Since it's relatively easy to find the benefits of blogging and other ways of thinking in public, I'm especially curious to hear about some of the potential cons of thinking in public / the benefits of thinking in private?
And with that in mind, how does one effectively manage both to make the best out of both approaches?
1. Intent is preserved. When you write something publicly, your output are words that you constructed from your ideas and your intent. As others read it, they will have wildly different interpretations of the text, even if you write well. Thus, your original intent does not translate perfectly. You don't have this problem with private thinking, because you own the additional context and intent.
2. No self-censorship. You don't have to cater to anybody's liking of whatever your thoughts are. You don't need to win anybody's approval, and this allows for the brewing of fresh and pure thoughts.
3. Exclusivity. Maybe one of your ideas is of high value. Could simply be a rare skill you mastered, a trick unknown to the world, a little software asset you produced. The norm in our industry is to share wide and far. Write that blog post, open that Github project, etc. Alternatively, you can also keep it to yourself and leverage its value. Quite literally as leverage.
I imagine this last point to be somewhat controversial. By sharing far and wide, you'll be doing free labor for an industry that doesn't give a fuck about its volunteers. People will simply take your free shit and run with it, and often still complain about it. In light of such hostile and unrewarding environment, I have absolutely no moral problem with refusing to do free labor and keeping some things private and exclusive.
I think this can work both ways.
I keep notes as I'm working (just plans for the day, typing up stuff that I'm doing for a vague timesheet, snippets of code so I can easily copy/paste them and thoughts I have as I'm working on stuff). And I've found that, often, when I revisit those ideas, in the intervening weeks and months they've morphed into something quite different from my original thoughts. Obviously my notes are private, but putting it out there in public means you have to acknowledge the divergence, rather than just sweeping it under the carpet.
This is a very common belief, but I don't think it's strictly true. Sometimes people inadvertently speak what they're thinking, so an even surer way to prevent being punished for your ideas is to prevent yourself from even thinking them in the first place. It's a kind of defense-in-depth against wrongthink punishment and one I think most people understand intuitively.
Genuinely intrigued: could you expand on this? I'll start by asking: is it possible to not think of something once you start thinking about it? And that realy is the best i can phrase the question at the moment.
Your brain is feeding you lies or half-truths all the time. It's job isn't to find objective truth, it's to keep you alive.
This one is not true. There are internal mechanisms that filter thoughts, for example, what Freud called the Superego. People limit their inner thoughts in a variety of ways, for example, by developing morality, by which they judge their own thoughts too. They can dissociate, repress or project thoughts, both of which lead to some kind of self-censorship.
I frequent HN more than I should, and honestly, pretty much all comment trees follow the same pattern of moving goalposts or making pedantic arguments about how a statistical generalization is not true in all circumstances (duh). It’s all just people missing each other’s contexts (though admittedly some parent comments are really poorly expressed), which is why it’s funny when I come across the occasional “HN is superior and more intelligent than FB/reddit/Twitter” because, really, it isn’t. It’s the same garbage.
The benefit of doing so is that I have to keep myself in check and really think before I write - yes, there are edits and deletions - and overall the effect has been very positive for me.
Being active on the chemistry SE site has actually proven to be of value in getting jobs related to chemistry - at least 3 employers have said it was useful to see some of my answers - so that is also good.
On the negative side? As far as I know, there is only one other person on the planet who shares my first and last name combination (different middle initial, and turns out to be a distant relative) so there might come a day when I have to do some reputation control should someone impersonate me: but that's not something with a lot of upside :)
This name is pseudo-anonymous. I use it everywhere and am still careful not to 'pop off' too much on it. I also own the username for my real name both here and other places. If someone wanted to track down my real identity, it wouldn't be hard. On Reddit, for instance, I use multiple anonymous usernames alongside my pseudo-anonymous and real name accounts.
How honest and close to my instinctual response depends on my level of anonymity. I think there is some value to saying quick & honest ideas so you can be checked rather than having to worry you will look dumb on your real name and never have those ideas checked. Using anonymous usernames also cuts down on potential stalking or doxxing if someone disagrees.
With that said, I try to be nice and not too inflammatory even on my anonymous accounts. I haven't always succeeded but try to avoid raising my blood pressure over internet arguments that gain nothing.
Hah. Similar situation. My name doppelganger is doing pretty well in sports going by my name alerts that catch him sometimes.
I wish him all the best of course, but there's a part of my mind that is concerned about the SEO impact of him making it big haha. My alerts already go mad whenever Lauren Cohan does anything newsworthy.
Likewise on the real name. I'm trying (honestly!) to be a better and kinder person and as part of that I've started attaching my real name to online comments.
