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The "paper" is actually the markdown source for a presentation, the ^ characters are markup indicating that what follows is a speaker's note that does not appea

The "paper" is actually the markdown source for a presentation, the ^ characters are markup indicating that what follows is a speaker's note that does not appear on the slide. Elsewhere in this discussion, you will find a link to a video of the presentation, and I trust that if you go looking for evidence that I am a self-important windbag, you will have no difficulty gathering evidence that is consistent with your preconceived beliefs. I'm sorry to hear that you think that if you gave a self-help presentation at a Rails conference, that nobody would come, and that if they did, they would hate you. This was not my experience at all, and I hope you learn to distrust these instincts and develop a more accurate ability to predict when such a thing would be well-received and when it would not. One of the things that helped in my case, is that I wrote many of these ideas up in an essay seven years ago, and it went to #1 on Hacker News that day. From time to time since then, people have rediscovered the essay and it has bene positively received. Other essays I have written about Learned Helplessness and my difficulty learning to play Go have also been well-received. To boot, this particular Ruby conference is actually not very Ruby at all, and the organizers go out of their way to invite speakers who will give non-technical talks. So... I had inside information.

iamleppert 10y ago
It's a little ironic that you used this insider information to gauge the reception and audience to your talk about optimism? It's easier to be optimistic when you can more easily expect an outcome, isn't it?
- braythwayt 10y ago
  “Optimism” in the context of “Learned Optimism” is a term describing the way people explain past events to themselves, not their expectation of whether good things will happen to them in the future. In my case, I was dropping my line where the fish were biting.

iamleppert 10y ago

It's a little ironic that you used this insider information to gauge the reception and audience to your talk about optimism? It's easier to be optimistic when you can more easily expect an outcome, isn't it?

braythwayt 10y ago
“Optimism” in the context of “Learned Optimism” is a term describing the way people explain past events to themselves, not their expectation of whether good things will happen to them in the future. In my case, I was dropping my line where the fish were biting.