[HN Gopher] The Right Kind of Stubborn
___________________________________________________________________
The Right Kind of Stubborn
Author : urs
Score : 233 points
Date : 2024-07-08 17:05 UTC (5 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (paulgraham.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (paulgraham.com)
| breck wrote:
| I wonder if a simple test for "obstinacy" would be: how much does
| the person write/publish?
| AnimalMuppet wrote:
| I think CapitalistCartr put it better in
| https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=26979490:
|
| > Do they think for themselves or parrot a standard position?
| Can they explain how they came to a conclusion? When they say
| "I think . . . ", did they? It doesn't matter they subject;
| either they think or they don't.
|
| Obstinate people are ones who not only don't think, but
| _aggressively_ don 't think. They have their "dogma" (call it
| another term if you wish), and they Will. Not. Question. It. No
| matter what you say, no matter what evidence you present, they
| just won't.
|
| This isn't just about obstinacy in pursuing goals. It also
| shows up in the confirmation bias that reinforces conspiracy
| theories in the minds of those who hold them.
| readthenotes1 wrote:
| Attention-seeking is a different trait...
| vinnyvichy wrote:
| Tell me more! I'm starting to get "one-eyed man is king"
| intrusive thoughts from your suggestion..
| danielmarkbruce wrote:
| In which direction? Most people who write/publish are fools.
| You can be certain about this by reading a lot and realizing
| most of it is garbage.
| breck wrote:
| Yes, but most people who write/publish _a lot_ are not fools.
| danielmarkbruce wrote:
| Still disagree. The most prolific writers are journalists,
| and most of their stuff is absolute garbage.
|
| On top of that, most of the most successful people on the
| planet write little or nothing. They are too busy doing.
| breck wrote:
| > The most prolific writers are journalists
|
| You state this as fact without providing a dataset to
| back it. I think this is not true at all.
|
| > most of the most successful people on the planet write
| little or nothing
|
| It depends on how you define "success".
|
| I would consider people like Linus and Dwayne Richard
| Hipp and TBL to be among the most successful people on
| the planet, and they write quite a lot.
|
| Do you call people who capture then give away a billion
| dollars the most successful? I don't. To me the most
| successful are the ones who create billions in wealth and
| capture just a tiny fraction--enough to support their
| family and friends and live a good life.
| danielmarkbruce wrote:
| > You state this as fact without providing a dataset to
| back it. I think this is not true at all.
|
| Look at your own comments. My comment is effectively
| "people whose day job is to write, write the most". It's
| borderline self evident.
|
| Your argument has devolved into: "people who write a lot
| are by definition successful. I wonder if there is a
| correlation between writing a lot and success."
| breck wrote:
| My bet would be that scientists write the most, not
| journalists.
|
| You seem to have changed your position from journalists
| to "people whose day job is to write", which is good, as
| that includes scientists.
| tomrod wrote:
| My takeaway: PG sees successful people as stubborn but teachable
| and open to feedback/discussion/pushback.
| Jarwain wrote:
| Mine was more determination =stubborn + pragmatic. Obstinant is
| missing the pragmatism
| jimhi wrote:
| I couldn't fully grasp what he was trying to say and your
| summarization is both shorter and gets the point across better.
| Thanks
| hammock wrote:
| Persistent = stubborn about achieving a goal = good
|
| Obstinate = stubborn about executing a solution = bad
| FloorEgg wrote:
| Might be worth considering that in a specific example or
| context this may make sense, but zoom out further you will
| find that goals are solutions and solutions are goals.
|
| It's a hierarchy, as Paul referred to as a "tree".
|
| Each node in the acyclic graph is connected to a "why" node
| above it (goal) and a "how" node below it (solution).
|
| OKRs reflect this in an organization.
|
| People make decisions based on their values hierarchy,
| implicit or explicit.
|
| If this isn't easy to follow maybe an example will help...
|
| Let's say I have a goal of "provide reliable shelter for my
| family", the solution may be to "buy a house". Buying a
| house is also a goal, which maybe is slightly out of reach.
| So my solution is to "save a large portion of my income"
| and "secure a high paying job", these are also goals. The
| solution to saving may be a fintech app, discipline, good
| communication with my spouse, etc.. every solution is a
| goal with its own solutions and you can follow this tree
| down until you get into really specific motor tasks like
| taking a credit card out of a wallet or opening a door or
| turning the key to start a car.
| hi_dang_ wrote:
| I think these people get high off of their own supply. It's a
| word soup of nonsense
| tomrod wrote:
| Glad to be of help -- as a tangent, I greatly loved your
| hatdrop post!
| Waterluvian wrote:
| "Strong opinions lightly held"?
| j0e1 wrote:
| I think there maybe more than the five qualities that comprise
| persistence. But those five make a lot of sense and I like how he
| shows their interplay. Good read!
| _vaporwave_ wrote:
| Considering how many founders he's come into contact with, I'm
| curious why PG chose the Collison Brothers as the exemplary
| persistent entrepreneurs. Perhaps it's their inclination to
| tackle complex and unwieldy regulatory challenges that most tech
| founders shy away from?
| walterbell wrote:
| Would be interesting to know the other candidates for "most
| persistent entrepreneur".
| breck wrote:
| I think the essay would benefit from adding examples for
| "obstinate". Surely there must be specific characters from
| fiction (or history) that he can reference to better support
| his argument (without offending anyone living).
| edverma2 wrote:
| This seems timely in regards to the US Presidential race.
| dataflow wrote:
| Not just timely; it's almost literally talking about that in
| footnote #2.
| kaladin-jasnah wrote:
| I also thought of the presidential race when reading through
| this.
| hi wrote:
| > "The persistent are attached to the goal. The obstinate are
| attached to their ideas about how to reach it."
|
| I didn't know what the word "obstinate" meant so here you go:
| "stubbornly adhering to an opinion, purpose, or course in spite
| of reason, arguments, or persuasion."
|
| While PG's quote suggests a clear distinction, it's overly
| simplistic. Persistence and obstinacy often overlap in practice,
| sharing traits like energy, imagination, resilience, good
| judgment, focus on a goal, and listening intently. The issue is
| that "reason" can be subjective. For example, Copernicus and
| Galileo were considered obstinate for his heliocentric theory,
| but history proved him right. This shows that the line between
| persistence and obstinacy is often drawn in hindsight.
