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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?

#81

Post by mschoeffler »

taeric wrote: post #14
edent wrote: post #11

The biggest con is that sometimes you'll be wrong. Embarrassingly so. It might be a prediction that was duff, a solution that was non-optimal, or an opinion that's so far out of mainstream it warns people off you. The best way to manage that is to show people in private before you publish. That can be as simple as having a friend or partner check your spelling. Or it can be as complex as getting several people to sen…

I do wish more folks were both fearless to be hilariously wrong, and that folks allowed it more. Instead, everything has to feel well rehearsed. It is exhausting to try and emulate. :(

This ability to be wrong is essential and so so rare. There's almost nobody who's infallible, but plenty appear that way. In reality, they care more about never appearing wrong and therefore edit and censor themselves until they're only speaking on subjects where they can't possibly err.

The rest of us pick up on this and sense the plastic shell. Worse, by never risking, they never excel in the way they could.

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

#82

Post by baby »

Depends what your medium is, and if it’s close to your work. I post on my blog, youtube, twitter, have a podcast, etc. in my field and I’d say…

Pros:

- super helpful to get a job

- great to create an audience if, like me, you need it later to promote a project. my book (real world cryptography) wouldn’t have had so much success if I hadn’t started blogging and tweeting years before even starting writing

- great for “quick thoughts and planting seeds”. You have no idea how much of your thoughts and learnings can actually help people. All the small realizations and things you learn can easily be small blogposts or tweets or podcast eps

- meeting people. If people know you its easier to get to talk to some people, or get invited in working groups or conferences or …

- get accepted at conferences, or for teaching a course, or for writing a book, etc.

- people listen to you. It’s easy to have your voice be drowned in the noise, but when you have a platform people are listening to what you have to say and that’s a great feeling

- some jobs might like the fact that you can be an “influencer”

- it forces you to analyze how you’re expressing yourself and communicating. And this is the best way to improve at these things (and they are extremely valuable skills at work and outside of work)

- people can correct you. When you write wrong things people will often correct you and you’ll learn a lot more than if you had kept your learnings all to yourself

Cons:

- it’s easy to make enemies. The more you share the more you’ll offend. And in these days and age careful if you tweet while under the influence ;) you can get cancelled

- it can get depressing. The whole 24/7 tweeting scene.

- it’s not rewarding for years of work. A blog can only take off after blogging for many many years, and consistently

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

#83

Post by mschoeffler »

Baeocystin wrote: post #18

I can't say it never happens, but I find it hard to imagine thinking in public to be a net benefit. Who you accept feedback from matters , and the reactionary frothers that are just there to screech outnumber everyone else in terms of posting volume. The Socratic method requires a good-faith, cooperative approach in the participants, and that just doesn't happen on modern fora without strong moderation, which is a fu…

It's possible to avoid the froth - and get the right who. Imagine what could happen if you didn't have to deal with screech.

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

#84

Post by baby »

taeric wrote: post #14
edent wrote: post #11

The biggest con is that sometimes you'll be wrong. Embarrassingly so. It might be a prediction that was duff, a solution that was non-optimal, or an opinion that's so far out of mainstream it warns people off you. The best way to manage that is to show people in private before you publish. That can be as simple as having a friend or partner check your spelling. Or it can be as complex as getting several people to sen…

I do wish more folks were both fearless to be hilariously wrong, and that folks allowed it more. Instead, everything has to feel well rehearsed. It is exhausting to try and emulate. :(

I made it a point that every time I feel like I might be embarrassed writing something because I clearly should already know about it, or it’s too easy and everyone already knows about it, then I’ll write it nonetheless

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

#85

Post by baby »

pyth0 wrote: post #25
taeric wrote: post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I do wish more folks were both fearless to be hilariously wrong, and that folks allowed it more. Instead, everything has to feel well rehearsed. It is exhausting to try and emulate. :(

I believe that a lot people are quite comfortable in being hilariously wrong, look at any modern political discourse, but the problem in my mind is that people aren't equally prepared to self-reflect and admit fault or reconsider a position. At the same time though, I do find myself often times at work qualifying things with "I think" or similar phrasing, and I'm still not sure if I do it to avoid embarrassment or if…

Yeah, being at ease with the possibility of being wrong (and not letting that prevent you from expressing yourself) + having the skill to admit and recognize when you’re wrong are two great qualities in combination. Only have one of them and you’re either a politician or you’re dumb (you’re always wrong lol)

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

#86

Post by mschoeffler »

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…

PG makes the case for speaking openly, but ultimately opts for cowardice in avoiding these conversations. I don't mean "cowardice" as a bad choice, but a reaction against the negatives of speaking out against the anti-yellowists.

Suppose you could speak out without cost. What then?

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

#88

Post by marginalia_nu »

hugs_vs_toph wrote: post #27
blowski wrote: post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Some of my HN comments will simultaneously have only very critical replies and lots of upvotes. It’s hard to interpret that.

It means you are popular with the plebs while smart people disagree with you.

I'll frequently upvote something I disagree with because it's interesting.

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

#89

Post by Sophistifunk »

Unless you want feedback, attention, or are trying to build public credibility, there are no benefits and many risks, in a world of shifting goalposts, infinite recall, and constant attempts to hold people in the past accountable to the moral standards of today.

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

#90

Post by patrick451 »

rainsford wrote: post #80
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.

Maybe I'm thinking about this wrong, but getting a lot of angry feedback from what you consider to be axiomatic truths seems like a useful benefit to thinking in public. Lots of topics might attract the occasional troll or disagreement from certain corners, but when your thinking regularly draws the kind of widespread condemnation I suspect you're talking about, a reasonable person might consider how "probably true"…

That engineer wasn't wrong though, he just said the wrongthink out loud. Just because there is blowback to some opinion you hold has zero bearing on whether or not it is correct. The evolution of fashionable opinion through history should be enough to disabuse even the casual observer of such silliness.
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