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Thanks for taking the time to formalize your thoughts in such a clear and elegant manner. Everyone needs a periodic reminder to keep their ego in check. On the
by roymurdock 12y ago
Thanks for taking the time to formalize your thoughts in such a clear and elegant manner.
Everyone needs a periodic reminder to keep their ego in check. On the one hand it drives ambition, spurs achievement, and encourages personal development. There is almost unlimited power in the concept of self.
Me against the world. My achievements.
I think this attitude is very prevalent in programming and the tech world in general. It is manifested and reinforced by the wild popularity of startups (My idea is good and I can go it alone) and the tech visionaries (Gates, Jobs, Musk) who seem to carry the weight of the world on their shoulders.
On the other, overfeeding your ego will make you narcissistic, selfish, insecure, and hostile. You will lose your empathy for others, and ultimately, your humanity, as you start to lose sight of the big picture: progress is a process that started long before your time and that will continue unimpeded to infinity, even after your infinitesimally tiny ego is wiped from existence.
As Isaac Newston put it best: "If I have seen further it is by standing on the shoulders of giants."
- Zolomon 12y agoOut of topic: Hal Abelson has a fun quote to Isaac's, which I learned about from my calculus textbook (every new chapter began with a quote): "If I have not seen as far as others, it is because giants were standing on my shoulders."[1] [1] http://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Hal_Abelson http://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Hal_Abelson
- deleted 12y ago[deleted]
- Fede_V 12y agoI agree very much with your sentiment, but that quote by Newton is actually far more mean-spirited than you think. It was Newton making a huge burn about Hooke, one of his main scientific rivals, who was actually very very short. Newton was possibly the greatest intellect that humanity ever produced, but he was not a nice person.
- skj 12y agoApparently that is not so cut and dry. According to wikipedia (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Standing_on_the_shoulders_of_giants#References_during_the_sixteenth_to_nineteenth_centuries http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Standing_on_the_shoulders_of_gi...), the letter with this statement was written at a time when they were on good terms.
- deleted 12y ago[deleted]
- kghose 12y ago"If I have seen further it is by standing on the shoulders of giants." Ah, the original humblebrag.
- judk 12y agoI'd it comes as response to "how did you invent the theory of gravity", it's not a brag. If it comes out on its own, it is.
- marcosdumay 12y agoAfter you make the Scientific Revolution win, and start the Industrial Revolution, changing the entire world forever, you're allowed to brag.