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Some advice from Jeff Bezos

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Re: Some advice from Jeff Bezos

#23
post #8

Good advice but I'm curious about: "Jason Fried is the fastest white man you'll ever meet." Is Jason actually really fast and/or was he an athlete at a prior time?

Yeah, it was really weird hitting the bottom of the article only to find a vaguely racist nonsensical byline.

Re: Some advice from Jeff Bezos

#24
Nothing to see here, but, of course, straight from the horse's mouth..)

This particular trait is of a much bigger idea - an active, aware, never satisfied beginners's mind, popularized in US by http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shunryu_Suzuki

A settled, stale, stagnant mind is a worst possible mental decease from a Buddhist perspective, and, ironically, the most desired state of the mind for a member of a totalitarian country or organization.)

Re: Some advice from Jeff Bezos

#25
post #23
post #8

Good advice but I'm curious about: "Jason Fried is the fastest white man you'll ever meet." Is Jason actually really fast and/or was he an athlete at a prior time?

Yeah, it was really weird hitting the bottom of the article only to find a vaguely racist nonsensical byline.

I don't think is racist. I'm hispanic and I don't feel offended of white people calling themselves white :-) because they're white.

Re: Some advice from Jeff Bezos

#26

Can't believe it. You had Bezos for 2 hours and this is all you bother to share with us?

The rest of his insights might give them some competitive advantage; perhaps, however, he spent two hours extolling the virtues of assembling your own desks and this bit was the only thing worthwhile to happen. I'll trust that they curated the talk in the way most likely to drive page views, not in the way most likely to enlighten the reader.

Re: Some advice from Jeff Bezos

#27

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

I think flip-flopping in politics is often a politician changing his view in a short amount of time and not admitting to the prior held view.

If a politician changes his view and publicly states that he held a very different view before but he was swayed by x, y, and z then I think nobody would accuse them of flip-flopping.

Re: Some advice from Jeff Bezos

#28

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

That's true, except the definition is elastic in politics. A candidate who thought a certain way at 18 years old is expected to still think the same way - on all opinions - at 45, which is absolutely ludicrous.

That's a strawman though, nobody actually says that. People complain about "flip flopping" when they see a politician campaigning and he or she says one thing on tuesday, something contradictory on wednesday, and then is back to the previous position again on thursday.

Re: Some advice from Jeff Bezos

#29

I never understood why consistent opinions are considered a good thing, it doesn't make any sense. If I realize I'm wrong, why should I stick to the wrong opinion?

I think it goes back to politics. It's considered a bad thing in that arena because people can't trust that you will keep your word on the platform that you hired them on. This is especially true for the divisive issues like abortion, healthcare, etc....

I think it's a stupid policy in general though.

Re: Some advice from Jeff Bezos

#30

I never understood why consistent opinions are considered a good thing, it doesn't make any sense. If I realize I'm wrong, why should I stick to the wrong opinion?

The hypothetical cleverest, most correct person possible would be right 100% of the time and therefore would never change their opinion because changing it would go from right to wrong.

Therefore a simplistic view is that the closer to that person you are, the better. Some people may even think they are that person.

Realising that you are not going to be correct 100% of the time is the first step. The second step is working out when you are wrong, so you know when to change your opinion. Nobody manages both these steps all the time, some people rarely manage either.

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