I don’t think that all your feedback needs to come from predominantly social sources; that said, I do think that maintaining at least *some* degree of alignment with social reality is pretty important—one failure mode that I’ve seen is people who go out there, develop very strange views, don’t reconcile them with others, and basically end up in schism from the community, unable to bridge the inferential distance that their time away has created.
I’m not saying that their views are always wrong, and I am certainly not saying that social consensus is always right—I have very substantial disagreements with many views that are locally popular here! But what I do know is that, if you move too far out of contact with social reality, even if you find great insights they may become insights that you are unable to articulate or bring to others.
Yes, feedback from social reality shouldn’t be your only tool—but it’s still important!
I don’t think that all your feedback needs to come from predominantly social sources; that said, I do think that maintaining at least *some* degree of alignment with social reality is pretty important—one failure mode that I’ve seen is people who go out there, develop very strange views, don’t reconcile them with others, and basically end up in schism from the community, unable to bridge the inferential distance that their time away has created.
I’m not saying that their views are always wrong, and I am certainly not saying that social consensus is always right—I have very substantial disagreements with many views that are locally popular here! But what I do know is that, if you move too far out of contact with social reality, even if you find great insights they may become insights that you are unable to articulate or bring to others.
Yes, feedback from social reality shouldn’t be your only tool—but it’s still important!