[HN Gopher] Keep Your Identity Small (2009)
___________________________________________________________________
Keep Your Identity Small (2009)
Author : memorable
Score : 120 points
Date : 2022-12-10 09:57 UTC (13 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (www.paulgraham.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (www.paulgraham.com)
| cjfd wrote:
| Maybe better advice is to not take on as identities things that
| you just took over from other people without questioning. Also
| know what the other side is thinking before deciding what belongs
| in your identity and what not. There are things that you should
| believe because you are you. There are also things that should be
| firmly rejected. It actually takes a fair bit of living before
| one knows things definitively. But there is also the danger of
| being too open minded. One can be so open minded that ones brain
| falls out...
| gardenhedge wrote:
| Not labeling myself was something I figured out at 15/16. One
| thing I've never figured out it why people label themselves.
| bilirubin wrote:
| Kye wrote:
| "I don't label myself" - person who labels self with not
| labeling self.
|
| Labels are useful for finding community. This becomes more
| essential the less popular or the more marginalized you or
| parts of you are.
| gardenhedge wrote:
| You could, in theory, make a label out of not labeling
| yourself but that isn't what we're talking about.
|
| I can see how labels are useful for finding community. One
| potential negative of using labels to find a community is
| that labels can be exclusive. For example, a label like
| "LGBTQ+" may exclude people who do not identify as part of
| that community, even if they have similar experiences or
| interests. This can create a sense of exclusion and may
| prevent people from finding the support and connection they
| are looking for.
| Kye wrote:
| LGBTQ+ (and variations) are more category than label. We
| combine our powers because we're all too tiny to deal with
| all the labels and violence foisted upon us alone. Whether
| you can choose one of the labels is a matter of debate
| within the category. For most of us, it's like breathing
| air for the first time: "oh, I'm not alone in this. Other
| people feel this way, and they've fought all these battles
| so I don't have to start from 0." To choose it without that
| experience is kind of weird, but I don't personally have a
| problem with it in most cases.
| gardenhedge wrote:
| LGBTQ+ can be used as a self-imposed label. Why not?
| mgrthrow wrote:
| A hundred percent this. I'm not a lesbian, but I'm going
| to the mat if needed to protect lesbians. We protect us.
| loloquwowndueo wrote:
| Isn't "someone who doesn't label oneself whereas other people
| do" a label? :)
| darkerside wrote:
| It's like tolerance of everything except intolerance.
|
| Does that make you intolerant, ot is it semantic wordplay
| used to confuse and befuddled?
|
| Edit: Just noticed, PG said it better, unsurprisingly. FTA:
|
| > There may be some things it's a net win to include in your
| identity. For example, being a scientist. But arguably that
| is more of a placeholder than an actual label--like putting
| NMI on a form that asks for your middle initial--because it
| doesn't commit you to believing anything in particular. A
| scientist isn't committed to believing in natural selection
| in the same way a biblical literalist is committed to
| rejecting it. All he's committed to is following the evidence
| wherever it leads.
| mdp2021 wrote:
| It's a factual description.
| gardenhedge wrote:
| If everyone's default state is unlabled, then no, not
| labeling yourself isn't a label.
| Kye wrote:
| It's not, though. You're given all kinds of labels as you
| go through life whether you want it or not. If you don't
| act on that, you're accepting the defaults. That doesn't
| mean there are no labels on you.
| gardenhedge wrote:
| No, not everyone is labeled by default. Labels are used
| to describe or identify a person or group, and not
| everyone uses or identifies with labels. Some people may
| choose to use labels to describe themselves or their
| experiences, while others may not feel that any existing
| labels accurately reflect who they are. It is ultimately
| up to each individual to decide whether or not they want
| to use labels to describe themselves or their
| experiences.
| Kye wrote:
| >> _" No, not everyone is labeled by default."_
|
| Boy, girl, man, woman. Success, failure, virgin, slut,
| ice queen. Creep.
|
| I'm sure you've labeled others with at least one and
| possibly been labeled with one you weren't happy about
| that didn't fit your identity. There are so many more and
| you use them without thinking.
| gardenhedge wrote:
| You've taken this discussion off course by discussing
| given labels.
|
| If you decide to self label as a 'creep' or 'success'
| then it's relevant to this thread's discussion. If people
| just decide to label you as a 'creep' or 'success' then
| it's not relevant.
| mgrthrow wrote:
| Everyone is labeled by default. Unless you weren't
| assigned a gender at birth, don't have a skin color,
| don't have sexual preferences, didn't have an economic
| situation you grew up in, didn't have a family with
| either single parents or multiple payments, etc etc
| gardenhedge wrote:
| Labels can be both self-imposed and given. A self-imposed
| label is one that a person chooses to use to describe
| themselves or their experiences. For example, someone
| might choose to use the label "vegan" to describe their
| dietary habits because they feel that it accurately
| reflects their values and beliefs. On the other hand, a
| given label is one that is applied to a person or group
| by someone else. For example, a teacher might use the
| label "gifted" to describe a student who excels in a
| particular subject. In this case, the label is not chosen
| by the student, but is applied to them by the teacher.
|
| You're missing the point of the article by discussing
| given labels.
| mgrthrow wrote:
| I use the label queer as a self selected one. (Not self
| imposed, it's not an impression.)
|
| Queer is not the same as LGBTQ+ (queer is more overly
| political). My identity is both given and self selected.
| hypoqtech wrote:
| > _For example, a discussion about a battle that included
| citizens of one or more of the countries involved would probably
| degenerate into a political argument. But a discussion today
| about a battle that took place in the Bronze Age probably wouldn
| 't._
|
| Might this not be because we don't have sufficient information on
| Bronze Ages battles to know the context behind them? Whereas in a
| relatively modern-day battle we'll know about the primary
| aggressor, their rationale, etc. which are all a basis for
| further discussion.
| j-bos wrote:
| There's plenty of context for Roman battles and those
| discussions rarely degenerate into shouting matches, compare
| with [insert modern conflict here]. Even for today's conflicts,
| many of the shouters demonstrate a personal lack of context.
| wankle wrote:
| "If people can't think clearly about anything that has become
| part of their identity, then all other things being equal, the
| best plan is to let as few things into your identity as
| possible."
|
| No thank you; I do not want to live in a passionless society.
| Unlike the claims of the article, people can and do have reasoned
| discussions about both politics and religion.
