One Day You'll Find Yourself | Hacker News Reader

One Day You'll Find Yourself

onedayyoullfindyourself.com

205 pointskickofline193 comments

I can't believe all this dunking on basic, sensible, etiquette. Do we all just live like savages now?

Yes, the HTML formatting is annoying, but I thought the content was pretty timeless.

> One day you’ll find yourself being asked to conform. Refusing is often justified, but consider whether it’s actually just a request to be considerate. No one is oppressing you, for example, by asking that you dress nicely for your grandfather’s funeral.

The world really needs a dose of this. We're not all being oppressed.

There is ample opportunity to strawman the advice in this book and invent scenarios where it does not apply.

I'd say that it is something of a cultural phenomenon of our times that we get these angry criticisms of opinions rather than acceptance and tolerance of views different to our own. I think we'd all be better off if instead of looking for reasons to invalidate opinion pieces and etiquette advice, we value them as opportunities to better understand other people's thinking. There is not much use getting upset about these kinds of things because it's not going to be in our power to change them anyway.

I didn't read all the way to the end, but it wouldn't surprise me if one of the quotes was:

"One day you'll find yourself angry at someone's offer of unsolicited advice, imagining it an affront to your personal autonomy. Consider the intentions behind the advice and whether or not you have a choice to follow it."

I wonder if "One day you'll find yourself experiencing feelings from social interaction with someone you are not actually having social interaction with, and you have not evolved to cope wisely with this." or similar might be a more relevant formulation for distribution on the net.

The two are overlapping, but not equivalent. Both cover conversations with strangers on the web, but beyond that, yours is especially relevant to parasocial relationships (think podcasters, vloggers, influencers), and GP's applies to conversations with people you know, including in meatspace (think unsolicited advice from a family member).

Yes, but that advice was for all these other savages who don't appreciate this etiquette manual! /s

> a cultural phenomenon of our times

Are you forgetting all the religious wars that have been fought over the centuries?

Soon after the printing press was invented (okay- reinvented for Europeans) many popular German pamphleteers took the art of vulgar insults to heights never obtained before or since.

There might be a lot of good advice in there, but the tone is insufferable.

As far as etiquette is concerned: In my experience, it's equal parts (often ritualized) consideration for others and signalling group membership/social status. I'm all for the former, as long as it's not coating an effort to perpetuate the latter.

That said, good advice will always stand on its own – if it can reach its audience.

There's also third part: standardization, Schelling points, whatever you call it. Basically, if people know and are expected to follow the same standards of etiquette, it eliminates for everyone a lot of small-scale worries that can be emotionally and cognitively taxing.

In particular, etiquette tells you how to behave in certain situations so that you don't have to worry about offending anyone. This works, because common etiquette means that, if someone does get offended, and you actually followed the protocol, then they are in breach of etiquette and at risk of pushback from their peers.

As a result, this creates a higher-level "game": an easy way to signal whether your intentions are friendly or hostile. You came to play nice? Follow the etiquette. You want to demonstrate your disrespect to someone, or start a conflict? Break etiquette in a conspicuous way. Those are strong, clear signals, which streamline interpersonal interactions, make cooperation easier, and lets people waste less time on thinking how to dance around each other.

Note that for this effect, the behaviors prescribed by the etiquette can, usually are, and arguably should be arbitrary - what matters is that they are clear, conspicuous, and that everyone is using the same rulebook when expecting everyone else to follow it.

Morality, etiquette, “niceness”, and all of these things have been shown many times that one of the reason why they exist is to maintain class hierarchy. Why do we need those things in a positive sum game, when even math tells us that we should hold doors for the next person, and there are clear drawbacks to have etiquette involved? The advice for party is even more interesting because there are always a first and a last, so it’s not avoidable. That “advice” is not about being “nice” at all, it just creates a social stigma.

I view etiquette much like the parent post, but would reframe it in terms of computer things (though it’s similar for diplomacy): it’s protocol, and if you follow it you know what to expect; further, if it’s not followed, the results are undefined.

Want to start talking IP? Send a SYN to an address, expect an ACK, and send a SYN/ACK. If you don’t hear an ACK, … maybe the server didn’t hear you. Or doesn’t like you. Or someone nearby threw your request in the trash. Or someone near them threw your request in the trash. Or the transport doesn’t know how to get it there.

Granted, it’s a leaky abstraction and etiquette and protocol are different in diplomacy, but I just find viewing it through a neutral lens of “shaping my expectations about how this flows” useful.

I think people are mixing too many ideas into "class hierarchy".

Does etiquette help maintain class hierarchy? Definitely - less so now than in the past, when class boundaries were much more clear cut. But does it exist for that purpose? I don't think so. I feel that the primary purpose is to help people navigate existing class hierarchy - make it less of an issue for everyone, without trying to alter the hierarchy itself. Secondly, especially in the past, it helped people within a class to avoid unnecessary inside conflicts.

> Why do we need those things in a positive sum game, when even math tells us that we should hold doors for the next person, and there are clear drawbacks to have etiquette involved?

