“Everything is a system. The economy, society, relationships, nature, traffic.” (comment)
recommended by 1 user | 2020 | muzani on: Ask HN: What has your work taught you that other people… | life advice | original thread |
muzani on Jan 14, 2020 | on: Ask HN: What has your work taught you that other people don't realize? | view on HN

Everything is a system. The economy, society, relationships, nature, traffic.

You don't need math to reverse engineer a system. You just need to pay attention to it. You can say the right words to make a date happy. You can figure out which lane is the fastest route, better than Google Maps can. You don't need an app or data - your brain is a wonderful data processing machine.

Don't be angry at the people who are benefiting from a system, or at the system itself. Most just end up that way, the same way a river meanders towards the sea, or an electrical current tries to find ground.

Fixing/improving a system often requires deep understanding of it. An action here will cause a response there. People often document it, but few will do a proper design.

If you don't fix a system, few will. Most people are reactive to it and try to live with it as background noise.

If you don't control a system, it will control you. You don't have to change its fundamentals, just move out of the way of harm.

Neatness/order is a way to understand a system. All systems tend to fall to disorder. Disorder is not always a bad thing. Order is very expensive, and only serves as better documentation to those who do not understand it. Very often, excessive order is a symptom of someone who does not understand or control it.

One user recommended this comment. What they said:
superasn Jan 2, 2021 | on: Ask HN: What was your favorite comment in 2020? | context

I found most of the comments in thread pretty insightful:

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=22043088

But i found this one comment which really resonated with me:

Everything is a system. The economy, society, relationships, nature, traffic. You don't need math to reverse engineer a system. You just need to pay attention to it. You can say the right words to make a date happy. You can figure out which lane is the fastest route, better than Google Maps can. You don't need an app or data - your brain is a wonderful data processing machine.

<snip>

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=22043088