
Novelty and Heresy - davnicwil
http://paulgraham.com/nov.html
======
mcv
> _" Galileo and Darwin are famous examples of this phenomenon,"_

Famous, yes, but there can also be incorrect assumptions in that. Galileo, for
example. A lot of people assume his heliocentric model was correct and was
only rejected because heliocentrism was considered heretical because it
contradicted the ruling assumption of geocentrism. But the Vatican at the time
was seriously considering a number of models including some heliocentric
models. One of the reasons Galileo's model was rejected, was because it
contradicted observations. Planets didn't quite move in the way he predicted,
and that's because Galileo clung to the incorrect assumptions that orbits had
to be circular.

Of course his core idea of heliocentrism was less wrong than geocentric
models, but at the same time it's an example of how addressing one incorrect
assumption can lead you into another incorrect assumption. And that also lead
to a lot of resistance to your idea, even if the core of your idea is correct.

As for Darwin, a lot of people at the time already assumed that something like
evolution had to be going on, and that many animals had common ancestors. They
just didn't know how it worked. Even while Darwin was working on his theory,
Alfred Russel Wallace was working on the exact same idea. So in that case, the
idea was actually obvious to anyone paying attention, and Darwin happened to
be the one to get there first. But if he hadn't published about it, Wallace
would most likely have done so.

~~~
bryanrasmussen
Ok I know the Darwin stuff, but the Galileo stuff goes against the traditional
story by quite a bit - given that going through google to find the truth
nowadays is a chore, do you have some authoritative links?

~~~
empath75
AFAIK it’s flatly wrong and the inquisition said it was heretical because it
opposed what was in the Bible.

[https://web.archive.org/web/20070930013053/http://astro.wcup...](https://web.archive.org/web/20070930013053/http://astro.wcupa.edu/mgagne/ess362/resources/finocchiaro.html#conreport)

The records are here. As far as I can see the only attack against the idea in
the record is that it contradicts the Bible.

~~~
etrevino
GP is taking into account the larger picture and discussion of Galileo's
ideas. The Inquisition was sicced on Galileo and the justification was that
his ideas contradicted the Bible. But the actual prosecution was _also_
motivated by Galileo's obstreperousness. Guy was difficult and he challenged
the Church's authority in weird ways (not always intentionally). In
particular, he was seen to have attacked one of his main supporters, who
happened to be the Pope.

~~~
mcv
Exactly. Galileo was originally on very good terms with the pope. Then the
pope asked him to write a book comparing heliocentric and geocentric ideas
from a neutral perspective. Galileo instead wrote a book ridiculing
geocentrism, and had some things the pope said repeated by a character called
"Simplico" ("Fool"). He insulted the pope, and that's where the trouble really
started.

~~~
empath75
I don't think that's a defense of the church.

~~~
watwut
It is not. But it is also different story and different complaint about
church.

------
janvdberg
Funny both Galileo and Darwin are mentioned, since they are also mentioned on
the same page in The Black Swan by Nassim Nicholas Taleb page 167:

"Likewise we think that Galileo was a victim in the name of science; in fact,
the church didn't take him too seriously. It seems, rather, that Galileo
caused the uproar himself by ruffling a few feathers. At the end of the year
in which Darwin and Wallace presented their papers on evolution by natural
selection that changed the way we view the world, the president of the Linnean
society, where the papers were presented, announced that the society saw "no
striking discovery," nothing in particular that could revolutionize science. "

So Taleb makes the opposite claim that their ideas in their time weren't
regarded as heresy as we now tend to believe.

~~~
Bartweiss
I think we overestimate the dichotomy between those two things. It's pretty
common to see people react to ideas with "that's either obviously true _or_
heretically stupid, but it's definitely not accurate and groundbreaking."

Galileo got in trouble over insulting his patron, but heliocentric theory more
broadly was peacefully ignored, except when it became too visible and was
persecuted. And the Catholic Church has maintained the same position ever
since: into the 1800s, it was alternately publishing and banning works which
accepted heliocentric theory. Even in the 1990s, we saw Cardinal Ratzinger
rationalizing the Church's position as more rational than Galileo's at the
time, while John Paul II was talking about "the error of the theologians of
the time", as though the matter had consisted of a standard disagreement
between scholars, rather than a heresy trial and a formal ban on Galilean
ideas. One view says he was a foolish heretic who got lucky, the other an
accepted part of the academy; neither concedes that his work was both
controversial and _correct_.

We see the same thing all over. Darwin was hesitant to publish because he knew
the conflict he'd attract, but the Linnean society declared his work
unremarkable even as sparked outrage in other quarters. Soviet science
suppression is recent enough to be well-documented; we see for instance that
cybernetics was a "bourgeois pseudo-science" until it was rehabilitated, at
which point Kolman wrote a history in which suppressed thinkers like Glushkov
were credited with inventing the science ahead of Westerners.

Taleb's historical point is interesting, but I think he's wrong to portray
those as conflicting reactions. Jumping straight from mockery to acceptance is
a common approach for an establishment that doesn't want to lose face.

------
classified
Just look at HN comment threads: Any truth that's inconvenient for the
majority in the respective thread will be brainlessly downvoted. Killing the
messenger is just as popular here (where all the smartest know-it-alls
convene) as it is there (where all the ignoramuses reside).

