

The secret of my success - hhm
http://cscs.umich.edu/~crshalizi/weblog/552.html

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jsomers
I think there's a good reason negativity signals intelligence. Scholarship is
about _critical_ thinking, challenging assertions, falsifying hypotheses, etc.
If you agree with something it could therefore appear like you didn't do
enough research to find some flaw with it.

In any case, contrarianism is rampant where I am (undergrad at umich), and it
gets annoying when the default reaction---often without basis---is
disagreement.

~~~
timr
I completely agree (ironically enough). I _always_ seem to be taking a
critical view of ideas, but I'm also extra diligent to base my opinions in
logic and fact. Nevertheless, I can't shake the feeling that I'm just Mr.
Negativity; I don't feel particularly inspired when I'm critical, but I can't
let go of the need for rational thought.

It's fairly well-established that creativity thrives in an environment of
support and optimism -- is criticism truly poisonous for success, or are we
all just fooled by survivor bias?

(for example: let's say that 99% of ideas are bad, but 99% of all ideas are
generated by blind optimism. Thus nearly all successful ideas are generated by
blind optimists, but the survivors don't accurately reflect the success rate
of optimistic thinking. If this is true, it's easy to be critical, hard to be
successful, and the enormous successes are so rare, that they don't accurately
reflect much of anything, other than luck....)

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neilk
This study is obviously flawed and the conclusions utterly unfounded, but it
would take me far too long to list all the objections that half of you
wouldn't understand anyway.

Take my word for it.

------
staunch
<http://www.uncov.com/>

------
mynameishere
Plus, everyone instantly goes to the 1-star reviews at amazon.