What positive sum game?

Etiquette is that math, distilled for normal people, packaged in a form that can be easily taught since childhood. Good luck trying to replace manners with game theory - the former may ultimately flow from the latter, but few people will find time and will to learn the latter, while packaged solutions work for everyone and help everyone.

> The advice for party is even more interesting because there are always a first and a last, so it’s not avoidable. That “advice” is not about being “nice” at all, it just creates a social stigma.

It's not creating social stigma, it's observing the one that exists. And it actually exists for a good reason. The "last one to leave the party" in this context doesn't mean just being the last person to leave (as there is always one) - it's about overstaying your welcome. This is how this term is used in casual conversation. "They're always the last one to leave a party" is an euphemism for the person being inconsiderate, pushy, and possibly having a substance abuse problem. Conversely, the advice is meant to remind you that, just because you're having fun and have time to stay, you should not become the solo party guest and thus overstay your welcome.

Also this harks back to my mention about mixing distinct ideas in the concept of "class". Some form of "class structure" is inevitable - it's a direct consequence of natural tendency of humans to socialize and form groups, thus dividing the world into "in-group" and "out-group" categories. But that alone isn't problematic, in the same sense as having aristocracy oppressing the peasants, or an upper class that chills out and despises the capitalists, who in turn indulge themselves and oppress the working class, etc.

It doesn’t matter if that’s it purpose or not. It has that negative effect.

In a lot of places, throwing cigarette butts to anywhere is fine, it’s not part of etiquette. It was never aligned with positive sum game. Using different kind of utensils for different things are not related to game theory at all. You can use a single fork for many things, you don’t need have more. When I ate snails, I got a separate fork for it. My simple fork next to it would have worked exactly the same way. It’s still etiquette.

You’re talking about euphemisms in etiquette, while your reason of etiquette is to avoid unnecessary thinking. These clearly contradict each other.

The “party problem” would be solved with a way better way if there would be fine by etiquette to say to guests to leave. But it doesn’t.

Hiearchy is “natural”. Maintaining any hiearchy? That’s completely on us.

We are social mammals. Mating, and food & shelter security (employment), often require us to signal to those within a group that we are “safe”, and that we are one of “them”.

If you meant that people use etiquette to make others feel excluded and push them away, sure, that’s wrong. But I always counter that that’s just bad etiquette.

On the contrary, I like it. This style immediately made me move from "looking for the most important pieces of advice" (if I had to right now, I would go for GPT4 anyway) to reading it for its aesthetic value.

I suppose one day you'll find yourself in front of bunch of bitter pedants who are desperate to find any way not to be charitable, open-minded, or prosocial.

I think a lot of folks would benefit from letting their initial reaction of kneejerk contrarianism float by un-acted upon, and practicing going "psychically limp," as a good friend of mine once put it. They might actually learn something.

> The world really needs a dose of this. We're not all being oppressed.

Then why does it matter if we conform?

If it does matter, then how exactly are we not being oppressed when demanded to conform?

This seems like such a double-think. "You're supposed to bend over, but don't think of it as oppression". Yeah, right.

Because it's the same banal empty platitudes that have been bandied around for decades. Do we really need a dedicated website rehashing the same thing?

One day you'll find yourself desperately wanting to create a website or write an blog article, but maybe you should ask yourself if you actually have anything original to say.

It makes sense that the platitudes would change slowly at the pace of human lifetimes. If the marijuana revolution continues, in 50 years our grandchildren might be complaining about "One day you'll find yourself accepting a friend's weed for lack of your own. Take care to return the favor." or something.

This is a Progressive Web App [1]? Terrible reading experience. The home page is just the book "cover", with no way to scroll down to the table of contents because it's convinced it has to behave as a real "book".

Each page is a tiny snippet of text. This entire website would be better served as a table of contents at the top and use anchor links to jump to specific headers (and back). Performs 1000% faster too.

And to top it off these are incredibly opinionated thoughts of a single person masquerading as life advice.

[1] https://www.onedayyoullfindyourself.com/how-to-read-this-boo...

One click to get to the table of contents seems ok

But the content is kind of annoying and preachy

I read it as tongue-in-cheek

Some of these are very silly. There's nothing wrong with golf umbrellas unless you're in a crowded place; pointing is fine, so long as you're not pointing at something with feelings; the advice on accepting compliments doesn't mention why you should accept and move on (it's because deflecting makes the other person compliment you even more, which is narcissistic); at least half my female friends laugh at or are offended by faux-gallantry like going through a door first, even though they appreciate actually important things like waiting with them until their ride home arrives; urinal etiquette is contextual, and at a music festival after 12am it's probably rude not to talk; ordering everything medium-rare fails to take into account the unique qualities of the cut of meat; you can eat oysters however you want, and there's nothing wrong with mingonette nor other vinegar-based garnishes; and so on for all the rest.

I can't put my finger on why, but even though I agree with some of this advice - I don't like this person.

I agree much of it is insufferable:

> One day you’ll find yourself saying “like” a lot. Please stop. If this generation can’t quit the habit, we’ll eventually have an American president who speaks that way too.

