How to Think for Yourself • Hacker News Board

Re: How to Think for Yourself

#301

Post by personlurking » Fri, Nov 27, 2020, 4:50 PM UTC

dgb23 wrote: post #264

baron_harkonnen wrote: post #131

PG sure has been on a kick about how brilliant of an independent thinker he is in a sea of conformity. It's clear in all of his writing that he's perpetually beating around the bush about some current itch he has, I wish he would just come out and say it with out pretending to be a deep thinker: > Do you want to do the kind of work where you can only win by thinking differently from everyone else? I mean, taken outsi…

IMO Voltairine de Cleyre[0] phrased this notion much better in this essay about Anarchism[1] in the first few paragraphs. She starts with describing two essential spirits, one being conservative and steady, the other one being progressive and unpredictable. It becomes clear these spirits both inhabit everyone in some way or another and society reflects that as a whole as well. On a personal level, it gets complicated…

>She starts with describing two essential spirits, one being conservative and steady, the other one being progressive and unpredictable. It becomes clear these spirits both inhabit everyone in some way or another and society reflects that as a whole as well.

Reminds me a bit of the Catalonian characteristics of Seny (wisdom or sensibleness) and Rauxa (sudden determination or action):

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Seny

Re: How to Think for Yourself

#302

Post by chenpengcheng » Fri, Nov 27, 2020, 4:50 PM UTC

he is not the best. i am very impressed by how little his thinking and writing have improved over the years.

there is always a flavor of lecturing in his words. sometimes, it makes me wonder if i am just too stupid to understand his answers to all matters.

these days i could not finish reading his writings. his twitter feels like a talkative kid who hasn't learned self control. i have unfollowed him long ago.

he may want to be different. but how is he different? really.

Re: How to Think for Yourself

#303

Post by fractionalhare » Fri, Nov 27, 2020, 4:50 PM UTC

enriquec wrote: post #255

fractionalhare wrote: post #241

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The problem with a comment like this is that there's no detailed rebuttal. What you've given here is more of an aloof dismissal which is implicitly judgmental. If you're willing to bucket peoples' minds into greatness or smallness based on a single observation of their message board activity, how is your response substantively different from the thing it's criticizing? This is to say that I reject the premise; your c…

its ad hominem. its not discussing the content. all of what you said could be aimed at the gp parent regarding his characterization of PG's post

Citing the ad hominem fallacy is pretty reductive; in dialectics there are plenty of occasions where the identity of an arguer is relevant to their argument. The internet's obsession with calling out this fallacy has sucked all the formal nuance out of its rhetorical usage.

It also doesn't apply here, because the grandparent comment is not trying to refute PG's argument, it's mounting an entirely orthogonal one. So yes, I do agree it's not directly discussing the content. But that's also pretty characteristic of most HN threads.

People on HN usually talk about the ideas they have which are evoked by the article. They do not as a rule engage in formal refutation or advocation of the article's core thesis, unless it's very technical in nature.

Re: How to Think for Yourself

#304

Post by ChrisMarshallNY » Fri, Nov 27, 2020, 4:51 PM UTC

lisper wrote: post #256

> There are some kinds of work that you can't do well without thinking differently from your peers. To be a successful scientist, for example, it's not enough just to be correct. Your ideas have to be both correct and novel. As someone who once made their living as a scientist, I can tell you from firsthand experience that while this is technically correct, the conclusion PG wishes to draw from this: > One of the mos…

> Being skeptical of the conventional wisdom can be useful, but keeping yourself intentionally ignorant of it is generally a bad plan.

I can vouch for that.

I write software, but my original training was as an EE. My software development methodology was almost entirely self-taught.

This has been both good and bad. I will sometimes come up with some really interesting orthogonal approaches, but I will also sometimes "reinvent the wheel," with a naive approach.

Experience has taught me to seek out prior art, and established patterns. My creative way may still be the best way, but I've learned that is not always the case.

Re: How to Think for Yourself

#305

Post by okareaman » Fri, Nov 27, 2020, 4:51 PM UTC

baron_harkonnen wrote: post #131

PG sure has been on a kick about how brilliant of an independent thinker he is in a sea of conformity. It's clear in all of his writing that he's perpetually beating around the bush about some current itch he has, I wish he would just come out and say it with out pretending to be a deep thinker: > Do you want to do the kind of work where you can only win by thinking differently from everyone else? I mean, taken outsi…

You put your finger on why I felt compelled to unfollow PG on Twitter. I kept waiting for him to hit me with valuable insights that rarely showed up. I took the time to learn Lisp because of PG and was underwhelmed. I bet Lisp was amazing 40 years ago; now it just seemed like a fetish for parenthesis to me. Lispy and functional ideas have moved into the brace block languages I've been using the last 20 years.

