Hacker News Reader

Comment by patatino | Hacker News Reader

I like the idea, some thoughts..

Every year seems a little much? Maybe at young age, but 21/22/23 doesn't really make that much of a difference, or even 40/45

The advice should be written for the perspective of the reader not the writer:

"Hey 13 year old, don't stop learning how to play piano"

How would that help a 13 year old? Something like "Hey 13 year old, I stopped playing the piano at your age and now I'm regretting it very much. I often dream how well I could play if I didn't stop and I also could teach my kids"

Obviously you do not control the text. A short description with tips would maybe help.

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I would add to the primer text that you should be sincere, it’s already got a lot of less than helpful stuff in it...

“Don’t go bald, bald people aren’t happy.”

There aer treatments for hair loss that can slow but not reverse progression of baldness. "Don't go bald" is actionable.

Yes, and I’m trying to call China now, but apparently the Chinese food delivery guy found a friend...

Maybe the advice should have been posted for 20 year olds and not 34 year olds. It’s still not helpful as is.

Treatments that can have seriously adverse side effects for some individuals or simply not work at all for others. Furthermore, most of the treatments do exactly what you said: they slow the progression, not halt it. It's not so black and white, unfortunately.

There are also surgical robots (Restoration Robotics) that do hair transplants without leaving ugly scars.

"Don't care about going bald" is even better.

Or "don't tie your self worth or happiness to your appearance," to be more general.

A few of my friends started going bald in their early 20s... whoops

I'm pretty much bald, and have been tending that way since my mid twenties. Early thirties now. I'm plenty happy.

If you feel like your happiness is dependent on your having hair, then you should probably really ask yourself why.

If you feel like having less hair makes you less attractive, then I can tell you I've had loads of hair and now none of it, and I've met women that love or hate both.

Own it.

Hey thanks for the feedback - really appreciate it.

I struggled with the idea of creating a page for every age. I eventually settled on the idea that people could take the platform anywhere they wanted to, whether it was passing generic advice along, or sending themselves a very specific message at a specific time in their life. That being said, it's kind of cool to see the ages that mean the most to people.

I like your idea with the short description - do you mind if I quote your example?

yes sure, go ahead

Thanks!

Maybe instead of having one sub-page for each age group, why not transform the landing page into a chronological list of the five highest-voted entries for every age group, so we can seamlessly scroll from 20 to 21 to 22 etc. This allow for a much nicer reading experience with less clicks :o)

That's not a bad idea, thanks for the advice!

Another idea- if you get enough data, it’d be interesting to see who is up voting at what age. The advice I wanted to hear at age 18 is not what I’d give at twice that age.

I really like having a different page for each individual age. This separation distinguishes your site from the countless blog posts that pass on advice "to those in their 20s and 30s" or "to those who are still young". In my eyes, these pieces are often far too general. By this, I mean the following:

Thinking back on my life so far, the years 19, 20, and 22 were quite unique with respect to my then-current circumstances/knowledge/abilities (even though I was in the same undergrad program and had roughly the same job during these years).

If I had the opportunity, I would give 19-year-old me very different advice than 20-year-old me! 19-year-old me really needed it! And don't even get me started on the advice 22-year-old me needed.

Adding some pages that aggregate the advice submitted to similar ages (20s, teens, 18-35, choose your favorite grouping) wouldn't be bad for those who are interested, but I think taking the focus away from individual ages would minimize something quite neat that you've done here.

But what if someone develops a little faster? By the time they're 19, it might be too late!

This is my experience too.

Other commenters mentioned that people grow at different rates, but there's nothing stopping you from looking at the advice for ages around you

Yeah, I would like to see some context added to each piece of advice:

- Piece of advice

- Written by a {person's age}-year-old

- Background on how that advice affected them to this point in their life.

Otherwise, it kind of reads like a generic motivational quote.

I disagree. Having a targeted age makes the platform feel more relatable to where I am in life as opposed to general advice that can be applied to a whole age group.

Cultivating remaining flexibly young minded and and open minded is far more accurate than age. Closemindedness and fear exists at each age group.

On the other hand, age might be used as a way to self identify a spot in the site. As children we are raised by age and grade to measure where we are, should be and headed. It's a form of subtle conditioning we do not have a choice in until it begins to wear off in one's 20's or 30's.

Yeah, it would be nice to be able to click an age and drag through other ages, or even a ctrl+click type of selection to get a bulk list of advice.

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