People who think this way really grind my gears. I especially enjoy that, like, there's no explanation for why this would be a problem.

If 't be true thou art so 'gainst w'rds changing meaning, then wherefore aren't thee speaking liketh this

As someone who gets deeply irritated by filler words, I will try to tell you why it makes me feel like that.

People who abuse filler words do so to keep the line busy because they fear being interrupted. Their speech is a continuous and anxious stream of poorly formed sentences without regard for the listener. Trying to listen to them feels like taking a ride with a brake-happy, inexperienced driver.

You seem to have successfully identified the core issue, and it's not the filler words.

Isn't that bit the same as when people use the word literally but not meaning literally? It grinds your gears but who am I to tell people how to speak?

And what about people filming vertical videos? There's like, literally millions of things you could mention that are cringy to others.

people hold the phone vertically when shooting video because that’s the way the video looks when they watch it on their phone. This is the most correct way to prepare a video for casual viewing.

People hold the phone vertically when they shoot videos of other people, and other people happen to be vertical. They can see each other (aspect ratio)^2 times larger: more pixel, and bigger on screen.

No they don’t. People hold the phone vertically when shooting video because it’s the easiest ergonomically to do one-handed.

My GF watches youtube vertically... only using 1/3rd of the screen.

So do I. It's a little annoying, but 99 pct of the time I'm holding the phone vertically, and rotating the screen is usually not worth it.

> Please stop. If this generation can’t quit the habit, we’ll eventually have an American president who speaks that way too.

What an utterly superficial way of looking at the presidency. GW Bush and Trump didn't talk like valley girls, but still said plenty of nonsensical garbage that lost them respect at home and abroad.

I'm like, why would any, like, president, be like, using this Los Angeles lingo in like formal gatherings.

People like who like think like this like way like really like grind like my like gears. Like I like especially like enjoy like that, like, there's like no like explanation like for like why like this like would like be like a like problem.

You really see nothing wrong with this?

Except that this sounds like a Xerox of a Xerox of a stereotyped California valley girl. Reductio ad absurdum much?

Also it's significantly less noticeable in spoken conversation. smh...

For people in the age group that commonly does this, they know which part of the sentence the interjection is likely to appear in, and their brain can automatically filter it out, so it doesn't bother them and they don't even see it as a problem.

This applies to all verbal interjection. You use some form of verbal interjection too, but of course you don't even notice that you are doing it, and you would also get angry if some other people told you that your speech pattern is stupid and that you should change how you naturally speak.

Old man yells at cloud. “Back in my day likes were called ums and ahs!”

And we teach people to avoid those too.

Weasel words and delaying terms are common regardless, and usually not desirable.

If you think you're going to get rid of filler, you're in for a big disappointment:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Filler_(linguistics)

> In linguistics, a filler, filled pause, hesitation marker or planner is a sound or word that participants in a conversation use to signal that they are pausing to think but are not finished speaking.

[snip]

> Every conversation involves turn-taking, which means that whenever someone wants to speak and hears a pause, they do so. Pauses are commonly used to indicate that someone's turn has ended, which can create confusion when someone has not finished a thought but has paused to form a thought; in order to prevent this confusion, they will use a filler word such as um, er, or uh.[1][3] The use of a filler word indicates that the other person should continue listening instead of speaking.[4]

More to the point: Every language has them. Every language has always had them. Journalists are trained to edit them out of "verbatim" conversational speech unless they want the person they're quoting to come off like an imbecile, but longstanding journalistic convention doesn't mean filler is in any way recent.

We don't always speak without filler any more than we always speak in iambic pentameter.

They may not be desirable but they are probably useful.

Many years ago I saw a study that ums and ahs helped listeners understand better because it indicated the next phrase was important.

I didn't believe the conceit -- that the narrator is your wise uncle. It sounded like advice written by a much younger person pretending to be the wise uncle.

The wisest man I know happens to be my uncle. He rarely volunteers advice. Instead, I have to pry it out of him, or learn from his example.

I wonder, are wise men uncles rather than dads because they were too smart to have kids?

There’s more

  child -> uncle

…relations than

  child -> father

…relations.

Plus, what you said. Might be something in that.

Definitely, I got the same vibe reading this as I do with Economist articles where you can tell the unnamed author waxing poetic inefficiencies in state allocation of capital just graduated 2 years ago.

The site left the exact same taste in my mouth. It comes off as holier than thou.

The narrator is old, weary, wise, and completely sick of your shit.

Just old probs

I can. We all know a person like this: well-read but highly sanctimonious, overly concerned with keeping up appearances, frequently complains about 'societal degeneration'.

Bonus points if they're also a tech bro who's into Seneca and Marcus Aurelius.

The problem I’ve always found with etiquette advice is that it can usually be summed up with “be kind to your fellow human” or it’s just “I have this pet peeve, stop doing this”.

>I don't like this person.

I can relate to that. About this "You can’t make eye contact with Siri or Alexa, but it’s a good habit to thank them as well."