| trees101 wrote:
| Thought provoking post, but the idea doesn't work. Yes, people
| are less inclined to get into arguments about specific technical
| tools if they are not educated about them. Yes, people DO get
| into arguments about religion even if they aren't educated about
| it. The difference is that religion addresses matters that ARE
| central to people's identity. It addresses choices that EVERYONE
| must make, and therefore everyone has a stake in it, unlike an
| arcane programming language that only impacts a few people.
| trees101 wrote:
| There could be a hidden assumption behind Graham's idea, which
| is that everyone (that matters) shares his beliefs. Often in
| the West, secular liberalism is the assumed religion and news
| articles, books, conversations all implicitly assume it. To
| people completely immersed in this paradigm, religion is merely
| external decoration, like a costume, that is exterior to an
| assumed identical core belief.
|
| People who make this assumption got a rude shock around the
| time of the ISIS attacks, when they found that some people who
| grew up in French housing estates behaved in extremely strange
| and troubling ways.
|
| Ideas have consequences, and religion is the set of ideas about
| the matters of utmost consequence. These ideas are inherently
| part of people's identity.
| tshadley wrote:
| > The difference is that religion addresses matters that ARE
| central to people's identity. It addresses choices that
| EVERYONE must make
|
| In the essay, identity is associated with a particular
| religious/political/social perspective on the human condition,
| not the human condition itself. Keeping identity small is
| basically converging on "being human"-- the choices everyone
| must make as you note -- without the false certainty that comes
| with loyalty to a religious/political/social identity.
| nothrowaways wrote:
| Imagine a conversation with someone with "believer in x
| framework, ex y, z" in their Bio and compare your biases with
| same user but with a handle anon123.
| simne wrote:
| Author is right, but chosen wrong example.
|
| Religion is not a tool, unlike programming language, limited by
| definition, Religion is Universe, with endless number of
| variants. Some religions, like protestants, are by definition
| distributed, they just have not some acknowledged position on
| many questions.
|
| But if we talk about business, this is exact hit, in business, to
| convince client, you should have narrow offer, which fit this
| client believes, nothing more.
|
| Why so, if you widen offer, because of steel triangle of PM, you
| have to raise costs, and/or lower quality.
|
| And yes, I know about smartphones, but my estimation, at least,
| 10-25% of HN discussions, are about low quality of widened
| solutions, including smartphones, or about excellence of narrow
| solutions, like C64, or ST.
| strangattractor wrote:
| IMHO I am not convinced that gender identity is actually
| measurable or a knowable thing. I can physically demonstrate
| whether I am male or female. I can only assume that I think or
| feel like other males or females based on how other males or
| females behave or what they tell me they think and feel. Given
| the fluidity of language I have no guarantee that my
| interpretation of that is accurate. I have no real way to do an
| experiment because I cannot choose to be the other gender for a
| day and compare. Maybe there are more objective measures but they
| seem somewhat inadequate to me. My real life experience informs
| me that there are no real defined boundaries and all of us are
| some mixture of all of the above.
| fouroneone wrote:
| Paul is more talking about pride and identity. He's not talking
| about full embodiment or awareness of what identity is.
|
| I'm going to say an example that's not true but it's just to
| demonstrate a point.
|
| For example if I say "All women are stupid." If you identify as
| a woman you get offended and emotionally compromised. You
| assume the person who said it is wrong and you leave.
|
| If you don't identify as a woman and you aren't offended by the
| statement at all.... perhaps you can do an objective and open
| minded study to get to the bottom of the question.
|
| An objective person can look at the data and realize that on
| the bell curve of IQ... men and woman have the same average but
| men have a thicker tail on the far ends of both sides of the
| curve. This says that the small population of extremely
| intelligent people and extremely stupid people are mostly men.
| By not having pride you can be more objective and see this
| nuance.
|
| Graham is talking about pride and identity and how it effects
| your objectivity and bias and intelligent analysis. He is not
| referring to the actual meaning and definition of identity.
|
| The dark side of lacking identity and being objective is that
| while I illustrate a rosy conclusion (that is also true) here,
| not all conclusions are rosy. It is very possible that for
| certain scenarios the data shows results that are not
| politically correct. What if the data shows that women are
| truly stupider? What then?
| strangattractor wrote:
| I went to the gender thing primarily because much of the
| discussion seemed centered on that. But in general I would
| say my identity is comprised of many more things other than
| my gender.
|
| By trying to simplify a definition of identity into something
| specific or plucking out a single identity trait (any trait)
| which cannot be defined precisely (emacs vs vim, declarative
| vs functional, race, intelligence, flavor, color etc) we lose
| information and end up in never ending ratholes of
| discussion. People start relying on personal experiences and
| feelings (subjective info) which makes the discussion
| personal and more often than not useless.
|
| My take from the author is Keep It Simple Stupid.
| kethinov wrote:
| Since Paul wrote that, people have made so many more things part
| of their identity, including JavaScript which he points out in
| the essay was not a particularly identity-charged topic in 2009.
| With the rise of the frameworks, it has become an identity-
| charged topic with JS devs now segregated into tribes that insist
| on using their preferred framework for every webapp they build.
| It's not about assessing the right tool for the job based on
| evidence or metrics, it's about a belief system that the tribe's
| preferred framework is always the right tool for the job.
|
| Ultimately I think Paul was right and I think about this essay a
| lot. The best solution is to make as few things part of your
| identity as possible. For JS devs, that means you should be more
| willing to use a different framework from time to time or no
| framework at all. Decide what to use based on an objective
| assessment of what the right tool for the job is, not what's
| trendy in your tribe.
| simne wrote:
| JavaScript is just wrong example. It very early has become
| uber-tool, when appear first specification of ECMA-script
| (essentially same gramma, but was universal language not tied
| to eny platform or specifics).
|
| But if talk about business, I remember Ford's phrase: "develop
| product, which will fit expectations of 80% of your clients;
| 10% will just change mind; 10% will pay additional money for
| customization".
| RajT88 wrote:
| In tech, people ascribe you an identity as much as you claim
| one yourself.
|
| When I am not around, I have been described to people as "A
| DevOps guy" or "A Network Guy". People then treat me
| accordingly. But, being human (or an approximation thereof), I
| am not just one thing.
| doubled112 wrote:
| I've always tried to go with (or steer toward) something like
| "a problem solver".
|
| I just like to solve problems. Sometimes it's builds and
| deploys, sometimes it's the network, and sometimes it's the
| car in the driveway. Give me a few, I'll figure something
| out.