~~~
Ma8ee
Could you give me some examples?

~~~
666lumberjack
Pointing out the environmental impact of having biological children is always
unpopular here. A lot of HN-ers are pretty attached to the 'three kids and a
white picket fence' lifescript.

Interestingly advocates of veganism (which has a similarly massive impact on
your carbon footprint) are much more welcome, but I guess for most people the
drive to reproduce is more inherent that the desire to eat meat.

~~~
verylittlemeat
If the solution to a hard problem is that obvious and people aren't doing it
then it's not really a solution and/or you haven't correctly identified the
problem.

Those comments are unpopular because most people can see they're just smug
self righteous twitter tier mic drops.

~~~
firethief
> If the solution to a hard problem is that obvious and people aren't doing it
> then it's not really a solution and/or you haven't correctly identified the
> problem.

I don't see how this is compatible with the observed reality that individuals
make choices that are not best for society (whether due to rational self-
interest/incomplete information/behavioral factors).

~~~
rdiddly
I suppose you could say there's room for that under redefining the problem,
like "The real problem is that people refuse to employ known solutions to
those problems."

~~~
firethief
That salvages the argument, but deflates it as an argument against talking
about the known solutions: discussing them is part of the solution to such a
meta-problem, directly, by leading people to employing them; and indirectly,
by leading to insight on why people aren't employing them yet.

The former is hazardous (and verylittlemeat spoke against it): people fight
for their views on the internet, and it degrades discussion more than it
reaches people. The latter has leverage and is potentially highly impactful
(i.e. the kind of discussion I come here hoping to find).

~~~
verylittlemeat
Many of the opinions downvoted on HN fit the same mold. They're what I call
"if you're an alcoholic just stop drinking" arguments.

They're totally reductive and really just serve to stroke the speakers ego or
shame others rather than actually address the issue.

------
kareemm
This squares with my experience.

In 2007 I had a social conversation with a well known and successful operator
/ VC in the valley about new ideas. Having just gone through negotiations for
a raise at my corporate job, the information asymmetry between corporations
and employees about salaries was huge.

So my thinking was that it was only a matter of time until salary information
became more open. He was adamant that it would never happen. Sharing salary
information between employees was heresy. Mind you, I was also 30 and he was
in his 50s.

12 years later Glassdoor, levels.fyi, etc are all things.

For whatever reason - he hadn’t gone through a salary negotiation in a long
time, generational culture, etc - this was a major blind spot for him.

~~~
7777fps
But sharing salary information is still heresy, it's attempted in secret
across opaque unverifiable websites that companies themselves like to game.

~~~
jefftk
People can break this dynamic by just going ahead and sharing their salaries:
[https://jefftk.com/money](https://jefftk.com/money)

At least in the US, employers aren't allowed to keep you from disclosing your
compensation.

~~~
pnathan
Nice idea. I've been sharing my salary history via email for some time now to
help equalize it - this just takes it public.

BTW, I would probably suggest qualifying the income by location to set the
context. SV pay isn't always, e.g., Boise, ID pay.

~~~
jefftk
Added!

------
pron
The problem is that this outlook is often used as an argument in favor of some
heretical position, instead of just being a defense against outright
rejection. What is often forgotten (aside from the excellent points brought up
by mcv) is that Galileo and Darwin were each among the very top experts in
their respective fields, and many of those who rejected them most forcefully
were laymen. _That_ was the biggest difference between them and their
detractors -- they were experts facing off many laymen and amateurs -- not
their heresy. These days laymen often challenge experts and see themselves as
Galileo _just_ because their opinion is heretical, rather than because they've
studied a subject more rigorously than others. Rigor and scholarship must
precede heresy.

Another pitfall that's common nowadays is that many ideas that are presented
as heroic heresy are just yesterday's rejected dogma. When dogma is rejected
when a more rigorous heresy shows up, it doesn't lend more credibility to the
rejected dogma, which is now heretical. In other words, these are people who
claim Galileo's heretical status by arguing for geocentrism, which is today's
heresy. Ironically, these days it is mostly reactionaries rehashing old dogmas
that proudly describe themselves as heretics.

