99 bits of unsolicited advice
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Even a cursory look at who has developed what over the years shows that people who actually had the resources to do whatever it was that interested them are the ones in the history books. Who knows how many others of equal or greater talent spent their whole lives scraping by instead.
I also see advice in here that implies he tried and failed at many things, and perhaps was most successful when not focused so much on money:
• A multitude of bad ideas is necessary for one good idea.
• Most overnight successes — in fact any significant successes — take at least 5 years. Budget your life accordingly.
• Don’t create things to make money; make money so you can create things. The reward for good work is more work.
Lists like these are full of survivor bias. In fact, it's baked into it.
Evolution is the process that preserves those who survived and left progeny, and chaffes away those who don't. The only measure of success in it is the survival.
It does not mean that attempts to make some rational models is worthless; quite the contrary.
Of course, there are many who tried things like these and failed; maybe many more than those who prospered. But there are those who tried something opposite, and fewer of them, if any, have prospered. So these inclinations of prosperous people have something to them, though not a guarantee.
If you take many such accounts of successful people and correlate them, you will find certain similarities; they, of course, are pretty well-known.
In areas like startups, where family connections, early education, family environment, and fallbacks, matter, yes.
But the 20th century was full of people from poor backgrounds (includings immigrants arriving with 0 dollars) making it in e.g. arts. So much so, that the "starving artist" is a cliche.
(And of course, starting and succesfully running regular businesses - the 99% of businesses kind, from grocery stores and restaurants to design studios and software houses, not the 0.0001% that is VC-backed startups sold for b/millions).
And the 20th century was quite full of rich artists making it, too.
First up, the "starving artist" cliché isn't one because of those artist who got really really rich. It's a cliché because of all the very poor artists that were starving.
Secondly, survivor bias. Don't focus on the few artists who escaped the clutches of starvation to frame the group as a whole. Especially in case the calling may be abandoned in order to not starve.
How many "starry night"s could we have had if no one ever needed to Weeley about food, shelter, or safety?
We've got one, from someone who worked about all of those at various points in his life.
Probably much fewer. Part of the allure of starry night is the backstory and toil involved - not the same as some fat complacent well off guy painting pretty pictures in a nice house.
However, if your goal is to do something legitimately creative, I agree with the spirit of the article. Indie game developers often work absolute wonders in spite of (or maybe because of?) Their limitations, whereas super heavily funded giants like Google and Amazon seem to be unable to think through any problem where the solution isn't dependent on "we have really deep pockets; buy the creative talent"
https://kotaku.com/bloomberg-report-reveals-major-dysfunctio...
https://www.google.com/amp/s/arstechnica.com/gadgets/2021/02...
I'm not sure what motivates this. If you invert the situation and someone made a list with stuff like "use coupons", would rich people come by and say "this is dumb because it only saves you $0.50 and I (as a rich person) don't care about $0.50"?
People have different starting conditions and different current situations, if what's described isn't relevant to yours--why does it bother you so? Let the people who find value in it find value in it.
Privilege and meta-privilege, mainly, and the underlying assumption this privilege engenders that the poor are morally or mentally deficient.
An example: there was an article posted on hn recently titled (and I'm paraphrasing here) "How to be rich". To utilise this advice one had to be already financially comfortable, with safety nets and backups and whatever to begin with, and, from this position of comfort, to rationally accept and take large risks. The article carried with it the implication that, now that you have the advice in your hands, only the willfully stupid or lazy will remain poor.
So, in the end, a) one feels judged, b) one has wasted one's time on an article/video/etc that c) promised and failed to relieve the crushing stress burden and mental load that poverty brings.
Being poor, particularly during your formative years, carries with it a debt that is never paid. If you are poor and have issues with health (physical and mental) you are very, very unlikely to ever be rich in any objective sense. Being poor affects your patterns of thought, your behaviours, your language, and your culture. But the worst of it is that poverty robs you of the opportunity to do things like "move fast and break things" that folk on hn seem to think is so simple and easy. If you are poor, you only get one roll of the die.
Not that their experiences are any more representative of "poor" than what people here write about, but there are clearly different experiences and different outcomes. Again, this is not to shame anyone--but the fact that I have to caveat an accurate description of my parents' life to assuage some unknown reader's sensibility is just crazy to me.
But for the sake of argument, I'll concede everything you've described about the "poor experience" and the emotional consequences faced by this group.
Given that, does that mean that any and every discussion among the people not in that group must be couched in ways in order to not offend the sensitive group? How / where should non-deprived people discuss the best way to play the cards they were lucky enough to be dealt?
In extremis, do we need to segregate ourselves away from the sensitive group in order to protect their delicate constitutions?
Complaining about the the "privilege" that the median HN reader/commenter is born with is like if I stumbled on to a message board for 6'8" super-athletic 18-year olds and spent all my time lecturing them about how they need to consider 5'8" kinda-athletic-once-but-now-middle-aged-me in all their discussions. Of course a programmer-centric newsboard is going to have a bunch of well-off people in it.
