Bits of advice I wish I had known
kk.org
kk.org
> To keep young kids behaving on a car road trip, have a bag of their favorite candy and throw a piece out the window each time they misbehave.
That's terrible advice. Treat children with respect! They are very smart, they just lack experience. If they "misbehave", talk to them and explain why this is not good. If you can't find an explanation, chances are you are wrong and you should reevaluate your position.
But never, never, never willfully hurt them by throwing away their favorite candy. So wrong on so many levels.
This was a big surprise for me in this list as I mostly agree with the items before it. Or, to use a previous item:
> You’ll get 10x better results by elevating good behavior rather than punishing bad behavior, especially in children and animals.
Well said.
Punishment is unfortunately the only thing that she understands. You could call them consequences, but you’d be sugarcoating the truth. Her having a nuclear meltdown due to being sent to her room isn’t the parents’ fault, and it was eye opening to see just how genetic it is.
(Her sister is as sweet as can be, and they were raised identically by the same parent. Interestingly, both kids are from the same two parents, but the father sadly died.)
I’m not sure why siblings are so different, but I recently noticed it even in dogs — our doggo is an extroverted ham, whereas her sister is standoffish and proud.
If they go to the same school one of them had to go in ‘cold’ while the other went somewhere familiar they had heard the older sibling talk about and had probably visited before, where the teachers already knew the elder sibling and knew some of their friends.
It’s a very different experience and situation to live in.
https://twitter.com/paulg/status/1364302749307928580?s=21&t=...
Not to outsource my thinking, but it’s not my idea. I only noticed the effect once he pointed it out, and then it seemed obvious.
The refutation to this is three children. If it was true that someone’s character wasn’t inborn, then we should see consistent effects on a middle child on average. But middle children seem equally random. My wife’s sister is an introvert and her other sister an extrovert, and it’s hard to square that with upbringing.
I predict in the future embryo selection will become a new cultural battleground. We’re having a daughter nine months after June, and we know this because it’s now possible to select which gender you want during IVF. It seems a matter of time till the introversion genes are similarly selected for.
> looking disappointed or hurt
That’s punishment
Like throwing out candy when they misbehave?
And also, at least where I live, it is actually against road rules to throw away your crap out of window while you drive. It is kind of littering, except more dangerous as you are at speed.
Like not being able to hear the audiobook they are playing, or missing a turn or crashing the car due to distraction (don't do that).
If a behavior has no consequences and you need to invent punishment, why is the behavior wrong? Just because your personal preference trumps your kids?
You met my mother then?
And it is pretty much guaranteed they will try to throw away siblings something is sibling is not doing whatbthey want next time. Kids minic and how you treat then is how they treat other kids in conflict.
Moreover, small kids in car are tied. Literally worst they can do is noise.
I think more context is needed here.
> Question is, how far will they go for a piece of candy...
You are here trying to bank on them acting on rational self interest. But, the initial situation was described as "kids are completely irrational". Threat of throwing away candy they don't have adds even more emotionality and confusion into situation. There is even no initial guarantee they would get candy if they behaved.
Irrational kids wont become rational just because they got scared for candy.
> I think more context is needed here.
I actually agree here.
Negative consequences are best experienced naturally, e.g., “You made art on the walls with crayons even after I asked you not to? Well, here’s my advice on how to clean the wall.” Punishment imposes additional suffering (“consequences”) in hopes that it is a deterrent. In fact, mostly it deters the victim from the punisher, not the behavior.
People who believe in zero punishment have either no experience or a selective memory. Granted, punishment is often overused, but it can be underused, too.
Obviously one’s advice must be age-appropriate, and of course a three-year-old would need some supervision. That’s not an argument in favor of punishment, only parenting.
And if the three-year-old does learn that drawing on the walls is a “cleanup game,” so what? They’ll get better at cleanup. My house isn’t a surgery. After a while they’ll get bored of washing walls, and then have a direct and visceral connection between “1 minute of fun drawing on the walls” and “30 minutes of cleanup afterwards.” That sounds like a great lesson to me.
Punishment apologists lack imagination, and are usually more interested in protecting their own ego and authority instead of providing a safe and useful environment for their kids. There is no “underuse” of punishment; it is always the lesson of sadomasochism: teaching kids that they must love someone and fear them at the same time.
What about denial of privileges or a simple "stand in the corner"? If a kid is being obnoxious right before going to a birthday party, maybe stay home or go late. Or if you're already out, maybe say "this isn't fun anymore" and go home?
I guess you could argue over where the line is between "punishing" and "not rewarding". But I don't think that's a very useful discussion. It's more about how the kid interprets it, and if it's less than they normally get, it feels like a punishment.
I agree with you that POV matters. Telling a young kid, “You can’t have dessert tonight since you’re puking” can easily be interpreted as punishment :D
Some of the things you talk about sound like what I could call “natural consequences,” like cleaning the wall. I don’t think there’s an unambiguous bright line between punishment and consequences. I’ve spent years trying to stay on one side of it, but I don’t think I’ve done it perfectly.
Going late to a birthday party because a kid is “being obnoxious” — I think we could view that several ways. Some parents would call backtalk or opposition or argument “being obnoxious,” and I think that’s entirely wrong — I want him to challenge me, and stick up for what he wants.
If the kid makes a clumsy mistake before the birthday party, maybe he can clean it up when we get back (e.g., spilling Lego, but not milk). If the kid deliberately makes a mess before a birthday party, I might delay and ask them to clean it up first. It’s not always possible for me to understand intent, so if he claims something was an accident I’m very likely to act as if I believe him. There’s less harm in that, I believe, than in attributing malice to an accident.
FWIW I try not to reward or praise him, either; those are both inappropriate uses of power. Those have fuzzy lines, too; “you’re so smart” is praise and I avoid it. “I admire how hard you worked” is talking about my own reaction to empirical facts, so I wouldn’t call it praise.
Paying him $10 for each A on a report card is reward, and I avoid it. Watching a movie on Thursday nights if we get the house cleaned in time seems like natural consequences to me, and I wouldn’t call it a reward.
My own parents provided me many excellent counter-examples and anti-patterns, so before I had a kid I knew I wanted to do it very differently but I didn’t know exactly how. Alfie Kohn’s book, “Unconditional Parenting” informed my thinking about this significantly.
What works best is ignoring bad behavior and rewarding good one randomly (so not every time).
And I would warn against overly relying on food as a form of reward and punishment, unless you want to give your kid an eating disorder for the rest of their life.
Citation? And is this actually reproducible?
By default I don’t trust any social / behavioral science study. The field is broken.
As a teenager, on one of my first parties involving alcohol, my father said something like this : "Try not to drink a lot, but if you do and feel like you want to come back home, call us and we'll get you home, we will not reprimand you whatever would happen. Don't ride one of your friends car, just call us."
Well, contrary to all my friends who acted like their parents should not know they would drink alcohol, I had a great party with moderately high alcohol consumption. "Fun fact" is that I had to call the emergency services for someone who has had an ethyl coma.
Interestingly, and I think it's correlated, I continued to drink alcohol at parties but my first real hangover was more than 5 or 6 years after, on a place and with people I felt safe with.
_All_ of my friends who were taught that they'll be reprimanded if they drank a lot started to drink a lot secretly at every parties. Most of them aren't even my friends anymore.
I do agree that, as I read this and thought that there's some really nice advice in there this one struck me as slightly off putting.
I can only speak from experience with my own kids and while I try to encourage them and to be respectful there are situations when they need to learn what happens when you cross the line.
I'm not sure people turn out ok if they never experience painful moments and I'm not sure protecting our children from every repercussion is the best way. I'm undecided on this very topic and I certainly try to be positive and encouraging in every situation.
This is the cardinal mistake many parents make: They assume you can just tell kids how they are supposed to behave, and they will somehow extract the right lesson from your words and learn it.
In reality kids observe and learn from your behavior. That means the lesson here could as well be: "If you are the stronger one, you can make the rules. And the rules don't have to make sense and if you are in the right position you can break them yourself and be mean to others."
Which is ofc the polar opposite of what you sought to teach them. If you reason with your kids even of they are unreasonable, you teach them that reasoning is a good way of dealing with problems. If you explain to them why they are not allowed to do certain things you teach them there are reasons and they should be curious about the reasons behind the rules.
But the idea that the bag is some reward and that you can lose some of it if you miss-behave and then maybe earn it back. That's reasonable.
I typically employ a progressive punishment in the form of a timeout. Go to your room for 5 minutes. If they don't respect that, it's 10 minutes up to 15 minutes. Culminating in: no iPad for you today.
Sometimes I ask them what the consequences for breaking the rules should be. And I get very reasonable suggestions.
I try to reward good behavior more so than I punish bad behavior. Things we're definitely simpler when they were younger but now they lie and make up stuff. I never lie or make stuff up. So, where does this behavior come from? And I never punish them for telling the truth.
Let's not be hyperbolic. Nobody is hurt by throwing away candy. I agree that it is a childish and probably unproductive method, but candy is NOT important.
Sweets are extra. A sign of affection. A toast to achievement.
I imagine a captain pouring a bottle to the sea every time someone gets to a fight an ship crossing the ocean.
IMHO if a child is behaving in a way that you don't like, it's your job, not theirs, to close that gap. Are you putting them in an overwhelming position, asking too much of them, emotionally distancing yourself? Do they have the mental capacity at that age to balance behaviour regulation with delayed gratification? (e.g. a long drive they can't cope with, the promise of sweets if you're "good")
If you're bribing good behaviour with the promise of something, and you have that thing in hand, throwing it away just seems mean. That's different to not giving it to them. It's an irretrievable act, and shuts down any continued negotiation.
Stigmatising natural behaviour, and then washing your hands of the situation (because you can't get that sweet back) doesn't sit right with me.
This is so out of touch with the reality of toddlers that I can’t help but think you’ve either never had children, someone else raised your children, or you got really lucky with an abnormally docile kid.
Screaming tantrums are hard to give rational explanations over. Do you wait your turn to speak between screams or just talk over them?
Better even is giving positive feedback on positive behavior while of ignoring bad one.
And yes, I had a toddler brother and had to test this based on actual, stressful reality.
Like most kids, they still got into trouble and had major screw ups in their young lives. However I've never seen anyone who respected their parents more in my life. There were no beatings, no yelling, no destroying or selling of their property as punishment. And wouldn't you know it, when they got in trouble for something they did wrong - they didn't resent their parents for it. They were always expressive that their mistake (or the general view of society that what they did is a mistake) was the problem.
It's hardly empirical evidence but it certainly convinced me.
I have noticed male children, especially the first born male, who's father is a Psychiatrist end up--well--what's the right phrase? Some seem very angry. It's just something I noticed in my small circle.
I'm probally wrong, but it's something I have noticed.
(that and, how are you sure you're not experiencing confirmation bias?)
Unless there's some condition that make them more likely to know about first born males of male psychiatrists, I would have bet on "definitely small sample" too
Maybe it has more to do with a type of personality that professions like psychiatry attract? It's hardly disputed that your parents' personalities tend to rub off on you.
You are obviously correct here and the giant pitfall of parenting advice is generalisation.
Your kids are bickering on a car journey? You have choices in how to respond.
Your kids are throwing stones at passers by? That has to stop right now as fast as you can apply influence with a transition from verbal to physical based on distance.
Don't take anything you read here as gospel. Note the myriad of parenting attitudes and common child behaviours globally. Accept you are doing it wrong, we all have/do/will.
"Better even is giving positive feedback on positive behavior while of ignoring bad one."
(Genuinely curious of your approach, I'm usually out of options at that point).
Most of my life experience contradicts this - parents gets angry and emotional, ignore needs of their children, do not think through their actions and do not realise possible alternatives.
