luketych

Well then you are getting better at applying logic blindly.

Again, you are cherrypicking any flaw you see and then attacking. For a logically-trained person you are misusing it. Being overly logical can become a negative when it is used to justify your already-held beliefs.

I do not care what you think at this point, this has already blossomed into a 1 vs 1, so anything said will just make both sides more justified in their position.

This is about onlookers. Hacker News is flawed in the same way that elections are flawed. Every user is given the same power of opinion. A losing strategy that will eventually begin to conform to the middle of the pack, condemning any opinions falling too far from the centre.

Apathy, I have to ask you. If you are getting all the votes, all the +1's, all the likes, would you ever think that maybe that is not a good sign?

Very correct.

Cooking also breaks down starches into sugars. And we are the cooking species. It helped drive our evolution forward.

It all seems to be about balance.

What I am trying to say is that if we close our minds right away then we will miss obvious answers. We will tend to overcomplicate things and reach for our most-expensive tools.

I've read "scientific" articles that make use of the most cutting-edge statistical models in order to "prove" that something like "emotional intelligence does not correlate with success."

Ok, poor example, and I made it up. But there are many research articles out there that look impressive because of all the tools they throw at the problem. Under the surface these studies are bunk.

The French also don't snack all the time, and also cook many of their own meals.

I get annoyed when people stop a discussion dead in its tracks by asking for references like this, especially when they can easily look it up themselves if they actually cared about the answer rather than winning.

If you think about it, any molecule that isn't sugar but tastes like sugar will have a similar molecular shape to sugar. Hmmmm I wonder if this will fit into receptors in other places in the body, not just on the tongue. Maybe it will affect gut bacteria. Maybe even trigger other events within our bodies.

If we would stop and think with an open mind, many of these arguments would become discussions, and we wouldn't need to play the baby card by asking for proof.

Remember how long it took to finally get enough proof in order to show others how wrong our mainstream religions are? And even with all the evidence we have accumulated, still people say, "show me the proof. I'm a reasonable man." Bullshit.

Let's not fall into this trap again. Many of these questions can be answered without slow, hard science. We don't need to hit everything with the biggest hammer in our toolbox before we can move forward.

We evolved near the equator. There are more sweet things there year-round. Don't forget about honey.

Fiber, fiber, fiber. Sugar seems to be okay when it is packaged together with its copartner, fiber.

"People basically evolved without any sugar (fructose) except what they could get in fruit"

What about honey?

Edit: don't forget that sugar is in every plant that makes use of photosynthesis.

Oh come on.. Nutrition is not that complicated. It only looks complicated because we are looking too closely at the details, resulting in myopia. We are overthinking it. For hundreds of thousands of years people didn't even know what a nutrient was, and yet they ate properly and never got any of these western problems.

Reminds me of how our western science has overcomplicated studies on meditation and we are only now learning the benefits of it because our tools are finally sharp enough to our liking (fMRI).

We are lazy. We don't want to actually meditate to learn if it works or not. We just want to strap somebody into a machine without having to do the hard work ourselves. Our nutritionists are lazy as well. Would rather fund all these ridiculous research studies than experiment on their own bodies. Pathetic example of over measuring. Reminds me of how if all you have is a hammer then everything will start to look like a nail.

So what you are saying is that we should censor who we are when we are on the web?

For some reason that sounds wrong. The web should adapt to us, not the other way around. That is one of the big things wrong with the web and the world today.

It comes down to Paul Graham not being creative enough to implement a system that can organize human ideas without resorting to police-state tactics.

I get it, it's a seemingly intractable problem. Not insulting the keymaster, Paul Graham, just challenging the idea that we should all conform to some webmaster's view of how the web should work.

I am not going to let supreme douchebags like Zuckerberg and Larry the Page dictate how we should think or behave, thank you very much.

I will never follow an out-of-touch techie ruling from inside the silicon valley bubble. Would rather go to war.

Yeah well Paul Graham is also losing touch. A massive policeforce doesn't scale.

There are extremes on both ends. Somewhere in the middle the truth lies.

Over many hours of awareness and training I would agree. But at the end of the day the elephant calls the shots, not the rider. Unless we learn to influence the beast more and more, and in all areas of our lives.

P.S. Is it just me who loves the rush of getting downvoted? The truth is almost always unpopular. Not saying that what I say is necessarily the truth, but it's a good sign :).

Pussified zombies ;).

All people are immature. Maybe we should stop trying to hide that, acting all proper. I talk that way as well, it's better than censwhoring your thoughts 24/7.

All people are also racist and those who say they arent usually are the most racist. That's a different discussion, but similarly applies.

It does no good to be afraid of being human. We are simian. We are an immature, racist, justifying species. So what? Embrace the grease. It's going to get worse before it gets better. Or maybe your precious AI will save you?

Good luck my rational human friends.

Because they're philosophy professors..

Does that include the episode on Top Gear that was scripted into breaking their Tesla down in the middle of a test run?

According to your logic, 3 percent of scientists deny global warming, so that is a statistic we should take seriously as well. I don't care what denialists say because I can appreciate the fundamental science behind global warming.

You seem to lack the vision to see that simplicity in design always wins out. It does so in nature, and it will do so in our automobile engines long-term.

You are suffering from an extreme case of cognitive dissonance my friend.

In a world of 7 Billion people, every anecdote has become a statistic. Figure it out or get left behind.

Yes. Everyone does from time to time. Perhaps if we learned to speak in a less authoritative way more people would take our views seriously..

I think you need to have a better understanding of how to talk to people without sounding like a dick.