------
robsinatra
Paul Graham, Eric Ries, Steve Blank, Sam Altman, and many others have promoted
their share of ideas that entrepreneurial and VC communities have latched onto
as sacrosanct. Take, for instance, the notion of "minimum viable product". Do
the absolute minimum of work to validate an idea because that way you didn't
spend years of your life creating something that there was no market for. If
you didn't go to market after 3 months of development, you're doing it wrong.
If you didn't seek sage advice from a panel of... "experts"... trying to
convince you why you should give up 10% of your life's work for $100,000,
you're doing it wrong. If you take a principled approach to your work and do
what is right rather than what is popular, you're doing it wrong. Ship as
quickly as possible. Go fast. We need Velocity©! You don't need to do anything
right, just focus on appearances. Generally speaking, whatever you're thinking
and doing is wrong. They know what is best.

Herein lies the great dead zone of missed opportunities, rejected by venture
capitalists and entrepreneurship thinkers who worked too hard to advance ideas
that aren't universally applicable and in many cases are simply wrong.

PG et al: break from convention and challenge your theories about what makes
projects successful

------
bshimmin
Francis Cornford in 1908: "Every public action, which is not customary, either
is wrong, or, if it is right, is a dangerous precedent. It follows that
nothing should ever be done for the first time."

~~~
pjc50
+1 for referencing _Microcosmographia Academica_!

[https://www.cs.kent.ac.uk/people/staff/iau/cornford/cornford...](https://www.cs.kent.ac.uk/people/staff/iau/cornford/cornford7.html)

------
NateEag
The idea of heresy as a path to being right shows up many times in Graham's
work, but he adheres so closely to software heterodoxy throughout his essays.

\- Programming language of choice being a huge deal \- Taking it as obvious
that the supernatural is fiction \- Assuming smartness is a crucial ingredient
for success

I could probably come up with more, but that'll do for now.

~~~
olooney
Did you mean, "adheres so closely to software _orthodoxy_?" I only ask because
it's hard to see how one could "adhere" to heterodoxy and your use of the word
"but" suggests you're setting up a _contrast_ with heresy.

~~~
NateEag
Apparently I did.

I had a functioning vocabulary once, but it seems to have failed hard with the
advent of small children.

------
kfk
Just keep in mind that if your thinking is heresy you either have a way to
show results quickly or a huge marketing budget. Being right today doesn't
mean people will listen. With so much noise on the web credibility is a huge
driver for customer acquisition. If your solution doesn't clearly show results
and requires a pitch be ready to spend a lot of time building up your case and
selling it. For instance, insects are a good idea for animal feed, right? Well
you still need a lot of marketing to convince animal farmers to adopt them,
the easier thing for them to do is just keep doing what they are doing today.

~~~
wolfram74
Being right has /never/ been enough to convince people. Changing peoples minds
has to have enough of an improvement to overcome switching costs /and/ any
anchoring biases.

~~~
kfk
Yes but today you compete with everybody else. If you are in a crowded space,
i.e. analytics, your ideas will have to compete with ideas of many other
bigger players with bugger marketing budgets. You also more or less advertise
in the same place where they advertise.

------
wsy
I like a lot how G. B. Shaw phrased this insight: "The reasonable man adapts
himself to the world. The unreasonable one persists in trying to adapt the
world to himself. Therefore all progress depends on the unreasonable man."

However, from the perspective of the reasonable man, things look differently:
Only a small minority of 'unreasonable men' actually manage to change the
world. So it is rational to be doubtful if someone's novel idea contradicts
widely shared assumptions.

------
9nGQluzmnq3M
It's linked at the end, but
[http://paulgraham.com/say.html](http://paulgraham.com/say.html) (2004) is,
IMHO, much stronger version of the same argument.

~~~
jessaustin
That's PG's most important piece. By occasionally publishing short references
to it (like TFA), he re-surfaces it for people who haven't seen it before or
haven't thought about it for a long time.

When I was a child it seemed that society could distinguish moral judgments
from epistemological ones. Now it seems that epistemology is the only
remaining hiding place for judgmental moralists. Fake news!

------
prvc
I wonder what conditions would be necessary for a culture that is more
tolerant of heretical ideas, compared to the present environment, in order to
be more conductive to new discoveries?

~~~
huffmsa
You don't think we're at the most open and accepting time in history?

No one gets beheaded for heresy, real or imaginary, anymore, except in Saudi
Barbaria.

And on Twitter. But you can pretty easily avoid both places.

(Curiously, the people who will behead you on Twitter are the same ones who
are most opposed to the dogma of Saudi Barbaria, but they're onboard with how
to punish dissidents)

~~~
pjc50
I am intrigued by this technology which allows people to remotely remove the
actual heads of their enemies over the internet, but maybe I skipped that in
the Twitter release notes.

~~~
undecisive
> It's called swatting

Dark but true :( Again, mostly geographically limited to the United States of
Barberica?

------
dnprock
I'm working on a heresy: a cryptocurrency with constant inflation. Most people
in crypto dismiss the idea of inflation. It has been tried before. This time,
I come up with a reward schedule to bootstrap inflation. And my crypto has
inflation as its narrative. Inflation is its main feature.

People think I start another scam to replace Bitcoin. I actually think my
project is not competing with Bitcoin. Galileo didn't advocate heliocentrism
to bring down the church. He just supported the idea. The funny thing about
heresy is most of them are somewhat trivial to see. People will think it's too
trivial. Someone must have tried/proposed it before. Galileo's and Darwin's
cases were also like this.

My project may fail. But the interesting thing about heresy is someone will
try again at some point in the future. So I'm not too hung up about having to
succeed.

Check out my project. :)

[https://bitflate.org/post/2019/04/14/bitflate-
cryptocurrency...](https://bitflate.org/post/2019/04/14/bitflate-
cryptocurrency-with-constant-inflation.html)

