Following your dreams is directly linked to your ability to obtain funding.
This world has major problems in grasping different perspectives of others than the ones we're born with. When I do speeches for younger audiences, I always remind them to consider perspectives other than the ones they were raised in. It's baffling how many people walk around thinking that their perspective is fair to impose on everyone.
I think a lot of our current problems, especially wealth inequality, racism, and wars are driven by dreamers that only see their own personal vision, while also being driven by total blindness to the other perspectives affected around them.
I personally learned over many years and setbacks to live like a fisherman, not investing fully into any one category, just casting my reel in different spots and seeing if anything "bites"... If success bites, I fish in that area more, hoping that I will find enough success.
So far, I've mostly found success in embracing all the things I don't enjoy doing in order to fund the things I do enjoy... From my experience, most people (those not born into wealth & priviledge) don't earn great money unless they dive into doing things they don't enjoy...
I think it's important to be practical about it all.
> I think a lot of our current problems, especially wealth inequality, racism, and wars
How are "dreamers" who see their own vision driving racism? We're talking about jobs and entrepreneurship here. In that context how has someone's vision been the driver of racism?
How do you connect racism to people following their own personal vision? Wouldn't that imply that all human phenomena result from individuals pursuing their personal visions?
What you're talking about is a stunning inability to empathize with different circumstances that is a trademark human trait. We have limited ability to empathize beyond:
self -> people just like us -> family -> friends
As soon as you leave self it gets tricky, and only harder the more different and detached. It is shocking to see in light of modern morals. In fairness the idea of empathizing with differing peoples is a relatively new virtue; at least to place a high value on this is new.
Honestly, these types of things cause me existential dread. It's just so disheartening to see smart and caring people constantly turn into psychopaths over the slightest difference.
Every time you think they've figured it out, only to be let down later. It's one thing not to SEE it, but they never understand, even after explanation. You practically have to get them to take a college course before they "get it" (poorly, but they sorta understand now).
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".
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.
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.
> 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.
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.
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
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.
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.
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.
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"...
[+] [-] sabrina_ramonov|1 year ago|reply
[+] [-] klondike_klive|1 year ago|reply
[+] [-] winternett|1 year ago|reply
This world has major problems in grasping different perspectives of others than the ones we're born with. When I do speeches for younger audiences, I always remind them to consider perspectives other than the ones they were raised in. It's baffling how many people walk around thinking that their perspective is fair to impose on everyone.
I think a lot of our current problems, especially wealth inequality, racism, and wars are driven by dreamers that only see their own personal vision, while also being driven by total blindness to the other perspectives affected around them.
I personally learned over many years and setbacks to live like a fisherman, not investing fully into any one category, just casting my reel in different spots and seeing if anything "bites"... If success bites, I fish in that area more, hoping that I will find enough success.
So far, I've mostly found success in embracing all the things I don't enjoy doing in order to fund the things I do enjoy... From my experience, most people (those not born into wealth & priviledge) don't earn great money unless they dive into doing things they don't enjoy...
I think it's important to be practical about it all.
[+] [-] crackercrews|1 year ago|reply
How are "dreamers" who see their own vision driving racism? We're talking about jobs and entrepreneurship here. In that context how has someone's vision been the driver of racism?
[+] [-] cambaceres|1 year ago|reply
[+] [-] P_I_Staker|1 year ago|reply
As soon as you leave self it gets tricky, and only harder the more different and detached. It is shocking to see in light of modern morals. In fairness the idea of empathizing with differing peoples is a relatively new virtue; at least to place a high value on this is new.
Honestly, these types of things cause me existential dread. It's just so disheartening to see smart and caring people constantly turn into psychopaths over the slightest difference.
Every time you think they've figured it out, only to be let down later. It's one thing not to SEE it, but they never understand, even after explanation. You practically have to get them to take a college course before they "get it" (poorly, but they sorta understand now).
[+] [-] thomasahle|1 year ago|reply
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".
[+] [-] talldatethrow|1 year ago|reply
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.
[+] [-] j7ake|1 year ago|reply
[+] [-] j2kun|1 year ago|reply
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|1 year ago|reply
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.
[+] [-] unknown|1 year ago|reply
[deleted]
[+] [-] one-punch|1 year ago|reply
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QoWEhQlS9yY
[+] [-] fnordian_slip|1 year ago|reply
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.
[+] [-] gnicholas|1 year ago|reply
[+] [-] paradox242|1 year ago|reply
[+] [-] smarm52|1 year ago|reply
[deleted]
[+] [-] tennisflyi|1 year ago|reply
[+] [-] kuekacang|1 year ago|reply
[+] [-] m463|1 year ago|reply
It seemed to work with Elon Musk and mars/climate change/EVs/brain interfaces...
[+] [-] yuy910616|1 year ago|reply
[+] [-] mihaic|1 year ago|reply
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.
[+] [-] paulpauper|1 year ago|reply
this sounds like a vast oversimplification.
[+] [-] pineaux|1 year ago|reply
[+] [-] jstrebel|1 year ago|reply