programjames (u/programjames)

programjames commented on All it takes is for one to work out alearningaday.blog/2025/1... · Posted by u/herbertl

moleperson · 14 days ago

I'm not at all advocating for treating life like a lottery. I've had overall a successful career due in large part to my own effort, but the best opportunities have come to me simply by being in the right place at the right time, so it would be arrogant to discount luck entirely. I've also had periods of repeated failure, and if I had counted each and every one of those as a score against my own value then I wouldn't have made it this far. Put more simply, the healthy mindset I have is to do what you can, and accept what you can't. Sometimes things work out, sometimes they don't. Easier said than done.

It seems like you're misinterpreting my words through the lens of your own frustrations right now, so I don't think there's anything else I can say to help you. I just hope you find what you're looking for eventually.

programjames · 14 days ago

You are not even talking about the article at this point. "All it takes is for one to work out" is TFT. You are instead saying, "be stoic in the things you cannot effect." The latter is much more defensible, and something I endorse. But if you hold the latter, then all it takes is for none to work out. You would accept none, even if you would prefer one, two, or ten. Your comment is a classic motte-and-bailey defense.

programjames commented on All it takes is for one to work out alearningaday.blog/2025/1... · Posted by u/herbertl

moleperson · 14 days ago

Again, I think you've completely misinterpreted the post as well as what I'm trying to say. A "healthy mindset" is simply one that gives you a framework to navigate the world without falling into despair when things don't go your way. Learning to accept that things won't always go your way, and that in some cases they might not go your way the majority of the time, but that they don't have to, is one component of that.

I'm not making any recommendations on how people should actually go about finding wealth, or success, or happiness, or whatever it is you're looking for in life; only how to deal with it when they don't get those things immediately.

programjames · 14 days ago

Again, I think you don't understand: your "healthy mindset" here is a vice. I do not think it is healthy to drink away your woes. I also do not think it is healthy to cope by treating your life like a big lottery. As I have said several times, the reason I do not consider it healthy is it does not actually help you get what you want, and statistically will leave most people worse off. Finally, from a societal perspective, just like drunk driving hurts everyone around you, this coping behavior also hurts everyone around you.

I would be okay with people spreading beliefs that only hold themselves back, especially if it made them happier. However, I draw the line when they endorse antisocial behavior. I've personally been negatively effected by these hustlers' acions. Almost everyone has, whether or not they can articulate why it seems impossible to get interviewed for a job these days.

programjames commented on All it takes is for one to work out alearningaday.blog/2025/1... · Posted by u/herbertl

xandrius · 14 days ago

All I can say is that the method works specifically because people like you exist. It kind of defeats the purpose if we try to change your mind about this.

So, yes, you are absolutely right.

programjames · 14 days ago

Lol, yes. If you're a selfish egoist, you probably don't want to convert others to your philosophy.

I think it's possible to punish people who are taking these selfish actions, and I think universities should. Maybe they should make a secret database where they list the people who applied to their university, and subtract off points for every other university they applied to. Or, recruiting agencies can mark down candidates for every other job they are applying to. I don't think they do, and this isn't the startup I want to make or area I want to devote my life to, it just sucks that people are being rewarded for playing negative-sum games.

programjames commented on All it takes is for one to work out alearningaday.blog/2025/1... · Posted by u/herbertl

moleperson · 14 days ago

> Applying in the hope they mess up and admit you when they're really better off rejecting you is so antisocial.

What? That's not what I'm suggesting at all. I just found the post to be a helpful reminder of how to have a healthy mindset towards some uncertainties in life, but it seems like you took away something completely different.

programjames · 14 days ago

What do you mean by "a healthy mindset"? It isn't healthy for society. It isn't healthy in the world where everyone has this mindset. It isn't healthy to treat your life as a lottery, hoping for a winning ticket instead of creating that ticket yourself. The fact that you consider applications to be uncertainties in life is very telling. You can make them much less uncertain, if you stop thinking of them like a lottery and start doing the things that prove you are valuable to others.

Did you know that USAMO qualifiers have >50% rate of admission to MIT? IMO gold medalists have >80% acceptance rate, and it's only so low because international admissions is limited to 10% of the student body. Life is only a lottery if you have an unhealthy mindset holding you back from improving yourself. Just because university admissions involve a lot of luck at the bottom does not mean you have to limit yourself to a bottom feeder spraying and praying to get in.

programjames commented on All it takes is for one to work out alearningaday.blog/2025/1... · Posted by u/herbertl

raw_anon_1111 · 16 days ago

The difference is that if I apply for 10 jobs at once or put a bid in for 10 houses hoping one will succeed, I’ve lost nothing for trying 10 times.

If I gamble and try 10 times and win once - I have probably lost money.

Even if I interview 10 times and fail 9, I’ve learned something from each interview and I’ve gotten better. That’s also not true from rolling dice.

programjames · 15 days ago

You lost something when every other person started doing the same thing. Now you have to write or review ten applications instead of one. Now you're going to get paid less because it cost $20k to hire you instead of $2k. Now your company is going to be filled with like-minded people, "hustlers", who do not know how to improve things themselves, just spray and pray until someone mistakenly rewards them.

programjames commented on All it takes is for one to work out alearningaday.blog/2025/1... · Posted by u/herbertl

moleperson · 16 days ago

The way I read this is that there are many "games" in life (applying for schools, jobs, dating, etc) where the odds of "winning" each instance are not in your favor, but you only need to win once to win overall. If you treat every absence of a positive outcome as a failure, then you're inevitably going to lose hope and give up.

