I'm starting an "Ethos" page, looking to formalize and write out explicitly what motivates me, why I do things, and how I interact with the world.
For instance, I believe in "Double-Opt-In Radical Honesty" -- I'll be radically honest with people if they want it and if I want to go there with them. See, I think Radical Honesty is great: absolute and complete honesty, but it often falls down in some situations: sometimes people don't want feedback. Frankly, sometimes I don't want Radical Honesty feedback either (EX: in the middle of a project and just need to execute).
So I'm going to work to formalize this, in order to make it easier to work with me going forwards, to clarify my own thinking, etc.
I'm going to build this out over time. This is a placeholder. I think formalizing how I see the world, how I see work, what's important and what isn't, etc, can be useful and helpful for everyone involved.
I'm writing this largely as a reminder to myself.
Sometimes I do something that I think is really cool. Then I go share it with the world. And sometimes, I get feedback that seems off-base to me.
Y'know, I'm wrong a lot of the time. I'm wrong more often than most people, simply because I try to huge volumes of stuff. When I'm 55% sure, I'll usually write up my initial thoughts and just note that I'm not sure if it's correct, but it's what I'm thinking about.
So, I'm wrong a lot. A lot of times, someone points out a glaring error I made. For instance, Jason Shen was kind enough to point out that the vast majority of people think to some extent that business/commerce/wealth is zero sum, so maybe it keeps making sense to talk about "adding value" - oh, right, selction bias on my part since most of my peer group either directly create things that didn't exist before (artists, engineers, programmers, experimental scientists, etc) or facilitate trade and exchange and wealth building (entrepreneurs, managers, investors, financiers, etc).
But most people that aren't directly involved in the creation or trade. The world is complex, most people in the West work in big corporations and don't see how their role directly contributes to new wealth being created. So anyways, mea culpa there, and I'll amend my position. Thanks Jason.
I'm always tempted to write about Radical Honesty, but I never do because I don't practice it. I don't lie, and will be radically honest when it's requested, but I don't offer it habitually.
(if you don't know what Radical Honesty is, it's the idea of saying what's on your mind-- always-- with no regard for social convention.)
Radical Honesty's opposite is Standard Dishonesty. Not the pathological lying or deception we encounter sometimes, but the polite withholding of feedback that we all practice on a daily basis.