I understand the sentiment, still I think this has to be debated considering all the implications.

I think there’s a significant difference between the user in being an adult that knows that Siri etc isn’t ‘real’ and is considerate enough of others to treat them with respect to say please and thank you, and a child. What do we teach a young boy if he learns that he doesn’t have to say please and thank you to a device that (almost universally up until now) speaks with a woman’s voice?

I have thanked AI in the past, not Siri or Alexa, but when it’s smart enough for me to wonder whether there is a bit of consciousness hiding in there. Just in case.

I'm convinced that this was written by ChatGPT or something similar. It reads in the same banal way.

It's because it's the kind of common well-trotted out wisdom that you'd find in a fortune cookie, they've just placed it in a much fancier dish.

Yeah, some of them are too snarky. One day you’ll find yourself writing etiquette advice…

One day you will find yourself a sanctimonious old man who desires to pass on his "wisdom" to all those callow youngsters. Don't bother. You will still die having had no discernible effect on the world. You would have been better off trying to enjoy what time you have left than teach us your forgettable little lessons.

One day you will find yourself on the Internet, wanting to post a bunch of thinly veiled insults, addressed to the mental image of a person who, in your own head, annoyed you slightly, and therefore apparently deserves to be hurt. Refrain from doing so, as you would be turning your own self-inflicted faux victimhood into poison, and broadcasting it to the wide world, making everyone's life a little worse.

Nah actually shitposting is funny and should be encouraged. Yes I know this is HN but stop being so uptight

>One day you’ll find yourself watching fireworks. Don’t be a cynic—fireworks can be enjoyed at any age.

Oh, you don't want me to be a cynic? Weird, because this is the most cynical GQ piece of trash I've read in recent memory.

And yet...

>One day you’ll find yourself wearing shorts. Fair enough, it’s probably hot out. One day you’ll also find yourself wearing a t-shirt. Again, fair enough. Unless you’re playing a sport, however, you will not be wearing the two together because you’re also no longer a ten-year-old boy.

Fucking boomer hypocrite. btw I am wearing shorts as I type this.

The problem is that I can't tell if people who say/write this would unironically wear long-sleeve button-down shirts to shorts or if that thought would make their head explode.

> btw I am wearing shorts as I type this.

Fair enough, it's probably hot out.

> One day you'll find yourself considering whether to bike to work or not, and the thought of arriving sweaty and tired may hold you back. But let me tell you, the benefits of biking far outweigh the temporary discomfort of sweat. The fresh air, exercise, and feeling of freedom that comes with riding a bike can set the tone for your entire day. Plus, you'll be doing your part to reduce traffic congestion and air pollution. So, don't let the fear of sweat hold you back from experiencing the joy of biking to work. Give it a try and see how it can transform your daily routine and overall wellbeing.

That’s all great, but it will also shorten your life span. People drive like shit and if you’re on the road with them every day you’re going to get hit sooner or later. The odds aren’t great.

I would only do this in a place with separate bike lanes.

Sitting in a car also shortens your life and exercise extends your life. You have to weigh the benefits against the risk. There is a lot you can do to avoid getting hit by cars.

Biking to work is not the only way to get exercise though.

It’s true. It can be dangerous riding a bike on a road meant for cars.

Some accidents happen even when the bicyclist or car driver made no obvious mistakes.

People also hit cars with their cars.

Getting hit by a car while on a bicycle is considerably more dangerous.

Yeah, bonus points here should be to take a shower when you get to the office. Double bonus: skip the shower if you really dislike the person in the next cubicle.

If you continue biking to work, over time you will probably become less sweaty by the time you arrive. It happened to me.

Fun little index of behaviors & situations. Often just straight good basic advice, sometimes cheeky.

Example:

> one day you’ll find yourself working for an incompetent boss. No doubt you’ll find this inconvenient, but be thankful you’re not among the unlucky men whose incompetent bosses were the sergeants, lieutenants, or generals who led them to war.

Yikes!

This kind of compilation is what I rather expect we should train AGI on. Being able to recognize identify & understand variance of human situations like this.

This kind of thing, and tvtropes, which is the most valuable index of human behavior we have, I think, with the bonus of endless citations.

It seems to be in the middle of the hug of death, maybe later.

I did scan the list and was disappointed to not find 'living in a shotgun shack'.

Unless there's a metaphorical meaning that I don't know about, but shotgun home layouts are da bomb. Highly recommend.

It’s the lyrics from a Talking Heads song, “Once in a lifetime”

I was thinking Loveshack by the B52s

The best song I have ever heard about unplanned pregnancy.

They also have the best song about rocks that turn out to be lobsters.

Admittedly, it isn’t a very crowded field.

Interesting trip down the internet rabbit hole

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shotgun_house

He also stated that the term "shotgun" is a reference to the idea that if all the doors are opened, a shotgun blast fired into the house from the front doorway will fly cleanly to the other end and out at the back.

Similarly, totally useless if you happen to find yourself behind the wheel of a large automobile.

