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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?

#61

Post by contravariant »

kuhewa wrote: post #55

Cons of private thinking — I've spent multiple days on mocking up and deciding on the best version of one element of a project. Only to spend 45 seconds describing the issue out loud, dialectically in a tea room conversation, to realise there is a very obvious and simple decision and I had been overlooking the proverbial forest for the trees. It wasn't pointed out to me by my collocutor, just the act of organising th…

The real question there is whether you could still have hit upon the solution without thinking about it privately first.

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

#62

Post by nicbou »

In the last 12 months, I have met half a dozen people because of my public work. They just reached out by email and we had drinks. I still see most of them.

On the other hand, I don’t like the information asymmetry, especially with regards to hostile, anonymous people. If you’re on the business end of the internet hate machine, you don’t want to give them any ammo.

In meatspace, the possibility of getting punched in the face keeps everyone in check. The internet has no such moderation mechanism. It makes it hard to be open and genuine, because people can come at you with disproportionate hostility and face no consequences. Criticism is often harsh and pointlessly mean.

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

#63

Post by nicbou »

virissimo wrote: post #59
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. 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.

You can’t prevent yourself from speaking in your sleep. That’s how they get you.

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

#65

Post by dinkumthinkum »

ngcc_hk wrote: post #57

There is no private language. Hence you can only think in the public. You may say degree of interaction is less say on social media. But that is degree. Ultimately your action and some interaction tell your story. But the key is not your story. As said the electricity is the message. The public is your thinking. You might contribute to it. That is all. There is no escape to private sphere. All the above is bull s.

Can you explain what that means to regular people?

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

#66

Post by heavyset_go »

Other people have hit the pros, but I'll reiterate a con about public content:

- If your content is good and is about something that hasn't been written about in public before, expect to be plagiarized.

I've been surprised at the people and publications who have no problem copy and pasting some of my content and passing it off as their own "research".

Sometimes authors will realize their mistake, apologize, give a proper citation or use their own content. I don't think people like that are out to plagiarize, I think it can be easy to be swamped with work/academics/literal research and confuse what you've read with your own "research" without giving it much thought.

However, it looks like there are actual businesses based on republishing articles other people have written, that will take others' content and copy and paste it into new related articles without citations. I've contacted two and heard nothing back from them, even tried to reach out to the authors of the articles that were published and nothing. All I wanted was a citation.

They're counting on original authors not knowing the plagiarized content exists, not knowing their rights and not filing DMCA takedown requests or having lawyer send them C&D notices.

So yeah, go into this knowing that you won't get paid and people will be paid to plagiarize what you've written.

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

#67

Post by dinkumthinkum »

poszlem wrote: post #50

Some downsides of thinking in public: * Huge potential for audience capture ( https://twitter.com/EricRWeinstein/status/134792427167943065... ) if you have an audience * Huge potential for self-censorship, unless you only "think" about "the correct things" * Huge potential for getting a lot of negative, unconstructive feedback * Huge potential for getting taken out of context (you wrote something for your audience, b…

I am inclined to agree with you. But, it seems like there are people that we derive benefit from doing this in public and don’t care about the potential consequences. I think these people are really outliers and your advice makes sense for most people. It could also be that those that are successful at it are not all really “thinking in public” but are still curating their messaging (though, it be sure, sone are not).

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

#68

Post by nicbou »

andirk wrote: post #43
tlb wrote: post #2

There are quite a few things that are probably true, but you can't say publicly without attracting a lot of unwanted angry attention. If your line of thinking approaches any of these topics, it makes it difficult to think through the issue in public.

This is where a lot of voices on Twitter feel they're being marginalized because their hate speech isn't accepted which is odd to them because in private, it is accepted. Similarly, saying "Joe Rogan" in certain holier-than-thou circles will get you banished. Point is that public discourse is often policed by the most offensive and the most sensitive, but still speak your mind, and always with respect to those in the…

If you criticise someone for liking Joe Rogan, you have to explain why and convince them. You can’t dunk on them and get cheered by your side automatically. You have to deal with the other person’s perception of you, and listen to their rebuttal. This makes people a lot less intense.

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

#69

Post by heavyset_go »

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…

Regarding you last point, I've only found a few people with the same name as mine, but one of them keeps getting arrested for awful things and having articles written about them.

It hasn't caused an issue that I know about yet, but it does kind of make me worry. Some SEO has made search results better, though.

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