Now, people shouldn't be jerks--but nothing in the posted article can be construed in the least-bit mean-spirited. The goal posts seemed to have moved from "don't be a dick" to "pretend you're in a support group for X all the time". Is this where we're going?
I get what you are saying. I think good luck plays a huge role in escaping poverty and that it rarely gets the thanks it deserves. It has certainly helped me in my life, far more than perhaps I deserve. I grew up, not as poor as your mother, but quite poor by the standards of my country (ditch toilet, rigged running water, etc) at the time. I have no problem in ascribing my meagre success largely to luck, but I can't pretend it doesn't hurt a little when my private-school, politically-connected colleague (and heir to a $20,000,000+ fortune) asks me why I'm not a millionaire and I have to explain that I began by having to unlearn the habits of someone who grew up poor.
> In extremis, do we need to segregate ourselves away from the sensitive group in order to protect their delicate constitutions?
Replace 'poverty' with race, gender or any other form of privilege and then ask the same question. I could argue that poverty is probably the most pernicious of dis-privileges in that if you compared a rich person who was encumbered with every other common dis-privilege (gender, race, religion, gender, etc) they would be likely in a significantly better position that a white, Christian/atheist, cis-male poor man.
> Given that, does that mean that any and every discussion among the people not in that group must be couched in ways in order to not offend the sensitive group? How / where should non-deprived people discuss the best way to play the cards they were lucky enough to be dealt?
I can only give my personal view here - no, I don't think you need to avoid talking about "how to get rich" any more than we need to avoid the topics of race, religion, gender, etc. The BIG problem we have is that we talk about things in absolute terms, and only in terms of what we, ourselves, don't possess or claiming that something we do possess had no impact (and that it was all down to our hard work).
We talk about privilege as a currency, when it is only a tendency, a weighting on the probabilities of life. The lack of privilege is not a prison sentence, but life is much easier if you are privileged and, if you fail or fall, the path back to normalcy is much shorter and easier if you have the safety net that privilege provides.
> The goal posts seemed to have moved from "don't be a dick" to "pretend you're in a support group for X all the time". Is this where we're going?
I hope not. We can only fix these issues by reaching agreement and moving forward. If we start by berating people, that makes moving forward soooo much harder.
Yes, even for race and gender it is ridiculous to claim people thus "affected" have no chance in life whatsoever. You had a black president not that long ago. There are several black billionaires.
Is this really accepted canon that underprivileged are going to be underprivileged, no matter what - so much so that there can be no useful discussion about it?
Yes, and being an adult gives the opportunity to change your patterns, behavior, language, and culture.
I've had a lot of destructive attitudes and behaviors formed young that I've discarded because they don't work. It's not easy, but it can be done. I still have a number of bad habits to work on :-/
> If you are poor, you only get one roll of the die.
In America, there are more rolls. For example, migrants walk a thousand miles to get in, have nothing, then they start businesses. Oprah went from welfare to billionaire, for example.
And your ramblings about having no opportunities when poor are simply not true anymore. Even poor people can get a cheap computer and internet and have access to all the information in the world. Running a web site only costs 1$/month.
Many startup founders famously slept on the floor in cramped offices while starting up.
And if you really live in such a shitty place, you can still sell drugs and become rich that way.
I sympathize with the poor, but I am tired of these "poor people are such victims, there is nothing they can do to change their condition, ever. They are just victims" type of comments that pop up in every discussion about wealth.
And recommending drug selling as an alternative...
Your name is appropriate for your comment.
You can get a Raspberry Pi 400 and do stuff, for example. With a used computer you could get there even cheaper, presumably.
If you really, really claim you can not even afford that, ask for donations. There are many people who are willing to help, if you are making a credible case of really wanting to learn.
Maybe going into IT is not an option for everybody, but it shows that the broad claim that "poor only get one shot and have now chance whatsoever" is not generally true.
As for tooling, you can still create websites with vim on the command line.
I don't recommend selling drugs. But people growing up in very poor environments got rich selling drugs. Another case showing that poor are not condemned to remain poor simply by virtue of being poor.
Maybe if you are in such a poor environment, and you don't want to sell drugs, sell counselling for drug addicts.
You already seem to have a computer that runs the modern web, or how are you commenting here?
If you can't afford a computer, go to a public library. Or ask at a school. Or ask a local business if you can use their office computers after hour. Or whatever. Do something!
Another idea: since you already seem to have a computer, help out a homeless person by giving them your computer over night, while you sleep. Most modern computers are capable of multiple user accounts. Most computers are idle for 99% of the time (or something).
I'm sure you are aware of the story in India where somebody installed a computer terminal in a wall, and the kids taught themselves how to use it.
Why is it so important to you to believe that everything is hopeless and nobody has a chance in life, unless government rises the minimum wage and instates a UBI?
