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My take on "strong opinions, weakly held:" It's about combating your own confirmation bias by being willing to do the work of re-examining your conclusions in t

My take on "strong opinions, weakly held:" It's about combating your own confirmation bias by being willing to do the work of re-examining your conclusions in the light of new evidence. It's hard to do b/c we get emotionally invested, and also because once you make a conclusion an assumption, it becomes implicit & fades into the background -- so it's harder to question. On the flip side, it's also about trusting your own reasoning above the crowd -- you are thus able to pick up the $20 bill on the ground instead of being sure it's fake b/c nobody else has picked it up already.

godelski 6y ago
Honestly I DON'T trust my own reasoning. I can do this adversarial process as described in this article on my own, but that's incomplete. People outside of me have information and ways to view things that I don't. Others work as a discriminator and you update your opinions and views as more information comes in and challenges your own ideas. But it is because I don't trust my own reasoning that I read textbooks, seek out experts, and try to get as many views as possible, because no one has the complete picture.
- noch 6y ago
  > Honestly I DON'T trust my own reasoning. You should trust your reasoning, that is, the deliberate process/method by which you arrive at conclusions, but you should be constantly seeking score your levels of uncertainty, and, yes, falsify your hypotheses and disprove your theories. Your reasoning, however, should be well trained, reliable, and trustworthy. We should have a high level of confidence in our methods/procedures. > But it is because I don't trust my own reasoning that I read textbooks, seek out experts, and try to get as many views as possible, because no one has the complete picture. Indeed, Annie Duke says: https://conversationswithtyler.com/episodes/annie-duke/ https://conversationswithtyler.com/episodes/annie-duke/: “ [T]hat core thing of: are you good at thinking probabilistically is a bigger thing than you think. And then on top of that, you have to be somebody who’s really interested in understanding when the things you believe are inaccurate. And you have to be so incredibly hungry to collide with corrective information. You have to be openminded to the corrective information. You have to be updating your beliefs constantly, and I think that you just have to be willing to have less endowment to your own beliefs and hold those really loosely because you have to keep this end goal in mind. I’m not trying to win this hand. I mean, I am, but I understand that there’s all sorts of things that might intervene in my ability to do that. I’m trying to win in the long run. And the worst thing that I could find out is that I believed something was true and held onto that belief too long, so it affected my bottom line. You just have to be thinking that way all the time. And then you have to be willing to try to solve for it. ”
- zimpenfish 6y ago
  > Honestly I DON'T trust my own reasoning. I have this and it's a real problem for software development because everyone expects a senior to be gung-ho about their solutions and perfectly confident. Whereas I'm always asking for second and third opinions about things and people (largely management but occasionally other developers) view that negatively.
  - TheOtherHobbes 6y ago
    Baseline political paradox - humans demand extraverted confidence from leaders more than they demand competence. If you're confident you can make mistake after mistake and no one will care unless everything comes crashing down - and even then there's a fair chance you can make it someone else's fault. If you're merely very competent, taking time to research good solutions looks like indecision, not leadership, even if the results are far better.
    - cutemonster 6y ago
      How can that problem be avoided? If you were to build your own company and hire and instruct people?
  - q3k 6y ago
    I think this might be due to a difference in optics. What you see as 'asking for a second or third opinion' might be seen by others as lack of independence, leadership and ownership. Mostly everywhere senior developers are expected to self-manage and make difficult decisions on their own, unprompted, and just present working solutions to the business. It's okay to take time on this - solving it on your own, consulting literature, peers, etc. But looping in management into technical decision making might make you look like you can't make decisions on your own, or need micromanagement. Management, business and product care about things being done - not technical approaches or having to choose between multiple solutions.
    - blaser-waffle 6y ago
      I agree with this. Even if you as an engineer aren't 100% sure, sign-offs from other groups or extra opinions are something for a project manager or product manager to fish around for. There are some optics to consider there too -- e.g. the implication that the PM things you're a fool -- but having them fish around for buy-in and alternatives sells better than you doing it -- it makes you look weak or unprepared. Context matters here too, if you know Alice and Bob on Team [X] are just great at crypto or DB work or whatever, then getting their feedback before implementing a feature might make sense / be a standard due-diligence thing.
- marcosdumay 6y ago
  So, you are describing exactly the idea. It is to trust your own reasoning, not information or ideas. Reasoning is a process.
  - godelski 6y ago
    Exactly, and I think some are missing that. I will say the things I believe with confidence, but I have no illusions that I don't have all the information and an incomplete picture. Things can always be improved.
- lambdatronics 6y ago
  I would include other people's arguments as part of the evidence that's needing to be evaluated -- others' arguments come to me not as "X therefore Y" but as "Dave says that X therefore Y." I still have to do my own reasoning: is Dave credible enough that I should spend time thinking about what he said? Is X true? Does Y always follow from X? In the end, I still have to trust my own reasoning, instead of taking it on faith that Dave is right. But, as you say, maybe Dave's a good source of arguments & should be consulted often -- just not as an oracle.
rpdillon 6y ago
This is exactly how I think of it. It very much reminds me of Carmack's talk about how quickly he can bust his own ideas that he's excited about. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dSCBCk4xVa0 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dSCBCk4xVa0

godelski 6y ago

Honestly I DON'T trust my own reasoning. I can do this adversarial process as described in this article on my own, but that's incomplete. People outside of me have information and ways to view things that I don't. Others work as a discriminator and you update your opinions and views as more information comes in and challenges your own ideas. But it is because I don't trust my own reasoning that I read textbooks, seek out experts, and try to get as many views as possible, because no one has the complete picture.

