about teachers, not about curriculum. Or you think a teacher can't tell the difference between a student that memorized a few formulas and the student that understood the concepts behind those?

EDIT: When I was in high school there were a few teachers that frowned upon memorizing things. They would give low grades to such students. Then halfway my education I went to live in another country where memorization was the accepted learning method and I've felt the difference greatly so I know what you're talking about.

Why am i not able to downvote this. You are wrong on so many levels I don't even know where to start.

I'll just say that a good general knowledge of various topics will greatly help in life in a variety of situations. What you get taught in high school after all is the basics of the basics. If you don't know what a gerund is... sorry, you're an ignorant, and I don't care how many stars your JavaScript library has on github.

I don't know what a gerund is, and I've never needed to except in 8th grade grammar tests, which I failed. Yet I got a 79/80 on the writing section of the SAT because my grammar is pretty solid. I've been in a remedial English class, actually, with ESL kids. Like yourself and most other rational people, I am a big proponent of acquiring knowledge on diverse topics. I just think people should be able to pursue the topics they're interested in instead of dealing with distracting busywork that old people decided was a good fundamental curriculum. Do you fail to see the problem with schools forcing kids to memorize things about Native Americans and Greek columns and long division (etc.) when 1) most do not care about such things and 2) even more will never need to know such things? It's one problem to have an outdated curriculum and another to force a set curriculum, even a great one that works really well for the average student, on kids.

I understand and completely agree with your issue about memorization. In my experience good teachers don't force you to simply memorize formulas/details but make you appreciate the meaning of the concepts behind those. After understanding the concepts the formulas come out by themselves and look obvious.

E.g.: It's important to know that Greek history is divided in 3 pretty different big main periods and each of them had different column designs but after that knowing the details of those designs is pretty unimportant.

A gerund is a pretty easy and obvious notion. Personally I just know it without even thinking about it probably because I was taught about it at a pretty young age. To me someone not knowing what gerund is is like someone e not knowing what multiplication is.

Honestly anything before college is a pretty young age and 99% of people aren't sure (or shouldn't be sure) about what they're going to do with their life because they don't know enough about it yet. Even that 1% will benefit out of basic knowledge in the long run because that's what makes you a man with basic culture that can discuss on a range of topics.

We humans are not computer programs specialized on solving a single task. High school makes us more like an OS, providing the features to solve (hopefully) any kind of problem we encounter in life.

On the last point of passing it on. The key is to find secrets with network effects on awareness. Secrets that degrade in utility as more people know them are the weakest form. Stronger are those that get better as more know them. Even stronger are those that accrue even more value when you explain to people it gets stronger as it spreads.

Also, I enjoyed the author's previous – and first – post: Small-Batch Blogging [1].

[1] http://pathsensitive.blogspot.com/2015/05/i-like-doing-thing...

So, privilege is great, and we need to capitalize on and discover new kinds of privilege so we (and our kids) can become captains of industry, Olympic medalists, and the smartest or most successful people in a particular field.

This would sound great if it didn't also reveal the horrifying nature of only thinking about yourself (or, in the case of a parent, your child) and being the best. You completely disregard everyone else, and totally ignore what capitalizing ("exploiting" in his words) on that privilege does to others.

But maybe I missed something.

This is a very thoughtful essay. I particularly appreciate the insight that his own insights have a shelf-life just as his parents' did.

this is an awesome read, thanks for sharing. I wonder how this can be applied to my career in software development?

Gotta admit, the first two paragraphs of this post made me stop reading it. Then I scrolled to the bottom thinking "what a silly article" until I read the last sentence.

:> everythings ok now

This is absolutely odious.

This is an absurdly depressing outlook on life.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8CrOL-ydFMI

I don't see any connection between this post and DFW's address, nor do I understand why this would be depressing.

It is depressing because it makes dubious assumptions about what is valuable-- as though not getting into MIT or Stanford means "failure".

Achievement does NOT necessarily require playing a nasty, zero-sum competitive game.

Perfectly stated. Thank you.

If I had to guess, it would be the author's apparent desire to "optimize" life -- specifically by optimizing how much you will be paid, or how you will be perceived by others. For example, he states "right now a degree in computer science is a ticket to a decent life," with the implication that it's not unreasonable to study computer science solely as a means of achieving financial security. So the depressing aspect is the thought of people directing all their energies towards "gaming the system" as effectively as possible.

As usual there's a balance to be struck. I've had my fair share of years spent chasing whatever fun thing I was into at the time. I don't regret those years at all, they were fantastic and they've contributed to my character far more than many other pursuits.

But there's still nothing glamorous about not having enough money to cover basic expenses, unexpected emergencies, to live in a comfortable place, to be able to afford the transportation that will get you to your passions.

I would not be worse off if I had abandoned some of my dreams a little earlier and pursued money for a little while longer.

That's as much because of the young age as anything else. When I was in my early 20's I still wanted an edge at literally everything. Conforming to that, of course you'll be championing your "career hacks" as hard as you can, because it's such a large element of pre-adult success culture. It just took another 5-10 years of living(I'm 30 now) to settle down and find an approach and goals that actually fit me.

Do you know what you get for optimizing your life for achievement? You die. Just like everyone else.

That is an argument for curling up into a ball in a fetal position.

Note: I could give a shit about getting into an elite school (I have 1 semester at UIC, and nothing else), and a hack to do that wasn't my takeaway from the post.

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