[HN Gopher] What "Follow Your Dreams" Misses [video]
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What "Follow Your Dreams" Misses [video]
Author : gladuz
Score : 130 points
Date : 2024-05-20 01:43 UTC (1 days ago)
(HTM) web link (www.youtube.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (www.youtube.com)
| gnicholas wrote:
| I happened to see someone wearing a 3Blue1Brown t-shirt today and
| decided to buy one myself to (modestly) support the channel. In
| addition to shirts, there are also socks and stuffed animals,
| apparently: https://store.dftba.com/collections/3blue1brown
| paradox242 wrote:
| My son is 4 and saw me watching one of his videos with the
| colorful Pi characters and was intrigued. After multiple
| repeated requests to watch "Pi friends" we ended up getting him
| one of the plush Pi creatures which he still loves.
| smarm52 wrote:
| I'm suspicious this is an ad.
| refset wrote:
| Whatever the motivations (and FWIW it does seem like a
| channel very worthy of support), I can confirm it is at least
| the official 'Store' linked to from the official website:
| https://www.3blue1brown.com/
| gnicholas wrote:
| You're suspicious my comment is an ad, or the original post?
| I have zero affiliation with the channel, have never emailed
| with the creator or anyone on their team, and am not even
| subscribed to the youtube channel. I just saw a guy wearing
| one of the shirts at the Palo Alto farmer's market and was
| intrigued. My first reaction was "is that the guy who runs
| the channel?" and then I realized he probably had a shop and
| probably didn't go around wearing his own swag.
| smarm52 wrote:
| Apologies, still finding my footing here at HN. I have a
| lot "reddit reflexes" for lack of a better word, and this
| was probably a product of that.
| gnicholas wrote:
| You might check someone's account age or history first.
| Typically people won't accumulate many thousands of karma
| points if they are shilling for brands.
| goles wrote:
| "Never underestimate just how much influence you can have
| on others, especially the ones who are younger than you
| are." 3B1B
| smarm52 wrote:
| I have this method of checking for information sources to
| trust. I check for their reputation, and find evidence
| that they can be trusted.
|
| I should probably take my own advice ... but I have to
| figure how to do it first.
|
| 1st day. Thanks for the tip.
| InfiniteLoup wrote:
| > Typically people won't accumulate many thousands of
| karma points if they are shilling for brands.
|
| Sure, they might not accumulate karma BY shilling for
| brands, but they might start shilling for brands or
| ideologies after they accumulate said karma. Or selling
| their farmed accounts to those who do.
| gnicholas wrote:
| I've been active here for over a decade. If I did that so
| I could start shilling for brands in my 40s, that'd be a
| hell of a long con. Also, I pointed out that it's useful
| to check users' histories. A few seconds with my comment
| history would reveal that I'm more of a grump than a
| shill.
| moi2388 wrote:
| Welcome! Pretty much the only ads here are paywall links.
| For some reason they're allowed, but usually somebody
| posts an archive link
| one-punch wrote:
| Reminds me of the "Chase your reality" commencement speech by
| Christopher Nolan at Princeton in 2015.
|
| https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QoWEhQlS9yY
| fnordian_slip wrote:
| He already had me at his mention of survivorship bias (something
| that I feel is ignored a bit too often in this space), but the
| whole speech was great!
|
| I'm generally on the other end of the spectrum (playing it safe
| instead of following my dreams), but somehow this motivated me to
| go a bit further into trying something new.
| yuy910616 wrote:
| Refreshing take on "Follow your dreams"! It's quite surprising to
| me that this tired genre can still deliver something new.
| thomasahle wrote:
| The ironical thing about the "Follow what creates value for other
| people" advice - for math graduates in particular - is that most
| of modern math doesn't seem to be motivated this.
|
| I'd probably agree that research math also doesn't come from a
| goal of "self growth", but maybe it should be something like
| "follow your curiosity".
| j2kun wrote:
| > for math graduates in particular
|
| I don't think it's ironic at all. The vast majority of math
| graduates don't do pure math research after graduation. And
| modern pure mathematicians dramatically undercut how much of
| their research was, in relatively recent history, driven mainly
| by practical value.
| aleph_minus_one wrote:
| > The ironical thing about the "Follow what creates value for
| other people" advice - for math graduates in particular - is
| that most of modern math doesn't seem to be motivated this.
|
| I _do_ believe that the results of math research (even the pure
| one) create an _insane_ value for other people, but that we
| live in a world full of ignorant people who don 't see this
| insane value (yet). Thus, the modern math research may not be
| _motivated_ by this criterion, but in most cases nearly
| tautologically creates a lot of value for other people.
| mitthrowaway2 wrote:
| I agree. You can still make a great living just by sifting
| through the nuggets unearthed by people like Gauss, Euler,
| and Laplace, which continue to pay dividends centuries later,
| let alone inventing new math.
| chii wrote:
| also, creating value is different from capturing value.
|
| You can create value but not capture it (or don't have the
| ability to capture it). But somebody tends to capture the
| value, and if it's not you, it's probably going to be your
| boss (or their boss, etc).
