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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?

#151

Post by jhoelzel »

I think one of the current intents of datamining is to blow the annonymity of nicknames away anyway.

The truth is that no matter how many nicknames you go by, there is a strong chance google knows anyway and therefore i treat the internet as such. By now there simply are to many markers to not be able to do this. (still guessing though)

In a not so distant world, i also see AI analysing comments and matching similar people to the point where they will be able to say "welp, these are the same people" too. Especially when i already can tell ChaptGPT to read like shakespear.

This, combined with the fact that i do use my real name with my accounts, just makes me very picky where i sign up. Places like reddit work wonderfully without accounts too.

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

#152

Post by ponow »

maxbond wrote: post #148
ponow wrote: post #138

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 k…

You had said:

> Damore said that women biologically were inferior at science, that's what I am reading second-hand so might _also_ be filtered through a lens already.

That's a confession, or totally misleading.

He stuck out his neck only to those who appeared to welcome his supported and honest interpretation of the truth, only for the standards of discussion to change. He didn't post it on the open internet. If reality has asymmetries, don't blame him for reminding us of that. For example, barely after childbirth there are group differences in interest in people vs things.

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

#153

Post by Delk »

InCityDreams wrote: post #106
virissimo wrote: post #59

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> No self-censorship. This is a very common belief, but I don't think it's strictly true. Sometimes people inadvertently speak what they're thinking, so an even surer way to prevent being punished for your ideas is to prevent yourself from even thinking them in the first place. It's a kind of defense-in-depth against wrongthink punishment and one I think most people understand intuitively.

>an even surer way to prevent being punished for your ideas is to prevent yourself from even thinking them in the first place . Genuinely intrigued: could you expand on this? I'll start by asking: is it possible to not think of something once you start thinking about it? And that realy is the best i can phrase the question at the moment.

At the more extreme end there's thought suppression: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thought_suppression

I there could be milder versions as well: catching oneself getting into thoughts that lead to something you don't want to think about and consciously divert from that. I think I recognize that.

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

#154

Post by ifyoubuildit »

maxbond wrote: post #143
burnished wrote: post #113

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 str…

> 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'm looking for any quotes. One thing that confuses the issue is that the gizmodo piece removed citations, which makes it look like this was all his original thoughts. Of course, one response to this is to then attack the cited pieces, but that's a different argument.

Anyways, I'm not here to pick up his banner and run with it. I believe that people did honestly interpret what he wrote as you have here. But I also believe that other people honestly interpreted it as not that.

Which, back to the topic of this thread, is a perfect example of the pitfalls of thinking in public. If people perceive you to be thinking the wrong things about topics that are very sensitive for them, they will react very strongly (understandably).

It's sort of like a variation on murphys law: anything you say publically that could possibly be interepreted negatively will be. And then it needs to be attacked because it might actually move the needle on some issue, whether or not the author intended it to.

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

#155

Post by SpeedilyDamage »

ponow wrote: post #139
SpeedilyDamage wrote: post #107

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is in no way true, and you can see how untrue it is by observing any popular "alt" speaker for a short period of time. In fact, explaining things is often a great way to lose credibility to large swaths of people, as you'll have become boring and confusing.

It is true, just incomplete. Preaching to the converted doesn't require this evidence and argument, but _in general_ you need that capability. If you want popularity you have to customize your pitch to the audience.

Consider for a moment how nobody here really has done any amount of evidence providing or really arguing; we’re simply stating things at one another.

I posit this is okay, as I wouldn’t trust your citation selection anyway!

Most of the internet makes a lot more sense if you stop thinking of it as a place to argue, and start thinking of it as a place to exchange ideas.

You give me an idea, and I’ll mull it over myself, research it myself, and confirm/adopt it or refute it myself.

None of this requires an argument or evidence, just the idea, and that’s how most people use the Internet.

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

#156

Post by H8crilA »

onion2k wrote: post #144
H8crilA wrote: post #133

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Fair enough, if you want to impersonate you can always add a photo to disambiguate, even a John Smith.

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

#157

Post by crackercrews »

stkdump wrote: post #135
crackercrews wrote: post #112

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> posting that he thought women were genetically inferior as software engineers. I recall that it was mostly about predisposition and preference, not ability. It was certainly spun in the way you describe, but I'm surprised to see that take here. The memo was thoroughly dissected on HN.

One could argue about the nuances between predisposition and ability of a population (half of the population). But saying that you don't expect a certain understanding of a topic on HN seems to imply that you think HN is an echochamber.

No, I thought HN was a place where this was better understood. Someone who only heard about Damore on NPR would not be well-informed. Someone who read comments on HN would know that the narrative did not do justice to the facts.

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

#158

Post by maxbond »

ponow wrote: post #152
maxbond wrote: post #148

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 k…

You had said: > Damore said that women biologically were inferior at science, that's what I am reading second-hand so might _also_ be filtered through a lens already. That's a confession, or totally misleading. He stuck out his neck only to those who appeared to welcome his supported and honest interpretation of the truth, only for the standards of discussion to change. He didn't post it on the open internet. If real…

> You had said:

Apologies, I didn't clarify I am a different person.

> He didn't post it on the open internet.

I think that's one of the reasons for the strong reaction - he said this stuff in a professional context, which is pretty inappropriate.

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

#159

Post by maxbond »

ifyoubuildit wrote: post #154
maxbond wrote: post #143

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 str…

> 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'm looking for any quotes. One thing that confuses the issue is that the gizmodo piece removed citations, which makes it look like this was all his original thoughts. Of course, one response to this is to then attack the cited pieces, but that's a different argument. Anyways, I'm not here to pick…

I don't disagree and I have had that problem before, such as in expressing business ideas that aren't fully formed to certain people best summarized as "haters" who offered unhelpful criticism and attempted to dissuade me rather than shore up the idea. Perhaps this wasn't a good example, become this isn't so much thinking on public as engaging in organizational politics, making an argument for reforms within Google.
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