Paul GrahamModify

2025-01-01 08:00:00

2025年1月 “伪善者”这个词现在并不常见，但如果你查阅其定义，听起来会很熟悉。谷歌的解释并不差： 一个自以为是地道德主义的人，表现得好像比别人更优越。 这个词的这种含义起源于18世纪，而它的年代是一个重要的线索：这表明尽管“觉醒主义”是一种相对较新的现象，但它实际上是更古老的一种现象的实例。 有一种特定类型的人被浅薄而严苛的道德纯洁所吸引，并通过攻击那些违反规则的人来展示自己的纯洁。每个社会都有这样的人。唯一改变的是他们所执行的规则。在维多利亚时代的英国，这指的是基督教的美德；在斯大林的俄国，这指的是正统的马克思主义-列宁主义。对于“觉醒者”而言，这指的是社会正义。 因此，如果你想理解“觉醒主义”，你应提出的问题不是为什么人们会这样行事。每个社会都有伪善者。真正需要问的是，为什么我们的伪善者现在对这些理念如此敏感。要回答这个问题，我们必须弄清楚“觉醒主义”是从什么时候开始的。 第一个问题的答案是1980年代。觉醒主义是政治正确第二波更为激进的浪潮，它始于1980年代末，1990年代末逐渐减弱，然后在2010年代初再次爆发，并在2020年的骚乱后达到顶峰。 政治正确到底是什么？我经常被要求定义这个术语和“觉醒主义”，那些认为这些标签毫无意义的人，所以我现在来定义。它们的定义是相同的： 一种积极表现的、关注社会正义的倾向。 换句话说，就是人们以伪善的方式对待社会正义。这才是真正的问题——表现性，而不是社会正义本身。[0] 例如，提出达尔文的“男性更大变异性假说”是否是性别歧视？显然，这足以让拉里·萨默斯被哈佛大学解雇。有位女性听到他提到这个观点时，感到“身体不适”，并中途离开。如果“不友善环境”的标准是它让人感觉如何，这确实听起来像一个例子。然而，这种变异性假说似乎确实能解释人类表现的一些差异。因此，我们应让舒适感让位于真相吗？如果真相应该在任何地方占据主导地位，那它应该在大学里占据主导地位；但自1980年代末以来，政治正确就试图假装这种冲突不存在。[6] “觉醒主义”在1990年代中期似乎已经消退。其中一个原因，也许是主要原因，是它实际上变成了一个笑话。它为喜剧演员提供了丰富的素材，他们用通常的消毒手段来处理它。幽默是针对任何伪善行为最有力的武器之一，因为伪善者本身缺乏幽默感，无法以同样的方式回应。幽默曾击败维多利亚时代的伪善，到2000年左右，它似乎也成功地击败了政治正确。 但不幸的是，这只是一个幻觉。在大学里，政治正确的余烬依然在燃烧。毕竟，创造它的力量仍然存在。那些最初提出政治正确的教授们现在成为了系主任和部门负责人。此外，除了原有的系别，现在还出现了一些明确以社会正义为宗旨的新部门。学生们仍然渴望有道德纯洁的对象。而且，大学管理人员的数量也大幅增加，其中许多人的工作就是执行各种形式的政治正确。 “觉醒主义”兴起的另一个因素是黑人生活运动，它始于2013年，当时一名白人男子在佛罗里达州谋杀了一名黑人青少年后被无罪释放。但这一运动并没有启动“觉醒主义”；到2013年，“觉醒主义”已经发展得相当成熟。 同样，2017年“Me Too”运动的兴起，尽管它加速了“觉醒主义”的发展，但并没有像1980年代版本那样启动政治正确。2016年特朗普当选总统也加速了“觉醒主义”，尤其是在媒体界，因为愤怒意味着流量。特朗普让《纽约时报》赚了很多钱：在他的第一个任期内，他的名字在头版出现的频率是以往总统的四倍。 2020年，我们见证了最大的加速因素，当一名白人警察在视频中窒息了一名黑人嫌疑人后，引发了美国各地的暴力抗议。此时，象征性的火焰变成了真实的火焰。但回顾起来，这似乎就是“觉醒主义”的顶峰，或者接近顶峰。根据我所看到的所有指标，觉醒主义在2020年或2021年达到顶峰。 “觉醒主义”有时被描述为一种思想病毒。它之所以具有传染性，是因为它定义了新的不当行为类型。大多数人害怕不当行为；他们从不确切知道社会规则是什么，或者他们可能违反了哪些规则。尤其是当规则迅速变化时。而且，由于大多数人本来就担心自己可能违反了未知的规则，如果你告诉他们他们违反了规则，他们的默认反应就是相信你。尤其是当多个人告诉他们时，这就会导致指数级增长。狂热者发明一些新的不当行为以避免，第一批采用它的人是其他狂热者，他们渴望用新的方式来展示自己的道德优越性。如果这些狂热者足够多，那么最初的群体就会被一个更大的群体所跟随，这个群体只是出于恐惧而行动。他们不是在试图展示道德优越性，而是在试图避免麻烦。此时，这种新的不当行为就牢固地确立下来了。此外，它的成功还增加了社会规则的变化速度，而记住，规则的变化速度是人们担心自己可能违反规则的原因之一。因此，这个循环加速了。 对于个人而言，这种情况是如此，对于组织也是如此。尤其是那些没有强大领导者的组织。这样的组织会根据“最佳实践”行事。没有更高的权威；如果某种新的“最佳实践”达到临界点，他们就必须采用它。在这种情况下，组织不能像以前那样犹豫不决：它可能正在犯下不当行为！因此，一个小型的狂热群体可以轻松地控制这种类型的组织。 这些狂热者并不总是处于暴动状态。通常，他们只是执行手边的随机规则。只有当某种新意识形态同时让大量狂热者朝同一方向行动时，他们才会变得危险。这在文化大革命期间发生过，而在我们经历的两次政治正确浪潮中则程度较轻（感谢上帝）。 我们无法消除这些狂热者。[18] 即使我们想阻止人们创造新的意识形态来吸引他们，我们也无法做到这一点。因此，如果我们想将他们控制住，就必须从下游着手。幸运的是，当这些狂热者开始暴动时，他们总是会做一件事暴露自己：他们定义新的异端以惩罚人们。因此，防止未来出现类似“觉醒主义”的现象的最佳方式是建立强大的抗体来对抗异端概念。 我们应该有意识地抵制定义新的异端形式。每当有人试图禁止我们以前可以表达的内容时，我们的初步假设应该是他们错了。当然，这只是初步假设。如果他们能证明我们不应该说这些内容，那么我们就应该停止。但证明的责任在他们身上。在自由民主国家，试图阻止某些言论的人通常声称他们不是仅仅进行审查，而是试图防止某种形式的“伤害”。也许他们是对的。但再次强调，证明的责任在他们身上。仅仅声称有伤害是不够的；他们必须证明这一点。 只要这些狂热者继续通过禁止异端来暴露自己，我们就能始终察觉到他们何时会围绕某种新意识形态团结一致。如果我们总是在这个时候反击，也许就能阻止他们。 我们不能说的真正的事情数量不应增加。如果它增加了，那就说明有问题。 注释 [0] 这并不是“woke”一词的原始含义，但现在很少有人使用原始意义。现在，“woke”这个词的贬义用法占主导地位。 [1] 为什么1960年代的激进分子专注于他们所关注的事业？一位审阅本文草稿的人解释得非常好，以至于我问他是否可以引用他的话： 新左派的中产阶级学生抗议者将社会主义/马克思主义左派视为不够酷。他们对文化分析揭示的更性感的压迫形式（如马尔库塞）和抽象的“理论”感兴趣。劳动政治变得陈旧和过时。这需要几代人的时间才能完成。觉醒主义意识形态对无产阶级缺乏兴趣是明显的迹象。那些仍然在旧左派左翼的人是反觉醒的，同时真正的无产阶级转向了民粹主义右翼，从而带来了特朗普。特朗普和觉醒主义是表兄弟。 觉醒主义的中产阶级起源让它能够顺利进入机构，因为它对“夺取生产资料”（如今听起来多么陈旧）没有兴趣，这会迅速与强大的国家和企业权力发生冲突。觉醒主义只对其他类型的阶级（种族、性别等）表现出兴趣，这表明它与现有权力达成了妥协：给我们你在系统内的权力，我们就会将我们控制的道德正直赐予你。作为获取话语和机构控制权的思想工具，这比更激进的革命计划更有效。 [2] 人文和社会科学也包括了一些最大、最容易的本科专业。如果一个政治运动必须从物理系学生开始，它就永远无法启动；因为物理系学生太少，而且他们没有时间去参与。 然而，在顶级大学里，这些专业已经不像以前那么受欢迎了。2022年的一项调查显示，只有7%的哈佛本科生计划主修人文科学，而1970年代则是近30%。我认为觉醒主义至少部分是原因；当本科生考虑主修英语时，可能是因为他们热爱文字，而不是因为想听关于种族主义的讲座。 [3] 政治正确作为操纵者和被操纵者的角色在2016年变得明显，当时俄亥俄州奥伯林学院附近的一家面包店被错误地指控种族歧视。在随后的民事审判中，面包店的律师出示了一条来自奥伯林学生事务主任梅里迪丝·雷蒙多的短信，内容为：“如果我不确定这需要被埋葬，我就会释放学生。” [4] 觉醒者有时声称觉醒主义仅仅是尊重他人。但如果是这样的话，那就只有一个规则需要记住，而这一点与现实相差甚远。我的小儿子喜欢模仿声音，有一次他大约七岁时，我不得不解释哪些口音现在可以公开模仿，哪些不能。这花了大约十分钟，我仍然没有覆盖所有情况。 [5] 1986年，美国最高法院裁定，制造不友善的工作环境可以构成性别歧视，这反过来又通过第9条修正案影响了大学。法院规定，不友善环境的测试标准是是否会让一个合理的人感到困扰，但事实上，如果一个教授仅仅是被性骚扰指控，无论投诉人是否合理，这都会是一场灾难。因此，实际上任何与性有关的笑话或评论现在都被禁止了。这意味着我们又回到了维多利亚时代的举止规范，那时有很多事情是不能在“有女士在场”时说的。 [6] 尽管他们试图假装多样性与质量之间没有冲突，但你不可能同时优化两个不完全相同的事物。从这个词的使用来看，多样性实际上意味着比例代表性，除非你选择的群体目的是代表，比如调查受访者，否则优化比例代表性必然以质量为代价。这不是因为代表性本身的问题，而是优化的性质；优化x必然以y为代价，除非x和y是相同的。 [7] 或许社会最终会发展出对病毒式愤怒的抗体。也许我们只是第一个接触到它的人，因此它像一场流行病一样迅速席卷了我们。我相当确定可以创建新的社交媒体应用，这些应用不太依赖愤怒，而这种类型的应用有很好的机会从现有的应用中吸引用户，因为最聪明的人往往会迁移到那里。 [8] 我说“大部分”是因为我希望新闻中立性以某种形式回归。存在对无偏见新闻的市场，虽然可能很小，但其价值很高。富人和权势者想要知道真正发生了什么；这正是他们变得富有和有权势的原因。 [9] 《纽约时报》在一篇关于一位因不准确而受到批评的记者的文章中，非常随意地宣布了这一重大声明。这可能没有高级编辑批准。但某种意义上，这个宇宙以一种低沉的方式结束，而不是轰轰烈烈。 [10] 随着“DEI”缩写不再流行，许多这些官僚将试图通过更改头衔来隐匿。看起来“归属感”会是一个受欢迎的选择。 [11] 如果你曾疑惑为何我们的法律体系包含检察官、法官和陪审团的分离，以及审查证据和传唤证人的权利，以及由法律顾问代表的权利，那么第9条修正案实际上建立的实质性的平行法律体系就清楚地说明了这一点。 [12] 新的不当行为的发明在觉醒主义的术语快速演变中最为明显。这对我来说尤其令人烦恼，因为新名称总是更糟糕。任何宗教仪式都必须不便且略显荒谬；否则，非信徒也会去做。因此，“奴隶”变成了“被奴役的人”。但网络搜索可以实时展示道德成长的前沿：如果你搜索“经历奴隶制的人”，你将发现五次合法使用该短语的尝试，甚至还有两次使用“经历奴役的人”。 [13] 做可疑事情的组织尤其关注得体性，这导致了诸如烟草和石油公司拥有比特斯拉更高的ESG评级等荒谬现象。 [14] 伊隆还做了另一件事，使推特向右倾斜：他提高了付费用户的可见度。付费用户通常偏向右翼，因为极端左翼的人不喜欢伊隆，也不愿意给他钱。伊隆显然知道这会发生。另一方面，极端左翼的人只怪他们自己；如果他们想，他们明天就可以让推特回到左翼。 [15] 它甚至，正如詹姆斯·林迪和彼得·博戈西安指出的那样，具有类似基督教的原罪概念：特权。这意味着与基督教的平等版本不同，人们拥有不同程度的特权。一个身体健全的白人男性美国人出生时就背负着如此沉重的罪孽，只有通过最彻底的悔改才能得救。 觉醒主义也与许多实际的基督教版本有某种有趣的相似之处：就像上帝一样，觉醒主义所声称为之行动的人往往对以他们名义所做的事情感到反感。 [16] 有一个例外：真正的宗教组织。它们坚持正统是合理的。但它们反过来应该声明自己是宗教组织。当一个看似普通的企业或出版物被发现实际上是宗教组织时，这被认为是可疑的。 [17] 我不想让人觉得回退觉醒主义会很简单。有些地方的斗争不可避免地会变得混乱——尤其是在大学里，所有人都必须共享，但目前大学是任何机构中最被“觉醒主义”渗透的。 [18] 你可以在一个组织内部消除这些积极的常规主义者，而且在许多组织中，这将是一个好主意。甚至连少数人也能造成很大损害。我相信从少数人到零会有一种明显的改善。
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January 2025

The word "prig" isn't very common now, but if you look up the definition, it will sound familiar. Google's isn't bad:

A self-righteously moralistic person who behaves as if superior to others.

This sense of the word originated in the 18th century, and its age is an important clue: it shows that although wokeness is a comparatively recent phenomenon, it's an instance of a much older one.

There's a certain kind of person who's attracted to a shallow, exacting kind of moral purity, and who demonstrates his purity by attacking anyone who breaks the rules. Every society has these people. All that changes is the rules they enforce. In Victorian England it was Christian virtue. In Stalin's Russia it was orthodox Marxism-Leninism. For the woke, it's social justice.