| philwelch wrote:
| "Problem solver" is so vague as to be meaningless. I'm
| pretty sure literally all human action could be
| characterized as problem solving.
| throw827474737 wrote:
| Come on, the dentist is also the dentist... taking those
| titles to personally imo is a too big identitiy to start
| with. We know you are all individuals ;)
| quickthrower2 wrote:
| Better analogy might be the soccer midfielder. All playing
| a similar game but experts in different positions.
| cableshaft wrote:
| Yes, we're all individuals!
|
| Obligatory Monty Python scene: https://youtu.be/KHbzSif78qQ
| nicoburns wrote:
| > In tech, people ascribe you an identity as much as you
| claim one yourself.
|
| Indeed that is true of most kinds of identity. People will
| ascribe you racial and gender identities which may or may not
| match the ones you wish to claim for example.
| kossTKR wrote:
| I often skip the fact that i work in tech in certain circles
| in the beginning. Instead i'm just a business consultant, or
| working with project management.
|
| Probably a bit cowardlike but people really love to put other
| people in boxes and for a lot of people working in tech means
| "oh so you're one of those super nerdy people that is naively
| optimistic about technology, is socially stunted, loves
| infantile pop culture and has zero sense of aesthetics" as an
| example.
|
| And not that there is anything wrong with being that type of
| person (i also have some of those traits) there is very
| limited elasticity in peoples image of you after you've told
| what you work with, at least in Scandinavia where "you are
| your career".
|
| I have a friend who works on movie productions and everyone
| always seem to find it amazing and extrapolate all kinds of
| positive stuff about him, while the opposite can happen with
| tech and unless i also make some weird underhanded
| disclaimers like "I'm actually also really into x genre of
| music and have played since i was a kid" or "well i actually
| love reading obscure literature", "i actually really like
| travelling, that's why this career was so great for me"
| people will just assume i do nothing besides program 24/7 -
| hyperbole yes but still.
|
| Can anyone relate?
| RajT88 wrote:
| > "oh so you're one of those super nerdy people that is
| naively optimistic about technology, is socially stunted,
| loves infantile pop culture and has zero sense of
| aesthetics"
|
| Hello!
| intelVISA wrote:
| > "oh so you're one of those super nerdy people that is
| naively optimistic about technology, is socially stunted,
| loves infantile pop culture and has zero sense of
| aesthetics" as an example.
|
| for once I'm glad to be the opposite to the usual trope..
| but I feel you it is tiring to be interrogated over the
| location of my non-existent funko-pop cache just because I
| write code. Even saying "I swear I don't write Js" doesn't
| protect you these days.
| naet wrote:
| I think there's an industry trend or career pressure towards
| being a member of a JS "tribe". Companies don't believe in
| people learning new technologies, instead they only want people
| with lots of experience in their specific framework and nothing
| more.
|
| I've used React, Vue, Elm, Vanilla JS, and some legacy JQuery
| in production over my last three years of work (along with
| Next, Nuxt, Gatsby, Hugo, and many others).
|
| I thought that would make me a well rounded candidate with an
| understanding of different trade offs and an ability to pick up
| new things. Now that I'm looking for a new job though it seems
| like most places are looking to hire someone 100% React dev,
| and my history of framework diversity has become more of a
| liability than an asset somehow.
| yobbo wrote:
| > a belief system that the tribe's preferred framework is
| always the right tool for the job.
|
| It's not really about "the right tool for the job". It's about
| protecting and promoting the tribe's investment.
| strken wrote:
| I think with JS frameworks, it's more a case of moving house
| using the hatchback parked in your driveway, instead of going
| out and buying a brand new truck. Or hammering tent pegs with
| the side of a rock instead of bringing a hammer with you.
| There's a cost to buying and learning new tools.
| kethinov wrote:
| That would be an easier argument to accept if people were
| more honest about it. Or honest with themselves about it and
| more self-aware that that's really what it's about: not
| wanting to learn new things or the perception (real or
| otherwise) of lacking the time to. But too often instead it
| seems like people rationalize the desire to avoid learning
| new things by making pseudo arguments that the thing they
| already like is the best option when in reality it's mostly
| just a post hoc justification of a preconceived notion.
| [deleted]
| mgrthrow wrote:
| Doesn't land for me. I'm queer, my identity isn't huge, but it
| does include queer.
|
| That alone is enough to make some folks want to do violence to me
| (I have first hand experience with this).
|
| Telling me to "stop being x" is a bad vibe when x is something
| intrinsic about me AND the anti x folks hate me just for
| existing. I just want to live my life.
| bilirubin wrote:
| nestorD wrote:
| Good point. The essay misses examples of what is an inescapable
| part of one's identity.
|
| To answer other commenters: sometimes being queer can be as
| obvious to others as your skin color (because you are holding
| the hand of your partner, because you are at the beginning of a
| transition, etc...) and, using PG's criteria, is one of those
| things that other people will discuss without expertise
| (sometimes very negatively).
|
| And, even if it is not obvious that one is queer, it is one of
| those topics where showing that you belong to that group (when
| you can afford it physically and mentally) is important. Both
| as a signal to other members (to show them that they are not
| alone) and as a way to normalize your identity (which, in the
| longer run and as a group effort, helps a lot to reduce bad
| reactions).
| zozbot234 wrote:
| You're also conflating unchangeable characteristics (such as
| skin color, or sexual orientation) and some feeling of group
| belonging. We would certainly find it a bit weird if someone
| felt that they "belonged" in a valued group merely due to,
| e.g. having light-colored skin, and expressed a need to "show
| off" that specific fact about themselves to others. That's
| key to the "identity" distinction PG is making here.
| nestorD wrote:
| This feels like a false dichotomy: while you cannot change
| your sexual orientation, you _can_ choose to make it more
| apparent and it has clear benefits for other lgbtq+ people
| around you (which, for me, gets it out of the selfish
| connotations of showing off: wherever you live, being
| openly gay still carries a non-zero physical risk, you don
| 't do it just for the fun of it).
| fouroneone wrote:
| He doesn't tell you to stop being x. The title says keep your
| identity small, implying he knows it's impossible.
|
| I'm not saying this is true, it's obviously not, but what if we
| lived in a universe where science objectively found that being
| queer was an actual disease and could be cured with a pill?
| This is the science and logic in that universe. So in that
| universe does your identity then preclude you from having a
| scientific and logical conclusion about being queer? If you
| didn't have that identity I would say it would be easier to be
| objective about that topic in that universe?
