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I've noticed something about subreddits that focus on lifestyle design and center around advice: they all start to converge on fairly narrow groupthink. /r/pers

I've noticed something about subreddits that focus on lifestyle design and center around advice: they all start to converge on fairly narrow groupthink. /r/personalfinance is all about super frugal living and passive investing. In /r/backpacking, the general advice is to go as light as possible and spend money reducing weight. /r/cscareerquestions is about the leetcode grind and getting into FAANG. /r/malefashionadvice only really recommends a narrow range of personal styles and is not helpful if you don't want to look like that. Now, the advice is often pretty decent in those subs, but it's not helpful if you don't want exactly what they recommend. And they put way too much emphasis on the narrow range of things they think are worthwhile. Anyway, back to commenting on the article: > So why are we all doing this? Why do so many smart people fall victim to this trap of chasing success and prestige purely for the sake of it? Survivorship bias. There are a lot of smart people everywhere living quiet, normal lives. They don't necessarily seem that different unless you know them well, because they're not trying to rock the world with their brilliance. In fact, what we think of as "smart" does not correspond to "has high natural ability." "Smart people" are people who have decided to make their identities center around being smart. They've worked hard at it. My brother and I were from a normal middle class background but both went to fancy private schools. My uncles apparently all got tested high IQs and they have thick Texan accents, they like handball and guitar and fishing. They're normal people. Their Facebook comments aren't even all that articulate. But you can tell they're intelligent because they seem to "get" things and they don't say dumb stuff.