~~~
blotter_paper
Besides longer blocktimes (2.5 minutes v.s. 1 minute), a higher inflation rate
(7% v.s. ~4.5%), and a different hashing algorithm (SHA-256 v.s. Scrypt), how
does Bitflate compare with Dogecoin? What aspects of Dogecoin made you decide
to start your own project instead of working with an existing community that
revolves around an inflationary cryprocurrency? I don't hold any Dogecoins,
nor have I ever been a part of that community, they just seem like the primary
example of an inflationary cryptocurrency to me and I'm trying to understand
what makes your project different than the incumbent in that space, or if
there's enough distinction that you don't see yourself as even being in
competition with Dogecoin.

~~~
dnprock
Thanks. Dogecoin has a constant tail emission. As supply grows, the rate of
new coin inflation shrinks. Dogecoin community rejects the idea that they have
a compound (percentage) inflation.

[https://www.reddit.com/r/dogecoin/comments/1wuhyj/info_clear...](https://www.reddit.com/r/dogecoin/comments/1wuhyj/info_clearing_up_missinformation_about_our/)

Dogecoin is a good example of how hard it is to depart from its own narrative,
basically, commit a heresy.

Bitflate has a percentage point of 7% inflation. We're going to stick with it
for the sake of this experiment. Given what I read, I think it'd be hard to
convince Dogecoin to really do percentage point inflation. I'm nobody.
Dogecoin community won't bother listening to me. In addition, my project
starts out with inflation in the plan. It has reward halving until inflation
stops at 7%. The reward schedule looks like this:

0: 50 (supply: 10 million)

1: 25 (supply: 15 million)

2: 12.5

3: 6.25 (end of halving)

4: 6.56 (start of inflation 7%)

5: 7.02

6: 7.51

7: 8.04

8: 8.60

9: 9.20

10: 9.85 (supply: 31 million)

Dogecoin narrative is fun/meme/tip coin. Bitflate narrative is inflation coin.
I think narrative is important. Once set, it'll be hard to change. It's
possible other communities will switch to inflation. I would consider it a
success for our effort. :)

~~~
blotter_paper
Thank you for your explanation. I'd seen your supply chart, but I somehow
never caught that Dogecoin is only trying to inflate in terms of absolute
number of coins. I guess I assumed they had a system that was roughly
equivalent to some percentage inflation. Given this difference your experiment
does seem interesting to me, and I wish you the best of luck!

As a side note, I dunno what to think about inflation v.s. deflation. My best
guess is that those are different assets, we want both, and long blocktimes
are more tolerable in deflationary stores of value than they are in
inflationary currencies.

~~~
dnprock
Thanks! I think Bitflate can become a coin for transaction use case. It
departs from the Store of Value narrative. Follow us on Twitter for updates.
:)

------
baxtr
Side note: Almost everything by Paul Graham gets upvoted fairly quickly. Has
anyone insights into what the key ingredients for this are?

~~~
dennis_jeeves
In a manner speaking it is annoying to see (his not so profound) essay
upvoted. Like people said he is the founder of he founded YC, so he has a fan
following of the commoner naive programmer crowd. He certainly is an
intelligent chap ( and very ordinary by some some measures) but by no means
profound. In fact this subject of heresy is quite banal to me or anyone who
has spent sufficient time observing society ( including the scientific
community).

I have always wondered what his objective was when writing these essays.

(I always have an objective, when I write, which is not narcissism, or seeking
approval/support/vindication).

~~~
blfr
I'm pretty sure PG entertains quite a few interesting heresies that he's
simply not willing to share publicly because of the backlash. Instead, he
nudges people to find them on their own.

~~~
dennis_jeeves
>Instead, he nudges people to find them on their own.

A.k.a driving sense into the (intellectual) peasants :). I hope he succeeds.
My observation though is that crows are never whiter by washing.