|
| This is the thing Graham is talking about. I hope you can see
| the purpose of the (obviously untrue and just hypothetical)
| example, despite it being negatively related to your identity.
| I think it's still possible to disassociate a little bit even
| if it's an intrinsic part of your identity.
| narag wrote:
| I take he's talking about ideas. Being queer, as I understand
| it, is not an idea but a fact, like being six feet tall or
| having blue eyes.
| mdp2021 wrote:
| > _not... but_
|
| If you act according to your Real Preference RP, then RP is a
| fact; if you Role-Play, it is also a constraint.
|
| Edit: there is also a notable third position: when you act
| from a what you judge a Right Position RP - you do what is
| right. It must be noted because it may look like an
| "identification", but it is different in important ways.
| hypoqtech wrote:
| I'm not sure it is a fact, I mean, these days there are
| heterosexual people who call themselves queer.
| mgrthrow wrote:
| Well, queer encompasses more than just gay and lesbian
| people.
|
| Non-binary people can be queer, heterosexual trans people
| can be queer, asexual people can be queer. Same with
| polyamorous people.
| hypoqtech wrote:
| Doesn't that make it not a fact then, if people can just
| opt in and out to being queer?
| nicoburns wrote:
| I would argue that no identity is a fact. All identities
| are beliefs on the part of the person doing the
| identifying. To identify something as X is to express the
| belief that it is X.
| tekla wrote:
| Literally anyone can be queer. Its a meaningless tag.
| kelseyfrog wrote:
| Literally anyone can be Christian, but that doesn't make
| it a useless tag. It's a linguistic and mental shortcut
| that has utility despite the relative ease of
| application.
| mdp2021 wrote:
| > _who call themselves_
|
| In which sense? Because 'queer' means "eccentric" - many
| would describe as that. For that matter, people call
| themselves "gay" for "joyous".
|
| Incidentally: the queer use of 'queer' predates that of
| 'gay' (just a piece of trivia).
| nicoburns wrote:
| > In which sense?
|
| Generally in a political sense (related to the gay
| sense). Someone who does not accept heterosexuality as a
| norm or default way of being, even though it may
| something that they personally prefer.
| yuuu wrote:
| > For that matter, people call themselves "gay" for
| "joyous".
|
| Uh... I don't think people do that anymore.
| mdp2021 wrote:
| They do, and some will absolutely do (to some it is
| important to "assess" language) - it really depends on
| what you mean with "people" (of course I meant a subset).
|
| What happened there is, in the succession of editings I
| left that 'people' there in a way that happened to be
| ambiguous. I made a composition error out of inattention.
| mgrthrow wrote:
| Of course queer as "unusual" predates "queer" as gay. :D
| It's a reclaimed slur. It was a negative label applied to
| people who ultimately decided to make that negative label
| a part of their identity.
| mdp2021 wrote:
| [Removed chunk because of misunderstanding]
|
| [...] To my info, the first use of 'queer' for
| "homosexual" is from 1922, and the term was used for
| "eccentric" for the last five centuries.
|
| ('gay' for homosexual was reported as widespread
| "communitarian" use in medical texts in the 1940's - the
| use for "promiscuous" is at least four centuries old. In
| some territories, 'gay girl' still means "prostitute".)
|
| Edit:
|
| I misread your post. Of course, "of course" ""queer" for
| homosexual" can easily be a "reclaimed slur". There
| should be no surprise about it.
|
| And your use of 'gay' in <<"queer" as gay>> is "queer".
| That is not ""queer" as gay", it is "queer" as "unaligned
| in sexual orientation", and not necessarily "gay". Just
| nitpicking on language though.
| philwelch wrote:
| "Queer" is a vague identity with political connotations, by
| which I mean, the gay people who call themselves "queer" tend
| to be a lot more woke-leftist than the gay people who don't
| call themselves "queer". It's absolutely an idea and a
| constructed identity. The facts of the matter are things like
| sexual preferences and behaviors, but you don't inherently
| need to construct an identity around them. On the other hand,
| sometimes you need to be aware that even if you don't
| identify yourself, you will be identified by others, which
| you're going to have to deal with.
| mgrthrow wrote:
| I think you've both got the right answer and explained it
| with a very negative framing.
|
| Gender and Sexual Minority, LGBTQ+, and queer all describe
| a largely similar set of folks.
|
| Queer arose not from "woke-leftist" spaces, but grew out of
| 70s and 80s radical gay and trans spaces - groups like the
| Gay Liberation Front - who were willing to fight back
| (violently if necessary) against violence and
| discrimination.
|
| Queer is absolutely a political identity, a framing of ones
| gender or sexual identity. They intersect with one another.
| It's not unlike "I eat only plants" vs "I'm vegan", they
| mean roughly the same thing until you hit contexts where
| they don't.
| narag wrote:
| I'm not a native speaker, not in the know of the nuances
| of those terms, just accepted the one you chose.
|
| There's a point that I still don't understand. The
| article advices to keep identity as a minimum. Not having
| none, just not including every circumstance or opinion in
| your identity. The reason is that a _fat identity_ makes
| you more vulnerable to bias.
|
| Is being queer a fundamental part of your identity? Or is
| it something subject to change like "being a JavaScript
| programmer" or something like that?
|
| The place where I was born... that is a fact, I neither
| can nor want to change that. I consider it a part of my
| identity but, at the same time, I try to take some
| distance from it so I can examine my own opinions and
| decisions.
|
| Even at some moments I wonder what would I think if I had
| been born elsewhere or if I change nationality. But that
| doesn't mean I'm going to do that. That runs deep, but
| being an X programmer, a X-ist, a morning person, if I
| prefer cats or dogs, a member of NNN generation... that's
| circumstancial for me.
| philwelch wrote:
| Whether you're sexually attracted to men or women isn't
| something that can change, but that doesn't necessarily
| mean you have to enshrine it as a significant part of
| your identity. This is actually where the semantic
| nuances come fully into play. People who identify as
| queer are _consciously choosing to identify as queer_.
| There are gay men and lesbian women who don 't identify
| as queer. Sometimes that's because they don't agree with
| the radical orientation of the people who do identify as
| queer, sometimes that's because they don't like the word
| itself, and sometimes it's because they don't feel a
| sense of group identity with everyone under the "queer"
| umbrella.
