
Keep your identity small (2009) - nostrademons
http://www.paulgraham.com/identity.html
======
athenot
I don't think it's so much about identity as it is about (in)security.

Regarding politics, I completely follow his argument: I don't identify with
any party and like to think I'm evaluating each policy on its on merits and
according to my personal beliefs. Which leads me to the other one.

I happen to be Catholic and strongly believe in the mental and societal
framework put forth by that theology. However, I'm more than happy to discuss
objectively with fellows of other faiths (including atheism) and will happily
point out the common threads in seemingly opposite belief systems. Yet if
others make arguments that I'm not in position to counter, I'm happy to let it
go. My identity is deeply rooted as a Catholic, yet my security is not in
being right.

There is a temptation on my part to put forth the argument that some religions
foster greater amounts of insecurity, but I don't think that is fair to say.
Pretty much every belief system has a version of the Golden Rule.

To take Paul Graham's argument just a little further, I would say that
religion and politics can be misused as convenient mental shortcuts behind
which to hide one's insecurities.

~~~
sysk
Just a nitpick but atheism is not a faith, it's the absence of faith.

~~~
collyw
Disagree. Atheists believe there is no god (without any conclusive evidence).

~~~
darkarmani
What is the name for people that believe there is no: santa clause, easter
bunny, flying spaghetti monster, ... (without any conclusive proof)?

------
ixtli
> any mention of religion on an online forum degenerates into a religious
> argument. Why? Why does this happen with religion and not with Javascript

Then later

> the question of the relative merits of programming languages often
> degenerates into a religious war, because so many programmers identify as X
> programmers or Y programmers.

Also as another poster said, this works because he's been able to go his
entire life choosing what to put in and take out of his identity because he is
of the privileged class in his society. If someone perpetrated violence on him
because of something he _couldn't_ choose, say, his skin color, I have a
feeling he'd be less likely to conclude that "The more labels you have for
yourself, the dumber they make you."

The people to whom this "labeling" is most important are those who were
labeled. Not those who label themselves.

~~~
abtinf
If I attack you because your identity conflicts with my identity, say over
differing skin color, then it demonstrates his original point: the label I've
given myself is making me behave dumb/stupid/evil.

My action creates no obligation on your part to adopt the identity I've
assigned to you. Your station in life has no impact on whether you will accept
the label; you are a human capable of reason and you have free will - the
choice is yours.

In literature, Tom of Uncle Tom's Cabin is a solid example of this. Tom, a
heroic black slave, rejects the labels and associated moral principals others
(both black and white) wish to assign to him. He acts in accordance with his
self-selected moral convictions. And when confronted with an ultimate evil
that demands the surrender of not only his body but also his reasoning mind -
demands he accept an unchosen identity - he refuses.

~~~
shanusmagnus
I had a friend once who would insult people and then when they got angry or
hurt he would say: I don't control your feelings, you control your feelings.
Technically true, perhaps, depending on certain philosophically assumptions.
But practically absurd. And certainly a terrible mental model about how humans
work in situ.

------
phantom_oracle
> Politics, like religion, is a topic where there's no threshold of expertise
> for expressing an opinion. All you need is strong convictions.

What I don't get is who/what determines a threshold?

A university degree? 10 years of experience?

As others have rightly pointed out, perhaps there is no such thing as a
"threshold of expertise". Any programmer could have 10 years of experience
repeatedly cookie-cutting their beginner-level code and never going beyond
that. Does that give them the right to be called/known as JavaScript-Ninjas?

Perhaps Grahams identity leans towards anti-establishment/anti-
religion/hacker-think, which by proxy of his argument, makes him partisan
towards those opinions about religion and politics (see how the snake eats its
own tail here?).

~~~
montecarl
People determine the threshold themselves. Most people won't join in
conversations about science or math topics unless they feel like they have a
solid grasp of what is being discussed (relative to those around them).
However, almost everyone feels like they have valid points to make on
religious and political topics regardless of how well educated they are on
those topics.

------
jleader
One of the biggest invisible biases is thinking you've managed to free
yourself of invisible biases.

~~~
zyxley
I'm reminded of the inevitable "I'm not biased, but I'm going to complain
about this because I think it's an attack on me" that comes up whenever anyone
on the internet mentions that institutional racism exists.

