2026-01-12
Disclaimer
I'm lowkey considering following the following rule. "Unless someone is powerful, don't criticise them or their work" In general, criticising someone else's work in a way that actually persuades anyone - takes a lot of time and effort. And I don't want to waste my time criticising other people's projects when I could be working on my own project. I don't have time to get into status fights with randos. The world might be ending.
I used to think criticism is one of the most valuable parts of a free society. I still think this. However, l've now realised how hard persuasion is. Most people cannot actually be persuaded by rational argument in a reasonable amount of time. (Also applies to me sometimes.) So it's better to just ignore them and go do your own thing.
How do I switch off the part of my brain that wants to criticise other peoples work?
Most of what people around me are doing makes no sense to me.
But then trying to convince them of this also makes no sense to me.
But I have this instinct to want to criticise anyway.
:/ :/ :/
It's like the bell curve thing If you're bad at persuasion you won't even bother to try If you're good at persuasion you'll try and often succeed If you're mediocre at persuasion (like me?) you might end up wasting a lot of time trying and failing to persuade anyone
I understand all these things intellectually But I want to really internalise these things so I don't repeat the same mistakes again I should write on a blackboard 100 times. "Only criticise or persuade the powerful." For everyone else, I will share my opinion, but I will already assume they're not gonna agree with me, and it's a waste of both of our time to resolve this disagreement.
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