|
| Referencing the Collison brothers highlights a bias towards
| successful YC alumni. It would be more telling to classify
| current batch founders as obstinate or persistent and revisit
| their success in a decade.
| stale2002 wrote:
| > While PG's quote suggests a clear distinction
|
| No it doesn't. The essay includes multiple parts talking about
| how the things are related, similar, sometimes
| indistinguishable, and also that it can be a spectrum.
|
| In fact, arguably the entire thesis of the essay is how the two
| traits have both similarities and differences and that it is
| complicated.
| Vegenoid wrote:
| > Persistence and obstinacy often overlap in practice, sharing
| traits like energy, imagination, resilience, good judgment,
| focus on a goal, and listening intently.
|
| Obstinacy is defined by a _lack_ of imagination, good
| judgement, and intent listening.
|
| > For example, Copernicus and Galileo were considered obstinate
| for his heliocentric theory, but history proved him right. This
| shows that the line between persistence and obstinacy is often
| drawn in hindsight.
|
| History didn't prove them right, science did. The fact that
| people considered them obstinate does not mean that they were.
| The only future where they would still be considered the
| obstinate ones is one run by obstinate people. They had the
| evidence, which was ignored by obstinate heliocentrists.
| Heliocentrists did not have convincing reasons for their belief
| that Copernicus/Galileo ignored.
| w10-1 wrote:
| > Obstinacy is defined by a lack of imagination, good
| judgement, and intent listening
|
| I think that may be a mistake.
|
| Any value strategy that is primarily conservative (e.g.,
| protecting sunk or resource assets) will be obstinate. That
| doesn't make it slower or stupider.
|
| So oil and timber companies and monopolists et al will keenly
| monitor opposition and respond immediately and deftly -- with
| reality-avoidance. As will individuals who are primarily
| guarding something they feel is at risk of being taken away.
|
| They have the same or more intelligence, judgment, and active
| listening; it's just that their strategy is not creation or
| innovation.
|
| Indeed, in a fair fight the innovator will lose to the
| conservative, because it's just plain harder to make things
| happen, particularly when it involves convincing others to
| change their patterns or minds.
| JohnMakin wrote:
| He put it very nicely that stubborn people are like a boat under
| full throttle (will take a while to slow down), and obstinate
| people are like a boat that has no rudder (unwilling or unable to
| change direction).
|
| It is a nice distinction coming from someone who is habitually
| stubborn and can border on obstinate if not checked.
| aym62SAE49CZ684 wrote:
| PG's distinction between persistent and obstinate is pretty much
| captured by the ideas of growth mindset and fixed mindset in
| psychology.
|
| https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/basics/growth-mindset
|
| My question is always, how do you get someone with a more fixed
| mindset attitude to adopt a growth mindset way of relating to the
| world? It's so hard, but it makes such a difference.
| Willish42 wrote:
| I became aware of this quite recently (on this site too IIRC),
| but it's worth noting that the "growth mindset" findings of the
| last several decades haven't quite panned out or been
| replicable upon further review:
| https://matheducators.stackexchange.com/questions/24418/are-...
|
| I agree the Persistent / Obstinate paradigm seems quite
| similar, and if anything for those reasons I'm inclined to be
| (obstinately :P) skeptical.
|
| Less relevant to engineering etc., but I personally find a lot
| of "successful people do X, unsuccessful people do Y" findings,
| especially when presented as "innate" or "personality"
| features, are pretty similar to IQ, the marshmallow test, and
| other things where it's a frequent victim of selection bias for
| how scarce resources were in one's upbringing or cognitive
| development.
| mempko wrote:
| Obstinate people are stubborn about the approach to solving a
| problem, Persistent people are flexible in how they solve a
| problem.
|
| Both don't give up solving the problem. The latter solves them
| better because of they learn, adjust, and adapt.
|
| There, now you don't have to read the article.
| konschubert wrote:
| I often wonder into which of these two categories I fall with my
| epaper calendars.
|
| On the one hand, I've been working on this product for four
| years, put every free minute into it, and it still doesn't make
| enough money for me to quit my job.
|
| On the other hand, the product keeps getting better as I work on
| it, and I have now sold 500 of them.
|
| But sometimes I feel like I can't keep going like this. Two jobs
| and a family is just too much.
|
| I think I should either quit my job and properly focus on it,
| relying on savings until the sales can support me. Or put the
| project into maintenance mode (I will keep the lights on for at
| least 10 years, no matter what).
|
| What would you advise me to do?
|
| This is the product: https://shop.invisible-
| computers.com/products/invisible-cale...
| joelfried wrote:
| I would advise you to plan out the options to the best of your
| ability, then have a long conversation with your spouse
| presenting those options.
| ajkjk wrote:
| Sounds like a marketing problem. It wouldn't be weird at all to
| see that at every bookstore in the country. So why isn't it
| there? Are you focusing on making the product better forever,
| instead of getting it in front of people, or tuning it to what
| they are most eager to pay for, or tuning the website to get
| more sales? What beliefs are causing you to make that mistake?
| Are you scared of those parts, and therefore avoiding them and
| convincing yourself they're not important?
|
| It sounds like you wish to be able to live off this work, yet
| you're not modeling the gap between where you are and where you
| want to be correctly (clearly, or you wouldn't be asking for
| help). So yes, you are being stubborn, but that doesn't mean
| the project is doomed. Just that you need to step back and look
| at the problems holistically.
| konschubert wrote:
| Two things:
|
| I am not sure if marketing is the bottleneck or the product
| itself - I have been getting inconsistent feedback on that.
|
| On the marketing side, I've been trying to make the website
| better and i have been playing with Google and instagram ads.
| I don't even dislike marketing - but I don't think I'm very
| good at it. I could try to pay for this competency, but I'm
| scared of losing bunch of money.
| dvt wrote:
| This would probably kill it on Instagram ads honestly. Price
| point is a tad high, but it's like the perfect "not sure what
| to get someone" gift.
| konschubert wrote:
| I've tried instagram ads and it didn't work. But probably I
| just suck at marketing.
| sitkack wrote:
| Price point is high? Based on what? I'd say the price is too
| low for the expected volume.
| dvt wrote:
| > Based on what?