(And yet, in the same breath, say you don't recommend it? And yet still fail to connect those dots into "systemic disadvantage"?)
Also quit with the fantasy that people have unlimited life - sure you can always get lucky, there is hope, but that's what it is, luck. It's not even hard to see - the financial landscape depends on people mortgaging over half their lives.
People like you absolutely disgust me.
Again, in extremis: Buddhist monks. And if Buddhist monks exist (and don't care about money), then surely there can be a spectrum of what money means to different people?
Maybe there's even a more successful attitude for earning money than maintaining a singular focus on monotonically-increasing your inventory of it? Maybe past a certain point, the best thing to do with money is to risk it? (Which doesn't even imply forgetting or debating its importance?)
You would be fair to say "this advice doesn't apply to me" or "this advice only applies when conditions X, Y, and Z have been met" or even "this advice is wrong". However, the statement that this advice is "insulting" creates a toxic environment.
No one will ever be able to anticipate all the ways they might cross/deny/fail to recognize someone else's experience or what they "know to be true". Nor is that anyone's job. After all, we're all just stumbling through this thing-called-life trying to do our best. If people persist in taking offense to comments made by strangers on the internet who have never heard of them, the only logical outcome is to exclude those people from the discussion. Is this what you would choose for yourself?
At best, this makes it harder to for me to find like-minded people to have the discussions I want to have--and at worst, it deprives people from being exposed to things that they might find valuable in those discussions, because those discussions are no longer being had in the open where they could be stumbled upon.
Whatever you choose to do from this point forward is no skin off my back. My point is that, in the face of such reactions, my response is to take my very important (to me), real-world discussions about maximizing my life-given-my-circumstances away from the people who would comment in this way.
Anyway, this is not a debate I need to win. Maybe you want to hear this stuff, maybe you don't.
No. There is an extremely common tendency for the wealthy to pass on advice...for the wealthy, and pretend like its good news for everyone.
The wealthy are by definition the minority, the advice they give is mostly wrong in this regard (unless you are rich/lucky), the posturing about minorities and such is so much hot garbage.
In fact even the argument that it might work for the middle class is an oxymoron - anything serving to bring more people to wealth and out of middle class-dom necessarily reduces the number of middle class, and mathematically increases the likelihood of the being poor.
Such advice is never presented as 'wise ways to keep the middle class around' it is usually always framed as 'do this and you will reap rewards!!'.
Need money to make money, as they say.
I'd call yours a radical interpretation of the text.
Those advice are most of the time given as being universal, that's why.
> Advice like these are not laws. They are like hats. If one doesn’t fit, try another.
> In most every discussion I've come across that touches on money advice, I've see a variant of this comment "This world view doesn't incorporate (my) reality of the poorest of the Western world and is so in invalid and offensive".
It's not even just that. It is spoken like someone who has not even been around poor people.
Class segregation is a much more serious issue than simply class distinction. I wonder if it is a growing problem in society. Because if so, it will not end well as it never has historically.
If you grew up upper middle class or wealthy and you have not had multiple friends on much lower financial tiers than you then you are absolutely out of touch. It is not possible to be aware of the (mostly minor but not insignificant) differences in people's lives by simply reading a book, watching a documentary, listening to a TED talk, or "being an activist".
I have yet to meet someone who downplays the importance of money who doesn't also come from enough wealth that they've never had it be a real concern.
This is frustrating in multiple ways- one, it shows that they have a strong disconnect from the day to day reality for the majority of humanity. That doesn't make them a bad person. It does bring in to question the universal applicability of their advice. Secondly, being currently wealthy is no guarantee that someone will maintain that state in perpetuity. Having respect and gratefulness for what money provides, instead of downplaying it, goes a long way towards being able to preserve it.
There's a reason the pattern goes from rags to riches to rags again across three generations, and it's not just regression towards the mean.
Here's some better advice: don't play Monopoly! There are many, many new board games in the world that are incomparably better. One of the most grievous flaws of Monopoly is that it depends on the terrible mechanic of player elimination - the winner is the last player who hasn't been eliminated. That means if you have a game night with four people, then two people have to sit around bored, after they've been eliminated, while the remaining players fight it out.
Catan is definitely fun, compared to Monopoly, but there are many games I’d much rather play than Catan (coming from someone that had to talk his wife into playing it a few days ago after about 5+ years of not playing it, due to the previous — and only — time we played it taking 3 hours over two days). I’ve played it with others, and on Switch, though.
My biggest gripe about Catan is it’s heavy reliance on luck.
Of course, that’s my subjective opinion.
Some of my recent favorites (in no particular order) that all rely quite a bit less on luck:
- Terraforming Mars
- Brass Birmingham
- Hansa Teutonica
- Kanban EV
- Pax Pamir
- Castles of Burgundy
- Scythe
- On Mars
Sorry, just geeking out a bit, since the subject came up.