I have witnessed parents 'giving away' kids to grandparents, spensong no time with them, and threatening physical punishment for poor gradea instead of offering any help
Lastly, you example is of a kid acting like a feral animal - by the time you get to the point it seems something has already royally fucked up
Toddlers skip directly to that point with varying frequency and intensity depending on the child. Some will do it for obvious reasons, some will do it for less obvious ones. Some will do it literally at random. It would be great if all toddlers followed a step wise progression from obvious stressor to obvious meltdown, like you read about in the common parenting books, but that's not how they all work.
Of course there are bad parents out there too. But theres also plenty of parents who do everything by the book, never spank, set clear boundaries with clear signals and set good routines. And they get rewarded with random slug fests that come out of nowhere. Parenting is an unimaginably challenging experience for these folks and there's little they can do about it.
it's a lot different then what i imagined before i had kids. And the thing is most of people have the same problems. It's just that we all fake it in front of others. Like we are great and so on. But im in the years, where a lot of out friends have children with same experience.
If you do issue punishments, try to make them relate to the crime. Take away toys that get thrown at a sibling, or that don't get cleaned up from the hallway, but don't take away toys because the kid refuses to put their shoes on. That's just bullying and it will confuse the child.
Maybe the punishment for being late to school is an hour earlier bedtime that night. This is less of a 'punishment' and more just a rational correction to the problem.
The alternative to punishment is therefore not ignoring, it's explaining things and setting boundaries which will have to be enforced somehow.
> The best recommendation for parents in this situation is to remain calm, try to distract the child, and ignore the tantrum if possible.
[1] https://sci-hub.st/https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/23006014/
> Ignore the tantrum.
[2] https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/books/NBK544286/
> "Getting into it teaches the kid the way to get your attention is to have a big fuss," he said. "If you ignore that outburst, they're less likely to do it."
- neuropsychologist w/ lots published on quality and duration of tantrums in toddlers
[3] https://www.today.com/health/real-reasons-your-toddler-cryin...
[4] https://sci-hub.st/https://doi.org/10.1097/00004703-20030600...
[5] https://sci-hub.st/https://doi.org/10.1037/a0024173
> Any behavior that gets attention will continue
- clinical psychologist
[6] https://www.health.harvard.edu/blog/how-to-respond-to-tantru...
Obviously there's lots of nuance and this is mainly advice given for tantrums in toddlers, primarily attention seeking tantrums in toddlers without development issues.
But it does generally follow 'praise good behavior, ignore bad behavior'.
I wanted to read some papers in the subject a few days ago but couldn't come up with a good search strings nor good initial references. It's not my field of expertise :x
From there I hit up pubmed and google searches (ex. site:researchgate.net) based on terms, references, and authors from the initial studies I found.
It certainly wasn't exhaustive and I would not be surprised if I missed some studies with contradicting information.
Ignoring other bad behavior isn’t the same. If a child is hurting someone, is being destructive, or ignoring what you say you absolutely should do something about it. I’ve seen plenty of parents that don’t and it doesn’t work.
And obviously some kids have psychological issues that make all of this meaningless.
I imagine ignoring a bipolar toddler's tantrum is not going to have a meaningful impact. Or at least that is my experience from dealing with bipolar adult tantrums.
Another thing that works is making the child aware that their behaviour hurts you. "What you do makes me sad/tired/feel/makes my work harder". You are not angry, just making them aware how their actions affect others.
Needless to say you should never ever give in to a tantrum. Giving in to tantrums is not part of the structure everyone abides by.
Source: my gf works with children, often with disabilities and is a psychologist interested in behavioral science. Children actually like you more if you're someone enforcing the rules and structure than a pushover who will do as they please if the tantrum is long and loud enough.
What is the point of being disrespectful over tantrum? Other then you venting own emotions that is.
What poor response have you identified in the parent comment?
> Screaming tantrums are hard to give rational explanations over. Do you wait your turn to speak between screams or just talk over them?
Screaming tantrums are a great demonstration of just how irrational young humans can be. I was (and am) firmly of the opinion that even when confronted with crazy it's crucial to [attempt to] remain rational in your response ...
Speaking of irrational, one of our favourite anecdotes (one of several thousand...) when our eldest was a toddler, he was playing in the garden and for no good reason decided it would be a great idea to throw small rocks .. at our parked car.
I was in the house and heard this strange <clunk> <pause> <clunk> <pause> <clunk> sound coming from outside...
I stepped outside, he'd done about a dozen rocks by that point, judging by the dents in the panels of the car.
I was so angry I recall managing to tell him firmly to stop but then having to actually walk away, leaving my wife to explain that "Daddy is so cross he can't actually speak right now..."
He never did it again, thankfully. He's 12 now :)
I know especially in the USA we want to talk about "what people deserve" rather than "what works" (vaccines and general covid response anyone? like we'd rather have someone to blame and have the right people have bad outcomes we think they deserve, than actually do things that work?), but what a mess.
Of course, that does not mean it's a good thing that some humans destroy property and make other people's lives miserable, but it's nice to know that the indomitable still exists within us.
But yes, waiting, connecting with them, and helping them to calm, and process the emotions.
Precisely
Sometimes (often) that something is merely a transient disconnect between their lizard brain reward/fear-centers and their rational cortex. There's not much to be done other than wait for the jello computer to stabilize itself.
This is surprisingly applicable to humans of all ages.
Regardless with a tantrum you wait till they are calm then speak to them and explain to them what's the correct thing to do in that situation.
Being a father of two (2 and 4), I think children younger than certain age cannot connect the negative result with the action they did. I yell, I lose candy, so what? I get to yell. Also, telling kids what not to do is different from what to do. You can tell kids don't do this, don't do that all day and they still fail to behave . My 2-yo tends to yell when he couldn't get the things he want. Telling him don't yell is futile. Taking snacks off his hand is even more futile. Giving him the stuff once he claim down and say "thank you" seems to help.
On the other hand, punishing has its place. But use it sparingly. I always send both of them to time out if they fail to share toys or fight each other. There is no one size fit all. Every kids are different.
Screaming and tantrums happen only if parents show to the children that that is an easy way to get attention.
I observed that catering to children and their tantrums does indeed result in problems down the road. I also observed that punishment never works.
My dataset is 5 people.
Disclaimer: I don't have children.
After dinner I absolutely had to figure it out. He didn’t say “sorry” he said “thanks”?! I go up to the mom (who I’d never met) and say something like “that was amazing! What on earth did you say to him?”
“Oh, all I said was ‘you’re being inappropriate.’ He’s a super conscientious kid, he doesn’t really need to be punished most of the time, he just needs a bit of clear, unemotional feedback. For him and me, yelling or threatening punishment escalates things, but this works great for us! Now, my daughter… that’s entirely different!”
I find patience and a tiered approach of punishments helps. Too many people jump to harsher punishment or longer timeouts and it's just punishing themselves because they have to miss that playdate or hold that kid in timeout.
Start small and work your way up.
Observe parents with their children. But instead of focusing on the kid throwing tantrum or one listening to their parent, focus on the parents. See what their approach is, how much attention they give to the kid and in what way they treat them - not just when handling the difficult situation.
Kids are very different and definitely not rational. But if you spend some time doing the above, you can't help but notice some patterns. Some are genetics, sure, but I'm talking about their approach to the kid, this is something that's up to them.
Also, there are many books compiling data from papers about both short and long term results of different parenting approaches. Specific approaches offered in books differ, but data, especially long term studies, is pretty consistent.
Of course everything depends on your optimization function. One may choose kid's depression in later life over feeling embarrassed at Wendys ;) But more seriously, it really does depend what you want to achieve. You may want your kids to be happy, altruistic, empathetic, hard working, clever successful, well behaved, social, open minded or creative. These are different things, parts of them conflicting with one another, you can't have them all. I think this is a big part of the reason why there are so many disagreements about parenting.
Tell me you've never had kids without telling me you've never had kids.
This is the type of parenting that made a wide appearance on Super Nanny back in the day.
If you want to punish your child because you are not patient enough to teach them correctly how to behave, at least don't do it while putting garbage everywhere.
And also, using candy to _train_ kids is a good way to teach them bad food habits. But we came from different sides of the Atlantic so obviously we don't have the same opinion on food.
Obviously parents are taking care of your basic needs and it is hard for them to switch between parent, teacher and friend at the right moments, but they are never just one thing.
Kids probably should not learn that parents are demigods who make the rules.
This might be true on an symbolic level. But I am afraid children don't learn all that well on an symbolic level. They learn by imitation.
What you proposed would work if the parent refused to do something they would normally do (e.g. lift the kid on their shoulders), to teach them that it is okay to refuse to do something for others if they are mean to them.
What doesn't work is if the parent does something they ordinarily wouldn't do and blame it on the kid aka "look what you made me do". What this teaches the kid is that they can blame their own behavior on others if they think these others give them a valid reason to do so.
Parents always teach by what they do not by how they explain it.
When someone punished me, all it did was harm my relationship with that person. I didn't ever do anything wrong on purpose (except some rare exceptions involving peer pressure, which I always regretted), so by definition when I was punished, from my point of view I was being punished for doing my best, which I considered a grave injustice. The fact that they assumed that I did something bad on purpose deeply offended me, and damaged the trust in the relationship, and bred resentment and bitterness.
I'm autistic so perhaps this is an atypical perspective—from what I've heard we seem to have more of a thing for justice.
I understand there are some naturally naughty kids out there. But I genuinely believe that most kids want to be good, where "good" is defined as "behaving in a way that I get approval from my parents". The question is to what degree those ethics are actually internalized rather than just performed when someone is looking...
you write that your experience as an autistic is that you have "more of a thing for justice" than might be expected from the general population.
I read that as an aspect of autism is to serve as a magnifying lens on on particular aspect of what it means to be human.
So, the trauma you report from being punished might have been felt stronger by you than it would have by someone with a different mental makeup, but that doesn't mean that the other person didn't feel it.
Conclusion: Your hightened awareness allows you to make explicit something which to others is just vaguely troubling. Thus your view is closer to the universal human truth than those who deny it.
How these boundaries are set varies by community, but some form of punishment is very very common.
Speaking as someone who is currently dealing with a very disobedient 2-year old.
In any case, to keep kids behaving on a car road trip, you need to keep them busy and take care of their basic needs, being still and strapped in the back seat is not fun.
Also, to expand on the cruel punishment thing (an extreme example but I believe it's just a more pathological manifestation of the same thing): my mother would sometimes break my things as punishment, for example toys or CDs that were gifts from friends. 15 years later, it still stings. All that taught me was that she was immoral (and possibly insane) which made me rather unreceptive to her future attempts to "educate" me.
Education system does not teach science or life - it teaches compliance, obedience, to sit down, shut up and complete work by deadline
I'm sorry to hear that, it doesn't sound like healthy or grownup behavior. I recognize a lot of that in my own parents, I don't blame them, but a lot of their actions during my childhood I would now find petty or even emotionally abusive (characteristic of borderline or narcissism). They had their own problems I guess, their parents probably did worse things.
I might illustrate with an example of something that happened yesterday. My mother and I were feeding some feral cats near our building when we were verbally assaulted by a neighbor, who strongly disapproved of this practice (he literally said "not in my back yard!" But it's an apartment building so it's our backyard too.)
My mother's instinct was first to run, and second to get the police involved (he seemed to be a bit mentally unwell, so she feared him). My instinct was to talk to the man, despite his frightening appearance, and understand his perspective. What is it about the cats that bothers him? Maybe it's the fact that people haven't been cleaning up the food trays, so it looks messy. It could be any number of things. But my fundamental thinking is that if I talk to him I will understand him better, and be able to come to an understanding. Whereas my mother's perspective is "he is mentally ill and therefore not even worth engaging with."
I bring this up because most people's perspective on children seems to be "they are a child and therefore their perspective is irrelevant. I am going to force my perspective on them, and force them to do what I want, at least until they are a legal adult." I disagree with this, because it conditions people for their entire formative years to instill a sense of powerlessness and a sense of not mattering.
In most countries, such disrespect of children is actually required by law. From a young age I had no interest in continuing school, but I was forced to pretend to go along with it for another 5 years, or the police would be sent after my parents.
