Meta-programming, in ruby (the power of code that creates code, being released from the tyranny of typing)
Social psychology (Social proof, hacks for relating to people, hacks for appealing to the opposite sex, hacks for reading people)
Economics (Why the minimum wage is damaging, why free trade is good)
The role that biases play in my own thinking. Charlie Munger's speech that was on this site a while ago articulates a lot of things I was beginning to realize (http://vinvesting.com/docs/munger/human_misjudgement.html)
I struggled for a long time with procrastination and low productivity. When I realized that abandoning the parts of my life that were not deeply fulfilling (browsing the web aimlessly, refreshing RSS feeds, wasting time in forums, watching tv etc) would not actually be as painful as I thought it would, it changed how I live and work in a very fundamental way.
Mostly about empirical observations about the natural world. One very simple idea while in High School studying physics & chemistry that "the iron in your blood flowing through your arteries is composed of left over bits of exploded starts (Iron)". Another is how little we really observe and notice things. Every week I make a habit of exploring & looking for new things mostly flora or fauna [0] in the bush. It sharpens your observation skills and keeps you fit at the same time. It never ceases to amaze me finding a new variety of insect. [1] Last weeks was a huge fly. [2] Never seen them before. I'm still hunting after a huge flying insect approx: 4-5cm in diameter that I've only seen around 500+m elevation.
[0] http://flickr.com/photos/bootload/sets/72157600203012569/ and http://flickr.com/photos/bootload/sets/72157600195813933/
[1] http://flickr.com/photos/bootload/sets/72157600195955778/
Sort of.
It is Iron with Atomic #26, the 6th most commonly abundant element, that in massive stars where stellar nucleosynthesis occurs is the point where the energy generated through fusion. The binding energy to add a neutron or proton, releases energy. After Iron (Fe56) the binding energy required to add a neutron or proton requires extra energy and can result in a collapse with heavier than Iron elements being generated in a super nova.
While stars up to our sun convert H->He and heavier elements it is Carbon, Nitrogen & Oxygen cycle (especially Carbon) that allows larger stars to create energy and finally the advanced fusion stages required for elements up to Iron. So you could probably argue that the existence of Carbon in humans is the just as significant.
Elements heavier than Iron requires explosive nucleosynthesis or a super nova to be created. These elements have unstable half lives. Hence the importance of Iron. [0]
[0] I've butchered a lot of physics here. Feel free to pick me up on the finer points.
Sexual selection is the second child of Darwin that people haven't paid as much attention to, but he spent a significant amount of time devoting study to it. It poses interesting questions on the canonical natural selection mechanisms, when mate selection is factored in. When you look at the mating systems of other animals, there's a wide wide variety. From males that care for the young, polygamy being the norm in birds, homosexuality not all that uncommon in the animal kingdom, and factors that affect male:female size ratio. After learning about it, you dismiss arguments people make about how this or that aspect of nature is 'unnatural'. Chances are, they've never looked, and think all mating systems are like human ones.
Quitting the for-loop through functional programming styles. Hello map, inject, and each. Understanding the power of Lisp, and why it has parens everywhere. Understanding continuations are functions that don't return, and you merely chain them together. Still working on monads though.
I remember when I first read a similarly short explanation of Lisp. Suddenly it clicked. It was something like: "All code can be represented as an AST. S-expressions are just serialized ASTs." Only it was better. Lost the source.
PS: I love everyone's comments, keep them coming!
Dawkin’s “The Ancestor’s Tale” showed me this pattern in biology, too, and drastically rewrote the way I see the world.
Being able to follow and understand mathematical proofs for the first time was also enlightening. I prefer the simple, clever ones, such as Cantor’s diagonal proof of the uncountability of the real numbers: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cantor's_diagonal_argument
That conservation laws follow from deeper symmetry principles (Noether's theorem). Symmetry under translation corresponds to conservation of momentum, symmetry under rotation to conservation of angular momentum, symmetry in time to conservation of energy!
Wavelet transforms also go on this list.
Architectures are designed to solve the known set of problems at the time of inception. When that problem set changes people try to adapt the architecture to solve the new problem set. Usually this is done through the path of least resistance. The easiest to implement with the least known side effects.