| philwelch wrote:
| > Queer arose not from "woke-leftist" spaces, but grew
| out of 70s and 80s radical gay and trans spaces
|
| I guess "radical" would have been a better choice of
| terminology than "woke-leftist", but really you're
| looking at very similar communities that share an
| ideological heritage and who tend to complain about any
| terminology people use for them. The term "woke" is new
| but the basic ideology goes back to 70's radicals as
| well.
| nicoburns wrote:
| I would add, "woke" is not necessarily a negative label,
| and indeed was originally used most commonly in a
| positive sense intended to describe people who were awake
| to the reality of the world. It's only more recently come
| to be used a pejorative mocking the original usage.
| mdp2021 wrote:
| The point of PG is that to properly reason about X you have to
| look at it "from outside".
|
| A mental conditioning fogs judgement. "Identifications" are
| mental conditionings that make you lose intellectual freedom.
|
| An example from other authors:
|
| > _For instance, modern education often does much damage when
| young students are taught dubious political notions and then
| enthusiastically push these notions on the rest of us. The
| pushing seldom convinces others. But as students pound into
| their mental habits what they are pushing out, the students are
| often permanently damaged. Educational institutions that create
| a climate where much of this goes on are, I think,
| irresponsible. It is important not to thus put one's brain in
| chains before one has come anywhere near his full potentiality
| as a rational person_
|
| ~~~ Charlie Munger
|
| Edit:
|
| just like the mental process described by PG has a strong taste
| of Popper's judgement on "Marx Hegel and Freud" - a
| consolidated cultural idea -, the warning against
| "identifications" has had quite strong proponents. One of them
| (indirectly but encompassing) is over 2500 years old and "quite
| preponderant".
| altdataseller wrote:
| Reminds me of Eckhart Tolle's themes too such as "you are not
| your story"
| mindslight wrote:
| > _A mental conditioning fogs judgement. "Identifications"
| are mental conditionings that make you lose intellectual
| freedom._
|
| Freedom and structure are always in contention as yin-yang,
| and you're completely ignoring the benefits structure can
| bring. I'd guess OP finds a lot of value in labeling
| themselves "queer", in that a lot of things that were
| ambiguous or confusing become clearer.
| mdp2021 wrote:
| > _ignoring_
|
| Yes I was - I was focusing on a different side.
|
| Logic. "X brings fog" and "X brings clarity" are not
| contradictory, in a normal paraconsistent logic.
|
| But note: if A uses X as a mental experiment for
| intellectual development, detachment is there: that is the
| opposite of "identification".
| DoreenMichele wrote:
| At the risk of being wildly misunderstood, you can still choose
| to minimize your "queerness footprint" in public discussions.
| You can let your experience with that inform your opinions
| without making it into An Issue that you are queer.
|
| It's not easy, but it's possible and I think a lot of our
| perception of people "at the top" being uniformly a particular
| profile is partly a reflection of the fact that people who get
| good at not making their identity into An Issue are the ones
| who get more tolerance in public spaces. I think this gets
| misinterpreted by many people as "That person is not queer"
| rather than "We don't know. They haven't actually said and it
| is a private matter anyway."
| hoosieree wrote:
| The author may be suffering from a form of blub paradox when it
| comes to how he identifies, which I would assume include white,
| male, rich, smart, founder, and writer.
|
| It's easy for him to discard "lesser" identities like
| "javascript programmer" because that doesn't cost him anything.
| mdp2021 wrote:
| > _which I would assume include_
|
| Wrong assumption. We do not necessarily "identify". All those
| terms in that list can be fully avoided as identifications.
| No, it is not normal to be "identified" with any of that.
| mgrthrow wrote:
| Would the author say, "I am a ..." and end with any of the
| above? If so, they identify as that group.
|
| That's what identity _is_ , it's the set of things you
| consider yourself to be. "I am" and "I consider myself to
| be" are very simple clauses.
|
| How big or small a part you decide to make your identities
| part of your personality is up to you, but like, they are
| still part of your identity.
| mdp2021 wrote:
| No, you are misunderstanding what is meant with
| "identification" in these texts. The starting point is
| PG's text.
|
| It is about how "identification" clouds your judgement.
| If you can just describe yourself ("happen to be male")
| that is one thing; if when you think of yourself you
| cannot abstract from some attributes, there is where you
| have "caged" yourself.
| [deleted]
| zozbot234 wrote:
| Not sure what your point is? It's okay to be white (or any
| other ethnicity), and it's okay to be queer - no matter how
| many people would tell you otherwise. That doesn't mean you
| have to take either of these and make it the be-all and end-all
| of your identity. The difference should be obvious - it was
| surely obvious enough to PG.
| nateoearth wrote:
| Counterpoint: a strong sense of identity is a crucial ingredient
| for a meaningful life. Studies have consistently shown that
| actively religious people are happier that their non-religious
| counterparts. Identities can grant access to social networks,
| epitomized in conventions attracting thousands of people who
| gleefully share an identity (e.g., DEF CON for hackers). Etc.
| ACow_Adonis wrote:
| counter-counterpoint: studies (that is to say the modern ritual
| of writing papers about spuriously finding statistical
| correlations using language and processes specific to your
| academic tribe) have consistently found positive effects of
| both.
|
| On the one hand you have the supposed positive effects of
| accepting identities of the in-group, but you have to be very
| careful about how you structure and interpret these, because as
| you've inadvertently pointed out, what you're often really
| getting is access to social networks and resources. you also
| have to be very careful to interpret the positive outcomes of
| such if they're part of groups that actively discriminate,
| target or persecute out-member groups. gays, foreigners, races,
| genders other-identies can also be shown to often have negative
| effects using similar methods, and of course naive methods do
| find significantly worse outcomes amongst many life measures
| from such groups (which is not really surprising, because the
| in-group often treats them like shit).
|
| but studies have also shown consistent positive effects from
| dropping identities. i.e. stopping identifying with criminal
| groups, removing limiting beliefs and cognitive barriers
| associated with identities, and positive associations with
| Buddhist-esque religions and practices associated with
| traditionally non-identity building beliefs and practices
| (meditation, anatman, western psychological methods and
| treatments associated- derived from such etc).
|
| personally, I fall on the less identity side of things, just
| speaking as someone on the side of the unique position of being
| involved with statistics, religion, economics, and psychology.
| the_gipsy wrote:
| Mr. Graham does have a big political identity (on twitter). Sure,
| he shares more anecdotes about raising his kids than "anti-woke"
| messages, but it doesn't hold up against this essay.
|
| His essay might still be right of course.
