Classic detective novels are great little illustrations of ‘thinking for yourself’ for this reason. Everybody has roughly same dataset same time, everybody is in an unchanging narrative ‘lane’ with unchanging relative position to others in the same lane.
-
-
If you do it well enough, for long enough, other cars will start following you, and at some point you’ll be leading a faster dynamic narrative weaving among the slower static stay-in-lane ones, slowly gaining a net speed advantage.
Show this thread -
The faster you go, the more other cars turn into the territory. They’re just a higher-order kind of road friction to use in fitting your path. Imagination helps you see at this higher-level, as others’ narratives turn into your background.
Show this thread -
To get back from the analogy to the conceptual point: thinking for yourself means consistently surprising people with new angles, whether or not there is new data to work with, to the point that others start following you.
Show this thread -
You turn into a leader attracting converts from existing narratives, and craft a new one that treats the existing narratives as the terrain. You don’t fit their ideas of ‘lanes’ (tribal partisanship paths) because you are laying dynamic new ‘weaving’ lanes at the next level.
Show this thread -
So to think for yourself, you need intelligence yes, imagination, yes, but mainly you need nerve. And if it works, the willingness to lead. At least for a while.
Show this thread
End of conversation
New conversation -
Loading seems to be taking a while.
Twitter may be over capacity or experiencing a momentary hiccup. Try again or visit Twitter Status for more information.