My favorite example: Web browsers were never ever meant to host applications when they were first designed. They can only passably do so today through elaborate hacks. This is why writing a good web application is so difficult and time consuming. These hacks are now well known established parts of what is the accepted architecture of web browsers but they were once hacks and are still hacks.
Similar examples exist all over the place. Design for the future and build for today...
I also remember being really suprised when I first learned the Central Limit Theorem[2] a long time ago.
That said, Hofstadter's "Gödel, Escher, Bach"[3] probably had the biggest impact on me.
[1] http://www.guardian.co.uk/science/2003/dec/04/science.resear...
2. When I am sure I am being totally logical, something analyzing myself shows very clearly that my motivations aren't what I think. People who deny their irrational humanity the most often are extremely irrational humans in many obvious ways (to someone other than themselves). A whole lot of extremely complex things are really a form of very simple, and often counterproductive, fear.
3. I really don't have to be what other people want me to be.
4. A lot of deeply held and complex human phenomena have extremely simple explanations, which you aren't allowed to say, but which can be extremely useful to know nonetheless. (For example, take the tapestry of specific social and philosophical beliefs about religion, all constructed out of transparently motivated falsehood or meaningless gibberish.)
http://www.joelonsoftware.com/articles/LeakyAbstractions.htm...
It took me a few months of reading and thinking about all this stuff to comprehend it and put any of it into action. When I did, and saw the results, it broke my brain and forced me to re-evaluate pretty much everything I understood about the world... not just human behaviour and relationships but business, economics, politics, the lot.
Turns out, people really really like sex. A lot.
Here's something I've learned that rocked my world: most things are not nearly as complicated as I make them in my head. Apparently this comes from some kind of childhood issue with pleasing parents. But if you're smart, chances are you can do a lot more than you give yourself credit for.
I just wish I'd learned that earlier.
* Lisp, then all over again with Haskell.
* Anarchocapitalism.
* The proof of Turing's undecidability theorem.
* Positivism (even though I'm a Platonist).
* How compilers work.
* RSA.
Rotate #2 to 45 degrees. See light come through.
Remove #2 completely. See no light come through.
Too many people prevent possibility by discounting others because they fail to distinguish between the words "eventually" and "never".
It's interesting to me what I've learnt but which didn't make my list: most things related to programming, mathematics, and physics, including quantum mechanics. Generally speaking, most of that knowledge was more incremental.
I'm not asking you to explain the theorems -- I understand them -- just indicate why or how they are significant to you.
But what blew my mind even more in music is that our 12 tone even-tempered scale is arbitrary and only firmed up a few hundred years ago. Everything before that (and for many years after, and in many non-western musical cultures) was written assuming just intonation. Modern electronic instruments have brought just intonation (and all sorts of weird stuff) back into reasonable usage.
Just the other day I was watching my dog 'dig a hole' inside my house and attempt to bury one of his toys. The problem was that he wasn't actually digging anything up, and was covering the toy with 'ghost' matter (there wasn't anythying there, it was make believe dirt).
This got me to thinking that our entire universe has conspired for planet Earth to harbour life, and for life to evolve through millions of iterations to create the genus canus, and animal behaviour has developed to this exact point in time, where my dog innately knows how to dig, and he has no idea why.... and for that matter, neither do I. We're all such a fluke of existence, and we never take a moment to realize that.
Also, I'm waiting for the Human Genome Project to help elucidate more on the placebo effect.
I think it has a major correlation with the phenotypic vs. genotypic expression of faith - something all humans display toward an institution, ideology, themselves, and/or another person.
This will be immensely powerful information.
Other parents will understand.
2. RMS reflections about morals in software programming (I may not wholly agree, but he taught me a whole new way of thinking about software)
3. Prolog declarative approach (instead of describing how to solve a problem, just describe the problem)
The importance of limits. (From testing limit cases heavily, to time being the limit of being, to value sources being the limiting horizon of personality. Paul DePalma, Martin Heidegger, and Charles Taylor being to thank for teaching me those, respectively.)
2. Recursion, not just in programming, but in other parts of nature.
3. Memory and social size approximations, such as memory chunking in seven plus or minus two, and Dunbar's number.
Carl Jung's ideas of Myth and Robert Johnson's "He"
Wealth is what people want. If you have what people want, you have wealth. You can create what people want.
