[Off-Topic] If You Need "Validation," You're Probably Wrong

April 20, 2016 · 💬 Join the Discussion

TL;DR: this is one of my famous Off-Topic posts, so it’s long! Skip straight to the conclusion to see where I’m going. But please don’t criticize before reading the whole thing — it’ll be more productive.

In times when everyone seems to have an active opinion on certain subjects, I prefer not to actively voice any, neither for nor against. Because both sides are absolutely sure they’re right — it’s a zero-sum game, and I hate zero-sum games.

If I have an opinion and actively force it on people, many will end up agreeing, many will hatefully disagree. Many will buy my point of view. Many will hate me and actively try to discredit either the point of view or its author. And the main thing: we all only stand to lose if we enter this kind of Manichean view.

Does this mean staying “on the fence”? That’s not it either. One thing I’ve had for years on my Quora profile is this:

“I never live for the sake of another person and I never ask anyone to live for the sake of mine. I only accept voluntary trade for mutual benefit.”

So, before continuing, I ask, very sincerely, that you think for yourself — not for others, much less for me — regardless of whether you agree or disagree with what I have to say.

That said, I want to start with a small example — of microscopic magnitude compared to today’s big questions, of course.

“Welcome”

On July 7, 2016, at 1:52:39, it will be 10 years since I started publishing posts dedicated to the tech community, particularly to Ruby on Rails. I said the following, after carefully choosing my words:

Let’s see how far this community can go.

Ruby on Rails could be a lot or nothing — it’ll all depend on how the market faces this novelty. But a lot can be done now. To start with, by learning about the subject.

I’ll post the main topics about the platform here and I hope everyone collaborates with ideas and suggestions or even criticism and opinions.

Unfortunately there are still many challenges to overcome. To start, Rails materials in Portuguese are virtually nonexistent. Brazilian sites likewise. So when I say “starting from zero,” I mean it.

The biggest challenge will be convincing the market. And that doesn’t happen overnight. It means it still won’t be possible to set the Java legacy entirely aside. Let’s start a transition period in which we’ll try both things in parallel.

Pioneers always walk through arduous territory, but the reward for the first ones is also always greater. That’s the meaning of investment.

My Principles

If you didn’t know yet (you’ve never read my Off-Topic posts) let’s make it clear: I’m not altruistic (in the literal sense of the word, not in the wrong way it gets interpreted). Nothing I’ve done up to today was purely for some kind of “greater good” ideology.

My objective is very simple: I just want the right to produce, on my own terms.

Along the way, what I do leaves side effects, like helping others. For example, today I have a small company called Codeminer 42 that employs more than 60 people. People with families, who find not just their livelihood but their own self-improvement, through the results my friends and I seek and manage to achieve together. And that’s a direct side effect.

I organize Rubyconf Brazil, and have for 9 years alongside Locaweb. The speakers, sponsors, me, Locaweb itself, have an annual meeting point where companies meet new people to hire, professionals find their next job, entrepreneurs come together to test ideas that may then generate value to more people, and so on. It’s an opportunity for over 1,200 attendees every year to produce something. That’s an indirect side effect.

A group like Ruby on Rails Brazil on Facebook — which I didn’t create — has more than 8,500 participants exchanging ideas, learnings, experiences.

The basis for this is the open source world — the largest capitalist experiment in the software world and a living example for everyone of what a Laissez-faire Free Market is. The best place to maintain and improve technology commodities.

Companies invest time and money hiring programmers to maintain open projects not because they’re “nice” — regardless of what they say — but because these technologies really bring many direct and indirect benefits to their businesses.

Because if they were to do it alone, they’d need to invest much more than dividing the problem among dozens of other companies for everyone to profit together. It’s the ideal platform for individuals to demonstrate their abilities to the world, improving their own capabilities, looking for new opportunities. More than that, it’s one of the most brutal and aggressive places — and exactly because of that, very good — for an individual to learn how to deal with pressure, communication, creative technical solutions, precisely because there are no infinite resources.

Everyone profits, not just monetarily, whether from new learning, or from new opportunities. And even those whose profit is in the pure satisfaction of helping others somehow (because helping others isn’t altruism, it’s a fair trade: a trade of what you know how to produce for the reward of having a clearer conscience — after all, no one helps people they don’t like, which would be real altruism).