| naet wrote:
| > As a rule, any mention of religion on an online forum
| degenerates into a religious argument. Why? Why does this happen
| with religion and not with Javascript...
|
| Unfortunately this is not true anymore for JavaScript. People
| will get into intense arguments over TS vs JS, React, etc and
| argue from the same position of "faith" or strongly held beliefs
| rather than logic.
| narag wrote:
| I must have missed it at the time, otherwise I would remember
| this gem:
|
| _Because the point at which this happens depends on the people
| rather than the topic, it 's a mistake to conclude that because a
| question tends to provoke religious wars, it must have no
| answer._
|
| Not sure if it depends on people or interests, probably a
| combination of both, but there's so many of those problems with
| obvious solutions that are discussed endlessly.
| aeturnum wrote:
| This is SUCH "Paul Graham" advice - useful mostly to people who
| sit on top of a hierarchy of power which does not demand any of
| their personal attention.
|
| I think the good version of this advice is: actively evaluate
| what is important to you and what you can do to maintain and
| further it. We are all involved, to one degree or another, in
| systems and processes larger than ourselves. By definition, our
| influence on those systems is limited - but we may be able to
| increase or decrease our influence through work and engagement.
| It's healthy to reflect on _what_ you are investing your time and
| energy into and _how_ those investments will impact your life.
| There is no single right or wrong answer - but you will benefit
| from forming an opinion!
|
| It's unhealthy to falsely base your self-worth on giant political
| movements outside your control - but it's equally unhealthy to
| ignore the impact you experience from the issues of the day. Be
| reflective in how you associate yourself with things, but no one
| should pretend that they are not subject to the world (unless, it
| seems, you're at a "Paul Graham" level of wealth and
| independence).
| ivanmontillam wrote:
| Paul Graham predicted the religious wars that produce talking
| about React and React Native. This includes people that develop
| using Electron.
|
| You cannot possibly fathom to have a productive conversation with
| them about less resource-hungry, better-performant alternatives.
|
| It all basically boils down to: _" Who are you to tell me I'm
| wrong if React is what puts food on my table?"_ which is fine in
| principle, but blinds them on ways to make their job easier and
| better in so many ways.
|
| EDIT: Conciseness and style.
| acatnamedjoe wrote:
| My view is that having a "small identity" is basically impossible
| in any practical sense. Many issues are inherently subjective,
| and even for issues that are (philosophically speaking)
| objective, actual human individuals rarely have the time or the
| access to data to form a genuinely objective view. We all use
| heuristic thinking, all the time, which is inevitably massively
| biased by all kinds of things related to our dispositions and
| prior experiences (aka identity).
|
| The danger is when you make the fiction of "not having an
| identity" a big part of your actual identity, which can make you
| even more blind to your biases than everyone else.
|
| I think a much more productive route to being a more effective
| thinker is to accept you have an identity just the same as
| everyone else - and invest time and effort into interrogating
| what that identity is and what biases and blind-spots it might
| lead to. This is still far from perfect, of course.
| abecedarius wrote:
| He said small, not zero.
| AbrahamParangi wrote:
| Your identity is not fully in your control but not fully out of
| it either. One can make a conscious choice to "find a tribe" or
| to not do that.
|
| I believe this essay argues that one should make a conscious
| choice to avoid tribe affiliation (even if that affiliation is
| only in your own head) in order to be a better thinker.
| acatnamedjoe wrote:
| I guess I'm arguing that a conscious choice not to find a
| tribe just leads to unconsciously finding a tribe instead.
|
| Maybe the real answer is both, though - try to consciously
| avoid tribal thinking, but also acknowledge that it's likely
| to creep in anyway, and be aware when it does.
| mdp2021 wrote:
| > _accept you have_
|
| Bad framing. More like, "be aware that you may have unchecked
| sides". There is a difference.
| burritas wrote:
| It seems to be the thing nowadays to be preoccupied with the
| notion of your own identity, and I can't help but feel like it's
| just navel gazing. Maybe it's social media and the culture of
| self promotion, but I find it pretty hollow and uninteresting.
|
| I have a young kid in my family that's fixated with gender and
| sexuality and they said one day "I just want to get diagnosed so
| I know what I _am_ ," to which I said "It's not what you are
| that's important, it's what you want to do." That seemed to be an
| epiphany for them.
| lo_zamoyski wrote:
| Poor kid. He's been subjected to what amounts to child abuse.
| Sadly, that is the norm.
|
| Some say that we have an identity crisis in part because of our
| liberal, existentialist, non-committal notions of "freedom".
| It's also what drives much of the opportunism of FOMO and ADHD.
| The very notions of sacrifice, commitment, suffering for a
| good, and devotion repel us (whatever "commitments" we do have
| are merely emotional phantasms, changing as the wind blows). We
| reject our familial, communal, ethnic, national, religious
| commitments -- even commitment to the truth _as such_ -- which
| we have come to detest as "restrictive" or "oppressive" in
| favor of a misguided notion of "autonomy"...except that this
| "autonomy" is achieved precisely by rejecting all that helps us
| understand who we are from different angles and at varying
| depths. We become socially alienated and cut off from tradition
| as such, saddled now with the responsibility of figuring it all
| out ourselves. What a Herculean task!
|
| Of course, nature abhors a vacuum. The irony is that the
| abolition of authority and tradition only predisposes us to the
| tyranny of power. (Incidentally, that's how "community
| organizing" works: it foments animosity against legitimate
| authority and its legitimate exercise and then uses it to
| unseat that authority, whether personal or in the form of
| tradition, not to "free" people from the real or imagined
| tyranny of that authority, but to remove what is an obstacle to
| the power of the dictator who outstrips any of the abuses of
| his predecessors.) Nobody is easier to control than an
| ignorant, irrational, atomized human being enslaved to his
| emotions and to his desires, in a state of fear,
| disorientation, and disregulation. A man has as many masters as
| he has vices, spake Augustine.
|
| It is little wonder that, given this crippled and desiccated
| state, we look for our "identities" in superstition and petty
| nonsense and in what remains, what is base, as if we were
| trying to divine the future from tea leaves. We think that the
| kernel of the "true self" lies hidden in what is base, not in
| human nature as a whole and what it is ordered toward. Reason
| is a liar. The orgasm is our beatific vision. Consumption is
| our creed. Emotion is our revelation.
| vore wrote:
| "Child abuse"? Please, give me a break. This is no different
| to any kid muddling through adolescence and trying to make
| sense of their emotions as they grow up. Just because it's
| about gender and sexuality doesn't make it child abuse.