The unexpected benefit of doing this is that I got a bit of freelance work through it. If you write about stuff you know and someone needs that knowledge, turns out it's really handy for them if they can figure out who you are and get in touch :)
It hasn't caused an issue that I know about yet, but it does kind of make me worry. Some SEO has made search results better, though.
Why would anyone need to have the same name as you to impersonate you? They just have to say "I am toddm!", and the internet will generally accept it.
My blog is in archive mode now. (BTW: Not linking to it here for privacy reasons).
I am thinking of blogging again, only this time I might use a pseudonym so my ideas are not forever tied to my legal name.
I will also be very careful about what I publish. I am thinking of having a delay of 6 months before I publish so I can edit parts that will inevitably annoy me.
For some reason, after hitting 'Publish' that's when I see the mistakes, even after previewing the draft several times and deemed it 'perfect'.
Things will go wrong.
I also partially rewrite my old blog articles where I made a mistake, the status quo has evolved, or I want more SEO keyword hits. More authors probably do it, but it is not publicly spoken about - perhaps it is a little taboo. Some of my articles go viral after a rewrite. It saves time and allows me to refine the content over time.
Recently I've started putting notes about article edits at the end as news sites do. I firmly believe that news media used to do it in the past, but it was too taboo to admit to editing old articles. Things are changing now.
I think that is the beauty of thinking publicly. You actually realize that you are an idiot. If you only think privately you never get any feedback, chance to reflect and cognitive biases are kicking hard. That robs you of the chance to ever improve.
A good example could be that Googler from a few years ago who seemed amazed at the blowback he got from publicly posting that he thought women were genetically inferior as software engineers. Had he been as smart as he thought he was, that could have been a great opportunity for self reflection that would not have been available without that public airing of his thoughts.
Is that what he posted? Do you have some quotes?
Edit: if this is not in fact an accurate representation of what happened, it makes a good example of one of the cons of thinking in public: you may be misinterpreted and/or misrepresented forever after if you reach a large enough audience.
I recall that it was mostly about predisposition and preference, not ability. It was certainly spun in the way you describe, but I'm surprised to see that take here. The memo was thoroughly dissected on HN.
The truth is not a popularity contest.
If you are in those circles, speak of ideas, not people.
Some truths need to be handled with care, and indelicate handling will cause unwanted angry attention, not the truth itself.
Funny though, how so many people confuse this point. It's easier to feel indignancy over attracting vitriol over "a truth" than it is to play victim for brutish behavior.
No cons at all so far. No one cares enough to actually read and pay attention to all of that stuff, at least not enough to get angry or mean about it!
Every now and then someone will reply with a useful clue or hint, which is the biggest pro.
I'm in a privileged position: I'm not part of a group that gets discriminated against, and I don't tend to attract the attention of trolls or nazis.
I tend to live by the classic Howard Aiken quite: "Don't worry about people stealing your ideas. If your ideas are any good, you'll have to ram them down people's throats."
I stopped blogging years ago and have since built a successful business with 40 employees and 4 million customers. I continue to write here to get the same feedback I describe above. It helps keep the knife sharp and avoids me getting my head stuck too far up my ass.
Unless you have a co-founder or collaborators who are willing and able to call bullshit, if you’re developing ideas in private that are hard to test (you can test engineering designs, for example) then you risk spending a lot of time on something misguided, futile, irrational, or where you simply haven’t considered a problem because you don’t have critical information.
The best way to manage that is to show people in private before you publish. That can be as simple as having a friend or partner check your spelling. Or it can be as complex as getting several people to sense-check your ideas and give you robust feedback.
The other big issue is that people can (deliberately?) misinterpret what you've written. Humans don't write in a formal, logical manner. So everything you write is open to a bad-faith actor trying to undermine you. So you have to make peace with the fact that you're not writing a thesis to be examined and that some people are just arseholes.
Life's too short to spend it worrying about what might go wrong. Take some sensible precautions and learn to live with the occasional public goof.
Instead, everything has to feel well rehearsed. It is exhausting to try and emulate. :(
At the same time though, I do find myself often times at work qualifying things with "I think" or similar phrasing, and I'm still not sure if I do it to avoid embarrassment or if it's to not come off as too arrogant. Maybe it's both.
Comedians bomb in small clubs so they shine on the big stage. Writers like me publish blog posts and articles so the ideas that make it into books are battle tested. The podcast episode that goes viral is usually the 10th+ time that podcaster has said the same thing in slight variations.
TV and radio hosts keep saying the same things and having similar conversations over and over daily for decades.