What I Did NOT Do, and Do NOT Do

When I started this journey — remembering, I wasn’t the first — I always sought to do things for my own benefit, knowing that this might bring benefits to other people, and with mutual benefits, everyone would move faster and better. My proposition was never promises, whether of material or moral rewards, only the promise of working on what you love.

If it had been purely for morality or ideology, it would never have worked. Or worse, if it had worked, it would have been fragile, for having the wrong foundation.

Because if I had really believed that “Ruby on Rails is the only best technology,” I would have forced that view on others. Many would have believed. But worse, we would have had to believe that other technologies aren’t good and we’d have fought against them, regardless of evidence. That would have been disastrous.

I always knew Rails is good in certain cases, particularly in the context of the growing startup market from 2004 onward. Software as a Service, Infrastructure as a Service, Platform as a Service. Many thought like me, independently, and from there gems like Github were born — the largest free software market ever created.

If I had believed that my way was the right one and others’ was automatically wrong, I would have gotten frustrated and failed bitterly. My natural thought would have been:

“Why don’t these people follow me if my path is certainly the right one?”

I never tried to convince anyone that my point of view is correct “for the good” of something or “because it’s free software” or “because it serves some political vision.” I always evangelized by trying to teach how to profit.

Because in a niche with the characteristics of Rails, professionals of unique quality accumulated. Because every new programmer had those pioneers as “role models.” Because every Rubyist aimed for quality first. Because the new generation of startups was demonstrating how to make profitable products without the open faucet of insane investors like in 2000. That was 37signals’ speech in 2005: everyone wanted to make the next Basecamp. And they did! From Engine Yard, to Heroku, to Github, to Pivotal Labs, to Living Social, to Shopify, to Twitter, to Groupon, to Zendesk, to Hulu, to Square, to Airbnb, to Soundcloud.

Does it matter that they aren’t 100% pure Ruby? Of course not! Nobody is defending an extremist, religious view. This isn’t the “Cult of Ruby.” Rails is a means to an end, never the end. Whoever adopts Rails wanted to filter the best programmers — because you had to really love the art of programming to learn Rails in 2006. Whoever adopts Rails wanted quality of life in the day-to-day of programming — because the principles behind the design of Ruby and Rails created a unique view of how software could be made. Nobody chose Rails the way you choose a soccer team or a political affiliation. Everyone who chose it was aiming for some kind of gain for themselves and, thinking that way, created a gigantic ecosystem that ended up benefiting many more people.

What I didn’t do? I didn’t make promises. I didn’t give certificates. I didn’t guarantee positions. I didn’t promise “a bright future.” I didn’t add a political vision to the community. Maybe the only promise was a lot of work ahead, opportunities to produce. Reread the last paragraph of my first post:

“Pioneers always walk through arduous territory, but the reward for the first ones is also always greater. That’s the meaning of investment.”

That’s the spirit of an entrepreneur: risking what they own, not what others have.

It’s intentional that from the beginning I’ve rarely spoken at the events I organize myself. That’s why from the beginning there are other technologies on display at a Ruby event (we had Node.js talks since 2009, before there were JavaScript events). That’s why “Ruby"conf has tracks for all the other new growing technologies: because we only stand to profit from it.

It’s my way of being able to produce on my own terms, with what I love.

The “Ruby way” isn’t about convincing others that using Ruby is the only path, but rather that walking the harder path, the path of quality, of caring about what you do, can probably bring better results. It’s what an entrepreneur does: takes calculated risks and works brutally for themselves. It’s what an artist does: different from the common.

The path of an entrepreneur, or an artist, or someone who produces, is necessarily individualistic. Because we go against the status quo, against what’s considered “right” today. Against what’s “commonly accepted” by a “majority.”

“Insanity is wanting different results doing the same thing over and over.” - Albert Einstein

We’ll always be stoned for it, but it’s the people who choose the different path that everyone will try to stop. And it’s they who made us reach the great achievements of humanity. One of the things that made me recognize the real meaning right away was when the creator of Rails, the still controversial David Heinemeier Hansson — someone I agree and disagree with on several aspects — said early in the community:

“First they ignore you. Then they ridicule you. Then they fight you. And then you win.” - Mahatma Gandhi

It’s a sin to even imagine that it isn’t the Sun that revolves around the Earth. It took the individualistic and absolutely “selfish” vision of a “Galileo vs Inquisition” to help open the way for us today not only to have already gone to the Moon but to be becoming exceptionally good at sending machinery to space.