| motohagiography wrote:
| I wonder if people ask themselves, "am I a good artifact of
| criticism?"
|
| Obectively, your identity is a set of meaningless reflections you
| have cohered into a narrative that centralizes your subjective
| experience. Subjectively, your identity is a story you protect
| and use a constant process of retroactive continuity to moralize
| and preserve it.
|
| They are both artifacts of language, which is not a substrate or
| the real that persists when you are gone. Your identity is
| chosen. The value of an axiom like spiritual faith is that your
| choice can come from the reflection of something objective,
| persistent, and compassionate, instead of the reflections and
| artifacts of the language and meaning you have been presented
| with - often as a yoke. Be what you choose, not what may have
| happened, and especially not what someone who wants something
| from you tells you.
|
| If your identity is the artifact of dialectic materialism, you
| have already accepted that you are a subject, working off an
| indenture in the name of earthly material justice, in pursuit of
| redemption from an imaginary critic who will never yield. I
| believe we have choice. Let one thing into your identity, and the
| rest becomes obvious, imo.
| [deleted]
| mch82 wrote:
| Alternate advice: practice skills of listening, observing,
| empathy, dialog, sharing, building. These are the skills you will
| need to deal with people.
|
| People can have a difficult time talking about religion,
| politics, and programming languages because these issues affect
| their lives. When you say something that threatens another
| person's life, expect a strong reaction to that threat. The key
| to having productive discussions about topics like these is to
| start with empathy, look for and diffuse threats, and seek a
| future state that creates space for the needs and goals of all
| stakeholders.
|
| Edit: also, life is a lot more fun when approached with
| curiosity. Stay curious.
| fouroneone wrote:
| There are cases where someones entire life is founded on a lie
| and that no productive discussion is possible. Sure you can
| "discuss" these topics amicably but they always end up
| "agreeing to disagree". Nothing was changed, the needle wasn't
| moved.. the discussion was useless and unproductive.
|
| The truly challenging question here is HOW do you have a truly
| productive discussion around these topics. Graham is right. The
| ONLY way is for someone to give up his identity. True
| dispassion. That is the only time when someone can truly
| discuss these hard topics "productively". There is literally no
| other way.
|
| Your method involves sort of dancing around the controversial
| topic and having useless but amicable discussions. I think your
| advice leads to unproductive conversations and it's also really
| obvious knowledge that everyone is somewhat aware about.
|
| But I'm happy to hear other peoples opinions! We can agree to
| disagree.
| mdp2021 wrote:
| You are missing an important point of the poster: you have to
| abandon cageing self-prejudice - but at the same time, a
| similar operation should done one the image of the other.
| Give up identities (self-side) and give up prejudice (other-
| side).
| selimthegrim wrote:
| Is this not Jungian disintegration/disindividuation?
| imchillyb wrote:
| Identity is not 'what I do', but 'who I am.'
|
| 'Who I am' does not include tangents such as what programming
| language I utilize.
|
| 'Who I am' speaks to the intrinsic nature of me. What my core
| being considers unalterable and unchanging specifics.
|
| Most of the topics here in this thread do not speak to that.
| fouroneone wrote:
| No it's interconnected. What you do is tied to who you are.
|
| It's visible in language. People often use the term "I am a
| java programmer" rather then "I am a programmer who uses java".
|
| The topics in this thread don't speak to it because it's
| implicitly implied.
| nothrowaways wrote:
| This validates why discussions on HN (or even reddit) are more
| sincere and useful than, say, Quora.
| midhhhthrow wrote:
| Absolutely. Identification and all the labels you carry are the
| source of most conflict.
|
| Sages of the east have recognized this for thousands of years and
| seek to dissolve the ego, dissolve all the labels that we think
| we are.
| mdp2021 wrote:
| Interestingly, the parent was posted two hours ago and I find
| it near the bottom.
|
| It is either revealing of the visiting patterns of HN members,
| or.
| fourfoursix wrote:
| ryanklee wrote:
| Holy moly. People cannot escape cognitive biases even by
| knowing about cognitive biases. This includes you. It seems
| that you think you have somehow transcended this condition.
| This is just another bias. And this particular one is maybe the
| most insidious of all because it convinces you you're better
| than most on a fundamental level and protects you from
| introspection and criticism. Seek humility.
| fourfoursix wrote:
| How so. I simply said, "consider the possibility." Because
| scientifically. These are possibilities. Realistic ones in
| fact. I directly picked them for their controversy. I am
| aware of the direction they run counter to the norms. Are you
| aware of your biases? Are you aware how inline with cultural
| norms and biases that your opinions are?
|
| At times, many of these things weren't controversial. How do
| you know that the current thinking is correct? Based off what
| science? Or is it bias?
|
| HN isn't better. It's biased.
| ryanklee wrote:
| The fact that your comment is flagged and dead should give
| you pause. The fact that it doesn't give you pause should
| give you pause. The fact that you think I am objecting to
| your specific assertions rather than the mode of assertions
| should give you pause. Yet, it seems that self-regards of
| epistemic superiority is the only unstable fuel you need to
| travel down a lonely road. Good luck.
| fourfoursix wrote:
| >The fact that your comment is flagged and dead should
| give you pause. The fact that it doesn't give you pause
| should give you pause.
|
| There is no pause. I KNOW the COST of my beliefs. It is a
| high cost and your reaction and the flag is a small PART
| of that cost.
|
| I live a life of lies. Externally I believe none of these
| things and I pretend to be normal just like you. But
| internally I see darkness everywhere.
|
| Keep in mind, I don't care if my beliefs are implemented
| to make a better world. I could care less. In fact most
| of the beliefs I hold, I feel if the world knew the truth
| it would be worse off for everybody. I'm not really an
| opponent against any group here.
|
| >"Yet, it seems that self-regards of epistemic
| superiority is the only unstable fuel you need to travel
| down a lonely road."
|
| We both know that epistemic superiority is not worth it
| for any human. You underestimate the sacrifices involved
| with believing in these things. Nobody makes that choice.
| I get what your saying but you are disregarding the cost
| way too much here. A sense of superiority is not reward
| enough for the price one must pay to believe in these
| things.
|
| I am what I am because I cannot un-believe what I think
| is true. I have no choice. Can you not believe 1 + 1 = 2?
| To me the conclusions are inescapable. But of course it
| could be that I am biased. Biased people do not know they
| are biased. Whether or not I am biased, I can assure you
| that I am not where I am by choice. I am where I am
| because I have no choice.