The rest of us pick up on this and sense the plastic shell. Worse, by never risking, they never excel in the way they could.
You need to know the conversational minefield very well.
Publicly, I write a blog[0] mostly about random technology things. I don’t think I’ve ever published anything too controversial, but I’m also very privileged and have a tiny audience comprised mostly by people I know. I do this primarily because I enjoy it. The main con I’ve experienced so far has been pressure to write things worth reading.
Privately, I journal as a form of self-reflection, something I’ve done on and off for a few years now, both independently and in conjunction with therapy. It’s been helpful having a space to ask myself embarrassing questions without any repercussions. The main con has been the guilt I feel when I neglect this habit.
Why I Keep a Research Blog https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=22033792
(a great post from 2 years ago that I remembered)
- to make sure I really know something, rather than just being able to name it
- to calibrate myself -- there are always people more experienced, and it's useful to get feedback on whether you're making a mistake. Also to keep a sense of reality on a long project :)
Another great side effect is that a few skilled people have been reading my blog for YEARS and now want to help me finish the project! If it was just a random project with no writing/explanation, then that wouldn't have happened
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=34221617
- I also do "documentation-driven development", where I write how something should work, and then implement it. If I can't "explain it with a straight face", then it's not the right design. Most of bash you CANNOT explain with a straight face :)
Personally I like writing on content-centric sites rather than person-centric sites (e.g. social media), because with social media your ego can get in the way. For example, some people mentioned here that there can be a tendency to "dig in" to positions attached to your identity, but I find that writing in public is a good way to do just the opposite -- adjust your positions based on the feedback of others
- Allows you to see your growth over time.
- Gives you a "proof of work" so others can validate claims you make.
- Creates higher likelihood for opportunities as people stumble upon something that resonates with them/their business.
- Allows you to really hone your craft as you can "compete with yourself" by reflecting on past work and seeing what feels off now.
Cons:
- You can get down on yourself if you look back on something you feel is "cringe" or a poor representation of who you are today.
- It's easier for people to take swings and discourage you. Backhanded compliments, outright dismissals, etc, while not common, do happen more (i.e., broader attack surface).
- It's easier for things to bite you later. Something you said years before either out of frustration or jest-that no longer represents your views but you don't want to delete for posterity sake-becomes someones whole perception of who you are.
- It's not uncommon for people to think they have you figured out based on your writing. This can be frustrating as you hear/read them parroting things you've written almost verbatim in an attempt to manipulate you. This one is a real edge case and rare in my experience but it's worth being aware of cluster B personality types using your writing as a weapon later.
How to manage:
- Be conscious of what you're writing, how it can be interpreted/misinterpreted.
- Slow down. Don't "think aloud" out of frustration or anger. I've found it helps to write stuff in a silo like a text doc first and then copy/paste it once I've read it a few times (avoids really nasty flame wars).
- Don't think you have to write everything down. If you build a habit around thinking in public, you can get into a trap where you feel burdened to explain everything you think/do.
- Depend on your goals: ask others for feedback. I've had mixed results with this, but YMMV.
- If your content is good and is about something that hasn't been written about in public before, expect to be plagiarized.
I've been surprised at the people and publications who have no problem copy and pasting some of my content and passing it off as their own "research".
Sometimes authors will realize their mistake, apologize, give a proper citation or use their own content. I don't think people like that are out to plagiarize, I think it can be easy to be swamped with work/academics/literal research and confuse what you've read with your own "research" without giving it much thought.
However, it looks like there are actual businesses based on republishing articles other people have written, that will take others' content and copy and paste it into new related articles without citations. I've contacted two and heard nothing back from them, even tried to reach out to the authors of the articles that were published and nothing. All I wanted was a citation.
They're counting on original authors not knowing the plagiarized content exists, not knowing their rights and not filing DMCA takedown requests or having lawyer send them C&D notices.
So yeah, go into this knowing that you won't get paid and people will be paid to plagiarize what you've written.
You may not care about this. Certainly, worrying about what random strangers think about you is a waste of time. But unfortunately, things you say online can affect your real life in surprising, unexpected ways sometimes.
Something today that you think is completely innocuous might be a hot-button issue tomorrow.
I mostly stopped participating in social media years ago, but I still comment in a few places like HN. Sometimes I do worry that something I say will come back to haunt me later. This is never an issue if you think in private.
Now, because you asked for pros, a potentially big benefit of thinking in public is that you can get feedback from a wide variety of people, especially those who have different upbringings, experiences, and values, and their perspective can be valuable, depending on what you're thinking/talking about. Does that outweigh the con I mentioned? Up to each individual to decide for themselves.