------
bulletsvshumans
The flip side of the coin is protecting truth or useful ideas from ultimately
less true or useful ideas. Or just simply avoiding the overhead of
exhaustively vetting every idea without regard for its apparent merit. It's
just like genetics: mutation can be valuable and is ultimately the way that
anything evolves, but any given mutation is much much more likely to be
problematic than valuable. There's a fine balance in identifying the ideal
level of mutation for the long-term health of an ecosystem. Similarly, there's
a balance in finding the right degree of resistance to novel ideas. Maximum
support for heresy is probably not the equilibrium point.

~~~
larnmar
I don’t think we should feel the need to comprehensively entertain every idea
that is different and sounds silly.

For a healthy ideas ecosystem: If you hear a new and silly idea, and you don’t
have the time or energy or interest to look into it properly, the best thing
to do for everyone’s sake is to ignore it.

Either address an idea properly, or ignore it. Don’t write a 140-character
snarky dismissal of it, don’t attack the personal characteristics of the
person holding it, and certainly don’t seek to censor or “cancel” them.

------
michael2l
I think when it comes to evaluating true novelty we underestimate how much our
language does our thinking for us. Which is another reason why novel ideas
hide from us so well. To put them into articulated forms that can be carried
through time effectively (even to communicate them to later versions of
ourselves) we have to bend the meanings of the words we're using in novel
ways. Not easy to do but essential to an idea's survival.

------
kstenerud
Happens to me every time. Every major product I've built from the ground up
was first greeted as heresy by those already in that particular industry, and
then later copied by the same people.

By now I'm used to it, and use it as a gauge of how sneaky I'll have to be in
marketing it.

------
rhaksw
Ok here's one, a website that shows things you posted that have been removed
from Reddit [1]. Ask HN: heretical or not? This is the only tool AFAIK that
shows removed content for a given account.

[1] [https://revddit.com](https://revddit.com)

------
rexgallorum2
Maybe we need a special place where we can discuss highly unpopular and
'heretical' ideas that strongly contradict perceived wisdom or popular
opinion. Any ideas?

~~~
mistermann
I'd like to see a once per month thread on HN that allows it, with rate
limiting removed from accounts that have been flagged for participating in
flame wars, and a policy of "try to speak only in truthful terms". I think
some interesting conversations that aren't otherwise possible might result.

------
mrleiter
To put it in other fancy words: when challenging paradigms, expect resistance.
If you want to non-obvious („contrarian“ in SV speak), look for paradigms and
question them.

------
raincom
History and philosophy of sciences have studied this phenomenon a lot. Read
Thomas Kuhn's "The structure of Scientific revolutions".

------
jdance
Reading the comments its obvious that this hits a nerve with many people,
exactly as the essay argues :) Our conceptual world is just that, conceptual,
and is open to interpretation and change, and is fundamentally open ended. And
at our current societal development we really really do not like that. We want
to know how things are, and poking holes in how things are, is not popular
(yet)

------
aaron695
I do not think people will call something novel that (actually) works heresy.

Example?

What's something with resistance that was discovered in the past 20 years?

If it works, people will see that, even without a working model.

Other than silly examples like calling the Wii a Wii I can't name anything.
And arguably the Wii wasn't a 'discover something new'. (I also don't count
one comment about DB) Is Wikipedia an example?

------
buboard
Why now?

PG has written about this before. My thinking is that the tech stagnation has
lately become evident even to the most disbelieving ones. And perhaps even SV
is starting to think it's time to go ahead with the less safe ideas. That's
just the idea i get from my reading of Twitters, i m not even in the US :)

------
voidhorse
I dislike this essay’s use of the concept of heresey. Heresy had force back in
the day when religious orders had hegemonic control over society. That’s no
longer the case today. I know that’s not what PG means by his use of the term,
but there’s no reflection in this peice about the metaphorical use of the
concept.

Furthermore, the argument is fundamentally flawed. What consitutes heresy is
entirely contingent upon the prevailing societal order’s judgements. Let’s put
aside the problematic use of heresey for a second and deal with PG’s actual
argument—which is that it’s good to go after ideas that the majority of
society either doesn’t recognize or sees as anathema. This quality alone
doesn’t prove the marker of a good idea. For all the « heretical » ideas like
Darwin’s and Galilleo’s that proved lifechanging, there are a horde that were
useless of harmful.

The value in these thinker’s ideas has almost nothing to do with their
heretical nature, which is a politico-religious quality—that these ideas are
felt as « life-altering » in history may have something to do with their
heretical nature (since they necessarily flew in the face of the prevailihg
order of the day) but their fame and historical import does not actually have
anything to do with their theoretic rigor, scientific value, or general
usefulness.

I don’t really see the point of this essay other than to say « think outside
the box » in a quite clunky way by arguing from history and making some
dubious claims (e.g. the essay seems to suggest that chasing heresies is an
operable method to make novel discoveries while neither of the examples it
uses are evidence of this methodology—while the discoveries may have been
heretical, its unlikely Darwin or Galileo chased the discoveries on account of
their heretical status).

~~~
tlb
Wikipedia defines the word as "any belief or theory that is strongly at
variance with established beliefs or customs, in particular the accepted
beliefs of a church or religious organization".

You're presumably using a different definition, or else neither of your
arguments make sense. Maybe you should say what you think the word means?

