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"Choose your battles" does make sense, and I think the Kolmogorov option is an honorable one. But I'm not sure it should apply here:

First, Kolmogorov lived in a dictatorship. Most people talking here live in a democracy. We have many more options for fighting incorrect but widely-accepted beliefs.

Second, Kolmogorov lived before the internet. Internet anonymity helps minorities speak up and get organized (as we can see across the political spectrum).




> Internet anonymity

With policies similar to Facebook's real name policy and Google's long memory, that veil of anonymity is getting pretty thin.

I'm all but certain that, despite my lack of personally identifying information on my profile here on YC, that my company could trace back anything I wrote here to me as a person. I'm also 100% certain that a state actor could do the same (even if they are less likely to do so).

Is my company regularly Googling my name and my aliases? Beats me. Though if they were concerned about smears against their reputations or leaks of sensitive information, I'm sure they would start.


If this is referring to the google memo though, a company IS a dictatorship.


Fair point, yeah. I took the article here to be talking about society more broadly, but I could be wrong.


I think you are right, as Scott is an academic.

But it is clearly inspired by the google memo, and a larger portion of society sustain themselves by selling labour to micro dictatorships.


>"Choose your battles" does make sense

It's a phrase that implies you should fight less. Which leaves you ill equipped at fighting when it matters to you.


To me it means only pick fights that you have a chance of winning. You don't learn to fight better by getting yourself killed.


I think it rather implies you should fight smarter.

Arguing with people that will only get more entrenched in their oppinion the more the argument goes is couter productive no matter how right you are. So if you need to learn that, by all means, argue with those poeple untill you get it. But afterwards, learn when to save your breath.


No, it assumes you have finite resources and finite bridges to burn, and advises that you do the resource and bridge allocation wisely.




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