I do and managing young kids on a long road trip is war. You do what you can to survive and try not to feel too bad about it after.
most kids want a combination of 1.) approval from parent(s) and 2.) stuff that makes them happy and when 2 conflicts with 1 there can be issues, and it is a rare child that seeks only approval from their parents in all circumstances, as you also point out.
i think i actually have a similar problem about asccusations of lying that often get thrown around in arguments etc. when the peoson accused has simply made an error in good faith...
I guess it seems like if you're raised around people who are always acting in bad faith on some level ("Everybody is doing it", "It won't hurt if nobody notices", etc) then you're going to assume that there is always some ulterior motive even without any further evidence.
My reasoning was, if you don't want it done to you, don't do it to me. If you claim this behavior is so bad, why do you repeatedly demonstrate it? That too made me lose a lot of respect for parents, teachers etc.
The fact that there are two ways to read this comes up in the criminal law context, where there's a question as to someone's mental state.
You read "on purpose" to attach to "act" – as in, "none of my wrong acts were acts I purposely engaged in." (Such statements can often be read this way in the law – it's about whether they intended the act, not the consequences.)
But I think most people stating that sentence intend to communicate that the wrong (or harm) was not deliberate, in that they had innocent motives, or a non-culpable mental state. And that claim shouldn't be all that hard to believe.
A lot of ADHD symptoms are identical to lack of maturity or laziness. In my case, being punished for inability to pay attention after school, frequently forgetting things (1), or failing to think about the long term consequences of my actions in the moment was incredibly damaging.
It’s little different from punishing a kid who is missing a leg for “slacking off” in gym class.
1: On top Of ADHD, my mom had and her mom had short-term memory issues due to lacking sufficient enzymes to process folic acid. Me having the same genetic short-term memory issues was treated as laziness by my parents.
For me, this is fixed by an L-Methylfolate supplement at a dosage of 15mg/day.
Of course, a parent will often find that after they talked it out, they don't want to punish their kid anymore. (All the better.)
But hey, we're all humans, so it's messy.
I don't disagree, but I would argue it's unrealistic.
Being humble and acknowledging and explaining your mistakes is far more important than getting it right in first place.
At times asking my child after story time, right before bed, "hey, remember today when x and y happened. Do you want to talk about it? Why did you get upset?"
I find kids will happily talk and give their side of the story. It's good then to explain what you think could be a better way to handle that situation in future. Often they'll agree and I'll even hear them later using the strategies to resolve playtime disputes with other kids.
If I raised my voice or was involved in the event being discussed, I will also share my side of the story and explain what I'll try to do to improve or help in future.
I kind of have a thing for justice, and I feel hurt and angry when I’ve done everything I can for my family, told my son clearly why he can’t do something, confirmed that he’s not going to do it any more, and then turn my back and it’s being done again.
I find it hard to stay calm in those situations.
What the OP was trying to convey is that always lead with empathy, communication, and love. But, if after doing that your child is still willfully misbehaving, then they know it’s wrong (you talked to them, calmly and respectfully) so now it’s time to start leveraging punishments (groundings, taking toys, etc).
Of course it is easy to say that when not involved in the situation. But in general it helps to understand why the child "misbehaved" and only then change the course, and punishment in my experience never gives the intended results.
Yes precisely!
There's a book, Nonviolent Communication (have you read it?)-- I wrote a bit in this sibling comment: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=31209737
From what I remember, if you can talk and listen to the kid, and understand what underlying needs drive the behavior, and then mention this to him -- then he'll feel understood, and notice that you're listening and care. And that was, from what I remember, the most important thing, in solving a conflict. (I.e. being listened to and understood.) The other things then, afterwards, tended to be comparatively simple to solve together.
Well said :-)
(thanks for explaining how that works; before that, it was still a bit vague to me)
For example, playing with knives is not a good idea, but maybe all the child wants is to be included in cooking? Giving him a spoon might be enough (and much safer).
But every situation is different, it's not easy. :) Don't give up, and good luck!
You have to treat him like a person.
If the following things happened with an adult:
1. they lied to me
2. I calmly, respectfully and quietly call them out on it
3. they apologised to me and promised not to do it again
4. they immediately do it again
I would calmly call them out again (publicly yet still calmly and respectfully if we were with others), inform them that I'm not going to remain amongst them, then ostracise them.
How do you ostracise a child when you're their guardian?
Edit: clarified that calling them out on it is done respectfully and calmly
You have to figure out why they lied, and not in an accusatory way. Often, particularly when someone wants us to promise something that we don't want to, we are trained to lie to get out of the situation. It can often feel like there is no alternative to lying.
This is, obviously, not an ideal behavior, but you can't solve it by force. You have to accept that they have a reason for not wanting to do what you want them to, and you have to come to a mutual understanding.
In any healthy interaction, you do not unilaterally set the rules. You both have input, and you have to respect theirs, even if you don't agree with it. That will help them learn to respect your input as well.
Rather, what I was constantly looking for (and still am), was the "why" of things. Attempts to influence my behavior without first influencing my understanding led to friction and were the reasons they tried punishment (which never really worked). I didn't generally go out of my way to disobey them, but if we were at odds they had to explain it well enough for me to understand where they were coming from. This worked better with my mom who seemed to have a better understanding of my needs; my dad was more authoritarian and seemed to expect me to just listen due to the nature of the relationship (which in hindsight is funny, as while he is very much "the rules are the rules" when it came to other people, as soon as he had a reason he felt was good to disobey them, he would; he never really empathized with "other people might have good reasons to disobey the rules or otherwise feel they're unfair too", which helped me understand his political leanings).
> But I genuinely believe that most kids want to be good, where "good" is defined as "behaving in a way that I get approval from my parents".
Well said, I would just say "...behaving in a way that I get attention from my parents". Approval is better yhan disapproval, but both will do if a child lacks attention.
This explains why "bad" children often stay the way they are even when punished - this is how they get the most of their parents' attention. Attention is the main currency for children and the only way to raise a healthy adult is to give plenty of it to a child. But not as punishment.
Coincidentally, adults are not as different from children as most think we are.
My experience (and observations) at least.
Are you treating other unleashed monsters with the same respect?
None of this adds up to evil. Some children can be very wicked. Usually that’s a consequence of a very unpleasant home environment. Some kids have unbelievably awful parents.
Don’t get me wrong. Both ways work, and more modern pedagogy builds on the lessons learned from these approaches, but the best way to deal with crime and punishment isn’t these methods, it’s to deal with children rather similar to how you would deal with an adult but then comfort them as though they are children. If that sounds weird to you just imagine how annoying it would be for you if your boss started complimenting you on every thing you do that aligns with what they want to cultivate in you. I know some people might like that, but most of us would feel like we were being treated like idiots. The effect is a little different in children, but some will still feel that way and others will grow up to be very compliment seeking and spend decades in therapy learning how they I be themselves.
What you’ll want to do is to calmly explain why X behaviour is amazing and how proud you are of it. When that is actually true, and then only for as long as it takes for your children to learn that saying thanks when someone give them something is good. Similarly you calmly explain why Y behaviour is terrible, but it’s not like you can’t use reasonable amounts of punishment to teach about consequences. By reasonable I mean things similar to “if you don’t stop hitting the cat in the head with your doll now that I’ve explained why not to do so 20 times, then I’m going to take the doll away for the rest of the day”.
The biggest influence, and most important advice, is consistency. If you say that you’re going to take away the doll for the rest of the day, or when you say no to ice cream, then you absolutely have to follow through. Except when you were wrong, or when you’ve greatly miscalculated the importance of something, and if you’re consistent enough otherwise, then this will simply teach your child that it’s ok to be wrong and admit it. On the flip side of this, you actually have to say yes. One of the biggest challenges I personally faced when I had my first child was that it’s ok to sometimes have ice cream along with your breakfast within modern pedagogy. But it turned out that by saying yes when there is no reason not to, then it becomes really easy to say no because a no is just accepted as your offspring knows that it won’t always be a no.
I think a lot of good parenting is working on yourself though. I mean, why are you getting worked up over what a 4 year old is doing? You have an infinite amount of patience compared to them.
Trusting us that the answer would be yes (and we had to follow through on that occasionally), but having to ask created just enough of a barrier that our girls rarely bothered with sweets. They’ve never been a big deal to them, but I know a lot of parents have huge problems with sweets ‘stealing’ and sometimes when other kids come round we find out afterwards all our sweets have been cleaned out.
We should fix tipping, and it's not inherently a problem to be patronizing to children.
in no particular order:
a. their freedom of speech is largely limited;
b. their freedom of movement is almost non-existant;
c. they do not have the right to own property;
d. parents have an immense power over them, with zero oversight in most cases, in a manner analogue to egypt pharaoh's or something (also, like pharaohs, they claim the children are THEIR PROPERTY, just like slaves in commerce);
e. they are ridicularized and treated as incapable a lot of times and get harshly criticized while adult society is a clear disaster;
f. they get their creativity and will to live supressed, repressed;
g. they are coerced into taking part in school brainwashing, a lot of times having more responsabilities than their parents;
h. they don't get paid for their work;
i. the child can escape from the cancer of nuclear family, but in most cases if they choose to do so they will end up in even worst swamps;
j. children get lied to, tricked and manipulated all the time;
k. beyond being denied the freedom of speech, a lot of times they are more deeply denied the broad freedom of thought, being forced into some religious brainfuc* of some sort;
l. not to mention all direct abuse like free labor, physical and/or verbal abuse, all kinds of prejudice, etc;
m. marginalized everywhere by cities, places and adults that ain't safe or fun;
etc
"All that which might be destroyed should be destroyed, in order to free children from slavery" A saying from an old revolutionary.
Children are like cute kitties: no one wants to see them tortured, but they don't really get to be treated respectfully in any way or form. The flag for "do I respect them?" is always set to True and yet it is almost never reflected in the actual behaviour towards them.
People are at least willing to entertain the thought that you aren't an absolute idiot, might be acting in good faith and have some sort of internal capacity for morality or ethics if you're an adult.
The way I see it, the current state of children won't change directly, as in parents learning better ways directly by being convinced by rationality(this happens, of course, but it's weak force). It takes a full society change for this state to evolve. But I don't think it will take that long, if you ask: history is moving fast and there's a lot going on - I'm an optimist.
Flip side is that means I can charge them for room & board. Bring it on.
Throwing some sweets out the window is hardly a bad thing anyway - the way I see it, the more you throw away, the kinder you are being to your kids! Though that might not be how they see it...
Please point me to the parts of this method that are good or effective.
Like on the car road trip, instead of dragging it out with individual pieces of candy (that'll take forever), stop the car and give them a Stern Talking To. Interrupt the flow of the moment.
It worked every time. He stopped after a minute or two. And then we were able to talk about what was wrong.
Just interrupting the flow shows that something must stop now for the normal life to continue. And then everyone can speak calmly.
As you say, this item seems out of place on an otherwise surprisingly consistently convincing list. Another child-related one is good advice "For the best results with your children, spend only half the money you think you should, but double the time with them."
> Anything you say before the word “but” does not count.
This gets repeated a lot but it's still BS. Lots of things are nuanced. Deal with it.
> When you forgive others, they may not notice, but you will heal. Forgiveness is not something we do for others; it is a gift to ourselves.
Another one. Forgiveness is the result of a process, not the start. You have to heal before you can forgive, not as a result of it. I suspect anyone who claims otherwise simply has no idea what they're talking about. This is such basic stuff.
> Life lessons will be presented to you in the order they are needed.
Guess he should tell that to people who've been the victim of war crimes or similar. Dangerous advice to give out in general.
> To rapidly reveal the true character of a person you just met, move them onto an abysmally slow internet connection. Observe.
I hope he's only joking here.
> For a great payoff be especially curious about the things you are not interested in.
The only thing that that accomplishes is having a bad time. Double down on your strengths and delegate the rest instead.