~~~
voidhorse
Fair enough. But it’s also fair to quote the sentence you cited in its etirety
instead of chopping it off at the comma:

« Heresy is any belief or theory that is strongly at variance with established
beliefs or customs, __in particular the accepted beliefs of a church or
religious organization. __«

A better word for a belief that disagrees with general sentiment without
having religious conotations is _iconoclasm_ which unlike heresy, has the
religious meaning as its secondary definition.( heresy’s religious sense is
still the primary definition according to oxford).

Though I must say I’m not surprised the differentiation between such words is
coming to ruin given our general laziness in regard to language, the decay of
religious systems, and a broad ignorance of etymology and history. It won’t be
surprising to me if the word totally loses its religious elment in a few
years.

Sorry for the salt. Have to presenr this one for the future so I can check my
prediction.

------
farrelmahaztra
What are some examples of ideas today that are considered heretical but may
have value to them?

~~~
larnmar
Hoo boy, it’s a trap. That’s the thing about heretical ideas, I can get
downvoted and possibly banned from the site from even gesturing in their
general direction.

But okay, here goes. Here are some areas where there’s a very large “dead
zone” of ideas which surrounds some bad ideas but which may also encompass
some good ones too:

1\. Intrinsic statistical racial differences or other ideas labelled as racist

2\. Intrinsic statistical sexual differences or other ideas labelled as sexist

3\. Maybe some aspects of the Holocaust have been exaggerated?

4\. (Increasingly) Climate change skepticism

I wish to stress, once again, that all of these heretical regions certainly
contain a bunch of bad ideas at their core; but the size of the fenced-off
region in each case is so large that it makes you wonder whether some good
ideas have been fenced off too.

~~~
farrelmahaztra
Yeah, those were some of the ideas I thought about but I found it difficult to
find the kind of value PG mentioned from them in the midst of the bad ideas.

Thanks though! I also find myself hesitating to comment or post here to avoid
getting downvoted. I would've thought HN would be the most tolerant among
online communities of controversial or even obviously wrong ideas.

------
hexxiiiz
Not sure what Grahams views are on economics, but I have certainly read/heard
business people trumpet heretical ideas with praise before, having
specifically in mind those heresies that conform to their particular world
view. Graham uses two scientists as examples that have long been situated
uncontroversially in the scientific world as canonical. Scientists are often
used as examples of this kind of "revolutionary thinking" lauded by people in
this world. I am curious how Graham would respond to the heresy of Marx's
critique of capital to challenge the idea that capitalism is the best and
historically final form of economics. Marx is just one example here of a
thinker that is heretical without being "innovative" in the archetypical sense
of Einstein or an inventor. I am generally curious if when someone promotes
heresy, they already have in mind the kind of heresies that already fit into
their dogmas. Graham may be more broad minded than this, but this kind of view
does get thrown around enough to look like a trope.

~~~
buboard
how was Marx not innovative? Also, today it feels that Marx is the orthodoxy
and the heretics are those who reject him

~~~
blotter_paper
If Marx feels like orthodoxy you either haven't read a significant amount of
Marx or you haven't been paying attention to who controls the capital in
society. I say this as somebody who does not identify as a Marxist, but used
to.

~~~
buboard
are we talking about now or the past? Marx is mainstream economic thought
today, not some heresy. Back then, marx was certainly 'heretic', but i dont
think there was talk of the end of history.

~~~
blotter_paper
The "end of history" bit is Hegel, really. I could see Marx being considered
Orthodox in some History and English departments, but his viewpoint is
definitely a minority among Economists, and society is not broadly structured
in a way that reflects his thinking. The social nets we see today come nowhere
near a from-each/to-each narrative. The workers do not own the means of
production. Wealth is more concentrated than ever.

~~~
buboard
e.g. the most prominent US democratic candidates openly support ideas that are
more marxist than anything else. They represent a lot of people, it's not some
small heresy

~~~
blotter_paper
That party is currently in the minority, but more importantly their policies
do not reflect Marxism. Their last Presidential nominee and last President
both supported capitalism. You can point to some figures that pay lip-service
to socialism, like Sanders and Ocasio-Cortez, but even then the details of
their policies are a mixed-market capitalism with a bigger socialist band-aide
than we currently have. Marx was suggesting that people would identify as a
groupman and act as if everybody mutually possessed everything. Obama (who was
widely accused of being a communist) forced people to purchase healthcare from
private corporations or face a government-imposed fine. These things are
wildly different. While I wouldn't argue that the Soviet Union was ever
_really_ embodying Marxism either, the idea was certainly orthodox. If the
Democrats widely identified as Marxists despite not actually implementing
Marxist policies, I'd give you that Marxism was orthodox in their party (and
simply call them hyprocrits in addition). This is not the case. They both
widely denounce Marxism _and_ don't implement Marxist policies. We can't call
every welfare program Marxism unless we're willing to retroactively label
Emperor Trajan a Marxist; Marxism is more specific than welfare.