|
| Based on it being a semi-impulse buy, since I don't see
| many people explicitly searching for "framed programmable
| e-ink calendar."
| rvbissell wrote:
| That's cool. The news front-page screenshot & calendar use-
| cases appeal to me. (Although, it seems like I could just do
| the news FP thing myself, with "Any image URL", rather than
| your $3/mo service.)
|
| Is it touch interactive? Like, can I tap on a cell in the
| calendar to see "... and 2 more" details?
|
| Can I easily create my own replacement frame?
|
| Can I hang it on the wall in a manner where I can rotate
| between portrait & landscape orientations, and have it react in
| an appropriate way for the running app?
|
| Is there an SDK for app development?
| konschubert wrote:
| You can probably create your own frame if you are careful
| when you open it up.
|
| It has no touch. If you change its orientation on the wall,
| you have to change the orientation in the phone app.
|
| There is no sdk but there is an api one can use for
| connecting third party apps.
| jimbobthrowawy wrote:
| Are you using something like an ESP32 to run the thing? I
| ask because a lot of them have a surprising amount of
| random sensors tacked on, like accelerometers. (capacitive,
| and hall-effect sensors too) Auto-orientation is probably a
| thing you'd need to design for though.
| breck wrote:
| 1.) I don't like your name. Your computers are not invisible.
| They are definitely visible. If you were making an Alexa/Siri
| smart speaker computer that you hid in the walls, that would
| make sense to call it Invisible Computers.
|
| But your computer is a screen. The definition of a screen is
| something you look at.
|
| 2.) Simplify your workflows: combine with your github profile.
| This is clearly your passion. Own it. Move all the invisible
| computer repos to your own GitHub repo.
|
| 3) Tell us _why_ this product keeps you going. What do you hate
| about tech that keeps you working on this for four years?
|
| I love eInk. Have been following it since I read about eInk in
| Hiawatha Bray's Boston Globe column when I was a kid. I think I
| may have been one of the very first (if not the first) to buy
| the new Daylight computer (though I completely forgot about it
| until they emailed me recently). I had a couple of Remarkable
| 2s. I think there's many great things there, and your bet is
| directionally correct, just need to pivot a few things
| slightly.
| konschubert wrote:
| I'm not sure about the name either. I think I need to get
| some help with that.
|
| Out of the blue, what would you call it?
| breck wrote:
| > what would you call it?
|
| It depends what your long term vision is?
|
| What is the essence of your product? What won't change in
| the next 5 years? 10 years?
|
| Is it the wood bevel? If so, maybe something like the "Core
| Display" or "Tree Screen" or "Forest Frame".
|
| Do you not care about the bevel at all and it's the zen of
| the eInk? Then maybe call it the Zen Screen or Air Display.
| prewett wrote:
| First, change the image at the top of that link to show the
| different apps. Right it's calendars until below the fold (on a
| desktop), and I didn't scroll down because "eh, physical
| calendar, not interested". Also, apparently I did not read the
| text very carefully (maybe because clearly it's a calendar, it
| says so in the link) and didn't notice the "other apps" bit for
| several minutes.
|
| However, I don't think the market for this is very large,
| especially at the current price. How many people have enough
| events per day that they need a calendar? Plus, my phone
| already has a calendar, and it has reminders so I don't even
| need to look at it. If I were married maybe syncing up
| calendars could be useful, so if that's the use case then put
| that in the picture. I don't get the whole show-a-website
| thing. I know HN likes putting the NYT on their wall, but I
| just don't get it, especially at 125 dpi. A photo, okay, but
| B&W and 600x480 is not what I'm looking to spend $150 +
| $3/month for. Also, anything with a subscription is right out.
| Reliance on external servers is right out, sooner or later that
| server is going to go away.
|
| The problem as I see it is that the things you put on your
| desk/wall are either art, 300 dpi color photos, whiteboard for
| todos, clocks, and calendars. This only really fits the last
| two--except that there is no option for clocks (say, clock and
| clock+picture)--and $150 seems kind of expensive for that.
| Expensive compared to what $150 could buy me, given that a
| synced up calendar is just a click away on my browser and
| integrated into my phone.
|
| Since you asked for advice, I'd say you have a cool
| hobby/craft/maker project, but not a saleable product. Pivot or
| quit. For instance, if you want to try the hobby route, you
| could make it to fit standard picture frames of a given size
| and offer one yourself for extra, and make it assemble-
| yourself. Saves time on your part, reduces costs, so you can
| sell it cheaper. Provide a download to setup a local server,
| and an option to display a PNG (= inexpensive way for users to
| write pixels directly) via USB or something. I don't know if
| that's a good idea, but it seems like a wider market.
| johnxie wrote:
| Funnily enough, 'obstinate' was one of the first words I picked
| up in ESL, fresh off the boat. I loved throwing it into
| conversations just to practice and feel smart... And here I am,
| years later, reflecting on that word.
| stagger87 wrote:
| Within the context of persistent people at the top of the
| decision tree, how often are persistent people labeled obstinate
| because they disagree with another persistent person (likely
| their boss) on a decision that will likely lead to 2 separate but
| nearly successful outcomes?
| hammock wrote:
| What does it matter? If someone disagrees with their boss on
| the outcome desired, there is misalignment in the company and
| the bottom rung will fail
| stagger87 wrote:
| None of this matters, not even PGs post, but it's the comment
| section, so here we are...
|
| The definition PG gives for an obstinate person is someone
| who doesn't listen, with the implication that they are
| "wrong". I'm just presenting a scenario that is very common
| in my world, where people may not be right or wrong, but
| differing and strong opinions lead to people being mislabeled
| as obstinate.
|
| IMO, "Alignment" is a bullshit word used by people to
| basically say "my way or the highway". I might even say it's
| mostly used by obstinate people. :)
| hammock wrote:
| Alignment in the context of a firm (industrial
| organization) is important.. you can be as "right" as you
| want but misaligned with your boss and you will have all
| power removed from you..
| stagger87 wrote:
| Snooze, please repeat more of the MBA playbook to me.
| run2arun wrote:
| to me,
|
| * obstinate: same responses/approach even when presented with new
| information
|
| * persistent: updated responses/approach when presented with new
| information
| 1970-01-01 wrote:
| "The persistent are attached to the goal. The obstinate are
| attached to their ideas about how to reach it."
