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Earnestness

paulgraham.com

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Re: Earnestness

#361

Post by selestify »

didibus wrote: post #267
rst wrote: post #49

Odd to see a stress on interest in a problem for its own sake from pg, who has elsewhere written that the startup economy would be crippled by raising taxes on people who had already gotten fabulously rich. If being in it for the money is "the wrong motive" to do a startup, downgrading the potential financial gains from set-for-dynasty to merely set-for-life would seem to be a way of ditching the poseurs...

> downgrading the potential financial gains from set-for-dynasty to merely set-for-life would seem to be a way of ditching the poseurs I've really started to think that inheritance is one of the biggest problem we have. Each one has the right to their own worth and riches acquired through their own effort, but if you pass those on afterwards then you create a dynasty that defeats the point of meritocracy and equality…

Also, in my opinion:

1. The elite will still hand down a superior education and social connections to their progeny, so their children will still be privileged, just not ridiculously so like they are today

2. This will incentivize parents to invest more in their children's soft development, rather than just handing down their wealth and calling it a day

Re: Earnestness

#362

Post by zepto »

pseudalopex wrote: post #317
zepto wrote: post #284

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That doesn’t explain what’s wrong with using the search as an example if a person thinks there is a problem with the research which shows up for that search.

The search has thousands of results. Tomorrow's top results could be entirely different. I've only seen 2 people say they read today's top result. They didn't see what was wrong with it.[1][2] And now he changed the search terms.[3] [1] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=25400495 [2] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=25400289 [3] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=25402638

Ok. So your view of what was wrong with it is that the search terms might change.

And it seems like he has removed the word ‘whiteness’.

Is he still ‘denying the existence of white supremacy’?

Re: Earnestness

#363

Post by maxerickson »

Razengan wrote: post #313
Quarrelsome wrote: post #2

Earnest is my favourite word for describing that beautiful part during a child's development where they haven't yet had a negative experience from expressing themselves earnestly. That window of time where if you ask if they know something they would proudly reply "no!" because they have no idea that there might be shame in not knowing something. I seek to try to make myself more earnest and undo the damage of fear o…

> Earnest is my favourite word for describing that beautiful part during a child's development where they haven't yet had a negative experience from expressing themselves earnestly. ... but adult politics is sadly complex sometimes. And we’re narrowing that window by exposing children to social politics earlier on through likes and upvotes and whatnot.

Preschoolers have traditionally been well aware of social politics, carefully choosing what aspects of their home life to reveal to their peers.

Re: Earnestness

#364

Post by booleandilemma »

tardismechanic wrote: post #342

"You have a right to perform your prescribed duties, but you are not entitled to the fruits of your actions. Never consider yourself to be the cause of the results of your activities, nor be attached to inaction." Possibly the most famous verse (2-47) from the Bhagavad Gita. https://www.holy-bhagavad-gita.org/chapter/2/verse/47

Seems like real slave morality to me.

Also, that kind of attitude could be used to convince people to do some horrible things:

Tasked with executing a political dissident? No problem! Never consider yourself to be the cause of the results of your activities.

Re: Earnestness

#365

Post by neilv »

analog31 wrote: post #104
neilv wrote: post #20

Great. Now my company's engineering recruiting email "honest and earnest" turn of phrase about culture is less likely to make candidates pause and consider why I focused on that, but instead probably gets classified as regurgitating whatever everyone read on HN. :) https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=25088200

Goodheart's law at work. This is why you have to change metrics every six months. Just when I figured out "engagement," now "earnestness." Now a potential issue that you're probably already aware of is that many of these traits can serve as culture / age filters.

Good point about filters.

I think diversity of ideas and influences is inherently valuable in an organization, and to find it, we have to be thoughtful and not jump to conclusions.

For example, even if we announce that speaking up is safe and encouraged, that's going to be more familiar to some, and others will take a while to integrate it and adapt it.

I can definitely imagine, say, 2 engineers founding a company, and the company thus far was built on caffeinated whiteboard sessions, where they were comfortable shouting out their ideas, grabbing the marker from the other, etc. It worked for them so far, so it would be understandable if they think that's their culture and would be a key to ongoing success of the company. But if, for their next hire, they're passing over every introverted thinker, person raised being told not to interrupt, etc.-- then I'd suspect they'd probably be missing out on a ton of skills that their org will probably need, and also personally missing out on traits/practices/behaviors/etc. from which they'd grow by being influenced and meeting halfway. (I think this is tricky example, since the whiteboard jam session is a very appealing idea to a lot of us, and we might ascribe mythical power to it. But I think it's also easy to imagine some big design insight coming in a pause in the excitement, from someone who was standing slightly back from the flailing markers, and who hadn't said much in the first hour of battle. Or even from someone who went off to work something out on the computer, that was being missed in the endorphin rush of whiteboard eureka.)

