Ideas That Changed My Life(perell.com)
perell.com
Ideas That Changed My Life
https://perell.com/essay/50-ideas-that-changed-my-life/
159 comments
I need to write a post about why the invisible hands doesn't mean what people think, it means if you kill the king, the system won't collapse because the secret sauce of the society is in the trade of the parts, Adam's Smith write about that people aren't rational and that we need controls over monopolies, most what people think Smith say is what Lucas say.
I'd wager over 90% of people who 'quote' Adam Smith have never actually read more than a choice de-contextualized quote, and understand his actual positions at all.
Yeah, this list is chock full of just plain misunderstanding the idea being quoted ... like doublespeak, Overton Window, Theory of Constraints ...
cartels can function like a monopoly. we need to manage pricing power as a society.
The Overton Window works as a concept when we all talk to each other. But we now have three separate echo chambers - "Left", "Right", "Center" - and they each have their own Overton Window.
That's because what was described above isnt the overton window. It's a quote by Noam Chomsky.
The actual definition of the Overton window exactly predicts what you both describe. See wikipedia for a better description.
The actual definition of the Overton window exactly predicts what you both describe. See wikipedia for a better description.
I wish there was a sizable center echo chamber, unfortunately there isn’t really one.
Its because the center failed to provide a path that people were satisfied with, hence there was movement away from the center into the fringes. It is entirely the center's fault that they are small. Maybe its just the end state of any sizable society.
Or perhaps it’s because the US system favors scale in a way that brought it down to the minimal number of political parties: 2.
The parties reshuffle themselves every few decades. Yes in the American system, it is inflexible to have more than two parties but the parties themselves are quite malleable and are following changing trends even though it may not appear to be so day to day. See the movement of Republicans towards far right despite the party leadership trying to stop it (they failed). The same seems to be happening on the Democratic side with them trending towards the far left although that might take a few more election cycles to bear out.
That's because the center doesn't work for many things.
If you support individual patients making their own healthcare decisions with their doctors, how do you find the center with someone who wants to take that right away for reasons that have zero effect on them?
If you support a consenting adults right to love and marry whichever consenting adult they want, how do you find the center with someone who wants to tell people which consenting adults they can and can't marry?
If you think people should not be denied jobs or housing based solely on what's in the their pants, how do you find the center with people who think it's okay to deny people jobs and housing based on what's in their pants?
How do you find the center with the Nazi party?
The center is meaningless for most issues that actually matter.
If you support individual patients making their own healthcare decisions with their doctors, how do you find the center with someone who wants to take that right away for reasons that have zero effect on them?
If you support a consenting adults right to love and marry whichever consenting adult they want, how do you find the center with someone who wants to tell people which consenting adults they can and can't marry?
If you think people should not be denied jobs or housing based solely on what's in the their pants, how do you find the center with people who think it's okay to deny people jobs and housing based on what's in their pants?
How do you find the center with the Nazi party?
The center is meaningless for most issues that actually matter.
>Why did they choose “journalists” when the “death tax” narrative was created by politicians, a much better example group for this conjugation.
I think for the same reason people blame web developers for how websites are built, ignoring that the web developer is not the product manager.
I think for the same reason people blame web developers for how websites are built, ignoring that the web developer is not the product manager.
To be fair, groupthink in web design has generally led to worse performance with 100kb pageloads to show 1kb of content, and this blame generally does not reside with the product manager.
I'd say that the incentives are aligned in a way that produced the outcome of website bloat. The churn of hardware enables it, service providers have different priorities, and frankly, 99.99% of the users also have different priorities. So, no one is really striving for less bloated pages - including, most importantly, the product managers, whom have all the say of how developer capacity is allocated.
“I was just following orders.”
I believe in better designed systems, not in individual responsibility. Individual responsibility is a must have, but systemic incentives override that, on a population level, every time. But this can't only be used to build the Third Reich, it can be used for good things too, like building websites with less bloat. Such a change was when Google began to rank pages on loading and other performance criteria, and also provided a tool for people to check their sites. That was a nice incentive for the people who are actually in charge of websites, to have the people who actually build the websites, to build the website to be better.
But if the incentives are perverse, so will be the people.
But if the incentives are perverse, so will be the people.
One idea that changed my life is stop believing that other people have changed their lives based on ideas.
The only way of change is by habit.
The only way of change is by habit.
I actually changed my mind based on some simple ideas.
Carol Dweck wrote a book called Mindset, which talks about two mindsets: a fixed mindset and a growth mindset. The idea is super simple, and you don't even need to read the book to know what it is. But just knowing that idea changed my entire motivation to do things, and now I believe that even if I'm not talented at something, I can get surprisingly far. (for instance, I'm a deep introvert, but I'm able to socialize for long periods of time and talk to strangers easily now, but only after I kept practicing for a period of 2 years -- I discovered it's possible to "bend" your introversion if you don't put yourself in a box and are willing to make an effort)
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mindset#Fixed_and_growth_minds...
Arguably the science around fixed vs growth mindsets is fuzzy, but here's the other insight: sometimes you can blunder into the right by holding some vague ideas loosely (the rationalist crowd think that avoiding biases leads you to correct actions -- in real life I have found this to be false).
There are two kinds of rationality: epistemic rationality (believing the right things) and instrumental rationality (believing in ideas that work to get you the ends desired, even if the ideas themselves are not 100% rational).
In business and life, instrumental rationality is much more useful and works more of the time (this is why the LessWrong crowd isn’t good at stochastic domains like business because their models, though logical, are insufficient -- this is a realm where instrumental rationality leads to success). That's another idea that changed my life.
Carol Dweck wrote a book called Mindset, which talks about two mindsets: a fixed mindset and a growth mindset. The idea is super simple, and you don't even need to read the book to know what it is. But just knowing that idea changed my entire motivation to do things, and now I believe that even if I'm not talented at something, I can get surprisingly far. (for instance, I'm a deep introvert, but I'm able to socialize for long periods of time and talk to strangers easily now, but only after I kept practicing for a period of 2 years -- I discovered it's possible to "bend" your introversion if you don't put yourself in a box and are willing to make an effort)
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mindset#Fixed_and_growth_minds...
Arguably the science around fixed vs growth mindsets is fuzzy, but here's the other insight: sometimes you can blunder into the right by holding some vague ideas loosely (the rationalist crowd think that avoiding biases leads you to correct actions -- in real life I have found this to be false).
There are two kinds of rationality: epistemic rationality (believing the right things) and instrumental rationality (believing in ideas that work to get you the ends desired, even if the ideas themselves are not 100% rational).
In business and life, instrumental rationality is much more useful and works more of the time (this is why the LessWrong crowd isn’t good at stochastic domains like business because their models, though logical, are insufficient -- this is a realm where instrumental rationality leads to success). That's another idea that changed my life.
It's great you've found techniques that work for you and you are correct the science is fuzzy...
From https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Carol_Dweck#Criticism
> Timothy Bates, a psychology professor at the University of Edinburgh, has been trying for several years to replicate Dweck's findings, each time without success, and his colleagues haven't been able to either.[23]
The statistics in Dweck's papers also fail the GRIM test which is a potential indicator of fraud (fake/false statistical values).
From https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Carol_Dweck#Criticism
> Timothy Bates, a psychology professor at the University of Edinburgh, has been trying for several years to replicate Dweck's findings, each time without success, and his colleagues haven't been able to either.[23]
The statistics in Dweck's papers also fail the GRIM test which is a potential indicator of fraud (fake/false statistical values).
So for me, it's all about instrumental rationality -- do the thing that works, not the thing that ought or ought not to work. It's important to put things into practice.
Social science is full of hypotheses that are difficult to measure scientifically. Some are straight out wrong.
Others are instrumentally rational -- they are correct enough of the time if done in the right context (which may not always arise, but when they do, you're golden). The latter are the stuff we need to try out. Growth vs fixed mindset is a heuristic -- this means it's not always right, but it's useful enough that when applied you can often see meaningful results.
Social science is full of hypotheses that are difficult to measure scientifically. Some are straight out wrong.