So if you want to understand wokeness, the question to ask is not why people behave this way. Every society has prigs. The question to ask is why our prigs are priggish about these ideas, at this moment. And to answer that we have to ask when and where wokeness began.

The answer to the first question is the 1980s. Wokeness is a second, more aggressive wave of political correctness, which started in the late 1980s, died down in the late 1990s, and then returned with a vengeance in the early 2010s, finally peaking after the riots of 2020.

What was political correctness, exactly? I'm often asked to define both this term and wokeness by people who think they're meaningless labels, so I will. They both have the same definition:

An aggressively performative focus on social justice.

In other words, it's people being prigs about social justice. And that's the real problem — the performativeness, not the social justice. [0]

Racism, for example, is a genuine problem. Not a problem on the scale that the woke believe it to be, but a genuine one. I don't think any reasonable person would deny that. The problem with political correctness was not that it focused on marginalized groups, but the shallow, aggressive way in which it did so. Instead of going out into the world and quietly helping members of marginalized groups, the politically correct focused on getting people in trouble for using the wrong words to talk about them.

As for where political correctness began, if you think about it, you probably already know the answer. Did it begin outside universities and spread to them from this external source? Obviously not; it has always been most extreme in universities. So where in universities did it begin? Did it begin in math, or the hard sciences, or engineering, and spread from there to the humanities and social sciences? Those are amusing images, but no, obviously it began in the humanities and social sciences.

Why there? And why then? What happened in the humanities and social sciences in the 1980s?

A successful theory of the origin of political correctness has to be able to explain why it didn't happen earlier. Why didn't it happen during the protest movements of the 1960s, for example? They were concerned with much the same issues. [1]

The reason the student protests of the 1960s didn't lead to political correctness was precisely that — they were student movements. They didn't have any real power. The students may have been talking a lot about women's liberation and black power, but it was not what they were being taught in their classes. Not yet.

But in the early 1970s the student protestors of the 1960s began to finish their dissertations and get hired as professors. At first they were neither powerful nor numerous. But as more of their peers joined them and the previous generation of professors started to retire, they gradually became both.

The reason political correctness began in the humanities and social sciences was that these fields offered more scope for the injection of politics. A 1960s radical who got a job as a physics professor could still attend protests, but his political beliefs wouldn't affect his work. Whereas research in sociology and modern literature can be made as political as you like. [2]

I saw political correctness arise. When I started college in 1982 it was not yet a thing. Female students might object if someone said something they considered sexist, but no one was getting reported for it. It was still not a thing when I started grad school in 1986. It was definitely a thing in 1988 though, and by the early 1990s it seemed to pervade campus life.

What happened? How did protest become punishment? Why were the late 1980s the point at which protests against male chauvinism (as it used to be called) morphed into formal complaints to university authorities about sexism? Basically, the 1960s radicals got tenure. They became the Establishment they'd protested against two decades before. Now they were in a position not just to speak out about their ideas, but to enforce them.

A new set of moral rules to enforce was exciting news to a certain kind of student. What made it particularly exciting was that they were allowed to attack professors. I remember noticing that aspect of political correctness at the time. It wasn't simply a grass-roots student movement. It was faculty members encouraging students to attack other faculty members. In that respect it was like the Cultural Revolution. That wasn't a grass-roots movement either; that was Mao unleashing the younger generation on his political opponents. And in fact when Roderick MacFarquhar started teaching a class on the Cultural Revolution at Harvard in the late 1980s, many saw it as a comment on current events. I don't know if it actually was, but people thought it was, and that means the similarities were obvious. [3]

College students larp. It's their nature. It's usually harmless. But larping morality turned out to be a poisonous combination. The result was a kind of moral etiquette, superficial but very complicated. Imagine having to explain to a well-meaning visitor from another planet why using the phrase "people of color" is considered particularly enlightened, but saying "colored people" gets you fired. And why exactly one isn't supposed to use the word "negro" now, even though Martin Luther King used it constantly in his speeches. There are no underlying principles. You'd just have to give him a long list of rules to memorize. [4]

The danger of these rules was not just that they created land mines for the unwary, but that their elaborateness made them an effective substitute for virtue. Whenever a society has a concept of heresy and orthodoxy, orthodoxy becomes a substitute for virtue. You can be the worst person in the world, but as long as you're orthodox you're better than everyone who isn't. This makes orthodoxy very attractive to bad people.

But for it to work as a substitute for virtue, orthodoxy must be difficult. If all you have to do to be orthodox is wear some garment or avoid saying some word, everyone knows to do it, and the only way to seem more virtuous than other people is to actually be virtuous. The shallow, complicated, and frequently changing rules of political correctness made it the perfect substitute for actual virtue. And the result was a world in which good people who weren't up to date on current moral fashions were brought down by people whose characters would make you recoil in horror if you could see them.

One big contributing factor in the rise of political correctness was the lack of other things to be morally pure about. Previous generations of prigs had been prigs mostly about religion and sex. But among the cultural elite these were the deadest of dead letters by the 1980s; if you were religious, or a virgin, this was something you tended to conceal rather than advertise. So the sort of people who enjoy being moral enforcers had become starved of things to enforce. A new set of rules was just what they'd been waiting for.

Curiously enough, the tolerant side of the 1960s left helped create the conditions in which the intolerant side prevailed. The relaxed social rules advocated by the old, easy-going hippy left became the dominant ones, at least among the elite, and this left nothing for the naturally intolerant to be intolerant about.

Another possibly contributing factor was the fall of the Soviet empire. Marxism had been a popular focus of moral purity on the left before political correctness emerged as a competitor, but the pro-democracy movements in Eastern Bloc countries took most of the shine off it. Especially the fall of the Berlin Wall in 1989. You couldn't be on the side of the Stasi. I remember looking at the moribund Soviet Studies section of a used bookshop in Cambridge in the late 1980s and thinking "what will those people go on about now?" As it turned out the answer was right under my nose.

One thing I noticed at the time about the first phase of political correctness was that it was more popular with women than men. As many writers (perhaps most eloquently George Orwell) have observed, women seem more attracted than men to the idea of being moral enforcers. But there was another more specific reason women tended to be the enforcers of political correctness. There was at this time a great backlash against sexual harassment; the mid 1980s were the point when the definition of sexual harassment was expanded from explicit sexual advances to creating a "hostile environment." Within universities the classic form of accusation was for a (female) student to say that a professor made her "feel uncomfortable." But the vagueness of this accusation allowed the radius of forbidden behavior to expand to include talking about heterodox ideas. Those make people uncomfortable too. [5]

Was it sexist to propose that Darwin's greater male variability hypothesis might explain some variation in human performance? Sexist enough to get Larry Summers pushed out as president of Harvard, apparently. One woman who heard the talk in which he mentioned this idea said it made her feel "physically ill" and that she had to leave halfway through. If the test of a hostile environment is how it makes people feel, this certainly sounds like one. And yet it does seem plausible that greater male variability explains some of the variation in human performance. So which should prevail, comfort or truth? Surely if truth should prevail anywhere, it should be in universities; that's supposed to be their specialty; but for decades starting in the late 1980s the politically correct tried to pretend this conflict didn't exist. [6]

Political correctness seemed to burn out in the second half of the 1990s. One reason, perhaps the main reason, was that it literally became a joke. It offered rich material for comedians, who performed their usual disinfectant action upon it. Humor is one of the most powerful weapons against priggishness of any sort, because prigs, being humorless, can't respond in kind. Humor was what defeated Victorian prudishness, and by 2000 it seemed to have done the same thing to political correctness.

Unfortunately this was an illusion. Within universities the embers of political correctness were still glowing brightly. After all, the forces that created it were still there. The professors who started it were now becoming deans and department heads. And in addition to their departments there were now a bunch of new ones explicitly focused on social justice. Students were still hungry for things to be morally pure about. And there had been an explosion in the number of university administrators, many of whose jobs involved enforcing various forms of political correctness.

In the early 2010s the embers of political correctness burst into flame anew. There were several differences between this new phase and the original one. It was more virulent. It spread further into the real world, although it still burned hottest within universities. And it was concerned with a wider variety of sins. In the first phase of political correctness there were really only three things people got accused of: sexism, racism, and homophobia (which at the time was a neologism invented for the purpose). But between then and 2010 a lot of people had spent a lot of time trying to invent new kinds of -isms and -phobias and seeing which could be made to stick.

The second phase was, in multiple senses, political correctness metastasized. Why did it happen when it did? My guess is that it was due to the rise of social media, particularly Tumblr and Twitter, because one of the most distinctive features of the second wave of political correctness was the cancel mob: a mob of angry people uniting on social media to get someone ostracized or fired. Indeed this second wave of political correctness was originally called "cancel culture"; it didn't start to be called "wokeness" till the 2020s.

One aspect of social media that surprised almost everyone at first was the popularity of outrage. Users seemed to like being outraged. We're so used to this idea now that we take it for granted, but really it's pretty strange. Being outraged is not a pleasant feeling. You wouldn't expect people to seek it out. But they do. And above all, they want to share it. I happened to be running a forum from 2007 to 2014, so I can actually quantify how much they want to share it: our users were about three times more likely to upvote something if it outraged them.

This tilt toward outrage wasn't due to wokeness. It's an inherent feature of social media, or at least this generation of it. But it did make social media the perfect mechanism for fanning the flames of wokeness. [7]

It wasn't just public social networks that drove the rise of wokeness though. Group chat apps were also critical, especially in the final step, cancellation. Imagine if a group of employees trying to get someone fired had to do it using only email. It would be hard to organize a mob. But once you have group chat, mobs form naturally.

Another contributing factor in this second wave of political correctness was the dramatic increase in the polarization of the press. In the print era, newspapers were constrained to be, or at least seem, politically neutral. The department stores that ran ads in the New York Times wanted to reach everyone in the region, both liberal and conservative, so the Times had to serve both. But the Times didn't regard this neutrality as something forced upon them. They embraced it as their duty as a paper of record — as one of the big newspapers that aimed to be chronicles of their times, reporting every sufficiently important story from a neutral point of view.

When I grew up the papers of record seemed timeless, almost sacred institutions. Papers like the New York Times and Washington Post had immense prestige, partly because other sources of news were limited, but also because they did make some effort to be neutral.

Unfortunately it turned out that the paper of record was mostly an artifact of the constraints imposed by print. [8] When your market was determined by geography, you had to be neutral. But publishing online enabled — in fact probably forced — newspapers to switch to serving markets defined by ideology instead of geography. Most that remained in business fell in the direction they'd already been leaning: left. On October 11, 2020 the New York Times announced that "The paper is in the midst of an evolution from the stodgy paper of record into a juicy collection of great narratives." [9] Meanwhile journalists, of a sort, had arisen to serve the right as well. And so journalism, which in the previous era had been one of the great centralizing forces, now became one of the great polarizing ones.

The rise of social media and the increasing polarization of journalism reinforced one another. In fact there arose a new variety of journalism involving a loop through social media. Someone would say something controversial on social media. Within hours it would become a news story. Outraged readers would then post links to the story on social media, driving further arguments online. It was the cheapest source of clicks imaginable. You didn't have to maintain overseas news bureaus or pay for month-long investigations. All you had to do was watch Twitter for controversial remarks and repost them on your site, with some additional comments to inflame readers further.

For the press there was money in wokeness. But they weren't the only ones. That was one of the biggest differences between the two waves of political correctness: the first was driven almost entirely by amateurs, but the second was often driven by professionals. For some it was their whole job. By 2010 a new class of administrators had arisen whose job was basically to enforce wokeness. They played a role similar to that of the political commissars who got attached to military and industrial organizations in the USSR: they weren't directly in the flow of the organization's work, but watched from the side to ensure that nothing improper happened in the doing of it. These new administrators could often be recognized by the word "inclusion" in their titles. Within institutions this was the preferred euphemism for wokeness; a new list of banned words, for example, would usually be called an "inclusive language guide." [10]

This new class of bureaucrats pursued a woke agenda as if their jobs depended on it, because they did. If you hire people to keep watch for a particular type of problem, they're going to find it, because otherwise there's no justification for their existence. [11] But these bureaucrats also represented a second and possibly even greater danger. Many were involved in hiring, and when possible they tried to ensure their employers hired only people who shared their political beliefs. The most egregious cases were the new "DEI statements" that some universities started to require from faculty candidates, proving their commitment to wokeness. Some universities used these statements as the initial filter and only even considered candidates who scored high enough on them. You're not hiring Einstein that way; imagine what you get instead.

Another factor in the rise of wokeness was the Black Lives Matter movement, which started in 2013 when a white man was acquitted after killing a black teenager in Florida. But this didn't launch wokeness; it was well underway by 2013.

Similarly for the Me Too Movement, which took off in 2017 after the first news stories about Harvey Weinstein's history of raping women. It accelerated wokeness, but didn't play the same role in launching it that the 80s version did in launching political correctness.

The election of Donald Trump in 2016 also accelerated wokeness, particularly in the press, where outrage now meant traffic. Trump made the New York Times a lot of money: headlines during his first administration mentioned his name at about four times the rate of previous presidents.

In 2020 we saw the biggest accelerant of all, after a white police officer asphyxiated a black suspect on video. At this point the metaphorical fire became a literal one, as violent protests broke out across America. But in retrospect this turned out to be peak woke, or close to it. By every measure I've seen, wokeness peaked in 2020 or 2021.

Wokeness is sometimes described as a mind-virus. What makes it viral is that it defines new types of impropriety. Most people are afraid of impropriety; they're never exactly sure what the social rules are or which ones they might be breaking. Especially if the rules change rapidly. And since most people already worry that they might be breaking rules they don't know about, if you tell them they're breaking a rule, their default reaction is to believe you. Especially if multiple people tell them. Which in turn is a recipe for exponential growth. Zealots invent some new impropriety to avoid. The first people to adopt it are fellow zealots, eager for new ways to signal their virtue. If there are enough of these, the initial group of zealots is followed by a much larger group, motivated by fear. They're not trying to signal virtue; they're just trying to avoid getting in trouble. At this point the new impropriety is now firmly established. Plus its success has increased the rate of change in social rules, which, remember, is one of the reasons people are nervous about which rules they might be breaking. So the cycle accelerates. [12]

What's true of individuals is even more true of organizations. Especially organizations without a powerful leader. Such organizations do everything based on "best practices." There's no higher authority; if some new "best practice" achieves critical mass, they must adopt it. And in this case the organization can't do what it usually does when it's uncertain: delay. It might be committing improprieties right now! So it's surprisingly easy for a small group of zealots to capture this type of organization by describing new improprieties it might be guilty of. [13]

How does this kind of cycle ever end? Eventually it leads to disaster, and people start to say enough is enough. The excesses of 2020 made a lot of people say that.

