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>It's very difficult to say the same thing to an investor, co-founder, employee, customer, or whoever is offering you a ride in their car, without feeling like

>It's very difficult to say the same thing to an investor, co-founder, employee, customer, or whoever is offering you a ride in their car, without feeling like an ass. I would argue that being honest and explaining your true feelings and position on a certain subject to a person that you wish to hold a close relationship with is the best route imho. They will respect you more for being honest, even if they disagree with you. It's really not that weird to explain to somebody that you'd rather not trash the planet if you can avoid it when you think about it. >I need to conform. I sent a Ron Paul "It's Happening" GIF to my (rather staunch) clients the other day and they absolutely loved it. Which made me chuckle.

dheera 9y ago
> It's really not that weird to explain to somebody that you'd rather not trash the planet if you can avoid it when you think about it. I've tried. It's really, really, really hard. And the last thing you want is to make them feel like they have trashed the planet and you haven't. You'd rather they feel good about themselves (even if that means slightly trashing the planet yourself or whatever) so that they become your {customer, investor, business partner, employee, ...} and it usually ends up being that I have to sacrifice being myself in return for creating a business relationship as an investment for future success. In school I would ditch organizations that regularly ordered food in disposable containers, and join others that I thought were less wasteful. I would actively choose to interact less with people who were too insistent on giving gasoline-based car rides instead of just respecting my wishes to use human-powered or electric transportation where available. I can't do that in industry without losing my reputation. Unless I'm Elon Musk, which I'm not. I don't use daylight savings time (because I think it's stupid) and I don't use timezones (I do everything in UTC). I support metricization of the US, and use Celsius, kilometers, and kilograms when talking to people in my own time to cast my vote with my mouth. I type Dvorak, because I support things that I think are better. I constantly experiment with new frameworks of thought (e.g. a world where countries do not exist, and governments exert power over overlapping open sets of a topological space) and try to think and live inside these alternate worlds just to see what happens, what kind of contractions come up, and so forth. In high school I read many books, including Shakespeare plays, with the book turned upside down; I was about twice as slow, but I found myself using my brain differently, and I do learn a lot from doing experiments on myself like this. I can do these things with friends. I can't say that to a customer. Or an investor. Or an employee. When facing a customer, miles and pounds, and QWERTY it is. Pacific Time with daylight savings, and countries it is. Time is money. And thus, I become more and more "normal", and thus begins the aging and rotting of (at least) the creative half of the brain. C'est la vie.

dheera 9y ago

> It's really not that weird to explain to somebody that you'd rather not trash the planet if you can avoid it when you think about it. I've tried. It's really, really, really hard. And the last thing you want is to make them feel like they have trashed the planet and you haven't. You'd rather they feel good about themselves (even if that means slightly trashing the planet yourself or whatever) so that they become your {customer, investor, business partner, employee, ...} and it usually ends up being that I have to sacrifice being myself in return for creating a business relationship as an investment for future success. In school I would ditch organizations that regularly ordered food in disposable containers, and join others that I thought were less wasteful. I would actively choose to interact less with people who were too insistent on giving gasoline-based car rides instead of just respecting my wishes to use human-powered or electric transportation where available. I can't do that in industry without losing my reputation. Unless I'm Elon Musk, which I'm not. I don't use daylight savings time (because I think it's stupid) and I don't use timezones (I do everything in UTC). I support metricization of the US, and use Celsius, kilometers, and kilograms when talking to people in my own time to cast my vote with my mouth. I type Dvorak, because I support things that I think are better. I constantly experiment with new frameworks of thought (e.g. a world where countries do not exist, and governments exert power over overlapping open sets of a topological space) and try to think and live inside these alternate worlds just to see what happens, what kind of contractions come up, and so forth. In high school I read many books, including Shakespeare plays, with the book turned upside down; I was about twice as slow, but I found myself using my brain differently, and I do learn a lot from doing experiments on myself like this. I can do these things with friends. I can't say that to a customer. Or an investor. Or an employee. When facing a customer, miles and pounds, and QWERTY it is. Pacific Time with daylight savings, and countries it is. Time is money. And thus, I become more and more "normal", and thus begins the aging and rotting of (at least) the creative half of the brain. C'est la vie.