211–220 of 874 posts
That really depends. Tesla and Amazon stock are widely followed and have optimistic projections yet continue to deliver massive shareholder returns.
Conventional thinkers are better at concentrating capital because they want what everyone else wants - This allows certain things to become and remain highly overvalued or undervalued. Conventional thinkers have a sense of value which is grounded mostly in social approval/reinforcement; their sense of value is mostly detached from any underlying utility.
Independent thinkers are better at innovating since they don't value social approval/reinforcement and so they are more capable at identifying real utility value.
The problem today is that there are many conventional thinkers and they have been reinforcing each other's arbitrary decisions (not rooted in utility). This arbitrariness which is only rooted in social convention has been terrible for independent thinkers. Independent thinkers have been competing with large groups of conventional thinkers; on a ratio of maybe 1 to 100 or worse.
A lone genius is no match for hundreds of fools. History has demonstrated this time and time again. Socrates, Galileo... Successfully persecuted for being independent thinkers. It doesn't matter that they were right.
Our society just seems to be breeding conventional thinkers by the millions.
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 outsi…
He knows exactly the kind of backlash he will receive and is prompting you for it intentionally. He's not writing for you or to you, and he cares not a whit what you think.
He's writing to and for people like him, trying to help them put words and clear thought to vague understandings and apprehensions they've been wrestling with.
He's not self-aggrandizing but student-aggrandizing, as the headmaster of a school of thought that he values deeply. If you hate the headmaster or his style or the school of thought, that's wonderful, but it's not at all relevant to his aims. I hope this sheds some light on the bigger picture for those unaware.
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…
Honestly, this is a good thing. Don't talk to these people. Over time I've found friends that I can discuss rationally with about many of their disparate experiences, them being from various races, genders, nationalities, and other such factors.
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…
I dunno how true this is. I think it is more because it signals above average IQ although I think conformity may play a role too.
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 outsi…
If your first reaction reading this essay is "PG is trying to big himself up as an independent thinker", that tells me more about your attitude and mental state than about PG.
Forgive the cliche, but "great minds discuss ideas, average minds discuss events, small minds discuss people" is a decent heuristic, with good reason. Once you start seeing attempts to communicate as status contests automatically, you're not in a useful frame of mind for rational discourse any more.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
While this activity can be useful, I think it is simultaneously at the root of many of our social problems today. You cannot ask this question about literally everything. Well, you can, but you'll end up questioning things that are universally accepted (Which way is North? Is gasoline flammable?). So naturally you dial it back, and you ask questions only about things that seem wrong, or that you particularly care abo…
> that means less independent thinking, paradoxically. This is indeed the paradox of our times. An accelerated technology shift (the global computer network) has generated large amounts of people who are rationally self-reliant to a fault, since they are either the only ones in their social circles who understand the new tech or the only ones who can spend a lot of time reading stuff from the internet. This cult of "…
Find a way to get rationalists out of believing that these examples are an accurate representation of the beliefs of the conspiracy world in general, and you may be well on your way to a universal solution. But watch out for that first step, it's a doozy.
This essay provides a lot of the necessary advice to accomplish such a thing, but I suspect one must actually possess sufficient unconventionality to exercise it, not just perceive oneself to possess it.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
I also often notice a self-serving conclusion that you should quit your comfy corporate job (and perhaps create a startup?). In this particular essay, it's close to the bottom: "Is there a way to cultivate curiosity? To start with, you want to avoid situations that suppress it. How much does the work you're currently doing engage your curiosity? If the answer is "not much," maybe you should change something."
> you should quit your comfy corporate job (and perhaps create a startup That's not what he's saying. That's just one possible interpretation of it. You could also keep the job and pick up an interesting hobby, or just change jobs. It's not like it's bad advice only given out to serve his own interests. It's actually obvious sounding advice. If you notice this often, maybe it's because in an essay that long, there wi…
That why I put "perhaps" in my characterisation of what he's saying - even if 0.1% of people decide that the solution to them "not thinking for themselves" is to create a startup, pg comes out ahead.
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 outsi…
Disagree. This sounds a bit harsh, nitpicking at one instance of a class. Go back and read all his essays. You'll learn more than if you got your MBA. (I know. I've done both.) Believe me, I'm not PG fan boy, but he doesn't have to do this and I hope he never stops.