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Not really sure of the value of this is? Unless I am missing something, this reads like it was written by an "edgy teenager". Perhaps I am just missing some con

Not really sure of the value of this is? Unless I am missing something, this reads like it was written by an "edgy teenager". Perhaps I am just missing some context.

giantDinosaur 6y ago
It's the Thiel Question. The value in it is supposed to be that it generates thoughtful and insightful responses - if you are right and 99% of people are wrong then that is indeed impressive. Unfortunately, it selects purely from the extremes, where real insight is random. If it generated more concrete (i.e. scientific) responses that could be tested, it would be a much better question.
- loopz 6y ago
  Unfortunately, with today's standards of critical thinking and speaking, you get fired for speaking independently, this is more likely to spawn a new movement rather than provoke thoughtful responses.
  - rusk 6y ago
    > today’s standards “Today’s”? There has never been a better time for freedom of speech. You can pretty much say whatever you want and nobody is going to put you in jail or burn you at the stake. Indeed you have tools like never before with which to promulgate your message. Even if your remarks are racist, xenophobic, misogynistic or some other kind of bigoted you can still pretty say much whatever you like and there’s even guys out there that will give you a platform. You might think that these rights extend to the workplace but you would be wrong. Leave religion and politics at the door and just do your job. I blame the culture of overwork that exists in the industry for many people not being able to know the difference between personal and professional.
    - foxhop 6y ago
      The workplace has become hostile against certain thought and has fully adopted another. You will get fired for speaking against the entrenched thought. This is exactly what was said in the above comment. If I said leave your politics and religion at the door and just do your job in a "safe space zoom call" or at a diversity committee, or at lunch, I'd be fired. The silent ones just want to do our jobs but increasingly the ones with political power inside institutions of work have the control to setup the stage for only one type of thought. I just want to do my job without going into these topics which occupy the majority of the companies all hands time and corporate communications.
      - rusk 6y ago
        Fair point. I’ve heard of this kind of thing but have never experienced it firsthand really in any of the places I’ve worked so surely there must be alternative places to work if you’re not ideologically aligned? But if you go to work for someone you generally have to accept their outlook quietly or move on.
      - amalcon 6y ago
        That's not new, though. It's just adopted a different school of thought than it used to (and not even universally). It wasn't that long ago that you could be fired for mentioning that you are not christian at the office christmas party.
        jimbokun 6y ago
        > It wasn't that long ago that you could be fired for mentioning that you are not christian at the office christmas party. Citation needed. ACLU would be all over that, religion is a protected class.
        amalcon 6y ago
        I would cite the exact law that made religion a protected class in the american workplace: the Civil Rights Act of 1964. 56 years ago, this was happening often enough that Congress felt the need to act. This isn't a citation, but if you have a discussion with a jewish american over fifty years old, they likely have stories about this sort of thing.
    - jimbokun 6y ago
      > There has never been a better time for freedom of speech. In the West, or at least the USA, I would say the 1990s and 2000s were better for free speech, and very recently there has been a relative curbing of free speech. In surveys, a majority of Americans say they are afraid to share some of their political views. Still better than almost all of human history before that, but I would say we are no longer at the peak of freedom of speech.
      - mcphage 6y ago
