jlizzle30's comments

jlizzle30 | 3 years ago | on: Ask HN: How to deal with regret of not having kids

No I just don’t have time to write an entire epistemological defense of “reproduction and parenting is a key milestone for humans”. It should be self evident. If you don’t think so, consider what happens if untrue (hint: no more humans).

jlizzle30 | 3 years ago | on: Ask HN: How to deal with regret of not having kids

There could be a great discussion about whether male parenting and reproduction comes from the bio/psycho/social drives.

For this context, I think trying to make these distinctions is a distraction. By way of common sense, reproducing & parenting has been a HUGE factor in the propagation of human life (this is so obvious it's kind of funny to write).

jlizzle30 | 3 years ago | on: Ask HN: How to deal with regret of not having kids

New(ish) parent here. Two things:

First, the bad news: lots of comments saying stuff like "Don't have kids to fill a perceived hole in your life". In general, the advice "Don't do ____ to fill a hole in your life" is good for frivolous things, but I don't think this applies to being a parent. Parenting is a biological and psychological life milestone. To me it's felt more like leveling up my maturity than buying or achieving something. An analogy is something like going from relying on my parents to moving out and being independent. I realize this step isn't for everyone, but am skeptical about 95% of ppl so confident they don't want to take a step their linage has done for thousands of years.

Second, the good news: my experiences (and accounts of friends as well) suggests that attachment to a child is less biological and more developed than you'd expect. When my daughter was born she felt like a stranger; I didn't know her. The more time I spend with her, the more she learns and depends on me, and the more I grow emotionally attached to her. This suggests you'd get 98% of the parenting experience through adoption vs being a biological parent. You'd miss out on stuff like "o wow her eyes look like mine", but at least in my experience, this has been less important than I would've thought. The big stuff like seeing them learn, their innocent joy, and you 'paying it forward' in the circle of life would be the same. (NOTE: these are my 2 cents as a biological parent. It'd be worth reading some adoptive parent accounts as well). Also, if adoption is not for you, I'd still recommend getting involved in helping kids in some way (education, financial, etc.); again, what are we here for if not to help the next generation?

jlizzle30 | 3 years ago | on: Project Ideas

In the same way dropping foreign aid on a country to ‘solve’ hunger can make the problem worse, EA money could distort market forces if it became big enough. I suspect it’s very difficult to find investments that return more net good than standard businesses.

jlizzle30 | 3 years ago | on: Uber and Lyft’s new road: Fewer drivers, thrifty riders and jittery investors

> 30 software developers

- iOS rider app

- android rider app

- iOS driver app

- android driver app

- ride/driver matching

- routing/supply

- security/compliance

- fraud detection/prevention

- backend rides services

- backend user services

^ 10 teams of at least 10 people off the top of my head. Amazing how underestimated engineering resourcing needs are.

jlizzle30 | 4 years ago | on: Ask HN: On Happiness Limits

> there's a natural "limit" on the happiness I can enjoy at any given moment

This is roughly my experience, although, you can choose between peaks & valleys vs emotional stability. Highs are generally followed by lows and vice versa. The classic rockstar chooses to swing wildly between drugs/sex/crowds/etc. and addiction/depression/death while the buddhist munk reaches nirvana by maintaining an even keel.

Keep in mind there are other life considerations besides 'happiness' of course:

  1. retrospective life satisfaction
  2. responsibility
  3. morality
  4. procreation
  5. etc.
I don't generally trust psych research, but Jonathan Haidt's book The Happiness Hypothesis is a good read on the subject. He highlights things that do/don't marginally increase baseline happiness.

jlizzle30 | 4 years ago | on: Get ahead by not shooting yourself in the foot

> Here are the dragons: ... Buying a house or an apartment will disproportionately affect other areas of your life

I agree with the general caution about buying a property and the baggage it comes with. Unfortunately with kids there be dragons in renting as well: having to move when getting priced out.

jlizzle30 | 4 years ago | on: Some tech founders are getting huge pay packages

Any rules of thumb for how much cash compensation a founder can expect to draw in the first ~5 years of a successful startup? The stock compensation numbers make is sound like these founders are rich but it isn't liquid and could go to zero.

Do founders need to be independently wealthy before starting a company?

jlizzle30 | 4 years ago | on: Thinking fast, slow, and not at all: System 3 jumps the shark

I was inspired to go into psychology after reading Malcom Gladwell, Freakonomics, et al. Net-net the degree was disapointing. In some ways an intuitive sense of people is superior to what the field's been able to discover. 'Noise' is a good descriptor.

Thank god I transferred into CS.

jlizzle30 | 5 years ago | on: Why do interviewers ask linked list questions?

> if you want to know if someone knows CS fundamentals, you don’t want to give them a problem they can trick their way through

Right. But this is a critique overused questions the candidates may have already seen rather than linked list questions.

In my experience, linked list questions come up because they're a simple data-structure that gets at ordering vs look-up tradeoffs.

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