Strong opinions, weakly held - Part 2 (Ricky Weekly #79)

This is where I share 3 things every week with my friends and anyone else interested.
—
A picture from my life:

Went bowling with Ryan when I was visiting family down in LA. It was Friday night and the DJ was giving away a free trip to Vegas to the first person to hit a strike! And of course we choked when it counted…but the people next to us won!

A thing on my mind:

While digging in recently with a friend about his relationship with his co-founder, he said that his co-founder’s strong opinions help them move faster because most things don’t matter at the end of the day. I wrote about this benefit before in "Strong opinions, weakly held" (Ricky Weekly #12). Basically, most people don’t have strong opinions, and in most cases, forward movement to gather data from your actions is way better than having the right opinion. It’s like deciding where to eat with friends and having someone who cares more just decide so we can move on to hanging out.

The important part is what my friend said next though. He said, “I don’t think he really believes in his strong opinions.” That’s interesting. If the only way for you to have strong opinions is to believe in them, then you’re just not going to have that many. I’m usually the one who decides where to eat for my friends because I’m picky, but I don’t have strong beliefs in most other situations. The key seems to be to have a much bigger delta between what you believe, and what you say you believe. Sounds like I’m saying to lie, which feels like the uncomfortable part of acting on this advice. The people who I think are good at this are the debate kids from school. I noticed it in some of my classmates where they seemed to have strong opinions about something they couldn’t possibly have had any personal experience in, and yet they’d take a strong position and debate you for it. I think someone explained this to me once that it’s a fun, competitive sport for nerds. Maybe that’s a better way to look at it, that it’s all just a game?

But if you call out that it’s just a game, then it takes away the power of your strong opinion, and potentially its effectiveness. I told my friend that I often make what seem to me very arbitrary decisions at work, and when asked about it I’ve definitely said, “oh it’s arbitrary because no one knows anything.” We’d laugh, but I feel like it’s better to not break the fourth wall like that so people can have a story to tell themselves about why we do what we do, and not have to face that in reality most things don’t matter, we know much less than we think, and decisions are largely arbitrary. That’s hard to do though, because it means not saying what I believe.

"Strong opinions, weakly held" (Ricky Weekly #12)

A piece of content I recommend:

I love watching how people do what they do and marvel at how far we’ve come. Sharing a few examples.

Making computer graphics - I know nothing about computer graphics and game engines, but just watching the YouTuber manipulate realistic 3D objects and capturing real world items to bring into a realistic CG world…I was shocked at how powerful the tools have gotten.

Baseball training - Did you know you can program a pitching machine simulate a pitcher down to individual pitch’s RPM, spin angle, and location (see 1:45)? Did you know there’s a thing called HitTrax that uses high-speed cameras to analyze ball flight after impact and helps you simulate a baseball game? I mean, I kind of knew? But seeing them at work made my jaw drop.

Pitching a music video - did you know that directors have to make a “treatment” or pitch to get a chance to direct music videos? I mean of course, but have you seen one? This is the pitch for The Daniels to direct DJ Snake’s Turn Down For What.

🤗
—
As always, you can find out what I’m thinking in more real-time on Twitter and my essays are on my website. My primary focus (and where I focus) is on Flow Club.