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‘Strong Opinions, Weakly Held’ Doesn't Work That Well

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Re: ‘Strong Opinions, Weakly Held’ Doesn't Work That Well

#141

Post by travisjungroth »

WhompingWindows wrote: post #132
jrockway wrote: post #77

> this is not how the human brain works To some extent, to succeed in the modern world, you have to override your instincts with a thought-out response to things. Whatever heuristics we've built up over thousands of years are interesting, but some of them don't apply anymore. (If you were a prehistoric human and you encountered a beehive, you'd eat all the honey. But now you can get hundreds of beehives worth of hone…

Bee Facts: You don't get hundreds of beehives worth of honey from a trip to the store. Hives typically produce multiple liters in a single summer. Last summer, our Hive made around 3 liters and there was enough for all the family to have their own jar. Many apiarists have multiple hives and a group of 10 hives could fill the grocery's honey section in September.

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Re: ‘Strong Opinions, Weakly Held’ Doesn't Work That Well

#142

Post by gklefnbkon »

Strong Opinions Weakly Held, sounds reasonable in theory. In practice, it means Always act like your right, until you change your mind, then pretend like you always held the other view all along. At least that's how I see it used on this site, whenever people praise Steve Jobs, Linus Torvalds, etc, for being dismissive and rude.

Yes, leaders have to make bold choices, and they can't waffle. But that doesn't require you to be rude to others, or to act like you're always right. It doesn't require you to take a confrontational style to discussion, where you assert your beliefs loudly and expect others to fight you on it.

Can we just admit that for some people on this site, technology and entrepreneurship plays into a power fantasy?

Re: ‘Strong Opinions, Weakly Held’ Doesn't Work That Well

#143

Post by lambdatronics »

godelski wrote: post #83
lambdatronics wrote: post #74

My take on "strong opinions, weakly held:" It's about combating your own confirmation bias by being willing to do the work of re-examining your conclusions in the light of new evidence. It's hard to do b/c we get emotionally invested, and also because once you make a conclusion an assumption, it becomes implicit & fades into the background -- so it's harder to question. On the flip side, it's also about trusting your…

Honestly I DON'T trust my own reasoning. I can do this adversarial process as described in this article on my own, but that's incomplete. People outside of me have information and ways to view things that I don't. Others work as a discriminator and you update your opinions and views as more information comes in and challenges your own ideas. But it is because I don't trust my own reasoning that I read textbooks, seek…

I would include other people's arguments as part of the evidence that's needing to be evaluated -- others' arguments come to me not as "X therefore Y" but as "Dave says that X therefore Y." I still have to do my own reasoning: is Dave credible enough that I should spend time thinking about what he said? Is X true? Does Y always follow from X?

In the end, I still have to trust my own reasoning, instead of taking it on faith that Dave is right. But, as you say, maybe Dave's a good source of arguments & should be consulted often -- just not as an oracle.

Re: ‘Strong Opinions, Weakly Held’ Doesn't Work That Well

#144

Post by gklefnbkon »

jermier wrote: post #127

I do this on Hackernews sometimes. I just state my opinion, however weakly held, and wait for it to be torn apart, where I learn a lot, and all my biases are revealed to me. That's how learning works: you challenge your own assumptions, or let your assumptions to be challenged by others.

That does work to educate you, but has the side effect of distorting the discussion here. For instance, I'll see a bunch of comments recommending a particular approach for writing software. I might come away thinking most of HN approves of that approach, and so there must be something to it. But what if all those comments are just people trying out the idea, in hopes that other people will tear it apart?

I don't think there's anything wrong with qualifying your opinions. You can still get people to challenge you on them. Isn't that why people start their sentences with "for sake of argument" or "playing devils advocate"?

Re: ‘Strong Opinions, Weakly Held’ Doesn't Work That Well

#145

Post by lambdatronics »

zimpenfish wrote: post #101
godelski wrote: post #83

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Honestly I DON'T trust my own reasoning. I can do this adversarial process as described in this article on my own, but that's incomplete. People outside of me have information and ways to view things that I don't. Others work as a discriminator and you update your opinions and views as more information comes in and challenges your own ideas. But it is because I don't trust my own reasoning that I read textbooks, seek…

> Honestly I DON'T trust my own reasoning. I have this and it's a real problem for software development because everyone expects a senior to be gung-ho about their solutions and perfectly confident. Whereas I'm always asking for second and third opinions about things and people (largely management but occasionally other developers) view that negatively.

Consensus decision-making has its place, but not when it delays simple decisions or acts as a way to diffuse responsibility. Can you decypher whether your second-guessing is coming from an emotional or a rational place within yourself?

