HN Theater @HNTheaterMonth

⬐ ericalexander0

“Nothing In The World Can Take The Place Of Persistence. Talent Will Not; Nothing Is More Common Than Unsuccessful Men With Talent. Genius Will Not; Unrewarded Genius Is Almost A Proverb. Education Will Not; The World Is Full Of Educated Derelicts. Persistence And Determination Alone Are Omnipotent. The Slogan “Press On” Has Solved And Always Will Solve The Problems Of The Human Race.” – Calvin Coolidge

Check this out, your opinion may change: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iZM_JmZdqCw (54:01)

⬐ ruang

I like Peter Thiel's quote: A-B testing only works if you have a billion years (from Darwin)

It's worth revisiting Thiel's, "You are not a lottery ticket" (2013) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iZM_JmZdqCw, in which he outlines a compelling model for reasoning about the present world and the future: Outlook can be located on a grid where:

- y-axis: optimistic/pessimistic

- x-axis determinate/indeterminate

The key point is that we could interpret the US in 1982-2007 as an historical moment where the general mindset was optimistic-indeterminate i.e. we assumed the future will be better but we had no idea exactly what concrete steps to take to make it better. In such an environment, finance and law are the dominant industries (while engineering and art decline).

After 2008, there was a shift in mindset to pessimistic-indeterminate in which there is a large increase in discretionary expenditure on insurance/savings (with education being a form of insurance, thus the education bubble: "I don't know what my degree is for, but I had better get it anyway to avoid falling through the ever larger cracks in society."), while real investment in novel/radical projects declines.

Very interesting. My only criticism? Perhaps too much of a focus on procedural justice.

Peter Thiel has a great talk on how one of the biggest problems in western societies is that we have moved away from having a determinate view of the future, to an indeterminate one. This has been driven in big part on the idea that process matter more than substance. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iZM_JmZdqCw

E.g. Lawyers are more concerned with society having a fair process or procedure for doing things, than its advancement.

⬐ Nomentatus

At least similar to being diverted from a focus on primary reinforcement, to a focus on sources of secondary reinforcement.

⬐ acou_nPlusOne_t

But the future is undeterministic? Its a tree with lots of branches- of which one of those with variations will become reality.

To assume one knows the exact path, might be a helpfull tool for a small group working towards a goal, but from the eagle perspective, that is what all these companies are. Exploring branches of a tree of propabilites.

Thiel basically argues for not having his view as a large scale investor. But that is bogus, if you want to be a succesfull CEO you might have to pivot, pivoting essentially means giving up your branch- and navigate to another branch of the scenario tree, whos succes-propability is closely related to your tech. Which is why you should think about what is possible with the stuff you develop, not about one product.

This of course is demoralizing for the individual coder. If you write code that is product-bound, that code could go to the bin at any second. That is why they usually do not get told. At some level- there is only one product, on mission, one group against all others.

But at project management level, one should realize there might even within the same companys, several projects clustering around the same core-tech, trying to use what is possible for diffrent approaches.

⬐ hutzlibu

"E.g. Lawyers are more concerned with society having a fair process or procedure for doing things, than its advancement."

And I allways thought most lawyers are more concerned with winning their case and making money than "fair process". I know exceptions though, but heard and read horrible things about the average.

Peter Thiel has a strong critique of this where he asserts the opposite: that both governments and science research spending today is too indeterminate.

Governments don't believe in the capacity to make big plans any more, and it's made it impossible for us to achieve big goals in the last 40 years on the scale that we used to (like with the moon landing).

Instead... failures are excused with portfolio theory, hundreds of universities end up doing hundreds of different things, with nobody really understanding the meaning or connection between any of it. Grant funding is based more on politics than on merit, and this slows down science, because few people are simultaneously both good scientists and good politicians.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iZM_JmZdqCw

It's indeed worth to take survivorship bias into account.

But if you put too much emphasis on survivorship bias then you would think that everything is completely random and use "survivorship bias" argument as an excuse to do nothing.

I'm highly recommend to listen Peter Thiel's speech "You are not a lottery ticket":

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iZM_JmZdqCw

⬐ raverbashing

Absolutely

Biases and fallacies (up to a point) are not end-all.

Gambler's fallacy makes sense if you're throwing dice, not if you're improving yourself, trying different things and walking the distance

Here's the thing with survivorship bias, they might not answer with something that's a guarantee of success (because nothing is), but they won't answer with something that's catastrophic.

⬐ reallydontask

I might be reading your comment wrong, but survivorship bias can lead you to do catastrophic things, that is the whole point of the comic.

⬐ ekianjo

yes, but for about everything that happens to you there are probably a large number of variables one is not conscious of and pretending otherwise is just wrong. There is no way to replicate one's experiences with a b testing.

⬐ stdbrouw

> But if you put too much emphasis on survivorship bias then you would think that everything is completely random and use "survivorship bias" argument as an excuse to do nothing.

No, what you would do is you would try to figure out how to get more information on those who didn't "survive" so you can make fair comparisons.

⬐ jacquesm

Peter Thiel should be the last person on earth to argue against survivorship bias, being an excellent example of it himself.

⬐ backpropaganda

Peter Thiel isn't arguing for startups here, but arguing against the idea that the world is just coin flips and some people randomly end up with 10 heads. So your comment is mostly ad hominem.

⬐ acdha

In addition to jacquesm's debunking this claim, it's important remember that in addition to having been extremely lucky himself, Thiel isn't some retired bystander but rather someone with significant business interests based on a continued stream of talented people trying the startup lottery.

A VC is about as far from a neutral voice on this topic as it's possible to get.

⬐ kerbalspacepro

I think you're misusing ad hominem.

⬐ jacquesm

He can only argue for that with a platform because he ended up with 10 heads. So no, it is not an ad hominem, it goes for anybody in that position, but also for Peter Thiel.

What's the last time you met a poor person giving seminars on the world not just being coinflips?

You can improve the odds by hard work and trying to grasp whatever opportunities come your way. But it would be a terrible mistake to assume that that would lead to a specific outcome given the number of hidden variables.

⬐ vixen99

Poor people, focusing on survival, don't have the time and wherewithal to give seminars.

⬐ jacquesm

I hear giving seminars pay really well.

Do those poor people have time enough to go to those seminars as audience?

⬐ alejohausner

> What's the last time you met a poor person giving seminars on the world not just being coinflips?

Well said. I think I'll add this to my .sig .

^^^ Source: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iZM_JmZdqCw