| dvt wrote:
| Don't really have much to add other that this is the best PG
| essay I've read in years, and it feels like a return to form.
| blipvert wrote:
| I'm genuinely not sure if this is an intended as a compliment.
| dvt wrote:
| Imo, PG's latest essays have been meandering, overly
| political, and far outside of his core competency. This feels
| like an oldschool 2009-era startup-focused chicken soup for
| the soul with some actionable takeaways.
| danielmarkbruce wrote:
| TLDR:
|
| You need "energy, imagination, resilience, good judgement, and
| focus on a goal" to go places.
|
| Funnily enough, every very successful person seems to arrive at
| the conclusion that "focus" is a differentiator.
| thimkerbell wrote:
| And focus requires that you assume that others will pick up the
| slack, to deal with all the stuff you're not focusing on.
| delichon wrote:
| If at first you don't succeed, try, try again. Then quit. There's
| no point in being a damn fool about it.
|
| W.C. Fields (?) on the right kind of stubborn.
|
| https://quoteinvestigator.com/2013/08/11/try-again/
| wkcheng wrote:
| This is a great article on the difference between an obstinate
| person and a persistent person, but I'm not sure the general
| public perceives them the same way that Paul does.
|
| What I've found is that many times, people like the perceived
| confidence that obstinacy can bring. For example, let's say that
| someone points out a flaw in a plan. Person A responds by saying
| "That's not a real problem. It doesn't matter." Person B says
| "Ok, that's interesting. Let's dig into it." Person A (the
| obstinate person who doesn't listen) usually comes across as more
| confident in this encounter, even though Person B (the persistent
| person who is engaging) may actually end up learning something
| new and getting a better result.
|
| This is especially true in public forums. If you go up on a stage
| and do a debate, the obstinate person comes across as more
| confident to more people. This doesn't mean that their plan is
| any good. But people will vote for them, give them money, etc.
|
| For the record, I agree with Paul's assessment that persistence
| is a great quality and obstinacy is not. However, it's hard to
| actually get this across to the public.
| arp242 wrote:
| There's an old anecdote where I think Pascal, but I'm not sure,
| argued the existence or non-existence of God in front of the
| king with another philosopher. Maybe-Pascal exclaimed loudly
| and with great confidence "A plus C equal B squared! Therefore
| God exists! COUNTER!" The other philosopher didn't know much
| about mathematics, had no idea to reply, got flustered, and
| "lost" the argument.[1]
|
| And honestly, I'm not sure I would have done better in the
| moment. On reflection? Sure. But in front of the king,
| presented with a completely unfamiliar argument stated with
| great confidence and demanding a reply? Yeah, maybe not. Even
| on topics where I have reasonable in-depth knowledge I
| sometimes really doubt myself when someone says something _very
| wrong_ with great confidence, and sometimes I really double and
| triple-check things to make sure I 'm not making a right fool
| of myself.
|
| Few years back I ordered a sandwich at a deli. Still looking at
| the menu, the lady asked what I wanted. "Ehhh, well, ehmm, I
| don't eat meat, so, ehhh, something without that". "Oh, I have
| chicken!" And she said this so quickly and with such confidence
| that for a few seconds I was genuinely doubting whether
| "chicken" was meat or not and wasn't really sure what to
| answer.
|
| I guess she had a bit of "a moment" and we had a laugh about it
| afterwards, but I thought that was a pretty interesting and
| harmless example of how you can really start doubting yourself.
|
| NFTs are another example. When I first heard of it, I thought I
| had not understood it correctly because "surely it can't be
| this dumb". And for months when all the NFT hype was raging I
| thought it must be some very complex crypto bonanza I wasn't
| really understanding. All the obscure jargon and lingo the NFT
| people confidently use aided that notion. I'm not really
| interested in crypto in general, but finally gave in and did
| some more in-depth reading on it. I found that no, it really
| _is_ that dumb, and I _had_ understood it correctly months ago,
| and all the jargon was just meaningless bollocks word salad.
|
| [1]: I read about this years and years ago, I can't find
| anything about it right now and this anecdote may be false, but
| it seemed trust-worthy enough at the time to remember.
| Suppafly wrote:
| >I found that no, it really is that dumb, and I had
| understood it correctly months ago, and all the jargon was
| just meaningless bollocks word salad.
|
| My brother is an artist and absolutely refused to believe
| that the hype around NFTs was just bullshit. I'm sure if I
| called and asked right now, he'd still give me some word
| salad about how it's going to start paying off any day now.
| Now if anyone talks to me about NFTs, I send that me that
| Folding Ideas youtube video, 'Line goes up' and refuse to
| engage with them.
| lelanthran wrote:
| > Now if anyone talks to me about NFTs, I send that me that
| Folding Ideas youtube video, 'Line goes up' and refuse to
| engage with them.
|
| When someone talks to you about a topic you don't want to
| engage in you send them a link to a 2.5 hour long video?
|
| I mean, can't the point be made in 3m?
| singleshot_ wrote:
| Making the point over and over and over for two and a
| half hours gives you time to run away and hide.
| AnimalMuppet wrote:
| Well, it gets them out of your hair for 2.5 hours...
|
| Unless they don't bother to watch it. Then it gets them
| out of your hair permanently, because they know they're
| supposed to watch it before hassling you about it again.
| scubbo wrote:
| I have a friend who's still convinced that GameStop's going
| to the moon. Any day now...
| bbayles wrote:
| The story you're thinking of is about Leonhard Euler, though
| it may not have actually happened (see Wikipedia on Euler).
| pilingual wrote:
| Why are NFTs dumb?
|
| How can I buy a digital asset sold by an artist?
| kaibee wrote:
| Talk to one and get something commissioned, then sign a
| contract about what copyrights you're acquiring from them.
| NFTs provide none of those.
| woah wrote:
| Fine artists who are known in the international art
| market do not take commissions. They also do not give
| buyers of a piece copyright (obviously both of these
| things are even more true if they are dead).
|
| You also wouldn't be able to distinguish a fake painted
| for a few thousand dollars, much less so with a print or
| digital art, so the physical artifact is somewhat
| meaningless as well, at least as far as value goes.