While Catan is not a perfect game, it's a perfect beginners game: a bit of luck, but a bit of strategy, lots of player interaction, and not too long. At the same time, it also shows its age, in that there are newer games that are beginner friendly and eliminate some of Catan's shortcomings.
Your main point, however, is still often forgotten: the oars games have come a long way since 1935 and even 1997.
If anyone wants to learn more about this, there are excellent and very friendly communities at boardgamegeek.com and reddit.com/r/boardgames
For more beginner friendly + shorter games, though, I’d still recommend several over Catan:
- Carcassonne - Ticket to Ride - Splendor - 7 Wonders - Pandemic - Codenames - Azul
If you play by the rules, with experienced players, a whole game takes about an hour to complete. And when players starts getting eliminated, the end is close. The most common house rules usually drag the game down and are probably the source of a lot of hatred for this game.
So if you play Monopoly, do yourself a favor and read the damn rules. In my booklet, there is even a quick variant that is suggested: the main difference is that you start with some property and the winner is the wealthiest player when one player is bankrupt.
And yes, there are better games, every board game geek knows that, but sometimes it is the only one available.
Also, Orange properties may be the best, but you usually don't have much of a choice. What you really want is a monopoly, any monopoly, as soon as possible, and build aggressively.
I vaguely suspect that there are better games you can play with 2 dice, which come included in the Monopoly box. Pig is simple enough that a child can understand it, but also has a reasonable sense of tension built in as long as no one in the group has run the numbers on what perfect play is.
And if you can find a deck of cards or even just 3 more dice, options open up even further. Or if you've got an even number of people and one of them has a phone, there are multiple websites online that will generate charades or pictionary challenges for you.
I just don't think Monopoly has that much to recommend it compared to almost anything else, even when the game is at its best. And especially if I'm in a group setting, given the choice between fighting about the 'proper' way to play Monopoly or just playing a game that's at least nominally fun regardless of anyone's experience level... some things just aren't worth the effort.
Yes, but you know well in advance of being eliminated whether you can win or not. The process of getting eliminated is pretty long as a percentage of game time.
My friends and I have had so much fun playing this, especially with all of the tiny game modifiers you can introduce to spice it up when things get too easy.
If not everybody plays, then #2 may get everyone else to start something long. Now #4 and #5 are stuck playing something again with the winner, after that person has already monopolized their time for the entire evening.
Because face it, the player who wins or comes in second usually is the same motherfucker to suggest Monopoly in the first place.
Uh, no. Being poor is a huge waste of time and energy.
For the same reason, some say the worst addiction is a steady paycheck precisely because it makes you complacent.
These sayings are probably half-motivational with only a kernel of truth. If you are an heir or heiress you will have a big advantage, even if your motivation is less. But there are other metrics than just money, of course. If your point is to achieve excellence or greatness, or operate at the peak of your abilities, then possibly there is such a thing as being too comfortable.
Being hungry or starving. OK. But I think a more important point is: do you know if it is a temporary thing (2h, half a day) before you get back to the certainty of not being hungry or worse starving ? I think this uncertainty is killing any mindframe you need to innovate when pushed to the edge like that. It will eat at our brain instead and not trigger macgyveresque magical JIT innovation (also: learned helplessness). Also, not everyone can innovate (wrong place, wrong time, wrong social circle or whatever the circumstances: that's not their thing).
> For the same reason, some say the worst addiction is a steady paycheck precisely because it makes you complacent.
This is the front, I think `some` here are some of those psycho freaks who rises to the top by violence (symbolic) and want to fit everyone and the whole world into a survival of the fittest vision to justify their behaviour when rising. Most people don't want to fight like that, type A personalities are imposing these values to their benefits because it makes it easier for them to justify their fighting/cheating/being-violent in rising up by imposing it on the rest. There's also the just world hypothesis playing a huge trick on them by justifying their behaviour after the fact. `I did it like this so it is the way to do it. Now fight for your bread, peasants.`
Even had coffee yet, I should stop ranting :D.
When I was a kid I spent a lot of time trying to trisect an angle, sure that proofs it was impossible were erroneous and mathematicians were fools.
Of course I failed, but an adult would never have tried.
He rigged up a system of rods and levers to do the work for him, so he could sleep.
Being poor (but not debilitatingly starving) is an advantage for innovation. You have a lot of incentive to get the heck out of your miserable position, and you cannot fix the problem with just paying more, you have to incessantly invent and try new things.
Of course this is not necessarily good for your well-being, longevity, mental and physical health, prospects of your children and even chances to have any, etc.
I see this not as an advice to become poor, but as a solace to those who are already poor but whose mind is still inventive.
When i was poor i wouldn't even think of it because i wouldn't be able to because it still costs money and lots of time. As someone else said a lot of inventors of the past were wealthy because they had both the time and money to spend on innovating. Innovation out of necessity is a thing but i'd say it's rarer nowadays.
Today this patronage often comes in the form of grants by the wealthy to universities for research.
