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How to Think for Yourself

paulgraham.com

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Re: How to Think for Yourself

#821

Post by martingoodson »

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…

No you’re not the only one to think this. That’s why this is currently the top comment.

I guess you’re not very independent-minded.

Re: How to Think for Yourself

#822

Post by pdimitar »

trabant00 wrote: post #757
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…

Largely, successful people have little idea what they did to succeed at something. I observed this first in others and then in myself when trying to teach others. One reason is - like PG says - the inclination for activities is more nature vs nurture than we like to think. We want the success to be caused by our choices and intelect. When it was largely chosen for us at birth. Another aspect is post fact rationalizat…

Extremely well-written comment! Enjoyed reading it.

To answer your last question I'd say my takeaway is "apply critical thinking to everything, this article included". As you and others point out, PG suffers from survivorship bias and likes to post-hoc rationalize how genius he was.

That definitely isn't something to learn from. One could analyze his career and maybe extract some valuable lessons from it. However I am not even sure PG is a good example at all; once some critical mass is accrued the rest of the success is pretty much inevitable.

So maybe the conclusion is: strive to achieve that critical mass with all your might? Could be.

Re: How to Think for Yourself

#823

Post by brightball »

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…

Formula for success:

1. Find a way to afford time to focus on what you care about. 2. Repeat step 1.

For a lot of people, step 1 is a steady job so they can do things they care about outside of work with family and friends. For others, it’s finding time to work on a project or startup you care about.

Ultimately, buying your own time back is the key to it all. What that key unlocks is up to you to decide.

Re: How to Think for Yourself

#824

Post by pdimitar »

andrewseanryan wrote: post #747
chenpengcheng wrote: post #686

Earlier quoted context omitted.

only when the tide turns, you get to see who was swimming naked. luck plays an important part, but not everyone realizes it or admits it.

And yet... those who stay in the game and who try new things regularly get “lucky” while those who quit, don’t develop and learn from a process, and who try the same methods over and over don’t get lucky. It is far too simple to say that it is only luck. Persistence and good processes often lead to “luck”.

We have a saying in one of the Bulgarian towns:

"Luck doesn't come to you, you go to it".

Which is to say you are right: if you keep showing up at stuff you will eventually get lucky. Luck can only happen to those who try and get lucky. Our real world resembles an MMORPG game -- you need a team for 98% of everything -- then I'd say both you and your parent poster are correct.

Re: How to Think for Yourself

#827

Post by wpietri »

pdimitar wrote: post #734
wpietri wrote: post #690

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Good questions. Sure, everybody has a history. Nobody agrees with everybody all the time. Same for me. My issue with this essay is that it doesn't examine that history and how it affects people. As to the latter, I think you're confusing nonattachment with detachment. I've written more about that here: https://www.quora.com/I-have-learned-that-attachment-leads-t... Another way to look at it is in terms of having a ch…

Oh, I don't disagree. But didn't you have situations in which the amount of adequate responses you can give is a small set? So even if somebody were to predict all your possible responses that still doesn't mean that you don't have free will. You do. But your choice set might be limited at the time. I might be nitpicking here though. If what you are getting at is "I let my spontaneous reaction pass silently in my hea…

That's close, but for me nonattachment is about working to diminish the reactivity, so it's about more than patience.

Re: How to Think for Yourself

#828

Post by Barrin92 »

dang wrote: post #637
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…

yeah but the funny thing is it applies to the VC and tech scene more than to almost anything else. Tech people are niche conformists, a lot of them read the same books, speak the same language, share the same hobbies, look the same, and copy each others ideas.

Copying something well and then deluding yourself or others into thinking you've dug up novelty is in fact one of the best sales strategies there is.

Paul is also not accurate in one important way. Investors, by definition of how they make money, can't be too novel. They only can be ahead of the curve, because if you're so independent minded that the market doesn't catch up with what you believe you don't make any money. They're not independent-minded so much as they know what others want when they don't yet know it themselves. That's a different thing.

Re: How to Think for Yourself

#829

Post by username90 »

webdev93 wrote: post #810
username90 wrote: post #790

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I learned that working at Google pays a ton and not that hard to get in there. So I learned to code and got a job at Google and made a lot of money thanks to HN. My life got a lot easier thanks to that. I feel the value of HN is greatly reduced once you are more familiar with the industry. But to an outsider this site is gold.

How is it not hard to get into Google? Sounds more like survivorship bias.

I'm really good at math so I knew that learning the algorithmic thinking wouldn't be hard. All I needed to do was learn to program and learn algorithms. For people with a different skillset it wouldn't be as easy, but reading about it online made me realize that it wouldn't be hard for me.

I mean, when you read about interviews and the problems people struggle with you get a sense of what it is. When I read those I thought "That doesn't seem hard, I can do that!", so I did.

Re: How to Think for Yourself

#830

Post by hutzlibu »

dzolob wrote: post #737
hutzlibu wrote: post #654

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I have not been directly involved in academic research, but from what I understood, results gets published, whether they met the goals or not. It is still novel and valuable to publish why this certain approach or idea did not work as expected as long as you followed scientific standards.

I’m sorry you’re being downvoted just because you have a wrong impression of how scientific publishing works. Nobody is looking for wrong answers, there are simply many uninteresting ways to screw things up. If you are able to publish a wrong result in a worthwhile journal, a lot of right results have to be in it, which I guess makes your work “right”.

I am not sure if there was a missunderstandig:

I know of people who researched topic X with the assumption to find Y. But they did not find Y and rather found out that their setup was insufficient to provide meaningful answers. So they wrote and explained about why this setup did not work for the original question and published it and moved on.

And this makes sense, because they achieved novel information the next student could improve on. So published about a dead end, or not?

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