Since then wokeness has been in gradual but continual retreat. Corporate CEOs, starting with Brian Armstrong, have openly rejected it. Universities, led by the University of Chicago and MIT, have explicitly confirmed their commitment to free speech. Twitter, which was arguably the hub of wokeness, was bought by Elon Musk in order to neutralize it, and he seems to have succeeded — and not, incidentally, by censoring left-wing users the way Twitter used to censor right-wing ones, but without censoring either. [14] Consumers have emphatically rejected brands that ventured too far into wokeness. The Bud Light brand may have been permanently damaged by it. I'm not going to claim Trump's second victory in 2024 was a referendum on wokeness; I think he won, as presidential candidates always do, because he was more charismatic; but voters' disgust with wokeness must have helped.

So what do we do now? Wokeness is already in retreat. Obviously we should help it along. What's the best way to do that? And more importantly, how do we avoid a third outbreak? After all, it seemed to be dead once, but came back worse than ever.

In fact there's an even more ambitious goal: is there a way to prevent any similar outbreak of aggressively performative moralism in the future — not just a third outbreak of political correctness, but the next thing like it? Because there will be a next thing. Prigs are prigs by nature. They need rules to obey and enforce, and now that Darwin has cut off their traditional supply of rules, they're constantly hungry for new ones. All they need is someone to meet them halfway by defining a new way to be morally pure, and we'll see the same phenomenon again.

Let's start with the easier problem. Is there a simple, principled way to deal with wokeness? I think there is: to use the customs we already have for dealing with religion. Wokeness is effectively a religion, just with God replaced by protected classes. It's not even the first religion of this kind; Marxism had a similar form, with God replaced by the masses. [15] And we already have well-established customs for dealing with religion within organizations. You can express your own religious identity and explain your beliefs, but you can't call your coworkers infidels if they disagree, or try to ban them from saying things that contradict its doctrines, or insist that the organization adopt yours as its official religion.

If we're not sure what to do about any particular manifestation of wokeness, imagine we were dealing with some other religion, like Christianity. Should we have people within organizations whose jobs are to enforce woke orthodoxy? No, because we wouldn't have people whose jobs were to enforce Christian orthodoxy. Should we censor writers or scientists whose work contradicts woke doctrines? No, because we wouldn't do this to people whose work contradicted Christian teachings. Should job candidates be required to write DEI statements? Of course not; imagine an employer requiring proof of one's religious beliefs. Should students and employees have to participate in woke indoctrination sessions in which they're required to answer questions about their beliefs to ensure compliance? No, because we wouldn't dream of catechizing people in this way about their religion. [16]

One shouldn't feel bad about not wanting to watch woke movies any more than one would feel bad about not wanting to listen to Christian rock. In my twenties I drove across America several times, listening to local radio stations. Occasionally I'd turn the dial and hear some new song. But the moment anyone mentioned Jesus I'd turn the dial again. Even the tiniest bit of being preached to was enough to make me lose interest.

But by the same token we should not automatically reject everything the woke believe. I'm not a Christian, but I can see that many Christian principles are good ones. It would be a mistake to discard them all just because one didn't share the religion that espoused them. It would be the sort of thing a religious zealot would do.

If we have genuine pluralism, I think we'll be safe from future outbreaks of woke intolerance. Wokeness itself won't go away. There will for the foreseeable future continue to be pockets of woke zealots inventing new moral fashions. The key is not to let them treat their fashions as normative. They can change what their coreligionists are allowed to say every few months if they like, but they mustn't be allowed to change what we're allowed to say. [17]

The more general problem — how to prevent similar outbreaks of aggressively performative moralism — is of course harder. Here we're up against human nature. There will always be prigs. And in particular there will always be the enforcers among them, the aggressively conventional-minded. These people are born that way. Every society has them. So the best we can do is to keep them bottled up.

The aggressively conventional-minded aren't always on the rampage. Usually they just enforce whatever random rules are nearest to hand. They only become dangerous when some new ideology gets a lot of them pointed in the same direction at once. That's what happened during the Cultural Revolution, and to a lesser extent (thank God) in the two waves of political correctness we've experienced.

We can't get rid of the aggressively conventional-minded. [18] And we couldn't prevent people from creating new ideologies that appealed to them even if we wanted to. So if we want to keep them bottled up, we have to do it one step downstream. Fortunately when the aggressively conventional-minded go on the rampage they always do one thing that gives them away: they define new heresies to punish people for. So the best way to protect ourselves from future outbreaks of things like wokeness is to have powerful antibodies against the concept of heresy.

We should have a conscious bias against defining new forms of heresy. Whenever anyone tries to ban saying something that we'd previously been able to say, our initial assumption should be that they're wrong. Only our initial assumption of course. If they can prove we should stop saying it, then we should. But the burden of proof is on them. In liberal democracies, people trying to prevent something from being said will usually claim they're not merely engaging in censorship, but trying to prevent some form of "harm". And maybe they're right. But once again, the burden of proof is on them. It's not enough to claim harm; they have to prove it.

As long as the aggressively conventional-minded continue to give themselves away by banning heresies, we'll always be able to notice when they become aligned behind some new ideology. And if we always fight back at that point, with any luck we can stop them in their tracks.

The number of true things we can't say should not increase. If it does, something is wrong.

Notes

[0] This was not the original meaning of "woke," but it's rarely used in the original sense now. Now the pejorative sense is the dominant one.

[1] Why did 1960s radicals focus on the causes they did? One of the people who reviewed drafts of this essay explained this so well that I asked if I could quote him:

The middle-class student protestors of the New Left rejected the socialist/Marxist left as unhip. They were interested in sexier forms of oppression uncovered by cultural analysis (Marcuse) and abstruse "Theory". Labor politics became stodgy and old-fashioned. This took a couple generations to work through. The woke ideology's conspicuous lack of interest in the working class is the tell-tale sign. Such fragments as are, er, left of the old left are anti-woke, and meanwhile the actual working class shifted to the populist right and gave us Trump. Trump and wokeness are cousins.

The middle-class origins of wokeness smoothed its way through the institutions because it had no interest in "seizing the means of production" (how quaint such phrases seem now), which would quickly have run up against hard state and corporate power. The fact that wokeness only expressed interest in other kinds of class (race, sex, etc) signalled compromise with existing power: give us power within your system and we'll bestow the resource we control — moral rectitude — upon you. As an ideological stalking horse for gaining control over discourse and institutions, this succeeded where a more ambitious revolutionary program would not have.

[2] It helped that the humanities and social sciences also included some of the biggest and easiest undergrad majors. If a political movement had to start with physics students, it could never get off the ground; there would be too few of them, and they wouldn't have the time to spare.

At the top universities these majors are not as big as they used to be, though. A 2022 survey found that only 7% of Harvard undergrads plan to major in the humanities, vs nearly 30% during the 1970s. I expect wokeness is at least part of the reason; when undergrads consider majoring in English, it's presumably because they love the written word and not because they want to listen to lectures about racism.

[3] The puppet-master-and-puppet character of political correctness became clearly visible when a bakery near Oberlin College was falsely accused of race discrimination in 2016. In the subsequent civil trial, lawyers for the bakery produced a text message from Oberlin Dean of Students Meredith Raimondo that read "I'd say unleash the students if I wasn't convinced this needs to be put behind us."

[4] The woke sometimes claim that wokeness is simply treating people with respect. But if it were, that would be the only rule you'd have to remember, and this is comically far from being the case. My younger son likes to imitate voices, and at one point when he was about seven I had to explain which accents it was currently safe to imitate publicly and which not. It took about ten minutes, and I still hadn't covered all the cases.

[5] In 1986 the Supreme Court ruled that creating a hostile work environment could constitute sex discrimination, which in turn affected universities via Title IX. The court specified that the test of a hostile environment was whether it would bother a reasonable person, but since for a professor merely being the subject of a sexual harassment complaint would be a disaster whether the complainant was reasonable or not, in practice any joke or remark remotely connected with sex was now effectively forbidden. Which meant we'd now come full circle to Victorian codes of behavior, when there was a large class of things that might not be said "with ladies present."

[6] Much as they tried to pretend there was no conflict between diversity and quality. But you can't simultaneously optimize for two things that aren't identical. What diversity actually means, judging from the way the term is used, is proportional representation, and unless you're selecting a group whose purpose is to be representative, like poll respondents, optimizing for proportional representation has to come at the expense of quality. This is not because of anything about representation; it's the nature of optimization; optimizing for x has to come at the expense of y unless x and y are identical.

[7] Maybe societies will eventually develop antibodies to viral outrage. Maybe we were just the first to be exposed to it, so it tore through us like an epidemic through a previously isolated population. I'm fairly confident that it would be possible to create new social media apps that were less driven by outrage, and an app of this type would have a good chance of stealing users from existing ones, because the smartest people would tend to migrate to it.

[8] I say "mostly" because I have hopes that journalistic neutrality will return in some form. There is some market for unbiased news, and while it may be small, it's valuable. The rich and powerful want to know what's really going on; that's how they became rich and powerful.

[9] The Times made this momentous announcement very informally, in passing in the middle of an article about a Times reporter who'd been criticized for inaccuracy. It's quite possible no senior editor even approved it. But it's somehow appropriate that this particular universe ended with a whimper rather than a bang.

[10] As the acronym DEI goes out of fashion, many of these bureaucrats will try to go underground by changing their titles. It looks like "belonging" will be a popular option.

[11] If you've ever wondered why our legal system includes protections like the separation of prosecutor, judge, and jury, the right to examine evidence and cross-examine witnesses, and the right to be represented by legal counsel, the de facto parallel legal system established by Title IX makes that all too clear.

[12] The invention of new improprieties is most visible in the rapid evolution of woke nomenclature. This is particularly annoying to me as a writer, because the new names are always worse. Any religious observance has to be inconvenient and slightly absurd; otherwise gentiles would do it too. So "slaves" becomes "enslaved individuals." But web search can show us the leading edge of moral growth in real time: if you search for "individuals experiencing slavery" you will as of this writing find five legit attempts to use the phrase, and you'll even find two for "individuals experiencing enslavement."

[13] Organizations that do dubious things are particularly concerned with propriety, which is how you end up with absurdities like tobacco and oil companies having higher ESG ratings than Tesla.

[14] Elon did something else that tilted Twitter rightward though: he gave more visibility to paying users. Paying users lean right on average, because people on the far left dislike Elon and don't want to give him money. Elon presumably knew this would happen. On the other hand, the people on the far left have only themselves to blame; they could tilt Twitter back to the left tomorrow if they wanted to.

[15] It even, as James Lindsay and Peter Boghossian pointed out, has a concept of original sin: privilege. Which means unlike Christianity's egalitarian version, people have varying degrees of it. An able-bodied straight white American male is born with such a load of sin that only by the most abject repentance can he be saved.

Wokeness also shares something rather funny with many actual versions of Christianity: like God, the people for whose sake wokeness purports to act are often revolted by the things done in their name.

[16] There is one exception to most of these rules: actual religious organizations. It's reasonable for them to insist on orthodoxy. But they in turn should declare that they're religious organizations. It's rightly considered shady when something that appears to be an ordinary business or publication turns out to be a religious organization.

[17] I don't want to give the impression that it will be simple to roll back wokeness. There will be places where the fight inevitably gets messy — particularly within universities, which everyone has to share, yet which are currently the most pervaded by wokeness of any institutions.

[18] You can however get rid of aggressively conventional-minded people within an organization, and in many if not most organizations this would be an excellent idea. Even a handful of them can do a lot of damage. I bet you'd feel a noticeable improvement going from a handful to none.

Thanks to Sam Altman, Ben Miller, Daniel Gackle, Robin Hanson, Jessica Livingston, Greg Lukianoff, Harj Taggar, Garry Tan, and Tim Urban for reading drafts of this.

2024-10-01 08:00:00

2024年10月 我通常不愿意对技术做预测，但我觉得在这个问题上相当有把握：在几十年后，能够写作的人不会太多。 作为一名作家，你学到的最奇怪的事情之一是，有多少人难以写作。医生知道有多少人担心自己身上的痣；擅长设置电脑的人知道有多少人不行；作家知道有多少人需要帮助才能写作。 之所以有那么多人难以写作，是因为它本质上很难。要写得好，你必须清晰地思考，而清晰地思考是困难的。 然而写作却渗透到许多工作中，而且工作越有声望，越需要写作。 这两种强大的对立力量——写作的普遍期望和写作本身的不可减少的困难——制造了巨大的压力。这就是为什么一些杰出的教授最终会诉诸抄袭。这些案例中最引人注目的地方是盗窃的卑微程度。他们偷的东西通常是极其普通的套话——这种东西，任何哪怕只是写得还行的人都能轻松地写出，无需任何努力。这意味着他们连写得还行的水平都不具备。 直到最近，还没有方便的出口来缓解这两种力量造成的压力。你可以请别人代写，比如肯尼迪，或者抄袭，比如马丁·路德·金，但如果你不能购买或偷取文字，你就必须自己写。因此，几乎所有被期望写作的人都必须学会如何写作。 但现在不一样了。AI彻底改变了这个世界。几乎所有写作的压力都消失了。你可以在学校和工作中让AI代劳。 结果将是一个分为写作者和非写作者的世界。仍然会有一些人能够写作。我们中的一些人喜欢写作。但那些擅长写作和完全不会写作的人之间的中间地带将消失。不再是好作家、普通作家和不会写作的人，而只有好作家和不会写作的人。 这难道不好吗？当技术使某种技能过时，这种技能消失不常见吗？现在铁匠已经不多了，似乎也没有什么问题。 是的，这很糟糕。原因是我之前提到的：写作就是思考。事实上，有一种思考只能通过写作来完成。你无法比Leslie Lamport更清楚地表达这一点： 如果你在没有写作的情况下思考，你只是以为自己在思考。 因此，一个分为写作者和非写作者的世界比听起来更危险。它将是一个分为思考者和非思考者的世界。我知道我想要成为哪一部分，我打赌你也一样。 这种情况并非前所未有。在工业革命之前，大多数人的工作使他们变得强壮。现在如果你想变得强壮，你必须去健身房锻炼。因此，仍然会有强壮的人，但只有那些选择去锻炼的人。 写作也将会如此。仍然会有聪明的人，但只有那些选择去写作的人。
---------------

October 2024

I'm usually reluctant to make predictions about technology, but I feel fairly confident about this one: in a couple decades there won't be many people who can write.