Based on my experience this holds true for organisations. Time and again I've seen a well run startup lose its bearing with the avalanche of new funding and the expectation of hockey-stick growth that comes along with it. Money in this case proves to be counter-productive as everyone starts saying "let's-throw-money" to solve problems. Not only does it not solve the problem but it also starts attracting people who are disproportionately motivated by money. And once an org gets infiltrated by such people it's a sharp downhill from there.
> Instead almost all breakthroughs are made by those who lack money,.... Being poor is an advantage in innovation.
This is anecdotally true (again w.r.t. organisations). At a startup I worked for, we would come up with creative ways to scale up systems and honestly prioritise customers request. With the advent of funding that was replaced by "launch every darn feature now", "don't bother scaling up just buy more machine". Constraints bring out lasting innovations.
Much of my material lessons in both “being poor is expensive” and the value if Good Tools traces to watching my father struggle to have a working set of lawn care tools. I have a particularly vivid memory of watching him buy the second from the bottom string trimmer three times in seven years, while I tried to talk him into spending $25 more on a sturdier looking one. The damned things kept breaking. Every child eventually sees their parents as a human being with flaws, and for me that reached its apex in the lawn care aisle at Sears.
I’m big on doing without until you can do it right. A couple good knives or pans that you clean and pamper until you can afford a whole set. My own solution to the lawn problem was a hand powered edger (basically telescopic shears) and reducing edges wherever I can. String trimmers are bullshit anyway. Construct better beds instead.
I wish I could have grasped this as a kid, and I wish I could explain this to my kids now and have them understand/believe me.
My kids each have their own unique personalities, strengths, weaknesses, etc. But they all have to funnel through the same general requirements of school and such. It is too easy to fall into the trap of getting them to "conform." But I want to be able to nurture the "weird" in them!
link here -> https://www.cnbc.com/2021/04/15/jeff-bezos-releases-final-le...
There is a balance in here somewhere to learn how to navigate, adapt and live within a society/community that favors set standards and "normality" without muting out uniqueness, personal interests, etc.
"Oh, and while you differentiate, those of you on my warehouses don't forget to work 10 hour shifts and pee in bottles, so that I can get a few dollars more per hour from each disposable you while I offer my grand-man wisdom"
I work with a lot of people who remind me of my former self and I'm afraid to encourage them to find balance in their lives because I don't want them to lose their genius like I feel I did. It's tough when you grow up a nerd and find most of your self-worth and security in your intellectual superiority and then lose it because you thought the grass was greener on the other side.
Edit, such this additional advice:
• If you can avoid seeking approval of others, your power is limitless.
Or, in this case, no axis. You can move anywhere in this space.
I get the mentally healthy part, but exercising is like brushing your teeth imo.
Today? I'm 70, and I run. Yesterday I ran about 8 miles on trails. Because while I can't run fast, I can run far. Didn't find that out until like 8th grade--all the runs until then were short distances.
So I can run distances, but I'd probably still come in last at the 50 yard dash. Maybe I'm still weird, but I like it.
You raise a great example, as well. No one should be solely defined by their ability or inability to perform a single variation of a task or lesson.
My personal take is don't try to fit in but, equally, don't try to stand out. I've never liked sports, for example, and I've never pretended to. But I've also never gone out of my way to advertise my dislike for sports or made fun of anyone who does.
Did I try to fit in, and do I still spend too much effort on worrying about others' perception of me? Yes!
I think it is OK to look to "fit in," but don't do it at the expense of what makes you unique. That is what resonated with me about this particular bit of advice.
I have seen in myself where I left some things on the table to have certain kinds of friends or to be seen (or avoid being seen) in a certain light. And I see where these conditions I have manufactured for myself don't have the staying power and are not as fulfilling as more natural relationships and experiences.
• Compliment people behind their back. It’ll come back to you.
Super pragmatic. A tad selfish (complementing people in the hope it comes back around), but I still like it.
• Your best response to an insult is “You’re probably right.” Often they are.
This has been my default for years. It also disarms cunty humans (even when drunk at a pub).
• Always cut away from yourself.
When you learn this lesson the hard way, it sticks forever.
• In all things — except love — start with the exit strategy. Prepare for the ending. Almost anything is easier to get into than out of.
"except love" U WOT M8? Begin with the end in mind. You'll enjoy the experience more knowing the good times can end at any point. You also want to have your life in order to handle a massive emotional trainwreck.
> Super pragmatic. A tad selfish (complementing people in the hope it comes back around), but I still like it.
Yah, talk about doing the right thing for the wrong reason but still beats many alternatives. Also way up on my list is spreading good rumors without sharing the source: "someone... I'll never say who... said this nice thing about you!"
> It also disarms...
I can't even say it. I'm not Australian. I'll try admitting guilt though (not that I'm a...).
> "except love" U WOT M8
Anything can end at any point, including this precious life. Relationships ARE special though. Sometimes you get glimpses where you know it isn't gonna work out (and if you're red-flag aware... it won't take long). In that case, yah... look at those exits and appreciate what led you into this potential disaster while you can and learn.
