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How to Think for Yourself

paulgraham.com

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Re: How to Think for Yourself

#631

Post by brlewis »

galaxyLogic wrote: post #590
brlewis wrote: post #293

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>> The MMA guy was apparently like "so I guess these guys have just never hung out with any athletes?" Turns out it isn't that abnormal for them to like cool and nerdy stuff. > "black swans" is not only about swans. There can be sports-types who also like intellectual activity The gp's experience taught that such sports-types are not black swans. It's not just that the stereotype had exceptions; it's that the stereot…

> the stereotype wasn't even accurate at low granularity In this single case. This was the first and only sports-guy they had met that was interested in computer-games. "stereotype had exceptions". Well not really, for these observers, at this point in time, the stereotype had ONE exception, this particular guy. Personally I don't think it surprising at all that a sports-guy would be interested in computer games. The…

Maybe the quote I used was too long. I'll shorten it to just the part that shows it's more than a single case, and add caps to emphasize it was more than ONE exception.

>>"so I guess these guys have just NEVER hung out with ANY athletes?" Turns out it ISN'T THAT ABNORMAL FOR THEM to like cool and nerdy stuff.

Re: How to Think for Yourself

#632

Post by jolux »

ardit33 wrote: post #629
ryeguy_24 wrote: post #615

Am I the only one is getting pretty bored of "formula for success" content? This essay and other's like it, without evidence or data, implies that some of us know the formula for success. I get it, the things that change convention are unconventional at first. This is the definition of unconventional. I agree with the general vector of his essay but this is just boring to me. Here is my formula for success (in case a…

I don't know, but I rather hear sporting/fitness advice from someone that won NBA finals, or the soccer World Cup, then just some random loser. The winner at least can tell you how they did succeed personally, even if they have no comprehensive studies with data. On the other hand, you are just a random guy from the internet, and offering advice with no data at all. You might be broke and posting from your mom's base…

Many successful people overrate their personal characteristics and underrate the degree to which they were merely in the right place at the right time and such. Fortune favors the prepared, of course, but I personally believe there are far more people in the world who are adequately prepared for success who do not succeed because they are under-resourced or poorly connected.

Re: How to Think for Yourself

#633

Post by npunt »

aerosmile wrote: post #438
whatshisface wrote: post #346

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The huge difference between tech startups and science is that in science, the conventional wisdom has recorded justifications and collected evidence that you can look up and understand, while in tech startups the conventional wisdom is advice made up by businessesmen who succeeded once, or sometimes succeeded zero times, and shared over drinks at the local pub. The usefulness gap between scientific knowledge and cult…

This a million times. You could further prove your point by bringing up some specific examples: - Webvan vs Instacart. Prior to Instacart, the conventional wisdom was that grocery delivery doesn't work as a standalone business, and that hypothesis was based on the Webvan data point. - GM vs Tesla. GM's failure with their EV1 was frequently used against Tesla in their early stages. But GM's decision to abandon their p…

For what its worth, in 07 I had Andy Rachleff as an instructor and we did a case study on Webvan, and Andy's conclusion was that if he had to do it over he'd still invest in Webvan because the business was sound, it was just a bit too early.

There's certainly at least as many opinions about business as there are people working in the private sector, and most are probably wrong, but the fundamental workings of business aren't entirely a random number generator. You can use tools of business to determine the viability of a particular approach, at which point you're left with figuring out the timing and execution of that idea.

Still, not as solid by any means as science.

Re: How to Think for Yourself

#634

Post by ryeguy_24 »

ardit33 wrote: post #629
ryeguy_24 wrote: post #615

Am I the only one is getting pretty bored of "formula for success" content? This essay and other's like it, without evidence or data, implies that some of us know the formula for success. I get it, the things that change convention are unconventional at first. This is the definition of unconventional. I agree with the general vector of his essay but this is just boring to me. Here is my formula for success (in case a…

I don't know, but I rather hear sporting/fitness advice from someone that won NBA finals, or the soccer World Cup, then just some random loser. The winner at least can tell you how they did succeed personally, even if they have no comprehensive studies with data. On the other hand, you are just a random guy from the internet, and offering advice with no data at all. You might be broke and posting from your mom's base…

It's fine to listen to him. And your logic is sound. And I am in my parent's basement. My post was firstly a question and secondly an opinion on this type of content. So, it's good to know you appreciate it and might be at a different place in your evolution in content consumption. We are all different and get benefits from different things. Just wanted to know where others stood.

