alt Hacker News> Just because you can do something well doesn't mean it's worth doing.
I'm not sure if there's more context to this quote, but on the surface: what a dismal take! Letting some measure of worth dictate what you do feels pretty limiting to me. I understand that he's not saying "make sure you attach worth to everything you do," but there's an implicit judgement process in what he's suggesting.
If you do something well, and you like doing that something, maybe you should enjoy doing it just for the sake of doing it.
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True! And the point isn't that you shouldn't base whether you do something on how much economic value it produces.
I think the judgment is more that if you're doing something to produce some kind of outcome (e.g. work), don't get stuck on things that don't impact that outcome.
The point isn't that you shouldn't do things well. It's that just because AI makes it effortless to ship some random new thing nobody asked for, that doesn't mean you should ship it.
I think that calculus changes completely when you do things for fun, where the only outcome you're trying to produce is doing more of the activity.
If you're doing something for fun, the doing is itself the reward.
I don't think he's talking about personal fulfilment. His take is more simple. He's saying don't do the following: "I created a piece of software, and it works pretty good, but I have no customers. Should I work on coding to get it to work 5% better, or try to do some marketing? Well, I'm really, really great at coding, so let me do more of that."
>and you like doing that something
I think your attempt at a counterpoint accidentally reinforced the main point: there are more criteria beyond simply being able to do something well that determine whether it's a good idea in the first place. I can make lead balloons faster and cheaper than anyone else but that's not enough to make it worth spending my one and only life making lead balloons.
Okay, what if you're good at arson?
I read it the opposite though; that it's the act of doing, not the (perfect) result, the thing that is valuable. e.g. it's better to paint a canvas badly because it's fun, than to have an AI generate a perfect image. It's not the image that is "well" that is worth it, it's you having fun while doing it that it's worth it.
I feel like you're conflating "having worth" (value) and "being worth doing" (it's good to do it) in here?