This line of thinking is why I can’t fully endorse (otherwise entirely reasonable) exhortations by others for yet other people to ‘NOT think for themselves’ (about everything, or anything). I mostly think it’s fine for some people (e.g. statistically) to decide to ‘think for themselves’ about anything.
And there’s an interesting ‘fractal tree’ among the ‘combinatorially explosive’ set of possibilities all along the spectrum between ‘thinking for oneself’ (about everything) and ‘repeating the teacher’s password’.
Interestingly, specifically for your examples with software, this is a rather common behavior – so much so that the opposite advice is very common, i.e. to not fall prey to ‘Not Invented Here syndrome’. As usual, you should often consider reversing any advice you find (or are given)!
I agree with so many of your other points – this is a great post!
This line of thinking is why I can’t fully endorse (otherwise entirely reasonable) exhortations by others for yet other people to ‘NOT think for themselves’ (about everything, or anything). I mostly think it’s fine for some people (e.g. statistically) to decide to ‘think for themselves’ about anything.
And there’s an interesting ‘fractal tree’ among the ‘combinatorially explosive’ set of possibilities all along the spectrum between ‘thinking for oneself’ (about everything) and ‘repeating the teacher’s password’.
Interestingly, specifically for your examples with software, this is a rather common behavior – so much so that the opposite advice is very common, i.e. to not fall prey to ‘Not Invented Here syndrome’. As usual, you should often consider reversing any advice you find (or are given)!
I agree with so many of your other points – this is a great post!