This is particularly stupid, because you can simply switch the sentence. If you know someone who goes by this credo, just: Yes, but no -> No, but yes.
This is like the catholic mantra of. 'God challanges us' and 'evil is in this world to test us'
Blins to the horrors of the world and all the ruined lives of innocent people
Uh yeah don't throw shit out of car windows to punish your kids. It's literally littering, and it's really dangerous. Always wondered why anyone would think this is OK and I wonder how much insanely weird parenting 'tips' like this have to do with it
Also, don't throw thrash out the window and don't teach your kids to do it.
It doesn't matter if someone agrees or not. These are Kevin Kelly's advices, things he believes as being true and useful.
You can start your own list.
Also, "modern parenting" as in treat the children like adults, never contradict children, never punish children, children are always right while adults are always wrong, seems to me that failed to produce successful adults. It produced selfish adults that think they are entitled to anything without putting any work.
> Anything you say before the word “but” does not count.
I'll agree with this one regarding your comment.
If I hadn't had discipline at that age, I'd be hopelessly undisciplined now (in hindsight, I reckon my parents probably should have disciplined me even more than they did). Taking away my favorite things when I misbehaved worked wonders for me - I then did what I was told.
"But never, never, never willfully hurt them by throwing away their favorite candy. So wrong on so many levels"
Why, what are those levels? Discipline works by first explaining the rules and the reason for them then enforcing the rules with rewards and sanctions. It works for kids, it's the same for army recruits - in fact everyone.
Mollycoddling kids who then never have a day of remorse throughout childhood deprives them of resilience later on in life. Resilience is so important that not instilling it into kids early on in life is of itself abuse.
There's a huge difference between disciplining kids and willfully hurting them. In the above scanario the candy is thrown away but the parent has a choice of whether he or she is administrating discipline or undue cruelty.
It's how one goes about it that matters.
So maybe you don't want to throw the candy out of the window, because that is not the proper way to dispose candy. However, if you add an empty bag for you, where you put the candy every time the kids misbehave, the kids will probably learn how to preserve their stash. In addition, you might want to add some rules, how they can get the candy back which has landed in your bag (like every time you 'misbehave'). That way you would level the playing field and it might become a game.
After all, it is candy. Nothing the kids rely on to survive, but rather some pleasure drug.
Big disagree here, that's not fair at all to the applicant. Some people are just terrible referees and it's hard to know that as the applicant until someone lets you down. Some people mean to reply but forget, some people are too busy to answer and don't get back to you, some people just don't want to even though they think you'd be an excellent candidate. On top of that, with people moving around so much it can be hard to nail down recent contact details.
If somewhere I'm applying to work can't get a hold of someone, I'd very much expect them to reach back out to me in order to resolve the issue, if they can't do me that courtesy then I guess I'll be working somewhere else.
Doubly so as I’ve had the experience of totally unqualified people with great references. Checking references and figuring out when you’re getting real feedback on topics relevant to the new job is a practiced art.
In Silicon Valley or on Wall Street, when people lose jobs on reference checks, people often get hit men sent to their house, and while the objective usually is just intimidation, all sorts of bad things can happen in that situation.
Putting someone at risk of getting killed because "his references weren't as enthusiastic as I expect everyone to be" is fucking immoral.
What?!
I'm not saying this is a good or moral thing. It's obviously not.
They remind me of house employees' conditions in the "Downtown Abbey" area.
It's just a sign of employees' subjection to the always more extreme capitalism.
If an employee is leaving or has been fired, it means that things were not doing well anymore. How can one tell apart truthful feedbacks from all the biases? Most of our biases are unconscious, so the person you're talking to will be sincere but still unfair.
It's sort of weird to pretend to be able to sort feedbacks on the phone while not being able to judge if a person will fit well despite often numerous interviews by different persons in the company.
What if a woman has been sexually harassed but can't talk about it, for fear of the reach of her harasser, a respected entrepreneur, or even to be sued for false accusations?
Can you a person of color easily denounce racist biases that blocked his/her career? What if the previous boss can't stand a gay person?
Can one say plainly that one has little herd bias so one's point of view make the group uncomfortable? You may need such a person in your organization - or not. That person may not be even capable of such a diagnosis.
A reference won't add more unbiased information than several interviews. A lot of money and time is spent screening because the on-boarding process is costly. That makes sense but we could as well change the on-boarding rather than keep refining the screen.
Talent is important but how the person fits in a team and the company's culture is much more important. So give people a try with a sort of temporary status, limited responsibility and light onboard process. Of course, people may try and fake to fit in, but that can't last very long. The feedbacks of your colleagues are much more reliable because you know them and therefore you can sort them.
And what if that person has great references but for some reason, there is a clash of personality with a major person of the firm? Totally unpredictable but that happens.
The process should certainly be made more equitable but discarding personal recommendation as a concept entirely makes as much sense as having all humans work at night and sleep during the day.
My point is not about equity but just plain efficiency. I'm all for a more equitable recruitment - but that's not what I addressed here.
Of course reputation matters. But reputation is not provided by references - at least imo. That person is reputed in a community or not. If you are looking for a top-notch dev, her/his reputation will be apparent.
Social proof is of utter importance, hence the idea of hiring fast to see if that person fits well in your company. How is it relevant if that person did not fit well in the previous company? It may be in some cases, if you know that previous company well, like having work for them or at least with them.
If you are looking for someone who fits well anywhere, well, that can be a must for the role or you just prefer people without much personality.
Go fast, fail fast, anybody?
A human being behaves very differently in different social contexts. Your company's context is more often than not very different than the previous company's.
1 month trial is more efficient and costs less than 6 interviews + 3 references. Give people a chance and let them surprise you. Of course, that doesn't mean hiring the first resume received but if the person appears qualified and do well in 2 interviews (HR + the new boss or colleague), that's plenty enough.
From overseeing multiple hires before, I have to say the technique works. Does it follow due process? No. But does it empirically have high correlation? Definitely yes.
Good applicants correlate highly with have a number of qualified referees (direct managers are best) that will give raving reviews, and so they can pick the ones best at answering. Giving flakey referees is itself a signal.
Should a hiring manager reach out to you -- sure they should. Is the damage already done if they do? Informationally, unfortunately yes.
No, my work comes ad-hoc from my network. It's just easy to spot how you're letting good candidates slip through the cracks with such a harsh stance on a non-reply. I've also been in the hiring seat, and I didn't find references to be much of a positive signal, let alone a negative one.
I'll concede that big organizations have really different requirements, so if you're talking from that perspective then maybe it's useful to sort out the chaff from the inundation of applicants.
> Good applicants correlate highly with have a number of qualified referees (direct managers are best) that will give raving reviews, and so they can pick the ones best at answering. Giving flakey referees is itself a signal.
How do you suppose these individuals came to have so many references? In my 13 years of industry engagement I haven't moved that much, and there are enough years in between said jobs that I just genuinely don't know where some of these people are anymore. I would expect you're trending toward job hoppers and people who work in big organizations, which if you also work in a big org is probably a really good signal. But if you're hiring for a small company, I wouldn't give a second thought to a middle-managers opinion on their ability to colour within the lines.
> Should a hiring manager reach out to you -- sure they should. Is the damage already done if they do? Informationally, unfortunately yes.
The issue is that they think everyone is playing the game they've set up, but that's not the case. The world is too diverse to expect everyone to tick your HR checklists.
The same argument justifies hiring the most privileged candidates - rich parents, white, and has political connections and your boss's wife goes has been at their barbeque.
It does work - people who've been given the best in life are more likely to be competent and less likely to have issues. If something does happen to them or their family, they are more likely to have resources to cope. It's less likely to affect their work
But somehow as a society we've generally agreed that this isn't good enough of a rationale.
Very untrustworthy
I think a better option is to choose one particular thing you want to improve in yourself and have a focused plan to work on it. However this takes work and effort that most will never do. Reading a big list of 50 sentences will make zero difference to your life.
>> I think a better option is to choose one particular thing you want to improve in yourself and have a focused plan to work on it.
But for example, quickly: One thing I personally do is journal every day (yes every day) before I do anything else. That is, I get up, grab a coffee and write roughly 1000 words. I will choose certain topics on which to journal and focus on these for a few weeks, for example: looking at how my relationships are going, how I interact with people, where I find myself energised and working well with others, and where I'm getting annoyed or frustrated or otherwise have some issues. I try and increase my levels of consciousness around certain topics in my life to gain a lasting impact and changed and improved behaviors. I use certain techniques like sentence completions (thanks Nathaniel Branden!) and also asking myself provocative questions (e.g. "What did today's experience touch in my history?") to gain learning and insight in certain areas of my life.
The point being that to genuinely CHANGE as a person (in my belief), reading a list of snappy aphorisms is useless, you need to change your habits, daily routines, you need repitition and work. Sincere self reflection is difficult, as is changing the habits and brain patterns of a lifetime.
I in fact I completely agree with the criticisms, though I personally find high level things like the list helpful at times because it causes me to think or provides me a heuristic to engage with. "When you lead, your real job is to create more leaders, not more followers" for instance, is not directly actionable, but it's a solid summation of and validation of a lot of the more tactical decisions, risks, and investments in people I've made as a manager. It's not directly actionable, but it succinctly puts into words a series of tradeoffs I've intentionally made in the past, which is helpful. Others on the list -are- directly actionable; for instance, I -did- use it as an excuse to go pull up a city tourist guide...and I found a few restaurants I now intend to check out, including a Spanish one with a Flamenco show that my wife will probably love, that I didn't even know existed.
I actually find specific advice very hit or miss (mostly miss); I've seen similar comments on journaling in the past, and I haven't found it helpful for me. Whereas anything I can hold in my head (and aphorisms fit, if as I thought about them I found them to hold weight, rather than just being truly empty statements, tautologies or statements of empty optimism that are meant to make you feel good rather than influence a decision) means it can pop up when suitably relevant and influence my behavior. For instance, with relationships, I missed my grandfather's funeral. Not a big deal to me at the time; he was dead, and I'd get to see my grandmother a few month's later at Christmas time when the semester was over. Except...she passed the day I was supposed to drive down. And it further drove a wedge between me and members of my family (that initially was there due to circumstances beyond my control) that I've only really begun to overcome in the past few years. All of that means I periodically, at random, have "what relationships are you neglecting?" pop into my head, as well as in response to certain occurrences (weddings and funerals are always a "yes" from me now, no matter how much of an inconvenience it is), and that implies action; "Oh, I haven't heard from my cousin in a while, let me just check in with her", etc.
- Use the work "but" less often (I can practice this today with my partner). - Start looking for a new job if you work for someone you can't see yourself becoming (I can start looking for ads right away). - Spend more time with fewer people (I could make a phone call right now). - Try to forgive more often (there a conflicts in my life that I could get out of right now if I could forgive them). - Criticize in private, praise in public (I'm guilty of the opposite at work, this is a good reminder that I should try to improve).
I'm not sure that "banal" is a good measure for whether something is important or not. I often ignore banal things because I forget, or don't want to remember. Having a list might actually help. Although I agree that having a list of banalities is not enough to make a difference. You definitely have to put in work as well. Thanks for reminding me.
(Which seems obvious, but this is the reason that lots of advice sounds banal.)
So it’s natural that some readers will scroll through any list of advice and find little of use, while others are able to put the words to good use.
Meanwhile, lots of advice is "first kill those turtles, go through the castle, and save the princess. easy".
"Only have good bosses ... Only work for role models" ... ?
Goals should be communicated in terms of end states, but everyone already agrees on the goals. Advise needs to be actionable.
> this is the reason that lots of advice sounds banal.
This is the part I'm not getting. Definition of `banal` is:
> so lacking in originality as to be obvious and boring.