| j7ake wrote:
| "People" need to be better defined. In the case of pure math,
| "people" are your fellow mathematicians in your specific
| subfield or adjacent.
| rockemsockem wrote:
| This is such a math answer, lol. I love it.
| gradschoolfail wrote:
| The "other" in "people" needs to be there :)
|
| One may cite Grothendieck as counterexamples, but maybe they
| still only had themselves in their adjacent subfields (at the
| time they made their most impactful discoveries, anyway)
| talldatethrow wrote:
| As others stated, who the 'people' are varies.
|
| I used to sell cars and was top 0.1% in the country at it.
|
| Yet others would say I was a parasite costing them money for
| nothing. But they were ignoring I was providing value for the
| dealership and its collection of employees even beyond the
| owners. I worked for a public corporation. Tons of stake
| holders profited via stock value while I was there.
|
| On a tangent, people always say they'd rather just buy cars
| online. Great you can do that for one. Second, if all
| manufacturers did that, month 1 results would be whatever they
| were. On day 1 of month 2, some MBA would say "hey, if we had a
| human these people could call, chat with, or even visit with
| for a test drive, wouldn't sales go up? Let's try it!" And
| within a month you'd have salespeople interacting with
| customers again.
| dehrmann wrote:
| > parasite costing them money for nothing
|
| Don't dealerships (and the salesperson) only make hundreds on
| a $30k car? It's almost a loss leader for the service
| department.
| talldatethrow wrote:
| Absolutely. If a vehicle is discounted towards invoice, a
| salesperson can easily end up making $250 on a $100,000
| fully loaded Audi A8.
|
| Heck, I've sold used cars at asking price and still made
| $250 just because the dealership overpaid on the trade in.
|
| All in all it all adds up and evens out, but mentally it
| can be frustrating coming into work on 4th of July and
| spending hours with someone trying to have fun looking at 4
| cars and then leaving. And then finally selling one at 7pm
| and staying late, to make $250.
|
| And with the way the pay plans are structured, it's hourly
| pay OR commission whichever is higher..so if you sold a few
| cars Wednesday Thursday for $2k, you can end up coming to
| work Friday Saturday Sunday, not selling anything, and
| technically didnt get paid anything more for those hours.
| jessriedel wrote:
| > On a tangent, people always say they'd rather just buy cars
| online. ... within a month you'd have salespeople interacting
| with customers again.
|
| If that were true, it wouldn't be necessary to outlaw direct-
| to-consumer sales.
|
| https://www.justice.gov/atr/economic-effects-state-bans-
| dire...
| talldatethrow wrote:
| Well you mean buying direct from manufacturer for their
| asking price online.
|
| I mean that you can buy from a dealership for asking price
| online.
|
| I have done countless deals over the Internet and had a
| driver or a truck deliver the car to a customer. Some for
| asking price, some discounted.
| sabrina_ramonov wrote:
| I find it more useful to "follow my curiosity" ... I feel the
| concept of "dreams" has too much weight and seriousness attached
| to it nowadays
| klondike_klive wrote:
| I like this. It also allows me to change my mind, something I
| do with dismaying regularity!
| sabrina_ramonov wrote:
| yep exactly. In contrast, with "Dreams" -- if you change your
| mind or stop pursuing them or take a break from pursuing
| them... the implication is "failure". It's unnecessary,
| distracting pressure.
| mihaic wrote:
| I find it very ironic that Americans seem to understand better as
| a culture that they need to diversity their investment portfolio,
| but at the same time seem to ignore that concept in their
| personal life more than almost any European.
|
| It seems like the concept that there probably shouldn't be any
| single goal or purpose in life that needs to be maxed, and that
| life is a basket is foreign to most.
| tennisflyi wrote:
| It's always had the subtext of "follow your (reasonable) dreams."
| m463 wrote:
| I always think of crazy vs eccentric depending on if you're
| rich or not.
|
| It seemed to work with Elon Musk and mars/climate
| change/EVs/brain interfaces...
| kuekacang wrote:
| Another missed mark is that "dream" needs knowledge. If you
| don't ever know/experience what's possible, you may not be able
| to dream about it.
| paulpauper wrote:
| "being a successful entrepreneur means selling something people
| want to buy"
|
| this sounds like a vast oversimplification.
| pineaux wrote:
| Its the one thing that really needs to be true. I've met many
| entrepreneurs and although chaos is usually something that
| impedes a company it's not always true. I know people with
| decades old multi million dollar profit companies and you see
| behind the curtain and its literally a mess. I know companies
| that do zero advertisement and are doing year over year growth.
| I see companies that are extremely unfriendly to their
| customers but deliver a product that they cant get somewhere
| else... The only real thing that connects all these companies
| is that they are selling something people want.
| jstrebel wrote:
| I tend to agree - just look at large parts of the Venture
| Capital / Start-Up scene. Chasing the coveted product/market-
| fit is a purpose in itself there (at least in the early
| stages). I guess it depends on what you define as
| "successful"...
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