more by Paul Graham

Post date: Feb 01, 2020 8:3:6 PM

so this is my ump-teenth repost of something Paul Graham has written. it's short but insightful, more like a status update:

"It's not pleasant to feel like a noob. And the word "noob" is certainly not a compliment. And yet today I realized something encouraging about being a noob: the more of a noob you are locally, the less of a noob you are globally.

"I think the answer is that there are two sources of feeling like a noob: being stupid, and doing something novel. Our dislike of feeling like a noob is our brain telling us "Come on, come on, figure this out." Which was the right thing to be thinking for most of human history. The life of hunter-gatherers was complex, but it didn't change as much as life does now. They didn't suddenly have to figure out what to do about cryptocurrency. So it made sense to be biased toward competence at existing problems over the discovery of new ones. It made sense for humans to dislike the feeling of being a noob, just as, in a world where food was scarce, it made sense for them to dislike the feeling of being hungry."

anyway, if this is your cup of tea, then Graham also has another january essay called "haters" ... it's more about the problems of "famous" people, but a few tidbits are helpful:

"The mistake here is to think of the hater as someone you have a dispute with. When you have a dispute with someone, it's usually a good idea to try to understand why they're upset and then fix things if you can. Disputes are distracting. But it's a false analogy to think of a hater as someone you have a dispute with."

as an educator, i can relate.

some students will make up their minds about you, by the first week of classes, and never consider the possibility that they can learn anything from you!