| Collectors buy pieces and keep them in storage. They
| might buy a piece without ever laying eyes on the
| physical artifact.
|
| The art market has always run on provenance and
| certificates of authenticity. You could argue that fine
| art is bullshit, and you can also that a blockchain is
| not necessary to keep track of certificates of
| authenticity, but arguing that the entire concept of art
| ownership without copyright is bullshit is to ignore what
| the reality of the art market has always been.
| knowaveragejoe wrote:
| NFTs are not a good solution to buying artwork. They are a
| novel concept, but translating that to conventional
| problems around ownership is difficult and probably not the
| best solution.
| actionfromafar wrote:
| They could be used by TicketMaster for tickets. That's
| about the most realistic use case I could come up with.
| nsguy wrote:
| I had a similar issue recently. Someone suggested a technical
| solution that based on my experience has zero chance of being
| correct. It was said with great confidence that makes me
| doubt my experience. Great confidence but zero supporting
| details or experience. For someone observing from the side
| there's no way to tell who is right and my double-take
| doubting my own experiences can appear to make the extremely
| confident but likely wrong person be the right one. For
| someone that really knows stuff, being 100% confident on
| nuanced/complex issues is very hard, you're used to moving
| forward with 90% or 80% or 95% confidence. I.e. you're very
| likely right, but there are can be surprises or something you
| didn't anticipate. For someone confident but wrong they have
| like 100% confidence for something that's 0% chance of
| success. As you say, this is a lot more difficult when you're
| put on the spot, e.g. the CEO might question what's the right
| decision in a meeting (the king in your example.). Often
| there's not enough time for a deep study and even after
| studying a problem it might still not be 100%.
|
| Tough situations to handle.
| red_admiral wrote:
| Euler, not Pascal, but the story is most likely apocryphal
| anyway. See
| http://www.fen.bilkent.edu.tr/~franz/M300/bell2.pdf , which
| contains a link to a PDF discussing (and dismissing) the
| original story, and is a nice read on its own.
| stcredzero wrote:
| _What I 've found is that many times, people like the perceived
| confidence that obstinacy can bring._
|
| The problem with that method of evaluation, is that it's not
| First Principles. Basically, pg's essay in this case just
| reduces down to, "Is that person steered by First Principles
| thinking?"
| yellowapple wrote:
| Most people ain't steered by first-principles thinking,
| though, and that's the problem. To most people, first-
| principles-driven thinking lacks sufficient actionability;
| they just want definite answers, and first-principles-driven
| thinking tends to produce answers that are anything _but_
| definite.
| cassepipe wrote:
| Could we say that biologically/culturally receptive to
| performed dominance and being dominant has nothing to do with
| rationally understand the world. I think this is the whole
| point of the jock/geek binary opposition in culture even
| though, as all oppositionnal pairs in culture, they are often
| porquenolosdossed : Some people can perform dominance and do
| master rationality quite well and some can do neither. Maybe we
| don't notice it either because they don't fit the cultural
| mental map or because they are not part of our social milieus
| (too high or too low status) ?
|
| https://youtu.be/wmVkJvieaOA?feature=shared&t=276
| wkcheng wrote:
| Yeah, "performed dominance" as you call it definitely is
| orthogonal to rationally understanding the world.
|
| The problem is exacerbated by content and replies trending
| shorter over time. It's hard to have a nuanced and thoughtful
| take in 10 seconds. It's much easier to have a simple, easy
| to understand, "dominant" take in the same amount of time.
|
| I wonder if there's a social solution to this, somehow.
| senthil_rajasek wrote:
| There are certain areas where the popular opinion is
| irrelevant. Warren Buffet said this in a more folksy way,
|
| "It's very important to live your life by an internal
| yardstick," he told us, noting that one way to gauge whether or
| not you do so is to ask the following question: "Would you
| rather be considered the best lover in the world and know
| privately that you're the worst -- or would you prefer to know
| privately that you're the best lover in the world, but be
| considered the worst?"
|
| source: https://time.com/archive/6904425/my-650100-lunch-with-
| warren...
| autoexec wrote:
| > "Would you rather be considered the best lover in the world
| and know privately that you're the worst -- or would you
| prefer to know privately that you're the best lover in the
| world, but be considered the worst?"
|
| Both of those options sound terrible. It's a curse either
| way. I'd rather be known as publicly as "better than average"
| and privately know that I'm doing pretty well/my best.
|
| If forced to pick between the two though, being publicly
| known as 'the best lover in the world' would seem most likely
| to present more opportunities to improve my skill/confidence.
| It's still a lot of pressure nobody needs.
| burningChrome wrote:
| Just in case someone is wondering:
|
| Obstinate - Stubbornly adhering to an opinion, purpose, or
| course in spite of reason, arguments, or persuasion.
| mihaic wrote:
| This has been pretty much my experience as well, and honestly I
| think it's because most of the audience in any public forum
| hasn't ever needed to push through a complex project.
|
| I was talking to a friend about this, and I've come to see this
| as the opposite of real-recognize-real, something like
| bullshit-interfaces-with-bullshit. That is, often people that
| haven't executed complex projects have a skewed view of the
| factors of success, something that they try to imitate and at
| the same time is more easily misled by people emulating the
| same signals.
| arp242 wrote:
| I suspect that obstinance this is rooted in strong black/white
| thinking. I don't really know how this works for these people and
| can't experience it myself because I have just one brain. While I
| am flawed in many ways, I am not flawed in that particular way. I
| don't really understand how this works.
|
| I find that inability to understand qualified language is a
| decent marker. Note I said "I suspect that often", and not "I
| know this is always". Black/white thinkers will reply with
| something like "no, that's not true, here's an example where
| that's not the case: [..]" Well, okay ... that's what "often"
| means, further weakened by the "I suspect". But for black/white
| thinkers it's Highlander time: there can only be one
| (explanation).
|
| ---
|
| Bit of a related aside:
|
| For the last year or so I've been using an extension to
| completely block people from Hacker News. The way this works is
| that I have two buttons: "bozo" to merely mark a post, and a list
| of marked posts in shown on the profile. And "block" to
| completely block them. Everyone has bad days, myself included,
| and I don't want to write people off for the occasional bad day.
