The sheer irony of the upvotes on this charlatan is too much to bear.
How to Think for Yourself
611–620 of 874 posts
Re: How to Think for Yourself
#612I had two of those thoughts today, that would probably get me ostracized from society if I expressed them freely. Earlier today I overheard a teen girl with a giant behind, talking with her friend how she wants to go home and do nothing, to her obese friend, on a Friday. Sorry but this is not how teenagers acted in the past. And its not normal that so many young people are morbidly obese, stay at home do nothings. Pe…
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Re: How to Think for Yourself
#613Well I for one liked this essay. Be sure to read the footnotes at the end for some great lines:
> When I ask myself what in my life is like high school, the answer is Twitter. It's not just full of conventional-minded people, as anything its size will inevitably be, but subject to violent storms of conventional-mindedness that remind me of descriptions of Jupiter.
> The threshold for having opinions about politics is much lower than the one for having opinions about set theory. So while there are some ideas in politics, in practice they tend to be swamped by waves of intellectual fashion.
> The conventional-minded are often fooled by the strength of their opinions into believing that they're independent-minded. But strong convictions are not a sign of independent-mindedness. Rather the opposite.
Re: How to Think for Yourself
#614Earlier quoted context omitted.
You mean more homogenous right?
Yeah, nah. Homogenous = "from the same origin" Root word: genesis. Homogeneous = "of the same kind". Root word: the Latin gens , clan.
Thanks for the etymology lesson, I didn't even know they were two different words.
Re: How to Think for Yourself
#615Am I the only one is getting pretty bored of "formula for success" content?
This essay and other's like it, without evidence or data, implies that some of us know the formula for success. I get it, the things that change convention are unconventional at first. This is the definition of unconventional. I agree with the general vector of his essay but this is just boring to me.
Here is my formula for success (in case anyone cares): Enjoy life, try to make the world better, be a good person, go towards your passions (whether for hobby or career) and cultivate relationships because that seems to be the thing people regret most when they die.
Now, let's move on to to the actual unconventional ideas and observations.
Re: How to Think for Yourself
#616Earlier quoted context omitted.
The huge difference between tech startups and science is that in science, the conventional wisdom has recorded justifications and collected evidence that you can look up and understand, while in tech startups the conventional wisdom is advice made up by businessesmen who succeeded once, or sometimes succeeded zero times, and shared over drinks at the local pub. The usefulness gap between scientific knowledge and cult…
This a million times. You could further prove your point by bringing up some specific examples: - Webvan vs Instacart. Prior to Instacart, the conventional wisdom was that grocery delivery doesn't work as a standalone business, and that hypothesis was based on the Webvan data point. - GM vs Tesla. GM's failure with their EV1 was frequently used against Tesla in their early stages. But GM's decision to abandon their p…
> Prior to Instacart, the conventional wisdom was that grocery delivery doesn't work
Is Instacart profitable?
Re: How to Think for Yourself
#617If you want to fit in and get along with most people, it's best not to think for yourself.
Re: How to Think for Yourself
#618I knew from as far back as I can remember that I was totally different from most people. I always thought that most people were the same. I grew up stricken with independent mindedness. If you are smart enough to blend in despite having a completely different way of thinking then it would be ok but I am the kind of person who cannot hide what’s inside. It ruined my life. Most people live a life of luxury simply by the virtue of their brain. Even poor people have the ability to enjoy human connection with other people. That is luxury to me. Most people don’t even understand that something so fundamental can be absent, they don’t even know it exists as it’s own thing. Most people completely miss all the details. This essay really speaks to me.
In 2010 when I would try to explain what was going on with Tesla and who Elon musk was, literally nobody believed me, took me seriously or demonstrated any ability at all to think for themselves and come to the correct conclusion through the special combination of single minded intuition and logical deduction that is described in the essay. I noticed that people always reacted the same way, no matter where they came from, mentioning something about golf carts. There was an emotional component where when I would get close to making a breakthrough, an emotional wall would go up. This emotional wall was the same in everyone and it was a very strong pattern. Having an emotional disconnection with yourself is important to being able to believe things that are upsetting or having your world view tossed. It’s not a choice to be disconnected and for me it’s a medical thing.
Because of my insights about Tesla and other things related to my special way of thinking, I am retired. And I still say it isn’t worth it and I would give it all up to enjoy the amazing luxury of being a normal person.
Re: How to Think for Yourself
#619> 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…
The huge difference between tech startups and science is that in science, the conventional wisdom has recorded justifications and collected evidence that you can look up and understand, while in tech startups the conventional wisdom is advice made up by businessesmen who succeeded once, or sometimes succeeded zero times, and shared over drinks at the local pub. The usefulness gap between scientific knowledge and cult…
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Re: How to Think for Yourself
#620Am I the only one is getting pretty bored of "formula for success" content? This essay and other's like it, without evidence or data, implies that some of us know the formula for success. I get it, the things that change convention are unconventional at first. This is the definition of unconventional. I agree with the general vector of his essay but this is just boring to me. Here is my formula for success (in case a…
Humans are excellent at finding patterns where there are none. I don't think that changes when a bunch of 0s end up in your bank account.