Re: How to Think for Yourself

#306

Post by whimsicalism » Fri, Nov 27, 2020, 4:52 PM UTC

edw519 wrote: post #162

baron_harkonnen wrote: post #131

PG sure has been on a kick about how brilliant of an independent thinker he is in a sea of conformity. It's clear in all of his writing that he's perpetually beating around the bush about some current itch he has, I wish he would just come out and say it with out pretending to be a deep thinker: > Do you want to do the kind of work where you can only win by thinking differently from everyone else? I mean, taken outsi…

Disagree. This sounds a bit harsh, nitpicking at one instance of a class. Go back and read all his essays. You'll learn more than if you got your MBA. (I know. I've done both.) Believe me, I'm not PG fan boy, but he doesn't have to do this and I hope he never stops.

> read all his essays. You'll learn more than if you got your MBA.

> Believe me, I'm not PG fan boy

Sorry, but after that first sentence of course I'm not going to believe you.

Re: How to Think for Yourself

#307

Post by im3w1l » Fri, Nov 27, 2020, 4:53 PM UTC

goto11 wrote: post #88

Fun observation that everybody in this community consider it positive to be "independent minded". But the author seem to fall into the same trap at the end: When I wrote "The Four Quadrants of Conformism" I expected a firestorm of rage from the aggressively conventional-minded, but in fact it was quite muted. They sensed that there was something about the essay that they disliked intensely, but they had a hard time f…

I think for intelligent disciplined thinkers it's a positive to be independent minded. Stupid people risk becoming "cranks" and/or believing in conspiracy theories, and being defrauded of their money for woo-pills and woo-accessories.

Re: How to Think for Yourself

#308

Post by whimsicalism » Fri, Nov 27, 2020, 4:53 PM UTC

spdionis wrote: post #268

baron_harkonnen wrote: post #131

PG sure has been on a kick about how brilliant of an independent thinker he is in a sea of conformity. It's clear in all of his writing that he's perpetually beating around the bush about some current itch he has, I wish he would just come out and say it with out pretending to be a deep thinker: > Do you want to do the kind of work where you can only win by thinking differently from everyone else? I mean, taken outsi…

While the rest of your post sounds reasonable: > Right now Silicon Valley VC thinking is the dominant ideology Are you sure? Are you talking about the US? And even then it's probably true for only ~half of the states? Are you talking about the business world? The whole of EU seems to strongly disagree with SV VC thinking. Edit: Why doesn't the EU replicate the success of US startups? You think EU policy makers don't…

> Are you talking about the business world? The whole of EU seems to strongly disagree with SV VC thinking.

The US is dominant in the Western business world, things that become popular business practices here get ported over to the EU.

I think it's pretty clear that if it is not dominant, it is sharply ascendant in the past 5 years. HN commentators and certain segments of Twitter basically worship at the feet of successful VCs.

Re: How to Think for Yourself

#309

Post by skybrian » Fri, Nov 27, 2020, 4:54 PM UTC

baron_harkonnen wrote: post #131

PG sure has been on a kick about how brilliant of an independent thinker he is in a sea of conformity. It's clear in all of his writing that he's perpetually beating around the bush about some current itch he has, I wish he would just come out and say it with out pretending to be a deep thinker: > Do you want to do the kind of work where you can only win by thinking differently from everyone else? I mean, taken outsi…

It seems to me that claiming you’re independent-minded is sort of like claiming you’re a genius. You’re not supposed to make this claim yourself. Graham doesn’t make this claim explicitly, but by writing about this subject he makes it implicitly.

How do you avoid making this claim? I think it’s to remember the the trap of fundamental attribution error. People are not always independent-minded or always conformist. They may think independently about some subjects and conform to conventional wisdom for others.

This provides more room for modesty - maybe I was able to think independently about some subject, that one time, or a few times, but certainly not consistently on all subjects. Having some experience might make it reasonable to write about it, with suitable caveats.

So, essays often start out with some kind of explanation of the author’s qualifications, sometimes written as a sort of half-apology to the reader for presuming to write as an expert when you are still learning.

We might also remember the lesson of counter-cultures, which is that rejecting mainstream beliefs more easily happens with the help of other people who believe differently. This makes it more difficult to tell where you stand, since everyone feels like they are being non-conformist in some way. When people are divided then it’s inevitable that you will disagree with some. (Nerd culture is a counter-culture that has become mainstream in some ways, though there are less popular aspects of it.)

Conventional wisdom is also relative to which culture you are talking about. That’s what culture is, an agglomeration of ideas about the best way to do thousands of different things. When you move to a different place, it’s quite possible to get caught between cultures inadvertently and not have any community that thinks quite like you do.

Re: How to Think for Yourself

#310

Post by chenpengcheng » Fri, Nov 27, 2020, 4:55 PM UTC

baron_harkonnen wrote: post #131

PG sure has been on a kick about how brilliant of an independent thinker he is in a sea of conformity. It's clear in all of his writing that he's perpetually beating around the bush about some current itch he has, I wish he would just come out and say it with out pretending to be a deep thinker: > Do you want to do the kind of work where you can only win by thinking differently from everyone else? I mean, taken outsi…

well said.