BUT.
BIG BUT.
If this relationship has a chance then you have to throw the exit strat thinking out the window. That doesn't mean go get joined at the hip, but self fulfilling prophecies are a thing. If its a good thing, your partner will absolutely see you have one foot outside and hedge bets accordingly. Have faith! Not that you won't have problems, but that they will be worth overcoming.
>I can't even say it. I'm not Australian.
It's not just Aussies that say the word cunt a lot. It's relatively common in most of the major English speaking nations: England, Ireland, Scotland, New Zealand just off the top of my head. I wouldn't be at all surprised if Scots say that word more than we do (measured in microcunts-uttered-per-second, normalised on a per-capita basis).
We do seem to have the most variants of the term (tough cunt, hard cunt, dumbcunt, shitcunt, gaycunt etc.), but that could just be my bias as I'm less familiar with slang from other countries.
The US and Canada really are the exceptions to the rule in this regard, ascribing disproportionate levels of offensiveness to the word compared with anywhere else on Earth.
See now if the overly-woke could conceive and "amplify" a massively offensive gender-neutral term for genitalia for use in abuse that is frequently needless, I could totally get behind insisting on it in place of prick, cock, cunt, et al. It would be political correctness and wokeness gone completely and utterly sane! I guess "wank-stain" just about does the same job, cheers Scotland!
Be excellent to each other.
I have never seen evidence that this is true in general. The field I got my PhD in has breakthrough papers with titles like "The Euler Equations as Differential Inclusions" and "Bounded Gaps Between Primes". Would people in the field be worse off if breakthrough papers had titles like "Attention is all you need"? I'm unconvinced that they would be. Would politicians be more likely to win office if they made fewer promises on the campaign trail? I'm unconvinced. Are you more likely to get a job if you are meticulously fair in how you describe your background and experience, or if you puff yourself up? I think the world would be a better place if folks biased themselves in the direction of under-promising, but for any individual person I'm pretty skeptical that this is good advice.
Your argument, of under deliver and getting in trouble is something else entirely, not the opposition of OP's quote.
It is easy to get more funding by whatever resource you want when you got at least a bit. For example, lets say I want to refactor a whole codebase and I oversell it to my boss that it will take only 2 weeks when in fact it will take 3. Very few managers will in my experience say no to you getting an extra week due to the sunk cost trap when they may say no if you said 3 weeks at the beginning.
Of course, people may get disgruntled and unhappy with you if this happens to frequently but it is a powerful phsycological trick you may use when you really need it.
Research article titles are descriptions of work already done, so I see them as "promises" of a different kind, and that's why the advice wouldn't apply. But if you said that you're going to write an article called "The Riemann hypothesis is true" before you have found a proof, then you're probably over-promising.
Campaign promises, on the other hand, are about future unknowns. I don't know much about campaigning, but I suspect politicians can get a way with over-promising better than most people, because the feedback cycle of elections is so slow.
I am broke and need X, which no one gives for free. Let's call X education, because that and time might solve everything. Is that not a problem worth calling so?
The worst kind of problem is one you can't see your way out of and no option seems to exist to escape it.
Given the tone of the rest of the piece, I'm not sure being that charitable is warranted, though. I'm legitimately having a hard time telling whether this list is presented seriously, or as some kind of parody.
Or, in the spirit of taking it as parody, that it's at least a 'solved' problem[0] in the sense of the mathematician who sees a fire, sees a fire extinguisher, says "Ah, a solution exists!", and moves on.
0: where a solved (note lack of scare quotes) problem isn't really a problem.
So, if your car suddenly needs a $500 repair, and you have $2500 in emergency savings, that's not a "problem". It's a contingency you were prepared to handle.
Which is a better way to phrase it:
A contingency you were prepared to handle is not a problem.
After all, a billionaire can still get lost at sea and die.
If a problem can be solved with money, your real problem is not having the money.
He means money that you have and can spare.
These 2 stuck out as ironic being back to back:
• I have never met a person I admired who did not read more books than I did.
• The greatest teacher is called “doing”.
Although without more context, its just a snap judgement. Admiring only people who are well read(assuming OP reads a lot) seems to leave a bit on the table.
Un bon mot ne prouve rien.
I think most books are 90% of business/self help is filled with stuff to make them a saleable book. Fluff. No one will pay $10-$50 for a 3 page PDF. But I prefer the 3 page PDF. Ironically often information in that format is free!
Seeing a psychologist > self help book. Making money on a side hussle > reading 0 to 1. Doing a course on freecodecamp > buying a coding textbook. Etc.
Books can be great but there has to be a big reason to commit to reading 300 pages. History books I will accept for example.
If I’m interpreting correctly, you’re asserting that doing things is better than reading about them, which I agree with. But I can buy a coding book and do all the exercises, sample problems, and create projects for myself based on the material and potentially get more from it than someone doing a course. Especially if they aren’t terribly engaged.