Others are instrumentally rational -- they are correct enough of the time if done in the right context (which may not always arise, but when they do, you're golden). The latter are the stuff we need to try out. Growth vs fixed mindset is a heuristic -- this means it's not always right, but it's useful enough that when applied you can often see meaningful results.
You just blew my mind. Dweck's theories are used all over the corporate-sphere.
Here's the article (the wikipedia link 404d): https://web.archive.org/web/20210216192213/https://www.spect...
Here's the article (the wikipedia link 404d): https://web.archive.org/web/20210216192213/https://www.spect...
This seems to be focused on general intelligence. I always assumed it was more about the ability to learn skills and abilities rather than increasing IQ.
How do you get past the feeling that nothing you do actually matters?
Congratulations. You drew the intelligence card. You're right. This is all like one big board game where everything eventually goes back into the box. Your money, possessions, accomplishments, productions, ideas, thoughts, and feelings. Back to the box. So pick a character class compatible with what you rolled and don't forget to have fun.
Oh, and head up; you're going to suffer anyway, so make sure to maximize how much of it is by your own choosing.
Oh, and head up; you're going to suffer anyway, so make sure to maximize how much of it is by your own choosing.
I give it value.
Value is just some human made up currency after all. "Is it worth the time?" etc.
If I were to approach life with the mindset "well everyone I know is going to die some day and humanity will die out so what's the point?" I'm not going to have a very positive outlook to life.
But I figure I'm here. I get 90 years or so if I am lucky. I might as well enjoy them while this combination of atoms is me.
Value is just some human made up currency after all. "Is it worth the time?" etc.
If I were to approach life with the mindset "well everyone I know is going to die some day and humanity will die out so what's the point?" I'm not going to have a very positive outlook to life.
But I figure I'm here. I get 90 years or so if I am lucky. I might as well enjoy them while this combination of atoms is me.
Doing nothing does that for me. Seriously. I'm regularly confronted with this feeling, and one thing I found over the years to consistently lift me out of that trough of meaninglessness is meditation. It boils down to "if nothing seems to matter, then just don't do anything". But I have to resist the temptation to just engage in some form of escapism and just sit there with that boredom. Initially it's hard, but after about half an hour to an hour the feeling of boredom and meaninglessness recedes, and my mind becomes more calm, focused and purposeful. It's as simple as that, at least for me.
There are multiple ways to look at this.
One is to stay small - the things you do matter in your individual sphere.You don't take care of your body, you die. You don't exercise your brain, it atrophies. You can increase this sphere to friends, families, community etc till you can see the effects and have feedback. Of course as in all system, those might be a bit delayed, so it helps to have some context.
Or you can go meta, why should things matter. This innate drive that we have to find meaning in all things is very confusing. Things simply are - accept them.
And if nothing actually matters at all - then you have a blank canvas to paint what you want.
One is to stay small - the things you do matter in your individual sphere.You don't take care of your body, you die. You don't exercise your brain, it atrophies. You can increase this sphere to friends, families, community etc till you can see the effects and have feedback. Of course as in all system, those might be a bit delayed, so it helps to have some context.
Or you can go meta, why should things matter. This innate drive that we have to find meaning in all things is very confusing. Things simply are - accept them.
And if nothing actually matters at all - then you have a blank canvas to paint what you want.
I've began to see nihilism as a memetic virus or disease. Once you begin wandering outside the boundaries where you were raised, you almost invariably end up catching the nihils. Some people have few symptoms and can easily continue living meaningful lives. However, other people are heavily affected by them, and become abated and purposeless. We know the symptoms to the nihils.
Then, it's a matter of taking care of yourself and antibodies will begin to build.
I know you are asking about this second part, and I'm sorry I can't give you a straightforward answer (a vaccine, could be said).
The most I can be confident to say is that, as every memetic phenomena, it has a strong subjetive charge. I don't think it is 100% subjective, as humans have more in common that we'd like to admit. And, most likely, the best vaccines for your case are already suggested and proven countless times before. Don't try to reinvent the wheel. Also, be wary of bullshitty alternatives to vaccines/medicine (superfluous and toxic feel-good coaching).
Then, it's a matter of taking care of yourself and antibodies will begin to build.
I know you are asking about this second part, and I'm sorry I can't give you a straightforward answer (a vaccine, could be said).
The most I can be confident to say is that, as every memetic phenomena, it has a strong subjetive charge. I don't think it is 100% subjective, as humans have more in common that we'd like to admit. And, most likely, the best vaccines for your case are already suggested and proven countless times before. Don't try to reinvent the wheel. Also, be wary of bullshitty alternatives to vaccines/medicine (superfluous and toxic feel-good coaching).
If nothing matters then there’s no reason not to.
Maybe by understanding that “mattering” is a subjective, internal thing, not an objective property in the world.
Can I ask where you're coming from with this question? (just want to understand the context before I answer)
It's something that inevitably pops in my head whenever I try to do something without an immediate benefit. Sometimes I try just for the hell of it to follow through, weeks or months. In the end it's just not fulfilling enough and I lose interest. After doing this for a while, now every time I see one of these 'better yourself' ideas I just think what's the point? But there has to be something else, since you and others swear that it somehow changed your life. Hence my question.
To the person talking about therapy, the above also applies to that.
To the person talking about therapy, the above also applies to that.
To train your brain to handle being able to do things that aren't fulfilling. It's basically the neurological version of working out and keeps your willpower at a point where if you need to exercise it, you can. As an extreme, imagine someone who doesn't have the willpower to fast being confronted with medical tests that require it. If the 'exercise' is necessary for health, might as well pick exercises with long term benefits.
To understand that worthlessness is worthless leads to the Buddha.
-- from Why Has Bodhi-Dharma Left For The East (1989)
-- from Why Has Bodhi-Dharma Left For The East (1989)
Therapy and lots of it.
> In business and life, instrumental rationality is much more useful and works more of the time (this is why the LessWrong crowd isn’t good at stochastic domains like business because their models, though logical, are insufficient.
One of the ideas that helped me there comes actually from them: "Rationality wins". Which is the old: "If you're so smart why aren't you rich?".
Not easy to apply for anybody, it's much easier to be a smart loser.
One of the ideas that helped me there comes actually from them: "Rationality wins". Which is the old: "If you're so smart why aren't you rich?".
Not easy to apply for anybody, it's much easier to be a smart loser.
> for instance, I'm a deep introvert, but I'm able to socialize for long periods of time and talk to strangers easily now, but only after I kept practicing for a period of 2 years -- I discovered it's possible to "bend" your introversion if you don't put yourself in a box and are willing to make an effort
How did you practice?
How did you practice?
I went to Meetups and talked to strangers. I want to say I had a specific practice routine, but the fact is I just went out and did it.
At first it was awkward and tiring, but because I truly wanted to get better at being a conversationalist, I kept doing it. I picked up a few conversation starters like "what keeps you busy these days?" but a lot of it is just reading the person and coming up with the right questions. And there were definitely ups and downs but now I'm able to walk into a room and have an easy conversation with a stranger (most of the time).
It does help that I can read social cues very well, an ability without which would have made it much harder. But we are all dealt a different deck of cards, and the idea of growth mindset is not to achieve some specific goal (we all have limits), but knowing that it's possible to get a lot better from where we started. That change of mindset is huge -- I've often been surprised by how far I'm able to push myself by not allowing myself to be put in boxes.
Introversion is not a binary setting. It's a social energy tank. And I've discovered the size of that tank can grow with practice. I've also discovered that introversion and antisocial tendencies are orthogonal concepts. Many introverts who have learned to grow their tank can be very social people. Their tanks drain much slower than unpracticed introverts.
At first it was awkward and tiring, but because I truly wanted to get better at being a conversationalist, I kept doing it. I picked up a few conversation starters like "what keeps you busy these days?" but a lot of it is just reading the person and coming up with the right questions. And there were definitely ups and downs but now I'm able to walk into a room and have an easy conversation with a stranger (most of the time).
