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Keep Your Identity Small (2009)

paulgraham.com

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Re: Keep Your Identity Small (2009)

#111

Post by intelVISA »

kossTKR wrote: post #37
RajT88 wrote: post #4

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In tech, people ascribe you an identity as much as you claim one yourself. When I am not around, I have been described to people as "A DevOps guy" or "A Network Guy". People then treat me accordingly. But, being human (or an approximation thereof), I am not just one thing.

I often skip the fact that i work in tech in certain circles in the beginning. Instead i'm just a business consultant, or working with project management. Probably a bit cowardlike but people really love to put other people in boxes and for a lot of people working in tech means "oh so you're one of those super nerdy people that is naively optimistic about technology, is socially stunted, loves infantile pop culture a…

> "oh so you're one of those super nerdy people that is naively optimistic about technology, is socially stunted, loves infantile pop culture and has zero sense of aesthetics" as an example.

for once I'm glad to be the opposite to the usual trope.. but I feel you it is tiring to be interrogated over the location of my non-existent funko-pop cache just because I write code. Even saying "I swear I don't write Js" doesn't protect you these days.

Re: Keep Your Identity Small (2009)

#112

Post by hypoqtech »

mgrthrow wrote: post #79
hypoqtech wrote: post #48

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm not sure it is a fact, I mean, these days there are heterosexual people who call themselves queer.

Well, queer encompasses more than just gay and lesbian people. Non-binary people can be queer, heterosexual trans people can be queer, asexual people can be queer. Same with polyamorous people.

Doesn't that make it not a fact then, if people can just opt in and out to being queer?

Re: Keep Your Identity Small (2009)

#113

Post by philwelch »

narag wrote: post #98
mgrthrow wrote: post #78

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think you've both got the right answer and explained it with a very negative framing. Gender and Sexual Minority, LGBTQ+, and queer all describe a largely similar set of folks. Queer arose not from "woke-leftist" spaces, but grew out of 70s and 80s radical gay and trans spaces - groups like the Gay Liberation Front - who were willing to fight back (violently if necessary) against violence and discrimination. Queer…

I'm not a native speaker, not in the know of the nuances of those terms, just accepted the one you chose. There's a point that I still don't understand. The article advices to keep identity as a minimum. Not having none, just not including every circumstance or opinion in your identity. The reason is that a fat identity makes you more vulnerable to bias. Is being queer a fundamental part of your identity? Or is it so…

Whether you're sexually attracted to men or women isn't something that can change, but that doesn't necessarily mean you have to enshrine it as a significant part of your identity. This is actually where the semantic nuances come fully into play. People who identify as queer are consciously choosing to identify as queer. There are gay men and lesbian women who don't identify as queer. Sometimes that's because they don't agree with the radical orientation of the people who do identify as queer, sometimes that's because they don't like the word itself, and sometimes it's because they don't feel a sense of group identity with everyone under the "queer" umbrella.

Re: Keep Your Identity Small (2009)

#114

Post by bilirubin »

mgrthrow wrote: post #30

Doesn't land for me. I'm queer, my identity isn't huge, but it does include queer. That alone is enough to make some folks want to do violence to me (I have first hand experience with this). Telling me to "stop being x" is a bad vibe when x is something intrinsic about me AND the anti x folks hate me just for existing. I just want to live my life.

No post body was provided.

Re: Keep Your Identity Small (2009)

#116

Post by fourfivefour »

selimthegrim wrote: post #110
fourfoursix wrote: post #55

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How so. I simply said, "consider the possibility." Because scientifically. These are possibilities. Realistic ones in fact. I directly picked them for their controversy. I am aware of the direction they run counter to the norms. Are you aware of your biases? Are you aware how inline with cultural norms and biases that your opinions are? At times, many of these things weren't controversial. How do you know that the cu…

For one example you might want to consider how Asian males are considered in Latin America as opposed to the US (hint: a lot more desirable)

Valid info. I have not considered it. Economic status and size are factors in female attraction. Asians are generally higher in economic status, statistically speaking, and latin americans are generally poorer and smaller in size so they are more comparable in stature to East Asians. This makes logical sense to what I already know. However it doesn't invalidate the German Sheppard theory. North Americans are generally larger than East Asians and the wealth gap is not as large.

