The world, and Silicon Valley startup culture in particular, is filled to the brim with oblivious narcissists. You can pry my nagging self-doubt from my cold, dead fingers, thank you very much.
I think this is worse in California than other places, and infects Silicon Vally the worst.
I think it leads to a 'shotgun approach' where if enough people "try try try" then yes some do succeed spectacularly while everyone else around them crashes and burns. But for people who just want to get things done properly, being on the hurtling train of "YES WE CAN" is frustrating.
Growing up with an immigrant European (German) father, I have a hard time shutting off the critical voice, and it has led to lots of culture conflict for me within workplaces.
I think there is definitely a distinction to be made within oneself between needless and mean negativity and critique, but I think the crucial point is that when the latter is repeatedly ignored, it leads to the former.
> I think it leads to a 'shotgun approach' where if enough people "try try try" then yes some do succeed spectacularly while everyone else around them crashes and burns.
This reminds me of the Orks in Warhammer 40k, wherein the sheer psychic power of an Ork can make a war machine function; the machine would collapse if a non-Ork attempted to operate it.
I think the negativity about / criticism of oneself and one's identity (e.g. the self-effacing comic) is unique to Western civilization. Do people outside the West (e.g. Africa, Middle East, Asia, and perhaps South America) view themselves as backwards for how their lives work? Plenty of people, whether on the right or left, are critical of Western policies, especially regarding military and economic campaign in non-Western countries.
I am genuinely curious if people in non-Western countries see themselves as Westerners do (e.g. more bad than good).
* Is there a healthy and an unhealthy kind of self doubt?
* What's the appropriate amount?
It turns out little of the human world makes much sense, other than in the context of precedent.
The physical world gets weirder yet, as this universe is, to the best of our knowledge and information currently available to us, tautological.
I of course suspend my disbelief for day to day activities, otherwise as you say I would not function, but fundamentally, I believe nothing, not even that I or anything else exists. Descartes was overly glib, apparent thought is no evidence of being, as it requires self-reference.
That set of things you're willing to take for granted is actually your relevant set of beliefs, because they inform your actions. That's where the important decisions are made, and this is the constant crisis of trying to figure out the right solution with nowhere near enough information.
We can all, in theory, believe that we're wrong about most things, and this is most likely true. But, ultimately, there are things one is willing to do even if they could be wrong about them, because not doing anything is often worse. Sitting in constant doubt is effectively deciding not to participate.
Does this mean I'm an oblivious narcissist? I hadn't even considered the possibility...