> everybody who is like me, fully onboarded into AI and agentic tools, seemingly has less and less time available because we fall into a trap where we’re immediately filling it with more things

You fill a jar with sand and there is no space for big rocks.

But if you fill the jar with big rocks, there is plenty of space for sand. Remove one of the rocks and the sand instantly fills that void.

Make sure you fit the rocks first.

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d0liver 5 hours ago | parent | next [-]

I think that's kind of the point though: AI is the sand, but it's the rocks that hold all of the value; the further you get away from using AI the more real value you obtain. Like, a few of the rocks have gold deposits in them, and the sand is just infinitely copious but never holds anything valuable. And you've got a bunch of people running around saying, "Behold my mountains of sand!"

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big-chungus4 6 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-]

You fill the bottle with water, you put a fish in it, you remove half of the water, the bottle is still half full, but if you remove the fish, it will have less water than before.

You fill the bottle with half of the water, you put the fish in, you can fill in the other half. If you start with the first half, you will end up with more water.

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Vegenoid 4 hours ago | parent | next [-]

The point of the metaphor is not to say "spending time is mechanically similar to putting things in a container". It is to look at spending time from a new angle, and see if it helps you understand it better. A wise person sees a metaphor as a launching point for thought, not as an expression of a metaphysical connection.

Yes, there are bad metaphors, and people who take metaphors too seriously. That you can conjure a bad metaphor with somewhat similar to semantics to some other metaphor does not mean that said metaphor is bad.

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ghurtado 6 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-]

In a more advanced civilisation, you would be put in the pillory for the townsfolk to throw rotten cabbage at you until the Lord fixed whatever made you say that.

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hk__2 4 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-]

You write a metaphore in a comment, you remove half of it, you add another one in the middle, you add the half of the first one, and… nobody understands anything.

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otterley 4 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-]

You put your right foot in, you put your right foot out, you put your right foot in, and you shake it all about.

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jareklupinski 5 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-]

you fill the 3 liter bottle up to the top, and pour the contents into the 5 liter bottle

then you fill 3 liter bottle again, and pour the contents into the 5 liter bottle until the 5 liter one is full

empty the 5 liter bottle, and pour the 1 liter in the 3 liter bottle into the 5 liter bottle

fill the 3 liter bottle again and pour that into the 1 liter already in the 5 liter bottle to get 4 liters of water

	▲	wiml an hour ago \| parent [-]
		Then you bring the fox back, take the hen across the river, ...

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hedayet 5 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-]

> You fill the bottle with water, you put a fish in it, [some water overflows], you remove half of water...

That water overflow step is missing / implicit. But that's an observable event.

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auggierose 6 hours ago | parent | prev [-]

What?

	▲	NikolaNovak 6 hours ago \| parent \| next [-]
		I assume post used extreme example to demonstrate that wise-sounding metaphors may not have inherent point or value.
	▲	sritchie 5 hours ago \| parent \| prev \| next [-]
		Hahah, I just have to reply and say I loved the original comment and was happy for the laugh. Obviously this is the answer to the riddle of > Given a 3-liter container and a 5-liter container, both initially empty, and access to tap water, how can you measure exactly 4 liters of water without using any additional containers I've offered and received some convoluted metaphors recently, love leaning hard into this one.
	▲	ghurtado 6 hours ago \| parent \| prev \| next [-]
		Psilocybin? Not sure, I used to be better at diagnosing this type of episode.
	▲	satvikpendem 5 hours ago \| parent \| prev \| next [-]
		They're talking about Archimedes' principle, displacement of water. The fish makes the water bottle overflow, so be careful when you add the fish so that it doesn't. It's a counter analogy to the rocks one above.
	▲	spencerflem 5 hours ago \| parent \| prev [-]
		They’re pointing out that if the jar was _filled_ with sand, then of course you can’t fit any rocks in because it’s full. It’s cute but misunderstands the original metaphor I think.

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wizardforhire 5 hours ago | parent | prev [-]

If that ain’t the secret to solving an np complete problem I don’t know what is!