Nice book, but I can't stand this sort of presentation. One tiny morsel per page, with hundreds of clicks to get through it all. A lot of people who make online FAQs are also guilty of this.

List of 100 things on 100 different pages rather than a single page of text. Click to continue.

Though usually this sort of time-wasting is driven by advertisement impressions.

It's an extremely old-fashioned style of web design, back when bandwidth was low and webmasters split content across multiple pages, so as to increase load times by placing a lot of text and images into a single page.

Completely unnecessary in this day and age, 3G is slowest wireless network still in use, and can easily serve text and images quickly.

Even in the 90s when connections were super slow, I've always disagreed with this mantra. Firstly, even if the whole page takes long to load, the browser will display the start of the page exactly as quickly as it would if the page ended there. (Give or take.) Secondly, splitting into multiple pages prevents me from loading it in a background tab and reading it later.

One day you will find yourself writing a book. If you’re writing for a very specific audience make it clear in the title. Don’t assume your audience is male.

It’s fun to write in this style though. And yeah some of them are quite good. I’m not ashamed to say I’ve tapped through most of them.

One day your dog will cure cancer. Give them a nice scratch behind the ears. You never know when they’ll lose their taste in mid-century modern.

One day you’ll find yourself opening a golf umbrella. If you’re not standing on a golf course or in your own backyard, you’re everything that’s wrong with the world.

ok grandpa, what if I'm an adult with a surly child, or if I'm sharing this umbrella with a big bag, a friend, and their big bag?

One day you’ll find yourself thinking about quitting a new job. By quitting, you’ll ensure the job won’t work out. By staying a bit longer, though, you’ll at least allow the possibility that it might. And most do.

Surely you'll never find yourself in a situation where the job is actively destroying other parts of your life. Surely you'll never find yourself in a situation where the boss is using their position to extract sexual favors from you. Surely you'll never find yourself in a situation where your job is actively detrimental to the world at large, and is making you enough money that you begin to want to shrug and say "everyone does it".

Wait, I'm pretty sure it sounds like Grandpa here has done exactly that last one.

one day you’ll find yourself dressing for a flight. Take a stand against casualness and wear a blazer. The pockets are handy for tickets and passports, and you may as well look good—the person sitting next to you could be single.

jesus grandpa, I am an adult woman who has taken many flights while single and lemme tell you, the last damn thing I want to think about while I'm flying is flirting with the dude crammed in the seat next to me, I just want to take a nap and get off this nightmare vibrating stress tube ASAP.

One day, when you are old and think of yourself as wise, you will feel an urge to put together a little book of your attempts at advice. You will be tempted to divide this book into sections, with quotes from various dead white men, all of which lack closing quotes to match their opening quotes. Except for one, which has closing quotes. None of these quotes will be multi-paragraph quotes, which is the only case in which any grammar guides suggest unbalanced closing and opening quotation marks.

Resist this temptation.

Bonus points: Also resist the temptation to decorate the chapter headers with a red swash, that makes them look a pack of Marlboros. Who the hell even smokes any more, grandpa?

one day you’ll find yourself graduating college. Resist the temptation to move home, even temporarily. Force yourself to find a job, live on a budget, and become an adult.

ok grandpa, you do know that most college graduates are now saddled with horrendous college loans that are impossible to get away from, and that living anywhere even remotely desirable requires paying increasingly absurd rents, and yes, that includes that charming town you settled in after your grandparents paid the majority of a tuition that was a tiny fraction of what modern graduates are in hock for, even after adjusting for inflation? You also do know that "leaving your parents and living by yourself" has only been the norm for a brief period of time, and that, in fact, living in the ancestral manse is a great way to accumulate and consolidate pan-generational wealth, as well as to share the burdens of caring for the young, the old, and the infirm?

> ...the last damn thing I want to think about while I'm flying is flirting with the dude crammed in the seat next to me...

...which is your prerogative and another data point to go with the data point in the original article. As a single guy I've personally been lucky enough to be on the receiving end of an in-flight flirtation; not everyone hates flying.

I wasn't wearing a blazer though.

I've had a few romantic connections begin on planes and trains, too. I wonder how common it is. There is something to this advice, which is that most people in airports look confused and lost, so looking like you know how to travel and have your shit together, being relaxed, maybe helping people lift their carry-ons and whatnot, can make you seem like someone people find easy to talk to.

I do dress well when flying and when in Vegas, but I do it for my own sense of aesthetics and elegance. It reminds me to slow down and hold myself well, and it definitely doesn't hurt when going through customs.

I can't think of anything I would hate more on a crowded hot flight than wearing a blazer.

I imagine that for the author, it goes without saying that one should always fly first class.

The blazer can be removed once you arrive at your seat, and then folded and stowed atop your luggage overhead.

Circumstances vary, but especially in our industry, I've seen way more examples of people staying too long when they should have moved on. Even absent abuse or mistreatment.

In my career, I've already done it twice, and I'm in my mid-thirties.

>Surely you'll never find yourself in a situation where the job is actively destroying other parts of your life.