One of the strangest things you learn if you're a writer is how many people have trouble writing. Doctors know how many people have a mole they're worried about; people who are good at setting up computers know how many people aren't; writers know how many people need help writing.

The reason so many people have trouble writing is that it's fundamentally difficult. To write well you have to think clearly, and thinking clearly is hard.

And yet writing pervades many jobs, and the more prestigious the job, the more writing it tends to require.

These two powerful opposing forces, the pervasive expectation of writing and the irreducible difficulty of doing it, create enormous pressure. This is why eminent professors often turn out to have resorted to plagiarism. The most striking thing to me about these cases is the pettiness of the thefts. The stuff they steal is usually the most mundane boilerplate — the sort of thing that anyone who was even halfway decent at writing could turn out with no effort at all. Which means they're not even halfway decent at writing.

Till recently there was no convenient escape valve for the pressure created by these opposing forces. You could pay someone to write for you, like JFK, or plagiarize, like MLK, but if you couldn't buy or steal words, you had to write them yourself. And as a result nearly everyone who was expected to write had to learn how.

Not anymore. AI has blown this world open. Almost all pressure to write has dissipated. You can have AI do it for you, both in school and at work.

The result will be a world divided into writes and write-nots. There will still be some people who can write. Some of us like it. But the middle ground between those who are good at writing and those who can't write at all will disappear. Instead of good writers, ok writers, and people who can't write, there will just be good writers and people who can't write.

Is that so bad? Isn't it common for skills to disappear when technology makes them obsolete? There aren't many blacksmiths left, and it doesn't seem to be a problem.

Yes, it's bad. The reason is something I mentioned earlier: writing is thinking. In fact there's a kind of thinking that can only be done by writing. You can't make this point better than Leslie Lamport did:

If you're thinking without writing, you only think you're thinking.

So a world divided into writes and write-nots is more dangerous than it sounds. It will be a world of thinks and think-nots. I know which half I want to be in, and I bet you do too.

This situation is not unprecedented. In preindustrial times most people's jobs made them strong. Now if you want to be strong, you work out. So there are still strong people, but only those who choose to be.

It will be the same with writing. There will still be smart people, but only those who choose to be.

Thanks to Jessica Livingston, Ben Miller, and Robert Morris for reading drafts of this.

2024-09-01 08:00:00

2024年9月 上周在YC活动上，Brian Chesky做了一场演讲，所有在场的人都会记得。我之后与大多数创始人交谈，他们都说这是他们听过的最好的演讲。Ron Conway一生中第一次忘了做笔记。我不会在这里尝试复述他的演讲内容。相反，我想谈谈它引发的一个问题。 Brian演讲的主题是，关于如何经营大型公司的传统智慧是错误的。随着Airbnb的发展，那些出于好意的人建议他必须按照某种方式来经营公司才能实现规模化。他们的建议可以乐观地总结为“雇佣优秀的人并给他们发挥的空间”。他遵循了这些建议，但结果却很糟糕。因此，他不得不自己摸索出更好的方法，部分是通过研究Steve Jobs如何经营苹果公司。到目前为止，这种方法似乎有效。Airbnb的自由现金流利润率现在是硅谷中最好的之一。 参加此次活动的听众中有很多我们资助过的最成功的创始人，他们一个接一个地表示，同样的事情也发生在他们身上。他们曾被给予同样的建议，关于如何在公司发展时进行管理，但这些建议反而损害了他们的公司。 为什么所有人都在告诉这些创始人错误的事情？这对我来说是个大谜。经过一些思考后，我得出了答案：他们被告诉的是如何经营一家自己没有创立的公司——如何作为职业经理人来经营公司。但这种模式对创始人来说效果要差得多，因此他们觉得它出了问题。创始人可以做经理做不到的事情，而没有做这些事情则让创始人感到不安，因为确实如此。 实际上，存在两种不同的公司管理模式：创始人模式和经理模式。直到现在，即使是硅谷的人，也隐含地认为创业公司的规模化意味着切换到经理模式。但我们可以通过那些尝试过这种模式的创始人所表现出的沮丧，以及他们摆脱这种模式后取得的成功，推断出另一种模式的存在。 据我所知，目前还没有专门关于创始人模式的书籍。商学院也不了解它的存在。到目前为止，我们只有个别创始人通过自己的摸索来尝试理解这种模式。但现在我们已经知道要寻找什么了，可以开始寻找。我希望在几年后，创始人模式能像经理模式一样被广泛理解。我们已经可以猜测它的一些不同之处。 经理们被教导如何经营公司，似乎类似于模块化设计，即把组织架构图中的子树当作黑箱来处理。你告诉你的直接下属该做什么，而他们则负责如何去做。但你不会介入他们具体做什么的细节。那样做就是对他们进行微观管理，这是不好的。 “雇佣优秀的人并给他们发挥的空间。”听起来不错，对吧？但根据创始人报告的实际情况，这往往意味着：雇佣职业伪装者，并让他们把公司带入困境。 我注意到，无论是Brian的演讲，还是之后与创始人的交谈中，都提到了一个主题，即被操控认知。创始人感觉他们被两边操控认知——一边是那些告诉他们必须像经理一样经营公司的人，另一边是那些在他们尝试这样做时为他们工作的员工。通常情况下，当周围的人都不同意你时，你的默认假设应该是你错了。但这是极为罕见的例外。风险投资家如果没有创业经验，就不知道创始人应该如何经营公司，而高管阶层中则包含着世界上最擅长操纵上级的人之一。 无论创始人模式包含什么内容，很明显它会打破一个原则，即CEO只能通过直接下属来参与公司运营。取而代之的将是“跨级会议”成为常态，而不是一种如此罕见以至于需要专门命名的做法。一旦你放弃这种限制，就有无数种可能的组合方式。 例如，Steve Jobs过去每年都会举办一次“退伍军人”会议，他认为这是苹果公司中最重要的100个人，而这些人并不是组织架构图中排名最高的100人。你能想象在普通公司中这样做需要多大的意志力吗？然而，想象一下这种做法可能有多大的用处。它可以让大公司感觉像初创公司一样。Steve显然不会持续举办这些会议，如果它们没有效果的话。但我不曾听说过其他公司也这样做。因此，这是否是个好主意，还是坏主意？我们仍然不清楚。这正是我们对创始人模式了解甚少的体现。 显然，创始人无法继续像公司只有20人时那样来经营一家拥有2000人的公司。因此，必须进行一定程度的授权。自主权的边界在哪里，以及这些边界有多清晰，可能因公司而异。甚至在同一公司中，随着时间推移，随着经理们赢得信任，这些边界也会发生变化。因此，创始人模式将比经理模式更为复杂。但与此同时，它也会更有效。我们已经从个别创始人摸索出这种模式的例子中得知这一点。 事实上，我关于创始人模式的另一个预测是，一旦我们弄清楚它到底是什么，就会发现许多创始人已经接近这种模式了——只是他们所做的事被许多人视为古怪，甚至更糟。 有趣的是，我们对创始人模式仍然知之甚少，这本身就是一个令人鼓舞的迹象。看看创始人已经取得的成就，而他们却是在坏建议的阻力下做到的。想象一下，一旦我们能告诉他们如何像Steve Jobs而不是John Sculley那样经营公司，他们将会取得怎样的成就。 注释 【1】更委婉的说法是，经验丰富的高管通常非常擅长向上管理。我认为没有人会否认这一点。 【2】如果这种“退伍军人”会议的做法变得如此普遍，以至于即使是被政治主导的成熟公司也开始采用，我们就可以通过邀请人员在组织图中的平均层级深度来量化公司老化程度。 【3】我还有一项不太乐观的预测：一旦创始人模式的概念确立，人们就会开始滥用它。那些无法授权自己本应授权事务的创始人会用创始人模式作为借口。或者，非创始人的经理们可能会决定要像创始人一样行事。这可能在某种程度上奏效，但当它不起作用时，结果会很混乱；而模块化方法至少能限制一个糟糕CEO造成的损害。 感谢Brian Chesky、Patrick Collison、Ron Conway、Jessica Livingston、Elon Musk、Ryan Petersen、Harj Taggar和Garry Tan阅读了本文的初稿。
---------------

September 2024

At a YC event last week Brian Chesky gave a talk that everyone who was there will remember. Most founders I talked to afterward said it was the best they'd ever heard. Ron Conway, for the first time in his life, forgot to take notes. I'm not going to try to reproduce it here. Instead I want to talk about a question it raised.

The theme of Brian's talk was that the conventional wisdom about how to run larger companies is mistaken. As Airbnb grew, well-meaning people advised him that he had to run the company in a certain way for it to scale. Their advice could be optimistically summarized as "hire good people and give them room to do their jobs." He followed this advice and the results were disastrous. So he had to figure out a better way on his own, which he did partly by studying how Steve Jobs ran Apple. So far it seems to be working. Airbnb's free cash flow margin is now among the best in Silicon Valley.

The audience at this event included a lot of the most successful founders we've funded, and one after another said that the same thing had happened to them. They'd been given the same advice about how to run their companies as they grew, but instead of helping their companies, it had damaged them.

Why was everyone telling these founders the wrong thing? That was the big mystery to me. And after mulling it over for a bit I figured out the answer: what they were being told was how to run a company you hadn't founded — how to run a company if you're merely a professional manager. But this m.o. is so much less effective that to founders it feels broken. There are things founders can do that managers can't, and not doing them feels wrong to founders, because it is.

In effect there are two different ways to run a company: founder mode and manager mode. Till now most people even in Silicon Valley have implicitly assumed that scaling a startup meant switching to manager mode. But we can infer the existence of another mode from the dismay of founders who've tried it, and the success of their attempts to escape from it.

There are as far as I know no books specifically about founder mode. Business schools don't know it exists. All we have so far are the experiments of individual founders who've been figuring it out for themselves. But now that we know what we're looking for, we can search for it. I hope in a few years founder mode will be as well understood as manager mode. We can already guess at some of the ways it will differ.

The way managers are taught to run companies seems to be like modular design in the sense that you treat subtrees of the org chart as black boxes. You tell your direct reports what to do, and it's up to them to figure out how. But you don't get involved in the details of what they do. That would be micromanaging them, which is bad.

Hire good people and give them room to do their jobs. Sounds great when it's described that way, doesn't it? Except in practice, judging from the report of founder after founder, what this often turns out to mean is: hire professional fakers and let them drive the company into the ground.

One theme I noticed both in Brian's talk and when talking to founders afterward was the idea of being gaslit. Founders feel like they're being gaslit from both sides — by the people telling them they have to run their companies like managers, and by the people working for them when they do. Usually when everyone around you disagrees with you, your default assumption should be that you're mistaken. But this is one of the rare exceptions. VCs who haven't been founders themselves don't know how founders should run companies, and C-level execs, as a class, include some of the most skillful liars in the world. [1]

Whatever founder mode consists of, it's pretty clear that it's going to break the principle that the CEO should engage with the company only via his or her direct reports. "Skip-level" meetings will become the norm instead of a practice so unusual that there's a name for it. And once you abandon that constraint there are a huge number of permutations to choose from.

For example, Steve Jobs used to run an annual retreat for what he considered the 100 most important people at Apple, and these were not the 100 people highest on the org chart. Can you imagine the force of will it would take to do this at the average company? And yet imagine how useful such a thing could be. It could make a big company feel like a startup. Steve presumably wouldn't have kept having these retreats if they didn't work. But I've never heard of another company doing this. So is it a good idea, or a bad one? We still don't know. That's how little we know about founder mode. [2]

Obviously founders can't keep running a 2000 person company the way they ran it when it had 20. There's going to have to be some amount of delegation. Where the borders of autonomy end up, and how sharp they are, will probably vary from company to company. They'll even vary from time to time within the same company, as managers earn trust. So founder mode will be more complicated than manager mode. But it will also work better. We already know that from the examples of individual founders groping their way toward it.

Indeed, another prediction I'll make about founder mode is that once we figure out what it is, we'll find that a number of individual founders were already most of the way there — except that in doing what they did they were regarded by many as eccentric or worse. [3]

Curiously enough it's an encouraging thought that we still know so little about founder mode. Look at what founders have achieved already, and yet they've achieved this against a headwind of bad advice. Imagine what they'll do once we can tell them how to run their companies like Steve Jobs instead of John Sculley.

Notes

[1] The more diplomatic way of phrasing this statement would be to say that experienced C-level execs are often very skilled at managing up. And I don't think anyone with knowledge of this world would dispute that.

[2] If the practice of having such retreats became so widespread that even mature companies dominated by politics started to do it, we could quantify the senescence of companies by the average depth on the org chart of those invited.

[3] I also have another less optimistic prediction: as soon as the concept of founder mode becomes established, people will start misusing it. Founders who are unable to delegate even things they should will use founder mode as the excuse. Or managers who aren't founders will decide they should try to act like founders. That may even work, to some extent, but the results will be messy when it doesn't; the modular approach does at least limit the damage a bad CEO can do.

Thanks to Brian Chesky, Patrick Collison, Ron Conway, Jessica Livingston, Elon Musk, Ryan Petersen, Harj Taggar, and Garry Tan for reading drafts of this.