~~~
Spivak
You do understand the other side's situation right? You are, albeit
impersonally, being accused of participating in something monstrous, the
institutional subjugation and prejudicial treatment of an entire class of
people, and there is literally nothing you can say or do which will
demonstrate otherwise since your racist acts are unconscious and unknowable to
you.

It's like trying to convince someone that you're not crazy when they already
think you are. It doesn't mater, anything you say or do just reinforces their
belief.

We all hold biases and prejudices for just about everything from concepts,
ideas, products, institutions, and especially one another based on their
history, race, creed, social status, clothing, voice, stature, hometown,
manner of speaking, educational background, career field, job title, wealth,
attractiveness, political beliefs, the list goes could go on for pages. But
trying to equate these kinds of biases to being *-ist in any meaningful sense
is missing the forest for the trees.

~~~
erikpukinskis
If you don't believe in widespread racism, what is your explanation for why
people of color, as a group, keep having a bad time?

It can't be some property of them, because believing that would be racist,
right? If it's not them and it's not us (I'm white) then what is it?

~~~
mseebach
You've clearly made up your mind and preemptively called everybody who
disagrees racist. That's not exactly conductive for an insightful
conversation.

But I'll bite anyway: _historical_ racism clearly still plays a significant
role. Whatever the level of present-day racism, I'm sure we can agree that
it's orders of magnitude lower than it was historical. The plight of people of
colour today can be attributed to historical widespread institutional racism
independently of whether any such racism exists today. Also, your model fails
to account for the possibility that racism can exist and be harmful without
being widespread, and that people of colour can make bad decisions without
that being a "property" of their colour (shaming people for "acting white"
strikes me as particular counterproductive).

That's not saying that's the whole explanation (or even that it is the
explanation), just that your model ("it's not them and it's not us") is a
false dichotomy and generally too limited to be likely to yield a satisfactory
answer.

~~~
erikpukinskis
I haven't made up my mind, actually. I just asked you questions, didn't I?

I think your argument is sound. Axiom: there's actually not that much racism.
Theorem: the remaining racism is confined to a small number of people.

I just disagree with your axiom.

------
fao_
> Why does this happen with religion and not with Javascript or baking or
> other topics people talk about on forums?

He must not spend a lot of time on Slashdot, or Hacker News, for that matter.

~~~
peteretep
Hacker friends who have started new hobbies are often posting their
bewilderment about how it follows everywhere. Beekeeping being the most
surprising example.

------
pystack
I've realized there are things I can change and there are things I cannot
change. I try not to feel too strongly on the things I cannot change, because
it distracts me from the things I can change.

For politics, I try not to feel too strongly about Trump and the electoral
process. I would still vote, but I know it would have a minimal impact, no
matter how strongly I feel.

Instead, I focus my energy on my business, which I can change.

~~~
zyxley
The Serenity Prayer may resonate with you.

> God, grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change,

> Courage to change the things I can,

> And wisdom to know the difference.

~~~
douche
Better (and not tainted by association with AA...)

I must not fear. Fear is the mind-killer. Fear is the little-death that brings
total obliteration. I will face my fear. I will permit it to pass over me and
through me. And when it has gone past I will turn the inner eye to see its
path. Where the fear has gone there will be nothing. Only I will remain.

~~~
reitanqild
Better ?

The first is shorter, less abstract and easier to remember.

------
reedlaw
This is the weakest pg essay I've come across. I can think of so many counter-
examples. "Stand for nothing and you'll fall for anything." It's very
convenient to have a small identity with few convictions because convictions
are costly. Sophie Scholl identified with anti-Nazi politics and it cost her
her life. We have a word for people like her: hero.

~~~
santoshalper
Paul didn't say "have no convictions", he said "keep your identity small"...
save your convictions for things that really matter, not stupid shit like
sports teams, programming languages, favorite <games/movies/books/TV>.

I don't feel like you grasped the article clearly.

~~~
reedlaw
His main examples of identity were politics and religion.

~~~
newjersey
I think it is possible/fairly safe to cheer for the Denver Bronco's or the New
York Yankees, or Crystal Palace football club or Team SoloMid or whatever
without making that one's identity.

Edit: Just now, someone showed me a video which claimed drinking apple cider
vinegar helped prevent cancer. I tried to say that this is billshit because
nobody can really say drinking something prevents cancer without a long-term
study that I doubt this YouTube celebrity had done.