These are all off the top of my head. I may add more later.
PROS: improving communication and marketing skills, social interactions, receiving feedback, building an audience, finding like-minded peers, testing ideas outside of your own mind.
CONS:
You might have ideas that others deem incorrect or morally wrong. This could make your personal and professional life much more difficult.
Getting caught in the self-promotion and metrics rat race. Writing for yourself is good, but you can get lost in trying to grow.
Finding out that nobody wants to read what you have to say.
Too much outside influence.
Managing:
As far as managing it goes, most people have different systems. The one thing I would add is that you need to generate AND curate your thoughts. Remove posts you no longer believe. Remove content that is bad. Refresh older content. You can be transparent or not. Don't just pump out new stuff alone.
Does it? I've gone back and reviewed some of the things I've written in my journal and found them to sound like crazy talk or what was obviously an emotion-fueled rant at the time.
If you don't account for this you'll come away with the impression that nobody gets value from the thoughts you've put out, when the reality may be the opposite.
Sites like HN with upvotes help a bit with balancing this signal, but it's still a bit disheartening at times. You have to consciously think about it and convince yourself it's the case, probably before even publishing, certainly before reading the comments!
If you're interested I wrote a blog post [0] covering aspects of this that you may enjoy (which went to the HN front page, so you can see the comments Vs upvotes on that post itself -- yep this is getting meta rather quickly :-)
You would have never guessed just how wrong and loud comments can be.
You often have a lot of shared context with those close to you.
Thinking in public you have lost a tremendous amount of context.
You have to add a mountain of backstory, caveats, and exceptions to everything you say so the user can understand the actual meaning you are trying to convey instead of the lens of their own context they hear your comments through.
Pros:
- super helpful to get a job
- great to create an audience if, like me, you need it later to promote a project. my book (real world cryptography) wouldn’t have had so much success if I hadn’t started blogging and tweeting years before even starting writing
- great for “quick thoughts and planting seeds”. You have no idea how much of your thoughts and learnings can actually help people. All the small realizations and things you learn can easily be small blogposts or tweets or podcast eps
- meeting people. If people know you its easier to get to talk to some people, or get invited in working groups or conferences or …
- get accepted at conferences, or for teaching a course, or for writing a book, etc.
- people listen to you. It’s easy to have your voice be drowned in the noise, but when you have a platform people are listening to what you have to say and that’s a great feeling
- some jobs might like the fact that you can be an “influencer”
- it forces you to analyze how you’re expressing yourself and communicating. And this is the best way to improve at these things (and they are extremely valuable skills at work and outside of work)
- people can correct you. When you write wrong things people will often correct you and you’ll learn a lot more than if you had kept your learnings all to yourself
Cons:
- it’s easy to make enemies. The more you share the more you’ll offend. And in these days and age careful if you tweet while under the influence ;) you can get cancelled
- it can get depressing. The whole 24/7 tweeting scene.
- it’s not rewarding for years of work. A blog can only take off after blogging for many many years, and consistently
I feel like I'm much less likely to get attached to an opinion if it's wedded only to an ephemeral identity that I will probably forget about entirely within a short timeframe.
I also much prefer the dynamic of having anonymous conversations with strangers.
Though for the first point, personally, I view being “attached” to a particular idea as more of an external problem than internal. An alias lets me consider other ideas or play devil’s advocate or perhaps more importantly, write with less revision than I might require of my public persona, which can be the difference between making a post or deleting another imperfect draft.
I can understand the appeal for a forum operator to lock functionality behind reputation-based systems which dissuade temporary aliases to reduce spam, but I think it is vitally important to have anonymous spaces for conversation.
On the other hand, I don’t like the information asymmetry, especially with regards to hostile, anonymous people. If you’re on the business end of the internet hate machine, you don’t want to give them any ammo.
In meatspace, the possibility of getting punched in the face keeps everyone in check. The internet has no such moderation mechanism. It makes it hard to be open and genuine, because people can come at you with disproportionate hostility and face no consequences. Criticism is often harsh and pointlessly mean.
Humor and sarcasm are hard to convey in writing. The more you know about your audience, the easier it is to make jokes. But you don't really know how much your public thinking will spread so you can't make as many assumptions about your audience.
Private thinking allows you to create a nuanced framework for yourself that's independent of public sentiment. If you start publicly, you have a lot more friction when trying to add nuance to your perspective. It's also easy to be influenced regarding what issues should be considered significant. In some cases that leads to a minority population/situation being overlooked.
I feel encouraged to share publicly when I want to defend a perspective I feel confident about or when I feel someone can be positively impacted by my writing. Choosing public vs private thinking is not something I actively decided on.
