How to Think for Yourself
PG sure has been on a kick about how brilliant of an independent thinker he is in a sea of conformity.<p>It&#x27;s clear in all of his writing that he&#x27;s perpetually beating around the bush about some current itch he has, I wish he would just come out and say it with out pretending to be a deep thinker:<p>&gt; Do you want to do the kind of work where you can only win by thinking differently from everyone else?<p>I mean, taken outside of this being a PG essay I would assume this means stay away from SV, but I suspect that&#x27;s not really the point.<p>&gt; One of the most effective techniques is one practiced unintentionally by most nerds: simply to be less aware what conventional beliefs are.<p>This essay is an object lesson in how this leads to profoundly conventional thinking. This entire thing reads like it was torn from the journal of a clever middle-schooler who thinks he&#x27;s so much more clever then the world.<p>Right now Silicon Valley VC thinking is the dominant ideology, putting blinders on to what is considered convention isn&#x27;t cultivating an independent mind, it&#x27;s an assertion of the status quo.<p>&gt; An essay that told people things they already knew would be boring.<p>I agree, but given how beloved rehashed versions of &quot;aren&#x27;t we the clever independent thinkers!&quot; essays are here I think there is some empirical evidence to the contrary.