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> To be a successful scientist, for example, it's not enough just to be correct. Your ideas have to be both correct and novel. You can't publish papers saying t

> To be a successful scientist, for example, it's not enough just to be correct. Your ideas have to be both correct and novel. You can't publish papers saying things other people already know. To be a brilliant scientist - maybe. To be a successful scientist - I think (unfortunately) the opposite. If you rock the boat too hard - by challenging or contradicting other scientists' work, then you'll be gently rebuffed on technical grounds by the peer-review process, which will make it harder and slower to get funding, which means you spend more time stuck in bureaucracy than you do in science. Publishing things that confirm the status quo is a much easier way to be successful as a scientist. Correctness is less important - many published papers are not 'correct'. I doubt that the other examples (investors, startup founders, writers) are different in this respect. It's easier to be successful by taking the obvious and safe path competently, rather than taking the very high risk of a completely novel path.

Cthulhu_ 6y ago
Yeah, I mean a LOT of people - scientists, software developers, etc - already struggle to do things correctly, let alone in a novel way. There's huge value in work that is not groundbreaking. For the sciences for example: Repeat or (re) confirm someone else's theories. Repeatability is one of the most important parts of science, and if all the scientists only pushed to do something new, instead of double-checking others' work, science would become something ego-driven and vague. For software development (my and most people on here's jobs), 99% of it is not building something new. Build something good first. Quality standards, testing, accessibility - how much software do you know that actually does that right? I've worked with so many people during my consultancy stint (myself included I guess?) that would always pursue the latest and greatest - they wanted to innovate, they wanted something fresh and new. So rarely did they spend more than two years at any one customer. The worst offenders would swoop into a company, advise technology X, then fly off again without ever having to live with the consequences. And that does not make you a better developer. It scratches your personal itch maybe, but you've caused potentially millions in lost productivity and the inevitable rewrite by more sane developers further down the line. I'm trying at the moment to do things Right. Build software for the next ten years, instead of the next six months. I'm struggling a bit because the project is big and I'm just a solo developer, but I like to think the mindset is right. I mean I'm not doing anything new, it's just a CRUD application in the end, but it's important that it's done right due to the sheer amount of data (width, not so much amount).
- ozim 6y ago
  I would add that shallow understanding of this essay is also toxic. Two weeks ago on some forum for developers I have seen a guy that was basically refusing to learn what other people did because he was convinced that he should be "inventing new unseen algorithms". That was an IT undergrad that was bored with learning about things other people already invented. He just could not understand that in order to invent something new and groundbreaking you have to learn quite a lot of what already was there. Otherwise you will invent something that someone in 1820 came up with and think that you are genius. So I agree with PG that there is a lot of value in independent thinking, but one has to be smart enough to realize where to stop. Essay is also not saying "non novel thinking is useless", because it is really useful.

Cthulhu_ 6y ago

Yeah, I mean a LOT of people - scientists, software developers, etc - already struggle to do things correctly, let alone in a novel way. There's huge value in work that is not groundbreaking. For the sciences for example: Repeat or (re) confirm someone else's theories. Repeatability is one of the most important parts of science, and if all the scientists only pushed to do something new, instead of double-checking others' work, science would become something ego-driven and vague. For software development (my and most people on here's jobs), 99% of it is not building something new. Build something good first. Quality standards, testing, accessibility - how much software do you know that actually does that right? I've worked with so many people during my consultancy stint (myself included I guess?) that would always pursue the latest and greatest - they wanted to innovate, they wanted something fresh and new. So rarely did they spend more than two years at any one customer. The worst offenders would swoop into a company, advise technology X, then fly off again without ever having to live with the consequences. And that does not make you a better developer. It scratches your personal itch maybe, but you've caused potentially millions in lost productivity and the inevitable rewrite by more sane developers further down the line. I'm trying at the moment to do things Right. Build software for the next ten years, instead of the next six months. I'm struggling a bit because the project is big and I'm just a solo developer, but I like to think the mindset is right. I mean I'm not doing anything new, it's just a CRUD application in the end, but it's important that it's done right due to the sheer amount of data (width, not so much amount).

ozim 6y ago
I would add that shallow understanding of this essay is also toxic. Two weeks ago on some forum for developers I have seen a guy that was basically refusing to learn what other people did because he was convinced that he should be "inventing new unseen algorithms". That was an IT undergrad that was bored with learning about things other people already invented. He just could not understand that in order to invent something new and groundbreaking you have to learn quite a lot of what already was there. Otherwise you will invent something that someone in 1820 came up with and think that you are genius. So I agree with PG that there is a lot of value in independent thinking, but one has to be smart enough to realize where to stop. Essay is also not saying "non novel thinking is useless", because it is really useful.