He was busy slapping all nerds everywhere on the back with reflected glory.

You're just reading in what you wanted him to say and judging your desired reading, not the original.

(Edit: and I did the same, fixating on the self-congratulatory fluff and ignoring the selection-biased hypothesis about making predictions.)

> Instead the top comment is the forum analogue of a fluff post: a cynical dismissal based on some presumed bad intention on the writer's part.

You're basically imputing to me a motive to impute a motive to Chris that in my estimation neither of us had. I mentioned Naïve Realism a while back in one of the various pitchfork debates (the Tesla test drive, I think). I think it's happening here too.

But really, this post was self-congratulation. I've read similar fluff from marketers and advertisers who see themselves as the lever-pullers of capitalism, from student politicians about their destiny as masters of all creation, from lawyers about the utter indispensibility of their ancient craft, from engineers ditto ... ad infinitum. In all such cases they could have written the same stuff about how they were shaping The Future Of The World years ago.

I'd be more interested in seeing the base rate on all the garage projects that go absolutely nowhere, achieve nothing and have no meaningful impact on the world. That would be most of them.

Which is fine. But let's not pretend that since Woz was a genius, the rest of us are also in the same category.

Totally agree. Let's see what the OP is suggesting:

1. People make awesome products/services on the weekends.

2. These awesome products/services will serve new industries.

3. So that means all awesome products/services should be built on the weekends so we can create new industries.

It’s a good bet these present-day hobbies will seed future industries.

I vehemently disagree. This is not a good bet. You know what's a good bet? That IBM's stock will continue to rise.[1] That SAP's stock will continue to rise.[2] It's also a good bet that these companies will continue (as they have for years) to create technology products that businesses want. There is a risk they won't, but it's a lower risk than the guy creating a product in his garage over the weekend.

What the smartest people do on the weekends is what everyone else will do during the week in ten years.

This is the comment that really irks me and dually why this whole post is seen as self promotion. A 'bet' is something you risk against someone else's risk. Are people willing to tell me that they'd put more money down on the weekend projects than the companies who have been doing this for 10+ years? The OP is suggesting that there will be a higher percentage of new industries created (which might be possible), but then states that these industries will cause the working population to shift to this new industry. Bullocks. What evidence does anyone have to suggest this?

Good on the OP though...he got my eyeballs. Black swan sightings sell well.

[1] - http://uk.finance.yahoo.com/echarts?s=IBM#symbol=ibm;range=5...;

[2] - http://uk.finance.yahoo.com/echarts?s=SAP#symbol=sap;range=5...;

What is the problem with being self-congratulatory? What is wrong with focusing on the positive and thinking that your hobby and life's work is worthwhile? Would anything be created if people were constantly doubting themselves and their creations? Would anything be better then?

What harm would there be in people hoping to be the next woz? And with the low base rate of garage projects going anywhere, which we are all painfully aware of, don't you think it's better to give encouragement and hope. I do, and I think a dismissal such as yours is harmful to the greater cause of creating interesting ideas, programs and thoughts.

I'd like to say here that having some perspective can prevent certain kinds of mistake. I think that's correct.

I'd be on surer ground if I point out that a person entirely satisfied with their professional perspective isn't going to improve past a certain asymptote that they themselves are unable to perceive.

But honestly? I just find self-congratulation tremendously embarrassing. I don't know if it's inherited or a self-deprecating theme present in Australian culture or just plain old jealousy. Or some combination of the above.

And some of that pruning is good and necessary. Otherwise, bad ideas would proliferate and take air and light from the good ideas. But often when I read HN's comments, the field just looks like scorched earth. A complete, overpowering negativity everywhere. And I think then the pruning has lost its purpose, and is a bad thing.

I suppose, I would like that whenever an idea was dismissed it would be by pointing to a better idea in the vicinity which could then be thought about or worked on instead. That way the true purpose of criticism and pruning would be clear: To not let the bad ideas take resources from the good ones.

With regards to self-congratulatory behavior in general: well I suppose I understand you. I've been brought up that way too, as has perhaps most people. Still, I recall Russel's own adage:

“The whole problem with the world is that fools and fanatics are always so certain of themselves, but wiser men so full of doubts.”

I don't know the author of the OP, but I do certainly think that negative attitudes create even more doubts in the wise, while fools and fanatics likely are innately immune. Therefore, I don't think that unreserved dismissals usually will do anything to people's character, except for strengthening those traits you really want to see less of, in the wise.

And with three or four, it's probably something inbetween.

The body of the post uses the word "hobby", though, and that's much better. Your hobby is the thing you do because you want to, whether or not anything comes of it and whether or not anyone thinks it's valuable. Hobbies are marginal, not one's main or proper thing (Woz was an engineer at HP). And they're often wild or eccentric. The main reason we wouldn't normally use the word "hobby" for important creative activity—that it seems too trivial—is actually a point in its favour. Incidentally, there's an earlier usage of the word "hobby" that was closer to what we now call "obsession" or "fixation". People would apologize for introducing their hobbies into polite conversation.

One must also insist on the fact that very often nothing does come of this quality. To imagine otherwise is to allow no room for randomness.

> You can redefine "smartest" to mean "those who turn out to have been most ahead of their time", but that's circular and doesn't help identify the quality.

> One must also insist on the fact that very often nothing does come of this quality. To imagine otherwise is to allow no room for randomness.