Obviously, personal circumstances apply to every single piece of advice ever given to random strangers on the internet. For example, I don't even remember when was the last time I saw a street musician. Doesn't mean that the one-dollar thing is banal. It may be irrelevant to my life, but that is a totally different thing. It would be banal if the behavior suggested was an extremely common social norm... which it isn't, and some people argue the advice is wrong. Which is good! Discourse is healthy.
if i am a child, with no money, or am un- or underemployed with very little money in the form of disposable income, then this advice is not actually actionable.
not to mention that it is also wrong - you do not owe the street performer anything, no matter how long you stop and listen for. they are not entitled to anything just because they made a choice to perform in a public place. and this is not to suggest i have never, or will not in future, donate to buskers etc. - but it is always an active choice...
(Or, ignore the advice, if you disagree. That's fine too! But that's not the fault of it being non-actionable).
> they are not entitled to anything just because they made a choice to perform in a public place.
And you are making a choice of whether or not you support them if you found so much pleasure in listening to them that you chose to spend over a minute listening to them instead of walking past them. You are entitled to just move on. Whether it's the right thing to do is a different question and only for yourself to decide.
however, my statement about entitlements of the performer being non existant along with the listener having no obligation to pay the performer because they stayed for some amount of time, was made on an moral level. i also believe it is a morally 'good' thing to compensate the performer if they provide you with entertainment, i just do not believe there is any obligation placed on you to do this by the performer. like you say, it is for me alone as the listener to decide. i objected to the use of the word 'owe' in the advice, basically.
hopefully that's a bit clearer...
The advice is not about giving 1 USD. The advice is to giving something back in return. It does not have to be money. A thank you, applause, a hat off, a flower or a heartly smile will do.
> i objected to the use of the word 'owe' in the advice, basically.
I suppose the original post does not state the "owing" in an absolute sense but as a recommendation to shape your morals so that they include that it's good to feel that something should be returned. Using the word "owe" for that is suitable, though it does not mean that everybody you see in the situation would "owe" money to the performer.
When I was a young teenager my dad told me "If you a give a no, always give a yes after". He meant you always have to propose an alternative after you rejected a proposition.
I have no idea why but this simple sentence became a strong principle for me. It influenced hundreds of decisions I made and my behavior in general.
There can be true actionnable value in those wisdom pieces.
You learn as a person when you understand why you should do something not just blindly following a list of advice.
There's a lot of misinformation and opinions stated as facts on the internet. So yes for opinions / advice given online I tend to require an explanation. This list has some questionable advice an example:
"Dont purchase extra insurance if you are renting a car with a credit card"
This is false in the UK. Over here that's wrong advice to think you CC provider gives insurance. If that's in the US then it's not always true as well and even then comes with caveat's.
I think in general that's true about almost everything on this list.
So you are trying to drive that point home by adding to that list with this statement?
I read this list more as some inspiration -- most of the points were mostly "meh, sure" and won't stick, but there were a few food-for-thought points in there that I'll likely remember here and there. If that's similar for most people reading the list, it's quite a success. (Doesn't have to be the same few points for everybody!)
Regardless one thing I do look forward to is the HN discussion here with people giving their own points. I do hope to learn a thing or two from that.
Everybody is free to find something useful in that list, or not.
I did have some use of his advices. While I've read this year's list and the lists for the years before, I was meditating about the advices. Thinking if they will work and if so, in what context they will work.
This isn't the first list of the advices I've read.
Why do I think that it might be valuable? Because this man verified these in his long life. It's not a quick list compiled using Google to make an SEO optimized article.
Most of the bits aren't very profound and they can occure to anyone with common sense and a bit of experience. But while any of us can think of them, we generally don't occupy our minds with philosophy of life. And even if we do, and come up with something useful, chances are we don't act on it.
So, reading something useful, and thinking on it, might give us a chance to act on it when we find ourselves in that situation. Instead of acting impulsively and subconsciously, we can take a few seconds, think and maybe remind what KK said and try that.
I broke this one, and it broke a 10 year friendship which took another 5 to heal, and I decided to stop pretending to be a manager. This is a rule of life not to break if you can avoid it. Almost irreparable harm done.
This is a really valuable advice.
The cult like corporate brain washing often runs so deep that I see people treating their personal relationships like they'd treat work colleagues, or reports. This includes things like "having 1:1s" with their partners, or telling their friends to take "take ownership"
Reflect on issues where they happened.
I.e. if someone is an asshole on a meeting, you (as a leader) need to reflect on that on the meeting. You can address the details in private, but not reflecting on it in front of the people who got hurt/offended is wrong as it approves the bad behaviour.
One idea to do this better is, to day something about the behavior in real time without criticizing. People know that you noticed, and you can later talk about "that time in the meeting", and there's no doubt about what you're referencing. But you don't have to pick out your nuanced words in a high pressure real time scenario.
I fully regret not criticizing people's public and private homophobia. I was young and knew the pain of having it directed at me. (Am bisexual, but folks just assumed I was lesbian in school. I hid it as much as possible at the next school).
But if it is, say, work related in the US or something that someone might be embarrassed about (that doesn't harm other people)? Private is the way to go.
This is a great idea, though I try and keep the same principle in mind. I grew up in a very popular tourist area and never visited anything of interest, so I started consciously enjoying where I live and going out of my way to discover new things as if I were a tourist.
> No one is as impressed with your possessions as you are.
Does anyone else get a kick out of "hiding" your wealth? Obviously every Dave Ramsey enthusiast, but I guess I sort of fit in there as well. I wear the cheapest Casio G-shock (love that thing) and drive a 10 year old economy car. I allow myself many luxuries but almost none that communicate wealth to random onlookers.
> If you repeated what you did today 365 more times will you be where you want to be next year?
Oh, that's fun. I've been adding a bit of stoicism into my life. Reminders that I might die today etc. I think I'll throw this one in the mix and see if it alters my behavior.
Getting to know that level of detail gives you an incredible sense of perspective and really helps you feel connected to your immediate surroundings.
A complete list can be found at https://wiki.openstreetmap.org/wiki/Comparison_of_Android_ap... or https://wiki.openstreetmap.org/wiki/Comparison_of_iOS_applic... or just ask here.
StreetComplete: https://github.com/streetcomplete/StreetComplete#download Organic Maps: https://organicmaps.app/ Go Map!!: https://apps.apple.com/app/id592990211
I don't. I would like to be able to spend my money on what I want without worrying about what people will think.
But I don't live in that world. If I act working class in the rich world that I work in, I'm going to get judged on that. Which I don't like but I can deal with it. And if I act rich in the working class neighborhood that I live in, I am going to get jacked. Which I don't want to deal with at all.
I would add this corollary as I've seen the reverse problem a lot too:
No one is as impressed with your frugalness as you are.
As for my possessions, I didn't buy them for others or to show them off. I bought them to enjoy them and I do.
Not really sure what the point of the advice is except maybe don't buy things to impress others.
Haha, you're totally right. I picked it up from my extremely frugal father and I consciously try and fight it a bit.
Different take: you will be fooled by the tourism mafia.
So a number of people are commenting along the lines of "why would you want to care what others think" but I get where you're coming from.
One of the occasions I remember being most tickled by, for -hours- after it happened, was when I was walking to work, wearing just street clothes, my laptop in my backpack, and a woman in a pantsuit asked if I needed help. I was legitimately confused, but then realized - I was walking through a parking deck, underneath a bunch of corporate offices, early in the morning. From her perspective, I was a vagrant. From mine, I lived in the nearby luxury condos/apartments that shared the parking deck (it was a mixed use build, residential, commercial, corporate), was headed to a software job where jeans and a hoodie were expected, belongings are carried in backpacks not suitcases, and the easiest way to get to the shuttle stop on the other side of a super busy street was to go under it via the parking deck.
Another time was when I was buying my first suit with my mom, and got given a massive discount that was not advertised, because the proprietor could see we weren't dressed expensively. We were dressed fine, street clothes, and could afford full price, but he assumed we couldn't (but my mom being a divorced school teacher and me not working yet, the discount was appreciated).
It's not caring what others think, it's finding amusement in the way assumptions and expectations play out.
There's a time for both. Being well-dressed often will have advantages.
Easier said than done, and I find this is bad advice. You don't really know how much runway you have in front of you and in a situation where you may have very limited income, your best bet is to save as much as possible. Also you will have unforeseen health-related expenses as you get old. Following this logic incurs a risk of make yourself depend on your kids or your family members before you die.
Doesn't this depends upon where you live?
OP mentioned "health-relared expenses", which is not the same as losing your income.
I'm sure that most people in the world will struggle to make ends meet if they find themselves unemployed, even if they are perfectly healthy.
But also you can get insurance for that.
Sadly, this sounds like a terribly US-centric take. In most western nations a health scare does not bring in a significant risk of financial distress, unless it's serious enough you find yourself out of a job for an extended period of time.
Nobody wants to be a burden
Family offices, directed by the patriarch / matriarch should be a bigger thing.
Likewise with means-tested public healthcare & retirement systems, you can find yourself having to spend almost every cent you’ve earned over the years on paying for carers, medical, retirement housing etc. Whereas those without any wealth will get the same, but paid for by the state.
In these cases it makes sense to reallocate most of your wealth to your family (responsible child or younger sibling etc) well in advanced of, say, plans to move to a retirement home. Ring fencing your money to protect it both for your benefit and your family. It also avoids squabbles over the will if everyone has already received their inheritance well in advance of your death.
If you’re in the unfortunate position of no trusted family member to take care of your finances then that’s a different ball game.
Sure, some of them are crooks, but some are also honest people who help grieving families through a difficult time.
What is kind? I am the straight shooter type. In the past I've gotten critiques from people about the way I speak, but also told by some people that the way I speak is fine. Maybe people just prefer different things.
I myself prefer people speaking straight to me.
I think I am kind, but not nice.
Or rather, in order to TRULY have someone else's interest in mind, you have to incorporate things like condescension as in-scope requirements for your communication. Otherwise, even good advice delivered in a straightforward but condescending manner, won't get through (which means, the person won't benefit, which means you the speaker failed to achieve the thing that would help advance their interest due to your poor communication).
* Give praise in public
* Criticize in private
* Any criticism offered should be constructive
* Any criticism offered should be of ideas and actions, not individuals--regardless of how strongly one may feel
* When in an argument, discussion, or debate, argue to the best possible interpretation of an idea or statement. Doing anything less is in bad faith, at which point you are not arguing to persuade but rather to make a point.
I'm sure there are many other such examples. I highlight criticism here as in my experience critical statements tend to be most often given or taken badly.
Excellent concept. I think I get caught up in making points, and this framing will help me do better and making persuasion or agreement the final goal.
For me, it helps to pause often and filter what I say before I say it as I often get carried away with topics I’m excited by or passionate about.
Telling someone who made a mistake: "You screwed up" may be true and necessary, but saying something such as "Let's try that again" will likely lead to a better conversation and learning opportunity.
Being kind, at the very least, improves the chances that you will be heard. If you have something true and necessary to say, it's a shame to say it in a way that turns people against you, and against your message.
You can say what someone got right and also say it would be even better with this correction.
Or you can call them a useless moron who doesn't know what they're on about.
Shoot straight, but don't leave people feeling bad about themselves.
The answer is always[0] "Perfect", "Yes, and...", or sometimes "Oh, what if...".
[0] Yes this is hyperbolic. Everything has exceptions sometimes.
To me, "kind" implies taking time and effort for someone, investing in them. That might mean engaging in conflict with them, if that seems to be what they need.
"Nice," on the other hand, suggests to me being polite, delicate, and never making anyone uncomfortable.
Niceness makes no enemies and wins no friends. It benefits the nice one more than anyone else, and is principally a strategy for staying out of trouble.
Kindness costs the giver something, sometimes the risk of giving offense, sometimes their time, sometimes the loss of power and influence because of making an unpopular choice that helps someone who really needed it. It is principally a strategy for taking care of others.
That's how I see it, anyway. YMMV.
I'm not familiar with what you're describing, but I saw another reply with a twitter thread explaining something similar to what you're proposing, so perhaps I'm just out of the loop.
