083 Focus on ideas, not people
A person is not just a set of ideas.
Their personality definitely is a result of the ideas they have. But people are much deeper than their personalities. They are idea-generators.
A person is not inherently evil.
It is the evil ideas they hold in their mind that cause us to say so.
Some people can be hard to reason with. Force and dogma can blind a person to better ideas. But minds are malleable.
While criticizing, focus on specific ideas, not people.
An Ad Hominem argument is not going to help improve the ideas someone holds in their mind. It will usually arouse indignation from the person being criticized.
Labelling people also inclines you to dismiss their ideas. Which hampers the growth of knowledge.
Remember, people are not their ideas. They can change their mind.
Paul Graham’s Hierarchy of Disagreement relates to this idea of how to disagree well.
The Amazing Things & Ideas List
1. Book I’m reading
The Fountainhead by Ayn Rand
2. A long awaited conversation
Naval Ravikant interviews David Deutsch.
Humans
Knowledge
AGI
Taking Children Seriously
Good explanations
And much more
3. The Critical Rationalism Hub
4. On the nature of experience
“Experience is not what happens to a man; it is what a man does with what happens to him.”
— Aldous Huxley, 1932, Texts and Pretexts
New Podcast Episode
#13 – Danny Miranda: Creating Podcasts and The Future
Danny Miranda is the host of The Danny Miranda Podcast where he’s interviewed people like Bryan Johnson, Morgan Housel, Gary Vaynerchuck, David Perell, Jim O’Shaughnessy, Sam Parr, Anthony Pompliano, Derek Sivers, among many others.
We talk about Danny’s thoughts on creating content, the invaluableness of Twitter, Danny’s entire process of creating a podcast, optimism, the future of podcasting, and more!
Listen on Apple Podcasts or Spotify.
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Onward,
Arjun