Standard deviation should be ~average/3 maybe, so distribution spreads as you age and accumulate projects and get better at them.
I’m guessing these responses really reflect people’s weighted averages (age*current average effort fraction) though I kept it simple and asked for just averages.
Poll: where is the temporal center of gravity of all your live projects based on average age of start-dates?
— Venkatesh Rao (@vgr) January 17, 2021
Standard deviation should be ~average/3 maybe, so distribution spreads as you age and accumulate projects and get better at them.
No point learning food follow through until you’ve found a few good starts to bet on. No point getting good at finishing until a few projects have aged gracefully.
Second oldest is ribbonfarm at 13 years old.
Then sparring-style consulting-fu, 10 years old.
Breaking smart, 6 years old.
My portfolio is getting long in the tooth
This sounds like yet another sermon about long-term thinking, but it isn't. It's a sermon about long-term *commitment.* It doesn't take much upfront thinking. I mean, fairly dim people seem to get married at 22 without much thought and make a successful 30-40 marriage out of it.
— Venkatesh Rao (@vgr) January 15, 2021
More from Venkatesh Rao
Both this thread and the outraged response threads are... something.
This is why I never wanted kids. Way too much responsibility for another human’s development. Depending on the child, this might either be the day they discovered who they were or the day that traumatized them into a lifelong fuckup. Either way I don’t want to direct the show.
As far as the can opener goes, it wouldn’t even occur to me to try and turn it into a teachable moment. That sounds vaguely quixotic. I’d just show them how immediately. I think my default is to try and instruct clearly but not demonstrate unless the person is truly disoriented.
I think there’s basically a right answer here: show the kid. If the kid has the aptitude they’ll enjoy the mechanism so much they’ll develop the figure-it-out skill with other devices. If not, it’s a training data point that will build remedial levels of intuition more slowly.
I think perseverance is both misframed and over-rated as a virtue. Misframed as in: everybody has potential for it in some areas and lacks it in others. Aptitude is those areas where perseverance comes easily to you. Meta-skill of knowing where/why you persist is more important.
So, yesterday my daughter (9) was hungry and I was doing a jigsaw puzzle so I said over my shoulder \u201cmake some baked beans.\u201d She said, \u201cHow?\u201d like all kids do when they want YOU to do it, so I said, \u201cOpen a can and put it in pot.\u201d She brought me the can and said \u201cOpen it how?\u201d
— john roderick (@johnroderick) January 2, 2021
This is why I never wanted kids. Way too much responsibility for another human’s development. Depending on the child, this might either be the day they discovered who they were or the day that traumatized them into a lifelong fuckup. Either way I don’t want to direct the show.
As far as the can opener goes, it wouldn’t even occur to me to try and turn it into a teachable moment. That sounds vaguely quixotic. I’d just show them how immediately. I think my default is to try and instruct clearly but not demonstrate unless the person is truly disoriented.
I think there’s basically a right answer here: show the kid. If the kid has the aptitude they’ll enjoy the mechanism so much they’ll develop the figure-it-out skill with other devices. If not, it’s a training data point that will build remedial levels of intuition more slowly.
I think perseverance is both misframed and over-rated as a virtue. Misframed as in: everybody has potential for it in some areas and lacks it in others. Aptitude is those areas where perseverance comes easily to you. Meta-skill of knowing where/why you persist is more important.
More from For later read
The common understanding of propaganda is that it is intended to brainwash the masses. Supposedly, people get exposed to the same message repeatedly and over time come to believe in whatever nonsense authoritarians want them to believe /1
And yet authoritarians often broadcast silly, unpersuasive propaganda.
Political scientist Haifeng Huang writes that the purpose of propaganda is not to brainwash people, but to instill fear in them /2
When people are bombarded with propaganda everywhere they look, they are reminded of the strength of the regime.
The vast amount of resources authoritarians spend to display their message in every corner of the public square is a costly demonstration of their power /3
In fact, the overt silliness of authoritarian propaganda is part of the point. Propaganda is designed to be silly so that people can instantly recognize it when they see it
Propaganda is intended to instill fear in people, not brainwash them.
The message is: You might not believe in pro-regime values or attitudes. But we will make sure you are too frightened to do anything about it.
And yet authoritarians often broadcast silly, unpersuasive propaganda.
Political scientist Haifeng Huang writes that the purpose of propaganda is not to brainwash people, but to instill fear in them /2
"propaganda is often not used for indoctrination, but rather to signal the government\u2019s strength in being able to afford significant resources and impose on its citizens...not meant to 'brainwash', but rather to forewarn the society about how strong it is" https://t.co/mFAurhEHeO pic.twitter.com/WXKKJaPqWQ
— Rob Henderson (@robkhenderson) June 18, 2020
When people are bombarded with propaganda everywhere they look, they are reminded of the strength of the regime.
The vast amount of resources authoritarians spend to display their message in every corner of the public square is a costly demonstration of their power /3
In fact, the overt silliness of authoritarian propaganda is part of the point. Propaganda is designed to be silly so that people can instantly recognize it when they see it
Authoritarians do not use propaganda for brainwashing, "but to demonstrate their strength in social control...propaganda may need to be dull and unpersuasive, to make sure citizens know it is propaganda when they see it and hence get the implicit message" https://t.co/PqRpxjaIPL pic.twitter.com/1y67d2RCjB
— Rob Henderson (@robkhenderson) June 19, 2020
Propaganda is intended to instill fear in people, not brainwash them.
The message is: You might not believe in pro-regime values or attitudes. But we will make sure you are too frightened to do anything about it.