The senses I associate with the two words are probably more connotations than denotations, though.
"When I describe East Coast vs West Coast culture to my friends I often say "The East Coast is kind but not nice, the West Coast is nice but not kind," and East Coasters immediately get it. West Coasters get mad."
[1] https://twitter.com/jordonaut/status/1352363163686068226
I'm deeply confused, but it's not worth arguing about.
Sorry but if that is literally what they said, I think they might not have been "shooting straight" with you. And this is obviously speculation, but perhaps that could have been because they didn't feel it was worth the potential blunt response they might have received from you if they said otherwise?
A party kept moving from table to table. I have no clue why. But the waiter would need to go and clean every table that they left, for both basic sanitation reasons as well as COVID. Waiter didn’t know what to do to get them to stop. So he goes to bartender to tell him the issue.
Bartender immediately says to them: “guys, every time you move we have to clean a table so pick a spot“. Party never moves again.
Bartender could have thrown a bunch of “if you don’t mind”, “we’d really appreciate”, “please”, etc’s in, but didn’t. They also could have thrown some less pleasant adjectives in, but again didn’t. They explained the problem, proposed a solution, and left it at that. That’s the “nice” thing, IMO. Anything else is patronizing or aggressive.
But I do think this is generally a good example. Don't water it down if you are setting a boundary.
If you are asking a fellow human being individually, I think treating others with respect only helps build a strong culture.
For example, if you get a flat tire on the West coast someone will come by and say “Aww man, you got a flat tire. That’s a real bummer man, that sucks”. and then they’ll walk away without doing anything useful.
Whereas on the East coast someone will see you trying to change your tire and say something like “What the fuck are you doing you stupid asshole? Didn’t anyone teach you how to change a tire? Are you frickin retarded or something?” and then they’ll change the tire for you.
Especially when you factor in what might be implied by what you said. Or what different implications a person might take away from what you said than what you meant, because their context or assumptions are different.
One aspect of being kind (which I am working on) is trying to imagine different ways a simple, matter of fact, direct statement could be interpreted given everything the other person brings to the conversation.
I have not once seen a person say this about themselves and not be an asshole instead of a "straight shooter".
Please don't do this. It's incredibly uncomfortable to be the one person in the audience that the speaker is staring at.
Using few people as focal points is a pretty common piece of public speaking advice.
This is a powerful one. Simultaneously virtuous and incredibly petty.
I've found that it also helps to be as explicit as you can when communicating your politeness btw.
Wisdom: "The best way to get a correct answer on the internet is to post an obviously wrong answer and wait for someone to correct you."
Which possibly is your joke as well, in which case I believe the kids would say "r/whoosh".
I couldn't be happier : he caught way too many little details I didn't have time for, and explained the important details I didn't have interest in.
I submitted the new version around a month after that and it went smoothly.
Guess who saved a lot of work :)
This is one of the truest things I've ever read.
Agreed, it's a valuable insight.
Let's say that I find it annoying when people "missbehave", like people letting their dogs shit wherever and not cleaning up, or just commonly being selfish and rude.
How do I now understand myself better? Is the point that the problem is somehow in me or what does this advice mean?
If you like Kevin Kelly he has a weekly newsletter of recommendations, mostly on products he finds useful called Recommendo that I highly recommend.
>To keep young kids behaving on a car road trip, have a bag of their favorite candy and throw a piece out the window each time they misbehave
WTF
>You cant reason someone out of a notion that they didn’t reason themselves into.
You definitely can if they're the right kind of person.
>When someone tells you about the peak year of human history, the period of time when things were good before things went downhill, it will always be the years of when they were 10 years old — which is the peak of any human’s existence.
I believe he's showing his age with this one. I doubt many people born after 1999 believe that to be true.
I think it's you that are showing your age :)
Presumably you were 10 in 1999.... and it's all downhill from there.
I picked 1999 since I don't think I've ever talked to someone who chose a later date than that.
Of course, people from 2nd world and 3rd world countries likely have different views.
Lots of people take negative views on today, but it’s hard to reason about until you can nail down exactly what “good” is and why.
I disagree with your second paragraph. Each person has some idea of what he values, and some idea of whether things have improved with respect to those values, a comprehensive survey of people on this matter would be somewhat accurate IMO.
I’m like “what year was that” and look up the headlines and geopolitical issues of that time
Turn off the news if you want it to seem like a simpler time
I think you’re off by some orders of magnitude, but I understand the sentiment. I was a lot older in 1998. I can tell you that people have not changed since then even if the technology has (enabling voices to be heard that previously weren’t)
French people will obviously understand why.
After that the next bit thing happened in September three years later. And, yes, it went downward from there.
> • To keep young kids behaving on a car road trip, have a bag of their favorite candy and throw a piece out the window each time they misbehave.
Please don't do this. Animals and birds can choke and die on candy. And even if they don't, the ingredients are often toxic to them.
Not throwing Jolly Ranchers out the window is like making sure the stove is off when the house is already on fire.
But to be fair (and pedantic), at least one is untrue.
> • Handy measure: the distance between your fingertips of your outstretched arms at shoulder level is your height.
Ape Index = the difference between your arm span at shoulder level and your height. In other words, a +6" Ape Index means your arm span is 6 inches more than your height.
Apparently this nomenclature is popular in the climbing community, where relatively long wingspan is an advantage.
When I was a new climber I climbed with someone who was world class and just by watching me for a short time he could tell that my ape index was low.
CalTrain explained.
If you aim to be on time, sometimes you’ll be late.
And if you aim late you’ll be late.
So the only certainty is found by being late.
That's a funny one, and I agree, and it's also the reason I use "and" instead of "but" for those kinds of sentences. It sounds a little clunkier, but(!) it doesn't trigger people's alarms.
So you agree, but it's also the reason you substitute it to hide it?
The most dreadful way of hinding a "No" is behind a "Yes, but..." and I know people who are allergic to that way of non-communication.
If I'm getting some feedback from a peer and they tell me "Usually your code is extremely well documented and ready to go as is, but your most recent PR doesn't cut it because xyz" I am glad they have included the "but" in the sentence so I have more context for their comment. It accomplishes two things: It lets me know they are providing this feedback from a place where they are familiar with my work (context for the feedback), and it is a complement (which is always nice to receive).
True, the actual message is what comes after the "but," but(!) that doesn't make the first half of the sentence unimportant.
"Usually your code is extremely well documented and ready to go as is and I think your most recent PR could be improved in this area." It softens the blow while still retaining the relevant context.
I skipped past the first part of the sentence, because I saw there was a "but" near the end, and supposedly that means the first part of the sentence doesn't count, but now the sentence doesn't make any sense to me.
> That's a funny one, and I agree, and it's also the reason I use "and" instead of "but" for those kinds of sentences. It doesn't trigger people's alarms.
In this case the advice isn't all that profound, the "but" is just sectioning off the first part of the sentence like a parenthetical.
Meh. Finding the 10% is not free either - and the benefit of finding it not very tangible either.
I think I can predict your ideology on NFTs?
trellad doesn't like NFTs. Can you tell me what trellad's political preference is? Their nation of citizenship? Their position on abortion? Brexit? Ukraine? Climate change? The Beatles vs The Rolling Stones?
I can't.
Good grief, yes. When you are tired and burnt out, you find the worst kind of shortcuts.
I try to accept people as they are, without trying to change them
I try to treat people with respect
When debugging, I try to fix the problem I can see then deal with what's left
I try to treat someone's hurtful comment as more likely the result of a bad day or thoughtlessness, rather than malice
I try hard to avoid giving advice, and instead try to ask questions: 'have you thought about doing X?'. And I will try _really_ hard to avoid 'you should do ... ' or 'you ought to ...'
I believe that in almost all cases (I haven't yet found a counter) a decision is either easy or it doesn't matter
it was the Buddha.
"... I tracked the quote back to a book of Victorian poems! It’s from “Miscellaneous Poems,” by Mary Ann Pietzker, published in 1872"
says only what it well-spoken, not what is poorly spoken; only what is just, not what is unjust; only what is endearing, not what is unendearing; only what is true, not what is false
More commentary here: https://www.wisdomlib.org/hinduism/book/manusmriti-with-the-...
"It is spoken at the right time. It is spoken in truth. It is spoken affectionately. It is spoken beneficially. It is spoken with a mind of good-will."
— AN 5.198
btw he later on defines "beneficial" as something that is immediately applicable for the listener, which is just extra good in my opinion.
Some credit cards no longer offer coverage. Some recently removed some benefits, so check to make sure.
For ones that provide primary coverage, Amex's premium coverage is very good, and will run you ~$25 per rental period (not day, period, up to 42 days), but you have to call (once) to get it added to the card. It doesn't include liability or uninsured motorists, but for just "hey, something happened, the car got damaged, but I don't want to be able to just walk away and not worry about it", it's an easy, braindead option.
Not sure I agree with this one at all. It irks me a lot when caveats I put in arguments are ignored, and the other party assumes that I don't really mean them. This happens a lot (even on HN, see the responses to my comments at [1] and [2]), and causes a lot of straw-man arguments and talking past each other.
Caveats are important and should not be ignored and should be evaluated on their own merits, because they could be an intrinsic part of the argument being made.
I missed registering kl.com by a few weeks and had to settle for kl.net. This was back 1995 when you had to email a template to Internic and wait about three weeks for a reply. In the template you had to provide working nameservers. I had put down some random hostnames for nameservers since I wasn't running my own yet and it was rejected after the usual three week delay. By the time I had nameservers set up a few weeks later a law firm had registered kl.com.
With working nameservers I was able to register maj.com (have since sold it) and finally kl.net which I plan to keep til I die.
2. Spin up another NFT hysteria
3. You know what happens here
Not Financial Advice ™
2. Sell to people trying to execute above strategy
3. buy lambos
This IS financial advice and totally legit.
Even better rule: never, ever, unplug a device from a charger in a hotel room without unplugging the charger from the wall at the same time. Put it back in your bag.
No other rule for chargers has ever worked for any frequent traveler I’ve known.
Edit: Unplug the charger from the wall first, then the device from the charger.
You don't have to absolutely agree with the author. It's best to take anything through the filter of your own mind. Find pros and cons, think about if it works or not and why.
But most outraged persons are so because the piece of advices don't match their particular view of the world. They don't spend time thinking, they hurry to show outrage, mostly invoking some kind of injustice.
Good list. Not all of them are going to apply to everyone.
I’ve always lived by this one.
Bridgewater corporation takes the opposite of this approach and is lauded for it. The idea is that you get better results by saying what you think honestly but respectfully.
Maybe it works there, but I’ve worked with ex Bridgewater people and they’re toxic. Evidently it’s very hard to develop the social skills to give public criticism in a way that doesn’t erode trust. Such feedback often comes across as callous and sometimes disrespectful.
Withholding approval/praise in public; tentativeness, etc., will convey the message to socially perceptive folks, while not conveying to others that you support bad plans/designs/ideas.
Not everyone is socially perceptive, and even for those who are, it’s always good to follow up in private where you can convey your concerns while being respectful- in a 1:1 you can take the time needed to ensure that you get across that you’re concerned with the idea, not the person; you often don’t have the time for that in meetings and besides even if you’re 100% right the other person could lose “face” with others. Yes maybe they already did with their statements, but you don’t need to compound it.
Also the other effort is cohesion. If you are part of a team they WILL lose trust in you quickly if you frequently side with “others” (against your team) in meetings, regardless of whether you’re correct.
Closely related is “don’t try to always win” against someone who you need a long term relationship with. If you always win, you’re in a relationship with a loser. Or you’re an asshole. Or both.
Don't work for someone you wouldn't want to become? How on earth is someone supposed to determine that during a standard interview process? What are you supposed to do when teams get shuffled around, or your boss leaves? To say nothing of the fact that you can admire someone without wanting to become them.
This is very good advice that my family never follow because of short sighted idea that everyone is out to cheat you. You get so much more out of life by being cooperative and vulnerable than you do by protecting yourself from all risk of being cheated.
