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Ask HN: Pros and cons of thinking in public vs. in private?

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Re: Ask HN: Pros and cons of thinking in public vs. in private?

#141

Post by rTX5CMRXIfFG »

npteljes wrote: post #136
fleddr wrote: post #37

I'll specifically go into the pros of private thinking, as that's where you seem to be getting the least feedback. 1. Intent is preserved. When you write something publicly, your output are words that you constructed from your ideas and your intent. As others read it, they will have wildly different interpretations of the text, even if you write well. Thus, your original intent does not translate perfectly. You don't…

>No self-censorship. You don't have to cater to anybody's liking of whatever your thoughts are. You don't need to win anybody's approval, and this allows for the brewing of fresh and pure thoughts. This one is not true. There are internal mechanisms that filter thoughts, for example, what Freud called the Superego. People limit their inner thoughts in a variety of ways, for example, by developing morality, by which t…

And this is why the commenter has bulletpoint number 1. I think that what he really meant here is that while a myriad of factors orient our thinking in certain ways, thinking in private allows you to digress from those patterns and explore edge cases without another person’s judgment.

I frequent HN more than I should, and honestly, pretty much all comment trees follow the same pattern of moving goalposts or making pedantic arguments about how a statistical generalization is not true in all circumstances (duh). It’s all just people missing each other’s contexts (though admittedly some parent comments are really poorly expressed), which is why it’s funny when I come across the occasional “HN is superior and more intelligent than FB/reddit/Twitter” because, really, it isn’t. It’s the same garbage.

Re: Ask HN: Pros and cons of thinking in public vs. in private?

#142

Post by corobo »

toddm wrote: post #22

I post on LinkedIn, Stack Exchange, and this site using my real name. The benefit of doing so is that I have to keep myself in check and really think before I write - yes, there are edits and deletions - and overall the effect has been very positive for me. Being active on the chemistry SE site has actually proven to be of value in getting jobs related to chemistry - at least 3 employers have said it was useful to se…

> As far as I know, there is only one other person on the planet who shares my first and last name combination

Hah. Similar situation. My name doppelganger is doing pretty well in sports going by my name alerts that catch him sometimes.

I wish him all the best of course, but there's a part of my mind that is concerned about the SEO impact of him making it big haha. My alerts already go mad whenever Lauren Cohan does anything newsworthy.

Likewise on the real name. I'm trying (honestly!) to be a better and kinder person and as part of that I've started attaching my real name to online comments.

The unexpected benefit of doing this is that I got a bit of freelance work through it. If you write about stuff you know and someone needs that knowledge, turns out it's really handy for them if they can figure out who you are and get in touch :)

Re: Ask HN: Pros and cons of thinking in public vs. in private?

#143

Post by maxbond »

burnished wrote: post #113
ifyoubuildit wrote: post #110

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> posting that he thought women were genetically inferior as software engineers. Is that what he posted? Do you have some quotes? Edit: if this is not in fact an accurate representation of what happened, it makes a good example of one of the cons of thinking in public: you may be misinterpreted and/or misrepresented forever after if you reach a large enough audience.

I cant be arsed, here is a link to the text in an article, go for it https://gizmodo.com/exclusive-heres-the-full-10-page-anti-di...

The tl;dr is that he takes a bunch of stereotypes about men and women and asserts they're biological/intrinsic, and spends most of the document using pseudoscience and weasley language in a preemptive attempt to couch any blowback. (Perhaps undermining the idea that this was a learning opportunity & that the author did not anticipate a strong response. He explicitly mentions in the beginning that he anticipated a strong response in public and support in private, go figure.)

If you're looking for a single "gotcha" quote you don't really find it because the document is a fortress of wordy CYA. I think the only thing to say is normative statements like "women like people and men like things because women are wired to raise children" is post-hoc justification of the roles society prescribe for men and women, not some kind of truth bomb that's too hot to handle. People use similar arguments to the ones in this document to justify differences in pay and representation between races as well. It's a well worn path in sophistry to justify the status quo.

In the interests of fairness, I'll highlight a part of the document I thought was fairly insightful.

> Feminism has made great progress in freeing women from the female gender role, but men are still very much tied to the male gender role. If we, as a society, allow men to be more “feminine,” then the gender gap will shrink[.]

I think framing this as "men becoming feminine" is patronizing and prefer instead "allowing people a greater range of self expression, with men and women able to take on roles and personality traits traditionally reserved for another gender if they choose to (eg, there's no reason to highlight men becoming more feminine and not women becoming more masculine), as well as being afforded the opportunity to adopt non-binary genders previously considered to be invalid." I think it's underappreciated how men's gender role can be stifling and how men and women should both support the cause of feminism to achieve better outcomes for everyone.

Re: Ask HN: Pros and cons of thinking in public vs. in private?

#144

Post by onion2k »

H8crilA wrote: post #133
onion2k wrote: post #130

Earlier quoted context omitted.

there might come a day when I have to do some reputation control should someone impersonate me Why would anyone need to have the same name as you to impersonate you? They just have to say "I am toddm!", and the internet will generally accept it.