2024-09-01 08:00:00

2024年9月

关于是否应该“追随你的激情”这一问题存在一些争论。事实上，这个问题无法用简单的“是”或“否”来回答。有时候你应该这么做，有时候则不应该，但“应该”与“不应该”之间的界限非常复杂。唯一能给出一般性答案的方法就是去追踪它。

当人们谈论这个问题时，总有一个隐含的“而不是”。在其他条件相同的情况下，为什么你不应该去做你最感兴趣的事情？因此，即使提出这个问题，也意味着其他条件并不相同，你必须在做你最感兴趣的事情和做其他事情（比如赚钱最多的事情）之间做出选择。

确实，如果你的主要目标是赚钱，你通常无法负担去做你最感兴趣的事情。人们支付你是为了让你做他们想要的事情，而不是你想要的事情。但有一个明显的例外：当你和雇主对同一件事有相同的兴趣时。例如，如果你热爱足球，并且足够优秀，你就可以通过踢球赚到很多钱。

当然，在像足球这样的领域，你成功的几率很低，因为有太多人也喜欢踢球。但这并不意味着你不应该尝试。它取决于你具备多少能力以及你愿意付出多少努力。

当你拥有奇特的品味时，成功的几率会更高：当你喜欢的是那些报酬丰厚但很少有人喜欢的事情。例如，比尔·盖茨显然真正热爱创办软件公司。他不仅仅热爱编程，虽然很多人也热爱编程，他更热爱为客户提供软件服务。这是一种非常奇特的品味，但如果你拥有它，通过满足这种兴趣你可以赚到很多钱。

甚至有一些人对赚钱本身有真正的智力兴趣。这与单纯的贪婪不同。他们总是忍不住注意到某些东西被错误定价，并忍不住采取行动。这对他们来说就像一个谜题。[1]

事实上，这里存在一个非常特殊的边缘案例，它会颠覆前面所有的建议。如果你想赚取巨额财富——数百万甚至数十亿美元——你会发现，去做你最感兴趣的事情是非常有用的。原因并不是这种做法能带来额外的动力，而是因为赚取巨额财富的方法通常是创办一家初创公司，而去做你感兴趣的事情是发现初创公司创意的绝佳方式。

许多甚至大多数最大的初创公司最初都是创始人出于兴趣而进行的项目。苹果、谷歌和Facebook都是如此。为什么这种模式如此普遍？因为最好的创意往往是那些异类，如果你有意识地寻找赚钱的方法，就会忽略它们。然而，如果你年轻且擅长技术，你无意识地对什么有趣的工作有本能的倾向，这种倾向与需要构建的东西非常一致。

因此，赚钱的“中等智慧的顶峰”似乎存在。如果你不需要赚很多钱，你可以去做你最感兴趣的事情；但如果你想变得中等富裕，你通常无法负担；但如果你想变得超级富有，并且你年轻且擅长技术，去做你最感兴趣的事情又会成为一个好主意。

如果你不确定自己想要什么怎么办？如果你对赚钱感兴趣，但对某些类型的工作比其他类型更感兴趣，而两者都不占主导地位，那么如何打破僵局？

这里的关键是理解这种僵局只是表面的。当你在追随兴趣和赚钱之间难以抉择时，从来不是因为你完全了解自己以及你正在选择的工作类型，而且这些选项是完全平衡的。当你无法决定走哪条路时，几乎总是因为缺乏知识。事实上，你通常同时面临三种无知：你不知道什么能让你快乐，你不知道不同类型的工作实际上是什么样子，也不知道你是否擅长这些工作。[2]

某种程度上，这种无知是可以原谅的。预测这些事情往往很困难，而且没有人会告诉你你需要这么做。如果你有雄心，你被告知应该上大学，这些建议在一定程度上是好的，但通常就止步于此。没有人告诉你如何确定该做什么，或者这有多难。

面对不确定性，你该怎么做？获取更多的确定性。而获取确定性的最佳方式可能是尝试去做你感兴趣的事情。这将为你提供更多信息，了解你对这些事情的兴趣程度、你的能力以及它们在实现雄心方面所具有的潜力。

不要等待。不要等到大学结束才决定做什么。甚至不要等到大学期间的实习。你并不一定需要一份做x的工作才能从事x；很多时候，你只需以某种形式自己开始做。而且，因为确定该做什么可能需要数年时间，所以越早开始越好。

判断不同类型工作的有用方法之一是观察你的同事会是谁。你将会变得像你所工作的那些人。你是否想成为那样的人？

事实上，由于每个人都在面对同样的选择，不同类型工作的性格差异被放大了。如果你主要因为赚钱多而选择某种工作，你将被那些出于同样原因而选择这种工作的人包围，这会使这种工作比从外部看起来更加令人沮丧。而如果你选择的是你真正感兴趣的工作，你将主要与那些同样真正感兴趣的人为伍，这会使这种工作更加鼓舞人心。[3]

面对不确定性时，你还可以做出“无风险”的选择。你越不确定该做什么，就越重要选择那些能为你提供更多未来选择的选项。我称之为“保持在上风处”。例如，如果你不确定是选择数学还是经济学作为专业，选择数学；因为数学在经济学的上风处，这意味着从数学转向经济学比从经济学转向数学更容易。

不过，有一种情况很容易判断你是否应该去做你最感兴趣的事情：如果你想做出伟大的工作。这并不是做伟大工作的充分条件，但却是必要条件。

关于是否应该“追随你的激情”的建议中存在大量的选择偏差，这正是原因。大多数这类建议来自那些非常成功的人，而如果你问他们如何做到这一点，大多数人都会告诉你，你必须去做你最感兴趣的事情。事实上，这确实是正确的。

但这并不意味着这些建议适合每个人。并不是每个人都能做出伟大的工作，或者都想要这么做。但如果你想要这么做，那么是否应该去做你最感兴趣的事情这一复杂问题就变得简单了。答案是肯定的。伟大的工作的根源是一种雄心勃勃的好奇心，而你无法制造这种好奇心。

注释

[1] 这些例子说明了为什么假设经济不平等是某种缺陷或不公平的证据是错误的。很明显，不同的人有不同的兴趣，而某些兴趣能带来远多于其他兴趣的收入，因此很明显，有些人会比其他人更富有。在一个有些人喜欢编写企业软件，而有些人喜欢制作工作室陶器的世界里，经济不平等是自然的结果。

[2] 在兴趣之间难以抉择是另一回事。这并不总是由于无知。它经常是内在困难。我仍然难以做到这一点。

[3] 在这一点上，你不能总是相信别人的说法。因为从事你感兴趣的事情比被金钱驱动更有声望，所以那些主要被金钱驱动的人往往会声称自己对工作更感兴趣。一种测试这种说法的方法是进行以下思维实验：如果他们的工作报酬不高，他们是否愿意做一份其他工作以换取时间去做他们真正感兴趣的事情？很多数学家、科学家和工程师会这么做。历史上也有很多人这么做。但我不认为很多投资银行家会这么做。

这种思维实验也对区分大学院系很有帮助。

感谢Trevor Blackwell、Paul Buchheit、Jessica Livingston、Robert Morris、Harj Taggar和Garry Tan阅读了本文的初稿。

September 2024

There's some debate about whether it's a good idea to "follow your passion." In fact the question is impossible to answer with a simple yes or no. Sometimes you should and sometimes you shouldn't, but the border between should and shouldn't is very complicated. The only way to give a general answer is to trace it.

When people talk about this question, there's always an implicit "instead of." All other things being equal, why wouldn't you work on what interests you the most? So even raising the question implies that all other things aren't equal, and that you have to choose between working on what interests you the most and something else, like what pays the best.

And indeed if your main goal is to make money, you can't usually afford to work on what interests you the most. People pay you for doing what they want, not what you want. But there's an obvious exception: when you both want the same thing. For example, if you love football, and you're good enough at it, you can get paid a lot to play it.

Of course the odds are against you in a case like football, because so many other people like playing it too. This is not to say you shouldn't try though. It depends how much ability you have and how hard you're willing to work.

The odds are better when you have strange tastes: when you like something that pays well and that few other people like. For example, it's clear that Bill Gates truly loved running a software company. He didn't just love programming, which a lot of people do. He loved writing software for customers. That is a very strange taste indeed, but if you have it, you can make a lot by indulging it.

There are even some people who have a genuine intellectual interest in making money. This is distinct from mere greed. They just can't help noticing when something is mispriced, and can't help doing something about it. It's like a puzzle for them. [1]

In fact there's an edge case here so spectacular that it turns all the preceding advice on its head. If you want to make a really huge amount of money — hundreds of millions or even billions of dollars — it turns out to be very useful to work on what interests you the most. The reason is not the extra motivation you get from doing this, but that the way to make a really large amount of money is to start a startup, and working on what interests you is an excellent way to discover startup ideas.

Many if not most of the biggest startups began as projects the founders were doing for fun. Apple, Google, and Facebook all began that way. Why is this pattern so common? Because the best ideas tend to be such outliers that you'd overlook them if you were consciously looking for ways to make money. Whereas if you're young and good at technology, your unconscious instincts about what would be interesting to work on are very well aligned with what needs to be built.

So there's something like a midwit peak for making money. If you don't need to make much, you can work on whatever you're most interested in; if you want to become moderately rich, you can't usually afford to; but if you want to become super rich, and you're young and good at technology, working on what you're most interested in becomes a good idea again.

What if you're not sure what you want? What if you're attracted to the idea of making money and more attracted to some kinds of work than others, but neither attraction predominates? How do you break ties?

The key here is to understand that such ties are only apparent. When you have trouble choosing between following your interests and making money, it's never because you have complete knowledge of yourself and of the types of work you're choosing between, and the options are perfectly balanced. When you can't decide which path to take, it's almost always due to ignorance. In fact you're usually suffering from three kinds of ignorance simultaneously: you don't know what makes you happy, what the various kinds of work are really like, or how well you could do them. [2]

In a way this ignorance is excusable. It's often hard to predict these things, and no one even tells you that you need to. If you're ambitious you're told you should go to college, and this is good advice so far as it goes, but that's where it usually ends. No one tells you how to figure out what to work on, or how hard this can be.

What do you do in the face of uncertainty? Get more certainty. And probably the best way to do that is to try working on things you're interested in. That will get you more information about how interested you are in them, how good you are at them, and how much scope they offer for ambition.

Don't wait. Don't wait till the end of college to figure out what to work on. Don't even wait for internships during college. You don't necessarily need a job doing x in order to work on x; often you can just start doing it in some form yourself. And since figuring out what to work on is a problem that could take years to solve, the sooner you start, the better.

One useful trick for judging different kinds of work is to look at who your colleagues will be. You'll become like whoever you work with. Do you want to become like these people?

Indeed, the difference in character between different kinds of work is magnified by the fact that everyone else is facing the same decisions as you. If you choose a kind of work mainly for how well it pays, you'll be surrounded by other people who chose it for the same reason, and that will make it even more soul-sucking than it seems from the outside. Whereas if you choose work you're genuinely interested in, you'll be surrounded mostly by other people who are genuinely interested in it, and that will make it extra inspiring. [3]

The other thing you do in the face of uncertainty is to make choices that are uncertainty-proof. The less sure you are about what to do, the more important it is to choose options that give you more options in the future. I call this "staying upwind." If you're unsure whether to major in math or economics, for example, choose math; math is upwind of economics in the sense that it will be easier to switch later from math to economics than from economics to math.

There's one case, though, where it's easy to say whether you should work on what interests you the most: if you want to do great work. This is not a sufficient condition for doing great work, but it is a necessary one.

There's a lot of selection bias in advice about whether to "follow your passion," and this is the reason. Most such advice comes from people who are famously successful, and if you ask someone who's famously successful how to do what they did, most will tell you that you have to work on what you're most interested in. And this is in fact true.

That doesn't mean it's the right advice for everyone. Not everyone can do great work, or wants to. But if you do want to, the complicated question of whether or not to work on what interests you the most becomes simple. The answer is yes. The root of great work is a sort of ambitious curiosity, and you can't manufacture that.

Notes

[1] These examples show why it's a mistake to assume that economic inequality must be evidence of some kind of brokenness or unfairness. It's obvious that different people have different interests, and that some interests yield far more money than others, so how can it not be obvious that some people will end up much richer than others? In a world where some people like to write enterprise software and others like to make studio pottery, economic inequality is the natural outcome.

[2] Difficulty choosing between interests is a different matter. That's not always due to ignorance. It's often intrinsically difficult. I still have trouble doing it.

[3] You can't always take people at their word on this. Since it's more prestigious to work on things you're interested in than to be driven by money, people who are driven mainly by money will often claim to be more interested in their work than they actually are. One way to test such claims is by doing the following thought experiment: if their work didn't pay well, would they take day jobs doing something else in order to do it in their spare time? Lots of mathematicians and scientists and engineers would. Historically lots have. But I don't think as many investment bankers would.

This thought experiment is also useful for distinguishing between university departments.

Thanks to Trevor Blackwell, Paul Buchheit, Jessica Livingston, Robert Morris, Harj Taggar, and Garry Tan for reading drafts of this.