Loughla 7y ago
>In fact, what we think of as "smart" does not correspond to "has high natural ability." "Smart people" are people who have decided to make their identities center around being smart. They've worked hard at it. I would also argue it's the combination of smart and naturally outgoing or extroversion. Being extroverted seems to be naturally correlated to being successful or being a successful leader for most people. It doesn't make sense to me, other than I guess if you're your own cheerleader you're more likely to find opportunities.
- thebean11 7y ago
  Not sure about that, at least in my workplace some of the people considered the smartest and best engineers are very quite, almost shy.
  - Loughla 7y ago
    I have the opposite experience. I work in higher education, at an institution full of very smart, very talented people. There's a mix of both extroverted and introverted. The extroverts are all moving up the chain, while the (generally more talented) introverts stagnate earlier in their careers. I'm sure there's something there to study, but I'm also sure I don't know what it is.
    - asdfman123 7y ago
      Keep in mind "extroverted" does not mean socially skilled. My fiancee is a social ace. She knows how to make everyone feel good and always has a big smile. She connects deeply with people. But when she's done she has to spent the next three days binge watching The Wire to recover. A lot of introverts are very socially skilled, they just require time to get their energy back.
    - jimbokun 7y ago
      So maybe the Gervais Principle applies beyond just corporations: https://www.ribbonfarm.com/2009/10/07/the-gervais-principle-or-the-office-according-to-the-office/ https://www.ribbonfarm.com/2009/10/07/the-gervais-principle-...
  - Tehchops 7y ago
    Depends on how you classify "smartest" and "best". At some point, the top-tier IC positions are going to require the type of skills that are commonly associated with extroverts. https://keavy.com/work/thriving-on-the-technical-leadership-path/ https://keavy.com/work/thriving-on-the-technical-leadership-... >I’ve chosen to cultivate a path for myself that enables me to dig into complex technical and product problem spaces and help lead technical and strategic direction for my organization, as an engineer but not a manager. Like it or not, if you ever want to escape the delivery trap, you're going to have to be able to effect change that cuts across multiple organizational entities in your workplace, and that's going to require selling yourself and your ideas.
bsanr2 7y ago
>My brother and I were from a normal middle class background but both went to fancy private schools. I find that people tend to either over or underestimate the "middle class"iness of their upbringing.
- TheHegemon 7y ago
  Seriously, these two things do not go in hand in my mind.
  - crgt 7y ago
    Scholarships are a thing?
    - asdfman123 7y ago
      Nah, I didn't even need scholarships. The financial aid was really good for Stanford undergrad. My brother went to a state school undergrad, then got grad degrees from Harvard and Georgetown. He's almost done paying off an assload of debt, but it's meant he's had to work as a consultant these last ten years.
      - snegu 7y ago
        I think everybody thought you were talking about "fancy private" elementary/high schools, which is definitely not a middle class thing. Private college/university is a totally different matter.
        dcole2929 7y ago
        They have scholarships for private k-12 too. I went to one 6-12 and my family was at no point ever more than lower-middle class. I got what amounted to a full ride almost my entire time there. And even as the family made more still didn't pay much.
- asdfman123 7y ago
  My dad worked for city government as a planner for a small suburban town and my mom worked part time as a bookkeeper. My childhood home's estimated value is like $185k. My parents were smart and had a little extra cultural capital but yeah, we were pretty middle class. Maybe lower-upper-middle class.
ImaCake 7y ago
>I've noticed something about subreddits that focus on lifestyle design and center around advice: they all start to converge on fairly narrow groupthink. To me, this is a novel insight, thanks :) I have been wondering what has been causing my frustration towards these kind of subreddits. But this makes it clear that the problem is a lack of actual discussion and no challenges made against the assumptions of the in-group. I have noticed this is a broad trend on a lot of the internet; the internet has a lot of data, but most of that data is repeated a lot. If you want new and interesting information you often have to look elsewhere (e.g. books). A particularly annoying example to me is the ausfinance subreddit which is obsessed with a housing market crash that they seem to think will definitely happen tomorrow. Anything pointing in that direction immediately gets extrapolated as the horseman of the Australian housing market apocalypse, nevermind the fact it was trending the opposite direction yesterday.
- cptnapalm 7y ago
  There are challenges to the groupthink. They are downvoted into oblivion. For particular groups, where it is a place to discuss things amongst themselves, that's defensible, but in r/news, r/politics? Today, in r/technology of all places, there were some utterly disgusting hate being spewed because Ivanka Trump is going to CES for some reason.
  - asdfman123 7y ago
    Oh, the default subs are absolute trash. Don't expect anything worthwhile from them. And some non-defaults are pretty toxic, like /r/mfa or /r/bodybuilding. They'll straight up mock you there for legitimate questions. However, the great thing about reddit is it's highly subreddit dependent, and you can always find a new, better community.
- asdfman123 7y ago
  I find myself looking things up on the internet a lot, and it occurs to me as a surprise to realize a lot of articles on "how to X" or "what causes Y" contain no real content at all. Why? Because all of those articles are written by people paid a small amount of money to do quick research and write something in less than half a day. Most of them probably even haven't even read a single book on the subject. It's so much better to read about something and get that broadband information, to encounter an obscure fact that sheds new light on something or makes the whole thing click.
glitchc 7y ago
I find the Hacker News comments section depicts similar traits to the subreddits.

Loughla 7y ago

>In fact, what we think of as "smart" does not correspond to "has high natural ability." "Smart people" are people who have decided to make their identities center around being smart. They've worked hard at it. I would also argue it's the combination of smart and naturally outgoing or extroversion. Being extroverted seems to be naturally correlated to being successful or being a successful leader for most people. It doesn't make sense to me, other than I guess if you're your own cheerleader you're more likely to find opportunities.

thebean11 7y ago
Not sure about that, at least in my workplace some of the people considered the smartest and best engineers are very quite, almost shy.
- Loughla 7y ago
  I have the opposite experience. I work in higher education, at an institution full of very smart, very talented people. There's a mix of both extroverted and introverted. The extroverts are all moving up the chain, while the (generally more talented) introverts stagnate earlier in their careers. I'm sure there's something there to study, but I'm also sure I don't know what it is.
  - asdfman123 7y ago
    Keep in mind "extroverted" does not mean socially skilled. My fiancee is a social ace. She knows how to make everyone feel good and always has a big smile. She connects deeply with people. But when she's done she has to spent the next three days binge watching The Wire to recover. A lot of introverts are very socially skilled, they just require time to get their energy back.
  - jimbokun 7y ago
    So maybe the Gervais Principle applies beyond just corporations: https://www.ribbonfarm.com/2009/10/07/the-gervais-principle-or-the-office-according-to-the-office/ https://www.ribbonfarm.com/2009/10/07/the-gervais-principle-...
- Tehchops 7y ago
  Depends on how you classify "smartest" and "best". At some point, the top-tier IC positions are going to require the type of skills that are commonly associated with extroverts. https://keavy.com/work/thriving-on-the-technical-leadership-path/ https://keavy.com/work/thriving-on-the-technical-leadership-... >I’ve chosen to cultivate a path for myself that enables me to dig into complex technical and product problem spaces and help lead technical and strategic direction for my organization, as an engineer but not a manager. Like it or not, if you ever want to escape the delivery trap, you're going to have to be able to effect change that cuts across multiple organizational entities in your workplace, and that's going to require selling yourself and your ideas.