|
| >The fact that you think I am objecting to your specific
| assertions rather than the mode of assertions should give
| you pause.
|
| This DOES give me pause. Please describe to me in detail
| what you mean by "Mode."
| selimthegrim wrote:
| For one example you might want to consider how Asian males
| are considered in Latin America as opposed to the US (hint:
| a lot more desirable)
| fourfivefour wrote:
| Valid info. I have not considered it. Economic status and
| size are factors in female attraction. Asians are
| generally higher in economic status, statistically
| speaking, and latin americans are generally poorer and
| smaller in size so they are more comparable in stature to
| East Asians. This makes logical sense to what I already
| know. However it doesn't invalidate the German Sheppard
| theory. North Americans are generally larger than East
| Asians and the wealth gap is not as large.
|
| Still all of this is besides the point. Without knowing
| the latin american thing, my conclusion and theory is
| valid in terms of the probability of being true. But
| people dismiss it because of bias, not because of
| evidence or logic.
| urban_alien wrote:
| ethanbond wrote:
| "I am observing from an objective position" is the surest sign
| of a deeply compromised thinker.
| BlueTemplar wrote:
| Yeah, while I would in theory applaud the example of
| "scientist" that Graham gave, let's not delude ourselves,
| it's quite vulnerable to exactly this kind of failure mode.
| Some other examples : scientism, "angry atheism",
| "rationalism" (mostly for the arrogant and historically
| opposite meaning for that last one)...
| fourfoursix wrote:
| fourfoursix wrote:
| Except that, that quotation is a fabrication. It was never
| stated by me, nor was it stated in the article.
|
| It is also logically flawed. If there exists in this world
| someone who was truly objective. Would they know they're
| objective?
|
| Knowing if oneself is objective or not is in itself an
| objective calculation. If that person was truly objective,
| then the answer is yes, he would know. But I get your point,
| there are many who think they are "objective" but they are
| not.
|
| Mind you, one test for objectivity is to see whether your
| thoughts are the result of parroting cultural norms or if
| they arise from objective thinking. If your thoughts are
| objective there is no rule that such thoughts should imitate
| cultural norms. One will notice that ones opinions are
| "different" so to say.
|
| My points pass those tests. It doesn't mean I am "objective"
| but it is evidence for it.
| ethanbond wrote:
| No, believing things other people don't believe is actually
| not evidence of objectivity.
| fourfoursix wrote:
| ethanbond wrote:
| Your ultimate objective should be _thriving,_ ideally for
| you and as many people and creatures as you can afford to
| account for. Truth is valuable because since the
| enlightenment period it has seemed to be extremely
| valuable in securing thriving.
|
| If you instead are picking Truth and Lack Of Bias over,
| for example, a rich social life, I'd suggest you are
| putting the cart before the horse.
|
| I hope you find your place with the right mix of
| imperfect belongingness and imperfect veracity! Both are
| important :)
| fouroneone wrote:
| Oh, It's completely too late for me. I cannot unbelieve
| what I believe.
|
| I already live a life of lies. Nobody knows what I
| believe and I lie to seem normal and socialize-able. I
| also don't hold any strong desire to "implement" my
| beliefs. It's just a perspective.. I am an observer with
| opinions and I don't care to be any sort of activist.
|
| I largely agree with your last post. However it's too
| late. I no longer believe what I believe out of choice. I
| have no choice in what I believe. Once these truths
| crystallize in your head as truths, they stay that way
| unless someone can point out any logical flaws. Thinking
| back it would've been better to not have gone down the
| path of being cursed with knowledge.
|
| I actually wish to be part of certain religious
| communities because of the great social benefits that
| come with being part of said groups. But certain
| knowledge makes me unable to fully participate because
| the lie becomes to great.
|
| Imagine praying and worshiping and studying about an
| entity that I believe is a complete fabrication... just
| for social benefits. The time sunk into living that lie
| is too great. So usually I'm part of more moderate groups
| that mostly avoid these topics. But these groups tend to
| be more ephemeral.
|
| Humans need a shared lie/belief to bond deeply, and if
| you lose the ability to lie to yourself it's harder to
| join these more close knit groups.
|
| However as I grow older, I contemplate more and more
| whether the lie is worth it. Maybe one day when I'm an
| old lonely man like I'm 70, I'll live the lie and join
| one of those religious groups.
|
| >Your ultimate objective should be thriving, ideally for
| you and as many people and creatures as you can afford to
| account for.
|
| I want to comment on this part specifically. Because
| there's a problem here. Being aware that thriving is more
| important then truth and living by that principle means
| that you are aware that your concept of what is true is
| on shaky grounds. You KNOW you made sacrifices to what
| your truth is in order to thrive. You are aware you are
| lying to yourself and that defeats the nature of the lie.
|
| To truly thrive in my opinion, you must be unaware and
| ignorant of these concepts. You must not think about or
| even be aware about the orthogonality of happiness and
| knowledge. Just go with the flow. These are the people
| that are truly happy.
|
| From your post it seems it's a little too late for you as
| well, you're not as deep as me but you're somewhat down
| that path. You're aware of the shared lie, you just
| choose not to think about it too deeply. That's an ok
| place to be. You might not have contemplated about these
| topics to deeply and have the "I'm not an expert so I
| don't know" attitude and it works out. Just know that
| each step forward down that path is permanent, there is
| no turning back.
|
| Anyway I brought up this thread, the main purpose was
| basically to point out that although what graham says is
| true, giving up your identity for rationality has a High
| Cost. But this point is lost because my "6 bullet points"
| (designed with the intent to point out our own biases)
| was way to visceral. It shows how inescapable bias really
| is.
|
| I'm actually hoping to meet someone like-minded. Someone
| who "gets it" on the same level that I do. But that seems
| less and less likely given the flag.
| narag wrote:
| I believe that the answer you seek is in the article.
| You're too attached to a sick mindset. It's better to
| stop overthinking and doing something that have more
| pleasant effects (for you) than writting long-winded
| comments here. Or maybe not.
| fourfivefour wrote:
| I don't think you read my comment or the article
| carefully. The extreme end of that article, giving up all
| your identity is my "sick mindset". That is the ultimate
| conclusion.
|
| You might as well not comment if you're not going to read
| anything. I don't care for you comment otherwise. Better
| for you to start actually thinking and stop mistaking
| that for "over thinking", because your reply indicates
| you haven't.
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