The point is that since there's ~nobody with his first/last name combo people will assume it was him. Whereas if there were many people with his first/last name combo he'd have a default defense (it wasn't me). In fact he wouldn't have to defend at all since whoever does a background check would immediately see that there are multiple people by that name.

Sure, but that's just a simple case of mistaken identity. Impersonation is deliberately pretending to be someone. The uniqueness of your name doesn't help at all then.

Re: Ask HN: Pros and cons of thinking in public vs. in private?

#145

Post by BlueTemplar »

_8j50 wrote: post #104

If you're serious, you should blog and anonymously too if you can. Most of my thoughts are private for reasons you will see below, but then I get the most benefit of being educated and corrected by others when discussing publicly. Thinking critically (as opposed to just stating what goes in your head) and openly means you will upset people. You will come off wrong in many contexts when participating in discussions as…

These people are basically throwing insults at you. Ignore these fools and report them to moderation.

Re: Ask HN: Pros and cons of thinking in public vs. in private?

#147

Post by Tomte »

seba_dos1 wrote: post #119
sandkoan wrote: post #79

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There might be a reason for that: https://nautil.us/issue/47/consciousness/the-kekul-problem .

Fascinating article, but I'm surprised at how non-relatable it is to me in some places where it clearly was supposed to be. For example: > We can see this in dreams. Those disturbing dreams which wake us from sleep are purely graphic. No one speaks. Either I'm misunderstanding something, or that's not what I have (ever?) experienced. My dreams (and nightmares) are stories; people talk to me and I talk to people there…

> Can anyone really recall a picture "in its entirety"?

It seems many (most?) people can. I cannot, either. Look up "aphantasia".

Re: Ask HN: Pros and cons of thinking in public vs. in private?

#148

Post by maxbond »

ponow wrote: post #138
madamelic wrote: post #92

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think you are falling into the same problem as Damore did. You are thinking people are digesting the whole article like a research paper rather than considering small bits, just the title, or even second-hand summaries. Saying "women make bad engineers" is inflammatory and incorrect. That's the sentiment people quickly parse because basically "tl;dr". Saying "the educational system and society in general sets the s…

You didn't even read his paper, got him wrong, and yet you dismiss him. You're exhibiting the very trait that caused the injustice against him. After having studied that paper, look in the mirror and ask whether what he wrote was so unconscionable to require the wrath he endured.

I did read it, that is more or less what he said. He used a lot more words to say it, not a lot more nuance.

Looking in the mirror, I don't like people's livelihoods getting ruined, but I'm not interested in extending much sympathy for someone who stuck his neck out in the name of sexism (regardless of how vehemently he denies doing so, while yanno, saying a bunch of sexist stuff). Pretty clear from the document he knew how inflammatory it was. He made up his mind to die on some hill, whatchagunnuhdo. It's healthier for the industry that people like that aren't in senior roles where they can gatekeep women's careers, anyhow.

At a micro scale, when I say something on HN I know people aren't going to like, I don't clutch my pearls when it gets downvoted. If I think something is true but unpopular, I'll say it and accept the obvious consequences.

Re: Ask HN: Pros and cons of thinking in public vs. in private?

#149

Post by npteljes »

rTX5CMRXIfFG wrote: post #141
npteljes wrote: post #136

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>No self-censorship. You don't have to cater to anybody's liking of whatever your thoughts are. You don't need to win anybody's approval, and this allows for the brewing of fresh and pure thoughts. This one is not true. There are internal mechanisms that filter thoughts, for example, what Freud called the Superego. People limit their inner thoughts in a variety of ways, for example, by developing morality, by which t…

And this is why the commenter has bulletpoint number 1. I think that what he really meant here is that while a myriad of factors orient our thinking in certain ways, thinking in private allows you to digress from those patterns and explore edge cases without another person’s judgment. I frequent HN more than I should, and honestly, pretty much all comment trees follow the same pattern of moving goalposts or making pe…

I wrote about this because it was a revelation to me, and to an extent it still is, as I shine light on things in myself that were previously blind spots. I think it's very useful to know the limits of our ability to reflect, because it enables a higher quality of life, explains a good bunch of things around us, and makes us more resilient to manipulation.

Edit: Regarding the quality of comments, I think what you find is that comments are written by people. Different entities, all working to their own goal. I personally value HN the most, Reddit for fun, and Facebook and such are just cesspools really, if you look at high traffic, public discussions.

Re: Ask HN: Pros and cons of thinking in public vs. in private?

#150

Post by jhunter1016 »

I talk about “thinking in public” from a leadership and knowledge sharing perspective within an organization, so this might not be the same angle the OP is considering or asking about. But in a heavily remote world, messaging apps hold the vast majority of our knowledge. It may not be the best model, but it is the dominant one. If the info is there, these apps become powerful knowledge databases for those who know how to use them. If the info is there, company direction and strategy can more easily be understood by a wider audience than just the upper level executives and managers.

I give some specific examples in this blog post I wrote late last year: https://www.polluterofminds.com/thinking-in-public/

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