noch 6y ago
> Honestly I DON'T trust my own reasoning. You should trust your reasoning, that is, the deliberate process/method by which you arrive at conclusions, but you should be constantly seeking score your levels of uncertainty, and, yes, falsify your hypotheses and disprove your theories. Your reasoning, however, should be well trained, reliable, and trustworthy. We should have a high level of confidence in our methods/procedures. > But it is because I don't trust my own reasoning that I read textbooks, seek out experts, and try to get as many views as possible, because no one has the complete picture. Indeed, Annie Duke says: https://conversationswithtyler.com/episodes/annie-duke/ https://conversationswithtyler.com/episodes/annie-duke/: “ [T]hat core thing of: are you good at thinking probabilistically is a bigger thing than you think. And then on top of that, you have to be somebody who’s really interested in understanding when the things you believe are inaccurate. And you have to be so incredibly hungry to collide with corrective information. You have to be openminded to the corrective information. You have to be updating your beliefs constantly, and I think that you just have to be willing to have less endowment to your own beliefs and hold those really loosely because you have to keep this end goal in mind. I’m not trying to win this hand. I mean, I am, but I understand that there’s all sorts of things that might intervene in my ability to do that. I’m trying to win in the long run. And the worst thing that I could find out is that I believed something was true and held onto that belief too long, so it affected my bottom line. You just have to be thinking that way all the time. And then you have to be willing to try to solve for it. ”
zimpenfish 6y ago
> Honestly I DON'T trust my own reasoning. I have this and it's a real problem for software development because everyone expects a senior to be gung-ho about their solutions and perfectly confident. Whereas I'm always asking for second and third opinions about things and people (largely management but occasionally other developers) view that negatively.
- TheOtherHobbes 6y ago
  Baseline political paradox - humans demand extraverted confidence from leaders more than they demand competence. If you're confident you can make mistake after mistake and no one will care unless everything comes crashing down - and even then there's a fair chance you can make it someone else's fault. If you're merely very competent, taking time to research good solutions looks like indecision, not leadership, even if the results are far better.
  - cutemonster 6y ago
    How can that problem be avoided? If you were to build your own company and hire and instruct people?
- q3k 6y ago
  I think this might be due to a difference in optics. What you see as 'asking for a second or third opinion' might be seen by others as lack of independence, leadership and ownership. Mostly everywhere senior developers are expected to self-manage and make difficult decisions on their own, unprompted, and just present working solutions to the business. It's okay to take time on this - solving it on your own, consulting literature, peers, etc. But looping in management into technical decision making might make you look like you can't make decisions on your own, or need micromanagement. Management, business and product care about things being done - not technical approaches or having to choose between multiple solutions.
  - blaser-waffle 6y ago
    I agree with this. Even if you as an engineer aren't 100% sure, sign-offs from other groups or extra opinions are something for a project manager or product manager to fish around for. There are some optics to consider there too -- e.g. the implication that the PM things you're a fool -- but having them fish around for buy-in and alternatives sells better than you doing it -- it makes you look weak or unprepared. Context matters here too, if you know Alice and Bob on Team [X] are just great at crypto or DB work or whatever, then getting their feedback before implementing a feature might make sense / be a standard due-diligence thing.
marcosdumay 6y ago
So, you are describing exactly the idea. It is to trust your own reasoning, not information or ideas. Reasoning is a process.
- godelski 6y ago
  Exactly, and I think some are missing that. I will say the things I believe with confidence, but I have no illusions that I don't have all the information and an incomplete picture. Things can always be improved.
lambdatronics 6y ago
I would include other people's arguments as part of the evidence that's needing to be evaluated -- others' arguments come to me not as "X therefore Y" but as "Dave says that X therefore Y." I still have to do my own reasoning: is Dave credible enough that I should spend time thinking about what he said? Is X true? Does Y always follow from X? In the end, I still have to trust my own reasoning, instead of taking it on faith that Dave is right. But, as you say, maybe Dave's a good source of arguments & should be consulted often -- just not as an oracle.

rpdillon 6y ago

This is exactly how I think of it. It very much reminds me of Carmack's talk about how quickly he can bust his own ideas that he's excited about. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dSCBCk4xVa0 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dSCBCk4xVa0