Comment by satisfice | Hacker News Reader

Comment by satisfice | Hacker News Reader

This article commits exactly the sin that it claims to warn against. It has obligatory positive statements about the value of critical thinking, surrounded by highly disparaging comments about how people practicing critical thinking in good faith are not adding value. The net effect will be to discourage the healthy development of critical thinking practice.

Taking generic potshots at critical thinking is not a skill.

The article has good advice. The idea of postponing critique for a little bit to give an idea a chance to breathe, for instance. But then it also comes in with insulting BS like “Shooting down ideas is not a skill.” The whole article is obviously about improving one’s skill at the positive practice of culling bad ideas. Why throw such shade with the title?

The ignorant practice of refusing to consider an idea is not the same as critical thinking. Critical thinkers already feel bad about bringing rain to the parade. Do you have to make them feel even worse about it?

That's fair. The title is provocative and probably overstates my actual position, which as you note is closer to "the way people practice critique in meetings is low value and here's how to do it better". The point about making critical thinkers feel worse is taken too. The people I'm describing in the post aren't the careful, thoughtful critics, but instead the reflexive ones. I could have drawn that line more clearly.

I feel better reading your reply.

I read it as "shooting down" implying low-effort "I'm going to kill this because it makes me uncomfortable" type responses, not legitimate critique. Well-calculated rejection is indeed a valuable skill, but also hopefully won't come across as "shooting down".

It's tough to write any article about any part of this topic, because there's so much nuance and the nuance matters. Yet none of us would read a post that captured the nuance, it'd be way too long and probably cover too much that is obvious. (But maybe now I'm shooting down someone who might attempt to write such a thing... please do, it's worth a try!)

I wrote a couple of books about testing. Yes, writing nuance is really hard. One of my readers noticed I contradicted myself across two different sections, due to a single missing word.

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