Or to put it another way: “You wasted $150,000 on an education you coulda got for $1.50 in late fees at the public library.”
"Obsessive TV-Watching Disorder" or "TV watchers gonna TV watch" or "Eat Sleep TV-Watch" or "Never underestimate the power of a girl with a TV"
Not sure why things are that way, but I'd go out of my way not to broadcast a "reader" identity, for this reason.
I think Schopenhauer has good words of advice on this topic (and the irony of reading this advice in a book is not lost on me; emphasis mine):
>Hence, in regard to reading, it is a very important thing to be able to refrain. Skill in doing so consists in not taking into one's hands any book merely because at the time it happens to be extensively read; such as political or religious pamphlets, novels, poetry, and the like, which make a noise, and may even attain to several editions in the first and last year of their existence. Consider, rather, that the man who writes for fools is always sure of a large audience; be careful to limit your time for reading, and devote it exclusively to the works of those great minds of all times and countries, who o'ertop the rest of humanity, those whom the voice of fame points to as such. These alone really educate and instruct. You can never read bad literature too little, nor good literature too much. Bad books are intellectual poison; they destroy the mind. Because people always read what is new instead of the best of all ages, writers remain in the narrow circle of the ideas which happen to prevail in their time; and so the period sinks deeper and deeper into its own mire.
I've heard it stated elsewhere, but I've never heard a detailed argument supporting it. The closest justification I recall hearing is a vague reference to the Spanish Inquisition.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Criticism_of_Mother_Teresa
A relevant quote from there summarizing some of them:
"caring for the sick by glorifying their suffering instead of relieving it, ... her questionable political contacts, her suspicious management of the enormous sums of money she received, and her overly dogmatic views regarding, in particular, abortion, contraception, and divorce".
(Read the "Responses to criticism" section of that article for a decent explanation of why most of the criticism is completely missing the point.)
The end result: Auschwitz.
It seems their cause was, originally, in good intentions. I'll give them the benefit of the doubt at least. But it's clear by the end they fulfilled this aphorism, and became a great evil by trying to fight evil.
[0] The Teutonic Order held land, the "Deutschordensstaat". When Martin Luther convinced the then-Grand-Master Albert to convert, he turned that land into a secular state, the Duchy of Prussia, which became the Kingdom of Prussia, which became the leading state of the German Empire.
Thankfully - they didn't.
Technically, anything should be allowed, because removing that evil from the world would be an undeniable good. To find that evil, you should be allowed to do anything to anyone trying to hide that evil from you. As a matter of fact, anyone trying to shelter that evil or sides with that evil shares some of the guilt as well. They are just as evil as the evil you wish to eradicate. So, once again, nothing is off limits.
Ridicule? Allowed. Lying to them? Allowed. Stealing from them? Allowed. Torture? Allowed. Murder? Allowed.
And if you're allowed to do these things and actually do them, at what point are you not just a different flavor of the same evil? What separates you from them?
The only thing you needed to become your most depraved self was an excuse.
Some actions are wrong. And there are some lines we shouldn't cross. No matter how evil you think someone is, that does not justify certain actions. And some actions should only be reserved for certain circumstances and those circumstances never happen to be "I think he's evil".
> the wise man bowed his head solemnly and spoke: "theres actually zero difference between good & bad things. you imbecile. you fucking moron"
These are aphorisms, not essays. You either recognize (high-level) wisdom in them, or you don't.
That's a good observation. I agree that it's reasonable to treat them as aphorisms.
But even if we allow for a certain amount of hyperbole in aphorisms, I would think there's some threshold of factual accuracy that we want before accepting a given aphorism.
That, and simple curiosity, are what motivated my original question.
The worse evils in history have always been committed by those who drink water. Beware of drinking water.
It may be the case that those who commit evils believed they were combating evil. It doesn't at all mean that the majority of those who believe they are combating evil are committing evil.
"... by those and only those who [...] combat evil"
forall X: combats_evil(X) <=> does_evil(X)
but not
forall X: drinks_water(X) <=> does_evil(X)
The belief that one is fighting evil is a standard negative pattern in human behavior. One should watch out for it, even if it sometimes works out ok, because when it doesn't you just crossed the center line and killed a family of four on their way to grandma's.
However, plenty of good does come out of people striving to fight evil. Trivial examples are having a justice system (even with all its down sides).
This is why we should always judge projects based on whether we value their goals and how effective they are at accomplishing those goals.
heck. that's just true. really put into words something i've taken a while to learn (and am still learning).
Just because someone backs his position by faulty logic does not make his position any less correct.
We often declare it the responsibility of the one asserting a claim to prove/convince us. However, if you seek to know the truth, the responsibility lies only in you.
This one struck me as being particularly random, even in a list of pretty random items. Can anyone with Monopoly mojo expand on this?