Re: ‘Strong Opinions, Weakly Held’ Doesn't Work That Well

#146

Post by zimpenfish »

lambdatronics wrote: post #145
zimpenfish wrote: post #101

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Honestly I DON'T trust my own reasoning. I have this and it's a real problem for software development because everyone expects a senior to be gung-ho about their solutions and perfectly confident. Whereas I'm always asking for second and third opinions about things and people (largely management but occasionally other developers) view that negatively.

Consensus decision-making has its place, but not when it delays simple decisions or acts as a way to diffuse responsibility. Can you decypher whether your second-guessing is coming from an emotional or a rational place within yourself?

> whether your second-guessing is coming from an emotional or a rational place within yourself?

I'd say it was rational because I know full well I've made some howlers over the decades and a lot of them could have been avoided with a second (or third) pair of eyes.

Re: ‘Strong Opinions, Weakly Held’ Doesn't Work That Well

#147

Post by zimpenfish »

blaser-waffle wrote: post #126
q3k wrote: post #110

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think this might be due to a difference in optics. What you see as 'asking for a second or third opinion' might be seen by others as lack of independence, leadership and ownership. Mostly everywhere senior developers are expected to self-manage and make difficult decisions on their own, unprompted, and just present working solutions to the business. It's okay to take time on this - solving it on your own, consultin…

I agree with this. Even if you as an engineer aren't 100% sure, sign-offs from other groups or extra opinions are something for a project manager or product manager to fish around for. There are some optics to consider there too -- e.g. the implication that the PM things you're a fool -- but having them fish around for buy-in and alternatives sells better than you doing it -- it makes you look weak or unprepared. Con…

> sign-offs from other groups or extra opinions are something for a project manager or product manager to fish around for

Not always possible - my current gig, for example, has neither project manager nor product manager.

Re: ‘Strong Opinions, Weakly Held’ Doesn't Work That Well

#148

Post by zimpenfish »

q3k wrote: post #110
zimpenfish wrote: post #101

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Honestly I DON'T trust my own reasoning. I have this and it's a real problem for software development because everyone expects a senior to be gung-ho about their solutions and perfectly confident. Whereas I'm always asking for second and third opinions about things and people (largely management but occasionally other developers) view that negatively.

I think this might be due to a difference in optics. What you see as 'asking for a second or third opinion' might be seen by others as lack of independence, leadership and ownership. Mostly everywhere senior developers are expected to self-manage and make difficult decisions on their own, unprompted, and just present working solutions to the business. It's okay to take time on this - solving it on your own, consultin…

> What you see as 'asking for a second or third opinion' might be seen by others as lack of independence, leadership and ownership.

Is somewhat in conflict with

> It's okay to take time on this [...] consulting peers.

> But looping in management into technical decision making

Note that I did not say at all that I was looping in management.

Re: ‘Strong Opinions, Weakly Held’ Doesn't Work That Well

#149

Post by austincheney »

zbentley wrote: post #118
austincheney wrote: post #79

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I have found that in software that is wrong. If you want to succeed in software you need to do what is most popular which largely follows innate human behavior. Unlike many other professions there is no licensing, accredidation, or common ethic which means there is no standard baseline of competence. This is visually explained when thinking about the difference between success and capability and then viewing that dif…

> If you want to succeed in software you need to do what is most popular which largely follows innate human behavior I totally disagree. Many of the most valuable, respected, and successful software engineers I've encountered have evinced deep distrust of what is currently popular in the field. Their avoidance of (and advocacy for continued avoidance of) new/trendy software fads, particularly on the frontend, enabled…

> Their avoidance of (and advocacy for continued avoidance of) new/trendy software fads, particularly on the frontend, enabled excellent engineering

I absolutely agree with that. You are describing an expert, which is not likely somebody successful or respected, particularly with regard to their front-end web technology peers. Expertise is not frequently revered by other developers, particularly when compared with compatibility. That distinction is even more evident when applying for jobs at other locations.

Re: ‘Strong Opinions, Weakly Held’ Doesn't Work That Well

#150

Post by karmakaze »

The best way I can see this play out is with development. At the start you might have an intuition but there could be several good contenders for direction. Instead of talk/paper analyze them all pick one, any one and move forward as if you'd picked the right one. Along the way look for signs that perhaps this isn't the best or even second best choice. Keep going anyway until you have a clear idea as to what's wrong, at which point you should know which direction is better and what to change to go that way.

It closely follows ship early ship often. These are not hard things to do just takes some practice and being honest. Just don't tie any personal stakes to the initial direction.

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