I don't claim I don't have a bias. But I don't think we should be sin free to
cast the first stone on ideas.

~~~
chillacy
Regarding sports teams and identity, I suspect the guy who says "wow good
game" after their home team loses and the guy who feels crummy for a week is
the extent that they identify with the team. I had a brief stint with that in
college with my college football team. The wins felt like giant ego rushes and
the losses felt like I had lost a million bucks.

Now I can pretend to cheer but I don't really care as much.

------
tehchromic
"I think what religion and politics have in common is that they become part of
people's identity"

You might also say that people have identity and religion and politics use
those to advantage. But is it wrong to have identity? I'd argue it as a basic
human requirement.

Religion can be considered a technology of group identity which was refined
over millennium to be most effective at generating a unified form. Like all
technology it was disrupted by something better and more efficient at
transmitting shared consciousness.

That definition also fits the web which is the most powerful method of
transmission yet invented, and is the fruit of the science religion.

~~~
altonzheng
Wow, you just out-generalized Paul Graham. nice.

~~~
tehchromic
can you give me specific examples of how tho?

------
kaonashi
Sometimes identity has a way of finding you, even if you try your hardest to
keep it out. People define you, and depending on who or where you are, those
definitions can have profound impact on your life.

This piece reads like a person who has never had to deal with that, or at
least never had to think about it.

------
ikeboy
See also [http://rationality.org/2015/03/02/keep-your-identity-
fluid/](http://rationality.org/2015/03/02/keep-your-identity-fluid/)

~~~
DonHopkins
Is "identity fluid" the same as "precious bodily fluids" [1] ?

[1]
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=N1KvgtEnABY](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=N1KvgtEnABY)

------
mcshicks
Philip Tetlock has done a lot of research on objective measures of political
expertise, specifically the ability to make objective predictions about future
outcomes and likelihoods. He wrote a pretty famous book on it. The basic
conclusion is nobody is really that good, but some people are objectively
better than others. If you are really interested in this he has as website
called "good judgement project" where you can test your ability to predict
against other people on the site over time.

[http://www.amazon.com/Expert-Political-Judgment-Good-
Know/dp...](http://www.amazon.com/Expert-Political-Judgment-Good-
Know/dp/0691128715)

[https://www.gjopen.com/](https://www.gjopen.com/)

------
hypertexthero
Remind's me of Paul Buchheit's [I am nothing][1] and Jiddu Krishnamurti's [The
observer is the observed][2].

An application by Buchheit (and others!) that improved my life: Gmail.

Two books by Krishnamurti that improved my life: Think on These Things and The
First and Last Freedom.

[1]: [http://paulbuchheit.blogspot.com/2011/08/i-am-
nothing.html](http://paulbuchheit.blogspot.com/2011/08/i-am-nothing.html)

[2]: [http://www.jkrishnamurti.org/krishnamurti-teachings/view-
dai...](http://www.jkrishnamurti.org/krishnamurti-teachings/view-daily-
quote/20140305.php?t=The%20observer%20and%20the%20observed)

------
eternal_intern
Isn't it just more succinct to say we have tribal instincts because of our
evolutionary origins? I see heated debates in politics, religion, even sports,
because people identify from a certain "tribe". And I agree with Paul there,
from what I have noticed, tribalism does seem to give you a certain blindspot
to opposing arguments

------
tn13
Not particularly well articulated but the core point is one of the most
valuable lesson I had learned.

It not just applies to religion and politics but many other things in life. We
might be wasting too much of time on certain thing with very little impact. It
is hard to not to fall in that trap but trying surely saved a lot of time.

------
sevenless
People who don't have an identity... I _hate_ those people.

------
known
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Identity_politics](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Identity_politics)

------
pete_b
It's usually inappropriate to draw in politics and religion when they are off
topic, but sometimes they are involved. Ethics are involved frequently with
technology, so politics and religion are not that far off.

Though really, It's pretty shallow to draw like for like comparisons between
religion/politics and JS discussions. JS is trivial. Most tech discussions are
trivial the day after they've been had.

------
madmax96
>the more labels you have for yourself, the dumber they make you

You could keep going, stripping yourself of all labels via the discovery that
labels are neither good nor bad in a qualitative sense. But this begs the
question "what is good?" And then you might conclude that you know what is
good, and then form your labels as such.

