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Ask HN: If I am 16 what should I learn? Which books should read?
4 points by AmirMakirr 10 hours ago | hide | past | favorite | 11 comments
I want to hear some advices to not waste time on smth. You can advise everything what you want or you can share any experiences or stories.
 help



Disclaimer: I'm probably not in the position of educating teenagers as my life has not been a success.

But my 2 cents anyway: I think you need to figure out your life first. You are 16 so you are going to college (or do other things) soon. You should at least figure out the general direction you want to pursue and then make plans. You don't have to stick to one direction, though.

Another advice -- restrict the resources you have access to when you are learning anything seriously. Remove as much of AI, Internet, mobile from your learning process as possible. I know this is controversial, but I believe that constraint is the father of creativity.


Read 1632 by Eric Flint, deeply embedded in it is a lesson about the infrastructure that keeps modern society going.

It's important to understand mappers and packers, and figure out where you are on that continuum. https://wiki.c2.com/?MappersVsPackers

Learn what capability based security is. Computer security is a solved problem, has been since the 1980s, but the solution hasn't been widely adopted yet.

Know that this is a time of immense abundance, we have access to things that even the King of France couldn't afford, like antibiotics and modern medicine, but don't try to keep up with the Joneses, that way lies ruin.


I'll tell you what I would tell myself if given the chance: Learn to take (calculated) risks and to be free of the weight of the judgement of others. Learn to do the baseline things that keep you healthy in body and mind and maintain them.

As for reading, I don't think any one book will affect everyone the same way or have the same impact, but do read. Don't be afraid to read things that make you uncomfortable. In fact, embrace discomfort in reading and in all aspects of life.


Wow! Thank you so much will follow and learn

How the world really works - Vaclav Smil

Faust from the West.

Three Kingdoms from the East.

See the reading list on topics of interest in the podcast "In our time." Thumb nail sketches of powerful people is a work by a Greek tutor transmitted somewhere in there.


Read to learn but read to enjoy too. Sometimes you learn more not trying to learn.

Fair enough

50 to 100 Infinity Within by Reggie Hilliard. Thanks me later

Thanks! will add it to my reading list

Read and learn about what you find interesting.

If I could tell myself something at 16 it would be: Do what you want. Not what others want of you. Go after what you want, regardless of whether you think it will work out, or make you rich, or make your parents happy, or make your friends happy, or what religion says you "should" do, or what anyone says you "should" do.




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