2024-07-01 08:00:00

2024年7月 成功的人往往具有坚持的特质。新想法通常一开始不会奏效，但坚持的人不会因此气馁。他们会不断尝试，最终找到可行的方法。 然而，单纯的固执往往会带来失败。固执的人非常令人讨厌，他们不愿倾听，一味地碰壁却毫无进展。 但这两者之间真的存在本质区别吗？坚持和固执的人实际上行为不同吗？或者他们只是在做相同的事情，只是后来根据他们是否成功而被贴上“坚持”或“固执”的标签？ 如果这仅仅是唯一的区别，那么区分它们就没有意义。告诉某人要“坚持”而不是“固执”就等于告诉他们要“正确”而不是“错误”，而他们本来就知道这一点。但若坚持和固执确实是不同的行为类型，那么区分它们就很有必要。[1] 我与很多有决心的人交谈过，我觉得他们确实表现出不同的行为类型。我常常在谈话后离开时想：“这家伙真有决心”或者“这家伙真固执”，我认为这不仅仅是因为他们看起来是否正确。这确实部分原因，但并非全部。 固执的人令人讨厌的地方并不只是因为他们犯了错误。他们不愿倾听，而这一点并非所有有决心的人都具备。我无法想象还有比Collison兄弟更坚定的人了，当你指出他们的问题时，他们不仅会倾听，而且会以近乎捕食者的专注力去倾听。他们的船底有没有漏洞？可能没有，但如果有的话，他们希望知道。 同样，大多数成功的人也是如此。当你与他们意见不一致时，他们反而更加投入。而固执的人却不想听你的意见。当你指出问题时，他们的眼神变得呆滞，他们的回应听起来像是意识形态者在谈论教条。[2] 坚持和固执之所以看起来相似，是因为它们都很难被阻止。但它们难以被阻止的方式不同。坚持的人就像发动机无法倒挡的船，而固执的人则像舵无法转动的船。[3] 在极端情况下，它们是无法区分的：当只有一种方法可以解决问题时，你唯一的选择就是是否放弃，而坚持和固执都会说“不”。这或许就是为什么在流行文化中，这两种特质经常被混为一谈。它假设问题很简单。但随着问题变得复杂，我们可以看到它们之间的区别。坚持的人更倾向于关注决策树中较高的关键点，而不是较低的细节问题，而固执的人则会无差别地在整棵树上喷洒“不要放弃”的态度。 坚持的人执着于目标，而固执的人执着于他们如何达到目标的想法。 更糟糕的是，这意味着他们倾向于执着于最初的问题解决思路，即使这些思路在解决问题的过程中缺乏经验支持。因此，固执的人不仅仅是执着于细节，而且更可能执着于错误的细节。 为什么会这样？为什么固执的人如此固执？一种可能是他们感到不知所措。他们能力有限，面对困难的问题，立刻就感到力不从心。于是他们像在摇晃的船上的人一样，紧紧抓住最近的扶手。 这是我最初的理论，但仔细审视后发现它并不成立。如果固执仅仅是由于能力不足，那么你可以通过让他们解决更难的问题来使坚持的人变得固执。但事实并非如此。如果你给Collison兄弟一个极其困难的问题，他们不会变得固执，反而可能变得更加灵活。他们会知道必须保持开放心态。 同样，如果固执是由环境引起的，那么当解决简单问题时，固执的人应该会停止固执。但事实并非如此。如果固执不是由环境引起的，那它一定源于内在，是性格的一部分。 固执是一种对改变想法的反射性抵抗。这并不等同于愚蠢，但两者密切相关。对改变想法的反射性抵抗会随着相反证据的积累而变成一种诱导性的愚蠢。而固执则是愚蠢者容易实践的一种不放弃方式。你不需要考虑复杂的权衡，只需固执己见。它甚至在某种程度上有效。 固执在简单问题上有效这一事实是一个重要的线索。坚持和固执并不是对立的。它们之间的关系更类似于我们能够进行的两种呼吸方式：有氧呼吸和我们从最远古祖先继承来的无氧呼吸。无氧呼吸是一种更原始的过程，但也有其用途。当你突然从威胁中跳开时，你就会使用它。 适度的固执并非零。如果你对挫折的初始反应是不假思索的“我不会放弃”，这可能是有益的，因为它有助于防止恐慌。但不假思索只能带你这么远。某人越接近固执的一端，就越难以成功解决复杂问题。[4] 固执是一种简单的东西。动物也有固执。但坚持却展现出相当复杂的内部结构。 区分坚持的一个特点是他们的精力。冒着过于强调词语的风险，他们坚持而非仅仅抵抗。他们不断尝试新事物。这意味着坚持的人也必须富有想象力。为了不断尝试，你必须不断想出新的尝试方法。 精力和想象力的结合非常美妙。它们彼此激发，取长补短。精力为想象力产生的想法创造需求，因此想象力能产生更多想法；而想象力则为精力提供方向。[5] 仅仅拥有精力和想象力就相当罕见。但要解决复杂问题，你还需要三种其他品质：韧性、良好的判断力以及对某种目标的专注。 韧性意味着不会因挫折而丧失士气。一旦问题达到一定规模，挫折是不可避免的，因此如果你无法从挫折中恢复，你只能在小范围内做出好成绩。但韧性并不等同于固执。韧性意味着挫折无法改变你的士气，而不是无法改变你的想法。 事实上，坚持常常需要你改变想法。这就是良好判断力的作用。坚持的人非常理性。他们关注预期价值。正是这种理性，而非鲁莽，使他们能够处理那些成功可能性较低的事情。 在决策树的顶端，坚持的人有时会表现出不理性。当他们在两个预期价值相近的问题之间做出选择时，通常取决于个人偏好。事实上，他们常常故意将项目分类为广泛的预期价值范围，以确保他们想要处理的项目仍然符合标准。 从经验来看，这似乎不是一个问题。在决策树的顶端表现出不理性是可以接受的。其中一个原因是，我们人类会更努力地解决自己热爱的问题。但还有一个更微妙的因素：我们对问题的偏好并非随机。当我们热爱别人不热爱的问题时，往往是因为我们无意识地察觉到这个问题比他们意识到的更重要。 这引出了第五个品质：必须有一个总体目标。如果你像我一样，小时候只是怀有做一件大事的愿望。理论上，这应该是最强大的动机，因为它包含了所有可能的行动。但实际上，它并不太有用，正是因为它包含的内容过于广泛，无法告诉你此刻该做什么。 因此，实际上，你的精力、想象力、韧性以及良好判断力必须指向某个相当具体的目标。不要太具体，否则可能会错过邻近的真正发现；也不要太宽泛，否则无法有效激励你。[6] 当你审视坚持的内部结构时，你会发现它与固执完全不同。它要复杂得多。五种不同的特质——精力、想象力、韧性、良好判断力以及对目标的专注——结合在一起，产生了一种现象，表面上看起来像固执，因为它让你不放弃。但你之所以不放弃的方式完全不同。你不是仅仅抵抗改变，而是被精力和韧性驱动，沿着想象力发现的路径，通过判断力优化的方向，朝向目标前进。你可能会在决策树的低层点上让步，如果预期价值下降到足够低的程度，但精力和韧性会持续推动你向最初选定的高层目标前进。 考虑到其构成，坚持的正确形式比错误形式更为罕见，也更能带来好的结果。任何人都可以做到固执。事实上，孩子、醉汉和傻瓜最擅长这一点。而具备产生正确坚持的五种特质的人却寥寥无几，但当他们具备时，结果却令人惊叹。 注释 [1] 我将用“坚持”来指代积极的固执，用“固执”来指代消极的固执，但我不能声称我只是遵循当前的用法。传统观点几乎无法区分积极和消极的固执，因此用法相当随意。我本可以为积极的固执创造一个新词，但觉得直接使用“坚持”更合适。 [2] 在某些领域，固执可能带来成功。一些政治领袖就以固执著称。但在需要通过外部测试的情况下，这种方法不会奏效。事实上，那些以固执著称的政治领袖之所以出名，是因为他们获得了权力，而不是善于使用权力。 [3] 对于坚持的人，改变方向会遇到一定阻力，因为改变方向需要付出代价。 [4] 固执的人有时确实能解决复杂问题。一种方式是靠运气：就像一天中两次正确的时间的停摆钟表，他们抓住某个随意的想法，结果恰好正确。另一种情况是当他们的固执抵消了其他形式的错误。例如，如果一位领导者的下属过于谨慎，他们的成功概率估计总是偏向同一方向。因此，如果他在所有临界情况下都盲目地说“继续推进”，他通常会是正确的。 [5] 如果你只停留在精力和想象力上，你就会得到艺术家或诗人的传统刻板印象。 [6] 一开始可以设定一个较小的目标。如果你经验不足，你不可避免地会在某一方面犯错。如果你把目标定得过于宽泛，你将一事无成。但如果你设定的目标较小，你至少会有所进展。然后，一旦你开始前进，你就可以逐步扩大目标。 感谢Trevor Blackwell、Jessica Livingston、Jackie McDonough、Courtenay Pipkin、Harj Taggar和Garry Tan阅读了本文的初稿。
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July 2024

Successful people tend to be persistent. New ideas often don't work at first, but they're not deterred. They keep trying and eventually find something that does.

Mere obstinacy, on the other hand, is a recipe for failure. Obstinate people are so annoying. They won't listen. They beat their heads against a wall and get nowhere.

But is there any real difference between these two cases? Are persistent and obstinate people actually behaving differently? Or are they doing the same thing, and we just label them later as persistent or obstinate depending on whether they turned out to be right or not?

If that's the only difference then there's nothing to be learned from the distinction. Telling someone to be persistent rather than obstinate would just be telling them to be right rather than wrong, and they already know that. Whereas if persistence and obstinacy are actually different kinds of behavior, it would be worthwhile to tease them apart. [1]

I've talked to a lot of determined people, and it seems to me that they're different kinds of behavior. I've often walked away from a conversation thinking either "Wow, that guy is determined" or "Damn, that guy is stubborn," and I don't think I'm just talking about whether they seemed right or not. That's part of it, but not all of it.

There's something annoying about the obstinate that's not simply due to being mistaken. They won't listen. And that's not true of all determined people. I can't think of anyone more determined than the Collison brothers, and when you point out a problem to them, they not only listen, but listen with an almost predatory intensity. Is there a hole in the bottom of their boat? Probably not, but if there is, they want to know about it.

It's the same with most successful people. They're never more engaged than when you disagree with them. Whereas the obstinate don't want to hear you. When you point out problems, their eyes glaze over, and their replies sound like ideologues talking about matters of doctrine. [2]

The reason the persistent and the obstinate seem similar is that they're both hard to stop. But they're hard to stop in different senses. The persistent are like boats whose engines can't be throttled back. The obstinate are like boats whose rudders can't be turned. [3]

In the degenerate case they're indistinguishable: when there's only one way to solve a problem, your only choice is whether to give up or not, and persistence and obstinacy both say no. This is presumably why the two are so often conflated in popular culture. It assumes simple problems. But as problems get more complicated, we can see the difference between them. The persistent are much more attached to points high in the decision tree than to minor ones lower down, while the obstinate spray "don't give up" indiscriminately over the whole tree.

The persistent are attached to the goal. The obstinate are attached to their ideas about how to reach it.

Worse still, that means they'll tend to be attached to their first ideas about how to solve a problem, even though these are the least informed by the experience of working on it. So the obstinate aren't merely attached to details, but disproportionately likely to be attached to wrong ones.

Why are they like this? Why are the obstinate obstinate? One possibility is that they're overwhelmed. They're not very capable. They take on a hard problem. They're immediately in over their head. So they grab onto ideas the way someone on the deck of a rolling ship might grab onto the nearest handhold.

That was my initial theory, but on examination it doesn't hold up. If being obstinate were simply a consequence of being in over one's head, you could make persistent people become obstinate by making them solve harder problems. But that's not what happens. If you handed the Collisons an extremely hard problem to solve, they wouldn't become obstinate. If anything they'd become less obstinate. They'd know they had to be open to anything.

Similarly, if obstinacy were caused by the situation, the obstinate would stop being obstinate when solving easier problems. But they don't. And if obstinacy isn't caused by the situation, it must come from within. It must be a feature of one's personality.

Obstinacy is a reflexive resistance to changing one's ideas. This is not identical with stupidity, but they're closely related. A reflexive resistance to changing one's ideas becomes a sort of induced stupidity as contrary evidence mounts. And obstinacy is a form of not giving up that's easily practiced by the stupid. You don't have to consider complicated tradeoffs; you just dig in your heels. It even works, up to a point.

The fact that obstinacy works for simple problems is an important clue. Persistence and obstinacy aren't opposites. The relationship between them is more like the relationship between the two kinds of respiration we can do: aerobic respiration, and the anaerobic respiration we inherited from our most distant ancestors. Anaerobic respiration is a more primitive process, but it has its uses. When you leap suddenly away from a threat, that's what you're using.

The optimal amount of obstinacy is not zero. It can be good if your initial reaction to a setback is an unthinking "I won't give up," because this helps prevent panic. But unthinking only gets you so far. The further someone is toward the obstinate end of the continuum, the less likely they are to succeed in solving hard problems. [4]

Obstinacy is a simple thing. Animals have it. But persistence turns out to have a fairly complicated internal structure.

One thing that distinguishes the persistent is their energy. At the risk of putting too much weight on words, they persist rather than merely resisting. They keep trying things. Which means the persistent must also be imaginative. To keep trying things, you have to keep thinking of things to try.

Energy and imagination make a wonderful combination. Each gets the best out of the other. Energy creates demand for the ideas produced by imagination, which thus produces more, and imagination gives energy somewhere to go. [5]

Merely having energy and imagination is quite rare. But to solve hard problems you need three more qualities: resilience, good judgement, and a focus on some kind of goal.

Resilience means not having one's morale destroyed by setbacks. Setbacks are inevitable once problems reach a certain size, so if you can't bounce back from them, you can only do good work on a small scale. But resilience is not the same as obstinacy. Resilience means setbacks can't change your morale, not that they can't change your mind.

Indeed, persistence often requires that one change one's mind. That's where good judgement comes in. The persistent are quite rational. They focus on expected value. It's this, not recklessness, that lets them work on things that are unlikely to succeed.

There is one point at which the persistent are often irrational though: at the very top of the decision tree. When they choose between two problems of roughly equal expected value, the choice usually comes down to personal preference. Indeed, they'll often classify projects into deliberately wide bands of expected value in order to ensure that the one they want to work on still qualifies.

Empirically this doesn't seem to be a problem. It's ok to be irrational near the top of the decision tree. One reason is that we humans will work harder on a problem we love. But there's another more subtle factor involved as well: our preferences among problems aren't random. When we love a problem that other people don't, it's often because we've unconsciously noticed that it's more important than they realize.

Which leads to our fifth quality: there needs to be some overall goal. If you're like me you began, as a kid, merely with the desire to do something great. In theory that should be the most powerful motivator of all, since it includes everything that could possibly be done. But in practice it's not much use, precisely because it includes too much. It doesn't tell you what to do at this moment.

So in practice your energy and imagination and resilience and good judgement have to be directed toward some fairly specific goal. Not too specific, or you might miss a great discovery adjacent to what you're searching for, but not too general, or it won't work to motivate you. [6]

When you look at the internal structure of persistence, it doesn't resemble obstinacy at all. It's so much more complex. Five distinct qualities — energy, imagination, resilience, good judgement, and focus on a goal — combine to produce a phenomenon that seems a bit like obstinacy in the sense that it causes you not to give up. But the way you don't give up is completely different. Instead of merely resisting change, you're driven toward a goal by energy and resilience, through paths discovered by imagination and optimized by judgement. You'll give way on any point low down in the decision tree, if its expected value drops sufficiently, but energy and resilience keep pushing you toward whatever you chose higher up.

Considering what it's made of, it's not surprising that the right kind of stubbornness is so much rarer than the wrong kind, or that it gets so much better results. Anyone can do obstinacy. Indeed, kids and drunks and fools are best at it. Whereas very few people have enough of all five of the qualities that produce the right kind of stubbornness, but when they do the results are magical.

Notes

[1] I'm going to use "persistent" for the good kind of stubborn and "obstinate" for the bad kind, but I can't claim I'm simply following current usage. Conventional opinion barely distinguishes between good and bad kinds of stubbornness, and usage is correspondingly promiscuous. I could have invented a new word for the good kind, but it seemed better just to stretch "persistent."

[2] There are some domains where one can succeed by being obstinate. Some political leaders have been notorious for it. But it won't work in situations where you have to pass external tests. And indeed the political leaders who are famous for being obstinate are famous for getting power, not for using it well.

[3] There will be some resistance to turning the rudder of a persistent person, because there's some cost to changing direction.

[4] The obstinate do sometimes succeed in solving hard problems. One way is through luck: like the stopped clock that's right twice a day, they seize onto some arbitrary idea, and it turns out to be right. Another is when their obstinacy cancels out some other form of error. For example, if a leader has overcautious subordinates, their estimates of the probability of success will always be off in the same direction. So if he mindlessly says "push ahead regardless" in every borderline case, he'll usually turn out to be right.

[5] If you stop there, at just energy and imagination, you get the conventional caricature of an artist or poet.

[6] Start by erring on the small side. If you're inexperienced you'll inevitably err on one side or the other, and if you err on the side of making the goal too broad, you won't get anywhere. Whereas if you err on the small side you'll at least be moving forward. Then, once you're moving, you expand the goal.

