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.It's clear in all of his writing that he'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:> Do you want to do the kind of work where you can only win by thinking differently from everyone else?I mean, taken outside of this being a PG essay I would assume this means stay away from SV, but I suspect that's not really the point.> One of the most effective techniques is one practiced unintentionally by most nerds: simply to be less aware what conventional beliefs are.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's so much more clever then the world.Right now Silicon Valley VC thinking is the dominant ideology, putting blinders on to what is considered convention isn't cultivating an independent mind, it's an assertion of the status quo.> An essay that told people things they already knew would be boring.I agree, but given how beloved rehashed versions of "aren't we the clever independent thinkers!" essays are here I think there is some empirical evidence to the contrary.