[HN Gopher] Three Ways to Solve Problems
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Three Ways to Solve Problems
Author : 42point2
Score : 95 points
Date : 2025-12-21 14:35 UTC (8 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (andreasfragner.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (andreasfragner.com)
| pyrolistical wrote:
| This is why you schedule angry emails to be sent the next day.
| Maybe you'll wake up and realize it's not a problem at all
| bob1029 wrote:
| I do this with emails I'm not even angry about. Wait for your
| audience to come to you wherever possible. It's a lot cheaper
| to leverage the momentum of other people than to get them
| started from zero every time. I find the desire to author angry
| emails is often a side effect of trying to go too fast.
| CapitalistCartr wrote:
| Two methods I have found useful. If it seems an intractable
| problem, you've made two goals equal. Figure out the conflicting
| goals and decide which will give way, such as once I think about
| it I realize the unspoken goal is I don't want to challenge Mom,
| M-I-L, Boss, etc.
|
| Second method is 6 steps: Intel, intel, intel, always be
| gathering intel. Clear mind, set aside emotions. Clear vision of
| what I want, the more clear and detailed, the more likely I'll
| get the result I want. Detailed plan to get from current reality
| to vision. Execute plan. Debrief: what worked, what mistakes,
| etc.
| journal wrote:
| be first, smart, or cheat.
| nine_k wrote:
| There's way number 1.5: Solve a different but related problem,
| which gives you like 80% of the benefits of solving the original
| problem, but at 20% of the cost. This allows you to experience
| much less pain without an investment of resources you can't
| afford.
|
| Aka "quickfix" or "hack".
| asplake wrote:
| Rinse and repeat
| fragmede wrote:
| I wrote this up as the four disagreements.
|
| https://blog.onepatchdown.net/philosophy/2023/10/03/four-pil...
| JackSlateur wrote:
| This misses bad faith, lack of good will and assume an aligned
| objective (i.e. lack of selfishness)
| 1970-01-01 wrote:
| There's a 4th way, but it works least often. Maybe Method 2.5
| fits better: Wait for the problem to fix itself to your level of
| risk. Ex: This road is blocked. I have a good news it won't be
| blocked in X days/months/years. Let's just wait until it's a
| little better for us to travel down and do something else for a
| just little while. It's a hybrid between waiting for the path to
| open up for everyone and forcing your way through. Taking a
| stepping stone between changing the world and changing your
| solution to the problem.
| yapyap wrote:
| That 4th way is a nicely realistic but very toxic (in my
| experience) way to solve problems.
|
| Not when it's applicable in the situation but if you use it in
| your toolbox it's very easy to overapply, if you're a hammer
| everything looks like a nail style.
|
| Use it critically
| bicepjai wrote:
| My experience in trying to build AI tools has always been the
| 4th way :) Let's build a coding agent in 2022, procrastination
| takes over, and then came along Aider, Cursor, Roo, and others.
| Same with AI observability tools. Wait just enough time to see
| the tools built themselves.
| erichocean wrote:
| A favorite of mine: assume a sub-problem has a solution (even
| though it doesn't), and solve everything else assuming that
| solution holds.
|
| I find that after I do that, once I have a solution for
| everything else, a less-general solution to the sub-problem is
| often sufficient to keep the global solution valid.
| n3t wrote:
| I wonder what a specific example of this approach would be.
| treetalker wrote:
| I'm intrigued and would appreciate further
| examples/explanations too.
| RobotToaster wrote:
| Where does "Make the problem worse so someone else fixes it" fit?
| porise wrote:
| It's in own category for higher level beings who make pot holes
| bigger until it gets fixed.
| bhhhhhhcc wrote:
| y
| StrangerFoos wrote:
| It's very interesting that he's talking about start-ups.
|
| I worked for one of Fragner's start-ups and it was an unmitigated
| disaster in all ways.
|
| He secretly recorded a meeting with myself.
| mrandish wrote:
| The site's text is medium blue on a gray background with a font-
| weight of 300. I'm all for a bit of visual variety and personal
| expressiveness but this is pushing the boundaries of accessible
| legibility on some systems and screens.
|
| (Yes, I realize there are various browser accessibility tools,
| reader modes and even custom CSS overrides, but I'd prefer not
| being forced to force those things on for all sites - because it
| means that "bit of visual variety and personal expressiveness" no
| longer exists for increasing numbers of visitors.)
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