I think it's similar to the concept that the only stupid question is the one that remains unasked/unanswered. I think an unchallenged perspective is generally the weakest. And giving other people the benefit of the doubt, despite how poorly they may come off, is the best way to create healthy online discussions.
The author presented the same findings as a talk which you can watch at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZcEJY61FKIc
It's a bit abstract in some places but hopefully it'll give you some stuff to think about
A few things that are giving me pause doing public thinking (cons):
- Time: turning a stream of consciousness to something I am comfortable sharing takes way longer than I would expect. I even spend longer than I should making forum posts.
- The internet is forever: when you post something publicly it is there forever. You may change your mind and look inconsistent (I would argue that changing your mind is good but people do get criticism for this kind of thing). Circumstances could also change making you look foolish. This is more of an issue if you become well known or delve into controversial topics.
Some reasons I am considering it (pros):
- Fun: going back and forth on ideas with others can be way more satisfying than thinking alone.
- Holding your thoughts to a higher standard: all of that extra time does result in better thinking. I have even done the exercise of writing out potential blog posts I never share because it forces you to be rigorous and consistent. When you are reading back your own thoughts it is harder to trick yourself. Sharing publicly them gives you access to even more scrutiny. If you are wrong you will find out pretty quickly.
1. Mental health
My last job creatively fired me because HR got pissed at the increasing number of accommodations I needed due to new policies.
I really don't want to be thinking about it or discussing it at work anyway.
2. Fiction Writing
You know... some people don't really think about who writes the stories they read. It's always that amorphous someone, until they find out their coworker's favorite poison is strychnine.
As my friends say, you're not a writer until your search history has more red flags than a Chinese New Year. :)
3. What I think about my job
I've talked about places I've worked many times. Since all of it is from my perspective, I'm likely wrong about details or people's motivations. My memory isn't perfect. There's more than a fair amount of bitching. I do try to be accurate, but my opinions and perspectives change as I get older and look back.
Yesterday, I wrote about how if I hadn’t discovered weightlifting, I might not have gone to university. I reflected on myself at age 16 when I was mentally immature but interested in bodybuilding. Then I wrote about age 18, when the hard work started paying off, and my self-determination skyrocketed. Finally I wrote about age 20, when I made up my mind to study computer science, specifically because it was supposed to be challenging.
If I post these thoughts on social media, there’s a chance I’ll spark Socratic debates that I don’t particularly care about leading. When I do post the thoughts online, it’s usually because I hope my words land on the right person at the right time.
Editing is also a pain.
Now that I said that, check out my blog at https://langsoul.com
In real life you make all kinds of judgement calls before engaging in a conversation. For example: Do they actually have an informed opinion on the subject? Do you value their opinion on the subject? Can they remain level-headed in a conversation about sensitive topics?
Additionally during the conversation, you're analyzing their responses. For example you may know them to be very sarcastic or pessimistic, and parse their responses accordingly.
In an online context, everyone is going in blind, so conversations are not usually productive. You might have a well thought-out comment, but it will be rejected because you didn't know you were dealing with teenage edgelords, old racists, bots, or whatever.
Moreover, the incentives for posting in most forums tends to have some sort of up voting mechanism. I find that many time it skews my thinking away from focusing on the boring obvious truth, and rather go on a "interestingness" journey and waste a lot of time.
However, the rare occasions when you find real fellow experts on the topic to discuss with, it is of great value and adds to one's existence and well being.
Sometimes you can use information asymmetry to your advantage; thinking in public may work against that.
For sure thinking in public can be a form of marketing, especially if you are self-employed, like I am.
Having said all that, I've been writing a public blog since 2006, and have 39 repositories in GitHub, most of which are public, and that is a form of thinking in public as well. So I guess I cast my vote on the issue a while ago. I try to be authentic, honest, true to my values, open to change, and be the best person I can be, when I share my opinions.
Thinking in private allows greater freedom in some ways, although you do exchange power for that freedom. There is a lot of power in public opinion.
I explore this theme very in-depth in my web serial, which I just recently launched on RoyalRoad! Torth by AbbyBabble.
Every time I finish a notebook, I go back through it and write the subject of the passages on the cover. I also write the dates of passages I would like to revisit on an index card. When my schedule demands it, working over these passages for public consumption, sometimes days or weeks later, but often months or years later, I am often surprised to discover where the extrapolation of the initial idea leads me. In the moment, it would have been incredibly laborious to achieve the results that the benefit of hindsight, through the twin effects of memory and subconscious processes, makes easy.