Having labels isn't dumb; not being mindful of your labels is dumb.

------
chejazi
Labels might make you "dumber", but there's a huge tradeoff: you can arrive at
a conclusion a lot faster. Of course in a _discussion_ you wouldn't just jump
to the conclusion, which is why labels fail in the situations Graham
described.

------
tempodox
Great advice. Don't believe in anything, and you won't have to stand up for
what you believe. Ever. And others won't be disappointed if you don't. Win-
win.

------
sannysanoff
The story about the person who kept his identity small, during WW2 (
[https://www.ushmm.org/wlc/en/article.php?ModuleId=10007392](https://www.ushmm.org/wlc/en/article.php?ModuleId=10007392)
) :

"""

First they came for the Socialists, and I did not speak out — Because I was
not a Socialist.

Then they came for the Trade Unionists, and I did not speak out — Because I
was not a Trade Unionist.

Then they came for the Jews, and I did not speak out— Because I was not a Jew.

Then they came for me — and there was no one left to speak for me.

TLDR: paul graham is sofa philosopher.

~~~
peferron
Um. Are _you_ missing the entire point of the quote, or am _I_?

I understand the quote as meaning that we should speak out even when groups we
do not identify with are being oppressed.

But you seem to understand the quote as meaning that we should identify with
as many groups as possible.

I very much doubt the author of the quote meant it the way you do, and even if
they did it just sounds very wrong. It's expected and accepted to not care
about any other group than the ones you identify with then? I do not identify
as LGBT or as a woman, so I should not speak out for LGBT and women's rights?
What about groups that will remain small because you can't just decide one day
to identify with them, they're screwed?

------
cxromos
not only graham is right on the spot but even more than that. how often we
tend to joke about the programming languages we love and do our jobs with.
case in point every developer likes the following:
[https://www.destroyallsoftware.com/talks/wat](https://www.destroyallsoftware.com/talks/wat)

------
d0100
Not the first Paul to think like this, 1 Corinthians 9, 20-22: [...] I am made
all things to all men [...]

------
w8rbt
Any thread about C versus C++ degenerates pretty fast too.

------
bhewes
I would added sports.

------
carapace
Aw c'mon! Don't attach to (identify with) things is, like, Spirituality 101.

------
jshevek
" Why? Why does this happen with religion and not with Javascript or baking or
other topics people talk about on forums?"

I do not believe this author had much experience discussing JS on forums.

~~~
nostrademons
I thought of commenting on that as one thing in this article that didn't
really stand the test of time. As a sibling comment points out, the JS world
was very different in 2009, and we didn't have the same kind of flamewars that
we do now.

I think that's actually a point in favor of the article. In 2009, virtually
nobody considered themselves a "Javascript programmer". Rather, Javascript was
a _skill_ that you used to build webapps, which itself was a skill you used as
part of a larger software system. It was pointless to get emotionally invested
in Javascript arguments on the Internet, because whether you won or lost, you
still needed Rails/Django on the server, and SQL or C++/Java on the backend.

Sometime between 2009 and 2015, Javascript became a tribe, where you could
invest enough of your life in it that discussions about it became a matter of
identity. And its growth became threatening enough to other programming
"tribes" (eg. Windows programmers, Rails programmers) that you could suddenly
have very heated discussions about it on the Internet.

~~~
jasode
_> In 2009, virtually nobody considered themselves a "Javascript programmer"._

I'm guessing the "Javascript is my identity" era began with Nodejs. Before
2009, Javascript was something that was "tolerated" because it just came with
all the browsers. Back then, having any point of pride in being a "Javascript
programmer" would be a little weird as if a homeowner proclaimed he was a
"Panasonic keypad microwave programmer instead of a Samsung microwave
programmer". Nobody cares what buttons you press to pop your popcorn.
Likewise, the "Javascript" stuff was just something you had to do for
interactive webpages.

However, for someone to have the audacity of duplicating the Javascript
environment _on the server side_... that means subsequent programmers get to
make an invested choice, which means... flame wars.

