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Keep Your Identity Small (2009)

paulgraham.com

21–30 of 321 posts

Re: Keep Your Identity Small (2009)

#21
Since we're digging up old notes on the topic, this George Orwell classic deals with (IMO) a similar them.

It's a surprisingly difficult topic to deal with in discreet analytical terms, so I suggest avoiding disagreeing with definitional points and looking to the wider picture. Don't quibble, fix it instead.

NOTES ON NATIONALISM https://www.orwellfoundation.com/the-orwell-foundation/orwel...

Re: Keep Your Identity Small (2009)

#23

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Why does this happen with religion and not with Javascript or baking or other topics people talk about on forums? Or knitting, or Rust, or the second amendment, or patents, or bitcoin, or Prop 13, etc.

Second amendment is religious text.

For me, after spending two hours listening to an interview with a woman who escaped North Korea, it might as well be.

Re: Keep Your Identity Small (2009)

#24

I’m confounded by the advice to avoid conflict by restricting one’s identity. By all means, don’t conflate your preference with your identity. But this is an awful way to address people whose actual experienced identity is needlessly a source of conflict. I spent most of my life shielding myself from admitting I’m queer, and nearly all of it shielding myself from admitting I’m non-binary and admitting I’m autistic, u…

This isn’t about the big stuff. Queer, non-binary, autistic is a small fraction of your identity. Hell any major allergies should make the cut.

It’s the small stuff like considering yourself a Pepsi drinker that causes needless conflict. People buying bandaids have preferences, but it’s not something you’re going to argue about on the internet in all caps.

Re: Keep Your Identity Small (2009)

#25
It is 2021. I am managing several identities across several sites. Some are semi-anonymous (Reddit, Twitter, Bitclout), some are real-name profiles (LinkedIn, Github, HN).

I don't think its a problem of one's own identify but rather the role one plays with it's own motivations in that given context.

Also, there are now so many bot accounts that many times I am wondering if the discussing is happening with a real person.

Re: Keep Your Identity Small (2009)

#26
> There are certainly some political questions that have definite answers, like how much a new government policy will cost.

I definitely disagree. Sure, you can have an estimation of how much the new bureaucracy will cost in the short run, but you can never predict the second-order effects with certainty and disagreement about these is usually the actual conflict. The discussion is easier on some issues than others, sure, but I don't think you can predict any with any reasonable certainty.

Re: Keep Your Identity Small (2009)

#27
post #7

I reached a similar conclusion after lurking on subreddits of opposite political leaning. I favored the views of one subreddit over another (naturally). Over time, I found that I was blindly believing the comments in my favored subreddit over the other one, only to find that the comments were false or citing unreliable sources. I saw this happen several times, until I stopped lurking on both of the subreddits. I gues…

For those who want a concrete example of this ...

I watch material from mainly CNN, Sky Australia and NTD Media.

Virtually every big story on CNN in the past 2 years has had some kind of retraction (ie. lying):

- corona lab leak considered misinformation until a month ago

- first impeachment (orchestrated/funded by Hillary Clinton, Barack Obama, and Joe Biden) which failed due to lack of evidence/coverup of a bogus FISA warrant extension by Joe Biden

- second impeachment (faked phone call transcript from Trump to an election official, retracted by WaPo)

- Hunter Biden story suppression just before 2020 election, with CCP and Ukraine bribing the Biden family with $1 billion and various drug/weapons/sexual favors/influence peddling/etc. counts

- CCP influence minimized (journalists are getting free junkets to Beijing, White House press corps contains multiple CCP organs nominated by US media outlets, etc.)

- Jan. 6 riot protesters killed nobody (4 died of natural causes and 1 shot by Capitol Police.)

Sky and NTD use old-school reporters, and have retracted nothing because they do factual reporting, not narratives. Their facts are ugly, but turn out to be very accurate.

NTD had some of their reporting on the lab leak suppressed by Twitter, Youtube and Facebook, and currently are semi-frozen and demonetized by Youtube, so they've had to create their own media website.

Sky reporters were insulted by other media outlets, yet tenaciously followed the lab leak, and have accumulated a lot of data not published anywhere else.

Re: Keep Your Identity Small (2009)

#28

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Why does this happen with religion and not with Javascript or baking or other topics people talk about on forums? Or knitting, or Rust, or the second amendment, or patents, or bitcoin, or Prop 13, etc.

emacs or vi? windows or linux? Kirk or Picard? Marvel or DC? Han shot first!

Systemd or openrc?

Wayland or Xorg?

Python or Go?

Re: Keep Your Identity Small (2009)

#29

I don’t want anyone for a second to believe we are any different. All the world’s a stage, And all the men and women merely players; They have their exits and their entrances; And one man in his time plays many parts, His acts being seven ages. At first the infant, Mewling and puking in the nurse’s arms; And then the whining school-boy, with his satchel And shining morning face, creeping like snail Unwillingly to sch…

> The genesis of imposter syndrome. I am the role that I play, and if not, than what am I.

“You will never be able to reach your full potential until you first confront your deep-seated fear of success! Now get into the bag.”

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