I recommend it for all writers of literary works, but I think the process has merit in other domains as well.
I like blogging about things I've already done because it helps me process and solidify my learnings. Also, explaining something in writing is a great way for me to see what knowledge or other gaps I may have.
But I don't like blogging or even discussing with loved ones my intentions or goals until I have made some concrete progress toward it. I have a tendency to start things and not finish them as excitement wanes, and realized that talking about things while I am excited about them has a negative impact on my drive to actually do the thing. I did not really put two and two together until I saw this talk[0] many years ago and it clicked. So now no matter how excited or motivated I am about a goal or new idea, I try to keep it to myself until I've made some threshold of actual progress.
The difference between publicizing your thoughts or keeping them private is what discourse is attracted - the ability to gather other people's thoughts and views on the topic... hopefully constructive ones - which you may then think about.
It's possible to come across these other thoughts without going public with varying degrees of difficulty, but anticipating that you are going public can influence how you present your own thoughts in various ways.
The above sentences are my thoughts which I've shared publicly. I tend to weaken my claims when thinking publicly with words like think, believe, probably, etc. to invite alternate ideas if someone would disagree or reinforcement if one agrees. Does it work? I have no clue.
In general, I only think publicly when I'm interested to know what other people think of a topic (usually things more opinion based); otherwise I stay private. I also try to avoid anything that invites non-constructive discussions.
1. You have a thick skin.
2. Expect "polishing" to involve friction and are okay with everyone rubbing you the wrong way.
3. Can take a critical eye to the difference between presentation and substance, among other things.
Thinking in private is, no doubt, unique to each individual. One of the cons: We tend to do a poor job of finding our own blind spots and biases.
The only way to sharpen your ideas is to find other humans to talk about them with. The subject barely matters - you may be dead wrong or 100% correct, but you can only know once you test it with intelligent people. Plus, you build deep friendships when you're open. I can't tell you how well this has worked for me - better friends, clearer thinking.
The problem is obvious. We live in a judgmental time when it's easy to rub people wrong and lose friends - or even your job. So how do you stay safe?
Protect people (even friends) behind aliases on controversial topics - until you build up mutual respect and trust.
I want to show you what I'm talking about. I'm running a private beta for https://hiweave.com/. If you sign up for an invite, mention Hacker News (I'll put you guys in a group together).
I give some specific examples in this blog post I wrote late last year: https://www.polluterofminds.com/thinking-in-public/
The cons of public engagement is certain percent of people are assholes, and certain additional percent sometimes prefer to play ones online. Normally it's a low level threat, but if you happen to live in the US and tour thinking is particularly divergent from the mainstream with regard to certain set of subjects, it becomes an extremely high-risk activity, which may involve a possibility of financial ruin and/or physical harm. I hope one day we can grow out of this predicament somehow, but currently it is what it is.
The other con of course is that you may find out your thinking is not as good as you thought, and feel bad about it. I think it's better to know, but people may disagree on that.
The truth is that no matter how many nicknames you go by, there is a strong chance google knows anyway and therefore i treat the internet as such. By now there simply are to many markers to not be able to do this. (still guessing though)
In a not so distant world, i also see AI analysing comments and matching similar people to the point where they will be able to say "welp, these are the same people" too. Especially when i already can tell ChaptGPT to read like shakespear.
This, combined with the fact that i do use my real name with my accounts, just makes me very picky where i sign up. Places like reddit work wonderfully without accounts too.
Let's find out. We have a private beta to answer this question. I'd love to see what happens for you guys (note "Hacker News" on the invite request to be placed in a group conversation).
In short, don’t be afraid of public thinking, but pick a platform that aligns with your values and goals.
1. Internal dialectic: Defend your position against objections raised by an imaginary interlocutor. I usually base my interlocutor on a real person who I disagree with but respect enough to raise proper objections. It will take a lot of back-and-forth, but you will eventually develop a strong position.
2. Time: Good ideas tend to hold up over time. Read anything you wrote a year ago and you will surprise yourself by its quality or cringe by its naïveté. Either way, you will be distanced enough from the writing to criticize and strengthen your ideas with ease.
However, there is value in keeping some ideas secret / private. My preferred approach is to have brainstorming groups and partners in the various domains I am interested in: whenever I have an idea that seems interesting I share it with them (usually one on one as it leads to the deepest dives) and they react to it. They do the same leading to a lot of cross pollinating.
The Socratic method requires a good-faith, cooperative approach in the participants, and that just doesn't happen on modern fora without strong moderation, which is a full-time job in and of itself. Otherwise the hecklers win.