|
| But some people have a lot of bad days. And by "marking" people's
| posts some interesting patterns emerge. I mark a post for extreme
| black/white views on something like Israel and being pretty
| obstinate about it, and then 2 months later I see the same person
| with extreme black/white views on databases and being pretty
| obstinate about that. Are these two topics related? Not at all.
| But the same type of thinking is used: extremely simplistic
| black/white thinking with almost no room for nuance or "it
| depends".
|
| Another person posted that thieves should be executed, "but if
| that is too extreme the chopping off of hands is also acceptable"
| (true story), and also rants about programming languages like
| they're 13, and rants about "wokeness".
|
| The same person where a substantial number of their posts are
| rants about what inferior languages Go and Ruby are, also
| literally wishes death on politicians they disagree with, and
| claims "McCarthy was absolutely right" (which is a complete
| bollocks historical revisionism pushed by some people who are
| unable to understand "yes, turned out there were real Soviet
| spies in US gov't during the 50s, but there was zero overlap with
| the people McCarthy accused and he was just an unhinged nutjob
| who operated without any evidence against random people").
|
| etc. etc.
|
| What I learned from this is that by and large this kind of
| obstinance is not a "strong feelings about issue X"-problem, but
| rather a "brain just works in that way"-problem, whether that's
| due to black/white thinking, or something else.
|
| There's an old joke: "A 9/11 truther, anti-vaxxer, sovereign
| citizen, and homeopath walk in to a bar. He orders a beer."
| Sometimes people are just misinformed on these issues and believe
| maybe one or two of them, but especially when they're knee-deep
| in nuttery it's just a thinking error.
|
| I am still undecided if these people really are incapable of
| thinking in another way, or are just unwilling to do so. Or maybe
| there isn't actually any difference.
| thimkerbell wrote:
| Probably unable. Though stress can make people temporarily that
| way.
| sublinear wrote:
| I don't really agree with any of this.
|
| Thinking there's a way to distinguish the two in the moment
| without you yourself being the more competent one is to believe
| in crystal balls. You only know for sure who was right in
| hindsight when everything else that could have been decided is
| also known.
|
| It's a categorical error to attribute success to personality and
| behavioral traits. There are just as many benevolent geniuses as
| there are assholes at every level.
| devinplatt wrote:
| "Confidence is belief in yourself. Certainty is belief in your
| beliefs. Confidence is a bridge. Certainty is a barricade." -
| Kevin Ashton, "How To Fly A Horse"
|
| As I recall that book used the example of Franz Reichelt, who "is
| remembered for jumping to his death from the Eiffel Tower while
| testing a wearable parachute of his own design"
| https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Franz_Reichelt
| ableSprocket11 wrote:
| I like his articles, but the artificial constructs sometimes
| drive me up the wall. After reading through a fairly rudimentary
| strawman about outcomes defining the difference between obstinacy
| and persistence, we reach the last paragraph that trades a poorly
| defined word (persistence) for five poorly defined words
| (imagination, focus, energy, judgement, resilience)
|
| persistence is also defined by flexibility in thinking, appetite
| for risk/comfort with uncertainty, low ego. equally useless
|
| (I still love you PG, despite my dyspepsia)
| sitkack wrote:
| I too like these Just So Stories of the Startup Underground,
| but damn, they come off like Malcolm Gladwell forming a
| taxonomy of the kids that got it vs the kids that don't.
|
| These are all properties of people, that ebb and flow and
| change from each problem they are working on. It is more
| productive to talk about contextualized behaviors over the
| properties of people.
| ableSprocket11 wrote:
| Someone clearly failed the marshmallow test as a kid (/s)
|
| Yes, exactly. You put it better than I did. Shit's messy,
| non-linear, non-monotonic. No need to put a bow on it.
| citizenpaul wrote:
| The marshmellow test was debunked. Turns out like many if
| these bad experiments when you factor socioeconomic status
| the test cannot be reproduced. Turns out poor hungry kids
| just tend to eat free food when its available.
| thimkerbell wrote:
| Good to make a conceptual distinction though.
| sitkack wrote:
| Of course concepts are important and esp where they deviate
| from each other.
|
| As a concept, it is important to understand human behavior
| and what motivates it, but I try and not brand people with
| a permanent attribute.
| burningChrome wrote:
| I've found that properties and other traits in people can be
| malleable and change over time.
|
| I have tons of personal experiences where a new developer
| seems very obstinate because they've never had anybody really
| challenge the way they do things. They get onto a project and
| suddenly get put in their place by a more senior developer.
| It might have to happen once, or several times before they
| start to change how they approach things and become more
| humble over time.
|
| But I agree, properties of people can change, behaviors you
| can change for a short time, but you inevitably will regress
| back to how you normally behave. As such, behaviors tend to
| be easier to observe and predict.
| munificent wrote:
| I like this article a lot.
|
| I think a lot of the distinction between persistence and
| obstinance comes down to identity, attachment, and self esteem.
|
| Almost everyone who is persistent or obstinant has something to
| prove. They have some deep-seated feeling that they need to
| demonstrate _something_ to their community, a sense that maybe
| their value is in some ways conditional on what they provide.
| Content people who feel almost everyone already loves them rarely
| change the world. (That 's no indictment of contentment, maybe
| changing the world is overrrated.)
|
| The difference between persistence and obstinance is that
| obstinant people feel that _every step on the path to solving the
| problem_ is a moment where they may be judged and found wanting.
| They are rigid because any misstep or dead end is perceived as a
| sign that they are a failure. It 's not enough for them to solve
| the problem, they have to have been completely right at every
| step along the path.
|
| Persistent people still have that need to prove themselves, but
| they hold it at a different granularity. They give themselves
| enough grace to make mistakes along the way, take in advice from
| others, and explore dead ends. As long as they are making
| progress overall and feel that they will eventually solve the
| problem, they are OK with themselves.
|
| In other words, persistent people want to garner respect by
| giving the world a solution to the problem. Obstinant people want
| that respect by showing the world how flawlessly smart they are
| at every step, sometimes even if they never actually solve the
| problem.
|
| Or put another way, persistent people have the patience to get
| esteem only after the problem is solved. Obstinant people need it
| every step of the way, which is another sign that obstinance has
| a connection to insecurity.
|
| It's a delicate art to balance the drive to prove yourself with
| the self love to allow yourself to make mistakes, admit being
| wrong, and listen to others.
