Things I wish I’d known when I was younger | Hacker News Reader

Things I wish I’d known when I was younger

lifehack.org

50 pointshhm21 comments

People are oddly consistent. Liars usually tell lies. Cheaters cheat whenever it suits them.

This not only isn't true, it's famously false. Psychologists call it the "fundamental attribution error". It may be counter-intuitive, but lying, cheating, and virtually all other behaviors, rather than being consequences of consistent personality traits, are in most cases highly contextual.

The rest is also fairly bland and potentially false. All in all, not a great article.

I didn't know that. I had assumed that it was true. Maybe it's a matter of specifying exactly what constitutes the "context." Perhaps something like, "people who cheat at board games usually cheat at board games but don't necessarily cheat on their taxes."

I don't know too much about this, but a quick check of the psychological wiki http://psychology.wikia.com/wiki/Fundamental_attribution_err... implies something different:

It says that person A tends to attribute person B's behaviors to a fundamental disposition rather than the context of the situation. That different from saying person B chooses a behavior and will do so in most similar circumstances. For example, a person who believes it's ok to lie to obtain a business advantage will do so repeatedly.

There is such a thing as personal variance, you know. The fundamental attribution error kicks in when you're trying to judge by single events. If you observe someone for a year, it's a lot more reasonable to expect them to be much the same next year. I would agree with the statement "people are oddly consistent", it's just that it's not so easy to judge from single events, and when we do judge we're likely to miss consistent background causes or consistent reactions, and think in terms of consistent personal attributes.

I'm always pleasantly surprised when I meet someone who actually improves over time in any visible way. I don't go around expecting it.

In pictures ( e.g. http://tinyurl.com/6dnntv ) you seem far too rotundily enhanced to be one who practises caloric restriction, yet this seems a much more likely way to extend both your life and useful life than cryonics, which you heartily recommend. How come?

(A quick search on this finds no writing of yours addressing this matter).

(Not at all on topic, I know).

You always say stuff like this, Eliezer. :-)

I would agree with the statement "people are oddly consistent"

I agree, too, for sufficient values of "consistent". It's just that when this statement is followed by "Cheaters cheat whenever it suits them" it smacks of the FAE.

Regardless of the cause: whether behavioral choices are a result of a person's essence or a person's circumstance, it's prudent to take John Edward Emerich Dalberg, Lord Acton's advice to "judge talent at its best and character at its worst."

http://oll.libertyfund.org/index.php?option=com_staticxt&...

He is surely right with almost all his points. But if I would have known all that stuff already when I was 15 years old - I would have been already an old man at that age. I prefer to find out those things myself with all the failures on the way.

Why are they worth learning if they aren't worth following?

fault tolerance

One path to becoming a genius is to be as smart as an adult at age 14, then grow around as much between 14 and 24 as most people do.

That is true, though it's a shame that our brain chemistry, and all that mumbo jumbo, interferes with this.

One thing I'd add to this very good list: if you write a list with the intent of fostering discussion, use a numbered list rather than a bulleted list. I still find myself screwing that one up time-to-time, and I always regret not being able to easily refer to, say, "number 6."

I realised most of that between 15 and 17. The thing is that knowing this does not always prevent you from making mistakes, but it helps you to figure out where you screwed up quickly. You can't be prepared for everything.

This was all freely available and common knowledge.

Part of being young is not listening and trying to find your own way.

Youth is wasted on the young...

bullet points 8 and 10 are contradictory. if you don't try to please others you invariably come off as kind of an asshole.

Most of this is insightful, and even got this 45-year-old (who should know everything by now!) thinking.

I objected to this, though: "However hard you try, you can’t avoid being yourself."

That's a semantic trap. Who you are changes, and can change, and you can be the creator of that change.

I also found it insightful and was quite surprised that so many of those who commented thought that the points were negative.

"However hard you try, you can’t avoid being yourself." Perhaps he should have reformulated it as something like "Personal change takes time; you can't change yourself in an instant and insisting on this is a great source of unhappiness".

Yeap.

"Men acquire a particular quality by constantly acting a particular way... you become just by performing just actions, temperate by performing temperate actions, brave by performing brave actions."

Aristotle

Greek critic, philosopher, physicist, & zoologist (384 BC - 322 BC)

Agreed. I think he meant it in the context of "Don't try to be somebody else", and not "you can never change so don't bother trying".

I think if you come at it with the first take, you can be inclusive of personal changes due to growth.

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