Re: How to Think for Yourself

#636

Post by dang »

Every time a new pg essay comes out, comments appear saying how much he and his essays have changed (for the worse, of course). I think this perception has the nicely ironic property that it exists because it's false.

pg hasn't changed. He can't; he's too weird (nonconformist, if you prefer). Traits at that level just are.

What's changed is his status. Becoming rich and famous changes how people perceive you. What sounds scrappy and original coming from an underdog sounds inflated and self-congratulatory coming from a fatcat. It's because he hasn't changed—in particular, to accommodate the expectations people have once they classify you as a fatcat—that people complain that he changed.

Even more ironically, this 'change' is the invariant: pg never accommodated the expectations people had. His essays pissed people off 10 years ago, 15 years ago, coming up on 20 years ago. While the surface reasons have changed, the feelings are so similar that the deep structure of the off-pissage is surely the same.

Re: How to Think for Yourself

#637

Post by dang »

ryeguy_24 wrote: post #615

Am I the only one is getting pretty bored of "formula for success" content? This essay and other's like it, without evidence or data, implies that some of us know the formula for success. I get it, the things that change convention are unconventional at first. This is the definition of unconventional. I agree with the general vector of his essay but this is just boring to me. Here is my formula for success (in case a…

I don't see that here. I see someone trying to figure out things that interest him. As for unconventional ideas and observations, here's one:

Political extremists [...] think themselves nonconformists, but actually they're niche conformists. Their opinions may be different from the average person's, but they are often more influenced by their peers' opinions than the average person's are.

The material of that bit may not be unusual, but its precision and density certainly are, and the fact that it coins a great name for the phenomenon (niche conformism) easily clears the bar for "unconventional idea/observation" in my book. Also, there's nothing formula-for-successy there. You might be missing the best reasons for reading these things?

Re: How to Think for Yourself

#638

Post by pembrook »

typon wrote: post #570
pembrook wrote: post #495

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Your view of PG and SV culture is following the standard sentiment curve. Just like the culture at large. 20 years ago we were the innovative pioneers shaking up the all-powerful old guard, and everybody loves to root for the underdog. Now we’re the new seemingly all-powerful incumbents (look at the top 5 S&P 500 companies right now). Underdogs no longer. You can see this very clearly in media coverage of Silicon Val…

But there wasn't that much bad stuff to ignore in the past - because it wasn't that bad. Google did not have that much influence or power, so their bad tendencies (assuming they have been the same throughout their lifetime) were just benign. There is no point in holding up a big magnifying glass on underdogs - things can't go horribly wrong. But it is completely justified to hold the powerful accountable, and that's…

But I think this further proves the point. Google had already grown a search monopoly 15 years ago while everybody was still fawning over them and thinking they were going to give us all free internet via flying balloons and self driving cars.

We just assumed they would use their powers for good and not evil, because we were judging them overly optimistically. We ignored the bad.

Now that they've been cemented as a dominant incumbent, we've seen the other side and judge them with a hyper-critical eye. We've forgotten the frustrations of life under the old guard. We take Google for granted, and ignore the good when discussing them now.

Of course, Google has always been both a useful product and dangerous given its power. Rationally, we knew all of this was true 15 years ago. But emotionally, we were unable to correctly evaluate the risk.

Re: How to Think for Yourself

#639

Post by nickthemagicman »

ojnabieoot wrote: post #85
nickthemagicman wrote: post #78

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You could argue the same things about Plato or Descartes or Locke philosophy. But a lot of things have been built upon their wisdom and thinking.

No - Plato, Descartes, and Locke all referenced actual history when formulating their ideas about politics - PG doesn't even mention an example of an "independent-minded" person! - and at least Descartes and Locke heavily cited the past generations of political philosophers that came before them. It is also worth noting that at least Plato/Descartes/Locke were investigating deep questions of political philosophy with…

Dollars to donuts PG could sit down and write down an in-depth philosophical article with all kinds of references and probably get it into periodicals.

I think you're mistaking the type of writing this is.

This is for a blog not a book or an academic journal.

These are his semi fleshed out informal ideas and you can take them or leave them.

I don't even think he's claiming theyre objective reality.

They're interesting neat ideas based on a smart man's experience that help you look at the world in a certain way and I can appreciate that and I'm glad he writes them.

Re: How to Think for Yourself

#640

Post by [deleted] »

dang wrote: post #636

Every time a new pg essay comes out, comments appear saying how much he and his essays have changed (for the worse, of course). I think this perception has the nicely ironic property that it exists because it's false. pg hasn't changed. He can't; he's too weird (nonconformist, if you prefer). Traits at that level just are. What's changed is his status. Becoming rich and famous changes how people perceive you. What so…

[deleted]
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