Dear HNers who engage in any form of "thinking in public" (whether that's blogging, posting notes online, or maybe even participating in HN/Twitter/forum discussions): What are some of the pros and cons of thinking in public vs thinking in private?
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.
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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.
[0]: https://nkantar.com/blog