Re:Ask HN: How do you deal with alienation?
by nazgulnarsil on Friday January 16, 2009 @05:55AM
(#436446)
I like the lack of the "talent" meme in asian culture. hard work is correctly identified as the reason for superior performance.
Re:Ask HN: How do you deal with alienation?
by unalone on Friday January 16, 2009 @12:27PM
(#436887)
Part of the reason.
The part of that culture that I dislike is that there's no emphasis on figuring out what's most worth figuring out. There has to be a period of figuring out what's worth your time before you dedicate your time. It's present in American culture, though not as prominently as it ought to be, but from what I've seen of asian culture it's not there at all. It's why the few big Japanese successes that fascinate me - though I don't know very many people, I'll admit - are ones that are openly West-influenced. Shigeru Miyamoto and Nobuo Uemats, for instance: the one is more influenced by The Beatles than anything else, and the other originally tried writing songs like Elton John.
Re:Ask HN: How do you deal with alienation?
by nazgulnarsil on Friday January 16, 2009 @11:30PM
(#437752)
when you have a billion people you can afford to brute force capitalism.
Re:Ask HN: How do you deal with alienation?
by SapphireSun on Saturday January 17, 2009 @01:35AM
(#437817)
Superior performance can be had by applying the right algorithm. Also, applying the wrong algorithm may not get you where you want no matter how many cycles you put in. Brute force is always a terrible way of doing things unless there literally is no better way (I'm looking at you NP-Hard).
As one reason for superior performance.
Re:Ask HN: How do you deal with alienation?
by rodrigo on Friday January 16, 2009 @10:17AM
(#436699)
When I find myself thinking about things the way you do (according to what you've said here), I said to myself: "DO something and stop whinning!"
Dont be satisfied with the things that come out of some intellectuall exercise only, try to check them in the real world, I dont believe that being a genius is a something youre born with. DO things, be smart, read Druckers "Managing Oneself", and maybe we all can do something meaningful out of this.
I have been doing for years, without whining. I believe I am selfishly entitled to one outburst every few years or so.
The people who I think are most talented - the people I try to emulate - are the people who never stop asking questions. The more you ask, the more comprehensive view you have of the thing, and the more you've got to master. There's nothing particularly hard to it.
The people who don't ask questions, but accept things as they are, are the people who comfortably fit into a niche. I think most people do this: they get to a certain level, then stop, and they settle in with people who've settled there. The people who are skill-less settle in with people who have that mindset. So they end up with some sort of a satisfaction.
The people who impress me the most, in every single field, are the ones who are never satisfied entirely. The ones who constantly move forward. It leads to a mindset like the one in the OP: you feel dissatisfied with the people around you, the people who settle in. And while the whole idea is that you never do settle in with a group when you're like that, you do acknowledge the people who are similar to you, and you develop bonds like that. Those are my closest friends: the people who, to some degree or other, never stop pushing themselves forward. It's because they always change: they always stay interesting. And while all of those close friends belong to entirely separate groups, while most of them have never met each other in person, they're still a very definitive group in my mind. And I'd like to think that I belong to that same group in their minds.