And what about the referees who either don't care and never reply or send canned responses to everything?
Is it really a thing? I also heard this from other people, but it's hard for me to believe that CC company will really pay out in case of an insurance case. After all, their commission for renting a car is 2-3%, and car rent companies charge 50-100% of the rental price for insurance.
Most people seem to think it’s a sign of consistency and want to belong to a tribe. This piece of advice needs a lot of repeating.
> Anything you say before the word “but” does not count.
> When you forgive others, they may not notice, but you will heal. Forgiveness is not something we do for others; it is a gift to ourselves.
Here are a few examples:
- "I believe in free speech, but some opinion are too abhorrent to be protected." -> the person actually does not believe in free speech.
- "I am sorry I reacted like this, but they went too far" -> the person is not sorry.
- "I believe in free speech, but some opinion are too abhorrent to be protected." -> Maybe free speech should not allow people to slander, extort, abuse people? Or at least not give them a jail free card.
- "I am sorry I reacted like this, but they went too far" -> This person can indeed feel sorry and feel somewhat justified, because maybe both parties involved did something worth being sorry for.
"I'm sorry I was late" is an apology. "I'm sorry I was late but ..." is not.
So I wouldn't say funny, just inconsistent.
Have you ever hung out with someone who's been nursing a grudge for a long time? How's that like?
I like to think of myself as a levelheaded and rational person, but nothing gets me enraged more than barely working technology.
I often do this but it rarely results in healthy dialog, I don't look for answers in online _forums_ too often anyway. :D
What would add significantly to this is a bunch of Gwern-style links embedded within each of these quips. The author is clearly speaking from a vantage point not many others have attained, and he'd be able to provide a story or other context to each.
No. No.
Anyway, throwing away food is appalling. It costs a titanic amount of resources to grow, make, manufacture, transport, package and sell. There are significant environmental costs to producing anything and most of it isn't captured in what you pay for things. To throw almost anything away is bad; throwing away food is criminal.
And it's irresponsible behavior in front of children, who typically take on board what you do, and not what you say.
Don't do it. It's nothing to do with Freedom. It's to do with being a responsible adult.
Curious to know the third side with regards to clear victim/aggressor situations (domestic violence, x*phobia, Russia in Ukraine, etc.)
In complex situations like what you describe, there are almost always more actors and/or forces at play than may seem at first glance.
For example, many cases of domestic violence are perpetuated by the victim and/or aggressor being victims of not being able to find alternative housing easily, not having the tools/upbringing/training to cope with their situation of forced cohabitation without violence, generational abuse, and many others. It's easy to pick a side and distribute the blame 100% and 0%, but reality is almost always more complicated, there almost always many more factors than may seem obvious at first.
How is this advice that you wished you had known? I honestly stopped reading after this one.
Either way, it seems you’ve taken rather strong offense to such a small, and rather kind point.
The list is obviously not for you, but this reflex where one needs to be so angry and vocal about something so benign (and useful) is what makes me question what have we done to ourselves as a society.
"but" does not count.
TFTFY
If people are paying to hear the hits, you should play them. It's part of the job.
Your life will become the accumulation and consequences of every decision you make which cannot be changed --- never make a lasting decision without considering all the consequences.
This seems like pretty much the most basic principle ever, but I feel I must be missing something.
Can't say I really understand this one. Wanting to become somebody else sounds like insecurity to me.
TL;DR: Don't touch the green button https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EbaRmdpALsE
This message has been brought to you by the freedesktop.org foundation.
Am I Jesus or something?
This guy is my hero
A psychological game of mutually assured destruction.
But I guess it'll work well to keep kids quiet in the short term, sure. Advice is a form of nostalgia - a way of picking up the past, dusting it off, and selling it for more than it's worth; and, like nostalgia, it's never as good as it is remembered.
Learning about cause, effect, reaction, and manipulation are vital skills in life. Knowing and understanding them does not mean you’re a sociopath either. They’re widely useful in many aspects of life. Makes you a better poker player too.
What you're asserting goes miles beyond 'may'. You're making extremely strong claims with no evidence.
I agree with this statement. Assume a risk.
> I assert that the null hypothesis is that it does not have a benefit and is harmful.
Why did the word 'risk' disappear here? I don't think that's a good null hypothesis at all.
> You, on the other hand, if I understand properly, are saying that we should be able to do whatever we like to a punish person unless we show it directly causes harm.
I am not saying that.
What null hypothesis would you prefer?
> I am not saying that.
Then what are you saying?
"It has no lasting effects", probably.
And you need to make sure you're looking for both positive and negative effects.
"It's harmful" is a huge bias for a null hypothesis.
> Then what are you saying?
That you shouldn't assume it is harmful.
I didn't say anything about what parents should be "able to do". I didn't even give an opinion on the candy thing. I just think your justification is a big overreach.
But also a null hypothesis implies you're currently doing the testing, so that's a different scenario too...
Plus you're littering all over the place. That sucks.
Instead you could use non violent communication to get by. Tell them how you feel, how you feel hurt by their behavior. Maybe they start talking about how they are hurt being stuck 8h in the car ? And maybe both of you will feel compassion and a way to minimize the damages.
(Ref to a Baz Luhrman hit https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KdQbb3FXSEI)
Nowadays if you try that on reddit you'll probably just get downvotes and sarcastic replies.
The party is over the instant one person asks for the wifi password
What if they are back, asking for other $20?
“Half the skill of being educated is learning what you can ignore.”
and:
“90% of everything is crap.”
What does this mean?
I had thought that perhaps it was the distance between thumb and small finger measured in inches vs feet or something. But… I guess it wouldn't make sense for the arms to have to be outstretched then.
> Lower the toilet seat after use.
Close the frigging lid for Pete’s sake!
This is true, except the to others part isn't really necessary. It works just as well if you try to reformulate the problem for yourself.
Many times, just trying to think of a good way to ask something on StackOverflow priduces a solution.
It even works when trying to write a good search query on Google.
- If you have spinach or any green leafy vegetables, carrot, turnip or celery, avoid reheating them. These nitrate rich vegetables when heated again can turn toxic, releasing carcinogenic properties, which are generally cancerous in nature.
- Some fruit juices and fruits (most notably grapefruit) can interact with numerous drugs, in many cases causing adverse effects.
- Floss.
Not one of them being "edit your writing".
Quite right.
This is good one!
The library genesis is very useful in that regard, so is bookfinder.com
Yes. Also if you take a picture.
A more apposite version of 'think outside the square'.
I hate-hate-hate this advice. When I assert something confidently, I'm willing to put money on it.
The first time I ran into someone I respected who was confidently wrong, it threw me for a loop. It makes you seem like a blowhard bullshitter! Guessing is fine, but say it's a guess.
Edited to add: I suppose this is a variant of Cunningham's Law, but I still hate it.
A person is only a bulshitter when they know they don't know the topic, but still speak radiating confidence. It's just lying, implying you know things when you don't know them.
We can draw a spectrum called "confidence bias". On one end of the spectrum are your "blowhard bullshitters". At the other end of the spectrum are people who are so scared to be seen that they keep themselves small.
You know where on the spectrum you are. Aim toward the middle.
It makes sense to have conviction on something based on a mental model or experience. However, you should usually try and listen to others because they can improve your mental model of the world.
Patrick Collison has a piece of advice like this. It's something like when you hear someone you respect or admire say something you disagree with, you will automatically try and think about why they are wrong, but it is usually always good to try and think about what they believe about the world that would lead them to think this is true.
I have to reaaaaaaaaaallly dumb things down for that to happen, in person. Its not even people ignoring its like people willing to repeat the incorrect thing I said!
I only noticed when I was making deadpan jokes and pepple couldnt tell. And so it began.
To someone in the same domain, all of those caveats are commonly accepted/implied, so they become tiresome and muddy the points being made.
To someone outside the domain, it unnecessarily erodes confidence in the supposed domain-expert speaker's abilities and recommendations. It's even worse when put up against someone else does speak with confidence. I've lost count how many times I've seen that leading to stakeholders accepting a suboptimal solution.
It's the contrast between what primordial lizard brains want. And what reality actually is.
Often I see:
Lizard brain wants: Simple, agreeable, opinions from authority. Stated confidently.
Reality: Nobody is completely sure. Probably requires some nuanced discussion and critical thinking.
Problem is, if someone expresses an unconfident opinion. And I reckon I see this all the time:
Primordial lizard brain computes the message as:
"This person isn't knowledgeable. Reduction in status."
IMO there isn't a good way in life to say "I don't know" about a topic. Without primordial lizard brains treating that as a reduction in status.
It's a huge problem.
I think our brains are just wired to be attracted to simple answers, have a bias for action over discussion. And avoid deep, reflective, critical conversations.
I dunno if you're on the autism spectrum, I am and I think that contributes towards not wanting to write things that aren't 100% true, but I don't think it is actually a contructive thing to do since everyone implicitly understands you might be wrong.
Life is about what you decide to do, not about what others think you should do and certainly not about what some random old person says you should do because that’s what he wishes he did.
The second is an incredibly uncharitable take on a well-crafted list.
"Where some have found their paradise, others just come to harm." - Law of Joni Mitchell
"Don't do things for the wrong reasons."
In simpler terms: what's good for some is bad for others.
"I come to the beach to relax, but others come to party."
1. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/D%C3%A9formation_professionnel...
"The only productive way to answer “what should I do now?” is to first tackle the question of “who should I become?”"
I would take the same list and interpret as life demands prioritization. That which you choose to do gives it value, in part, because you choose not to do other things. When someone chooses to love me (like in a marriage for example) it's not just the love I receive but also the gratitude for the privilege of exclusivity.
https://kk.org/books/asia-grace/
sneaky edit: if I could get life advice from any random old person, he would definitely be on my short list. The guy knows how to live.
And that's fine; I read the point about "knowing how to live" to mean: he knew the life _he_ wanted to live, and lived it.
I found everything written to be insightful and I resonated with a lot of it mostly because I picked up most of it in my own travels.
> If you stop to listen to a musician or street performer for more than a minute, you owe them a dollar.
> Courtesy costs nothing
My only note is I’d expand this to generally accepting people how they express themselves and their cares
> Efficiency is highly overrated; Goofing off is highly underrated. Regularly scheduled sabbaths, sabbaticals, vacations, breaks, aimless walks and time off are essential for top performance of any kind. The best work ethic requires a good rest ethic.
Two years into burnout, this x1000.
> Criticize in private, praise in public.
Mostly right on but sometimes public criticism is the only effective tool to right things that are otherwise wrong, or just necessary because the wrong is entirely immovable without public attention.
> If winning becomes too important in a game, change the rules to make it more fun. Changing rules can become the new game.
This is fantastic, please enjoy.
I stopped here because I am very hungry.
People love it when something they depend on is shut down and replaced with something new, incomplete, and buggy.
This is a shittier outcome for most people, but hey, at least you got promoted!
"The best way to get a correct answer on the internet is to post an obviously wrong answer and wait for someone to correct you."
- M. G. Scott
(Do a ctrl+F on "correct answer")
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ward_Cunningham#Cunningham's_L...
If HN ever needs a new motto!
Take all advice anyone gives you with a large grain of salt. In the end, you are the one who will be making the decisions that change your life in one way or the other. If you can't trust yourself to make the right decision, then who can you trust? At the very least, you'll have noone but yourself to blame if you happen to make the wrong one. Those are the mistakes you learn the most from, by the way.
With apologies to Barth. Damn, early post-modern fiction was spot on.
I bookmarked the page and yet I will have forgotten about it tomorrow.
When checking references for a job applicant, employers may be reluctant or prohibited from saying anything negative, so leave or send a message that says, “Get back to me if you highly recommend this applicant as super great.” If they don’t reply take that as a negative.