------
mojuba
The opposite is also true: the interestingness and explosiveness of a novel
idea is a function of its hereticity. We all create interesting business
opportinities indirectly, by resisting to change.

------
aridiculous
The timing of the publishing of this seems coincidentally aligned with YC's
very recent backout of a Chinese outpost.

[https://techcrunch.com/2019/11/21/y-combinator-abruptly-
shut...](https://techcrunch.com/2019/11/21/y-combinator-abruptly-shutters-yc-
china/)

I read this as a coded way for Paul Graham to express his distaste for those
opposing the YC China expansion.

------
war1025
Wonder what inspired him to put out two essays in short order after having
been silent since early 2017...

------
gdubs
Gotta wonder if this was inspired by the Cybertruck announcement and the
polarization that has followed.

------
WMCRUN
When did PG redesign the site?

~~~
mkl
2006? That's the last obvious change I see in WayBack Machine (addition of the
blue side buttons).

~~~
WMCRUN
Oh I see now. The mobile version loaded differently this time. There’s a
shopping cart in the upper righthand corner for some reason. The desktop
version is the same.

------
namirez
> " _Galileo and Darwin are famous examples of this phenomenon, but it 's
> probably always an ingredient in the resistance to new ideas._"

The problem with this logic is that for every Galileo and Darwin, there are
thousands of crackpots out there. Every month or so I see some news about
engines that run on water as fuel.

As Walter Kotschnig said: "Let us keep our minds open, by all means, as long
as that means keeping our sense of perspective and seeking an understanding of
the forces which mould the world. But don’t keep your minds so open that your
brains fall out!"

~~~
lukifer
The problem is, it's not obvious _a priori_ which ideas are crackpot and which
ideas are hidden gems. (The infamous comparison being Newton's passion for
theology and alchemy in addition to calculus and physics; it's not obvious he
would have made his accomplishments in the latter, without being the kind of
person willing to invest time in the former.)

I think the right strategy is to acknowledge that such pursuits are proverbial
moon-shots, setting expectations and risk tolerance accordingly. Most
innovations fail, and that's okay; "the best way to have a good idea is to
have lots of ideas".

------
hycaria
Reading this I can't help but think about my mother, justifying all her shady
pseudoscience beliefs by mentioning that brilliant and innovant scientists
were treated with disdain during their own times, just as pseudoscience is.
Heresies then turn into antivaxxers, electrosensitivity, homeopathy and so on.

This might work for business opportunities, but please leave science out of
that.

~~~
chmike
I beg to differ. This is exactly spot on for science too. You gave homeopathy
as an example. Here is an article that explain water memory, the underlying
principle of homeopathy: ["Water Memory Due to Chains of Nano-
Pearls"]([https://www.scirp.org/journal/PaperInformation.aspx?PaperID=...](https://www.scirp.org/journal/PaperInformation.aspx?PaperID=89620))

~~~
the_af
Water memory is pseudoscience.

------
slowenough
Some heresies:

\- React is bad and bloated.

\- Startup industry is exploiting idealistic young people, as slaves of
VC/venture partner "bet placers" with the promises of often unrealizable
rewards, by promoting startup mythology, as lab rats most of whom will end up
failed experiments.

\- China is not bad and should be supported, and the West can learn much from
it, if the West could set aside its insecurity and pomp and see clearly.

~~~
_Microft
There is a difference between being heretical and being impolite, insulting or
deliberately provocative. It is not only what you say but also how you say it.

This being said, how do you expect to receive anything but backlash with a
conditional clause like in your last sentence ( _" if the West could set aside
its insecurity and pomp and see clearly."_). That's not heresy, it's
deliberate edgy-ness.

Beside that I believe that 'the West' could learn some things from China
because I believe that it is _not all bad_. Claiming that _China is_ not _bad_
in light of the China Cables is pretty bold, though.

~~~
jessaustin
_...deliberate edgy-ness..._

Strong disagree, from this Westerner. There is ample evidence of both
insecurity and pomp anywhere one looks, in USA and in popular Western media.

------
jakemal
Can you expand on what types of things you think we should be learning from
China?

~~~
slowenough
Sure I could but then you'd just point out exactly why that looks wrong to
you, since that seems to be what you'd like to do, so what would be the point?

It only works when you're actually ready to listen. That's not my problem. You
get ready to learn on your own time. If you're resisting there's no point
trying to put it in front of you so you see, since you'll just pretend you
don't see. Cherished mistaken assumptions protection and all. Okay?

~~~
jakemal
I was not asking from a standpoint of trying to tell you that you're wrong. I
was asking because it seems like a good example to take away from the article
but I'm not sure what specifically you were thinking.

~~~
slowenough
Alright, I'll take you at your word and I'll risk it, let's see what happens.

China:

\- is good at doing things. Projects in the West are smaller and take longer.

\- can take the long view. Western governments think of the next election.

\- promotes harmony and unity among its citizens. Western electorates must be
divided by emotional issues.