- You may get feedback on the idea you posted, this could from more experienced people than you and people who deal with your idea. - Valuable insights. - See if the idea or your thoughts have already been executed, you can learn a lot from public thinking.
Now of course, if your idea is very good someone who has more resources than you can implement it. So you can publicly think until you get enough knowledge to get a good idea and then privately think about that.
In other words, if you can’t handle random anonymous tweets and comments being dismissive or hostile, don’t think in public. Because unfortunately that is the default behavior of most readers.
But it’s also humbling, because if you’re not exceptional or writing about topics that most people find interesting, you’re not going to get much of a reception.
I nuked the reddit account I used for sharing posts and I'm planning to archive my blog after I write up a couple topics but it was a worthwhile experience overall.
All private thinking really is is the digestion/preparation of the things in public. It's like the morning after a party when you're trying to remember all the stuff that happened, or writing a script before a speech
There is no escape to private sphere.
All the above is bull s.
Introverts think in private. After that they may share. They need time to think through stuff.
Extroverts think while engaging with others. Sharing supports and facilitates the thought process.
You'll have a different set of pros and cons according to that and where you fall on the scale.
Personally, small private notes here and there help me ponder without disrupting my stream of thoughts. Without having to… X.
I think both are useful.
It will be better if you get ignorant of public insults.
Makes it less of a waste of time somehow…
Pros:
- Inbound Marketing: You not only are able to bring part of your work with you between jobs, but your thinking and learning in public demonstrates your interest, expertise, and growth over time such that it tends to attract jobs and other opportunities to you (including opps that are not formally open to everyone yet)
- Bloom's Taxonomy: Retain more of what you learn by writing it down in your own words rather than simply holding it in your head
- The 1% Rule: 99% of people lurk, less than 1% make content, you stand out in your field simply by saying something
- Cunningham's Law: “The best way to get the right answer on the Internet is not to ask a question; it’s to post the wrong answer.” Being publicly wrong attracts teachers, as long as you don’t do it in such high quantity that people give up on you altogether. Conversely, once you’ve gotten something wrong in public, you never forget it.
- Positive Reinforcement: Building in a social feedback mechanism to your learning encourages more learning. As you build a track record and embark on more ambitious projects with implicit future promise, your public activity becomes a Commitment Device.
- Productizing Yourself: well, Naval said it best so I'll just drop a link https://nav.al/productize-yourself
Cons:
- It takes extra effort to write down something you're already thinking. E.g. it can feel like pure overhead to write down notes on a conversation you just had or talk you just saw. However if you agree that you shouldnt be optimizing for quantity of content consumed, rather the quantity and quality of what you *retain*, then the optimal write-read ratio is higher than 0 (I think 10-20% is a good range).
- You may get things wrong, sometimes embarrassingly so. Separate your (past) thinking and writing from your identity. http://www.paulgraham.com/identity.html
- You may hurt people's feelings by omitting their contributions, saying something you didn't mean, or saying something you regret. A bad enough case can lose you friendships and opportunities forever. So you'll have to learn how to filter what you say through the lens of other people's egos and your own fog of ignorance. Especially be careful about thinking in public about confidential work stuff or other private secrets, and err on the side of caution when it involves other people.
- Some people might see your mistakes and judge you harshly since they know better. This can be mitigated by demonstrating both intent and ability to learn quickly over time and respond well to criticism.
Source: I've written a popular essay (https://www.swyx.io/learn-in-public/), book (https://learninpublic.org/v1-principles-learn-in-public.pdf), and done some talks and podcasts (https://www.swyx.io/ideas?filter=learn%20in%20public) about this. You can check my post history for how I do it.
(TLDR: if you have a point; make it- thinking out loud sometimes is useful, but rarely in the online forum, unless you’re in DMs or something…)
* Huge potential for audience capture (https://twitter.com/EricRWeinstein/status/134792427167943065...) if you have an audience
* Huge potential for self-censorship, unless you only "think" about "the correct things"
* Huge potential for getting a lot of negative, unconstructive feedback
* Huge potential for getting taken out of context (you wrote something for your audience, but a person unfamiliar with your writing style comes in and misunderstands you)
In general I would advise against thinking in public, and if you cannot avoid it do so under a pseudonym. If you write about anything important it's quite likely that there will be people trying to tarnish your reputation instead of responding to your thoughts in writing.