A Nazi Nation

“Only a Sith deals in absolutes.” - Obi-Wan Kenobi

There’s a term for those who think in absolutes in the real world: Extremist Terrorists. Being extremist, by itself, isn’t bad. It’s forcing your extreme view — the realm of a terrorist — that leads to the dark side of the Force.

A terrorist is dangerous, because they absolutely believe they’re right.

“Because some men aren’t looking for anything logical, like money. They can’t be bought, bullied, reasoned, or negotiated with. Some men just want to watch the world burn.” - Alfred, The Dark Knight

Which is why you shouldn’t try to negotiate with terrorists. It’s impossible — you’ll always lose.

And worse: the dark side of the Force can always be seductive. Because it’s easily disguised as something “good”:

“Don’t lecture me, Obi-Wan! I see through the lies of the Jedi. I do not fear the dark side as you do. I have brought peace, freedom, justice, and security … to my new Empire!” - Anakin Skywalker, Episode III

It’s not hard to understand how people emerged who are so unequivocally recognized as “evil.” Collectivists, extremists, like Adolf Hitler, Joseph Goebbels, Heinrich Himmler, Hermann Göring.

But they’re just a few people. The main question is more important and harder: how do you convince an entire Nation, like the German people, to accept and act in favor of the ideology of a party like the National Socialist one to the point of the genocide of 11 million people in the Holocaust!?

There are many theories for what really happened during World War II and it’s a topic that’s still delicate today, but I have a small personal theory (it isn’t supported by evidence, hence this ‘disclaimer’):

Despite knowing that many must have committed those acts with purely evil intentions, it’s very hard to believe that in a short period of time, thousands of Germans suddenly transformed automatically into agents of Evil.

At that time, Germany had suffered the post-WWI humiliation, the economy was in tatters after suffering the post-1929 Great Depression. In a context like that, a populist political ideology, for the social good of the nation, of the National Socialist Party, gained strength. The idea of the “Third Reich” was seductive for bringing back the hope of the bright future of a “New Germany.”

And they found someone to really hate, in this case, the Jews. And the anti-Semitic idea gained traction in the populist speech.

Now, in the name of the “bright future of the New Germany,” it may have gone all the way to the extreme of the Holocaust. And even so, how is that justified?

If you don’t know Stanley Milgram’s psychological theories, I recommend watching the film The Experimenter (2015) to understand.

In summary, Milgram’s Authority Experiment — which has been repeated countless times over the years — demonstrates how it isn’t as hard as common sense imagines for a group of people to do the wrong thing — even being aware of it — in the name of a “greater good.”

Obviously I’m being simplistic in the explanation, but it’s worth keeping in mind: most people react with herd behavior.

It isn’t far from the Law of Least Effort — after all, why spend time researching whether something can be “right” or “wrong” when it’s much easier to follow what the “majority” thinks is right?

“A Little Knowledge Is a Dangerous Thing”

It isn’t complete ignorance, but rather “a little knowledge,” that can be the most dangerous thing of all, as the great poet Alexander Pope warned us.

“A little learning is a dangerous thing; Drink deep, or taste not the Pierian spring: There shallow draughts intoxicate the brain, And drinking largely sobers us again.” - Alexander Pope

And one of the things I like to write about is precisely this warning: we don’t know everything, we’ll never know everything, and everything we know may be wrong. If you live constantly with this in mind, you’ll be safe.

The Root of All Evil, the Enemies of Reason is what I’ve been talking about for a long time: “religious” thinking.

And I’m not saying that purely to badmouth others’ religions, especially because the “religion” I refer to isn’t merely Christianity, Judaism, Shintoism, etc. It’s worse: it’s the Religion of Little Knowledge.

We see examples of this kind of thing every day, just read the news:

Just search for “death” in the news and many of them are, unfortunately, the result of ignorance or worse, “little knowledge” of people. It isn’t something that will solve itself automatically, but we’ve already solved thousands of these problems. Fortunately, the 20th century onward was a great advance in eliminating all the prejudices, outdated knowledge, and general ignorance of the global population.

The problem: none of these people doubt whether they’re wrong. Everyone is sure they’re right, doing what is morally correct — given the little they know.

Dogmatization is the consequence. And Dogmas are Unquestionable. Do you follow an unquestionable script? You’ve probably already been dogmatized. Nobody likes being proven wrong, especially if they’ve believed in some lie with great dedication for a long time — that becomes their identity. And who wants to have their own identity broken?

