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How to Think for Yourself

paulgraham.com

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Re: How to Think for Yourself

#591

Post by onemoresoop »

Yajirobe wrote: post #418
x87678r wrote: post #404

Some of my biggest regrets are doing what I thought was best when I should have done what everyone else was doing. This ranges from from not buying an overpriced house 20 years ago, to not partying at college, to following some interesting but unpopular technology. Its not all bad doing things your own way but you have to be careful about straying too much.

whats wrong with not partying in college?

Absolutely nothing but some people feel that they missed out and it remains as one of those things forever lingering in their minds. Had they done it they'd probably wished otherwise

Re: How to Think for Yourself

#592

Post by sound1 »

ChrisMarshallNY wrote: post #304
lisper wrote: post #256

> There are some kinds of work that you can't do well without thinking differently from your peers. To be a successful scientist, for example, it's not enough just to be correct. Your ideas have to be both correct and novel. As someone who once made their living as a scientist, I can tell you from firsthand experience that while this is technically correct, the conclusion PG wishes to draw from this: > One of the mos…

> Being skeptical of the conventional wisdom can be useful, but keeping yourself intentionally ignorant of it is generally a bad plan. I can vouch for that. I write software, but my original training was as an EE. My software development methodology was almost entirely self-taught. This has been both good and bad. I will sometimes come up with some really interesting orthogonal approaches, but I will also sometimes "…

As an EEE graduate myself I hear you. But now that I work in pure IT where I write programs for customer's requirements where nobody cares about a rock solid product vs a shiny new one that can ship next week (and I believe that was the context the article was written), and I hate to admit this - can't fault the author here.

Re: How to Think for Yourself

#593

Post by PaulDavisThe1st »

crdrost wrote: post #509
rndmize wrote: post #486

Earlier quoted context omitted.

While I agree (and would describe the issue as a kind of insularity), I find that PG's essays still have a fair amount of value – if I had to put some kind of measure on it, I'd say that for his older ones I found value in 80-90% of a given essay, while the more recent ones like this, it's closer to 40-50%. Using this one as an example, I disagree with many of the assertions in the first section, some in the second,…

Yeah, there's nature-nurture stuff going on, but there is also a strange inability to grapple with context shifts. What is “conventional” is changing, and an idea which seemed “independent” is no longer. This is why Alan Kay’s talks about the same are nicer. He is explicit about “you find yourself in a pink world surrounded by pink things and then you have a blue thought which could take you out of the plane of your…

> are you more interested operationally in getting your tasks for today done, or are you more interested in an idea for its own sake even if it doesn't have pragmatic function

This is such a discriminatory way of thinking. For some of us, our "tasks for the day" are full of interest, complexities and possibilities. For a lot of us, our "tasks for the day" are repetitive, prescribed and uninteresting.

Please find a way to talk about people's individual psychology without making it contigent on their relationship to however they make a living.

Re: How to Think for Yourself

#594

Post by galaxyLogic »

watwut wrote: post #383
galaxyLogic wrote: post #284

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's not a moral thing. It's called inductive learning. We classify people and things based on our past experiences. The more experiences you have the better the inductive method works. It's good to learn about black swans, else you might make the incorrect logical conclusion that swans are ALWAYS white. And more importantly learn that "black swans" is not only about swans. There can be sports-types who also like int…

As someone who did sport and hung out with sport types a lot, they always played computer games. I mean, you have to be deep in a bubble to think that people who do sport are either a.) invariably dumb b.) do not play computer games. > There can be sports-types who also like intellectual activity Quite a lot of them, to the point of such people not being exceptional black swans at all. That is what the MMA fighter co…

I agree, what is nerdy has changed since last millennium. It is not nerdy any more to use a computer just for fun, because everybody is doing it. Social media, online SPORTS-gaming etc.

Re: How to Think for Yourself

#595

Post by dukeofdoom »

galaxyLogic wrote: post #448
lowcodetv wrote: post #128

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Absolutely a clear signal that their belief is emotional. If you step on that toe just make it clear that you aren't questioning them at all, in fact, "you agree with them... you just wanted to know some sources to point to when those other nosey people who question our beliefs do so"... and diffuse the situation. You really just want to make the other person feel "heard" and respected for their opinion , if that's t…

> hey, why is your reality the correct version of reality? Exactly, it is about the question "why?". Why are your reasons for believing something more plausible. But that is not the mindset of an emotionally charged person. Was the election rigged? A Trump supporter would say "Of course it was". But a judge in Pennsylvania had a good response to Giuliani (who was trying to argue it was): "... Calling an election unfa…

Its enough to demonstrate nonsocial results, IMHO. Especially when dealing with mailed paper ballots, and computerized tabulators.

No way Biden outperformed Obama with Black voters in key swing states and underperformed him everywhere else!