bsanr2 7y ago

>My brother and I were from a normal middle class background but both went to fancy private schools. I find that people tend to either over or underestimate the "middle class"iness of their upbringing.

TheHegemon 7y ago
Seriously, these two things do not go in hand in my mind.
- crgt 7y ago
  Scholarships are a thing?
  - asdfman123 7y ago
    Nah, I didn't even need scholarships. The financial aid was really good for Stanford undergrad. My brother went to a state school undergrad, then got grad degrees from Harvard and Georgetown. He's almost done paying off an assload of debt, but it's meant he's had to work as a consultant these last ten years.
    - snegu 7y ago
      I think everybody thought you were talking about "fancy private" elementary/high schools, which is definitely not a middle class thing. Private college/university is a totally different matter.
      - dcole2929 7y ago
        They have scholarships for private k-12 too. I went to one 6-12 and my family was at no point ever more than lower-middle class. I got what amounted to a full ride almost my entire time there. And even as the family made more still didn't pay much.
asdfman123 7y ago
My dad worked for city government as a planner for a small suburban town and my mom worked part time as a bookkeeper. My childhood home's estimated value is like $185k. My parents were smart and had a little extra cultural capital but yeah, we were pretty middle class. Maybe lower-upper-middle class.

ImaCake 7y ago

>I've noticed something about subreddits that focus on lifestyle design and center around advice: they all start to converge on fairly narrow groupthink. To me, this is a novel insight, thanks :) I have been wondering what has been causing my frustration towards these kind of subreddits. But this makes it clear that the problem is a lack of actual discussion and no challenges made against the assumptions of the in-group. I have noticed this is a broad trend on a lot of the internet; the internet has a lot of data, but most of that data is repeated a lot. If you want new and interesting information you often have to look elsewhere (e.g. books). A particularly annoying example to me is the ausfinance subreddit which is obsessed with a housing market crash that they seem to think will definitely happen tomorrow. Anything pointing in that direction immediately gets extrapolated as the horseman of the Australian housing market apocalypse, nevermind the fact it was trending the opposite direction yesterday.

cptnapalm 7y ago
There are challenges to the groupthink. They are downvoted into oblivion. For particular groups, where it is a place to discuss things amongst themselves, that's defensible, but in r/news, r/politics? Today, in r/technology of all places, there were some utterly disgusting hate being spewed because Ivanka Trump is going to CES for some reason.
- asdfman123 7y ago
  Oh, the default subs are absolute trash. Don't expect anything worthwhile from them. And some non-defaults are pretty toxic, like /r/mfa or /r/bodybuilding. They'll straight up mock you there for legitimate questions. However, the great thing about reddit is it's highly subreddit dependent, and you can always find a new, better community.
asdfman123 7y ago
I find myself looking things up on the internet a lot, and it occurs to me as a surprise to realize a lot of articles on "how to X" or "what causes Y" contain no real content at all. Why? Because all of those articles are written by people paid a small amount of money to do quick research and write something in less than half a day. Most of them probably even haven't even read a single book on the subject. It's so much better to read about something and get that broadband information, to encounter an obscure fact that sheds new light on something or makes the whole thing click.

glitchc 7y ago

I find the Hacker News comments section depicts similar traits to the subreddits.