231–240 of 249 posts
Earlier quoted context omitted.
>I found that no, it really is that dumb, and I had understood it correctly months ago, and all the jargon was just meaningless bollocks word salad. My brother is an artist and absolutely refused to believe that the hype around NFTs was just bullshit. I'm sure if I called and asked right now, he'd still give me some word salad about how it's going to start paying off any day now. Now if anyone talks to me about NFTs,…
> Now if anyone talks to me about NFTs, I send that me that Folding Ideas youtube video, 'Line goes up' and refuse to engage with them. When someone talks to you about a topic you don't want to engage in you send them a link to a 2.5 hour long video? I mean, can't the point be made in 3m?
Honestly, it can be made as fast you can say 'NFTs are bullshit' but some people don't want to hear it from a friend or family member.
TLDR: You need "energy, imagination, resilience, good judgement, and focus on a goal" to go places. Funnily enough, every very successful person seems to arrive at the conclusion that "focus" is a differentiator.
And focus requires that you assume that others will pick up the slack, to deal with all the stuff you're not focusing on.
PG's distinction between persistent and obstinate is pretty much captured by the ideas of growth mindset and fixed mindset in psychology. https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/basics/growth-mindset My question is always, how do you get someone with a more fixed mindset attitude to adopt a growth mindset way of relating to the world? It's so hard, but it makes such a difference.
Growth mindset is hard because it's basically selling a lie. There is no amount of effort that'll turn the average HN reader into one of YC's star founders.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Still disagree. The most prolific writers are journalists, and most of their stuff is absolute garbage. On top of that, most of the most successful people on the planet write little or nothing. They are too busy doing.
I agree, just look at the reams of rubbish on LinkedIn , people trying to get attention as an example
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Having someone close who is obstinate makes the article very relatable (my father, talking him into something is like to talking to a stone, no matter how convincing you are and even if he seems to budge, it will take just a single moment to spring back). For me this line "The persistent are attached to the goal. The obstinate are attached to their ideas about how to reach it." explained what's going on but the artic…
I think one solution is to help them have your idea and take credit for it. If it’s their idea then they are already convinced it’s a good one. Persistent people can get a lot done when they don’t care about who gets the credit.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
> It’s a nonsensical word salad of half-baked conjectures and aphorisms. I found this article excellent and definitely thought provoking, and I am just wondering how can someone read that and come out with a bad impression like that?! Do you have some undisclosed issue with PG??
I think articles like TFA are a big reason why so called "obstinate" people exist to begin with. Look at the incredibly harsh judgement it passes out on them. At one point it stops just short of directly calling them stupid. The simple fact is people want to be good. People are afraid of being wrong. They are afraid of failure. They look for the one deep truth that will guide them and protect them from wrong. Once th…
I am sorry but you are taking things far too seriously. People have always had to "put themselves out there", it's part of living in a society rather than as a hermit. If you don't pull your weight in a tribe, others, not just you, may literally die, every hand counts. Others expect you do that, justifiably. Being judged is always going to be part of living in a society. But that's a good thing, not a bad thing! Learn to take criticism well. Some word someone said shouldn't affect you so strongly. Perhaps that was said by a 13 year old that doesn't know any better. Or by someone suffering from serious mental illness who finds some solace in trying to get other people on the internet disturbed.
Being judged as stupid is of course very harsh, but it's also not wrong sometimes. Do some people behave stupidly sometimes?? Of course they do, we all do. That doesn't make us bad people, and we shouldn't despair because we believe we have been categorized as stupid: we should definitely consider whether it's a fair assessment given the circumstances, and try to do better next time. Very smart people can, and do, behave stupidly, specially when talking about religion or politics. Even smart people can say the most stupid things. I think no one is very smart or very stupid in every context, there's always a context where you'd look totally stupid even if you're Albert Einstein. Imagine Mr. Einstein trying to hunt in a jungle in Africa. Even with practice, he'd probably never get good at it. His very way of thinking, very scientific and evidence driven, what we consider intelligent, would get him eaten in no time over there. What count there is being fast thinking, acting on instinct... that's how you survive there, and that's what you would count as "smart" if you lived there.
Anyway, hope some of what I say here helps someone :).
I liked PG's essays better when they were more concretely rooted in the details of his work his work at his startup and at YC. This one feels like a sort of non-specific variant of Bulverism - diagnose a bunch of people without presenting evidence, then start psychoanalysing them (also without evidence).