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Keep Your Identity Small (2009)

paulgraham.com

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Re: Keep Your Identity Small (2009)

#61

Post by bmm6o »

vegetablepotpie wrote: post #13

> people feel they have to be over some threshold of expertise to post comments about that “that” being things that are not political or religious. What vaccines and 5G have shown is that you do not need to be qualified to talk about a topic. A strong opinion about anything is what qualifies you to be an expert in 2021. Based on that article and my memory, this is a phenomenon that has happened in the last 10 years.…

It's a little dated now, but all your friends who were constitutional scholars last month are epidemiologists this month.

I agree that it seems to be a new phenomenon and i think it's partly social media but also our tendency to be always online. We see so many headlines and hot takes that it feels like actual knowledge.

Re: Keep Your Identity Small (2009)

#62

Post by nine_k »

vikingcaffiene wrote: post #3

> “As a rule, any mention of religion on an online forum degenerates into a religious argument. Why? Why does this happen with religion and not with Javascript” I got some bad news for 2009 PG from the future…

This happens to every question into which people are so emotionally invested that even discussing any modifications or alternatives seriously is painful for them.

That is, when it's a part of one's identity, like religion, or [list other protected classes here].

Maybe in 2009 people around pg were not emotionally invested in JavaScript so much. Like,they were more professional, or maybe just still preferred Lisp and didn't care about JS much.

In any way, the whole thread here just illustrates the pg's point, which only grew stronger since 2009.

Re: Keep Your Identity Small (2009)

#63

Post by dools »

vegetablepotpie wrote: post #13

> people feel they have to be over some threshold of expertise to post comments about that “that” being things that are not political or religious. What vaccines and 5G have shown is that you do not need to be qualified to talk about a topic. A strong opinion about anything is what qualifies you to be an expert in 2021. Based on that article and my memory, this is a phenomenon that has happened in the last 10 years.…

> Why this may be the case is something I’m not sure of.

Simple: Facebook

Re: Keep Your Identity Small (2009)

#64

Post by travisjungroth »

Swizec wrote: post #42
earksiinni wrote: post #11

It must be nice to have the luxury of choosing to keep one's identity small rather than having a big identity foisted upon oneself by society, history, and the circumstances of one's birth.

Fun realization I made over the past 18 months or so after 6 years living in USA continuously: When you're white, you can't be an immigrant. This whole time I thought I was a plucky immigrant seeking a better life (economically). Turns out I was and am just white. Still grappling with this. Learning your identity was wrong is very discombobulating. On some level it feels like maybe I've been here long enough that I'v…

Happens for people leaving the USA (and other countries) too. They're not immigrants, they're ex-pats!

Re: Keep Your Identity Small (2009)

#65

Post by lmm »

TchoBeer wrote: post #48
int3 wrote: post #38

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You can acknowledge your preferences without making them your identity, though. E.g. you can admit to yourself that you are attracted to a variety of genders without thinking of yourself as being queer.

A distinction without a difference.

No, it's a very real difference. Do I think this is an important part of who I am, or a random happenstance? If I were attracted to different people, would that make me a different person, in an important way?

Realising/deciding that it wasn't actually important to me what sexuality people perceived me as eliminated a lot of stress and conflict, personally.

Re: Keep Your Identity Small (2009)

#66

Post by ineedasername »

Flex247A wrote: 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…

Or distrust factual claims by people on Reddit until/unless you track things back to primary sources that you can review. Same goes for traditional news.

Re: Keep Your Identity Small (2009)

#67

Post by [deleted] »

redis_mlc wrote: post #27
Flex247A wrote: 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 F…

[deleted]

Re: Keep Your Identity Small (2009)

#68

Post by bgilly »

Swizec wrote: post #42
earksiinni wrote: post #11

It must be nice to have the luxury of choosing to keep one's identity small rather than having a big identity foisted upon oneself by society, history, and the circumstances of one's birth.

Fun realization I made over the past 18 months or so after 6 years living in USA continuously: When you're white, you can't be an immigrant. This whole time I thought I was a plucky immigrant seeking a better life (economically). Turns out I was and am just white. Still grappling with this. Learning your identity was wrong is very discombobulating. On some level it feels like maybe I've been here long enough that I'v…

Gross of other people to tell you who you are. I hope you swiftly told them to F off.

Re: Keep Your Identity Small (2009)

#69

Post by Lammy »

travisjungroth wrote: post #58

The sentence that strikes me as the essence of the essay: "More generally, you can have a fruitful discussion about a topic only if it doesn't engage the identities of any of the participants." Is that true? I really don't think it is. I could definitely have a fruitful (as precise as that can be) conversation with a Christian about religion or a "proud Black man" about race in America. Or even learn a thing or two a…

I guess I would ask a hypothetical-pg to define his idea of a "fruitful" discussion. I'll trust that he (and other VCs) would share my belief in the collective-objectivity of subjective human realities and aren't just having discussions on how to make as much money as possible :)

Re: Keep Your Identity Small (2009)

#70

Post by nine_k »

numair wrote: post #43
imgabe wrote: post #37

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't understand the connection between this and abusers. The advice is to avoid attaching your identity to any particular ideology. What does that have to do with enabling abusers?

Because when you are a witness to something with which you disagree, speaking out and acting on it is a matter of making an opinion, and then attaching your identity to that opinion. And thus, you might be a developer who only cares about the superiority of C++ over Scala, but now you’ve got to attach your identity to “I didn’t think it was okay for my boss to take our young female employees home if they got drunk at…

> “I didn’t think it was okay for my boss to take our young female employees home if they got drunk at our office party”

Since this is usually openly against the rules in nearly any company, of doesn't even take identifying with anything, it just takes following instructions.

Also, while you keep your identity small, reducing it to zero might not be the wisest approach.

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