5 ms·
> If you are interested in self-driving cars, but you are not interested in the effects that self-driving cars have on society, you are not actually interested
by fractionalhare 6y ago
> If you are interested in self-driving cars, but you are not interested in the effects that self-driving cars have on society, you are not actually interested in self-driving cars: you are interested in yourself. To be interested only in the problem-solving aspect of a domain is, first and foremost, to be interested in your own mastery.
This distinction seems completely semantic and vacuous. What do you call it if I'm interested in my own mastery, but only for some subset of all things I can have mastery in? Then we're right back where we started.
- zemo 6y ago> What do you call it if I'm interested in my own mastery, but only for some subset of all things I can have mastery in? specialization. I don't know why you thought this question was some sort of gotcha. I'm not rejecting the idea that someone can specialize or be a domain expert. I'm rejecting PG's argument that "being earnest" means "ignoring externalities".
- deleted 6y ago[deleted]