tilne

> writing is reasonably easy and it’s hard to get much better than you already are

This is the complete opposite of my personal experience. (I do agree with your point about the value of diagramming. But I see it more as a subset of the foundation of writing: clearly expressing thoughts in an easily readable medium

Why do you think you contributed?

Edit: maybe “how” would be a better word to use.

What part of this culture would make it more competitive than any remote-only equivalent? And how would you build it?

We already have that. Why not at least help the higher wage employees get paid?

Very cool. I’d be very interested in other similar reading material if anyone has some recommendations. It reminds me of when I was a teenager and I stumbled upon Alexander Shulgin and PiKHAL (https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/PiHKAL).

On the advice of a commenter in a different HN thread I recently read Cal Newport’s book, “So Good They Can’t Ignore You.” The main premise is that passion results from valuable skills built via hard work over years of deliberate practice. Only after you have those valuable skills, the book argues, do you have the leverage to dictate your life in a way many people find necessary for satisfaction. Passion follows from there.

The book is a fun read, but that’s basically the entire takeaway. And I find it to be a compelling argument.

Passion does need to be found, but it seems logical that your skills will lead you to the passion, rather than the other way around.

Most places I’ve worked default to letting everyone read any source. Is that not the norm? Agree that it’s a game changer for those willing to use it, but I find that last qualifier to be surprisingly rare.

Do you know the answer?

Employers should give their workers the money they need to get a therapist themselves, if that’s what they choose. I’m so sick of this seemingly parental outlook where companies try to pretend they’re looking out for you while really their only goal is to extract maximum value. It’s okay that the relationship is transactional. Companies should acknowledge that and act accordingly.

If we’re going to get pedantic about who can assert what about which experiences: you are asserting that you’re able to reach greater clarity of thought when talking as opposed to writing, correct? But how do you know that’s true? You’re unable to try talking first and writing first for any given task. So although I may be asserting something about your experience without having had it myself, so are you.

On a (somewhat) less pedantic note I would add that “asserting” is a bit strong of a word to describe the statement I made. Perhaps you should be a bit more precise with your words. Writing more could help :).

One of the points from the article was that writing helps you scale yourself. If you were a great engineer on my team I would want you to write everything down regardless if that was the way you thought through the alternatives or if it was just recording the understanding after you’d gotten to it.

That said, I don’t buy the idea that you reach the same clarity of thought by talking through an idea as compared to writing that same idea down with the intention of communicating it clearly to another person. The latter requires significantly more command over an idea.

Why do you say that?