Who do you think you are kidding, Mr Feynman

@edent — Thu, 16 Apr 2020 11:58:20 +0000

There are lots of celelbrities and famous academics on Twitter. Then there's Professor Richard Feynman. Who died in 1988.

Every so often, one of "his" pearls of wisdom is regurgitated into my Twitter feed.

Except - and I hate to be a party pooper - this is a joke by the Belgian comedian Philippe Geluck. It has nothing to do with Feynman.

(From 1995's "Ma langue au chat")

Go on. Search all of Feynman's published works. You won't find that phrase in there.

Or, take these "quotes" - which just appear to be trite "Live Laugh Love"-style clichés.

I can't find any evidence in Feynman's works that he said these things. So why do people follow and promote these ghoulish accounts?

When this account was created, in 2017, its first few Tweets all appear to be genuine Feynman quotes:

Although it occasionally veered off into pretending to be an actual person

At some point, the people running the account got bored of publishing the same old quotes repeatedly and started using some very dubious sources for their publication.

Now it just churns out any old inspiring rubbish - mixed with a few genuine quotations.

It reminds me of when Aaron Sorkin's "The Newsroom" started. Fans created accounts for the fictional journalists.

https://twitter.com/MaggieJordanACN/status/225857203414904835

Then, inexplicably, those fan-accounts started tweeting about real events as though they were actual journalists.

Do people know that those accounts aren't from real journalists? Do they care?

Similarly, do people think that Feynman account is somehow official or endorsed by his estate? Do they think it only tweets out Feynman's thoughts?

Following the "Feynman" account is like having a "quote of the day" calendar. It's a fine way to consume micro-slices of information. But in an era of fake news, we all need to be a little more careful about the sources we follow - especially when they claim to speak on behalf of others.

First they ignore you, then they laugh at you, then they fight you, then you lose

@edent — Fri, 04 Dec 2015 17:34:24 +0000

I've just read an interesting article by M.G. Siegler entitled - "What you’re working on sucks, just give up now, they said."

It can be summed up thus:

Commentators said our startup wouldn't work. Our startup did, in fact, suceed. ∴ All commentators are wrong about whether startups will work.

This exhibits one of my favourite logical fallacies - survivorship bias. If you only look at the winners, the world looks very different from reality. It's why we think that products made in the past were of superior quality - only the ones which managed not to deteriorate over the last 50 years are with us because the crappy ones died long ago.

For us to examine whether there's any merit to ignoring the commentariat we need to look at, broadly speaking, four categories of companies:

Commentators said it sucked, and they were wrong.
Commentators said it sucked, and they were right.
Commentators said it rocked, and they were wrong.
Commentators said it rocked, and they were right.

By picking on only the first category, M.G. Siegler is committing the Texas Sharp-Shooter Fallacy.

A Texan fires a dozen shots at the side of a barn, half of them miss. He draws a target around the area that he hit and declares himself the best gun-slinger in the west.

It's tempting - far too tempting - to fall for the lie that because "they all laughed at Christopher Columbus", they are equally misdirected when laughing at us.

Every successful company had a legion of people telling them that they were doomed. Let's take a quick look at some examples and counter-examples:

	"It Sucks!"	"This Rocks!"
Failed	Zune Phorm	Ouya Firefly (too soon?)
Succeeded	Square iPod	Android Tesla

You can add your own selection of companies and products to that table depending on your prejudices.

It's never a great idea to read the bottom half of the web - the idiots, trolls, sycophants, and spammers will drive you crazy. But, like the proverbial stopped clock, they are occasionally right.

Don't give up on your dreams just because some prat says you'll never make the big time. Equally, don't be deluded into thinking that if they're disparaging you, then you must be on the right path. There have been many people who were ignored, laughed at, and attacked who still lost!

quotes – Terence Eden’s Blog

Who do you think you are kidding, Mr Feynman

First they ignore you, then they laugh at you, then they fight you, then you lose

"It Sucks!"

"This Rocks!"

Failed

Succeeded