
The Technology (2014) - vinnyglennon
https://paulbuchheit.blogspot.com/2014/07/the-technology.html
======
wildermuthn
His advice to ignore dogmas reminds me of the best advice I received as a
writer: learn the rules, then break them. There is a strange kind of dogma
that says, “question everything, break all the rules, convention is always
bad.” But this isn’t what Paul is saying. He says to shut out the voices.
Avoid rejecting or accepting. Avoid being reactionary, whether in agreeing or
disagreeing.

This is good advice in any realm. Take in all data. Remove all bias. Generate
meaningful truth. Follow that truth with an eye to fueling passion. And take
every obstacle as merely an additional data point — an opportunity to fine-
tune truth and enhance our passion for it.

~~~
wildermuthn
I’m also reminded of a question YC asked (or used to ask?): what is something
you know that your competitors don’t?

I’d love to see a list of answers to that question, because it defines a
startup more clearly than “what’s your vision” type of questions.

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rdiddly
Anyone know what book he's referring to that made him rethink exercise &
physical fitness?

Edit: Maybe this? [https://www.amazon.com/Born-Run-Hidden-Superathletes-
Greates...](https://www.amazon.com/Born-Run-Hidden-Superathletes-
Greatest/dp/0307279189)

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paulsutter
> Dogma and ideology are even worse. They provide us with the answers, and put
> boundaries around our thinking. Ignoring the dogma invites ridicule, or even
> punishment. I suspect that's why more ideological societies are less
> innovative.

Is it still permissible to say this? (asking as an earnest question) This was
once a core tenet of silicon valley but somehow the opposite has happened and
I’m not sure you can even say this anymore

~~~
emmett
Paul doesn’t seem to have gotten in any trouble for saying it. What makes you
think that someone else would? The problem only comes up when you start trying
to label other people’s beliefs as dogma.

This is about examining your own beliefs to root out dogma, and avoiding
pushing your dogmas into others. Not about being a self-perceived victim of
some other group oppressing you.

~~~
paulsutter
To explain: Assuming causality is a cognitive bias. Assuming causality in
other people’s outcomes can be .. another kind of bias. Dogma comes in when
only certain assumptions are permissible.

I don’t mean to drag the discussion through all this, I was just asking a
question (above) and answering yours (here)

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vinitagr
What an amazing piece of text to read. Almost teared up. I am so excited about
the future of humanity.

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apocalypstyx
When I hear about ideology and discarding ideology and moving beyond ideology,
I can't, for better or worse, help but think of Slavoj Zizek:

 _The contemporary era constantly proclaims itself as post-ideological, but
this denial of ideology only provides the ultimate proof that we are more than
ever embedded in ideology. Ideology is always a field of struggle - among
other things, the struggle for appropriating past traditions._

\---

 _‘An ideological identification exerts a true hold on us precisely when we
maintain an awareness that we are not fully identical to it, that there is a
rich human person beneath it: “not all is ideology, beneath the ideological
mask I am also a human person” is the very form if ideology, of its “practical
efficiency”’_

\---

 _‘The form of consciousness that fits late-capitalist “post-ideological”
society – the cynical, “sober” attitude that advocates liberal “openness” in
the matter of “opinions” (everybody is free to believe whatever she or he
wants; this concerns only his or her privacy), disregards pathetic ideological
phrases, and follows only utilitarian and /or hedonistic motivations – stricto
sensu remains an ideological attitude: it involves a series of ideological
presuppositions (on the relationship between “values” and “real life”, on
personal freedom, etc.) that are necessary for the reproduction of existing
social relations’_

\---

 _‘A gesture which draws the line of separation between “real problems” and
“ideological chimeras” is, from Plato onwards, the very founding gesture of
ideology: ideology is by definition self-referential – that is, it establishes
itself by assuming a distance towards (what it denounces as) “mere ideology”’_

\---

 _‘The function of ideology is not to offer us a point of escape from our
reality but to offer us the social reality itself as an escape’_

\---

 _‘The fundamental level of ideology is not of an illusion masking the real
state of things but that of an (unconscious) fantasy structuring our social
reality itself. And at this level, we are of course far from being a post-
ideological society. Cynical distance is just one way – one of many ways – to
blind ourselves to the structuring power of ideological fantasy: even if we do
not take things seriously, even if we keep an ironic distance, we are still
doing them’_

\---

 _‘The highest form of ideology lies not in getting caught in ideological
spectrality, forgetting about its foundations in real people and their
relations, but precisely in overlooking this Real of spectrality, and
pretending to address directly “real people with their real worries”. Visitors
to the London Stock Exchange are given a free leaflet which explains to them
that the stock market is not about some mysterious fluctuations, but about
real people and their products – this is ideology at its purest’_

\---

 _The contemporary era constantly proclaims itself as post-ideological, but
this denial of ideology only provides the ultimate proof that we are more than
ever embedded in ideology. Ideology is always a field of struggle - among
other things, the struggle for appropriating past traditions._

\---

 _“In a traditional German toilet, the hole into which shit disappears after
we flush is right at the front, so that shit is first laid out for us to sniff
and inspect for traces of illness. In the typical French toilet, on the
contrary, the hole is at the back, i.e. shit is supposed to disappear as
quickly as possible. Finally, the American (Anglo-Saxon) toilet presents a
synthesis, a mediation between these opposites: the toilet basin is full of
water, so that the shit floats in it, visible, but not to be inspected. [...]
It is clear that none of these versions can be accounted for in purely
utilitarian terms: each involves a certain ideological perception of how the
subject should relate to excrement. Hegel was among the first to see in the
geographical triad of Germany, France and England an expression of three
different existential attitudes: reflective thoroughness (German),
revolutionary hastiness (French), utilitarian pragmatism (English). In
political terms, this triad can be read as German conservatism, French
revolutionary radicalism and English liberalism. [...] The point about toilets
is that they enable us not only to discern this triad in the most intimate
domain, but also to identify its underlying mechanism in the three different
attitudes towards excremental excess: an ambiguous contemplative fascination;
a wish to get rid of it as fast as possible; a pragmatic decision to treat it
as ordinary and dispose of it in an appropriate way. It is easy for an
academic at a round table to claim that we live in a post-ideological
universe, but the moment he visits the lavatory after the heated discussion,
he is again knee-deep in ideology.”_

~~~
disqard
These are fascinating viewpoints, especially this triadic juxtaposition. Thank
you for sharing!