Black Swans and the Antidote of Little Knowledge

Finally, we get to the point. How do you solve the world’s problems?

With “scientific philosophy.” And you don’t need to be a scientist to think this way.

The world is unfair, that’s a fact. It’s impossible to solve everyone’s problem all at once. But we can solve one problem at a time, over time. Sorry to the impatient.

And I think it starts with something very simple: critical reasoning that isn’t based purely on simple induction.

For me, Karl Popper taught me one of the most valuable things in my way of thinking. I don’t look for false-gurus, false-experts, false-leaders, false-heroes, or false-icons.

I don’t need anyone with “authority” to tell me what’s right. Nor do I need the consensus of some form of “majority” to validate my actions.

There are those who advocate an “inviolable affirmation,” “the” right way; whether by tradition, by scriptures, by the will of an abstract and amorphous entity like “society,” “the people”; or worse, by “inviolable proofs” — so I know they’re false prophets.

The explanation for becoming incorruptible is simple. Let me give you the classic explanation:

“Imagine that all the swans in the world are white.”

Let’s say your statement comes from the fact that in the 40 years you’ve lived, you, your family, your friends, only saw white swans with your own eyes. Your natural and “logical” conclusion, by “induction,” is to extrapolate to a general, absolute law and say that “all the swans in the world are white.”

That comes from your little knowledge. It doesn’t matter if it’s been 40 years. It doesn’t matter that you’ve seen 1,000 swans during your life, and they were all white.

You clearly never traveled to Australia, or to New Zealand, where you would find the black variety.

But, by your “little knowledge,” you came to a wrong conclusion. And, worse, you extrapolated and uttered that statement to others, who now think like you. It’s your responsibility.

“I know vaccines are bad because I heard cases of several children who were vaccinated and died, so I’ll never vaccinate my children.”

“I know medicines don’t work but homeopathy works, because my aunts have been using it for years and never had health problems, so I’ll never use medicines.”

“I know capitalism is something for evil people, because I knew businessmen in my city who exploited my friends and neighbors, so the capitalist system has to fall.”

“I know socialism works, because my friends who visited Cuba were very impressed with what they heard about the hospitals there, and so I think it should be used everywhere.”

You do this every day: you see news with a catchy headline, see dozens of “Likes,” and agree that it’s right, and worse, you still share it with more people, spreading lies.

“A lie repeated a thousand times becomes truth.” - Joseph Goebbels, Nazi Propaganda Minister

The problem is the “search for the truth.” The vast majority of things — apart from mathematical theorems — can rarely be shown to have a correct proof. And often we resort to the reverse, showing it’s incorrect. No amount of evidence is enough to prove any theory as absolutely true. The most we can do is “disprove” a theory, because for that all you need is a single piece of evidence that refutes it.

“Extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence.” - Carl Sagan, Cosmos

And I’d add: not even with extraordinary evidence can we claim the discovery of an “absolute truth” — we can only say we have knowledge solid enough to use, but that can be disproven at any moment.

It’s important to keep this concept in mind because it makes us stronger against rumors, pseudo-science, superstitions, “common sayings,” outdated tradition, and all kinds of false “truths.”

Any theory that doesn’t give clear ways of disproving it isn’t a good theory and certainly isn’t scientific. Any statement that depends on a divinity whose existence can’t be proven, or any inviolable “morality,” or an “unquestionable” authority, is pseudo-science and is wrong.

The Gray Morality of “Social Justice Warriors”

This is a topic I avoid getting involved in as much as possible because this generation of so-called Social Justice Warriors (SJWs) is particularly perverse. Not all of them! Just a small, very influential minority. True wolves in sheep’s clothing.

Disclaimer: do I consider those who fight for social causes perverse people? NO. There are several legitimate social initiatives, with excellent results, with people genuinely committed to solving a legitimate problem. I wish only good things for those people. Here I’m only talking about those who are devaluing those people. The objective of this section is precisely to separate the real from the illegitimate.

I’m not against social causes, most civilized people aren’t. Certainly there’s a lot to do to keep improving the world. And in the last century we certainly improved the world in extraordinary ways, especially compared to the centuries before the 20th.

Contrary to what many say, and something I’ve been repeating since 2013: “The World Today Is Better”. Believe the world is getting worse and then you’ll start to justify perverse acts as morally correct.

