Like many of PG’s essays about psychology or society, the problem is that this essay is basically an aphorism or a self-help book: there’s no logic here, no citations, no connection to facts. It’s just a bunch of feel-good BS for libertarian-minded tech workers. I get the impression that the length is (at least unconsciously) making up for the absence of rigor.
A few paragraphs of “stuff that has no real argument but basically sounds right to PG” is a fine short essay as a “maninfesto of independent thought”.
But when the essay is full of detailed “analysis” of “facts” such as “it seems that independent thought is a matter of nature rather than nurture,” then PG is just wasting his readers’ time. This essay is a genuine clunker.
He does seem to be pandering to his target audience - specifically those who will be just independent enough to consider failing at a startup, but not so independent that they'll question the more questionable elements of startup culture.
Startup culture really isn't the most natural home for independent and original minds. It's a good match for those who are just different enough to play the game on its own terms, but not so different they'll ask themselves why the game exists. Or whether better games are possible.
And IMO independence correlates far more closely with creativity. I find it more useful to wonder "What is this belief/tradition/culture going to look like five hundred years from now, and/or from the perspective of a disinterested alien visitor?" than to wonder if I'm being independent enough to get investor funding.
I’ve been pretty critical of PG’s essays recently but I thought this one hit the spot. Go into twitter right more and search for “great reset” for a perfect mirror of this paragraph for example:
> Without this fastidiousness about truth, you can't be truly independent-minded. It's not enough just to have resistance to being told what to think. Those kind of people reject conventional ideas only to replace them with the most random conspiracy theories. And since these conspiracy theories have often been manufactured to capture them, they end up being less independent-minded than ordinary people, because they're subject to a much more exacting master than mere convention.
To truly appreciate the beauty of such mirrors, one should take care to examine both sides...observe thousands of the conversations of not just the "excessively" open-minded who obsess over topics like The Great Reset and similar, but also of those who are the ideological opponents of these types. Observe how they talk about their opponents. See if any patterns (in talking, and thinking) emerge, and whether some of the patterns are the same in both communities.
From TFA:
> You can also take more explicit measures to prevent yourself from automatically adopting conventional opinions. The most general is to cultivate an attitude of skepticism. When you hear someone say something, stop and ask yourself "Is that true?" Don't say it out loud.
Or, sometimes, do say it out loud, and watch hilarity (to the unconventional, at least) ensue.
> Treat it as a puzzle. You know that some accepted ideas will later turn out to be wrong. See if you can guess which. The end goal is not to find flaws in the things you're told, but to find the new ideas that had been concealed by the broken ones. So this game should be an exciting quest for novelty, not a boring protocol for intellectual hygiene. And you'll be surprised, when you start asking "Is this true?", how often the answer is not an immediate yes. If you have any imagination, you're more likely to have too many leads to follow than too few.
> More generally your goal should be not to let anything into your head unexamined, and things don't always enter your head in the form of statements. Some of the most powerful influences are implicit. How do you even notice these? By standing back and watching how other people get their ideas.
> When you stand back at a sufficient distance, you can see ideas spreading through groups of people like waves. The most obvious are in fashion: you notice a few people wearing a certain kind of shirt, and then more and more, until half the people around you are wearing the same shirt. You may not care much what you wear, but there are intellectual fashions too, and you definitely don't want to participate in those. Not just because you want sovereignty over your own thoughts, but because unfashionable ideas are disproportionately likely to lead somewhere interesting. The best place to find undiscovered ideas is where no one else is looking.
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 little precedent and which is almost impossible to observe empirically. By contrast, PG has an entire century's worth of psychology theory and experiments that he is ignoring out of pure arrogance.
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.
A few paragraphs of “stuff that has no real argument but basically sounds right to PG” is a fine short essay as a “maninfesto of independent thought”.
But when the essay is full of detailed “analysis” of “facts” such as “it seems that independent thought is a matter of nature rather than nurture,” then PG is just wasting his readers’ time. This essay is a genuine clunker.