It does help that I can read social cues very well, an ability without which would have made it much harder. But we are all dealt a different deck of cards, and the idea of growth mindset is not to achieve some specific goal (we all have limits), but knowing that it's possible to get a lot better from where we started. That change of mindset is huge -- I've often been surprised by how far I'm able to push myself by not allowing myself to be put in boxes.
Introversion is not a binary setting. It's a social energy tank. And I've discovered the size of that tank can grow with practice. I've also discovered that introversion and antisocial tendencies are orthogonal concepts. Many introverts who have learned to grow their tank can be very social people. Their tanks drain much slower than unpracticed introverts.
Get out of your box. Go to a foreign city, take public transport, wander around public places, and just talk to strangers.
I think the parent comment was pointing out ideas without habits(or you called it practice) won't really get you very far.
So habits are different from practice (I meant it in the sense of “application”, not so much in the sense of practicing the piano).
Habits refer to repetition, which implies you already know what to do so you’re just trying to get better at it. This works in closed domains where there is already a body of knowledge or pedagogy.
What I meant by practice is more about “applying” something — which means lots of experimentation to figure out what works. (In other words being a practitioner of ideas, rather than just a knower of them)
A lot of ideas that sound nice often fail when the rubber meets the road, which is why you have to subject them to the crucible of the real world through practice.
Habits refer to repetition, which implies you already know what to do so you’re just trying to get better at it. This works in closed domains where there is already a body of knowledge or pedagogy.
What I meant by practice is more about “applying” something — which means lots of experimentation to figure out what works. (In other words being a practitioner of ideas, rather than just a knower of them)
A lot of ideas that sound nice often fail when the rubber meets the road, which is why you have to subject them to the crucible of the real world through practice.
Great insight about different kinds of rationality!
Any recommendations to dive deeper into instrumental rationality topic?
I came across the idea on this website (https://commoncog.com/start-here/), which I feel is far more "applied" than the Farnam Street blog (https://fs.blog/). The latter is a distillation of essentially rationalist type mental models that sound good but often don't work in real life without a specific context (context really matters in real life).
The specific part about rationality is here: https://commoncog.com/putting-mental-models-to-practice-part...
The author of Commoncog actually puts stuff into practice and allows reality be the teacher. He also talks about "concept instantiation" in ill-structured domains. Most of our learning in school is geared toward structured domains where things behave in known ways. Our education system is based around abstract and principles based thinking, where a + b = c. And to be fair, this kind of thinking works very well.... in structured domains.
However, when you get into unstructured domains with lots of higher order effects like say, business or the battlefield or love, those ideas no longer work. First principles reasoning no longer gets you success -- instead you actually have to do the opposite, which is to reason analogically and "instantiate concepts" by assembling context fragments, not principles (e.g. "this has been done before under this context, which is similar to my context in these ways but different in these ways"). That's another insight that changed how I reasoned about ill-structured domains (note: only ill-structured domains! First-principles reasoning still works really well in structured domains so don't make the mistake of abandoning it... only know when to switch to analogical reasoning when you're in the realm of the ill-structured)
https://commoncog.com/cognitive-flexibility-theory-the-rules...
The specific part about rationality is here: https://commoncog.com/putting-mental-models-to-practice-part...
The author of Commoncog actually puts stuff into practice and allows reality be the teacher. He also talks about "concept instantiation" in ill-structured domains. Most of our learning in school is geared toward structured domains where things behave in known ways. Our education system is based around abstract and principles based thinking, where a + b = c. And to be fair, this kind of thinking works very well.... in structured domains.
However, when you get into unstructured domains with lots of higher order effects like say, business or the battlefield or love, those ideas no longer work. First principles reasoning no longer gets you success -- instead you actually have to do the opposite, which is to reason analogically and "instantiate concepts" by assembling context fragments, not principles (e.g. "this has been done before under this context, which is similar to my context in these ways but different in these ways"). That's another insight that changed how I reasoned about ill-structured domains (note: only ill-structured domains! First-principles reasoning still works really well in structured domains so don't make the mistake of abandoning it... only know when to switch to analogical reasoning when you're in the realm of the ill-structured)
https://commoncog.com/cognitive-flexibility-theory-the-rules...
Yep, its the only resource known to me that delves into these topics with a lot of ins & outs and its not just white & black business advice.
This Wikipedia article was great. Thank you very much for sharing it.
I very much disagree. Some of the biggest changes in my life were driven by the reading or hearing of a few words which suddenly made everything click. These moments led to huge behavior changes.
I definitely relate to that. I only started saving money seriously (with proper planning) after reading about FIRE (financial independence retire early) in a blog. Reading about that idea completely changed my mind about the true purpose of putting money aside while I was still young.
Before reading about FIRE I thought the idea of retiring silly because I was 100% sure I'd never stop working, even after turning 65. So saving money never made sense to me.
The blog about FIRE explained with a total different point of view which is not about retiring really but it's about having the choice to do only the work you really want to and being independent to make your own choices regardless of needing a paycheck.
That idea completely changed (part of) my life.
Before reading about FIRE I thought the idea of retiring silly because I was 100% sure I'd never stop working, even after turning 65. So saving money never made sense to me.
The blog about FIRE explained with a total different point of view which is not about retiring really but it's about having the choice to do only the work you really want to and being independent to make your own choices regardless of needing a paycheck.
That idea completely changed (part of) my life.
Such as?
What's the point? What one person needs at one point in their life is very unlikely to be what another person needs - it might appear banal or unintelligible to another.
It would be interesting to hear grandparent’s perspective. We learn from the experience of others. Otherwise, schools, best practices, or forums like HN would be completely useless.
For me personally, I read a blog post about motivation — and a quite silly one at that. I was young and struggled a lot with ADHD and motivation in general. I had a hard time in school because I just physically couldn’t work on an assignment. I’d set it down in front of me and stare at it, unable to start. I had kinda decided that I wasn’t good at those sorts of things, which made it harder.
But I found this random post online one day which has some ideas about trying to do small annoying things for no reason, to train your brain to be better at doing hard things.
The blog gave an example: go on a walk, but go out of your way to take on a pointless task. Like at the beginning, set out to touch 50 flowers. Then go on your walk touching flowers. When you get to the end, you’ve gotten practice doing something that you didn’t want to and which was a bit annoying. But now you’ll have a bit more confidence to do something else in the future.
I got in a habit of taking on these pointless goals a lot for a few weeks. Eventually I was sitting down and looking at my homework, thinking “I spent two hours touching flowers for no reason, I can spend a few minutes doing this” and would make some progress.
Looking back it seems ridiculous, but it was the advice I needed at the time, and it actually helped me make some changes in life. That whole process made me get into a habit of thinking about the end goal & how small little steps can help you do big things. And actually practicing and seeing that, took me out of the headspace of “I can never do that” to “maybe I can”.
And more interesting, I wrote about this on a forum back then, and more than a month after writing it I received a message from someone who said “hey, I just wanted to let you know that I started doing the annoying-little-task strategy after reading your post, and I feel it’s helped me a lot so thank you”
But I found this random post online one day which has some ideas about trying to do small annoying things for no reason, to train your brain to be better at doing hard things.
The blog gave an example: go on a walk, but go out of your way to take on a pointless task. Like at the beginning, set out to touch 50 flowers. Then go on your walk touching flowers. When you get to the end, you’ve gotten practice doing something that you didn’t want to and which was a bit annoying. But now you’ll have a bit more confidence to do something else in the future.
I got in a habit of taking on these pointless goals a lot for a few weeks. Eventually I was sitting down and looking at my homework, thinking “I spent two hours touching flowers for no reason, I can spend a few minutes doing this” and would make some progress.
Looking back it seems ridiculous, but it was the advice I needed at the time, and it actually helped me make some changes in life. That whole process made me get into a habit of thinking about the end goal & how small little steps can help you do big things. And actually practicing and seeing that, took me out of the headspace of “I can never do that” to “maybe I can”.