This is in contrast to gambling where you actually do need to win more often than not to win overall.

programjames · 15 days ago

Seems like a momumental waste of energy being pushed as "hustling". Applying to college should be cooperative between you and the admissions office: asking, are we a good fit? Applying in the hope they mess up and admit you when they're really better off rejecting you is so antisocial.

Admissions are sort-of Pareto distributed, so most people admitted were on the edge of being rejected. Since there is a bit of noise in the process, this is why any one individual applying to 10x as many places of a similar tier will be more likely to get into one. But then when everyone does it, no one is more or less likely to get in except those that are actually cooperating with the admissions office. You're burning down the commons for a fleeting bit of warmth. Might I suggest installing a furnace in your house instead?

programjames commented on All it takes is for one to work out alearningaday.blog/2025/1... · Posted by u/herbertl

programjames · 15 days ago

Wow, I really dislike this framing of life as a lottery. Yes, people can get lucky. You could win the lottery. Statistically, someone else will hold the winning ticket, every time. It's even worse, because graduate school admissions and startup success are correlated between attempts. If you bring a shotgun but you're not even aiming at the target, you're never going to hit it.

programjames commented on Homeschooling hits record numbers reason.com/2025/11/19/hom... · Posted by u/bilsbie

tristor · 21 days ago

It might be the best outcome for society, but it's not the best outcome for the people. I experienced severe violence directed at my person for most of my life and it caused lifelong trauma. I was further punished for defending myself, expected to just allow people to harm me. During school I was beaten many times, had bones broken, was stabbed with a pocket knife, and had numerous other things happen. Unlike the kids from the bad homes who exacted that violence against me, I didn't get my trauma from home I got it from school.

I have a 176 IQ, I'm now a highly paid professional who has made significant contributions to both open source software and to the invention of technologies that power the cloud. Obviously things worked out for me regardless of my circumstances. Most of the kids I went to school with are dead, in jail, or homeless drug addicts, so my presence certainly didn't fix that. If forcing me to be with them in school saved just one of them from a life of crime and drugs, was it worth forcing me to experience torture for no reason of my own making for my formative years? I would say no. Society is not more important than the individual, you must balance individual and social values against one another without taking either into preference.

I have no problem with spiteful bullies ending up in jail or dead after school, ultimately. It seems just and karmic.

programjames · 21 days ago

Sorry, I should make it more clear when I'm being sarcastic. I tried to juxtapose these two clauses as close as I could:

> (1) education is just a ranking game

> (2) since the point of education is to help people learn

I feel like people who actually believe your situation was for the best must have a certain level of cognitive dissonance. Either that, or they just don't actually care about you and feel alright with hurting you for a chance of a slight gain for the people they do care about.

It's also a pretty hard sell to claim these kinds of situations are the best for society. If you could produce 2x as many billionaires by expelling the bottom 10% of the population from the education system (and imprisoning them for life), that would be better for society (financially). It might be worse for social reasons, but I kind of find that hard to believe.

This is why I think empathy doesn't scale. It's much easier to point people's empathy towards the person who is ruining their own life, and many others' at school, because they won't have a happy future. It's much harder to point people's empathy towards someone who will likely be successful in the future, even if they're being beat, stabbed, and abused in the present. Especially if they're not even being physically abused, just imprisoned for half their waking hours in a classroom. Empathy is great in very small groups, but not when you're setting policy for hundreds of kids in a school, thousands in the city, or millions across the state. At that point, empathy just ends up hijacked by the worst actors to redirect attention and resources to their own pet causes.

programjames commented on Homeschooling hits record numbers reason.com/2025/11/19/hom... · Posted by u/bilsbie

raw_anon_1111 · 22 days ago

What position is that?

1. That showing different colored hands raised with a heart in it is “too political” - again they were not holding hands, no Pride symbols (that you brought up)

2. That MAGA isn’t political?

I’m not trying to convince you of anything. I’m saying that a certain contingent of conservatives have always been triggered about the thought that the US is not just White people and even more triggered with the thought of people of various races getting along. It’s especially prevalent in a post MAGA takeover of the Republican Party.

programjames · 22 days ago

Neither of those are my position. If you're not trying to convince me I'm wrong, that's fine, just realize that Idaho is a one-party state and the Republican Party has the power there to do what they think is right. The only way to influence that is to convince enough people that banning these posters is not right, which I thought was your goal, but I guess political commentary has its own purpose.

programjames commented on Homeschooling hits record numbers reason.com/2025/11/19/hom... · Posted by u/bilsbie

raw_anon_1111 · 22 days ago

MAGA was introduced by Trump and is a symbol of Trump. I didn’t argue that they shouldn’t ban “Hope” even though Hope was also something that wasn’t political before Obama. It was clearly partisan for Obama.

MAGA is not speaking to “American greatness”. It’s whining that America isn’t great any more because of among others gays and skinny jeans wearing west coast elite - ie making it great “again”

The idea of America not already being “great” was something that no Democrat could have said. We have been drinking the Kool Aid of American exceptionalism for a century.

If you listen to almost anyone in the MAGA camp, it meant “those evil minorities like the secret Muslim trying to bring Sharia law and those Hatians eating pets took over America and now it’s a crime ridden country infested by immigrants”

programjames · 22 days ago

You still have yet to actually reply to me and my argument. As I said earlier, you need to improve at this skill if you want to actually convince people their position is wrong.