Can confirm.

Haha, I did that one year in Vancouver. I was just tired of arriving to my destination with wet feet. The winter rain in the Pacific Northwest is something else. But you really take up a lot of the sidewalk. I’m tall at least, so I could usually just go over people by raising my arm if needed.

I had to google golf umbrella and I'm still not sure if it's just the size.

It’s probably a guy who’s 47 but thinks he’s old because he’s in tech

Best single piece of advice:

Drinking at an Office Party

one day you’ll find yourself drinking at an office party. Want to be an observer of the inevitable shit show rather than the star? Skip the liquor and drink only beer or wine.

extra points

Only amateurs call in sick the morning after an office party.

Hah don’t most people get the hint from their body by their 30s anyway? I don’t know anyone who still drinks heavily and I knew some very heavy drinkers in their 20s

Or you can just get a neat whiskey then spend an hour or two sipping it. It's neat, so there's no ice to melt nor carbon dioxide to separate, and nobody can tell how long you've had it.

The only downside is defending it from over-zealous waiters.

Apple juice in a whiskey glass is a good one too. People just sort of assume the alcohol content.

Or if you're in a place where they sell ginger beer that's a good one too. Looks like it probably ought to be alcoholic, has "beer" in the name, but is alcohol free.

Some of the advice is good. Much of it is sexist, antiquated, and focused solely on American culture. The format is interesting.

One day you'll find yourself spending several weeks making a "PWA book framework". When you do this, keep in mind that text is small and the network is slow, so store the whole book on one webpage and do pagination by switching which parts are visible. This way, the PWA book will be much more responsive and it will also work offline.

One day, you might even discover ePub.

Completely different from my expectations of the title.

A nice little book, reminds me of the popular series "Dad, How Do I?" on YouTube (and I'm sure other places) where the creator offers general advice like "How do I wear a suit" to other men who may not have had someone to give such advice to them.

If you are looking for modern wisdom, here are two much nicer alternatives: Philip Galanes' Social Q's and Kwame Anthony Appiah's The Ethicist, both columns in the NYTimes. They are the classy version of Reddit's Am I The Asshole?, more or less.

Like others here, the content in "One Day You'll Find Yourself" rubs me the wrong way, though it's hard to put my finger on why. I think because it involves something of a bait-and-switch, mixing straightforward sensible advice with the idiosyncratic opinions of an old fart in order to make the latter seem respectable. For example, the remark that vegetarians are often too opinionated and should shut up is a typical overreaction by people who feel "seen" in the company of vegetarians or vegans even when nobody's saying anything bad about anyone else's choices -- people also get antsy when they're having a beer while talking to someone who doesn't drink, same deal, nobody's judging you but you feel judged -- which is given legitimacy by putting it next to advice to offer your seat to pregnant women and the elderly.

https://www.nytimes.com/column/social-qs

https://www.nytimes.com/column/the-ethicist

https://www.reddit.com/r/AmItheAsshole/

>one day you’ll find yourself saying thank you. It doesn’t mean anything without eye contact, so look up from your phone when you say it.

Autistic person here, nope. It still means something even if you have trouble regulating eye contact.

It might still mean something to the giver, but far less to the receiver.

As an autistic person, trust me when I say you don't want me to attempt forced eye contact. It's many many many levels more unnerving to have "bad" eye contact than a lack of eye contact.

Maybe the receiver should be advised on that.

I have two autistic sons. Obviously we moderate our expectations and responses based on their particular capabilities and preferences. But it's quite a lot of work to override inbuilt social/emotional reactions - more than you can expect from casual acquaintances.

It’s probably not literally about making eye contact. It’s more about paying full attention to the person you’re taking to, even if you don’t make eye contact.

Lots of people won't even hear it if you don't raise your head. Raising your head - even briefly - is better option than shouting.

Eye contact is an inmate human connection and it is good advice to give by default.

There are various reasons to not seek or avoid eye contact, and somehow I'd bet that "not knowing/never having heard about eye contact" is not the most probable one on average.

In fact, for many of the top reasons, "you should make eye contact" is probably completely useless advice at best.

>There are various reasons to not seek or avoid eye contact

Social anxiety, autism, lying, not actually being present in a moment. Some good reasons, some bad.

Repeating social norms is not useless.

It doesn't to the receiver though. The point is conveying meaning to the other person, not how you internally feel (which obviously nobody but you gets access to)

The thing is that it's not difficult to convey meaning and a sincere sense of gratitude to people even if you're looking a bit past their shoulder or whatever.

Yes, I identify with this. My adaptation/compensation for it is to be specific with the thanks — never just “thank you” but “thank you for …” and mean it, kindly.

This is a neat idea, but I can't get past how self-important some of these sound. For example, the shaking a handful of nuts:

> You also might find yourself leaning back and lacing your fingers behind your head. Regardless, both are the self-satisfied poses of bros, so quit it.