~~~
gohrt
2007

[http://steve-yegge.blogspot.com/2007/06/rhino-on-rails.html](http://steve-
yegge.blogspot.com/2007/06/rhino-on-rails.html)

~~~
jasode
I don't consider Rhino nor other Javascript environments like Adobe
Actionscript and Microsoft JScript as contributing to the "Javascript
identity." It really seems like the Javascript apologia/evangelism was kicked
off by Nodejs' popularity.

As a consequence, we see many "I'm leaving Nodejs for Go" and virtually zero
"I'm leaving Rhino for Python".

------
helmett
keep your identity to yourself ..until you're rich enough to be shielded from
the consequences

~~~
keeringplastik
Or at least until "rich" becomes your identity, then you defend your position.

[http://paulgraham.com/ineq.html](http://paulgraham.com/ineq.html)

------
beatpanda
This essay only works because Paul Graham is a white man in America, whose
'identity' is the presumed default in the society he lives in. Anything he
makes a part of his identity, he gets to choose. If he chooses nothing, he has
the luxury of being 'just normal' and gets to go through life thinking of
himself as perfectly rational.

Sometimes you get to choose what you identify with. Other times, people choose
for you. For instance, you don't get to wake up one morning and decide not to
be black, or gay, or a woman. You don't get to simply shed those categories
and avoid the increased violence that comes your way apropos of nothing.

I know, you're already thinking, "but this essay is about religion and
politics!", but the thing is, for a lot of people, politics are not abstract.

I'm also a straight white cis guy living in America, and so I have the luxury
of choosing or choosing not to support gay rights, or feminism, or racial
justice. I can choose or choose not to make those things a part of my
identity. In fact there's incentive for me to choose not to, because if the
balance of power were re-arranged in society, and poverty and violence were
more evenly distributed, my life might not be so easy.

But for a lot of people, making "politics" a part of their "identity" is a
necessary defense mechanism, because the society we live in implicitly
sanctions violence against anybody who shares characteristics of their
identity they can't do anything about.

"Politics" is not some separate sphere you can disconnect yourself from.
Politics are embedded in everything. Choosing not to "identify" with any
political orientation is implicitly choosing society's defaults, and those
defaults implicitly condone a specific power structure and make acceptable a
certain amount of violence against certain people.

~~~
iteoaf30nasfoi
Couldn't you simply believe that for yourself, your biggest contribution to
humanity is not politics? Plenty of people are plainly worried about it and
discussing it in great detail. Why should everyone be bound to the same goals
when their marginal contribution is just that.

This is not to say that you shouldn't participate if you feel compelled to,
but unless you have an issue, isn't it mostly just a waste of time? What if
you want to enjoy life and not feel angry all the time? If you have options,
does that mean you should never ever exercise them in solidarity with those
who have fewer?

Does not PG's advice apply to people without the ability to choose some
aspects of their identity given that they have a universe of other traits they
do have control over? Sure, one may be a dominant problem, but you can help
yourself out by not adding more problems to your problems.

------
angersock
_As a rule, any mention of religion on an online forum degenerates into a
religious argument. Why? Why does this happen with religion and not with
Javascript or baking or other topics people talk about on forums?_

Um, Graham is more than a little off here.

Like, by a country mile.

~~~
dylz
Let's discuss text editors. Anyone?

~~~
AlwaysBCoding
lol @ Vim users that have to write configuration files, memorize complicated
keyboard shortcuts, and install 20 plugins just to be able to copy and paste
text between files. It's 2016, try using a real editor like Atom.

(Am I doing it right?)

~~~
devishard
I use vim w/o plugins and with the stock configuration.

I frequently have two files open side-by-side.

If I want to copy the current line in the left file to the right file, the
keystrokes are:

    
    
        yy<Ctrl+w>lp
    

It's really not that hard to copy between files in Vim. :P

------
chris_wot
This doesn't help when you aren't in your right mind.

~~~
chris_wot
Downvote away, but I speak from personal experience.

------
birdDadCawww
Whats funny is this theory pushes us to be more like computers. Less passion
and more logic. Not to mention people on the Internet say and talk about
options in forums reinforcing maybe a small part of ones identity. while in
the real world you might get punched in the face. I still favor this theory
but I would say spend less time on Internet interactions, so you don't have
your personal held beliefs blossom into something more toxic for rational
communication and real human connection. Being at the computer is a suit of
idealogical armor and you can disengage from conversations like I am about to
do.

~~~
denzil_correa
> Less passion and more logic.

You can be more passionate and have more logic.

