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Keep your Identity Small (2009)

paulgraham.com

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Re: Keep your Identity Small (2009)

#71

Post by kelnos »

duncanawoods wrote: post #42
js2 wrote: post #32

I’m reminded of “Strong Opinons, Weakly Held”: I’ve been pretty obsessed about the difference between smart people and wise people for years. I tried to write a book called “The Attitude of Wisdom” a couple times. And the virtues of wise people – those who have the courage to act on their knowledge, but the humility to doubt what they know – is one of the main themes in Hard Facts. We show how leaders including Xerox…

I've always been troubled by this because it seems to excuse poor behaviour i.e. - "strong opinion" - the opinion is asserted aggressively and without tact - "weakly held" - there is little justification for the opinion and it will be abandoned under pressure and on a whim Sutton seems to want Strong to mean something about "attracting energy" as if Strong means "intentionally provocative" but it really isn't clear t…

I think it's phrased that way to emphasize the -- perhaps unintuitive -- dichotomy, not to suggest that people be tactless or thoughtless. The way I (admittedly not British) read it is:

- "strong opinion" - I've thought about this a lot and it seems reasonable and justifiable enough to base my actions on it.

- "weakly held" - I recognize that I'm not a perfect being and can discard my opinions if I come across new, convincing evidence that contradicts them.

The main difference I think is avoiding equating "strong" with "brutish" and "weak" with "pushover". I think when those terms are applied to people that's how we think of them, but they just mean very different things in an academic/intellectual context.

Re: Keep your Identity Small (2009)

#72

Post by kelnos »

tensor_rank_0 wrote: post #41
7dare wrote: post #36

Earlier quoted context omitted.

But apparently fear of extinction doesn't lead people to leave their cars at home or to waste less... Seems like the only reactions these fears cause are misguided and radical ones.

there is a prisoner's dilemma type of effect here where, when other people are "defecting" (wasting fossil fuels and packaging), it's rational for the individual to defect as well.

I don't get that, though: there's little to no penalty in this case to avoid "defecting". Things may cost a little more for you, but it's not nearly as drastic or dire as the expected outcome in the actual prisoner's dilemma if you don't defect.

Re: Keep your Identity Small (2009)

#73

Post by sergeyfilippov »

> Politics, like religion, is a topic where there's no threshold of expertise for expressing an opinion. All you need is strong convictions.

I like how in this context it sounds obviously flawed, and yet, funny enough, we still have no better political system than for everyone to express their opinion and then count them — no expertise required

Re: Keep your Identity Small (2009)

#74

Post by unscaled »

madez wrote: post #46
adjkant wrote: post #3

> As a rule, any mention of religion on an online forum degenerates into a religious argument. Why? Why does this happen with religion and not with Javascript or baking or other topics people talk about on forums? Javascript has aged up I think!

Richard Stallman is warning of the dangers of JavaScript since at least 2009 [0]. That is about 9 years ago. [0] https://lwn.net/Articles/324835/

He didn't have any bone to pick with the language _per se_, but rather with the inability to easily replace an app running in the browser with a modified version, even though the license allows you to do so. It was arguably a lot easier to modify scripts in place in 2009 with tools like Proxomitron or extensions like Greasemonkey, but modern complex SPAs made that harder.

It's a reasonable argument against JS in the browser, but it's not what actually bothers the vast majority of the detractors of JS. They hate the language itself and the rapidly changing Node.js ecosystem. RMS wouldn't have any issue with Node.js apps, since it's dead simple to modify and replace a free app there.

Re: Keep your Identity Small (2009)

#76

Post by mirimir »

I do my best to avoid believing in anything. That is, I have working hypotheses, more or less well-tested, but always open to revision based on new data. I do have principles and values that are essentially freely chosen. But even those are subject to revision. I strive for what works.

That approach rather precludes religion. Because most religions are explicitly untestable.

Re: Keep your Identity Small (2009)

#77

Post by dalbasal »

madacoo wrote: post #66

I wonder if it would be sufficient to restrict nouns that you use to assert your identity to those which can be 'verbified': I am a juggler because I juggle; I am a programmer because I program; I am a writer because I write. Those particular nouns seem to be inherently less likely to cause partisan behaviour that nouns that can't be as easily 'verbified': I am British because I Brit; I am not Christian because I don…

...I think identity in this context is largely the "I am a" form.

I'm a giggler is identity. I juggle, or even I am the juggler is not the same sort of a mark of Identity. So I'd say the advice is is avoid (or at.least recognize and minimize)) thinking in the "I am a" frame.

Re: Keep your Identity Small (2009)

#78

Post by dorkwood »

joelrunyon wrote: post #59
dorkwood wrote: post #56

I'd argue for the opposite: growing your identity beyond a single thing. If someone sees themselves as a waiter and nothing else, they're more likely to feel injured by someone saying that a waiter is a dead-end job, because the majority of their identity just took a heavy blow. But if they instead see themselves as a waiter, a gardener, a musician, and a reader, they'll be less affected when one of those things is a…

> But if they instead see themselves as a waiter, a gardener, a musician, and a reader, they'll be less affected when one of those things is attacked. I think what you see in reality (at least these days) is that if ANY of the downsides to any of the identities are pointed out, you'll see people rush to have to defend it. Also, I believe attaching your identity to being a waiter would be doing the opposite of what PG…

What is his suggestion, though, exactly? For a waiter to not consider 'being a waiter' as part of his identity? If we're talking about reality, that strikes me as a fairly unrealistic ask, especially if it's all the waiter does.

And I can only really speak from my personal experience. Having a diverse range of interests has given me a protective barrier that I didn't have when I was younger. When I was a teenager, for example, I didn't really have any skills except for "being good with computers". If someone (usually an older person) ever disparaged that, it destroyed me. I'd stew in anger and want to retaliate -- I can still remember. As I grew up, I diversified my interests. I got good at other things, too. Computers are now only a piece of my identity instead of the whole, and it's made me a lot less insecure.

Re: Keep your Identity Small (2009)

#79

Post by philwelch »

dorkwood wrote: post #56

I'd argue for the opposite: growing your identity beyond a single thing. If someone sees themselves as a waiter and nothing else, they're more likely to feel injured by someone saying that a waiter is a dead-end job, because the majority of their identity just took a heavy blow. But if they instead see themselves as a waiter, a gardener, a musician, and a reader, they'll be less affected when one of those things is a…

The trick is not to see yourself as a waiter even if you have a job waiting tables.
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