rajesh301

This is true too but during our surveys and interviews, we observed this far less than the other case which is to stay away from the social networks.

The power of introverts is a great talk. Thanks for sharing. I agree about the preference to the solitude part (one of the items in the blog post)

Yes, these sound like justifications for introversion because the society today thinks that everyone needs to be social.

I agree with you about the personality.

The goal of the article was to raise awareness of some blind spots that smart people face. Just being aware of them is already a good first step. Hacker News is a place where so many smart people hang out and I thought people here will relate to one or more items in the list.

Blind spots are hard to see and probably that's why they are called "blind" spots. I have found time and again that discussions with my mentors brings forth some blind spots to the forefront. Mentors have an uncanny ability to notice things that we should be noticing. They may not have all the answers but the probing questions they ask can make us aware of at least some of the blind spots.

My $.02 of course.

I have not read the book but I will take a look now. thank you.

Will be removing this when the site gets relaunched. thanks for the feedback

I read the comment by Xenophanes and we are talking about different things. So we can agree to disagree here :)

Yes of course. Your questions are valid. I will add more context to it soon. For a quick summary:

a) Ongoing mini-research is part of my next book which will come out only next year or the year after. b) The intermediate findings are being written as short blog posts as people don't have time to read long ones. c) How I know the problem exists - it comes out during my interviews and discussions. The focus of the research is centered around smart people. I am not going to interview people with pre-conceived notions about certain problems existing or non-existing.

Having said that, your points are valid and I plan to include responses to that and more in the final version of the book. It is too much to add to the blog posts.

Your argument is so right that it would be foolish to argue against it. You make a very good point and I will discuss this with my team to get this fixed. THANKS.

The problems referred in the article are those problems that people should have or could have solved but have not solved them. I thought it was obvious but it looks like I have to explicitly state it. Will make a note for next time.

I am looking at the tweet thing (tweetboard) to see how to eliminate this completely.

Cheers.

Yes "implementation" is hard work and that part adds to the complexity of solving one's problems. You cannot stop at advice but have to follow through with following that advice :)

What browser are you using? I checked it with Safari, Firefox and Chrome on a Mac and the tweetboard plugin was working fine. Please let me know.

Point noted and thank you.

Thanks for the great feedback here. Noted it and will act on it. Unfortunately I can't do that until Monday as the person who can fix it won't be available until then :(

The popup was not a gatekeeper and you can easily switch that off without signing up to the newsletter.

Having said that, I have made a note of the feedback on the popup and will take action to fix that.

Thanks.

Thanks for the comments. The "C'est la vie" comment was specifically about another comment which focussed on things totally outside the article - like newsletter sign up etc.

I will definitely think about your comment and discuss it with my mentors. There are people who I take advise when it comes to these aspects ( blogging, writing ).

Thanks for the advice in any case.

Thanks for the clarification. Looking at the discussion here itself is a validation for the article at some level. It is a simple article presenting conclusions from a series of interviews with reasonably smart people.

The conclusions are being over-analyzed which is the characteristic of very smart people. HN is a community of such smart people and I am not at all surprised that it is being over-analyzed here :)

Cheers.

Thanks for the note. Will get the popup fixed soon.

The article never states these are the only two options. I don't know why that conclusion is being drawn. But everyone has a right to their opinion so I can't stop people from making their own assumptions :)

Thanks for all the feedback about the popup. Will get that fixed right away. I am not tech-savvy enough to fix it myself so it has to be on Monday :(

Cheers.

Amen to that. Friends sometimes try to bring that up only to be shot down instantly with some smart rationalization. Thanks.

You definitely bring up a very good point. I should phrase it properly. Yes, their own problems are problems they haven't solved - when in fact, they could have solved them. If their "unsolved problems" were brought to them by someone else, they would have had a solution very quickly.

That is precisely the reason to have mentors and personal advisors.

My $.02

You could try that yourself by simply discussing a problem someone is facing. If they are stuck, ask them for a potential solution and see how quickly they will tear up that solution by over-analyzing the problems with the suggested solution.

My $.02 of course.

OK the term "mini-research" refers to research done in less than six weeks and the method used was a series of interviews. I am not selling the research data only presenting the conclusions from the research.

You are welcome to make your own conclusions of course :)

Point noted. None of the items you mentioned ( newsletter sign up, eBooks ) are required to access the content on the blog. In fact, none of the eBooks require you to enter an email address.

I am sad to see that you focused on these things rather than 1500 other articles on the blog.

C'est la vie :)

The article was written based on a series of interviews. Smart people don't fool themselves by ignoring the problem or acting as if the problem does not exist. Most people know that the problem exists but they also know all the other things around those problems ( constraints ) and it can get overwhelming to them. For instance, they will come up with a solution and at the same instant also see all the problems associated with that solution - the loop continues.

May be true. That is all the more reason really smart (and not lazy) people to move to the top and displace the powerful and useless people. Don't you think that would be an answer?

As others have pointed out here, you will be the best judge of what a good life is.

The article was referring to your "increased capacity to contribute to the world."

That may not be your interest or you may be doing it a whole different way. Again, you will be the best judge of "how much" to contribute.

But if every smart person was contributing enough, we wouldn't be in a mess like we are today.

Something to think about.