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How to Think for Yourself

paulgraham.com

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Re: How to Think for Yourself

#131

Post by baron_harkonnen »

PG sure has been on a kick about how brilliant of an independent thinker he is in a sea of conformity.

It's clear in all of his writing that he's perpetually beating around the bush about some current itch he has, I wish he would just come out and say it with out pretending to be a deep thinker:

> Do you want to do the kind of work where you can only win by thinking differently from everyone else?

I mean, taken outside of this being a PG essay I would assume this means stay away from SV, but I suspect that's not really the point.

> One of the most effective techniques is one practiced unintentionally by most nerds: simply to be less aware what conventional beliefs are.

This essay is an object lesson in how this leads to profoundly conventional thinking. This entire thing reads like it was torn from the journal of a clever middle-schooler who thinks he's so much more clever then the world.

Right now Silicon Valley VC thinking is the dominant ideology, putting blinders on to what is considered convention isn't cultivating an independent mind, it's an assertion of the status quo.

> An essay that told people things they already knew would be boring.

I agree, but given how beloved rehashed versions of "aren't we the clever independent thinkers!" essays are here I think there is some empirical evidence to the contrary.

Re: How to Think for Yourself

#132

Post by juped »

amadeuspagel wrote: post #50

Like many of pg's essays there's an unqualified glorification of being independent. For example the suggestion that hiring conformist people is something that just happens. It seems more likely that companies more or less consciously hire such people, because a company where everyone thinks independently would be one where everyone wants to do something different, and nothing would get done, no one could agree on any…

And certainly, Graham's YC became mostly a finishing school for elite-college grads. The nonconformism talk is easier than the walk.

Re: How to Think for Yourself

#133

Post by jimbokun »

rewtraw wrote: post #125
edw519 wrote: post #98

Another place where the independent- and conventional-minded are thrown together is in successful startups. The founders and early employees are almost always independent-minded; otherwise the startup wouldn't be successful. But conventional-minded people greatly outnumber independent-minded ones, so as the company grows, the original spirit of independent-mindedness is inevitably diluted. This causes all kinds of pr…

Subreddits seem to somewhat solve this by spinning off once they hit that level of dilution (low effort content, memes, repeated questions). The 'serious' members will create a new subreddit (i.e. /r/movies > /r/TrueFilm) in order to shake off the casual members and return the discussion to its roots. It's not perfect, but the subreddit design has definitely given Reddit more longevity since you can rotate your membe…

It also allows, almost encourages, to people to find echo chambers of very like-minded people. Each subreddit has it's own version of conventional-mindedness, and is resistant to anyone saying anything outside those boundaries.

Re: How to Think for Yourself

#134

Post by tingol »

postingpals wrote: post #118

In many ways this is just an extension of his 4 quadrants of conformism essay, so I'll argue with it using ideas from that essay. I would argue that people vastly over estimate their degree of independent mindedness because although it's easy to be independent minded in one field, especially if it's one you have been studying for a while, it's incredibly easy to fall victim to common sheep-like mentalities about any…

Not very popular nowadays, but saying "I don't know" or "I am not informed enough" is always an option. You make it out as if you have to have a perfectly individual and informed opinion on everything there is which is pretty much impossible.

Re: How to Think for Yourself

#135

Post by 9387367 »

sct202 wrote: post #121
goto11 wrote: post #88

Fun observation that everybody in this community consider it positive to be "independent minded". But the author seem to fall into the same trap at the end: When I wrote "The Four Quadrants of Conformism" I expected a firestorm of rage from the aggressively conventional-minded, but in fact it was quite muted. They sensed that there was something about the essay that they disliked intensely, but they had a hard time f…

I don't think this community is unique in the number of people who believe themselves to be independently minded. I can't recall the last time someone has told me they are a conformist compared to the number of times I've heard someone describe themselves as an independent out of the box thinker.

"Everyone is an independent thinker until they get punched in the prefrontal cortex”

Re: How to Think for Yourself

#136

Post by jackcosgrove »

dijit wrote: post #39

So, I might have a controversial opinion here. My mother raised me to think for myself, it was a heavy emphasis of my upbringing and important for her. However I'm now in situations where the world is divided and asking questions (in order to make my own mind up) is considered some kind of admission of guilt for being part of the "other". For example: Asking someone why they think immigration is good/bad. If it's a b…

> Thinking for yourself is overrated as society is not built for it if you want to fit in.

I agree that if you want to fit in, thinking for yourself is counterproductive. But I also think society has more escape hatches for unconventionally minded people than it ever has, and if you don't care about fitting in the penalties have never been lower.

Re: How to Think for Yourself

#137

Post by 11thEarlOfMar »

Is it helpful to differentiate Discovery vs. Invention?

When a scientist discovers a physical behavior, or a oceanographer a new species, it's a discovery that others could make. The phenomena exists, they happened to find it first.

When a composer invents, they are likely creating music that no other human would have created. If they hadn't composed it, it would never have existed.

Both of these activities seem to require an independent mind to be successful. Are they related? Or fundamentally different in some way?

Re: How to Think for Yourself

#138

Post by 9387367 »

dijit wrote: post #39

So, I might have a controversial opinion here. My mother raised me to think for myself, it was a heavy emphasis of my upbringing and important for her. However I'm now in situations where the world is divided and asking questions (in order to make my own mind up) is considered some kind of admission of guilt for being part of the "other". For example: Asking someone why they think immigration is good/bad. If it's a b…

> thus it requires strenuous effort to empathise

But does it? The strenuous effort part? Empathy doesn’t require strenuous effort, it can’t be that hard to relate to the core struggles of anyone you don’t know yet, surely you’d have to be some sort of magician to empathise at the granular level even with someone that looks like you (not sure how relevant that is but seems to be important to you), comes from the same school and now lives on the same block of flat as you do, as they could have gone through life having the complete adverse experience from yous, but at the core level, as long as you’re not some sort of social anosognostic, it’s not that hard to relate to what complete strangers from obscure environments feel/want/think like.

This is easily tested by simply taking a trip to some remote place you don’t speak the language and you’ll see how quickly empathy kicks in and how soon ‘conversations’ are happening where you totally relate to what they are going through perhaps not as much as they can relate to what you’re going through you lunatic explorer of the subconscious. Then with time as you learn their language, well, fuck it, as long as you are wearing some shade of grey you will fit right in where you are right now and wear your mask.

Re: How to Think for Yourself

#139

Post by meheleventyone »

dijit wrote: post #39

So, I might have a controversial opinion here. My mother raised me to think for myself, it was a heavy emphasis of my upbringing and important for her. However I'm now in situations where the world is divided and asking questions (in order to make my own mind up) is considered some kind of admission of guilt for being part of the "other". For example: Asking someone why they think immigration is good/bad. If it's a b…

> However I'm now in situations where the world is divided and asking questions (in order to make my own mind up) is considered some kind of admission of guilt for being part of the "other".

I think this is partly because the rules or conventions that allowed rational discussion in good faith have been hacked by those acting in bad faith. The sad truth is that good faith discussion has been utterly rhetorically hijacked by things like "just asking questions" so when someone is genuinely asking questions you are assumed to be acting in bad faith. I have no idea what the answer to that is other than to find people you can trust to have these conversations with. And the danger is a lot of the people you think you can trust are just more people acting in bad faith.

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