Re: Earnestness

#366

Post by DoreenMichele »

neilv wrote: post #20

Great. Now my company's engineering recruiting email "honest and earnest" turn of phrase about culture is less likely to make candidates pause and consider why I focused on that, but instead probably gets classified as regurgitating whatever everyone read on HN. :) https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=25088200

You just need to convince everyone that you thought of it first and pg is following you around and regurgitating your brilliance.

Problem solved!

(Do I needy a winky or something to clue people that this is intended as good clean fun?)

Re: Earnestness

#367

Post by pdonis »

ghufran_syed wrote: post #126

I think this essay would be more effective if the author defined what they mean by “earnest”. I think based on the essay, they mean seriousness + sincerity. But there is also a sense that the author considers “correct” as part of the definition: >“when you call someone earnest, you’re making a statement about their motives. It means both that they’re doing something for the right reasons [my emphasis] and they’re try…

> why assume that “interest in the problem” is intrinsically good?

I agree. I also think there's another aspect that the article leaves out: what is the definition of "solving the problem"?

For example, another recent pg article that was on the HN front page was the one about the founders of AirBnB. Although pg didn't use them as a specific example of "earnestness", I suspect he would describe them that way. But AirBnB, at scale, has created a lot of negative externalities (and much of the HN discussion of the article was focused on that). It doesn't seem to me like dealing with those negative externalities was part of the problem the AirBnB founders were earnest about solving.

And that, to me, is what we computer nerds call a security hole. If it's better to have earnest people trying to solve hard problems, then startup founders are not the only people that need to be selected for earnestness; the people that are going to run the company at scale and deal with the negative externalities it creates at scale also need to be. But those people are not being selected for earnestness at all; in fact earnestness in those positions, I would argue, is selected strongly against.

Re: Earnestness

#368

Post by pdonis »

Quarrelsome wrote: post #2

Earnest is my favourite word for describing that beautiful part during a child's development where they haven't yet had a negative experience from expressing themselves earnestly. That window of time where if you ask if they know something they would proudly reply "no!" because they have no idea that there might be shame in not knowing something. I seek to try to make myself more earnest and undo the damage of fear o…

This is a different definition of "earnest" from the one pg is using in the article, although there probably is a relationship between them: children at the age you describe are interested in things for the sake of the things themselves and not for what the child can get out of them, and "expressing yourself" is one of those things they're interested in for the sake of the thing itself. It's much easier for young children to be like this because all of the stuff that older people think about that basically boils down to "how is this going to affect what other people think of me?" isn't even visible to the children, so it doesn't clutter up their mental processes.

Re: Earnestness

#369

Post by galgalesh »

dcx wrote: post #226
Alex3917 wrote: post #205

> Reporters literally can't believe it when founders making piles of money say that they started their companies to make the world better. The situation seems made for mockery. To be fair a lot of startup origin stories are so ridiculously fake that they seem like they could have only been created as a mockery of earnestness. Like the founders know they're lying, they know everyone else knows they're lying, and they'…

I went looking for the source of this anecdote, I believe this is it: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Pgzi_jUBu9U

I watch that video and I see an internet and logistics nerd who proudly explains he found the best way to build a company around it.

Although it's clear that profitability is important to him, the video also shows he's deeply passionate about building this "virtual store". This gives him the incredible drive the article was talking about.

Re: Earnestness

#370

Post by pseudalopex »

zepto wrote: post #362
pseudalopex wrote: post #317

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The search has thousands of results. Tomorrow's top results could be entirely different. I've only seen 2 people say they read today's top result. They didn't see what was wrong with it.[1][2] And now he changed the search terms.[3] [1] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=25400495 [2] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=25400289 [3] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=25402638

Ok. So your view of what was wrong with it is that the search terms might change. And it seems like he has removed the word ‘whiteness’. Is he still ‘denying the existence of white supremacy’?

No. My view is probably he didn't read any of those papers. He has to know most of his audience won't. He has to know the search results could change too. So he was just sneering at the words.

Changing the search terms is just more evidence he wasn't pointing to any particular research.

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