Comment by vunderba | Hacker News Reader

Comment by vunderba | Hacker News Reader

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I'm not a fan of these types of posts because they're not really saying anything quantitative - it's just a bunch of a "feel good" text - so I'll throw my hat into the ring.

What the author calls the "fast growth phase" - I call "walking the tightrope and/or knife's edge". Our minds are in a constant state of attempting to optimize away any task. This is why there's a huge difference in skill levels between a person who has driven a car for 5 weeks vs 5 years, but nearly zero difference between somebody who has driven a car for 5 years vs 50 years.

The CHALLENGE is in constantly forcing your mind back to the knife's edge - and it varies from person to person.

Back when I was a highschooler, I was unsatisfied with my sheet reading capabilities. To fix it, I

- started playing only new sheet music

- grabbed a old hymnal (from the 1950s) which are rhythmically simplistic but usu. have four voices.

- Wrote a very simple app that generated random sheetxml

- Borrowed a friend's sheet music for the organ (which has three staves) and tried to transpose it on the fly to play with just the two hands on the piano

A simple reality check - imagine starting an experimental project. Would you rather have 5 guys with 1 YOE or one guy with 5 YOE?

The process of learning and gaining an experitise in a subject is basically a four steps:

1. being overwhelmed with the subject

2. naively thinking you know it all

3. learning about nuances

4. finally accepting that after all these years you still know nothing about the subject, but you're comfortable with the niche you carved in

The author never said you should spend most of the time at the “fast growth” stage. But you should spend most of your time at the “learning” stage and go back to the “comfort” stage as outside life events happen or just to take a mental break

Sure, I think you can just boil that down to learn to exercise basic moderation, and don't be manic.

For myself, I find that our natural state is in the basic learning phase, so for me personally, I'm always trying to figure out ways to force myself back on the tight rope.

There is a big difference between 5 and 50 years driving. Your insurance has stats to back this up and will give lower premiums.

Now skills decline at 70 so that may offset some of it.

Insurance premiums suggest there is a big difference between 5 and 50 years of a safe driving record, not of driving experience.

The implication isn't that drivers get steadily better as they age but that the longer your history of safe driving, the less likely you are to become a liability.

I'm not sure I agree. I can almost guarantee that if you give a common task to a driver who's driven five years and 30 years - there's virtually no difference.

Lower premiums might just be because they've been in less accidents for that long, so they've sustained consistent level of safe driving and it doesn't translate to the idea that they necessarily are more skilled drivers.

Doing a task consistently is what insurance companies are rewarding, but that doesn't necessarily mean that they're more skilled at it, they've just been at it longer.

>a driver who's driven five years and 30 years - there's virtually no difference.

Not so much with driving ability, but very often a proportional gap in recognizing and handling vehicle problems, especially situations that don't come up very often.

Yeah but how much of the insurance rate is just down to age though vs driving experience.

The average person at 66 is much more risk averse than they were at 21.

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