And more interesting, I wrote about this on a forum back then, and more than a month after writing it I received a message from someone who said “hey, I just wanted to let you know that I started doing the annoying-little-task strategy after reading your post, and I feel it’s helped me a lot so thank you”
Maybe tomorrow I will touch 20 flowers on my daily walk. (50 seems like too much.)
Thanks for the idea.
I don't know if this is really similar, but maybe it's a bit related. One of my friends and I decided to write 100 words a day for 30 days. Two other friends ended up joining our little project. I kept it up for about 100 days, and it made writing much easier for me. Also, about 2 months ago, I decided to spend about 30 minutes a day writing. It is amazing how much easier writing became for me. (When I was young, I found writing to be very painful. The only C's I got in college were in English. Nowadays, I think of my self as a writer --- not a good writer, but a writer.)
Thanks for the idea.
I don't know if this is really similar, but maybe it's a bit related. One of my friends and I decided to write 100 words a day for 30 days. Two other friends ended up joining our little project. I kept it up for about 100 days, and it made writing much easier for me. Also, about 2 months ago, I decided to spend about 30 minutes a day writing. It is amazing how much easier writing became for me. (When I was young, I found writing to be very painful. The only C's I got in college were in English. Nowadays, I think of my self as a writer --- not a good writer, but a writer.)
Did you have a rule for choosing the topics to write about, or was that choice also part of the writing process?
A very basic one would be the realization that everyone else is more unlike you than like you.
Once this idea sinks in, it generally promotes empathy because you stop judging others by the "golden rule" (do unto others as you would have them do unto you), and start thinking about the (perfectly sane and logical) mindset and circumstance that could lead to a particular action or idea. Once you go deep enough you start to recognize the patterns within patterns.
It allows you to take others as they are, rather than as an imperfect you.
Once this idea sinks in, it generally promotes empathy because you stop judging others by the "golden rule" (do unto others as you would have them do unto you), and start thinking about the (perfectly sane and logical) mindset and circumstance that could lead to a particular action or idea. Once you go deep enough you start to recognize the patterns within patterns.
It allows you to take others as they are, rather than as an imperfect you.
Instances are asked for the purpose of possible generalization.
One could read the comment summarised by "what's the point?" as itself an idea that could change a life.
Towards the negative mainly but also maybe towards stopping negative behaviour or thoughts. "Why care?"
Nihilism is an idea that has changed the world.
The rest of the comment is more of a modern idea where no one is able to know anyone else, prioritising the individual over all. This is most common in identity politics today.
It's worse than nihilism and it also changes societies and people as it encourages and demands the rejection of understanding and empathy.
Towards the negative mainly but also maybe towards stopping negative behaviour or thoughts. "Why care?"
Nihilism is an idea that has changed the world.
The rest of the comment is more of a modern idea where no one is able to know anyone else, prioritising the individual over all. This is most common in identity politics today.
It's worse than nihilism and it also changes societies and people as it encourages and demands the rejection of understanding and empathy.
In that case, we should all be viewing random sentences and hope something clicks.
Koans are kind of like that, at first glance.
One category of idea is a tool-in-a-toolbox idea. Many on this page is of that type. A lot of ideas in economics is this, for example. They become thinking tools that are easily synthesized into the brain as they are super easy conceptual ideas. So as you go about your day and come across a problem, your brain can pull from that toolbox to better solve the problem.
I love sites full of wisdom like this. Sometimes there’s a tool buried deep in my toolbox that my brain forgot I had and this brings it back to the surface. And sometimes there’s a new tool I can grok/incorporate in seconds. And inevitably there will be a tool I don’t care about or agree with and simply discard it. Big win for very minimal investment of time.
I love sites full of wisdom like this. Sometimes there’s a tool buried deep in my toolbox that my brain forgot I had and this brings it back to the surface. And sometimes there’s a new tool I can grok/incorporate in seconds. And inevitably there will be a tool I don’t care about or agree with and simply discard it. Big win for very minimal investment of time.
This is so important. Over the years as someone who's constantly trying new note-taking mind mappy things, interacting with my own thoughts in the past, it took an embarrassingly long time to realize that one of the the fundamental differences between me and the computer is that I require multiple writes.
(The other is that graphy mind-mappy tools on the computer are often pointless, because this is the thing that human brains are WAY BETTER AT than the computer.
What the computer is good at is "perfect recall of specifics in the form of words")
(The other is that graphy mind-mappy tools on the computer are often pointless, because this is the thing that human brains are WAY BETTER AT than the computer.
What the computer is good at is "perfect recall of specifics in the form of words")
> me and the computer is that I require multiple writes
Remarkable in times in which we study "one shot learning" for machines.
Edit: incidentally, this human detail reveals precisely what seems to be crucially missing in machine learning, current stage: ideas do propagate change through internal elaboration, in an organic process - ideas fine-tune models, through internal work.
Remarkable in times in which we study "one shot learning" for machines.
Edit: incidentally, this human detail reveals precisely what seems to be crucially missing in machine learning, current stage: ideas do propagate change through internal elaboration, in an organic process - ideas fine-tune models, through internal work.
One of my life-changing ideas was "work with yourself instead of against it when possible." I also require multiple 'writes', so anything important is written or displayed somewhere that I see it multiple times a day.
It takes about 6 weeks of repetition to establish a habit. With 9 such intervals a year, and 90 in a decade, I think given how few people apply they could be forgiven for referring to the few which stick as ideas rather than habituation?
The idea is the trigger. Doing it, to achieve lasting change requires habit forming.
The idea is the trigger. Doing it, to achieve lasting change requires habit forming.
There's actually 52 intervals, they can overlap.
I can't rub my tummy in a circle and put my head precisely because I can't acquire two skills at once. Chewing gum followed walking. But perhaps I could learn to overlap these brief attempts at habit forming. It might take six weeks or so...
theres a difference between doing 2 things at once, and doing two things 3 days apart. You can take up running,_and_ walk to work at the same time.
Ideas and habit change are rather intertwined.
Habit change is itself just an idea until someone chooses to actually do it.
Habit change is itself just an idea until someone chooses to actually do it.
For some things yes. For others, nope. The realisation that, when you pour a full long-life milk tetrapak, the opening goes at the top not the bottom of the top face? That changed my life instantly. I mean, it’s not earth shattering but it’s had a permanent and measurable impact on me, and I’ve passed it on to a few people with similar results.
Likewise a friend once pointed out that swinging a closed sauce bottle to get the sauce to the top is way more effective than shaking it linearly. That was 15 years ago and I still think of him every time I use this trick.
Likewise a friend once pointed out that swinging a closed sauce bottle to get the sauce to the top is way more effective than shaking it linearly. That was 15 years ago and I still think of him every time I use this trick.
Thinking is often a habit as well, and this is where habits start.
Changing one’s life is hyperbole, sure, but I really like lists of ideas like this. I’ve been compiling a list of my own, and there’s some overlap.
Habits have to start somewhere.
People do change their lives based on ideas. Just usually not the ideas that you’re trying to feed to them.
We would all benefit from remembering this one
> 23. Gall’s Law: A complex system that works is invariably found to have evolved from a simple system that worked. A complex system designed from scratch never works and cannot be patched up to make it work. You have to start over with a working simple system.
> 23. Gall’s Law: A complex system that works is invariably found to have evolved from a simple system that worked. A complex system designed from scratch never works and cannot be patched up to make it work. You have to start over with a working simple system.
Let me present the Paige Compositor. A typesetting machine if you like, made from 18,000 precision made parts in 1877. Well, 1877 is the start year of the contract. The project went on for about 15 years. 6 machines were ever made (out of 4,000 ordered). They kept failing.
Meanwhile, a much more limited (initially) machine arrived on the scene, the Linotype machine. It was successfull and did run the world's news and magazine press for the next 100 years.
It's really a fascinating read: https://www.todayifoundout.com/index.php/2023/03/the-machine...
Meanwhile, a much more limited (initially) machine arrived on the scene, the Linotype machine. It was successfull and did run the world's news and magazine press for the next 100 years.