And it wasn’t thanks to specific events and movements, but to the continuous progress of people who “produce,” not people who “steal.” And stealing isn’t only directly taking a material good from someone. Someone can steal more than that: your time, your morality, your mind, and your freedom.

Theft of Freedom is Slavery.

Until the 19th century everyone needed to work hard just to get their basic livelihood. Today we have a huge surplus, because we discovered more efficient ways and applied them for individual purposes. That ended up helping more than just the individual who created them. The steam engine, electricity, agriculture, medicine, all creations of selfish people, whose only objective is to produce, ended up making the world orders of magnitude better. No social revolution in history can claim the same results.

Do you care about reducing poverty? Milton Friedman already explained why the Free Market is better for the poor.

There are only 3 basic freedoms that really matter:

the right to freedom of expression;
the right to produce and keep for oneself what one produces via voluntary trades, without theft or slavery;
the right to seek and achieve one’s own goals, without obligation to serve the will of others.

A “selfish” productive individual has as their only objective to produce, to create. Never to steal.

No one has the right to restrict the freedom of any other person, forcing their own gray morality, their own agenda, their own objectives, if not by the exclusive means of “voluntary trades.” No gray morality has the right to justify the immorality of slavery of an individual, by any justification, no matter for what objective.

And that’s the problem: a false social justice warrior has as their only objective to be a social justice warrior; to have the acceptance and validation of others. And for that they need the existence of someone else’s suffering, anyone’s, to justify their existence and their identity. So the objective isn’t to end others’ suffering. If one form of suffering ends, soon another type of suffering will be needed to raise a cause, and that’s the vicious cycle. Because their objective isn’t to produce, it’s to feed off others’ suffering — it’s the slavery of others’ suffering to the validation of their own identity.

A producer, a creator, isn’t necessarily interested in “causes.” Certainly not as a rule. Regardless of the motives, they want to create. And that’s enough. For a false warrior, that isn’t enough — they need to take from those who produce for the benefit of some “cause.” A warrior wants to take what you have, but not what they themselves have — because they don’t produce — in the name of some gray morality. And it isn’t for any cause, only the ones that interest them. It’s the old and eternal fight between those who produce and those who take, the gray morality of Robin Hood.

And that’s a shame because it devalues those who really dedicate their lives to social causes. Whether doctors, firefighters, police, soldiers, and the various anonymous people who don’t spend their time posting on social media, judging others and creating discord, but who work silently, with no expectation of public recognition.

Want to recognize a real social warrior from the social parasites? Look for No display of seeking recognition.

Conclusion

The objective of this long article? Just to expose universal concepts, my personal principles, which are inviolable and incorruptible. The main points:

The only really moral thing is voluntary trades. Never forcing the slavery, physical or moral, of any individual.
There is no “truth” decreed by some group or majority. There are ideas, some valid, others invalid. But if they aren’t falsifiable, refutable ideas, they’re probably false by premise, no matter the apparent morality they represent or the amount of “evidence” that exists.
There is no “moral authority” — that’s the realm of charlatans. Doubt anyone who forces your property (your action is your property, your freedom is your property) in the name of any kind of “cause,” no matter how just it seems. Don’t look for heroes.
The only thing that really took us out of the Middle Ages and launched us into modernity was thanks to the minds that produced for their own benefit (without unilaterally demanding the taking of anyone’s property, whether material or mental).

Look at the 20th century and compare it to the 19th and earlier. No one explained this better than Hans Rosling, of Gapminder:

Don’t become a victim of the minority of false social justice warriors, learn more about this dangerous Orwellian group — nothing less than the “Thought Police,” as prophesied in the despotic universe of 1984. This kind of thinking isn’t new, it existed throughout the 20th century, but the advent of the Internet and especially Social Networks brought us a wild environment where rumors, fake news, and pseudo-science in general reign. It’s where Critical Rationalism can save you.

Inviolable and incorruptible principles are simple. In the axiomatic world of mathematics, 2 + 2 is 4 — there’s no “majority” or group that, by clamor or vote, can change that result to 5 or 6, no matter the morality or authority of those making the clamor. You don’t need validation! You do need to take responsibility for your own actions and not justify your mistakes as being the result of following someone else’s gray morality.

Repeating:

“I never live for the sake of another person and I never ask anyone to live for the sake of mine. I only accept voluntary trade for mutual benefit.”

And with this principle we’ll keep evolving the 21st century as we did in the 20th, no matter who tries to steal from us, whether you agree with this exposition or not.

We’re already doing it.