I often quote one of the best essays by PG: http://www.paulgraham.com/say.html "What you can't say"
"Suppose in the future there is a movement to ban the color yellow. Proposals to paint anything yellow are denounced as "yellowist", as is anyone suspected of liking the color. People who like orange are tolerated but viewed with suspicion. Suppose you realize there is nothing wrong with yellow. If you go around saying this, you'll be denounced as a yellowist too, and you'll find yourself having a lot of arguments with anti-yellowists. If your aim in life is to rehabilitate the color yellow, that may be what you want. But if you're mostly interested in other questions, being labelled as a yellowist will just be a distraction. Argue with idiots, and you become an idiot.
The most important thing is to be able to think what you want, not to say what you want. And if you feel you have to say everything you think, it may inhibit you from thinking improper thoughts. I think it's better to follow the opposite policy. Draw a sharp line between your thoughts and your speech. Inside your head, anything is allowed. Within my head I make a point of encouraging the most outrageous thoughts I can imagine. But, as in a secret society, nothing that happens within the building should be told to outsiders."
"The problem is, there are so many things you can't say. If you said them all you'd have no time left for your real work. You'd have to turn into Noam Chomsky."
and
"The trouble with keeping your thoughts secret, though, is that you lose the advantages of discussion. Talking about an idea leads to more ideas. So the optimal plan, if you can manage it, is to have a few trusted friends you can speak openly to. This is not just a way to develop ideas; it's also a good rule of thumb for choosing friends. The people you can say heretical things to without getting jumped on are also the most interesting to know."
Suppose you could speak out without cost. What then?
Thinking critically (as opposed to just stating what goes in your head) and openly means you will upset people. You will come off wrong in many contexts when participating in discussions as opposed to taking the time to fully state your views and explain your reasoning in a way a wide range of audiences can understand your meaning and intent.
I try to post longer comnents and really think about what I am saying but I have been accused of small things like being snarky or hostile and bigger things like being a communist, trumpist (am neither,far from it), whatever big bad box people think you fit in simply because You didn't forsee that a word or phrase might not translate well to every audience will cause issues.
A good example is when I was talking about neo-colonialism on HN, one guy accused me of being "in trump circles", I am not in any cricles (I don't even vote on purpose), I mean the first time I even heard of the term was when the pope was using it which lead me down a rabbit hole to learn about how many many western ideals and policies (including the censorship circumvention trope popular on HN and tech "circles") are viewed by the rest of the world, including speaking to actual people. But the thing is, my comment is already too long, I couldn't take the time and space on HN to go into all that depth. I mainly rely on replies asking or disagreeing so I can explain specific things.
This has also lead to my account now being restricted so even a post like this taking me at least 30min to write may get canned by auto-shadow-mod "you are posting to fast" . even comments with upvotes are considered by many including dang "low value" so I hope this message from internet jail reaches someone lol.
Anyway, my little complaining aside (sorry). You want to be understood well and upset people less and the best way to do that is in long form.
Back in the days of the forum, I use to spend hours even when I was a teen or in school debating with random strangers. Same on IRC. For a while Twitter and reddit were a good place for discourse. Even random news site comments used to have good discussions. It seems inevitably, people commenting and arguing in bad faith to either troll or just express some meanness or hatred ruin it for everyone.
Now HN and a few other places I won't name have been shielded from all that. But unfortunately, the hostility ,reductivess, intellectual laziness and polarization has infected every possible community or platform outside of a blog. When a blog is posted on HN or similar sites, lazy people who don't read the whole thing and come to conclusions without asking critical questions will downvote it but eventually they will comment and get corrected hopefully which somewhat balances things out, but still it isn't easy.
Outisde of HN as well, I could disagree with any popular view and it really is a shot in the dark whether I will be called a right wing trumpist or a woke liberal. Oh no, it could never be that my intent is not politically grounded but that I am critically examining the subject and forming opinions based on what I know. It is no longer possible to convince me, disagreeing means I am your enemy now. People are less and less interested in changing their mind or my mind, it's all seen as winning and fitting into a political box, even if you actively avoid politics.
Honestly, if you stick to a very technical topic, it isn't so bad. But you still have people that think failing to explicitly declare your political allegiance means you are on their enemy's side. On one hand you really have to address your polarized biases to form any sort of critical opinion but on the other hand if you pick one end of the political spectrum and only slightly state your left/right wing views it will avoid a lot of presumptions and unrelated controversies, it is easier to assume your intent based on the box you belong in than to leave that as an unknown.
My advice is to pick your topics and audience wisely and go for the boring long form blog.
But now I’m curious. Do baristas get upset if people are spending a lot of time there? I’m not a coffee drinker, so I never partake in coffee shop work. But as someone who has worked in the service industry, I can honestly say I would not have had the slightest care if people are spending all day in the shop. As long as they aren’t causing a scene or holding back from closing down.
Blogging and the like is more publishing than "public" in my opinion.