Statistically, the Orange property set is one of the most frequented sets in the game due to the approximately 37% chance of landing on one upon the first turn after leaving jail; the most visited space on the board. In combination with a relatively cheap development cost, the Orange property set can be valuable to own.
I think this is generally good advice, but it's equally important to not be too hard on yourself. You have to learn to forgive yourself for mistakes.
My favorite. “Write 2 essays, one defending each side” is the most valuable kind of assignment, in my opinion.
Completely disagree. A lot of the great innovations actually came from people who were already wealthy enough that they could spend time contemplating instead of figuring out where their next meal was coming from.
5 stars
Plus 1
I think it's a similar feeling to building programs. You combine small elements together in the right way and you get something more useful than the sum of its parts.
I've used it for securing crab pods, pulling out a small tree, hanging decorations from ceiling hooks, as the front anchor for strapping down things to the top of my car, connecting lines to kites and tying the tea bag string to the handle of my coworkers mug as a prank to name a few uses of the top of my head.
I've also used it for climbing in certain situations but I would highly recommend learning the figure 8 and using that for all climbing things related.
You can put a very high weight on it, and it'll still be easy to untangle afterwards.
In my experience, never said by people who have been poor
• If you can’t tell what you desperately need, it’s probably sleep.
Agree completely!
However, unlike water or most things, money seems to be the few things that people who have enough still want more.
I've never seen any good come from withholding necessary information.
> I've never seen any good come from withholding necessary information.
Surely being selective with information is advantageous in negotiations?
Such a hard thing to quantify – and attempting to quantify it misses the point – but I think this is such an under appreciated point.
I know that I am quick to gossip or talk about other people's failings behind their back. Partly, I think it is easy for people to relate to each other based on a shared view of someone else. And, unfortunately, I think it is easier to come up with negative examples to talk about.
Imagine if more of us found opportunities to say something good about someone just because.
Spoken like someone who has never done even a cursory glance into Mother Teresa.
Not sure this one is generally applicable. When I'm out running are walking trails I always close gates unless there appears to be specific reason not to. Some people carelessly leave them open, some do so accidentally, some mistakenly think it should be left open because it was when they went through but there has been a steady flow if people leaving it for the next one and the first opened it.
You can either choose to assume other people did what they did on purpose, or assume that you always know better. This is espousing the former.
If I see a gate propped open on the other hand, then yes this is almost certainly deliberate, quite likely by someone working the area rather than by some random, and I'd leave it as is after passing through.
Well, if you thought you'd get a negative result (or failure of something) and then a negative result occurs, the result is still negative, it's just that your expectations were not betrayed. You may have successfully predicted the negative result, but that doesn't change the result was still negative.
Can someone explain this? It doesn't seem to really make much sense.
A different kind of example: I once owned (or my wife did...) a food processor, which if you weren't around back then, is cannister with a motorized blade. A part that connected the motor shaft to the blade broke. I took it to the place with the repair parts (this was before the internet), and was told this part frequently failed. I asked why they didn't make it stronger. The reply: if it was too strong to fail, then when you were chopping something that was too hard for the processor, either the motor would burn out, which would be expensive to fix, or the blades would snap, which could be dangerous. The engineer therefore included a relatively frail part to serve as the cheap and safe failure point.
There are 6. Source: experience
This one hit me.
My last relationship came very suddenly. From day one, things seemed intensely good. Then one day, things became, well, intensely bad.
The phrase is obvious now I see it but I didn't recognize while I lived it.
https://www.liveabout.com/what-is-a-reverse-threaded-bolt-28...
I like this link but but I don't know what that means
Literal: move the blade / cutting edge away from you.
Figurative: apply hazardous effort in a manner that it dissipates in the direction or mode of least harm.
However when redecorating my house there were several occasions where it simply was not possible to do that. I usually countered my cutting hand with my "free" hand, effectively pushing my cutting hand away from my body as I performed the cut. At least then I had pretty good control in the event my blade were to slip.
"Never get yourself bloody. Always cut towards a buddy."
I think this is so wrong (at least for me). Be less strict with myself is what improved my mood (not only) the most.
This is good advice but you should definitely include love.
Most of the advise are really good though.
I beg to differ. All I have to do is look at any, I mean ANY, country regardless of east/west culture/region and see that the politicians are always over-promise and under-deliver. You want a recipe for success? Become a politician, if you have the stomach for it (I, for one, don't).
The early Marxists were trying to create the übermensch and ended up sparking untold misery that killed a couple hundred million. I wonder what evil is being referenced here.
Measure never, cut wherever!
> When hitchhiking, look like the person you want to pick you up.
Who has gone hitchhiking in the past 20 years, honestly?
> almost all breakthroughs are made by those who lack money, because they are forced to rely on their passion, persistence and ingenuity to figure out new ways. Being poor is an advantage in innovation
I mean, define "lack" here. Because actually poor people don't become inventors.
It's a list of platitudes. Old platitudes too - was there a reference to Mother Teresa in there??