Hacker News Reader

Comment by pingyong | Hacker News Reader

>Those subjects require a different sort of motivation than a motivation

Is that really the case? Apart from the obvious "maybe that's what they're intrinsically interested in" - if you start with a problem, try to solve it, and "pure mathematics" (whatever exactly that is supposed to be, anyway) is required to arrive at a solution, it becomes part of the intrinsic motivation. And if you keep solving problems without it the question that eventually comes up is "is it really useful at that point?"

I do however agree that if you're looking at someone who's qualification is primarily his "portfolio", you do actually need to check whether it includes interesting problems, or at least projects that are related to what you need them to do at your company. But if that is the case, I really don't see a problem.

View on HN

That's correct. If one is solving a problem and its requires learning of complex topics, then those topics become a part of the individual's intrinsic motivation. However, the problem with his idea is that learning always requires a goal and ones that do not have any have no intrinsic value. My argument here is that learning doesn't have be attached to any goal and the process of learning can purely be a stimulating activity and might not necessarily have any capitalistic value attached to it.

Few ex:

Like, reading literature is a purely fun and mentally draining activity that might/might not have any goal attached to it.

Like travelling, is a purely fun activity and might/might not have any intrinsic goal attached to it.

I started learning Algebra out of the random, without any intrinsic goal. Because, it was purely out of fun. Playing chess is an activity without any intrinsic goal.

> learning doesn't have be attached to any goal

For some people it does. Everyone has a different approach to learning and I think outside of the heavily regimented strata of traditional schools it would help everyone if we could celebrate that. Maybe that means not everyone learns for the sake of learning, but then again not everyone has to do the same things.

>might not necessarily have any capitalistic value attached to it.

You seem to use goals and "capitalistic value" interchangeably, I would just like to add that projects in people's portfolios are often not initially created to make money, but simply to satisfy the creator's curiosity or because they thought it would be neat.

> I would just like to add that projects in people's portfolios are often not initially created to make money

We both can agree on this. But that's not how Emil looks at it, his entire point is that projects are better credentials than even degrees.

And since projects have higher value in portfolios, they will implicitly derive capital? One of the reasons why they have capitalistic value.

You and I can both agree, that projects and learning do have fun elements attached to them and might not necessarily be part of a larger goal. However, that's not what his views are!

>However, that's not what his views are!

I'm not sure how you got to that conclusion. Certainly I don't see how

>projects are better credentials than even degrees.

would necessarily conflict with

>that projects and learning do have fun elements attached to them and might not necessarily be part of a larger goal.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com