Maybe this is the shtick, but it's a real turnoff for me personally.

feels like it was written by one of the most repugnant characters of fountainhead

ellsworth toohey

Well, here's something in it I like:

> Good manners is the art of making people comfortable. Whoever makes the fewest people uncomfortable has the best manners. ―Jonathan Swift

Yes, there are places where you can't be yourself without making people uncomfortable. That's not fair, that's not pleasant, and that's not good for you or for them, but it remains true. Yes, there are times when having good manners isn't a useful goal, and when it is morally necessary to make certain people uncomfortable. That does not negate Swift's statement above.

Next up:

> One day you’ll find yourself approaching a revolving door. Note that starting a revolving door often requires some leverage, so if it’s not already moving, it’s one of the few entrances at which it’s polite to enter before a woman.

OK, this is weird old-fashioned stuff moderns think is either incomprehensible or offensive. Which is a good thing to realize: Some people have etiquette you either don't understand or find rude. Maybe you'll think better of it if you do understand it, maybe you'll think worse of it; regardless, it ties back to the previous statement, as considerate people change their etiquette rules if those rules make the people around them uncomfortable.

> There are places where you can't be yourself without making people uncomfortable. That's not fair, that's not pleasant, and that's not good for you or for them, but it remains true.

If it's not good for you or them, how about not be yourself? Then that is at most not good for you.

One Day This Website Will Load

This is sublime. The transition to modern is just beautiful. I actually knew people who wrote etiquette columns back when it was still an actual newspaper job, I even wrote a few myself, and the design and simplicity of these statements are like koans. It's probably too late for most of you, but if you have kids, someone who knows this stuff is welcome everywhere in the world.

> one day you’ll find yourself reading the internet. Don’t forget to occasionally read a book as well.

Yeah. Go read a book, not this comment!

I hope I'll find myself dead, sooner rather than later :(

Sorry to hear about that - do you have someone you can talk to?

psychiatrist I suppose.. it's a long sad road

OK - I wish you the very best and hope you find your way through it soon. A difficult road it may be but it shows a lot of strength that you're walking it.

Nice. A Matthew Butterick [0] font [1], and it feels like a Butterick-informed project [2].

[0] https://matthewbutterick.com/

[1] https://mbtype.com/fonts/valkyrie/

[2] https://practicaltypography.com/how-this-book-was-made.html

Edit: Oops, I see it is explicitly acknowledged: https://www.onedayyoullfindyourself.com/acknowledgements.htm...

> One day you’ll find yourself wanting washboard abs. Wait it out. Worrying about your abs is unbecoming after the age of 35, and achieving a six-pack only means you’ll eventually be a guy who once had a six-pack.

It's sad to place that line at age 35... your abs are there, they will invariably show up when your body fat is nearing 10%. Getting there becomes a bit more difficult with age due to metabolism, but only slightly so... It is one of the easiest goals of body building, and one of the coolest too.

> In any case, a PMB aims to combine the secure

I think it should be 'PWB'? https://www.onedayyoullfindyourself.com/how-to-read-this-boo...

His email can be found on https://www.onedayyoullfindyourself.com/introduction.html

I have seen people do this and it is definitely a breach of etiquette.

https://www.onedayyoullfindyourself.com/viewing-a-photo-on-s...

Nice, I need my kids to study this:

One day you’ll find yourself drinking an iced beverage. The ice belongs in the glass, not your mouth, but should ice enter your mouth, it should not return to the glass.

Maybe add: It should not go into your hands or slide over the table. If it really is to big and cold for the mouth, just suffer through it or quietly walk (do not run) to the toilet to remove it.

Some things are cultural though, like:

Kissing a Girl on the Cheek

One day you’ll find yourself kissing a girl on the cheek. This is great, sophisticated fun, but unless she’s your significant other, your lips and her cheek should not actually touch.

Extra Points Cheek-to-cheek contact is fine as is the much-maligned “air kiss.”

https://www.onedayyoullfindyourself.com/rehearsing-an-argume...

It took me time and pain to learn this one. I was immediately happier after I did. I am not sure I would have had the same insight just from reading the book though, but I like to think that I would.

Interesting. It seems that the book assumes its audience is exclusively male without explicitly stating it. Might be a fit here for Hacker News, but even that assumption is already reinforcing gender biases.

The introduction contains

> Finally, I’ve written about what I know, so yes, most of the advice is geared towards young men.

Ah, thanks. Didn't see that. One more downside of all these little individual pages.

crappy design, here is the proper URL:

https://www.onedayyoullfindyourself.com/table-of-contents.ht...

I'm really surprised by all the comments. Do people actually disagree with any of these? These are all great tips and if you follow them people will like and respect you more

It's the presentation and tone that's off-putting. There's nothing here that your parents or mentors haven't already told you. That was at least communicated in good faith. This looks and reads like a vanity project made by a person with a superiority complex.

Can’t get past the first page on mobile

Or on desktop.

I guess we are not allowed to find ourselves without a click on that page.

Boomer advice handbook? Why bother.