It's really a fascinating read: https://www.todayifoundout.com/index.php/2023/03/the-machine...
Really enjoyed the read, thank you!
I have a hard time with this.
I see the obvious examples of complex systems failing, but we also have so many other complex systems that sure have their shares of issues, but I am not sure we can mark as failed.
For instance government constitutions are arguably complex, and formed from scratch.
Or to stay in the tech sphere and look at the problem from the other end, is it possible to build anything that hasn't effectively evolved from something more simple ? If tomorrow I'd want to build a whole new rocket from scratch, I'll need to build the parts piece by piece, and test them before assembly.
Do we consider these tests to be simpler systems that are proved to work, thus if my rocket design happens to work, it evolved from simpler systems that got combined ? Does my design come from so many other designs I've seen and learn, and so is an evolution of these past designs ? etc.
My core question would be, does that law have any practical impact in our field ?
I see the obvious examples of complex systems failing, but we also have so many other complex systems that sure have their shares of issues, but I am not sure we can mark as failed.
For instance government constitutions are arguably complex, and formed from scratch.
Or to stay in the tech sphere and look at the problem from the other end, is it possible to build anything that hasn't effectively evolved from something more simple ? If tomorrow I'd want to build a whole new rocket from scratch, I'll need to build the parts piece by piece, and test them before assembly.
Do we consider these tests to be simpler systems that are proved to work, thus if my rocket design happens to work, it evolved from simpler systems that got combined ? Does my design come from so many other designs I've seen and learn, and so is an evolution of these past designs ? etc.
My core question would be, does that law have any practical impact in our field ?
The most salient example to me is microservices. It's unfortunately quite common for a microservices architecture to be invented during a whiteboarding session.
This is, at best, expensive.
This is, at best, expensive.
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Indeed! Gall's SYSTEMANTICS [1] is worth a read in its entirety.
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Systemantics
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Systemantics
Incremental approaches are limited. A basic example of this is scaling. A chemical process worked out in a lab cannot be incrementally scaled for effective production with bigger test tubes. The entire production process must be designed again from scratch.
Incremental approaches to designing a control system with many if statements will never evolve into a PID controller. Nor will a PID controller be evolved into being able to handle non-linearities.
Scrum may be effective as an organisational process at a team level, but will fail utterly if it is applied to the entire organisation.
Incremental approaches optimise, but that’s all they can do.
Incremental approaches to designing a control system with many if statements will never evolve into a PID controller. Nor will a PID controller be evolved into being able to handle non-linearities.
Scrum may be effective as an organisational process at a team level, but will fail utterly if it is applied to the entire organisation.
Incremental approaches optimise, but that’s all they can do.
This is a known problem in math, it's called a local maximum.
It's a function of where you start on the graph. Experience and understanding can let you start in a different place on the graph that may be less efficient but have a higher local maximum.
It's a function of where you start on the graph. Experience and understanding can let you start in a different place on the graph that may be less efficient but have a higher local maximum.
but you don't usually just jump from one peak to another. there's series of repeat failures that have to happen to get to the next mountain to traverse(usually there could be point solutions I suppose)
With optimization functions, the general process is pick a point, iterate until a local maximum, pick a new point, iterate until a local maximum, and repeat until you have an answer you're comfortable with. You might run out of time, or evaluate enough of the space that you're confident you've found an anawer.
When you apply the same idea to iterating on a product, or an engineering problem, the end result of your iteration depends on you choosing a good starting point. that's where experience comes in - you don't start all the way at the beginning, you start at the place where you know you can iterate to higher maximum. You've already had those repeat failures in the past.
A slightly silly but less abstract example. Let's say im brought in to a company to help solve the problem that the developers can't work on the project together because they can't share code.
_A_ starting point is a network drive, and you can iterate on that with file locks and faster networks, but you hit a local maximum. You then decide to use a database or something, and eventually you reinvent CVS.
Meanwhile, an experienced developer will skip all of that and start with git, and iterate on things like code review, merge pipelines.
Iteration is still key.
When you apply the same idea to iterating on a product, or an engineering problem, the end result of your iteration depends on you choosing a good starting point. that's where experience comes in - you don't start all the way at the beginning, you start at the place where you know you can iterate to higher maximum. You've already had those repeat failures in the past.
A slightly silly but less abstract example. Let's say im brought in to a company to help solve the problem that the developers can't work on the project together because they can't share code.
_A_ starting point is a network drive, and you can iterate on that with file locks and faster networks, but you hit a local maximum. You then decide to use a database or something, and eventually you reinvent CVS.
Meanwhile, an experienced developer will skip all of that and start with git, and iterate on things like code review, merge pipelines.
Iteration is still key.
"You can never get to the moon by incrementally improving on a truck."
This is awesome because I’d landed on the same concept but via evolution, especially a section in the Blind watchmaker where Dawkins implores on one fundamental requirement for evolution, which is that every step in the evolutionary process the individuals need to have a functional version of the trait. You can’t just shut down the process to retrofit things. Evolving eyes from light sensitive cells means that the organoid in every intermediate step should be a functional light detector that’s slightly better than the previous iteration if not the same.
This is a great, but absolutely not necessarily the only, way of writing software. As mentioned by other replies this is maybe not even possible in some fields. And as Dawkins points out, it’s is absolutely not the most efficient way and you don’t explore the full efficiency landscape by a long shot. But it works, and is predictable. I’ve had great success in software by following this rule.
It is also highly resilient to unpredictable organizational politics and inefficiencies because from the moment of having an MVP, you always have a functioning product.
This is a great, but absolutely not necessarily the only, way of writing software. As mentioned by other replies this is maybe not even possible in some fields. And as Dawkins points out, it’s is absolutely not the most efficient way and you don’t explore the full efficiency landscape by a long shot. But it works, and is predictable. I’ve had great success in software by following this rule.
It is also highly resilient to unpredictable organizational politics and inefficiencies because from the moment of having an MVP, you always have a functioning product.
> Evolving eyes from light sensitive cells means that the organoid in every intermediate step should be a functional light detector that’s slightly better than the previous iteration if not the same.
This is not entirely true, because there is horizontal gene transfer, and serendipitous combinations, even of "junk" DNA. For example, eyes started off as ordinary brain cells that just happened to have a light-sensitive chemical in them: melatonin. The melatonin could have had another non-photosensing use prior to this, or it could even have been a mere byproduct of some other process.
This is not entirely true, because there is horizontal gene transfer, and serendipitous combinations, even of "junk" DNA. For example, eyes started off as ordinary brain cells that just happened to have a light-sensitive chemical in them: melatonin. The melatonin could have had another non-photosensing use prior to this, or it could even have been a mere byproduct of some other process.
I think a much more profound one is that in complex systems, there are usually workings that are not obvious to the observers. And so, by manipulating these systems, they will fail in unexpected ways. I'm not sure why OP can't think of a complex system designed from scratch - how did, for example, the Large Hadron Collider get designed? Starting from a nice and simple particle collider, and evolving from there?
Sorry for being rude.
The above article sounds like written by GPT. Also, the author's tweets look like this:
"If you really wanna learn about somebody, skip the 60 minute interview and have them drive you through New York City for 15 minutes."
And then this person calls himself "The Writing Guy" on his twitter bio and unironically sells a writing course.
The above article sounds like written by GPT. Also, the author's tweets look like this:
"If you really wanna learn about somebody, skip the 60 minute interview and have them drive you through New York City for 15 minutes."
And then this person calls himself "The Writing Guy" on his twitter bio and unironically sells a writing course.
Could you explain how's that related to 51 ideas that are listed on the link?
I'm struggling to see the connection you are seeing, can you clarify? Are the ideas mentioned worth less because you found a potential way to discredit the person listing them?
I'm struggling to see the connection you are seeing, can you clarify? Are the ideas mentioned worth less because you found a potential way to discredit the person listing them?
Opportunity cost. We'd do better to discuss something that wasn't GPT vomit. Especially this GPT vomit, which is not very good
So what you're saying is that what you wrote is correct and you should be trusted because... of what?
