Birbla

Discussion summary

Discussions on the value of learning and talent, with some emphasizing lifelong learning as a key skill. Participants mention personal experiences, future AI roles, and the importance of skills like writing.

What the discussion says

  • Most agree lifelong learning is valuable.
  • Some believe innate talent is less important than support and effort.
  • Others see learning as a personal or leisure activity.
  • The role of AI in future learning is considered.
“Lifelong learning as the ultimate skill”
— AFF87
“Struggling with what to learn? Learn to write! It’s the ultimate meta-skill.”
— cadamsdotcom

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  • Hacker News
  • This is why I don’t get the perverse pleasure people get when they say they don’t look at code anymore

    It’s not like we’ve created a new abstraction layer with coding agents. It’s a leaky factory where every part up and down can break and/or be improved.

    The best factories thrive in a learning culture. Where humans grow their knowledge to improve the operation of the factory. From nuts and bolts up to larger systems.

    How do you do that without reading code? Without writing code?

    I started even replacing my use of specs with exploratory coding to grow my own knowledge and context

    https://softwaredoug.com/blog/2026/07/04/write-code-not-spec...

    by softwaredoug
  • I started playing video games in Spanish about a year ago. I've finished about 20 now. I had a base of course & was doing little courses etc. But I've sunk 100s of hours now focusing on text and voice heavy games and it went from very tiring and looking up the dictionary constantly to fun and fluid. I can finally watch a lot of stuff without subtitles now. Someone catalogues which games have been dubbed (focused on Spanish of Spain) at this site https://www.doblajevideojuegos.es/ the quality of most new dubs I've seen has been very high
    by aguacaterojo
  • As someone who has done “self-directed” learning, for my entire life (high school dropout, with a GED), I can certainly relate.

    I like to learn new stuff, every day. I have found LLMs to be a godsend, here. Makes it much easier to just barge into unfamiliar territory.

    Whenever I come across essays like this, I like to post The Gap, by Ira Glass[0]; one of the more encouraging short essays out there.

    [0] https://vimeo.com/85040589

    by ChrisMarshallNY
  • There's really a feeling now pushing back against learning in general. The feeling is that it is pointless since technology would just do it for you. When I started learning Chinese a friend just wouldn't stop talking about how the latest airpods will just be able to translate for you. It was really rather demoralising. But there is still something incredibly rewarding about having that knowledge in your own head and not having to go find someone or something to ask. I push on regardless.
    by forgotusername6
  • I’ll chime in. I started learning to draw in my early twenties, couple hours a week. What helps a lot is joining a club, I’ve got a group in my town that just goes to a bar one night a week and draws and chats for 3 hours. Great way to ensure that you get at least a few hours of drawing in, even if your week is too busy for “practice”.

    It takes about 2-3 years of mild practice to get good enough that you’ll routinely impress yourself, about 5 years to get good enough that you could do paid commissions.

    Seems like a long time, but unless you start in your seventies you’ll have decades left of enjoying being an artist afterwards.

    by Fraterkes
  • One thing I wish this emphasized more is that adults often confuse learning with consuming material about learning, which is why my useful rule has become: if I'm not producing errors, I'm probably not practicing yet
    by HexPhantom
  • The best thing for being sad," replied Merlin, beginning to puff and blow, "is to learn something. That's the only thing that never fails. You may grow old and trembling in your anatomies, you may lie awake at night listening to the disorder of your veins, you may miss your only love, you may see the world about you devastated by evil lunatics, or know your honour trampled in the sewers of baser minds. There is only one thing for it then — to learn. Learn why the world wags and what wags it. That is the only thing which the mind can never exhaust, never alienate, never be tortured by, never fear or distrust, and never dream of regretting. Learning is the only thing for you. Look what a lot of things there are to learn.

    - T.H. White, The Once and Future King

    by mordechai9000
  • It's a very common thing to blame the lack of time and "finding" the extra time by suggesting to give up phone or some other form of procrastination. But in my experience, time is almost never a problem. It's usually:

    - energy: learning requires much more than the other "bad" activities like phone

    - correct psychological state: procrastination is typically triggered as a response to anxiety for me, so any learning I do instead of the phone will also have this poisonous quality of guilt and fear.

    - uninterrupted time

    I have a problem that I take any learning way too seriously, such that it would require deliberate focused practice. Sometimes it kills all the fun, and sometimes I give up just because it takes too much energy.

    Still, it's extremely rewarding for me to learn stuff, even at this age when intelligence is becoming less useful, or at least harder to monetize.

    by frankie_t

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