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No More “Insight Porn”

jakobgreenfeld.com

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Re: No More “Insight Porn”

#51

Post by BoredPuffin »

ycombinete wrote: post #2

Jonathan Haidt speaks about something similar in The Happiness Hypothesis . Epiphanies can only take you so far, before their novelty wears off and they lose the power to change your behaviour. This is why self-help book readers tend to keep reading self-help books. 4 weeks after finishing one they need another hit of epiphanies. Even the lamest examples listed in the OP article can probably give someone a boost in p…

I didn't read/listen to Haidt's The Happiness Hypothesis, but from what you described, he sounded spot on.

But can I also say that as long as it works, there's nothing wrong with it?

Some people wind down by jogging, playing video games, watching action movies etc; yours happened to be reading self-help book.

The problem is when one overdoes it, regardless of the activities they've chosen.

Re: No More “Insight Porn”

#52

Post by strken »

It's genuinely useful to know that making $X a year is the same as Y clients paying $(X / Y / 52) a week, if you've never thought about a business in concrete terms before.

Obviously this is old and repetitive if you're a working software engineer who's been reading HN for years and has seen a ton of motivational LinkedIn bullshit, but it's the kind of thing a career councillor might go over to make running a business seem approachable. Equally obviously it would be much better advice if it came with a real-world example of a forecasting spreadsheet and a link to your government's "how to start a business" website. That doesn't make it bad advice.

The example thread from Naval is the same. Second tweet is basically "conspicuous consumption wastes money, buy appreciating assets instead," but couched in pornographic insight. One of the later tweets is "pick business partners...with integrity." They're both good bits of advice. Just because you already know a piece of advice, and just because it's given by a charismatic writer over far too many individual tweets, doesn't make it bad advice.

Re: No More “Insight Porn”

#53

Post by ChildOfChaos »

mft_ wrote: post #14

I'm totally with the author - what he calls 'insight porn', I think of as 'grind porn' - as underneath the 'insights', I believe what the genre is really selling is the paradigm that you're not achieving enough, and you need to work harder, and because there are only so many hours in the day, you need to work smarter too, and to do that you need our insights to help you be much more efficient. So I'd take it a step f…

I've followed Tim for a good amount of years and the thing that hit me the most was when he talked about using tools for his socials to make sure he never saw the time line.

It made me think, he is happy to use the tool for his own gain, but opening acknowledges that it's bad for him, of course, most people in his situation would be the same, but it made me think, how all of that is mostly for his gain, not what a lot of the content consumers assume, for there gain. It's really just entertainment disguised as something more, might as well just watch Netflix.

Also it's abundantly clear that a lot of these creators don't listen to other podcasts etc, why is that? Being a creator and having a big following is a decent and fun life, but it's completely separate to being a consumer and all these consumers following this content wanting to learn to be more like the person that is creating the content, when the irony is, the biggest step they could take to doing that, is stop consuming it all.

Re: No More “Insight Porn”

#54

Post by motohagiography »

Sure, there's a lot of crappy insight out there, and there are also styles of writing designed to take your time. It's like Proust with product placement.

But when you look at psychology as a tool to dissolve artifacts of our internal logic that are causing suffering, using a neutralizing theory that temporarily dissolves meaning, the usefulness of some cliches and deepities becomes more apparent. These aren't positive instructions, they're a way to provoke a mind out of a kind of writers block or negative feedback loop about its idea of self.

An insight that reframes your perception of something can unlock what felt like a double bind or an inescapable situation. "I can't feel some joy because I am a this or that," is an example belief that an insight can unblock by reframing someones perspective to question the premises of that belief. Showing that your negative self beliefs are inconsistent enough for you to question them can be enough to relieve the suffering they cause, just long enough to do something about them. It's a precision tool.

It's relevant to look at the quality of insight and beliefs we're having delivered by some carefully orchestrated psychological techniques, but this one felt bit like witnessing the birth of a new thought terminating cliche.

Re: No More “Insight Porn”

#55

Post by aaws11 »

MOARDONGZPLZ wrote: post #28

I got super lucky. I started a company and didn’t really have any meaningful traction. I was about to shut it down. Walking out of the grocery store one night after work, I passed by my former manager when I was an intern. We got to talk for about 30 seconds, mentioned my company, she asked me to email her. I did, and that very quickly led to my first big customer which makes me about double what a FAANG swe would ma…

how about "make your own luck"? so that way you don't have to fear the uncertainty of luck!?

Re: No More “Insight Porn”

#56

Post by rograndom »

bombcar wrote: post #39
MOARDONGZPLZ wrote: post #28

I got super lucky. I started a company and didn’t really have any meaningful traction. I was about to shut it down. Walking out of the grocery store one night after work, I passed by my former manager when I was an intern. We got to talk for about 30 seconds, mentioned my company, she asked me to email her. I did, and that very quickly led to my first big customer which makes me about double what a FAANG swe would ma…

"Get lucky" is always the key - however, you can increase your "luck surface" by doing certain things (for example, you couldn't have gotten lucky if you hadn't started the company, nor if you hadn't bothered to talk to people).

Not just getting lucky, but being ready to get lucky. If they didn't have the company or the product already, bumping into the former manager wouldn't be enough. And I think I've just given the type of advice TFA is railing about :)

Re: No More “Insight Porn”

#57

Post by lupire »

aparks517 wrote: post #45
MOARDONGZPLZ wrote: post #28

I got super lucky. I started a company and didn’t really have any meaningful traction. I was about to shut it down. Walking out of the grocery store one night after work, I passed by my former manager when I was an intern. We got to talk for about 30 seconds, mentioned my company, she asked me to email her. I did, and that very quickly led to my first big customer which makes me about double what a FAANG swe would ma…

"Get lucky" is solid advice, but you've also got to give luck something to work with. I think your overnight success started a long time ago, at least as far back as when you showed your manager you weren't a bozo.

Of course but there's no insight there. It's just, be smart, study and learn a lot, maintain a decent appearance, work hard on useful or interesting things, kep stretching and growing to new things, make friends, keep in touch, ask to get paid for you work. Completely normal "middle class / entrepreneur values" type stuff.

Re: No More “Insight Porn”

#59

Post by bambax »

I'm confused, it seems insight porn is this guy's business. His article even ends with this:

> If you’d like to get more honest strategies and proven frameworks for winning in life and business, then simply join my free newsletter here.

Is he simply trying to trash the competition?

Re: No More “Insight Porn”

#60

Post by startupdiscuss »

MOARDONGZPLZ wrote: post #28

I got super lucky. I started a company and didn’t really have any meaningful traction. I was about to shut it down. Walking out of the grocery store one night after work, I passed by my former manager when I was an intern. We got to talk for about 30 seconds, mentioned my company, she asked me to email her. I did, and that very quickly led to my first big customer which makes me about double what a FAANG swe would ma…

Note: you had to be kind and nice enough for the former boss to care enough to:

- ask you to email

- read it and understand what you do

- follow up and spend the company's money

edit: simplicity

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