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Some advice from Jeff Bezos

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Re: Some advice from Jeff Bezos

#61

Post by wissler »

ValG wrote: post #42

"A foolish consistency is the hobgoblin of little minds" - Emerson. When I first read that quote in early High School I didn't understand it. It was the kind of thing that ate at me, I could not get what he was trying to say. To me, consistency was an important part of life; the old adage that you stick to your word. However, that quote transcends the idea of being consistent, because when you often make decisions wi…

To be inconsistent is the easiest thing in the world: just refuse to think about the meaning of what you believe or do. I don't think the point of Bezos's remark was that we should aspire to be inconsistent, but rather, we should be open to considering that our ideas might be wrong.

A better quote for this idea: "Contradictions do not exist. Whenever you think you are facing a contradiction, check your premises. You will find that one of them is wrong."--Ayn Rand

Re: Some advice from Jeff Bezos

#62

Post by yxhuvud »

waterlesscloud wrote: post #15
jonny_eh wrote: post #13

And the sad thing is that society often punishes people who change their minds or "flip-flop". See politics.

Flip-flopping in politics is often an insincere change of position for the purpose of chasing votes.

One thing to remember about politics is that there is a much higher degree of moral positions. Flipflopping on moral positions make people think the preson not worthy of trust, in a whole other way than flipflopping on technical solutions since technical solutions are a lot less dependent on core values and soft issues without hard truths compared to how politics is.

Re: Some advice from Jeff Bezos

#63

Post by zecho »

ValG wrote: post #42

"A foolish consistency is the hobgoblin of little minds" - Emerson. When I first read that quote in early High School I didn't understand it. It was the kind of thing that ate at me, I could not get what he was trying to say. To me, consistency was an important part of life; the old adage that you stick to your word. However, that quote transcends the idea of being consistent, because when you often make decisions wi…

The full sentence, which should relate to the issues of politics elsewhere in the thread: "A foolish consistency is the hobgoblin of little minds, adored by little statesmen and philosophers and divines."

Re: Some advice from Jeff Bezos

#65

Post by locopati »

wissler wrote: post #61
ValG wrote: post #42

"A foolish consistency is the hobgoblin of little minds" - Emerson. When I first read that quote in early High School I didn't understand it. It was the kind of thing that ate at me, I could not get what he was trying to say. To me, consistency was an important part of life; the old adage that you stick to your word. However, that quote transcends the idea of being consistent, because when you often make decisions wi…

To be inconsistent is the easiest thing in the world: just refuse to think about the meaning of what you believe or do. I don't think the point of Bezos's remark was that we should aspire to be inconsistent, but rather, we should be open to considering that our ideas might be wrong. A better quote for this idea: "Contradictions do not exist. Whenever you think you are facing a contradiction, check your premises. You…

'Contradictions do not exist' is nonsense. Contradictions exist all over the place. Any time you get two people together you'll have contradictions due to viewpoint, experience, perspectives. Denying that contradictions exist is a child-like view of the world. Working with the contradictions of life, now that's the fun and the challenge, isn't it?

Re: Some advice from Jeff Bezos

#66

Post by powertower »

Xcelerate wrote: post #35

I would argue that this is the defining factor in what makes someone intelligent or not. If you're always revising your ways of thinking about a problem, your probability of converging on a solution is vastly greater than someone with a narrow, one-track focus. In fact, another article on the HN homepage ( http://blogs.scientificamerican.com/streams-of-consciousness... ) elaborates on this point of trying multiple "s…

> did you know that a spinning ball weighs more than the same ball when it is stationary?

Did you know that the Earth's rotation itself adds about 2.38 billion metric tons to its mass, and we have the Soviet Union to thank for figuring that out?

http://infranetlab.org/blog/2008/12/harnessing-the-energy-fr...

Re: Some advice from Jeff Bezos

#68

Post by dthtvwls »

wissler wrote: post #61
ValG wrote: post #42

"A foolish consistency is the hobgoblin of little minds" - Emerson. When I first read that quote in early High School I didn't understand it. It was the kind of thing that ate at me, I could not get what he was trying to say. To me, consistency was an important part of life; the old adage that you stick to your word. However, that quote transcends the idea of being consistent, because when you often make decisions wi…

To be inconsistent is the easiest thing in the world: just refuse to think about the meaning of what you believe or do. I don't think the point of Bezos's remark was that we should aspire to be inconsistent, but rather, we should be open to considering that our ideas might be wrong. A better quote for this idea: "Contradictions do not exist. Whenever you think you are facing a contradiction, check your premises. You…

Here's a contradiction for you: Ayn Rand is usually wrong.

Re: Some advice from Jeff Bezos

#69

Post by kevinalexbrown »

Keeping an open mind is a great philosophy, so long as your mind doesn't change so quickly that no one can coordinate actions with you. But I'm having a difficult time inferring the significance of this post.

On the one hand, if I'm constantly changing my mind, and my mind tends to change toward a stable, slow-changing correct solution, by definition, I'll be "right a lot", so long as I've had sufficient time to converge. In any case, I'll be right a lot more than either a person whose mind does not tend to change toward the correct solution, or someone whose mind does not change. This seems true by definition.

On the other hand, if the correct solution changes rapidly and dramatically, and my mind does not change as quickly, I will trivially be wrong a lot.

Likewise, focusing too much on "details that only support one point of view" seems wrong by construction, unless you magically pick the right point of view to begin with.

I'm not trying to be snarky here, seriously. I just feel like I must be missing the significance. I've reread the post several times, but I don't see it. Perhaps someone could enlighten me?

Re: Some advice from Jeff Bezos

#70

Post by philwelch »

locopati wrote: post #65
wissler wrote: post #61

Earlier quoted context omitted.

To be inconsistent is the easiest thing in the world: just refuse to think about the meaning of what you believe or do. I don't think the point of Bezos's remark was that we should aspire to be inconsistent, but rather, we should be open to considering that our ideas might be wrong. A better quote for this idea: "Contradictions do not exist. Whenever you think you are facing a contradiction, check your premises. You…

'Contradictions do not exist' is nonsense. Contradictions exist all over the place. Any time you get two people together you'll have contradictions due to viewpoint, experience, perspectives. Denying that contradictions exist is a child-like view of the world. Working with the contradictions of life, now that's the fun and the challenge, isn't it?

Of course different people will have beliefs that contradict each other, but by the definition of a contradiction, they can't both be right. Likewise, if two of your own beliefs end up contradicting each other in the end, then one of those beliefs was wrong. That's the meaning of the quote.

Just letting a contradiction sit there is the lazy thing to do--it's the resolving of contradictions that's the fun part!

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