The point of working is to make enough wealth to retire. You can do that all at once, or by selling off hours of your life in exchange for money.
The "money problem" can be solved.
Recursion.
Code == data == code
Metaprogramming and higher-order functions.
Squeak the IDE.
That there is no magic in computers or programming.
To write
Gravity
Newtonian laws
The scientific method
Although only now I'm starting to realize how amazing all those things were. And I took it for granted for all my school years... They were all just means to pass a class. What a shame.
I didn't have an appreciation for how amazing my parents were until I had children.
That working for a company isn't the only option.
Also, two books that really rocked my world (though I guess it's not really an answer to the question) were Dune and House of Leaves.
also im checking the material that FleursDuMal mentioned ;)
Instead of how I learned it, I'll point you to some topics in social psych:
Read Cialdini, the psychology of influence.
This doubles for attracting investment and women: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Social_proof
Social skills-the parens are part of the link: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mirroring_(psychology)
Halo Effect http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Halo_effect
Interesting experiments:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Milgram_experiment
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Asch_conformity_experiments
If an area I listed here or in the original post is of particular interest, let me know and I'll reply with the specifics of what I meant, or pointers to some info on it.
Also nanotechnology, the singularity, and friendly AI, in order of learning about them.
First, thanks for posting the question. I've read a lot of good info in this thread and I'd like to reciprocate.
The most important lesson I've learned in my life is that the people who have any influence over you are most likely playing you. And most "dirty tricks" are not done directly, but through their proxies. If this is news to you, you wont even be able to tell whose pulling the levers.
People may be moral on Sunday, but, come Monday, the boss can pretty much define what's right and wrong and people will fall in line, even if it's to conspire and betray. Most people have the morality of a squirrel: they will steal your nuts, but only when you aren't looking.
Their justifications for screwing you:
1. as long as they don't get caught, they think it's OK;
2. they assume they are being played, too, so it's just the way they think the world works;
3. the ends justify the means;
4. some people (salesmen / head hunters / egotistic managers) play it for the game: playing people like a puppet on a string, what's not to like, especially if it puts jingle in the pocket?
5. better him than me; it's a dog eat dog world;
6. who can afford morals when you have a mortgage payment due? Family first;
7. the naive deserve to be played if they're this easy;
8. bacon cheeseburgers, chocolate, and over-generous salaries go a long way towards assuaging the guilt;
9. some think saying a prayer every Sunday absolves them;
10. periodically spreading graft in the form of gifts, bonuses, perks, plush job positions, etc., is an embodiment of their good intentions and shows what swell guys they really are. In reality, they are trying to buy you.
Here's a few clues that should draw your attention:
1. if it seems like your manager is doing no better than flipping a coin whenever he makes a technical decision, it's not because he's a moron when it comes to technical matters, it's because he is factoring his decision into his scheme of playing the maximum number of his employees to his benefit.
2. if the boss makes totally random statements that technically don't make any sense at all, it's because they weren't intended to make technical sense. He's sending you a message in manager-speak, the only code he understands. (More on this below.)
3. if buds that used to pal around with you start avoiding you, the boss has gotten to them in some way.
And here's one anti-pattern: don't think that being outwardly religious means that one is less evil than the non-religious. It just means the evil is cloaked in religious vestments.