Given your nickname and attitude, how does one not conclude you're here to just be negative because you can?
Given your nickname and attitude, how does one not conclude you're here to just be negative because you can?
The ideas are simple and not particularly unique, but sometimes a list of simple but not unique ideas, which many of us already know, but nicely articulated in one place, can spark thought.
If I took at as a deep philosophical treatise I might agree with you, but that isn’t what it is and I don’t think that makes it vomit.
If I took at as a deep philosophical treatise I might agree with you, but that isn’t what it is and I don’t think that makes it vomit.
These aren't even nicely articulated, they're poorly articulated and full of inaccuracies
To quote Luke Skywalker: everything you said is wrong
ChatGPT/OpenAIs detector does not agree:
“The classifier considers the text to be very unlikely AI-generated.”
I pasted first half of the article into it.
https://platform.openai.com/ai-text-classifier
I pasted first half of the article into it.
https://platform.openai.com/ai-text-classifier
That's the tool that only can correctly classify 26% of AI written text?
Here's one written by ChatGPT. https://sharegpt.com/c/cjnFahj
2 in the top 5 matches the handwritten article.
2 in the top 5 matches the handwritten article.
Another good idea that will change your life is to keep things short and simple. 51 ideas is like 43 too many :)
Offer your regards to wealth, and be grateful.
Edit: practically, in fact, some of the points presented are stubs - and require more elaboration, on the contrary.
Edit2: not to mention that Perell also expresses falsities just to bargain on words (like quantifiers).
Edit: practically, in fact, some of the points presented are stubs - and require more elaboration, on the contrary.
Edit2: not to mention that Perell also expresses falsities just to bargain on words (like quantifiers).
- get enough sleep
- don't eat junk
- get out and exercise 6 days a week
- commit
- don't overcommit
- forgive yourself
- be sovereign
> Eric Idle: «Now, here's the meaning of life. (Thank you, Brigitte.) M-hmm. Well, it's nothing very special. Uh, try and be nice to people, avoid eating fat, read a good book every now and then, get some walking in, and try and live together in peace and harmony with people of all creeds and nations»
~~~ Monty Python, The Meaning of Life
~~~ Monty Python, The Meaning of Life
hmm, starting with these two so high in the list makes it difficult to properly read the rest.
> 2. Doublespeak: People often say the opposite of what they mean
> 4. Preference Falsification: People lie about their true opinions
Are we supposed to apply these to the 48 other ideas that he pitches as his guiding lights ?
Otherwise I think more than the ideas themselves, it's a good reminder that anyone having seen enough paradigms will have a prism of often contradicting ideas to look through any specific issue. None of these ideas would make sense on their own, nor has much value outside of being another perspective to complete the others.
This is often lost when trying to pigeon hole a real situation into a single well-know pattern or single idea.
> 2. Doublespeak: People often say the opposite of what they mean
> 4. Preference Falsification: People lie about their true opinions
Are we supposed to apply these to the 48 other ideas that he pitches as his guiding lights ?
Otherwise I think more than the ideas themselves, it's a good reminder that anyone having seen enough paradigms will have a prism of often contradicting ideas to look through any specific issue. None of these ideas would make sense on their own, nor has much value outside of being another perspective to complete the others.
This is often lost when trying to pigeon hole a real situation into a single well-know pattern or single idea.
#2 is the truest statement ever stated. Other examples of the form are "people say things about themselves that are really about you", or "things about someone else that are really about themselves".
Indirection (and proxies!!) are cornerstones of human communication. I've found it reasonably helpful to test all strong statements through those 3 lenses.
Indirection (and proxies!!) are cornerstones of human communication. I've found it reasonably helpful to test all strong statements through those 3 lenses.
This post is right from ChatGPT. Like, “tell me 50 life wisdoms which can be earned through time” or something. We arrived the end of internet as we know it. I hate this.
>This post is right from ChatGPT
It's a self-help blog post, they had the ChatGPT prose style down before ChatGPT existed. For all the people who are convinced that humans are just running on autocomplete, with this particular genre they may actually have a point.
It's a self-help blog post, they had the ChatGPT prose style down before ChatGPT existed. For all the people who are convinced that humans are just running on autocomplete, with this particular genre they may actually have a point.
I imagine for a human creator this might sound like an insult. Care to share some proof?
No, it's the reverse. Posts like this are a dime a dozen, so they are probably over-represented in GPT's training set.
I'll add one by collabfund that might be relevant for the crowd here:
*Everyone belongs to a tribe and underestimates how influential that tribe is on their thinking.* There is [little correlation between](http://climatescience.oxfordre.com/view/10.1093/acrefore/978...) climate change denial and scientific literacy. But there is a strong correlation between climate change denial and political affiliation. That’s an extreme example, but everyone has views persuaded by identity over pure analysis. There’s four parts to this:
• Tribes are everywhere: Countries, states, parties, companies, industries, departments, investment styles, economic philosophies, religions, families, schools, majors, credentials, Twitter communities.
• People are drawn to tribes because there’s comfort in knowing others understand your background and goals.
• Tribes reduce the ability to challenge ideas or diversify your views because no one wants to lose support of the tribe.
• Tribes are as self-interested as people, encouraging ideas and narratives that promote their survival. But they’re exponentially more influential than any single person. So tribes are very effective at promoting views that aren’t analytical or rational, and people loyal to their tribes are very poor at realizing it.
*Everyone belongs to a tribe and underestimates how influential that tribe is on their thinking.* There is [little correlation between](http://climatescience.oxfordre.com/view/10.1093/acrefore/978...) climate change denial and scientific literacy. But there is a strong correlation between climate change denial and political affiliation. That’s an extreme example, but everyone has views persuaded by identity over pure analysis. There’s four parts to this:
• Tribes are everywhere: Countries, states, parties, companies, industries, departments, investment styles, economic philosophies, religions, families, schools, majors, credentials, Twitter communities.
• People are drawn to tribes because there’s comfort in knowing others understand your background and goals.
• Tribes reduce the ability to challenge ideas or diversify your views because no one wants to lose support of the tribe.
• Tribes are as self-interested as people, encouraging ideas and narratives that promote their survival. But they’re exponentially more influential than any single person. So tribes are very effective at promoting views that aren’t analytical or rational, and people loyal to their tribes are very poor at realizing it.
> The world always makes sense. But it can be confusing.
I just don't agree with this at all. I think its folly to assume the world will always make sense. As humans we seek to make sense of things, but not everything fits into our cognitive little boxes.
I just don't agree with this at all. I think its folly to assume the world will always make sense. As humans we seek to make sense of things, but not everything fits into our cognitive little boxes.
I agree with it fully, it’s only based on the assumption that all decisions a person makes are made for a reason. Which is almost certainly true. If you say that somebody’s decision making doesn’t make sense, the only actual explanations for that are either that you don’t understand their rationale, or that you’re making a value judgement that their rationale is bad. Neither of those things involve a lack of making sense. The claim “this doesn’t make sense…” is always associated with an implicit “…to me”.
The same thing applies to anything that emerges from a system of multiple people making multiple decisions, or from any observation about nature. The only thing that changes is the complexity of what you’re trying to understand.
The same thing applies to anything that emerges from a system of multiple people making multiple decisions, or from any observation about nature. The only thing that changes is the complexity of what you’re trying to understand.
I interpreted the statement differently than you did. I translate “world makes sense” to mean that people act in accordance with their motivations. If people are acting in a way that seems irrational to you or at odds with their stated motivations, likely you have misjudged their motivations or they are concealing their true motivations.
I agree with your disagree.
The very idea of "making sense" is a human construct. The universe doesn't care about making sense - to us or otherwise, except to the extent that we are part of it, and some of us care. There's no magical rule that says "the world" should, will, or even can "make sense".
(IMO :)
The very idea of "making sense" is a human construct. The universe doesn't care about making sense - to us or otherwise, except to the extent that we are part of it, and some of us care. There's no magical rule that says "the world" should, will, or even can "make sense".
(IMO :)
The universe doesn’t have to care about making sense to us for us to make sense of it.