        > I would say the 1990s and 2000s were better for free speech Not really. There was no easy way to get your voice out there that people could listen to you.
        falcolas 6y ago
        The internet has existed for me as a boring citizen in the boonies since at least ‘95. This doesn’t even count Ham radio, BBS, and various other local and global methods of sharing speech.
        mcphage 6y ago
        Well then, look at it this way: those things still all exist, but there are also new ways of sharing your speech now that didn't exist before.
        rusk 6y ago
        > that people could listen to you Back in those days you had a very limited audience and I’d go so far as to say that it’s only in the last 10 years or so we’ve seen the public at large go online.
  - secretsatan 6y ago
    We live in an era when anyone can setup a multinational company. If you want to limit your market, setup your own company and alienate your customers and limit your recruitment to a narrow field of people who think like you, don't be suprised when you don't attract the best talent
ChrisMarshallNY 6y ago
I think it’s satire. If not, then I truly feel sorry for some folks. The "Thiel Question" is Id-mining. One of the things I often hear, when people are talking about "shock jocks" (both left and right), is "They are just saying what everyone is thinking." In my experience, there's a reason that we don't just say what we think.
- dsr_ 6y ago
  That reason, in my case, is usually "I haven't thought out the long-term consequences of this, and I suspect that things really wouldn't turn out very well if it were generally in effect for long enough."
  - ChrisMarshallNY 6y ago
    I won’t get into it, but, on any given day, I have at least a dozen thoughts, that, if I acted on them, would have a SWAT team at my door. Even just letting these reptile-brain thoughts out on a leash, is dangerous, as that’s the first step towards realization.
- siltpotato 6y ago
  Perhaps, whether correct or incorrect (and let’s face it, it’s a tactic of rhetoric whether true or not to hint there’s a lot of people on your side), the idea of “just saying what everyone is thinking” being gotten across is a notion of trying to break the fear of being the first person to say that the emperor has no clothes. “No fear, I’ve crossed that water first, you are free to imitate.”
- michaelt 6y ago
  > I think it’s satire. Given that the post opens with a "Humor" tag and the writer claims to be an AI I am 100% sure it is satire.
  - pwdisswordfish4 6y ago
    Why? Not all of humor is satire, and neither is all satire humorous.
the_af 6y ago
> this reads like it was written by an "edgy teenager" "Edgy teenager" is about right. This reads like most of the writings and essays by the crowds of Less Wrong and Overcoming Bias. Though many aren't teenagers anymore...
sfkdjf9j3j 6y ago
That's just how so-called "Rationalists" like to write. They have a lot of interesting ideas that are fun to learn about but the core community itself is basically a bunch of computer programmers who believe they can solve the worlds problems simply by thinking a lot and writing a blog post that uses a big metaphor.
- konjin 6y ago
  Interesting people. I hadn't seen anyone arguing misotheism as an actual description of reality and (possibly eventual) omnicide as the only moral position to take on life before I ran into them online.
ragnese 6y ago
And it's just not that funny.
norswap 6y ago
The context you're missing is literally the first sentence and googling "thiel question". Please put a little more effort before shooting. Lazy web: The Thiel question is "What is something you believe and that nobody agrees with you." It stands to reason that if you ask a crowd this question, you'll end up with a lot of out-of-whack answers (that's the whole point) and mostly false answer ("it's not that contrarian are often right, but when they're right, they're very right"). This isn't super valuable, it's just played for humor value. Each of these Thiel answers could still be interesting in its own right if the reasoning/motivation behind it was supplied. Even if you don't agree with a contrarian statement, there's sometimes gems to be mined in the thinking that led to it.