The results in some of these ridings has the hallmarks of election fraud. This is why its still not getting certified by so many states. And I predict will go to legislature to pick electors in those states

Re: How to Think for Yourself

#596

Post by pdimitar »

wpietri wrote: post #525
brlewis wrote: post #491

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> How come I know exactly where this essay is going? This is the question I've been thinking as I've checked back in on comments here a few times this morning. Why do so many people "know" that this essay is all about aggrandizing pg's own intellect or that of startup founders, when it's almost entirely composed of two parts: (1) discussion on when independent thinking is and isn't valuable, and (2) advice on cultiva…

Part of why I'm sure is that I was prone to thinking like this as a teen. I was a smart kid from a family that valued smartness trying to get by in a world that generally didn't, and certainly didn't value the kid of weirdness that in retrospect made me well suited for what turned out to be hot career. I made it to an environment better suited to me (SF, tech industry) and eventually got the fuck over myself. I used…

> E.g., valorizing the performative anti-caring about what people think. To me that's a sign of insecurity and/or a trauma reaction to some past person who was overbearing.

I can't recall ever meeting even one person who didn't get somewhat scarred over the fact that he/she disagreed with the majority of the people around them [at least once in their lives]. That insecurity, as you call it, is IMO present in most people these days. Whether it's a trauma or not though, I can't argue in an informed manner.

But I do believe it's a very normal trait of all social animals. There always comes one point where the collective shows you, usually through the medium of violence (physical or emotional), that they don't appreciate you thinking or acting differently.

> For me, true independent thinking comes from listening to others without judgment and choosing for myself. Positive attachment and negative attachment are both attachment.

I only knew two such people who were able to be genuinely completely detached and they indeed didn't care who thought what. But they were almost dead inside, to me watching on the side at least. They also had almost no desires of their own. I didn't envy them at all, I actually thought they were sick.

Your statement reminds me of a Buddhist teaching but if memory serves, one of their proverbial wise men said that this is an ideal to strive towards knowing that you will never truly reach it. And that's a good thing. Complete lack of attachment would make me think something is seriously wrong with you. So I interpreted that advice -- "don't get attached" -- more along the lines of "don't burden yourself with things you can't change or which would take too much energy or time to change; just let go and give yourself in to the things you genuinely care about" -- something along those lines.

All of this is obviously my opinion based on life experience and observations, of course. I wouldn't dream of presenting myself as a psychologist or a psychiatrist.

---

Outside of this small paragraph of yours I found myself nodding my head at the entirety of your comment and I agree completely with it.

Re: How to Think for Yourself

#597

Post by 0x445442 »

Arubis wrote: post #421

Over the years, I've found PG's essays much less compelling. As some sibling comments here have noted, there's a level of self-assuredness that feels increasingly disconnected from reality, like PG's become a synecdoche of SF VC-fuelled startup culture as a whole. Whether that's him changing, or me, or the world, I'm not certain--but I still look forward to them simply because the ensuing discussions here on HN tend…

I'm not sure if it's his love of Lisp or what but I've always found his essay on how to write essays to be his best.

Re: How to Think for Yourself

#598

Post by hn_throwaway_99 »

Ntrails wrote: post #488
mcguire wrote: post #410

" Ditto for essayists. An essay that told people things they already knew would be boring. You have to tell them something new. " How come I know exactly where this essay is going? It is yet another "start-up founders are genetically, intellectually, and emotionally superior; the rest of the muggles are so envious." Does Paul think everyone except startup founders works on an assembly line? " You see this especially…

> You see this especially among political extremists. They think themselves nonconformists, but actually they're niche conformists. Their opinions may be different from the average person's, but they are often more influenced by their peers' opinions than the average person's are. This reminds me of my arguments (many many years ago) about the alleged "non-conformist" credentials of the "Goth" kids. I'm sure, of cour…

> This reminds me of my arguments (many many years ago) about the alleged "non-conformist" credentials of the "Goth" kids.

South Park did it first.

Re: How to Think for Yourself

#599

Post by Balgair »

The late Christopher Hitchens was a drink sodden ex-Trotskyist popinjay, of course. But one we needed.

His 'Letters to a Young Contrarian'(2001), though filled with himself[0], remains a heartfelt read for anyone going about the world in their own way. If you can get a used copy, preferably filled with marginalia, treasure it, add your own thoughts, and pass it along. The always unique comments railing against Hitch will be worth the effort. More so when all agree.

Paul may wish to pick up a copy, though I suspect he just needs to re-read the one on his shelf.

https://www.amazon.com/Letters-Young-Contrarian-Mentoring-Pa...

[0] therefore with frustration, liquor, cigarette ash, fragility, and sheer brilliance

Re: How to Think for Yourself

#600

Post by vasilipupkin »

“if a lot of other people make the same prediction, the stock price will already reflect it, and there's no room to make money“

This is wrong. You make money when you invest in public stocks as compensation for the risk you take. You don’t need to be better than others at predicting to make money. You do if you want to make excess money, money above the level that compensates for risk.

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