I tend to think the only reasonable and scientific viewpoint is that it’s possible to make sense of everything. Anything else is defeatist.
I tend to think the only reasonable and scientific viewpoint is that it’s possible to make sense of everything. Anything else is defeatist.
But this magical rule does exist, it is a human construct called 'making sense' :)
It simply meant that "there is always a reason for things[: if you do not see it, your world model is incomplete]".
> Penny Problem Gap: Economists assume demand is linear, but people’s behavior totally changes once an action costs money. If the inventors of the Internet had known about it, spam wouldn’t be such a problem. If sending an email cost you $0.001, there’d be way less spam.
Freakonomics argues it can have the opposite effect, of "licensing" undesired behavior by those who can afford to pay the cost. Something to think about when it comes to carbon credits, etc..
Here's an idea which will hopefully change someone's life:
If you take the best parts of in silico computing and the best parts of synthetic biology, you can make transformative hybrid devices much faster than trying to make just making tinier and tinier computers or smarter and smarter cells.
Example:
Mimee, M., N. Nadeau, T. J. Hayward, S. Carim, C. A. Flanagan, J. Jerger, S. Collins, T. R. McDonnell, R. N. Swartwout, W. C. Citorik, S. H. Bulovic, R. Langer, and G. Traverso. 2018. An ingestible bacterial-electronic system to monitor gastrointestinal health. Science 360: 915-918. doi: 10.1126/science.aas9315. https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC6430580/
Freakonomics argues it can have the opposite effect, of "licensing" undesired behavior by those who can afford to pay the cost. Something to think about when it comes to carbon credits, etc..
Here's an idea which will hopefully change someone's life:
If you take the best parts of in silico computing and the best parts of synthetic biology, you can make transformative hybrid devices much faster than trying to make just making tinier and tinier computers or smarter and smarter cells.
Example:
Mimee, M., N. Nadeau, T. J. Hayward, S. Carim, C. A. Flanagan, J. Jerger, S. Collins, T. R. McDonnell, R. N. Swartwout, W. C. Citorik, S. H. Bulovic, R. Langer, and G. Traverso. 2018. An ingestible bacterial-electronic system to monitor gastrointestinal health. Science 360: 915-918. doi: 10.1126/science.aas9315. https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC6430580/
Anecdotally a similar effect happened with a friend’s childcare center.
They were sick of parents showing up late to pick their kids up so they instituted a penalty of $x for every minute a parent was late. More parents ended up being late because they felt less guilty knowing they could just pay the penalty. The social pressure to be on time was replaced by a financial one.
They were sick of parents showing up late to pick their kids up so they instituted a penalty of $x for every minute a parent was late. More parents ended up being late because they felt less guilty knowing they could just pay the penalty. The social pressure to be on time was replaced by a financial one.
See also "A Fine is a Price": https://www.jstor.org/stable/10.1086/468061
Ha! Perhaps I read about that some time ago and my brain decided to file it away as a memory of my own.
Thanks for sharing.
Thanks for sharing.
This is a great story!
Pay tell: What was the 2nd order consequence? The childcare center started to make more money from late parents. It sounds like a good trade. Ideally, raise the price little by little, until behaviour hits an equilibrium. Then you have extracted maximum value for both sides! If parents don't like it, they can go to a different daycare.
Pay tell: What was the 2nd order consequence? The childcare center started to make more money from late parents. It sounds like a good trade. Ideally, raise the price little by little, until behaviour hits an equilibrium. Then you have extracted maximum value for both sides! If parents don't like it, they can go to a different daycare.
It just means they didn’t set the price high enough.
> 9. Competition is for Losers
This one is weird. First of all, competition can be very healthy and good for everyone. Sure, there's toxic games you can play in life, but anyone who's ever actually competed at something knows the difference.
This one is weird. First of all, competition can be very healthy and good for everyone. Sure, there's toxic games you can play in life, but anyone who's ever actually competed at something knows the difference.
It is maybe too strongly phrased and not universally applicable (where would sports be without competition?). But it is an interesting idea nonetheless. In general we are so deeply instilled with the notion that we should be competitive at all things. Our whole society is based on hyper competitiveness. And look where that gets us. We say that competition is a law of nature, survival of the fittest, etc. But there are a lot of synergetic, collaborative processes in nature. And, while there's competition on micro scales, don't ecosystems find their balance in what species leave for others to thrive on?
Is competition the best way, in all those cases we think it is? Or is it just the easiest, low-friction way for an individual to gain advantage? And not so much benefiting the collective. Are coopetition, collaboration, cross-pollination more advanced and sophisticated mechanisms of evolution? Maybe requiring higher levels of civilization than mankind can bring to the table right now.
Is competition the best way, in all those cases we think it is? Or is it just the easiest, low-friction way for an individual to gain advantage? And not so much benefiting the collective. Are coopetition, collaboration, cross-pollination more advanced and sophisticated mechanisms of evolution? Maybe requiring higher levels of civilization than mankind can bring to the table right now.
I've alway shied away from sort of personal competition.
On the other hand, I have tried to "play to win" with stuff I do, which is giving it everything to succeed. Just not with the intent to make someone else lose. I've never really enjoyed pvp games.
Can someone explain healthy competition in their words?
On the other hand, I have tried to "play to win" with stuff I do, which is giving it everything to succeed. Just not with the intent to make someone else lose. I've never really enjoyed pvp games.
Can someone explain healthy competition in their words?
I wonder if it's the Peter Thiel meaning of the phrase. His entire book Zero to One is about how one should strive to do things no one else has done, for true capturing of the market. Of course, that's much easier said than done.
There's still competition your just playing with a stacked deck.
the world is full of competition. write the article is a competition against other articles.
>Horseshoe Theory: Extreme opposites tend to look the same. For example, a far-right movement and a far-left movement can be equally violent or desire a similar outcome.
This is terrible political ignorance disguised as "advice". Violence is the most fundamental form of influence, and is not owned by any particular political party or position, nor does the willingness to use violence communicate anything except that group's lack of commitment to pacifism.
This is akin to saying that serial killers and carpenters are basically the same because they both use sharp objects. In fact, you can equate any political position to any other, or literally any sovereign group of people, when you account for the fact that all of them have gone to war or committed some other act of violence to further their interests.
In fact, this is the Fox News/neocon Republican talking point: "anti-fascists are the same as fascists, because they harm fascists"
Does the author really think in such simplistic terms?
This is terrible political ignorance disguised as "advice". Violence is the most fundamental form of influence, and is not owned by any particular political party or position, nor does the willingness to use violence communicate anything except that group's lack of commitment to pacifism.
This is akin to saying that serial killers and carpenters are basically the same because they both use sharp objects. In fact, you can equate any political position to any other, or literally any sovereign group of people, when you account for the fact that all of them have gone to war or committed some other act of violence to further their interests.
In fact, this is the Fox News/neocon Republican talking point: "anti-fascists are the same as fascists, because they harm fascists"
Does the author really think in such simplistic terms?
outside of the political analogy. this seems like a symmetry argument, which can have applications like realizing tic tac toe can be reduce by using rotational and mirror symmetry. I'm sure math people have better names but you get the point.
Money is a social obligation that can be precisely quantified.
This succinct nugget of a concept which appears at the end of David Graeber’s magnum opus, Debt: The First 5000 Years, has completely transformed the way I look at and understand the world. It’s as if I was waiting all my life for that exact book.
This succinct nugget of a concept which appears at the end of David Graeber’s magnum opus, Debt: The First 5000 Years, has completely transformed the way I look at and understand the world. It’s as if I was waiting all my life for that exact book.
I hate when authors include their own ideas inside a list of very notable ones while not including the original ideas they used. It comes off so pompous.
Not that we can't stand on the shoulders of giants, but come on. Do you really need to include your unoriginal "ideas" in the same list and claim you came up with it?
"The Never-Ending Now" - Also just known as novelty bias or "shiny object syndrome". Or simply put, neomania. Life has gone through 24 hour news cycles for millennia, this isn't an unique idea although the author has obviously claimed the phrase on the internet already.