| nxobject wrote:
| That's a fantastic crystallizing idea. In my experience, I've
| tried to temper that dance between self drive and flexibility
| by reflecting on what overarching goals to commit to... the
| resulting sense of understanding and control at an overarching
| level like that is what has helped me.
|
| Of course, the hard part is in knowing what goals to commit to,
| and what to back off from!
| nsguy wrote:
| Obstinant can just be a nay-sayer though? Someone who isn't
| even trying to solve the problem their way but someone getting
| in the way of problems being solved at all.
|
| I have a lot of respect for people that are confident in
| something who are willing to actually go and do that something,
| even if they're wrong. Persistence in this context is
| persevering through being wrong and not giving up until you
| figure out a way to solve the problem.
| munificent wrote:
| Nay-sayers exist too, but I think they are out of scope for
| what PG is talking about. He's talking about the people
| actually working on solving a problem, not someone on the
| sidelines.
| andrewflnr wrote:
| That confusion does make this exact obstinate/persistent
| terminology tricky for conversations outside this
| particular HN thread, though. Which is a shame, because the
| underlying distinction as you've laid it out is very
| important.
| baxtr wrote:
| _> Almost everyone who is persistent or obstinant has something
| to prove._
|
| In other words they want to increase their relative status in
| their community.
| esafak wrote:
| Since I'm seeing people repeat the mistake, I'd like to point
| out that it's _obstinate_.
| cm2012 wrote:
| "Five distinct qualities -- energy, imagination, resilience, good
| judgement, and focus on a goal" are what make Paul Graham's ideal
| of persistence.
|
| I love personality theory so I just wanted to dig into what that
| would mean using those terms.
|
| Energy + Resilience would probably fit best under - Extraverted
| Sensing.
|
| Imagination, good judgment and focus on goal - Introverted
| Intuition.
| ChrisMarshallNY wrote:
| I used to work for a corporation that was legendary for their
| Quality (note the capital "Q" -I got used to denoting it that
| way). They have been making precision optical gear for over a
| hundred years, and fetch many thousands, for their consumer
| (really, professional) kit. Thousands of successful people have
| built their entire careers around this company's gear.
|
| If you want to see "stubborn," look no further than their QA
| Division. In the US, there used to be a running joke, that if you
| had "Quality" in your job title, it meant your career was dead.
| At this company, it meant that you were headed for Executive Row.
| Many VPs and General Managers (a very powerful title, at this
| company), were former QA people.
|
| And, boy, were they a _pain_ to deal with. They would have
| 3,000-line Excel spreadsheets, and if even one of those lines was
| a red "X", the entire product line could get derailed. I had a
| project that we worked on, for 18 months, get nuked at the last
| minute, because they didn't like the Quality. I worked with an SV
| startup, that had a project canned, for pretty much exactly the
| same reason. The startup folks didn't seem to take the Quality
| seriously, which was basically a death sentence.
|
| In that company, the kind of "stubborn" the QA people
| demonstrated, would be considered absolutely essential. I know
| that most folks around here, would not put up with it for a
| second.
|
| They wouldn't be wrong. Making superb-Quality stuff is not a big
| moneymaker. You want lots of money, make lots of cheap, crappy
| things, and sell them at a small margin. The market is a lot
| bigger, and most people have much higher tolerance for crap than
| this company's customers.
|
| As is the case with almost _anything_ in life, "it depends."
| There's really no one-size-fits-all, "magic elixir." Every end
| may be reached by a different path.
| w10-1 wrote:
| The Quality perspective seems more like persistence to me,
| attacking every potential issue (like Howard Hughes polishing
| rivets).
|
| Persistence to me extends the reality principle to even minor
| and potential issues: they *must* be addressed (the "almost
| predatory" response) - driving engagement.
|
| Obstinance to me reduces the reality principle to consistent
| facts, and serves more as avoidance.
|
| (The flaw of the Quality perspective stems more from expanding
| bureaucratic incentives and achieving scale through excessive
| punishment driving aversive behaviors.)
| com2kid wrote:
| When I first joined Microsoft as an SDET back in 2006, the
| culture was such (at least in my org) that any SDET could halt
| shipping.
|
| A bit less than a year out of college I found a pretty
| significant bug in the compiler (I forget the bug! I do
| remember the one major bug I let slip out into a release
| though) well after everything had been signed off on. I brought
| it up in the team meeting and the principle dev asked me
| directly "Do you think we should cancel the release to fix this
| bug?" I wasn't sure of myself and he told me that "it's your
| call", and I said that yeah, we should fix the bug.
|
| For anyone under 35 who is confused by this, was before
| releases were rolling and shipped online. When Microsoft
| released a major version back then, it had a (IIRC) ~10 year
| support contract attached to it (and if you found a bug and
| were on a good enough of a support contract, the dev team would
| develop a custom patch for you to fix a bug in a 9 year 6 month
| old release!), and a lot of gears were set in motion to make a
| release happen.
|
| This was the norm at Microsoft for a long time. I was
| originally attracted to the SDET role because they were the
| last defender of the customer experience, they were the
| engineers who held the line on quality. The entire industry is
| worse off for the SDET role having been eliminated across all
| major software companies.
| bjornlouser wrote:
| "The persistent are attached to the goal. The obstinate are
| attached to their ideas about how to reach it. Worse still, that
| means they'll tend to be attached to their first ideas..."
|
| So obstinate people expect the desired outcome to depend on their
| expertise at some point(s) in the past. Is the difference between
| the two just humility?
| svieira wrote:
| Some do that humility was the mother of all virtues in the same
| way that pride is the mother of all vices ... I don't have any
| data to back it up either way, but I would say anecdotally (and
| thus providing a single datum), "yes".
| worstspotgain wrote:
| Excellent article that really delivers on the difference between
| obstinacy and persistence. However, I think its thesis uncovers a
| hidden IQ correlation.
|
| Some obstinate people may not be stupid in the Forrest Gump
| sense. They may just be operating at their information processing
| capacity. Facing a hard choice, the first step is shedding the
| willingness to argue the foundations of the castle they built.
|
| The psychological ramifications vary. Their predicament may even
| induce them to be unwilling to argue at all levels as a way to
| conceal it, leading to full incorrigible stubbornness.
