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The Strength of Being Misunderstood

blog.samaltman.com

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Re: The Strength of Being Misunderstood

#11

Post by ssivark »

vsareto wrote: post #3

>But there are lots of other ways–the key observation is that as long as you are right, being misunderstood by most people is a strength not a weakness. You and a small group of rebels get the space to solve an important problem that might otherwise not get solved. The ability to make that bet and be right (unless you just flipped a coin), took some skills or insight, and that likely took effort and time, but then th…

To add...

> ”the key observation is that as long as you are right, being misunderstood by most people is a strength not a weakness.”

This is (implicitly) only applicable to competitive/adversarial endeavors and not collaborative endeavors. Eg: Say you’re worried about climate change. If your plan is to build a safe harbor and charge people when D-day hits, then the quoted strategy might work. However, if you want to get people organized to face the oncoming challenge, it is very very important to seek to understand he understood (to paraphrase Stephen Covey). Point being, this might not always be the right approach to solve a problem. The same holds, for Eg. if you are trying to get people to adopt your platform.

Re: The Strength of Being Misunderstood

#12

Post by sharker8 »

Format of a techno-optimist essay. Formulate a common neurosis that people are self conscious about. State common knowledge about this neurosis. State that the common knowledge is an oversimplification. Break the problem into a graph on two axes. Bonus points if you help people think they are avoiding identity politics in some way with this new knowledge.

Re: The Strength of Being Misunderstood

#13

Post by nayuki »

Sam echoes some of the things Paul said. For example, "[T]he best startup ideas seem at first like bad ideas. I've written about this before: if a good idea were obviously good, someone else would already have done it. So the most successful founders tend to work on ideas that few beside them realize are good. Which is not that far from a description of insanity, till you reach the point where you see results." -- http://www.paulgraham.com/swan.html

Re: The Strength of Being Misunderstood

#15

Post by motohagiography »

Being misunderstood is a great temporary moat. I could write a book on this, but suffice it to say, I didn't have confidence in my own vision until I took the time to really look at others and realized that the main difference between me and the average idiot was that I had bothered to look at the ideas of other idiots at all. It was like their entire ontology had become an ant farm. It was the moment I realized, I am a super-idiot.

I only half joke, because becoming a super-idiot liberated me from the perfectionism and the addiction to approval that caused a stultifying and primal narcissistic fear of criticism.

If you are struggling with this, take it from someone on the other side of it: It's ok, you're an idiot.

Re: The Strength of Being Misunderstood

#16

Post by keeganpoppen »

motohagiography wrote: post #15

Being misunderstood is a great temporary moat. I could write a book on this, but suffice it to say, I didn't have confidence in my own vision until I took the time to really look at others and realized that the main difference between me and the average idiot was that I had bothered to look at the ideas of other idiots at all. It was like their entire ontology had become an ant farm. It was the moment I realized, I a…

thanks, from this aspiring idiot :)

Re: The Strength of Being Misunderstood

#17

Post by npmaile »

I feel like the strength of being misunderstood is more like the strength of being correct. Just because other people don't understand you doesn't mean you are correct.

If you aren't correct, this post will do nothing for you but make you bull-headed and closed off to criticism.

Re: The Strength of Being Misunderstood

#18

Post by ublaze »

sharker8 wrote: post #12

Format of a techno-optimist essay. Formulate a common neurosis that people are self conscious about. State common knowledge about this neurosis. State that the common knowledge is an oversimplification. Break the problem into a graph on two axes. Bonus points if you help people think they are avoiding identity politics in some way with this new knowledge.

I wonder what we get if we feed enough essays like these into GPT-3. Enough self help books to make a living, I suppose.

Re: The Strength of Being Misunderstood

#19

Post by gnramires »

sharker8 wrote: post #12

Format of a techno-optimist essay. Formulate a common neurosis that people are self conscious about. State common knowledge about this neurosis. State that the common knowledge is an oversimplification. Break the problem into a graph on two axes. Bonus points if you help people think they are avoiding identity politics in some way with this new knowledge.

Retort.

Format of a snarky unfruitful comment. Don't address the main point of the article, dismiss with a platitude. Attack article structure. Bonus points for unwarranted political supremacy.

http://bash.org/?23396

Re: The Strength of Being Misunderstood

#20

Post by eyelidlessness »

motohagiography wrote: post #15

Being misunderstood is a great temporary moat. I could write a book on this, but suffice it to say, I didn't have confidence in my own vision until I took the time to really look at others and realized that the main difference between me and the average idiot was that I had bothered to look at the ideas of other idiots at all. It was like their entire ontology had become an ant farm. It was the moment I realized, I a…

This is a great take. If I may piggyback, one of the things that’s been important in my own development (personal, social, professional) is to recognize where my lack of confidence is inhibiting actions or improvements I want to pursue, and try to get closer to risking failure without hesitating. Mistakes can be embarrassing or even tragic, but they can still be a source of growth. And they can reveal that some anxieties are partly or wholly unwarranted, either because I have more strength in whatever area than I expected or because... it’s really not so bad when I reveal that I don’t.
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