Thanks to Trevor Blackwell, Jessica Livingston, Jackie McDonough, Courtenay Pipkin, Harj Taggar, and Garry Tan for reading drafts of this.

2024-03-01 08:00:00

2024年3月 尽管标题如此，这并不是为了写出最好的论文。我的目标是弄清楚最好的论文会是什么样子。 它应该写得不错，但你可以就任何主题写出好文章。让它变得特别的是它所讨论的内容。 显然，有些主题比其他主题更好。它可能不会讨论今年的口红色号。但也不应是关于高深主题的空泛谈论。一篇好文章必须令人惊讶，必须告诉人们一些他们不知道的新东西。 最好的论文应该讨论最重要的主题，而你能够告诉人们一些令人惊讶的东西。 这听起来似乎显而易见，但其有出人意料的后果。其中之一是科学会像一头大象走进小船一样进入其中。例如，达尔文在1844年写了一篇论文，首次描述了自然选择的概念。这显然是一个你能够告诉人们一些令人惊讶的东西的重要主题。如果这是好论文的评判标准，那么1844年写的这篇无疑是当时最好的论文。事实上，在任何特定时间，最好的论文通常都是描述当时可能做出的最重要的科学或技术发现的论文。 另一个出人意料的后果是：我最初写这篇文章时想象最好的论文应该是相对永恒的——即1844年写的最好的论文与现在写的最好的论文应该差不多。但实际上似乎正好相反。也许绘画的最好作品在这种意义上是永恒的。但如果你现在写一篇介绍自然选择的论文，这并不令人印象深刻。现在的最好论文应该是描述我们尚未知晓的重大发现的论文。 如果关于如何写出最好的论文的问题最终归结为如何做出重大发现，那么我一开始的问题就错了。也许这个练习表明，我们不应该浪费时间写论文，而是应该专注于某个特定领域的发现。但既然我对论文和它们能做什么感兴趣，我想要看看是否还有其他问题可以问。 确实有，而且表面上看，它似乎与我最初的问题几乎相同。我不应该问“最好的论文会是什么样子”，而应该问“如何写出好论文”。虽然这两个问题似乎只是措辞不同，但它们的答案却大相径庭。正如我们所见，第一个问题的答案其实并不真正涉及论文写作。第二个问题则迫使你必须关注写作过程本身。 在最佳状态下，写论文是一种发现思想的方式。如何做得好？如何通过写作来发现思想？ 通常，论文应该以某种问题开始，尽管我这里的“问题”是广义的：它不需要是语法上的疑问句，只要能激发某种反应即可。 你如何获得这个初始问题？随机选择一个听起来重要的主题并开始写作可能不会奏效。专业交易员甚至不会交易，除非他们拥有所谓的“优势”——一个令人信服的故事，说明为什么在某些交易类别中他们能赢多于输。同样，你也不应该攻击一个主题，除非你有某种切入点——对该主题的新见解或新方法。 你不需要一个完整的论点；你只需要一个可以探索的空白。事实上，仅仅对他人视为理所当然的事物提出问题，就足以成为一种优势。 如果你遇到一个足够令人困惑的问题，即使它看起来并不重要，也值得探索。许多重要的发现都是通过拉扯看似微不足道的线索而获得的。例如，“它们怎么可能都是雀鸟？” 当有了一个问题后，接下来该怎么做？你开始大声思考这个问题。不是真的大声，而是你承诺用特定的一连串词语来回应，就像你在交谈时那样。这个初始回应通常是错误的或不完整的。写作将你的想法从模糊变为糟糕。但这是一种进步，因为一旦你能看到其中的缺陷，就能加以修正。 也许刚开始写作的作者会对以错误或不完整的方式开始感到不安，但你不必如此，因为这就是论文写作起作用的原因。迫使自己承诺某些特定的词语，能给你一个起点，而如果你发现它错了，你就会在重读时意识到这一点。至少有一半的论文写作过程就是重读自己写的内容，并问“这是否正确且完整？”你必须非常严格，不仅因为你想保持诚实，还因为你的回应与真相之间的差距往往意味着新的思想等待被发现。 对所写内容严格要求的回报不仅仅是润色。当你尝试将一个大致正确的答案变得完全正确时，有时你会发现你无法做到，而原因是你依赖了一个错误的假设。当你抛弃它时，答案却变得完全不同。 理想情况下，对一个问题的回应应具备两个特点：它是通向真理的过程的第一步，也是引发更多问题的源泉（在我的广义问题概念中）。因此，这个过程会递归地继续下去。 通常，一个问题会有多个可能的回应，这意味着你在探索一棵树。但论文是线性的，不是树状的，这意味着在每一步你必须选择一个分支来跟进。你如何选择？通常应选择那些在广度和新颖性方面结合最紧密的分支。我并不有意识地按这种方式来排序分支；我只是跟随那些看起来最激动人心的分支。但广度和新颖性正是让分支显得激动人心的原因。 如果你愿意进行大量重写，你就不必一开始就猜对。你可以跟随一个分支，看看它会通向何处，如果它不够好，就剪掉它并回溯。我经常这么做。在这篇文章中，我已经剪掉了17段的子树，还有无数更短的子树。也许我会在最后重新连接它，或将其简化为脚注，或将其扩展为一篇独立的论文；我们拭目以待。 一般来说，你想要尽快剪掉那些不好的部分。写作（以及软件和绘画）中最危险的诱惑之一，就是保留一些不正确的东西，仅仅是因为它包含了一些好的部分或耗费了大量精力。 在这个过程中，最令人惊讶的新问题可能是：初始问题真的重要吗？如果思想空间高度互联，那么答案应该是不重要的，因为你可以通过几个跳跃从任何问题到达最有价值的问题。但事实并非如此。我认为，当你开始写作时，你通常会感到对初始问题有所依附。我并不在决定要写哪个分支时考虑这一点。我只是跟随新颖性和广度。但后来，当我意识到自己已经偏离太远，必须回溯时，这种依附就被强制执行了。我认为这是最优解。你不想在写作过程中限制对新颖性和广度的追求。跟随它，看看你能得到什么。 虽然初始问题会限制你，但最好的情况下，它设定了你所写论文质量的上限。如果你在初始问题引发的思维链条中做到最好，那么初始问题本身就是唯一可以变化的地方。 不过，这并不意味着你应该因此变得过于保守，因为你不可以预测一个话题会引导你去向何方。如果你做对了，这意味着你正在做出发现，而发现本身是无法预测的。因此，应对这种情况的方法不是谨慎选择初始问题，而是写很多论文。论文就是用来冒险的。 几乎任何话题都能写出一篇好论文。事实上，我花了些功夫才想到第三段中一个足够不具吸引力的话题，因为任何一位论文作者在听到“最好的论文不能是关于x的”时，第一反应都是尝试写一篇。但如果你大多数话题都能产生好论文，只有某些话题能产生伟大的论文。 我们能预测哪些话题会写出伟大的论文吗？考虑到我已经写了这么久的论文，这个问题似乎感觉很新颖。但如果你认为这取决于你的想法是否被接受，那么这可能并不值得刻意为之。你应该写关于永恒重要话题的论文，但如果你写得如此好，以至于你的结论被接受，未来几代人读你的论文时觉得它显而易见而非新颖，那更好。你已经进入了达尔文的领域。 写关于永恒重要话题的论文是更广泛的一种情况：即适用范围的广度。还有更多种类的广度，比如适用于不同领域。因此，广度是最终目标。 我已经在追求这个目标了。广度和新颖性是我一直在追寻的两个方面。但我不禁庆幸自己理解了永恒性在其中的位置。 现在我对很多事物的位置有了更好的理解。这篇论文在某种程度上是对论文写作的巡礼。我原本希望得到关于话题的建议；如果你假设写作本身是好的，那么唯一能区分最佳论文的就是其话题。我确实得到了关于话题的建议：发现自然选择。是的，这会很美好。但当你退一步问，在做出像自然选择这样的重大发现之前，你能做到的最好的事情是什么，答案却涉及写作过程。 最终，论文的质量取决于其中发现的思想，而你获得这些思想的方式是通过广泛地提出问题，然后对答案进行严格的筛选。 这篇论文写作地图最引人注目的特征是灵感和努力之间的交替条带。问题依赖于灵感，但答案可以通过纯粹的坚持获得。你不必第一次就得到正确的答案，但没有理由不最终得到正确的答案，因为你可以不断重写直到做到。而且这不仅仅是一种理论上的可能性。它是我工作方式的一个相当准确的描述。我正在重写。 但尽管我希望可以说写好论文主要依赖于努力，但在极限情况下，灵感才是决定因素。在极限情况下，问题才是更难获得的东西。这个池子没有底部。 如何获得更多的问题？这是最重要的问题。 注释 [1] 有人可能会对这个结论有所抵触，认为某些发现只能被少数读者理解。但如果你因此要排除这些论文，你会陷入各种困难。你如何决定截止点？如果一种病毒杀死了除了在洛斯阿拉莫斯避难的少数人之外的所有人，那么之前被排除的论文现在是否就变得有资格了？等等。 达尔文1844年的论文源自他1839年写的一篇早期版本。其摘录于1858年发表。 [2] 当你发现自己对一个看似次要的问题非常好奇时，这是一件令人兴奋的事情。进化让你关注真正重要的事物。因此，当你对某个随机事物非常好奇时，这可能意味着你无意识地注意到它其实并不那么随机。 [3] 推论：如果你不诚实，你的写作不仅会偏见，而且会无聊，因为你将错过所有你若追求真相本会发现的思想。 [4] 有时这个过程在你开始写作之前就已经开始了。有时你已经想好了要表达的前几个观点。学生通常被教导应该先决定自己想表达的一切，再将其写成大纲，然后再开始写论文。也许这是个不错的开始方式——或者不是，我不确定——但这与论文写作的精神是相反的。你大纲越详细，你的思想就越难从论文中发现。 [5] 这种“贪婪”算法的问题在于，你可能会陷入局部最优解。如果最有价值的问题之前有一个无聊的问题，你就会忽略它。但我无法想象更好的策略。除了写作之外，没有其他方式可以预判。因此，使用贪婪算法并投入大量时间。 [6] 我最终重新连接了前5段，而舍弃了其余的12段。 [7] 斯蒂芬·弗莱曾坦白利用了这一现象来应对牛津的考试。他脑海中有一个关于某个普遍文学主题的标准论文，他会找到一种方法将考试问题转向它，然后只是重复它。 严格来说，是思想的图谱高度互联，而不是思想空间。但这种用法会让不了解图论的人感到困惑，而了解图论的人如果听到“空间”这个词，就会明白我的意思。 [8] “太远”不仅仅取决于与原始主题的距离。更像是一种距离除以你在子树中发现的价值。 [9] 或者你也可以做到？我应该尝试写关于这个话题的论文。即使成功的几率很小，但预期价值是巨大的。 [10] 20世纪有一种流行观点认为艺术的目的也是教育。一些艺术家试图通过解释他们的目标不是创造好作品，而是挑战我们对艺术的先入之见来证明自己的作品。公平地说，艺术确实能教育一些人。古希腊人的自然主义雕塑代表了一个新思想，这在当时一定让他们的同时代人感到特别兴奋。但它们对我们来说仍然好看。 [11] 贝特朗·罗素在20世纪初因他的“试婚”理念引发了巨大争议。但现在这些理念读起来却很无聊，因为它们已经被接受。“试婚”就是我们所说的“约会”。 [12] 如果你十年前问我，我会预测学校将继续教授如何“考试作弊”几个世纪。但现在，学生可能很快会被AI单独教学，考试将被持续的、无形的微评估所取代。
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March 2024

Despite its title this isn't meant to be the best essay. My goal here is to figure out what the best essay would be like.

It would be well-written, but you can write well about any topic. What made it special would be what it was about.

Obviously some topics would be better than others. It probably wouldn't be about this year's lipstick colors. But it wouldn't be vaporous talk about elevated themes either. A good essay has to be surprising. It has to tell people something they don't already know.

The best essay would be on the most important topic you could tell people something surprising about.

That may sound obvious, but it has some unexpected consequences. One is that science enters the picture like an elephant stepping into a rowboat. For example, Darwin first described the idea of natural selection in an essay written in 1844. Talk about an important topic you could tell people something surprising about. If that's the test of a great essay, this was surely the best one written in 1844. And indeed, the best possible essay at any given time would usually be one describing the most important scientific or technological discovery it was possible to make. [1]

Another unexpected consequence: I imagined when I started writing this that the best essay would be fairly timeless — that the best essay you could write in 1844 would be much the same as the best one you could write now. But in fact the opposite seems to be true. It might be true that the best painting would be timeless in this sense. But it wouldn't be impressive to write an essay introducing natural selection now. The best essay now would be one describing a great discovery we didn't yet know about.

If the question of how to write the best possible essay reduces to the question of how to make great discoveries, then I started with the wrong question. Perhaps what this exercise shows is that we shouldn't waste our time writing essays but instead focus on making discoveries in some specific domain. But I'm interested in essays and what can be done with them, so I want to see if there's some other question I could have asked.

There is, and on the face of it, it seems almost identical to the one I started with. Instead of asking what would the best essay be? I should have asked how do you write essays well? Though these seem only phrasing apart, their answers diverge. The answer to the first question, as we've seen, isn't really about essay writing. The second question forces it to be.

Writing essays, at its best, is a way of discovering ideas. How do you do that well? How do you discover by writing?

An essay should ordinarily start with what I'm going to call a question, though I mean this in a very general sense: it doesn't have to be a question grammatically, just something that acts like one in the sense that it spurs some response.

How do you get this initial question? It probably won't work to choose some important-sounding topic at random and go at it. Professional traders won't even trade unless they have what they call an edge — a convincing story about why in some class of trades they'll win more than they lose. Similarly, you shouldn't attack a topic unless you have a way in — some new insight about it or way of approaching it.

You don't need to have a complete thesis; you just need some kind of gap you can explore. In fact, merely having questions about something other people take for granted can be edge enough.

If you come across a question that's sufficiently puzzling, it could be worth exploring even if it doesn't seem very momentous. Many an important discovery has been made by pulling on a thread that seemed insignificant at first. How can they all be finches? [2]

Once you've got a question, then what? You start thinking out loud about it. Not literally out loud, but you commit to a specific string of words in response, as you would if you were talking. This initial response is usually mistaken or incomplete. Writing converts your ideas from vague to bad. But that's a step forward, because once you can see the brokenness, you can fix it.

