Comment by pm90 | Hacker News Reader

Comment by pm90 | Hacker News Reader

I really like that its so easy for successful and productive people to share their thoughts on what got them where they are and their advice on how others can get there too.

The part of the essay I liked the most was perhaps his comment about having strong convictions on things. This is incredibly important. To get to a level of knowledge on anything to get that conviction though, requires a lot of deliberate reading and experience. For instance, I didn't care much about politics until the 2016 election; the entirety of 2017 I spent learning more about the political structure of the US, the history of every party, the history of laws and such... a lot of things that has given me a strong base from which to view current events and future policies in a more nuanced way, rather than being influenced by the latest Op-Ed in NYT. It took a lot of effort, but for me its worth it if only for the perspective that you get from history.

The lists part is also highly recommended: it helps me offload things that I want/like to do in a concrete medium and not have to try and recall things when I get some time.

Just curious, is your life better for having spent that time learning more about politics? What prompted you to get started?

Asking as somebody that doesn't care much about politics but not averse to the idea of making an effort to understand it if the benefits>cost.

Certainly I'm biased since I put in that effort into learning more about these things. I'm an introvert and certainly didn't care much for politics in general. For better or for worse, I do live in a society and am dependent on it for sustenance though and that is what prompted me to delve into politics.

From my understanding, it seems like its much easier for charlatans and snake-oil salesman to cast themselves as able politicians and that is a bad thing. To debate them, or the ideas they promote, in a reasonable way does require some understanding of the underlying factors and reasons for why things are as they are. e.g. initially I was very anti-welfare state. But after learning more about the systemic reasons for poverty, the discrimination against minorities etc. this has greatly softened my views about these things. Which is important because.... its hard to be sympathetic to e.g. homeless people when the only interaction you have with them is usually negative (I've often been heckled by them, even followed, which is rather scary) until you realize how many of them suffer from mental illnesses that they don't really get treatment for.

Essentially, I think its beneficial if you want to truly understand the society you live in and its problems. Politics is all about allocating societies resources towards common benefits by enacting policies and such. But you can only be effective if you understand what problems your society is really facing, and try scientific approaches to solve those problems.

So in conclusion, I think it has been largely beneficial. I do hope more people get involved in politics instead of dismissing it as a useless effort: it does seem very often to consist more of rhetoric rather than actual productive work which we engineers prefer. But that's how our society seems to work.

Thank you for the reply.

> To get to a level of knowledge on anything to get that conviction though, requires a lot of deliberate reading and experience.

Nah it's pretty easy, Dunning-Kruger's got us covered. :)

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