| igammarays wrote:
| "A foolish consistency is the hobgoblin of little minds, adored
| by little statesmen and philosophers and divines. With
| consistency a great soul has simply nothing to do. He may as well
| concern himself with his shadow on the wall. Speak what you think
| now in hard words, and to-morrow speak what to-morrow thinks in
| hard words again, though it contradict every thing you said to-
| day."
|
| - Ralph Waldo Emerson
| RcouF1uZ4gsC wrote:
| > But is there any real difference between these two cases? Are
| persistent and obstinate people actually behaving differently? Or
| are they doing the same thing, and we just label them later as
| persistent or obstinate depending on whether they turned out to
| be right or not?
|
| I actually think this turns out to be the case most of the time.
| Look at Linus Pauling. Two Nobel prizes and then he fixated on
| Vitamin C. Did he all of a sudden forget how to be persistent and
| became obstinate?
| w10-1 wrote:
| Both persistence and obstinance are somewhat social.
|
| Many persistent leaders become obstinate when they develop a
| success history that surrounds them with positive feedback -
| yes-men, resources to waste, etc.
|
| Obstinate people flock together for mutual validation (and form
| protective bureaucracies).
| m3kw9 wrote:
| Sort of obvious, but he expertly made the distinction very clear
| and maybe even made it look easy. The extreme of obstinate is
| insanity: "The definition of insanity is -- doing the same thing
| over and over and expecting a different result."
| supercanuck wrote:
| Article is trying to discern a cause and effect.
|
| The fact is people are involved and success and failure can be
| determined by any number of reasons beyond the control of the
| obstinate.
|
| You can control the effort but not the outcome. Judgement will
| come regardless.
| alganet wrote:
| > When you point out problems, their eyes glaze over, and their
| replies sound like ideologues talking about matters of doctrine
|
| I feel this post needs a counterpart "The Right Kind of
| Naysayer", which distinguishes between good and bad ways of
| pointing out problems.
|
| I believe the environment matters (did I learned around people
| who made valid points, or around sophist ideologues?). If you're
| around obstinate stubborns, you're likely to become more like
| one, specially if they are rewarded by their obstinance.
|
| Of course, all of this is ultimately anectodal. We can't
| seriously put people in boxes like this. It is good food for
| thought though.
| djaouen wrote:
| This sounds wishy washy to me. So the difference between
| persistent and obstinate is up to the individual? Or consensus?
| In other words, what would be an example of someone who was
| persistent and not obstinate but didn't succeed?
| worldsayshi wrote:
| I'm sure I'm a mix of both. I'm stubborn when it comes to things
| I care about but don't understand how to navigate. I'm persistent
| about problems I'm confident I can navigate even when they are
| hard. But I can also give up on either problem when I run out of
| either joy or necessity.
| dj_gitmo wrote:
| Paging Joseph Robinette Biden
| zbyforgotp wrote:
| TLDR persistent people knowingly take risks while stubborn ones
| don't want to know that there are risks. But you have to take
| risks to be successful.
| dwheeler wrote:
| Interesting article.
|
| It does remind me of an old joke about English conjugation rules.
| For example:
|
| I/we are persistent.
|
| You are obstinant.
|
| He/she/they are pig-headed.
| richardw wrote:
| I have a shorthand: I respect people who are looking for the
| right answer, rather than trying to be right. Ignores
| intelligence etc.
|
| A confident person who is trying to be right. Like kryptonite for
| your company.
|
| I try to build up my confidence from experience and data. Always
| happy to change tack but the incoming input needs to be more
| credible than what I've gone through. Vs my (excellent) ex boss
| who was confident always, but if you wanted to convince him you
| needed to do it quietly out of earshot so no egos were harmed. I
| proposed and we agreed it was a good version of "strong opinions
| weakly held", but I'd have appreciated a little more openness
| without all the dancing. And he was streets ahead of a feral exec
| who was seemingly confident, defensive and who would rather burn
| the building down than change his mind.
| talkingtab wrote:
| I'm sorry, I find this simplistic.
|
| I often am impatient with people not because I am obstinate or
| stubborn or persistent, but because some new ideas require a new
| mindset. For example, let us suppose - just for argument - that
| the great failing of the internet is that it prevents community.
| I'm just saying suppose.
|
| If one then foolishly tried to discuss this, one would be
| inundated with comments about Facebook, X (or is it Y?) and on
| and on. None of this is helpful or even interesting because the
| context/mind set is wrong.
|
| Once we decide the world is not flat (even if just for the sake
| of argument) a discussion of where you will fall off and what
| will happen to you when you fall off, is not interesting. Or
| helpful.
|
| To my mind then, the issue of stubborn or obstinate people is not
| innovators - it is the inability to examine or even imagine a new
| mindset. Which is too bad because that is the fun part.
| baxtr wrote:
| Let's try some real world examples: are the two current
| presidential candidates obstinate or persistent?
| xivzgrev wrote:
| I wish this article hit on an important point: when should the
| persistent quit? We all know we should know when to hold and when
| to fold, but in practice that's a hard decision to make
| especially when we're invested. And someone who is "persistent"
| vs "obstinate" should be able to do this: quit when it's right to
| do so.
|
| The closest thing he mentions is this, "persistence often
| requires that one change one's mind. That's where good judgement
| comes in. The persistent are quite rational. They focus on
| expected value."
|
| Following that, if I'm working on x thing, and the expected value
| is < some other big thing, I should quit and start the other
| thing.
|
| But there should be a "grass is always greener on the other side"
| counter weight - some other thing may LOOK like higher expected
| value, but that's because you don't know the shit under the hood.
|
| I would've liked him to have touched on this, as I don't think
| you can truly call someone persistent but not obstinate unless
| they can actually walk away from something if necessary.
| vinnyvichy wrote:
| It's interesting to use these guidelines to evaluate dating
| prospects. Is this guy a persistent catch, or a stubborn creep?
| Don't know why, but "stubborn catch" and "persistent creep" sound
| like better matchups, because you'd be okay with using the word
| "stubborn" on yourself?
| vinnyvichy wrote:
| Who wouldn't kill for a foolproof way to generate Collison
| brothers on cue, from cheap inputs. Now that we've heard the
| arguments for talent recognition, what are some prospects for
| talent development?
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