So it may be impossible to build a model of what projects will turn out like the Apple 1 and which ones will never be heard of because if technology works like evolution then it doesn't have to be a linear progression forward. It's just whatever tool solves the problem today.

From a personal perspective, I work on projects because I can't help myself. I see something that I would love to use and I need to build it. It's addictive. I'm not sure if there is much more to it than that.

He somewhat, and you more so, get to a point that has been bothering me a fair bit recently. How much should I care about meaning in what I do in my spare time. Possibly due to my upbringing, until recently I felt that if I had spare time I should be doing things that could ultimately lead to a new career, or that at least would produce things that are important. IOW, not just play games but program them. Go out on hikes, and take photography in a way designed to allow the experience to be shared for possibly publication.

However, the last couple of weekends I have forced myself (harder the first weekend than the last couple) to just veg and to play the two games I actually enjoy playing.

In part because the critical reception to most of my "serious" stuff has been lacking, and in part because I'm wondering if trying to do "important" stuff is keeping me from refreshing like I am supposed to do on the days I'm not at my main job.

To your point specifically, I would be curious to know whether the best use of our limited time (at least until we hit the singularity and then time becomes a different medium) is to be working on different aspects of ourself - or to try and fine ways to have fun devoid of any intended meaning?

I realized that I had completely forgotten what I LIKED to do, in favor of doing what I HAD to do to keep making money. I actually had to sit down and write a list of things I liked to do, and make sure to start doing them. It's easy to lose sight of why we are hear. No one ever wished they had worked more, as they lay dying.

My point is, don't feel bad about doing what you want to do.

Really. I try hard to keep my tech-hobby time from being "productive". What I do with computers and/or sound is -fun- and the world'll be damn lucky if anything comes out of it but my amusement. When I was a kid I'd lay on the lawn staring at clouds (hard in winter) or run around everyone's houses and lawns with kids (several reasons that's no longer an option). Got another harness, go get yourself a horse.

I don't think jacq presumed bad intention or dismissed the post entirely. I appreciate someone calling out the combination of 'narrowness of vision' and a little self-righteousness. Chris' post was totally well-intentioned, but jacq's meta point adds value, as now there's the human component of self-importance in addition to the original point of the post

I think some differentiators between the two types of work under the umbrella term 'hobbies' is:

It's something where people are asking the question, "What can I do with this now, that I couldn't do before?" Hobbies like stamp collecting, or star wars trivia seem to fail this test.

It's something where other people can build upon the hobby to do other things. Hobbies like being a foodie and MUDs seem to fail this test.

As far as I can gather, it's people taking advantage of a new piece of knowledge or technology to try to figure out what new things it enables them to do.

That is where the productive hobbies take you - to the point where to play some more you need to invent. At this point skills, available time all come to bear - but I now recognise this time - and refuse to waste the opportunities.

Not easy to spot for oneself - spotting it as investment - no idea :-)

which grain of sand, dropped onto the pile, caused the avalanche, and why? :)

Must've been the red one. Last three times it was green green yellow red. Well, if you don't count the time when most of the top was already red, that stands to reason.

> Instead the top comment is the forum analogue of a fluff post: a cynical dismissal based on some presumed bad intention on the writer's part.

Personally I think, cynical as it may have been, the article does require a counterpoint to its "brief"-ness.

I really disagree with these question/statements implying how surely there must be underlying causes why one hobby results in "inventing the future", and another does not, as if these causes have any validity outside our monkey brain's 20/20 hindsight.

By that I mean, creative hobbies are great. And they should be encouraged, for people that like that sort of thing (which is probably 99.9% of the HN crowd, but believe it or not, not all people everywhere). A tiny few of those hobbies will turn out "inventing the future" (like the term btw).

But there's two ways of going about that and there is no reason to believe that one has higher odds of being successful than the other (except for a very deep and very human desire to believe): You can either chase the dragon, imprint order onto the chaos that the future grows from, believing you can bend it to your will. Or you can just have some fun.

Can't you do both? Why yes, you can. Buying lottery tickets, some people seem to greatly enjoy imagining they can apply their will to a random process. I don't know if they have creative hobbies, though (but I'm not judging). Or maybe interpretation of Tarot cards, that's both creative, and applying your will to a random process. ... come to think of it, it is also "inventing the future", in a different sense :)

>And we on HN could do better than merely dismiss it.

What, embrace it? I'll take self-deprecation over rejection of self-deprecation.

>We could try to dig into the underlying forces ourselves. E.g. not all hobbies consist of making the Apple I. So which do, and why? Are the things called hobbies merely two different types of work that are conflated by clueless observers simply because they're not the worker's day job? Or is there some amount of crossover between inventing the future and merely playing around?

Maybe if the article did that it wouldn't be so fluffy. It's fluffy because its terminology is closer to "Rock Star" than "Guitar Lesson."

If you are still inclined to view jacques_chester's post as fluff, consider at least that _submission quality affects comment quality._

I know you're not likely to respond to my comment. I'm partially just wondering why you're wading into the field personally to address a meta point.

Let's say jacques_chester was right. It was fluff and self-congratulatory. What comes of it? There's nothing to take home there. But if we had moved the discussion to the more interesting question (that the OP failed to cover, but we also failed to discuss), then that has pretty wide implications of how we might tackle our life's work.