\- has a domestic security apparatus that's more transparent and obvious than
corresponding forces in the West.

\- has 1.4 billion people. EU has 512 million. US has 330 million.

\- learn what works from others and make it their own. Less Western students
go to China, than vice versa.

\- people emigrate everywhere, mix with everyone but still maintain their own
culture. Less Westerners migrate to China than vice versa.

\- is very safe from violent crime and terrorism. The West could emulate
China's effective law enforcement strategies.

\- has an admirable, inspiring and clear goal of striving for national
rejuvenation, a harmonious and moderately prosperous country. What admirable,
inspiring and clear goal for the future to work toward does any Western
country have?

That's some of what I think.

But I don't think it's important to you what I think. I think what's important
for you is you being _open_ to see what's already there in front of you. When
you are open to learn, you will find your own things about China that you
admire and wish the West would emulate.

~~~
philwelch
Are concentration camps one of those things?

~~~
slowenough
Sounds like so-called "concentration camps" are preventing you seeing anything
else you could learn. How useful is that for you?

Or, if you need some help to get beyond that, let me flip it around for you.
Do you disagree with an effective law-enforcement and counter-narrative
strategy for countering radical extremism?

~~~
AnimalMuppet
I disagree with _that_ law-enforcement and counter-narrative strategy for
battling radical extremism, even if it is effective.

And seeing concentration camps (or, if you prefer, re-education camps) makes
me rather hesitant about learning the rest. If what I learn is attached to re-
education camps, I'm not sure I want to learn it.

For example, social cohesion is a good thing. We could really use some of
that! But the Chinese method of achieving it ranges from the "social credit"
system to the re-education camps. Do I want social cohesion? Sure. Do I want
it that badly? No.

~~~
slowenough
They have more ways than that to create social cohesion. You'd probably see it
if you weren't blinded by the China bad hate narratives. But that's for you to
work out. You've got to open your mind on your own. It's not my responsibility
to do that for you nor even help you do that. Good luck seeing China
accurately tho, I hope you achieve that! :)

------
LudwigNagasena
It’s easy to say things like that when you live in a bubble of hypereducated
successful people and you are being myopic concentrating on your own field.

There is no shortage of heresy in modern culture: astrology, homeopathy,
creationism, dianetics, quantum mysticism, anti-aging creams and essential
oils, torsion fields, moon landing conspiracy, the Bermuda Triangle, feng shui
and yoga woo (at least in the form they are practiced in the West), conversion
therapy, graphology, anti-vax, neuro-linguistic programming, phrenology,
aryanism, etc.

I think Gavin Belsen is an apt caricature of this mindset turned up to 11, a
successful Silicone Valley entrepreneur with megalomaniac tendencies and his
own exotic, mystic and Eastern spiritual guru.

Yes, some people may cry wolf every time a new idea is presented, but
oftentimes they are right and the new idea is indeed heresy and maybe even
dangerous.

~~~
philwelch
None of that stuff is heresy. Most of it is crackpottery and kookish, but
crackpots and kooks tend to get debunked rather than shouted down. With
heretics there’s usually no attempt at good faith counterargument at all.

~~~
LudwigNagasena
Oh, sure, when you agree with something controversial, it is just society
being irrational. But when you disagree with something, it is obviously
because it is crackpottery.

Don’t you think people who are against these “heresies” have exactly the same
view?

~~~
philwelch
Did you even read my comment before replying to it?

~~~
LudwigNagasena
Yes.

~~~
philwelch
You clearly either didn’t understand it or just didn’t bother to address the
actual point I was making, so I couldn’t tell.

~~~
LudwigNagasena
Have you ever seen a person who believes in such things? They think they are
being rational and society just shouts them down. Sometimes it is even true
(obviously, society can’t debate the same things over and over, it would be
ridiculous to have a discussion on whether rape is bad in prime time every
week or so). The most obvious modern examples that makes it into news is the
amount of racists, neonazis and misogynists who claim that they just want a
debate and a public outcry from a big group of people to deplatform them to
the point that they have to pay massive amounts of security fees when they
make public speeches.

I have addressed your point but it seems you didn’t get, maybe I wasn’t clear
enough, I hope in hindsight you will see what I meant.

Or look at moon landing conspiracy, or 9/11 conspiracy, people gather massive
amount of evidence to support their claims. Simply applying a bit of empathy
and retrospection should make you understand what’s the problem what you are
saying.

~~~
philwelch
There are actual, fact-based debunkings of moon landing conspiracies,
creationism, astrology, etc. That was my entire point and what makes these
cases different from the evolution controversy or Lysenkoism.

~~~
LudwigNagasena
Have you read the link?

------
rtx
I wonder if this could be applied to anti vaccination crowd.

~~~
huffmsa
The corollary is that your heresy needs to ultimately have an empirical basis
which can explain the phenomenon in question better than the existing dogma.