Perhaps beginning writers are alarmed at the thought of starting with something mistaken or incomplete, but you shouldn't be, because this is why essay writing works. Forcing yourself to commit to some specific string of words gives you a starting point, and if it's wrong, you'll see that when you reread it. At least half of essay writing is rereading what you've written and asking is this correct and complete? You have to be very strict when rereading, not just because you want to keep yourself honest, but because a gap between your response and the truth is often a sign of new ideas to be discovered.

The prize for being strict with what you've written is not just refinement. When you take a roughly correct answer and try to make it exactly right, sometimes you find that you can't, and that the reason is that you were depending on a false assumption. And when you discard it, the answer turns out to be completely different. [3]

Ideally the response to a question is two things: the first step in a process that converges on the truth, and a source of additional questions (in my very general sense of the word). So the process continues recursively, as response spurs response. [4]

Usually there are several possible responses to a question, which means you're traversing a tree. But essays are linear, not tree-shaped, which means you have to choose one branch to follow at each point. How do you choose? Usually you should follow whichever offers the greatest combination of generality and novelty. I don't consciously rank branches this way; I just follow whichever seems most exciting; but generality and novelty are what make a branch exciting. [5]

If you're willing to do a lot of rewriting, you don't have to guess right. You can follow a branch and see how it turns out, and if it isn't good enough, cut it and backtrack. I do this all the time. In this essay I've already cut a 17-paragraph subtree, in addition to countless shorter ones. Maybe I'll reattach it at the end, or boil it down to a footnote, or spin it off as its own essay; we'll see. [6]

In general you want to be quick to cut. One of the most dangerous temptations in writing (and in software and painting) is to keep something that isn't right, just because it contains a few good bits or cost you a lot of effort.

The most surprising new question being thrown off at this point is does it really matter what the initial question is? If the space of ideas is highly connected, it shouldn't, because you should be able to get from any question to the most valuable ones in a few hops. And we see evidence that it's highly connected in the way, for example, that people who are obsessed with some topic can turn any conversation toward it. But that only works if you know where you want to go, and you don't in an essay. That's the whole point. You don't want to be the obsessive conversationalist, or all your essays will be about the same thing. [7]

The other reason the initial question matters is that you usually feel somewhat obliged to stick to it. I don't think about this when I decide which branch to follow. I just follow novelty and generality. Sticking to the question is enforced later, when I notice I've wandered too far and have to backtrack. But I think this is the optimal solution. You don't want the hunt for novelty and generality to be constrained in the moment. Go with it and see what you get. [8]

Since the initial question does constrain you, in the best case it sets an upper bound on the quality of essay you'll write. If you do as well as you possibly can on the chain of thoughts that follow from the initial question, the initial question itself is the only place where there's room for variation.

It would be a mistake to let this make you too conservative though, because you can't predict where a question will lead. Not if you're doing things right, because doing things right means making discoveries, and by definition you can't predict those. So the way to respond to this situation is not to be cautious about which initial question you choose, but to write a lot of essays. Essays are for taking risks.

Almost any question can get you a good essay. Indeed, it took some effort to think of a sufficiently unpromising topic in the third paragraph, because any essayist's first impulse on hearing that the best essay couldn't be about x would be to try to write it. But if most questions yield good essays, only some yield great ones.

Can we predict which questions will yield great essays? Considering how long I've been writing essays, it's alarming how novel that question feels.

One thing I like in an initial question is outrageousness. I love questions that seem naughty in some way — for example, by seeming counterintuitive or overambitious or heterodox. Ideally all three. This essay is an example. Writing about the best essay implies there is such a thing, which pseudo-intellectuals will dismiss as reductive, though it follows necessarily from the possibility of one essay being better than another. And thinking about how to do something so ambitious is close enough to doing it that it holds your attention.

I like to start an essay with a gleam in my eye. This could be just a taste of mine, but there's one aspect of it that probably isn't: to write a really good essay on some topic, you have to be interested in it. A good writer can write well about anything, but to stretch for the novel insights that are the raison d'etre of the essay, you have to care.

If caring about it is one of the criteria for a good initial question, then the optimal question varies from person to person. It also means you're more likely to write great essays if you care about a lot of different things. The more curious you are, the greater the probable overlap between the set of things you're curious about and the set of topics that yield great essays.

What other qualities would a great initial question have? It's probably good if it has implications in a lot of different areas. And I find it's a good sign if it's one that people think has already been thoroughly explored. But the truth is that I've barely thought about how to choose initial questions, because I rarely do it. I rarely choose what to write about; I just start thinking about something, and sometimes it turns into an essay.

Am I going to stop writing essays about whatever I happen to be thinking about and instead start working my way through some systematically generated list of topics? That doesn't sound like much fun. And yet I want to write good essays, and if the initial question matters, I should care about it.

Perhaps the answer is to go one step earlier: to write about whatever pops into your head, but try to ensure that what pops into your head is good. Indeed, now that I think about it, this has to be the answer, because a mere list of topics wouldn't be any use if you didn't have edge with any of them. To start writing an essay, you need a topic plus some initial insight about it, and you can't generate those systematically. If only. [9]

You can probably cause yourself to have more of them, though. The quality of the ideas that come out of your head depends on what goes in, and you can improve that in two dimensions, breadth and depth.

You can't learn everything, so getting breadth implies learning about topics that are very different from one another. When I tell people about my book-buying trips to Hay and they ask what I buy books about, I usually feel a bit sheepish answering, because the topics seem like a laundry list of unrelated subjects. But perhaps that's actually optimal in this business.

You can also get ideas by talking to people, by doing and building things, and by going places and seeing things. I don't think it's important to talk to new people so much as the sort of people who make you have new ideas. I get more new ideas after talking for an afternoon with Robert Morris than from talking to 20 new smart people. I know because that's what a block of office hours at Y Combinator consists of.

While breadth comes from reading and talking and seeing, depth comes from doing. The way to really learn about some domain is to have to solve problems in it. Though this could take the form of writing, I suspect that to be a good essayist you also have to do, or have done, some other kind of work. That may not be true for most other fields, but essay writing is different. You could spend half your time working on something else and be net ahead, so long as it was hard.

I'm not proposing that as a recipe so much as an encouragement to those already doing it. If you've spent all your life so far working on other things, you're already halfway there. Though of course to be good at writing you have to like it, and if you like writing you'd probably have spent at least some time doing it.

Everything I've said about initial questions applies also to the questions you encounter in writing the essay. They're the same thing; every subtree of an essay is usually a shorter essay, just as every subtree of a Calder mobile is a smaller mobile. So any technique that gets you good initial questions also gets you good whole essays.

At some point the cycle of question and response reaches what feels like a natural end. Which is a little suspicious; shouldn't every answer suggest more questions? I think what happens is that you start to feel sated. Once you've covered enough interesting ground, you start to lose your appetite for new questions. Which is just as well, because the reader is probably feeling sated too. And it's not lazy to stop asking questions, because you could instead be asking the initial question of a new essay.

That's the ultimate source of drag on the connectedness of ideas: the discoveries you make along the way. If you discover enough starting from question A, you'll never make it to question B. Though if you keep writing essays you'll gradually fix this problem by burning off such discoveries. So bizarrely enough, writing lots of essays makes it as if the space of ideas were more highly connected.

When a subtree comes to an end, you can do one of two things. You can either stop, or pull the Cubist trick of laying separate subtrees end to end by returning to a question you skipped earlier. Usually it requires some sleight of hand to make the essay flow continuously at this point, but not this time. This time I actually need an example of the phenomenon. For example, we discovered earlier that the best possible essay wouldn't usually be timeless in the way the best painting would. This seems surprising enough to be worth investigating further.

There are two senses in which an essay can be timeless: to be about a matter of permanent importance, and always to have the same effect on readers. With art these two senses blend together. Art that looked beautiful to the ancient Greeks still looks beautiful to us. But with essays the two senses diverge, because essays teach, and you can't teach people something they already know. Natural selection is certainly a matter of permanent importance, but an essay explaining it couldn't have the same effect on us that it would have had on Darwin's contemporaries, precisely because his ideas were so successful that everyone already knows about them. [10]

I imagined when I started writing this that the best possible essay would be timeless in the stricter, evergreen sense: that it would contain some deep, timeless wisdom that would appeal equally to Aristotle and Feynman. That doesn't seem to be true. But if the best possible essay wouldn't usually be timeless in this stricter sense, what would it take to write essays that were?

The answer to that turns out to be very strange: to be the evergreen kind of timeless, an essay has to be ineffective, in the sense that its discoveries aren't assimilated into our shared culture. Otherwise there will be nothing new in it for the second generation of readers. If you want to surprise readers not just now but in the future as well, you have to write essays that won't stick — essays that, no matter how good they are, won't become part of what people in the future learn before they read them. [11]

I can imagine several ways to do that. One would be to write about things people never learn. For example, it's a long-established pattern for ambitious people to chase after various types of prizes, and only later, perhaps too late, to realize that some of them weren't worth as much as they thought. If you write about that, you can be confident of a conveyor belt of future readers to be surprised by it.

Ditto if you write about the tendency of the inexperienced to overdo things — of young engineers to produce overcomplicated solutions, for example. There are some kinds of mistakes people never learn to avoid except by making them. Any of those should be a timeless topic.

Sometimes when we're slow to grasp things it's not just because we're obtuse or in denial but because we've been deliberately lied to. There are a lot of things adults lie to kids about, and when you reach adulthood, they don't take you aside and hand you a list of them. They don't remember which lies they told you, and most were implicit anyway. So contradicting such lies will be a source of surprises for as long as adults keep telling them.

Sometimes it's systems that lie to you. For example, the educational systems in most countries train you to win by hacking the test. But that's not how you win at the most important real-world tests, and after decades of training, this is hard for new arrivals in the real world to grasp. Helping them overcome such institutional lies will work as long as the institutions remain broken. [12]

Another recipe for timelessness is to write about things readers already know, but in much more detail than can be transmitted culturally. "Everyone knows," for example, that it can be rewarding to have kids. But till you have them you don't know precisely what forms that takes, and even then much of what you know you may never have put into words.

I've written about all these kinds of topics. But I didn't do it in a deliberate attempt to write essays that were timeless in the stricter sense. And indeed, the fact that this depends on one's ideas not sticking suggests that it's not worth making a deliberate attempt to. You should write about topics of timeless importance, yes, but if you do such a good job that your conclusions stick and future generations find your essay obvious instead of novel, so much the better. You've crossed into Darwin territory.

Writing about topics of timeless importance is an instance of something even more general, though: breadth of applicability. And there are more kinds of breadth than chronological — applying to lots of different fields, for example. So breadth is the ultimate aim.

I already aim for it. Breadth and novelty are the two things I'm always chasing. But I'm glad I understand where timelessness fits.

I understand better where a lot of things fit now. This essay has been a kind of tour of essay writing. I started out hoping to get advice about topics; if you assume good writing, the only thing left to differentiate the best essay is its topic. And I did get advice about topics: discover natural selection. Yeah, that would be nice. But when you step back and ask what's the best you can do short of making some great discovery like that, the answer turns out to be about procedure. Ultimately the quality of an essay is a function of the ideas discovered in it, and the way you get them is by casting a wide net for questions and then being very exacting with the answers.

The most striking feature of this map of essay writing are the alternating stripes of inspiration and effort required. The questions depend on inspiration, but the answers can be got by sheer persistence. You don't have to get an answer right the first time, but there's no excuse for not getting it right eventually, because you can keep rewriting till you do. And this is not just a theoretical possibility. It's a pretty accurate description of the way I work. I'm rewriting as we speak.

But although I wish I could say that writing great essays depends mostly on effort, in the limit case it's inspiration that makes the difference. In the limit case, the questions are the harder thing to get. That pool has no bottom.

How to get more questions? That is the most important question of all.

Notes

[1] There might be some resistance to this conclusion on the grounds that some of these discoveries could only be understood by a small number of readers. But you get into all sorts of difficulties if you want to disqualify essays on this account. How do you decide where the cutoff should be? If a virus kills off everyone except a handful of people sequestered at Los Alamos, could an essay that had been disqualified now be eligible? Etc.

Darwin's 1844 essay was derived from an earlier version written in 1839. Extracts from it were published in 1858.

[2] When you find yourself very curious about an apparently minor question, that's an exciting sign. Evolution has designed you to pay attention to things that matter. So when you're very curious about something random, that could mean you've unconsciously noticed it's less random than it seems.

[3] Corollary: If you're not intellectually honest, your writing won't just be biased, but also boring, because you'll miss all the ideas you'd have discovered if you pushed for the truth.

[4] Sometimes this process begins before you start writing. Sometimes you've already figured out the first few things you want to say. Schoolchildren are often taught they should decide everything they want to say, and write this down as an outline before they start writing the essay itself. Maybe that's a good way to get them started — or not, I don't know — but it's antithetical to the spirit of essay writing. The more detailed your outline, the less your ideas can benefit from the sort of discovery that essays are for.

[5] The problem with this type of "greedy" algorithm is that you can end up on a local maximum. If the most valuable question is preceded by a boring one, you'll overlook it. But I can't imagine a better strategy. There's no lookahead except by writing. So use a greedy algorithm and a lot of time.

[6] I ended up reattaching the first 5 of the 17 paragraphs, and discarding the rest.

[7] Stephen Fry confessed to making use of this phenomenon when taking exams at Oxford. He had in his head a standard essay about some general literary topic, and he would find a way to turn the exam question toward it and then just reproduce it again.

Strictly speaking it's the graph of ideas that would be highly connected, not the space, but that usage would confuse people who don't know graph theory, whereas people who do know it will get what I mean if I say "space".

[8] Too far doesn't depend just on the distance from the original topic. It's more like that distance divided by the value of whatever I've discovered in the subtree.

[9] Or can you? I should try writing about this. Even if the chance of succeeding is small, the expected value is huge.

[10] There was a vogue in the 20th century for saying that the purpose of art was also to teach. Some artists tried to justify their work by explaining that their goal was not to produce something good, but to challenge our preconceptions about art. And to be fair, art can teach somewhat. The ancient Greeks' naturalistic sculptures represented a new idea, and must have been extra exciting to contemporaries on that account. But they still look good to us.

[11] Bertrand Russell caused huge controversy in the early 20th century with his ideas about "trial marriage." But they make boring reading now, because they prevailed. "Trial marriage" is what we call "dating."

[12] If you'd asked me 10 years ago, I'd have predicted that schools would continue to teach hacking the test for centuries. But now it seems plausible that students will soon be taught individually by AIs, and that exams will be replaced by ongoing, invisible micro-assessments.

Thanks to Sam Altman, Trevor Blackwell, Jessica Livingston, Robert Morris, Courtenay Pipkin, and Harj Taggar for reading drafts of this.