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How to Think for Yourself

paulgraham.com

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Re: How to Think for Yourself

#731

Post by mkl »

ryeguy_24 wrote: post #615

Am 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…

> This essay [...], without evidence or data, implies that some of us know the formula for success.

PG isn't claiming to know "the" formula for success, or that anyone else knows it (I doubt there could be such a thing). He's identifying and exploring traits that, from his considerable experience, seem to correlate with business success in a very narrow field, startup companies.

Re: How to Think for Yourself

#732

Post by andrei_says_ »

ryeguy_24 wrote: post #615

Am 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…

This is what I came here to write.

“How to think for yourself... let me teach you!”

I’m not sure how reading the advice of one of the most privileged and powerful people in the world relates to my experiences. I am not a VC.

What if I am unable to apply these secrets of “thinking for myself” as they have been generously mansplained, whitesplained, rich-splained and VC-sprained and neoliberal-sprained to me?

Probably my fault.

Re: How to Think for Yourself

#733

Post by pure_vida »

This is basically a verbose version of the countless sayings that state something along the lines of...if you think the same as others, you’ll get the same results. Albeit he’s speaking about the initial temperament / mindset of the individual, which is something I guess.

What is quite ironic is that this is written by Pg, who’s institution has become one of the most conformist. To generalize and draw out the point clearly - Yc invests in tech companies (most conformist type of business nowadays) that are incredibly de-risked since those that make the yc. Arches usually have ‘traction’/ revenue etc. (Ie, odds are that today, yc wouldn’t invest in 2 designers looking to disrupt hospitals)

Re: How to Think for Yourself

#734

Post by pdimitar »

wpietri wrote: post #690
pdimitar wrote: post #596

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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 peo…

Good questions. Sure, everybody has a history. Nobody agrees with everybody all the time. Same for me. My issue with this essay is that it doesn't examine that history and how it affects people. As to the latter, I think you're confusing nonattachment with detachment. I've written more about that here: https://www.quora.com/I-have-learned-that-attachment-leads-t... Another way to look at it is in terms of having a ch…

Oh, I don't disagree. But didn't you have situations in which the amount of adequate responses you can give is a small set?

So even if somebody were to predict all your possible responses that still doesn't mean that you don't have free will. You do. But your choice set might be limited at the time.

I might be nitpicking here though. If what you are getting at is "I let my spontaneous reaction pass silently in my head and THEN analyze how should I really respond" then I am in full agreement -- I trained myself to do that too and I found it to be the option that maintains my inner peace much better.

Re: How to Think for Yourself

#735

Post by rossdavidh »

While I agree that there are professions where thinking unconventional thoughts is especially important, there's a flipside to this which is missed in this essay: they're professions where being wrong is not catastrophic. VC's can invest in many startups, and a few successes can make up for a lot of failures. It's ok to be wrong a lot, if a few big successes (i.e you were right when everyone else was wrong) can make up for that.

But, most professions are not like that. I don't want my surgeon, car mechanic, plumber, or accountant to be the sort who is rarely in agreement with their peers. If they are wrong half the time about things which everyone else knew the right answer to, but also half of the time they are right when everyone else is wrong, I'm still much worse off. Being unconventional is only a good thing if the consequences of being wrong are much less bad, than the benefits of being correct when others are all wrong.

Re: How to Think for Yourself

#736

Post by ghayes »

andrei_says_ wrote: post #732
ryeguy_24 wrote: post #615

Am 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…

This is what I came here to write. “How to think for yourself... let me teach you!” I’m not sure how reading the advice of one of the most privileged and powerful people in the world relates to my experiences. I am not a VC. What if I am unable to apply these secrets of “thinking for myself” as they have been generously mansplained, whitesplained, rich-splained and VC-sprained and neoliberal-sprained to me? Probably…

> How to think for yourself... let me teach you!

I actually find this advice (taken literally) to be the best advice for thinking for yourself. Teach others and you’ll find yourself opening up to new viewpoints on topics versus “learning” the same topic.

Re: How to Think for Yourself

#737

Post by dzolob »

hutzlibu wrote: post #654
Darkstryder wrote: post #357

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Unfortunately the bias against negative results in scientific publications cause a lot of scientific dead-ends to be non-public as well. A lot starting researchers (such as PhD students) that are left without adequate supervision are likely to reach a dead-end someone previously encountered but did not publish anything about.

I have not been directly involved in academic research, but from what I understood, results gets published, whether they met the goals or not. It is still novel and valuable to publish why this certain approach or idea did not work as expected as long as you followed scientific standards.

I’m sorry you’re being downvoted just because you have a wrong impression of how scientific publishing works.

Nobody is looking for wrong answers, there are simply many uninteresting ways to screw things up. If you are able to publish a wrong result in a worthwhile journal, a lot of right results have to be in it, which I guess makes your work “right”.

Re: How to Think for Yourself

#738

Post by ryeguy_24 »

mkl wrote: post #731
ryeguy_24 wrote: post #615

Am 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…

> This essay [...], without evidence or data, implies that some of us know the formula for success. PG isn't claiming to know "the" formula for success, or that anyone else knows it (I doubt there could be such a thing). He's identifying and exploring traits that, from his considerable experience, seem to correlate with business success in a very narrow field, startup companies.

I get your point and I get the reason people like to find correlations. I just think reducing dimensionality of really complex stuff is a waste of our time unless your purely talking about investing/gambling and increasing your odds on many bets. It just doesn’t help the “single path” people out there (maybe it wasn’t intended to). We aren’t an average of a simulation, we are just one scenario.

Analogy (because I love analogies): “Seems like people over 7 feet tall make great basketball players.” This is great but it’s much more interesting that a guy named Muggsy Bogues made it to the NBA at 5 foot 3 inches.

Re: How to Think for Yourself

#739

Post by Razengan »

carlisle_ wrote: post #547
Razengan wrote: post #538

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I have never heard of him outside of HN and I’m not even sure why he’s considered important here. Could someone fill me in? He does remind me of a games reviewer with the same name from the awesome ZZAP! magazine for the Commodore 64. Or wait was that Paul Glancey

Not to be rude, but if you googled his name you would have found all the information you could possibly need about why he’s considered important. For convenience here’s a link to his Wikipedia article: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paul_Graham_(programmer)

That was a snarky response to your and other comments about the author’s self-aggrandizement etc., that maybe his importance is inflated and limited to this community.

Re: How to Think for Yourself

#740

Post by mkl »

ryeguy_24 wrote: post #738
mkl wrote: post #731

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> This essay [...], without evidence or data, implies that some of us know the formula for success. PG isn't claiming to know "the" formula for success, or that anyone else knows it (I doubt there could be such a thing). He's identifying and exploring traits that, from his considerable experience, seem to correlate with business success in a very narrow field, startup companies.

I get your point and I get the reason people like to find correlations. I just think reducing dimensionality of really complex stuff is a waste of our time unless your purely talking about investing/gambling and increasing your odds on many bets. It just doesn’t help the “single path” people out there (maybe it wasn’t intended to). We aren’t an average of a simulation, we are just one scenario. Analogy (because I lov…

I think that's why PG's discussion of whether and how a motivated individual can change or enhance these attributes is interesting, along with the observation that strength in one can make up for relative weakness in another.

I think your analogy fails in that hanging out with tall people can't make you taller. Exceptions to general rules are interesting, but don't have much predictive or explanatory power.

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