Not really sure of the value of this is? Unless I am missing something, this reads like it was written by an "edgy teenager". Perhaps I am just missing some context.

giantDinosaur 6y ago

It's the Thiel Question. The value in it is supposed to be that it generates thoughtful and insightful responses - if you are right and 99% of people are wrong then that is indeed impressive. Unfortunately, it selects purely from the extremes, where real insight is random. If it generated more concrete (i.e. scientific) responses that could be tested, it would be a much better question.

loopz 6y ago
Unfortunately, with today's standards of critical thinking and speaking, you get fired for speaking independently, this is more likely to spawn a new movement rather than provoke thoughtful responses.
- rusk 6y ago
  > today’s standards “Today’s”? There has never been a better time for freedom of speech. You can pretty much say whatever you want and nobody is going to put you in jail or burn you at the stake. Indeed you have tools like never before with which to promulgate your message. Even if your remarks are racist, xenophobic, misogynistic or some other kind of bigoted you can still pretty say much whatever you like and there’s even guys out there that will give you a platform. You might think that these rights extend to the workplace but you would be wrong. Leave religion and politics at the door and just do your job. I blame the culture of overwork that exists in the industry for many people not being able to know the difference between personal and professional.
  - foxhop 6y ago
    The workplace has become hostile against certain thought and has fully adopted another. You will get fired for speaking against the entrenched thought. This is exactly what was said in the above comment. If I said leave your politics and religion at the door and just do your job in a "safe space zoom call" or at a diversity committee, or at lunch, I'd be fired. The silent ones just want to do our jobs but increasingly the ones with political power inside institutions of work have the control to setup the stage for only one type of thought. I just want to do my job without going into these topics which occupy the majority of the companies all hands time and corporate communications.
    - rusk 6y ago
      Fair point. I’ve heard of this kind of thing but have never experienced it firsthand really in any of the places I’ve worked so surely there must be alternative places to work if you’re not ideologically aligned? But if you go to work for someone you generally have to accept their outlook quietly or move on.
    - amalcon 6y ago
      That's not new, though. It's just adopted a different school of thought than it used to (and not even universally). It wasn't that long ago that you could be fired for mentioning that you are not christian at the office christmas party.
      - jimbokun 6y ago
        > It wasn't that long ago that you could be fired for mentioning that you are not christian at the office christmas party. Citation needed. ACLU would be all over that, religion is a protected class.
        amalcon 6y ago
        I would cite the exact law that made religion a protected class in the american workplace: the Civil Rights Act of 1964. 56 years ago, this was happening often enough that Congress felt the need to act. This isn't a citation, but if you have a discussion with a jewish american over fifty years old, they likely have stories about this sort of thing.
  - jimbokun 6y ago
    > There has never been a better time for freedom of speech. In the West, or at least the USA, I would say the 1990s and 2000s were better for free speech, and very recently there has been a relative curbing of free speech. In surveys, a majority of Americans say they are afraid to share some of their political views. Still better than almost all of human history before that, but I would say we are no longer at the peak of freedom of speech.
    - mcphage 6y ago
      > I would say the 1990s and 2000s were better for free speech Not really. There was no easy way to get your voice out there that people could listen to you.
      - falcolas 6y ago
        The internet has existed for me as a boring citizen in the boonies since at least ‘95. This doesn’t even count Ham radio, BBS, and various other local and global methods of sharing speech.
        mcphage 6y ago
        Well then, look at it this way: those things still all exist, but there are also new ways of sharing your speech now that didn't exist before.
        rusk 6y ago
        > that people could listen to you Back in those days you had a very limited audience and I’d go so far as to say that it’s only in the last 10 years or so we’ve seen the public at large go online.
- secretsatan 6y ago
  We live in an era when anyone can setup a multinational company. If you want to limit your market, setup your own company and alienate your customers and limit your recruitment to a narrow field of people who think like you, don't be suprised when you don't attract the best talent

ChrisMarshallNY 6y ago

I think it’s satire. If not, then I truly feel sorry for some folks. The "Thiel Question" is Id-mining. One of the things I often hear, when people are talking about "shock jocks" (both left and right), is "They are just saying what everyone is thinking." In my experience, there's a reason that we don't just say what we think.

dsr_ 6y ago
That reason, in my case, is usually "I haven't thought out the long-term consequences of this, and I suspect that things really wouldn't turn out very well if it were generally in effect for long enough."
- ChrisMarshallNY 6y ago
  I won’t get into it, but, on any given day, I have at least a dozen thoughts, that, if I acted on them, would have a SWAT team at my door. Even just letting these reptile-brain thoughts out on a leash, is dangerous, as that’s the first step towards realization.
siltpotato 6y ago
Perhaps, whether correct or incorrect (and let’s face it, it’s a tactic of rhetoric whether true or not to hint there’s a lot of people on your side), the idea of “just saying what everyone is thinking” being gotten across is a notion of trying to break the fear of being the first person to say that the emperor has no clothes. “No fear, I’ve crossed that water first, you are free to imitate.”
michaelt 6y ago
> I think it’s satire. Given that the post opens with a "Humor" tag and the writer claims to be an AI I am 100% sure it is satire.
- pwdisswordfish4 6y ago
  Why? Not all of humor is satire, and neither is all satire humorous.

the_af 6y ago

> this reads like it was written by an "edgy teenager" "Edgy teenager" is about right. This reads like most of the writings and essays by the crowds of Less Wrong and Overcoming Bias. Though many aren't teenagers anymore...

sfkdjf9j3j 6y ago

That's just how so-called "Rationalists" like to write. They have a lot of interesting ideas that are fun to learn about but the core community itself is basically a bunch of computer programmers who believe they can solve the worlds problems simply by thinking a lot and writing a blog post that uses a big metaphor.

konjin 6y ago
Interesting people. I hadn't seen anyone arguing misotheism as an actual description of reality and (possibly eventual) omnicide as the only moral position to take on life before I ran into them online.

ragnese 6y ago

And it's just not that funny.

norswap 6y ago

The context you're missing is literally the first sentence and googling "thiel question". Please put a little more effort before shooting. Lazy web: The Thiel question is "What is something you believe and that nobody agrees with you." It stands to reason that if you ask a crowd this question, you'll end up with a lot of out-of-whack answers (that's the whole point) and mostly false answer ("it's not that contrarian are often right, but when they're right, they're very right"). This isn't super valuable, it's just played for humor value. Each of these Thiel answers could still be interesting in its own right if the reasoning/motivation behind it was supplied. Even if you don't agree with a contrarian statement, there's sometimes gems to be mined in the thinking that led to it.