[spacefungus]

That's a pretty clear way of looking it.

The problem I have is that these attitudes are fragile. If you have a monarch, for example, with complete control over a country and who has tons of money and doesn't need to ask for permission, he can build a great nation of he's a good person.

When he dies and his son, who's an asshole but equally determined and powerful, takes over, now you have a bad situation.

Fortunately Steve Jobs wasn't in such control. But the point is that, yeah, if someone that determined and set in their ways and they're right...awesome!

But when people are like that and they're wrong, which happens a lot...god damn it's not good.

So I guess the question is whether this sort of "riskiness" is good? Like, when you win a horse race it's badass. The other 9 times out of 10 when you lose it sucks. Is that the human behavior we should model ourselves after? Interesting...

[mikeash]

There are tons of behaviors which are great if you're right and bad if you're wrong. Should we never stand up for what we believe in? Should we let others decide things because we might be wrong?

And keep in mind that bad people won't care about these arguments. Only good people with reasonable and healthy self-doubt will be convinced to make less of an impact, and that's the opposite of what we should want.

[spacefungus]

I'm not at odds with your opinion, I agree. My point is that a lot of other fragile attitudes impact the person holding them. But a cavalier attitude like with Jobs or people set on having an impact on the world is fragile in that it can impact many others. That's the only concern with me.