When you flush a candidate on a reference check, there's a good chance that he'll figure out what happened, and justifiably become paranoid. He's going to assume someone deliberately ratfucked him, which is not necessarily what happened here--the person could have legitimately thought highly of the candidate, but forgotten to reply because the email came at an inconvenient time (or ended up in the spam folder). At the minimum, you're destroying someone's professional relationships, but if this is in an industry like Silicon Valley, where people have glowing references not because of sincerity but because everyone who matters retains a hit man to "fix" negative ones, you're putting people in danger of physical harm, including the possibility of death. Worst of all, since the candidate might not know which reference ratfucked him, you could end up getting someone innocent killed.
So, don't do this. The main function of reference checks is to ensure you're not getting someone who claims to have worked at Goldman Sachs or Google for 4 years but actually never set foot there. Leave it at that and be happy.
That all said, people usually start with intimidation, and that's usually enough. Very few people believe in their vendettas enough to die for them, and very few people want to kill or have someone killed, just to make a problem go away, if they don't need to do so.
I do have stories, but I'm not going to share them, for obvious reasons. Only one of the ones I know well involved a person actually dying, but quite a few where people were "roughed up" and are now disabled.
Pardon my language, but what the fuck? You honestly have "quite a few" stories about people being physically assaulted because they were bad references?
Silicon Valley is a disgusting place. The less you know, the better for your soul. What-the-fuck is a reasonable reaction.
As for physical consequences of bad references, there's obviously going to be a spectrum. It's very unlikely that someone would get hit for saying something like "I don't like him" at a bar and accidentally costing someone a job. Those things happen, and very few people are irrational or paranoid enough to call in a hit man over something small that isn't going to happen again.
If someone is deliberately running around saying, "You shouldn't hire him" or "He was fired for cause", though, it's inevitable that he's going to get what's coming to him.
Rationally speaking, people usually make this calculation based on what they think the person is going to do in the future. Sometimes the motive is revenge, but usually it's just intimidation. If it's truly a one-off, people usually let it go. If someone is making it impossible to find work, though, then people get desperate.
Can you help me understand how common this is?
This isn't limited to Silicon Valley. In any business where reputation makes the difference between 7-figure salaries and unemployability, you're going to have people who'll stop at nothing to "fix" reputation problems. That being said, these things usually don't run all the way, because even Silicon Valley people don't kill lightly, so there's a series of escalations before it gets to that, and most people aren't willing to defend their vendettas with their lives.
Sorry, what? I'm not in SV, so maybe I'm missing something, but are you actually claiming that bad references in SV result in death? What?
The probability that someone would be intentionally killed over a single instance of a negative reference is very low, but it's definitely nonzero. Probably 0.05-0.25% at lower levels (SWE, Sr. SWE, entry-level manager) and 1-25% at executive levels. Thus, what the OP is advising could get someone killed, and since there is also nothing to be gained by it, I argue that it's a bad idea.
It isn’t beyond the realm of what I deem possible, and I’m reminded of allegations by Michael O. Church
https://www.quora.com/Why-was-Michael-O-Church-targeted-by-S...
But it would also take a lot for me to put this into my ‘probably true’ or even ‘probably not true but behave as if it is because it could be’ Bayesian priors.
Someone tell the other side.
Reminds me of: if you own a Porsche, all I know is that you're $120K less rich
Things are meant to be used. If you aren’t using it, what’s the point?
But now that that's gone I'm even getting the groceries with the fun car. It seriously transforms a chore into something I volunteer for. And we got rid of my crappy commuter car, for family business we still have my wife's solid but boring car.
The trick is recognizing if this will be fleeting or long lasting.
I had a colleague who bought a Porsche. He went through a million hoops to be able to afford it - buying used, restoring etc.
He loved taking photos with it and they looked great. He looked literally like a million $ - dressed up, nice sunglasses, nice watch, SoCal roads etc.
He loved talking about it and genuinely enjoyed living the Porsche life.
This man got his money’s worth and much more. He bought the car and let its presence and status and demands influence his life in a multitude of positive ways.
Speaking with him and seeing this influence gave me another viewpoint and I was inspired.
Not to buy an expensive car but toward excellence in something - anything.
And I don't even track it. It's just so precise, just a joy to drive all around.
Is it your "daily driver," or a 3rd car that you only use when you want to have fun?
Not sure, I hope a long time? It's a 2014 Boxster S (981S) bought used, with now a bit over 60k miles on it, and it's still going strong.
It had its last big service recently and there wasn't really anything wrong with it. They replaced the drive belt (I am honestly not sure if that was necessary) and that's pretty much it. Other than that it's regular oil and filter changes, and I got a new battery once. I might be lucky, but mine seems built to last.
> Is it easy to keep up with the maintenance?
Based on the above, I'd say so, yes. It's just not something I have to think about much.
Maintenance is more expensive, though. Definitely less frequent than my Ford was, but with the much more expensive tires and the drive belt (again, not entirely sure about that...), the Porsche may still well come out more expensive. That's okay, I knew full well going in.
> Is it your "daily driver," or a 3rd car that you only use when you want to have fun?
It is effectively my daily driver now. That needs a bit of qualification:
Before WFH when I still had a daily commute, I had a crappy Ford as my commuter car and only took the Porsche on that commute when I felt like it (e.g. when I knew traffic would be light, when it was a good day...). But since I mostly work from home now, keeping the Ford in shape was annoying so I got rid of it. We still have my wife's boring car as "family car".
But the Porsche is my daily driver by virtue of being the car I usually take and took before outside of the commute, even for grocery runs and other chores. For being a 2 seater sports car, it has a surprising amount of space in frunk and trunk (remember it's a mid-engine car, so it has both), and I really mean it that it feels good to drive even in every day situations.
It's precise, you feel "in full control" (I don't mean getting into more dangerous situations, just in regular safe situations it feels like that already), more connected the road... it probably does not add anything for people who generally think driving is boring or even annoying (of which I know plenty), but I like operating cars, and when I drive other cars I honestly wish they weren't so "mushy" in comparison.
You really should try though. "Feeling the road" comes with properties that are fun or at least worth the payoff for me, but not everyone wants to be jumbled around with lots of perceivable road noise in a car with low vantage point. It's not extreme, but my wife is not a fan; she likes that I have fun with it and tolerates the ride, but she prefers traveling in her "mushy" car where driving is more, shall we say, abstracted away.
Speaking of maintenance: My Tesla requires "less maintenance," but the tires are expensive. The factory tires lasted less than 30k miles and were over $1000 to replace. In contrast, my minivan with about the same miles has plenty of tread left. Shockingly, because of the tires the Tesla actually costs more to maintain than the other car.
Where I'm from — and I'm not from Italy — buying a Lamborghini makes you an instant a*hole. People think the only reason you bought that is to show off.
But that is not the case if you buy a Porsche, the NSX, or even the R8.
Have you ever driven a Porsche? They’re pretty cool. If you can afford it without sacrificing other important things, a Porsche (or anything cool, esp a car) can make life a lot more fun. Life is short and non-repeatable.
I am an engineer and I don’t have a Porsche.
It was sold under the special title "4DSC" Four Door Sports Car, basically a sedan version of the original 300ZX, same motor and internals.
It of course lacked some speed but this wasn't about racing but normal street driving, plenty fast for that, great suspension, built in hands free cellular, heads up display. Really was a marvel and it was compared against all cars up until the time of the article.
I think a Porsche or Acura TSX was #2.
We only live one life, you can't try to optimize every dollar. There's a tremendous price on "investing" in your own happiness throughout every part of your life.
> When buying a garden hose, an extension cord, or a ladder, get one substantially longer than you think you need. It’ll be the right size.
Extension cords should be of the length being used. Using a substantially longer extension cord and keeping it coiled up in a neat pile can cause a fire. It’s meant to be stretched out to dissipate heat.
Personally, I prefer having more than one. At home I keep a pair of 50 foot cords of the same gauge as a 100 foot should be made of. I usually only need one, but sometimes need to chain both.
• About 99% of the time, the right time is right now.
Home refinance? Travel during a pandemic?
• No one is as impressed with your possessions as you are.
Search HN for Elon Musk
• Dont ever work for someone you dont want to become.
Search HN for Musk, Gates, Jobs, Ellison, Dorsey, Graham, Thiel,
• Cultivate 12 people who love you, because they are worth more than 12 million people who like you.
If I knew 12 million people I would have little time for the 12, most likely just my immediate family and primarily offspring
• Dont keep making the same mistakes; try to make new mistakes.
Retirement plans come to mind. Relationships is another one where I don’t want new mistakes
• If you stop to listen to a musician or street performer for more than a minute, you owe them a dollar.
My dollar and a vote to value culture, people, art, expression even not to my liking. This applies to any creative endeavor to be consumed.
• Anything you say before the word “but” does not count.
I love ice cream, it it gives me gas.
• When you forgive others, they may not notice, but you will heal. Forgiveness is not something we do for others; it is a gift to ourselves.
Don’t learn to forgive. Learn to forget. Better yet learn to not become attached to become angry.
• Courtesy costs nothing. Lower the toilet seat after use. Let the people in the elevator exit before you enter. Return shopping carts to their designated areas. When you borrow something, return it better shape (filled up, cleaned) than when you got it.
Sure. Treat others as you want to be treated. I think I have heard that one before.
• Whenever there is an argument between two sides, find the third side.
Slavery. Abortion. Access to the ballot. Immigration. Nuclear war. Child sex trafficking.
It was that you didn't assume good faith when reading. That doesn't add value with exception for scammers, charlatans, and thieves.
tons of obvious counterexamples to his advice
No.
And now you have made me do the same.
Not GP, but this line in particular is dangerous -- that funeral home will do everything they can to harass whoever they can to get their money. Is that how you want to be remembered by your next of kin? Speaking from experience (homicide of a college student, so no blame for not paying), homes will charge tens of thousands just to release the body.
if you do chose to pay, make it as cheap as possible within the constraints of your circumstances. Leaving your body to science is cheap and useful.
Sorry, this one depends on the old "if everyone would just..." It does cost something, and it's the price we ought to be willing to pay for a civil society. But it's also long been non-reciprocated (in my experience) and so I'm done with self sacrifice in the name of the common good (to the extent I can untrain it out of myself).
How’s that working out for you?
At the same time, there are also people who feel free to write a check, sign your name to it, and expect you to cash it. (They would do this financially if they thought they could, but mainly they do it emotionally.) If you let people do that to you, that also is not a healthy way to live.
So there's a balance between being asocial and being a doormat. Don't be either one.
I don't get mad that I pay taxes, but that I also don't see societal improvement happening proportional to what I pay... (and that there always seems to be none left in the communal basket when I have a bad day...)
See?
Here’s my 0.02c: you can be justified in perceiving injustice (against yourself, or more generally) and simultaneously be unjustified in reacting to that injustice. Less roundabout: two wrongs don’t make a right, and what is right is virtuous in its course of action (in the sense that acting right encourages other people to act right, when doing so isn’t tied to a negative emotion like shame.)
However it doesn't fix the sink on my resources and the relative gain on others. This gets extra fickle when it's in a competitive environment
If you feel it is important to behave in a certain manner it is hard not to judge others by the same standards. Can you hold yourself to an extremely high level of courtesy without judging others?
Yes, and this is a worthwhile challenge to accept if you feel it's indeed a challenge.
Life gets more enjoyable if it's not treated as a zero-sum-game with expectations of reciprocity. Pay it forward; don't assume to be paid back. Be the change you want to see.
You can and should do what you believe is right without being upset that the rest of the world acts differently.
(BTW: I object to that the examples of returning borrowed car with gas filled up,lowering toilet seats, letting people leave elevators and returning shopping carts in the right place are "extremely high levels of courtesy". It's just basic simple things. Regardless of how social norms in your immediate vicinity may deviate)
Another similar issue is to confuse work and employement. Typically raising childrens is a lot of work, but it is not employement. (Womans have been working since loooong ago, just not getting paid for it)
Not everything is transactional and zero-sum.