Instead, become actively deranged. Send unlabeled vials of your hair to state senators. Stockpile canned beetroots. Wear a reflective helmet everywhere you go. Fall in love with a pigeon. Shave the left side of your body. Dig a gigantic hole on publicly owned land. Leave clues. Nothing matters.

the impossibility of being human[1] indeed!

1: https://allpoetry.com/poem/10257717-Beasts-Bounding-Through-...

The problem is most people read "The road of excess leads to the palace of wisdom" (line 3) and neglect line 46: "You never know what is enough unless you know what is more than enough."

Moderation in all things, including moderation.

If you want to make a static site that loads quickly (unlike this one), I recommend GitHub Pages! Free, SSL, custom domain, easy deploy, super fast, CDN, etc.

People have to internalize that for a site like this, 99% of your traffic will arrive in 0.1% of the time your site is up. Unless you want to lose the vast majority of people who would otherwise read your content, you need to pick a server that can handle many orders of magnitude higher than baseline load!

That’s survivorship bias though: only true for sites that make it big. 99% of them won’t get much traffic at any point, and for them any form of hosting will do.

Indeed but those sites failed. So if you are planning for failure, sure, use any hosting. If you hope for success, use a reasonable host — it’s not that difficult, and if luck favors you, you’ll be able to capitalize on it.

This. Being Asked to Conform https://www.onedayyoullfindyourself.com/being-asked-to-confo...

Consideration really helps in many situations over hissy fits but it usually requires skill and practice.

With the same intention, but with a much better execution: Superpig by the late lamented Willie Rushton.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Super_Pig_(book)

For no reason in particular, here are the Unix Koans, presented in static single-page HTML:

https://prirai.github.io/books/unix-koans.html

... living in a shotgun shack, in another part of the world, behind the wheel of a large automobile, in a beautiful house, with a beautiful wife ... and you may ask yourself, "Well, how did I get here?"

There is an issues though, many of these advice's are affected by culture, and shouldn't just be copy pasted to another culture, for example some of them might not pass in Germany.

Aside from the quality of the advice, I am turned off by the author not being named. I believe this was intended to make the advice seem more timeless but it just strikes me as a gimmick.

You get to the table of contents by pressing Page Down on the landing page.

One day you'll find yourself incredibly annoyed by stupid cute webshit design.

This is a great inspiration for a tv comedy about a person who does the exact opposite of this stuff, in the spirit if George Costanza.

like Bob Dylan said "Life isn’t about finding yourself.Life is about creating yourself"

If I ever find myself I’m gonna beat him up for getting in my way all these years

It’s almost like all seasons of Curb your Enthusiasm were made into the book!

This type of website is a textbook case for using CDN in front of it.

This should be taught at all school with a pass/fail exam.

American schools have deep-seated problems that won't be fixed by adding charm school lessons to the curriculum.

https://www.onedayyoullfindyourself.com/swearing.html

Fuck off.

I know shallow dismissals are exactly the kind of comment we don't like on HN, but both the content of the book as well as the truly dubious concept that the UX should behave like a book, not a browser, really just is best summed up by a shallow dismissal: "OK, boomer."

Edit: OK, I can't just leave it that shallow. The problem is that this is dated advice. Culture evolves. This author did not. I'm sure the content makes sense in their small slice of society, but that is not universally applicable to everyone.

One paragraph in the entire book about raising children. It's a fairly major part of life. Is it fair to assume the author doesn't have any?

I wish this was YouTube video instead

I don't. It would mess up my algorithm for weeks. Stuff like this, while itself harmless, is just a stone's throw away from manosphere sigma male garbage targeted at 20 year olds who don't know any better.

Spending all day, chewing through one clickbait-y link after another - desperate seeking the next endorphin rush.

Like a rat, in cage, in some professor's deranged behavioral experiment.

> One day you’ll find yourself wearing shorts. Fair enough, it’s probably hot out. One day you’ll also find yourself wearing a t-shirt. Again, fair enough. Unless you’re playing a sport, however, you will not be wearing the two together because you’re also no longer a ten-year-old boy.

Yikes, OK boomer

Appearances matter, are you rejecting the notion of style and fashion completely or just disagreeing with this specific advice?

Style and fashion are 80% personality, 20% clothing. You can be well dressed, but if you have the personality of a cardboard cutout, no one is going to remember you, or that you were dressed fashionably when they met you.

Also, just because you aren't wearing a t-shirt doesn't mean that what you are wearing is stylish. This 'tip' is just phrased in an annoyingly paternalistic way.

I don't agree with that number split but even if it were true you realize 1/5th is a lot right? 20% is the difference between an A and a C grade

Why do you use that insult? It's likely they're just from NYC or something.

It's the internetz' eye-roll, shorts are perfectly fine in nyc.

I've gotten stare downs for wearing a sweater at the wrong season there. Shorts are fine anywhere in the right crowd but east cost well to do people are very snobbish and strict about that stuff. They only wear shorts at the hamptons or florida lol. My point was don't assume it's an age thing.

Dead

This really nails the Jordan Peterson style of "decent advice packaged as sage wisdom."

What millennial wrote this?

Reply on news.ycombinator.com