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The Right Kind of Stubborn

paulgraham.com

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Re: The Right Kind of Stubborn

#171

Post by ninetyninenine »

People often ignore evolutionary psychology. You should ask the question why do humans have these bad traits and tendencies? Because these traits helped us dominate in the game of the survival of the fittest.

Yes Grahams two cents here makes sense, but always talk about why the trait from an evolutionary perspective even exists. It exists because it worked for a certain context and was good for millions of years. Explain why it doesn't work for this new context.

Instead all I hear is people calling certain traits bad and explaining how we should live life like suppressing all these traits that took millions of years to evolve.

Re: The Right Kind of Stubborn

#173

Post by pfisherman »

munificent wrote: post #58

I like this article a lot. I think a lot of the distinction between persistence and obstinance comes down to identity, attachment, and self esteem. Almost everyone who is persistent or obstinant has something to prove. They have some deep-seated feeling that they need to demonstrate something to their community, a sense that maybe their value is in some ways conditional on what they provide. Content people who feel a…

Counterpoint: contentment is a prerequisite for healthy sustained effort. It’s easy to get up every day and chisel away at something inch by inch - sometimes with little to no perceptible progress - when you are fulfilled elsewhere in your life.

Re: The Right Kind of Stubborn

#174

Post by drBonkers »

cm2012 wrote: post #142
ChrisMarshallNY wrote: post #64

I used to work for a corporation that was legendary for their Quality (note the capital "Q" -I got used to denoting it that way). They have been making precision optical gear for over a hundred years, and fetch many thousands, for their consumer (really, professional) kit. Thousands of successful people have built their entire careers around this company's gear. If you want to see "stubborn," look no further than the…

The best metaphor for this is the concept of resonant yaw. Make one small 1 degree mistake on a rocket launch, you will end up hundreds of miles off target. Make a small mistake in an organic system and you'll be fine, you can just iterate. You'll drive yourself crazy trying to get it perfect. The trick is knowing which situation is which.

This also reminds me of the 1-way vs 2-way doors analogy Bezos mentioned in his interview with Lex Fridman — sweat the 1-way door decisions, not the 2-way door decisions.

Re: The Right Kind of Stubborn

#175

Post by naveen99 »

ninetyninenine wrote: post #171

People often ignore evolutionary psychology. You should ask the question why do humans have these bad traits and tendencies? Because these traits helped us dominate in the game of the survival of the fittest. Yes Grahams two cents here makes sense, but always talk about why the trait from an evolutionary perspective even exists. It exists because it worked for a certain context and was good for millions of years. Exp…

It’s just bad luck and survival instinct. Stubborn genes end up in a position of power and then they cling to it. For a stupid, stubborn king, it’s sometimes easier (more selfish, evolutionary fit) to just kill the intelligent court advisor or jester than to acknowledge mistakes and give up power for the benefit of the state. In a game of thrones, absolute reason gives in to back stabbing. Also beauty and strength sometimes don’t have the patience for intelligence and outsource it or kill it if it gets in the way of self propagation.

Re: The Right Kind of Stubborn

#176

Post by tinycombinator »

etothepii wrote: post #167
xivzgrev wrote: post #125

I wish this article hit on an important point: when should the persistent quit? We all know we should know when to hold and when to fold, but in practice that's a hard decision to make especially when we're invested. And someone who is "persistent" vs "obstinate" should be able to do this: quit when it's right to do so. The closest thing he mentions is this, "persistence often requires that one change one's mind. Tha…

Does the answer to this lie with the tree PG discusses. If the goal is, "do something great." Then one should never quit.

And how would you know if something is actually "great" or important enough to never quit? That your efforts aren't better spent elsewhere?

Re: The Right Kind of Stubborn

#177

Post by sixtram »

dkarl wrote: post #153

I once inherited a very thorny performance problem with a service. Thorny as in, the previous engineer was ordered to give up and move on because our boss was worried it was adversely affecting their mental health and their performance on other tasks. I quickly learned that every person who found out I was working on this problem was eager to share the same three or four ideas on how to fix it. All of these ideas wer…

And did you fix the performance problem?

Re: The Right Kind of Stubborn

#178

Post by raldi »

I would say the difference is that there’s no new evidence that would change an obstinate person’s mind, whereas a persistent person knows what evidence it would take to change their mind, sees it’s not happening, and maintains confidence in their position.

Re: The Right Kind of Stubborn

#179

Post by ninetyninenine »

naveen99 wrote: post #175
ninetyninenine wrote: post #171

People often ignore evolutionary psychology. You should ask the question why do humans have these bad traits and tendencies? Because these traits helped us dominate in the game of the survival of the fittest. Yes Grahams two cents here makes sense, but always talk about why the trait from an evolutionary perspective even exists. It exists because it worked for a certain context and was good for millions of years. Exp…

It’s just bad luck and survival instinct. Stubborn genes end up in a position of power and then they cling to it. For a stupid, stubborn king, it’s sometimes easier (more selfish, evolutionary fit) to just kill the intelligent court advisor or jester than to acknowledge mistakes and give up power for the benefit of the state. In a game of thrones, absolute reason gives in to back stabbing. Also beauty and strength so…

doubtful. Stubbornness is so common that's it's unlikely to have a roundabout reason for why it exists.

Re: The Right Kind of Stubborn

#180

Post by BeetleB »

etothepii wrote: post #167
xivzgrev wrote: post #125

I wish this article hit on an important point: when should the persistent quit? We all know we should know when to hold and when to fold, but in practice that's a hard decision to make especially when we're invested. And someone who is "persistent" vs "obstinate" should be able to do this: quit when it's right to do so. The closest thing he mentions is this, "persistence often requires that one change one's mind. Tha…

Does the answer to this lie with the tree PG discusses. If the goal is, "do something great." Then one should never quit.

I know it's meant to be a joke, but I actually agree with this poster:

https://despair.com/products/stupidity

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