Still all of this is besides the point. Without knowing the latin american thing, my conclusion and theory is valid in terms of the probability of being true. But people dismiss it because of bias, not because of evidence or logic.

Re: Keep Your Identity Small (2009)

#117

Post by fourfivefour »

narag wrote: post #104
fouroneone wrote: post #83

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Oh, It's completely too late for me. I cannot unbelieve what I believe. I already live a life of lies. Nobody knows what I believe and I lie to seem normal and socialize-able. I also don't hold any strong desire to "implement" my beliefs. It's just a perspective.. I am an observer with opinions and I don't care to be any sort of activist. I largely agree with your last post. However it's too late. I no longer believe…

I believe that the answer you seek is in the article. You're too attached to a sick mindset. It's better to stop overthinking and doing something that have more pleasant effects (for you) than writting long-winded comments here. Or maybe not.

I don't think you read my comment or the article carefully. The extreme end of that article, giving up all your identity is my "sick mindset". That is the ultimate conclusion.

You might as well not comment if you're not going to read anything. I don't care for you comment otherwise. Better for you to start actually thinking and stop mistaking that for "over thinking", because your reply indicates you haven't.

Re: Keep Your Identity Small (2009)

#118

Post by ACow_Adonis »

nateoearth wrote: post #103

Counterpoint: a strong sense of identity is a crucial ingredient for a meaningful life. Studies have consistently shown that actively religious people are happier that their non-religious counterparts. Identities can grant access to social networks, epitomized in conventions attracting thousands of people who gleefully share an identity (e.g., DEF CON for hackers). Etc.

counter-counterpoint: studies (that is to say the modern ritual of writing papers about spuriously finding statistical correlations using language and processes specific to your academic tribe) have consistently found positive effects of both.

On the one hand you have the supposed positive effects of accepting identities of the in-group, but you have to be very careful about how you structure and interpret these, because as you've inadvertently pointed out, what you're often really getting is access to social networks and resources. you also have to be very careful to interpret the positive outcomes of such if they're part of groups that actively discriminate, target or persecute out-member groups. gays, foreigners, races, genders other-identies can also be shown to often have negative effects using similar methods, and of course naive methods do find significantly worse outcomes amongst many life measures from such groups (which is not really surprising, because the in-group often treats them like shit).

but studies have also shown consistent positive effects from dropping identities. i.e. stopping identifying with criminal groups, removing limiting beliefs and cognitive barriers associated with identities, and positive associations with Buddhist-esque religions and practices associated with traditionally non-identity building beliefs and practices (meditation, anatman, western psychological methods and treatments associated- derived from such etc).

personally, I fall on the less identity side of things, just speaking as someone on the side of the unique position of being involved with statistics, religion, economics, and psychology.

Re: Keep Your Identity Small (2009)

#119

Post by abecedarius »

acatnamedjoe wrote: post #10

My view is that having a "small identity" is basically impossible in any practical sense. Many issues are inherently subjective, and even for issues that are (philosophically speaking) objective, actual human individuals rarely have the time or the access to data to form a genuinely objective view. We all use heuristic thinking, all the time, which is inevitably massively biased by all kinds of things related to our…

He said small, not zero.

Re: Keep Your Identity Small (2009)

#120

Post by aeturnum »

This is SUCH "Paul Graham" advice - useful mostly to people who sit on top of a hierarchy of power which does not demand any of their personal attention.

I think the good version of this advice is: actively evaluate what is important to you and what you can do to maintain and further it. We are all involved, to one degree or another, in systems and processes larger than ourselves. By definition, our influence on those systems is limited - but we may be able to increase or decrease our influence through work and engagement. It's healthy to reflect on what you are investing your time and energy into and how those investments will impact your life. There is no single right or wrong answer - but you will benefit from forming an opinion!

It's unhealthy to falsely base your self-worth on giant political movements outside your control - but it's equally unhealthy to ignore the impact you experience from the issues of the day. Be reflective in how you associate yourself with things, but no one should pretend that they are not subject to the world (unless, it seems, you're at a "Paul Graham" level of wealth and independence).

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