Comments URL: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46896764

Points: 1

# Comments: 0

For people early in their careers, working hard is the best way to grow their future earnings and opportunities. They have too few skills, connections, and experience to differentiate otherwise.

Focusing only on the asymmetry between those with and without meaningful equity misses the point.

Not everyone is lucky enough to get equity from day one. The rest of us have (at most) a few critical points in our careers to do well enough such that we get a shot at meaningful equity at some point in the future.

For those from underprivileged backgrounds, they’re lucky to get even one chance in their careers for meaningful growth.

If it’s a great company, people will work extra hours to move ahead, knowing it will pay off in their careers. “Great company” is always relative to the individual and where they are in their careers.

As people mature in their careers, they split off into “people with equity who continue to work hard for it” and “people without equity who have a good work/life balance”.

But as long as there’s the promise of a life-changing development, people will (sometimes rationally) work outside of their agreed hours.

100%. The biggest challenge with software is not that it’s too hard to write, but that it’s too easy to write.

If there’s no net-negative, there’s no addiction.

So yes, some people just enjoy working. Others are workaholics. It’s not all-or-nothing and the evaluation depends on how you calculate the net impact of work on the person’s life.

What OP was calling out is that chronically sacrificing sleep seems to consistently take its toll down the road. So chronically enjoying work at the expense of sleep can be a form of workaholism.

The vision is to have an index of protocols that people can try for themselves and see whether and how broader claims apply to their own minds and bodies.

If you or anyone else is interested, please send me an email at camhashemi (at) gmail.com. I’m looking for early adopters!

The bad faith interpretation is that this is corrupt and misaligned.

The good faith interpretation is that each leader has context and motivations that are important.

The right interpretation depends on the exact circumstance.

Getting leaders aligned on the right definition of “shipped” is a separate problem to the one described here, and it’s not the project lead’s direct responsibility. It’s the responsibility of the leadership team, the CEO, and the board.

But the realism proposed in the post is useful for project leads. Meeting leadership’s expectation is not necessarily corrupt, and if it is corrupt, it can be improved by directly discussing and negotiating what it means to ship a project.

1. US gov trying to break up your search monopoly

2. ChatGPT disrupting your search monopoly

Many believe in determinism, or at least the functional equivalent, and it poses a challenge to the popular belief that we can choose what we do. That’s the problem I’m interested in understanding.

Indeterminism, which includes that base layer of randomness, still presents a dilemma with regards to free will, doesn’t it? From the perspective of free will, and absent a more explanatory theory, they are functionally equivalent theories. Whether my brain is randomly producing actions or from an infinite chain of determined causes or a mix, free will is nowhere to be found without a more precise explanation.

The question is about free will given different assumptions of reality. My main challenge with your angle is that it’s firmly missing the point.

I am not arguing for determinism, nor the existence of God, but since I’m asking what people believe, I’m including both answers as options.

I suppose for our purposes, both determinism and indeterminism create the same paradox of free will. Determinism gives every event a determined prior cause, and indeterminism opens the door for random or otherwise undetermined prior causes, but both are incompatible with the notion of free will.

Would you agree with that reframing, or am I missing something?

the question is whether humans have control over their actions. human operations are definitionally relevant.

you seem to suggest throwing away determinism because there are open questions at extreme scales. but determinism does explain reality at the scale we're interested in, and you haven't offered a comparable explanation.

occam's razor would suggest we take determinism seriously until we have another theory which more clearly explains the phenomena of interest while also addressing the challenges you've raised. and it seems that most people do take determinism seriously, which is why free will is such a debated question.

Also, in case it’s not clear: I am not assuming determinism or claiming that free will is an illusion, just explaining the challenge if one does assume determinism, which many do.

While it may seem like we’re choosing our actions, determinism implies that this is an illusion: if all our actions are determinable from prior causes, then we are just complex machines. There’s no space for free will.

But from another point of view, this claim seems absurd. Even if the logic makes sense, the conclusion suggests a mistake. We seem to make all kinds of decisions all the time, and embracing the belief that free will is an illusion would require many social concepts and contracts to be rewritten.

This tension can be represented by a spectrum of beliefs:

1. Cynics believe free will is a harmful illusion. Because free will is an illusion, we only fool ourselves by embracing it.

2. Illusionists believe free will is a useful illusion. Even if it is an illusion, it’s a dangerous one to dispense with. If people didn’t believe they were responsible for their actions, they’d be less likely to behave ethically.

3. Compatibilists believe in a limited form of free will. Besides free will, physical causality holds. They believe we have limited control over our decisions, which have limited influence over our lives.

4. Idealists believe our will is more than free: it's connected to supernatural forces (e.g. God). They believe we have more control over our decisions and our lives than physical causality can explain.

Which do you most identify with?

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Comments URL: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=41755223

Points: 5

# Comments: 15

Comments URL: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=41739780

Points: 27

# Comments: 25

I’m focused on the qualities we should focus on in our adulthood to maximize our personally determinable chances of success. I believe all adults should do that for our own lives.

With that view, the question is whether homeless people benefit from being clever, brave, and persistent more than any other mix of traits, for example towards the pursuit of getting off the streets. I would say yes!

What do you think?

Comments URL: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=41694770

Points: 2

# Comments: 0

What I meant between skill and will is that a skill is multivariate, whereas will is more unidimensional: you choose to do something or not.

That unidimensionality levels the playing field a lot. Let’s say someone is struggling to communicate well. They might need to learn and practice having an audible voice, avoiding verbal tickets, and having an understandable line of thought. If someone is struggling to be brave, they just need to practice going for what they believe to be right.

That’s not to say that there’s nothing which increases the probability that one may be brave, but I believe it does ultimately come down to that next decision. You may be more brave by having a better track record of bravery, but it can be washed away with a single cowardly decision. The playing field is much more level.

Regarding wealth, it’s a good point. Perhaps I should have clarified that “success” is relative. Success for someone born into poverty is different than someone born into royalty. I’m focused on the post-adulthood qualities we should focus on to maximize our personally determinable chances of success.

What do you think?