Here's an example of how to decode a totalling random thing your boss may say. "Put the prototype in production now." Those six words have a totally different meaning to a manager than to a person naive enough to take this statement literally. Translation: "What I want you to do is this: rewrite the prototype and turn it into production code, test it, and install it before the end of the day, or, if you prefer, you can work all night and install it first thing tomorrow morning while I'm pounding away on my trophy wife. I know what I said may have sounded kind of funny, because I don't understand the stupid details that you techies masturbate over, but if I had said anything truly insane I'm sure that you idiot techies would have either corrected me, or made the proper translations from manager-speak to geek-speak. I mean, surely you're smart enough to do that, aren't you? You say you can speak all these different languages. Well, why don't you start with English? I own all of your asses, so you will either find a way to do this or else tell me in the most obsequious manner how my grand plan may be amended in a manner such that I will save face and still get what I want in the quickest way. And, oh, by the way, if this causes the database to start hemorrhaging data, it's all your fault because I hereby give you total responsibility and zero authority to actually get the task done. Deal with it, and get out of my face already. I have no clue how to actually do anything that I asked you to do, but that's not my problem, now, is it, you fooken mooches? Now I've got to get back to my office and covertly read the email you've been sending each other. Suck it! Uh, I mean, good luck on getting this done by my totally meaningless deadline!" There, that wasn't so hard to decode, was it? The reason why it becomes easier and easier to decode manager-speak is because a lot of the words and phrases remain the same, especially the phrases "idiots," "suck it," and "don't bother me with details, you ass-wipes! I can't even remember the passwords to half my accounts. How the hell do you think I can help you with your petty problems? Now, for Christsakes, leave me alone!"
Most people are amateurs at being pure evil, however, and have tells. They avoid looking you in the eyes, or give short, evasive or noncommittal answers. They often don't face you while talking to you, and their voice is lower than it is normally. They may look at their computer monitor as if it's revealing the answer to the universe and they are too busy soaking in life's answers to attend to your silly, silly questions that deal with boring things like databases or how we might make their company some coin.
The Pros, on the other hand, have learned the tricks to hiding their culpability: they have learned to control their emotions so that they can appear charming and look you straight in the eyes while lying. Finding the Pro's tells is much harder.
The most common way for a player to judge whether his conspiracies have been found out is to occasionally "ping" you and judge your reactions. The simplest form this takes is a cheery "Good Morning," except this is not a pleasantry, your boss is using it like radar. The naive wont be able to control the bile that starts to well up in the throat when they see somebody who is playing them, and they will immediately give it away on their face, and this is of course instantly readable. The ping succeeded. If you understand how the game is played, however, you will immediately give a reciprocating cheerful "Good morning," not because you give a rat's ass about your boss' well-being, but because showing your hand makes it even easier for your boss to play you. The corollary is to never let on that you know the rules of the game, which is why you almost never see these missives in print, and they will be quickly disavowed or shrugged off as casually as Bush shrugs off the fact he belongs to a secret society (Skull and Bones -- look it up). Who said poker's just a game?
Some indicators of Pro players: they pay a lot of attention to their appearance (one exception: they think they can cover up their rolls and rolls of fleshy fat with really expensive leather coats); they attach a huge amount of importance on being able to tightly control their emotions (or use them to personal gain, to wit, watch Hillary turn on the waterworks when her words are no longer effective); they tightly control information: they only release information that either makes them look good, is benign, or is vitally important to getting the job done; they know how to put the best light on a sucky situation, and, conversely, are quick to throw mud at others, even when they are three levels down the ladder and have absolutely zero authority, they still try to divert the responsibility onto those who are either unable to defend themselves or are unwilling to stoop to this nonsense. Most of the time, however, you wont even know it's happening. Most of it doesn't surface, but some eventually bubbles up from the depths. The most insidious members of our society are cowards, and prefer maneuvering in the shadows.
So amoral and base are these people that they will even try to play you after you give your notice. While you desperately try to break free from the beady-eyed little monsters, they will ask for that last pound of flesh without even blinking. From the most evil there is absolutely no remorse; and from those trying to buy back a piece of their souls, a generous severance. Take it -- you deserve it more than you will ever know.
Those weird things people have said to you in the past that you just write off as unimportant or meaningless, well, they weren't. The motivations behind those weird statements were most likely guileful, trying to get you to expose your cards, or manipulate you.
How to know you're being played? Aside from the clues I list above, you need to totally clear your head and let your subconscious pick it apart at night. I literally woke up one morning and knew what had happened because my dreams had played it out for me. Then once you know what happened, and understand these unspoken rules I've laid out, it's not too difficult to confirm. And to be specific about clearing your head, I mean eating like a cave man, and exercising like a cave man. Don't even ingest caffeine if you are trying to get to that point where your subconscious is able to tell you important things and you are capable of listening.
However, I just may be over-sensitive. And I suck at poker. But I'm learning.
His books are insightful and also a pleasure to read.