Not that we can't stand on the shoulders of giants, but come on. Do you really need to include your unoriginal "ideas" in the same list and claim you came up with it?
"The Never-Ending Now" - Also just known as novelty bias or "shiny object syndrome". Or simply put, neomania. Life has gone through 24 hour news cycles for millennia, this isn't an unique idea although the author has obviously claimed the phrase on the internet already.
Learning foreign languages as an adult is valuable for facilitating thinking about the world in very different ways.
In my case, learning Korean in my 20s helped me understand group dynamics and hierarchies (they are built into the verbs themselves) in a way my English-language background never could. Classical Chinese gave me conceptual gifts, such as "principle" 理 vs. "material force" 氣 , and Japanese (very similar to Korean, but with important differences in nuance) the power of understatement and indirection.
In my case, learning Korean in my 20s helped me understand group dynamics and hierarchies (they are built into the verbs themselves) in a way my English-language background never could. Classical Chinese gave me conceptual gifts, such as "principle" 理 vs. "material force" 氣 , and Japanese (very similar to Korean, but with important differences in nuance) the power of understatement and indirection.
I really like this idea "Optimism in the face of uncertainty". I love that the idea arises from real mathematical theorems.
https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S03032...
See also
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Multi-armed_bandit
https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S03032...
See also
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Multi-armed_bandit
Site is taking long to load: https://archive.is/Hzmcu
It's funny that both Overton Window and Horseshoe Theory are both listed. They tend to contradict each other.
> 6. Mimetic Theory of Desire: Humans are like sheep
Not quite.. We have mirror neurons, we imitate to learn (in fact just watching is sufficient) but this behavior can be overridden (thanks to prefrontal cortex) but most don't apparently
Not quite.. We have mirror neurons, we imitate to learn (in fact just watching is sufficient) but this behavior can be overridden (thanks to prefrontal cortex) but most don't apparently
> 24. Hock Principle: Simple, clear purpose and principles give rise to complex and intelligent behavior. Complex rules and regulations give rise to simple and stupid behavior.
"Complexity is a subsidy."--Jonah Goldberg
"Complexity is a subsidy."--Jonah Goldberg
Can anybody elaborate on the overlap between this and the Great Mental Models (https://fs.blog/tgmm/)?
> People lie about their true opinions and conform to socially acceptable preferences instead. In private they’ll say one thing. In public, they’ll say another.
Especially when your livelihood is on the line.
Especially when your livelihood is on the line.
I found this article very useful as much for the comments as the article. HN does have some really smart and insightful people.
In what ways was this person’s life changed by these ideas?
Those are great! I think I should read them once a week.
> 3. Theory of Constraints: A system is only as strong as its weakest point. Focus on the bottleneck. Counterintuitively, if you break down the entire system and optimize each component individually, you’ll lower the effectiveness of the system. Optimize the entire system instead.
This underpins a lot of what we call DevOps (i mean the actually useful interpretation of DevOps, not all the shit that gets a DevOps label in an attempt to sell something).
Despite working with this idea every day for over a decade, the idea itself still blows my mind. Despite being theoretically quite succinct, it has so much practical depth that i struggle to see myself getting bored of applying the learnings from it.
Anecdote: i landed in a role in a part of a big org that was on fire, but the fire wasn’t due to stupidity. The team was huge with genuinely no lemons on it (i later found out this was no accident - the head had been given permission to cherry pick staff from across the org and he took a lot of flak for causing brain drain in other parts of the org). They had a software component that everyone relied on in production but technically no one really owned. Everyone was maxed out, growth wasn’t the problem but an externally driven change in how the business worked was. The pace was non-negotiable.
This component “worked” as far as we could tell. Volumes and the fact that some theoretical failure modes would be hard to detect in practice at that time, meant it was not possible to be confident that it was fully working correctly, but it was at least mostly working.
The problem: no one could release changes to this component reliably but changes were often needed. Over 80% of releases were rolled back. On average it took 2-point-something releases to successfully get a change out to this component that didn’t need to be rolled back.
Lots of optimisations had been applied to this component. This was not a stupid team and it did not suffer this pain willingly. There were software optimisations applied - mostly tools to abstract changes to be simpler to deal with. For example, one source of complexity was a bunch of rules that had to be dealt with but these could be handled in software allowing the human to just specify mostly the desired behaviours. That improved the situation but only slightly, also the continuously changing landscape meant this tooling itself became a moving target and a source of bugs. There were special review processes for changes, there were 3 experts in this huge org who reviewed everyone elses changes - this review process was excruciating to perform and involved examining a gargantuan model representation in excel.
Still the failed releases ticked up. No other part of the system suffered in this way.
There was popular thinking at the time was that this system just needed an owner. Of course no one wanted that thankless poisoned chalice.
Applying ToC to this resulted in a system that needed no owner long term, the tools that been created were all disbanded, the review board too.
The result was that newbies to the team pairing on a deliverable would be given responsibility to change that component as a way of flexing their solo skills.
This underpins a lot of what we call DevOps (i mean the actually useful interpretation of DevOps, not all the shit that gets a DevOps label in an attempt to sell something).
Despite working with this idea every day for over a decade, the idea itself still blows my mind. Despite being theoretically quite succinct, it has so much practical depth that i struggle to see myself getting bored of applying the learnings from it.
Anecdote: i landed in a role in a part of a big org that was on fire, but the fire wasn’t due to stupidity. The team was huge with genuinely no lemons on it (i later found out this was no accident - the head had been given permission to cherry pick staff from across the org and he took a lot of flak for causing brain drain in other parts of the org). They had a software component that everyone relied on in production but technically no one really owned. Everyone was maxed out, growth wasn’t the problem but an externally driven change in how the business worked was. The pace was non-negotiable.
This component “worked” as far as we could tell. Volumes and the fact that some theoretical failure modes would be hard to detect in practice at that time, meant it was not possible to be confident that it was fully working correctly, but it was at least mostly working.
The problem: no one could release changes to this component reliably but changes were often needed. Over 80% of releases were rolled back. On average it took 2-point-something releases to successfully get a change out to this component that didn’t need to be rolled back.
Lots of optimisations had been applied to this component. This was not a stupid team and it did not suffer this pain willingly. There were software optimisations applied - mostly tools to abstract changes to be simpler to deal with. For example, one source of complexity was a bunch of rules that had to be dealt with but these could be handled in software allowing the human to just specify mostly the desired behaviours. That improved the situation but only slightly, also the continuously changing landscape meant this tooling itself became a moving target and a source of bugs. There were special review processes for changes, there were 3 experts in this huge org who reviewed everyone elses changes - this review process was excruciating to perform and involved examining a gargantuan model representation in excel.
Still the failed releases ticked up. No other part of the system suffered in this way.
There was popular thinking at the time was that this system just needed an owner. Of course no one wanted that thankless poisoned chalice.
Applying ToC to this resulted in a system that needed no owner long term, the tools that been created were all disbanded, the review board too.
The result was that newbies to the team pairing on a deliverable would be given responsibility to change that component as a way of flexing their solo skills.
> 16. Russell Conjugation: Journalists often change the meaning of a sentence by replacing one word with a synonym that implies a different meaning. For example, the same person can support an estate tax but oppose a death tax
Why did they choose “journalists” when the “death tax” narrative was created by politicians, a much better example group for this conjugation.
> 18. Overton Window: You can control thought without limiting speech. You can do it by defining the limits of acceptable thought while allowing for lively debate within these barriers. For example, Fox News and MSNBC set limits on what political thoughts they consider acceptable, but in the grand scheme of things, they’re both fairly conventional.
While this is true of MSNBC, Fox News is clearly swinging to the right more and more.
> 41. The Invisible Hand: Markets aggregate knowledge. Rising prices signal falling supply or increased demand, which incentivizes an increase in production. The opposite is true for falling prices. Prices are a signal wrapped in an incentive.
More recently, the invisible hand has been shown to have its thumb on the scale.