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Comment by jotakami | Hacker News Reader

Something about this article doesn’t sit right with me... it’s not wrong, just... misguided? For one, he talks about these huge crossroads, all of which take place early in life, and starts making suggestions as if young people facing these decisions have everything figured out already and just need to optimize. It just comes off as very... inauthentic.

Reminds me of a line from Nassim Taleb’s Antifragile: “There exist the kind of people for whom life is some kind of project. After talking to them, you stop feeling good for a few hours; life starts tasting like food cooked without salt.”

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Not sure I have the same take as you. For instance....

The most important node on the network happens before you were born - it’s the network between two people that had sex leading to your conception.

So, that’s pretty huge, and it’s very early in life. Finally, it’s the biggest, most important node in your life because everything in your life will flow from that node.

So yes, some decisions have been made. As an American, I’m mostly optimizing early decisions (and mistakes). But to a kid born between two refugees in Syria, his optimizations will look much different from mine due to the initial node in his life.

Who your parents are can make your journey easier or harder, but it's always ultimately up to you to do the work.

What would have happened to tech if a young Steve Jobs had said to himself "My father was a Syrian immigrant and my mother was pushed to give me up for adoption else be rejected by her family, so my life isn't likely to be a success."?

Are we talking about the same young Steve Jobs that disappeared from his hard work at Bushnell's company Atari because he preferred doing hippie things in India? And only left India because of his hard work getting a massive hepatitis infection?

You’re missing my point, which is that is a Steve was born to parents who never had access to the US, then yes, our world would be different and there would be no Apple.

There are roughly 8 billion people on this planet, and only about 309 million in the US. Most people will never be able to come here just due to the large difference in numbers.

So who your parents are is hugely important in determining not just your worldview, but your actual world (or where you are on it).

An exception to the rule. Survivorship bias [1] 101.

[1] https://xkcd.com/1827/

I don't know if I agree with how you see the article (I'm simply not convinced whether I like it or not), but the quote from Taleb feels brilliant to me.

Yes. The optimizations for the perfect life are boring, learn how to love the life you're living not chasing milestones.

There is something to be said for breaking through local energy barriers to access new spaces, that's not with the intention of chasing particular milestones, but it is driven by some objective function.

What's the problem with food cooked without salt? If you need salt maybe your ingredients aren't so good in the first place.

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