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What is the point here? What actionable advice are readers supposed to glean from reading this article? It just sounds like you're being different for the sake

by kyro 14y ago

What is the point here? What actionable advice are readers supposed to glean from reading this article? It just sounds like you're being different for the sake of it. You're not really encouraging or discouraging, offering any advice or your own personal beliefs of how things should be. Might be a bit harsh, but nothing bugs me more than a hater or someone with a dissenting opinion that offers little-to-no actionable suggestion or thought-provoking message. I read this and think "Hm, ok". I agree that there's an issue with grandiosity, but I'm still unsure if it's a net positive or negative for society. Out of the millions working to change the world, maybe one will develop a solution that will truly affect the lives of others for the better. Or perhaps if we lower expectations and live life only to survive, we may be happier with ourselves overall. Who knows. Perhaps the trick is both raising the bar and lowering it and pushing ourselves to be content with falling anywhere in the middle.

msutherl 14y ago
> I agree that there's an issue with grandiosity, but I'm still unsure if it's a net positive or negative for society. I believe that is a net negative for two reasons: (1) grandiosity is a sign of people tying their self-worth to their achievements and (2) grandiosity is a sign of a lack of healthy self-critique. Tying your self-worth to your success, especially in a high-risk activity, is a recipe for long-term inconsistency and increased personal risk (which in turn impacts net productivity). Too much optimism and self-confidence is a recipe for stagnation, and that's what we see for the most part in the startup / app-development world. For instance, perhaps if people were a bit more self-critical, they would discover that historically most technical innovation has occurred in the context of large, well-funded research programs. People might then choose to, rather than starting that social media website that will change the world or hacking together that 'cool' project for Maker Faire, study computer science and take a job at Microsoft Research, PARC or SpaceX. Or something else. But any behavior that reduces the extent to which people think about their actions is probably bad.

by kyro 14y ago

msutherl 14y ago

> I agree that there's an issue with grandiosity, but I'm still unsure if it's a net positive or negative for society. I believe that is a net negative for two reasons: (1) grandiosity is a sign of people tying their self-worth to their achievements and (2) grandiosity is a sign of a lack of healthy self-critique. Tying your self-worth to your success, especially in a high-risk activity, is a recipe for long-term inconsistency and increased personal risk (which in turn impacts net productivity). Too much optimism and self-confidence is a recipe for stagnation, and that's what we see for the most part in the startup / app-development world. For instance, perhaps if people were a bit more self-critical, they would discover that historically most technical innovation has occurred in the context of large, well-funded research programs. People might then choose to, rather than starting that social media website that will change the world or hacking together that 'cool' project for Maker Faire, study computer science and take a job at Microsoft Research, PARC or SpaceX. Or something else. But any behavior that reduces the extent to which people think about their actions is probably bad.