Optimal quitting
mag.uchicago.edu
mag.uchicago.edu
I've devoted my life work on fractal logic and calculating with structures, spanning 4 disciplines and two dozen discoveries. One of the many opportunities it gives is transforming hash functions, making it possible to calculate the inverse.
This week the first production version was unveiled, which should have solved all the problems the prototype encountered. DES was selected as first example. All the components passed successfully. Only... self-modifying recursive structures behave in mysterious ways, and apparently differently than expected. It was a self financed project and I literally bet everything (wife, house, money) on a single horse which didn't win.
I started hacking computers with the Commodore PET (1977) and worked with micros, minis and mainframes, spanning from firmware to operating systems/developer tools and 9 years of computer science education. I am turning 59 next week, have no recent job history or network and it feels like I just dropped out of school.
Putting Optimal Quitting into practice. I just started: accepting the loss and letting go. It feels weird. Energy levels and sleep have drastically changed. Next step: deciding to return to the rat-race keeping the expertise or quitting everything and walk a different path, after all, this is the last phase of my professional life.
Quote "The more time you sink into the wrong idea, the more you are misspending life’s most precious resource. But if you quit at the right time (and ignore that sunk cost), then you can move on to scale something else—something with a better shot at success."
This definitely applies across things more than just peoples careers and business ideas. I would say this applies broadly. Emotions steer people around and they have a root - a main source of their existence within that person. But further, emotions can lead a person astray. Relationships, too, can lead a person astray if the relationship is with a toxic person. All these things (all things) are best moderated.
If someone truly loves doing something, and enjoys the process, then why not? If you like being on teams, get a college scholarship and education, and don’t quite make it to the NFL, then quitting early isn’t a great idea.
If someone loves getting a PhD, get’s the stipend, enjoys the process, and then doesn’t get tenure… then they’ve at least spent 7-8 years of their life doing something they enjoy. Optimizing for some end goal or binary idea of success isn’t a good move in my view. Enjoying the process is as important as the outcome.
Being a pro athlete takes brains, natural athletic ability, dedication to training, and injury avoidance. Only one of those things is in the person’s control.
Most PhDs (all?), though, are beyond the diminishing returns to additional outlays of effort. Diminishing returns are probably a good metric to inform people about, too.
The numbers don’t work at all - one tenured professor might produce 30-50 PhDs in her career. Only one will replace the professor’s tenured position. If just 5 actually go on to run labs somewhere else, they may produce another 50 each, leading to ~250 qualified people aiming for one of six positions, which are filled until the 6 retire.
It looks like a Ponzi scheme really quickly.
This isn’t what I think you were saying, but I read it this way the first time - I wouldn’t let the fear of failure or achieving some end state stop one from trying to do something. I think instead it would make sense to build in exit points going into an experience, where you can check how things are going and exit gracefully rather than “quitting”. Recognizing when you go into a PhD program that one of the outcomes may be exiting after two years with a Master’s degree and being ok with that takes a lot of pressure off.
aren't we cursed by our power of hindsight in which we play both judge and jury with how we define success. Making poor/bad/terrible choices and then go on living without obsessing about them seems simply a way of coping.
We're cursed because it matters how we see ourselves but also how others view us affects our perception. And we constantly have to reintegrate societies view with our own. Adding insult to injury: the yardstick used by society is also shifting over time so actions are not future proof. (think about reality vs. myth in characters like Nero or Machiavelli and how long it takes to correct some of the believes previously held by society against new evidence)
Problem with judging ourselves is our vantage point to do so correctly is even worse than society. Because a) we're still alive, b) we're biased, c) we don't have the distance of time d) observers-effect.
If we're unhappy but alive we are able to try harder and hope for a better future, or even doing nothing and sitting it out. We can defer our judgement until our position has improved enough to yield a better outcome.
Then time itself is a problem when applying the yardstick to ourselves because we're unable to make a final and ultimate statement until we have no more capacity to improve our odds (are dead, but even after our death our choices might have affected the lives of our offsprings so they became an ultimate hero or a villain).
> If someone loves getting a PhD, get’s the stipend, enjoys the process
It's actually survivorship bias because the person we could've been if had gotten our shot never existed. The mediocre risk-averse choice has killed that possible universe in which this person could have thrived. They became a casualty of the mediocre.
If that person instead of taking the mediocre, and least risky path dropped out, and as a result struggled with their environment, formed toxic habits, then recovered, reformed, bettered themselves, wrote an influential book to puzzle and better humanity for the next 500 years ... How would that (successful) person judge how mediocre they could have turned out instead? And would they still say it would have been better not to suffer?
Personally I think none of this matters. If a tree falls in a forest ...
Perfect LinkedIn spam material though, can't wait to see how inspired people were by it.
The important thing is to include natural breaks where you can exit gracefully, and only commit to a certain amount of something so that you can try it without “quitting” after a big commitment.
A bit meta, but that is a good reason to read things on HN. We (or I, at least) get to know lots of interesting things other people are doing and ponder whether we're on the right place or perhaps could be happier doing something else.
I’m sure it’s quite common, and I should get out, more…
I was just under the impression that the GDPR required that these notices have an “opt out” button.
Not my area of expertise. In fact, I think the notices aren’t even required, if a sufficient privacy policy is published, and the site is fairly passive.
[2]: https://www.linklaters.com/en/insights/publications/tmt-news...