Stop submitting to social conformity and use your brain instead

URL: https://unixdigest.com/articles/stop-submitting-to-social-conformity-and-use-your-brain-instead.html

Whatever the majority is doing, and whatever people seem to be most frantic about, is usually the wrong stuff. I believe it is because people who tend to become religious about such matters are often very insecure and emotional and as soon as they see someone going against what they themselves follow, they become afraid because this jeopardizes their own position in life. They stand where they stand, not because they themselves have been thinking deep and hard about the stuff they do, but simply because they are the "blind followers" of others.

Much of technology is pure fact. You don't need to understand everything, as long as you understand the fundamentals, you can reach correct and solid conclusions. It is e.g. a fact that you can build a website without any JavaScript and without a deployment system and without using any kind of framework. The tech behind TCP/IP, DNS, HTTP and web servers e.g. are all just facts.

Whenever you feel you need to express your opinion on something on Hacker News, Reddit, Lobster or somewhere else, ask yourself this first: "Am I really saying what I am saying because I truly believe this, or am I saying this because that is what the majority or someone else is doing?"

Whenever you find yourself on the side of the majority, it is time to reform (or pause and reflect).― Mark Twain.

A popular synonym to what the majority is doing is "the modern way", or sometimes it is even called "best practice", which can be quite misleading because then best practice really becomes "stupid practice".

Never follow anything religiously - even when you strongly believe it is the truth! If you follow something religiously, it will completely blind you from discovering a possible mistake on your part!