No worries dude. I could care less about my ranking on this site lol

Google should also just target retail use cases and kill amazon.

Man that author is spreading so much ignorance. He is a defeatist. He didn't figure out how to stand properly so now he is on some mission to justify his own failure. Standing desks are not the answer unless you have good standing posture and know how to move. He makes a few decent points but then he smears them together in a completely idiotic way. It's more complicated than he would have readers believe.

Isn't this just basic psychology then when you fail at something you try to justify why you didn't want to do it anyway? i.e. Tickets to the concert are sold out -> "I didn't want to go see Black Sabbath anyways. They aren't that good and they're too expensive anyways."

Go with whatever works consistently and your can trust. So don't use a piece of shit like evernote, for example. This is where paper-based systems can shine (until you can build your OWN digital system). Can't even count how many times I had a perfect digital system set up only to find one stupid little thing about it I could not change because it was not my code to change.

Ideally we would have a digital system that works with our own unique way of thinking. Until then, paper sucks but it's the best.

Why do you need to keep a backup? A good analog system doesn't need to be inefficient. If you can stumble upon the right setup it should be plenty efficient, unless you can build your own digital system.

Get a mini binder that fits in your pocket. You can use it like a notebook, and also take the pages out and use like index cards. Took me 3 godndamn years to think of that lol.

btilly I did not mean to fight you, I am sorry for coming off in a manor.

What I mean to say is that meditation works for everyone, even though there are many people who have tried it and concluded that it does not work for them. But we know that meditation works for everyone because we have studied it enough to see how it is fundamental to the way every humans' mind-body operates. For thousands of years, before science, I think many teachers of meditation knew in their hearts that anyone could learn how to meditate. And many others knew it in their hearts that they could not learn how to.

Maybe I'm wrong, and there is no way we can read each other's minds, but what if a system like GTD, maybe not even specifically GTD itself, was also fundamental enough to work for anyone? The way David Allen presents the system, which can be in a very elitist tone sometimes, is that GTD is all about doing what we already do as people, but in a differently-ordered way.

As for addressing that creativity can be scheduled in 2 hour chunks, I was not correct in making that flaky statement and you are right to make a point of it.

P.S. This does NOT mean we have to live our lives like robots! The goal is to have a system that frees our minds, allowing us to be ourselves. I would argue that running around, forgetting to do things, or trying to balance more than a few things in the mind at once, isn't human. That is not how we are supposed to live our only lives. The system should exist not to run our lives for us, but to take care of any thoughts we may have in our minds so that we can start with a blank canvas again and get back to our creative, spontaneous selves.

If someone reading this does not see themselves as creative or spontaneous I have to ask, "can you remember a single time in your life where you were creative and/or spontaneous?" And if you can think of one then you have to ask youself, "Why?"

I have spent over 23 minutes writing this, wtf is wrong with me? :

In my own (slightly bizarre) experience, it's more about the habits than the "fancy checklist" system. It's more than a checklist system, more than a calendar, etc. It's how these pieces work in concert with one another.

Whether through GTD or some other system of operating/thinking, we are all craving a way to have things taken care of for us and not having to worry about them. Imagine if you had a little robot friend that reminded you about your appointments. It would wake you up when you wanted to be woken up (and never failed you like an alarm clock). You could tell the robot to remind you of an idea you just had and want to think about at a different time & the robot would remind you at a good time.

This robot could be seen as an extension of the mind. Like the invention of ink & paper.

But this little robot doesn't exist yet. We have to use our own hands and minds, or we can delegate to other people. GTD is an attempt to do this.

Now I should admit that I do not follow GTD fully. I am using GTD plus some other pieces, but I do see GTD as one of the hearts.

And this took me 2-3 years before I started to reap the benefits. For the first 2 years it was an off-and-on thing. Things would run smoothly, and then a clog would get caught in the piping, leading to productivity relapse.

The problem with GTD is that there are too many integral pieces, and if any one of those pieces breaks down the whole system breaks down. I was fortunate enough to have health issues and not have a job at the time so I could pour countless hours into this on the faith that I would reach consistency.

In hindsight, the only reason why I bought into GTD religiously in the first place, inspiring me to put in retarded amounts of time was that I was reading heavily into willpower, and the importance of conserving mental energy, especially for decision making and other high-level brain functions. The book Willpower by Roy F. Baumeister had endorsed David Allen and GTD.

I respect Baumeister immensely as he is an opponent of the self-esteem movement, a movement that has really fucked up many peoples' ability to self-regulate their emotions and focus. As everyone was focusing on the promises of higher self-esteem (Baumeister also started in this area), he was researching things like self-control, emotional intelligence, focus and willpower.

lol, but isn't your own enthusiasm at least somewhat affected by other peoples' enthusiasm or lack there of?

A year is not long enough.

As you should. It's not my job to sell Gtd to you. But I have to challenge your emotional intelligence if you let other peoples' enthusiasm cloud your own view.

GTD IS for everyone. All GTD is, is acknowledging how our brains function at a very fundamental level, and then building a trustable system around that.

Why can't create tasks work in GTD? GTD methodology doesn't say that you HAVE TO break everything up into 2-minute chunks. It can be 2 hours set aside for creativity.

Saying "X doesn't work for everyone" sounds nice, as does "everything in moderation." But I get skeptical when someone uses "everything in moderation" to excuse their smoking habit, or "___ is NOT for everyone" . Hundreds of years ago I'm sure there were people arguing that "reading and writing is not for everyone." Eating vegetables is not for everyone, etc.