I wrote once: MEASURE EVERYTHING It strikes me as even more obvious now: How COULD YOU NOT measure everything?! It’s not “why”, it’s “HOW CAN YOU NOT”? When you go to the shop, do you just eyeball how much you should pay? Do you look at the CART, and GUESS how VALUABLE all …
What They Don’t See (Is What Matters)
Often it’s not what you see It’s what you DON’T SEE Of course, with knowledge – knowing what you DON’T KNOW is considered a virtue Everyone knows something But mistakes are made when you think you know something – but you don’t If you know you don’t know – you can work around it, …
About Building Powerful Systems (And Not Ideologies)
System works best when there’s a number of options, fallbacks and safety measures It’s not only robust but also agile. It’s antifragile indeed System is appraised by how it works as a whole How it’s subcomponents work can meaningfully inform how the whole works — or can be profoundly misleading (non-ergodic systems) Competition, …
The Fallacy Of Intangible
There’s the well-defined, and there’s the intangible relationships fairness attitude intention effort will intuition confidence worth goodness authenticity attraction But what does INTANGIBLE mean? Does it mean those things don’t exist? Does it mean those things are effectively intractable, UNCONTROLLABLE? And therefore IRRELEVANT practically? See that’s the fallacy of intangible, if you …
Obviously The Goal Is Progress – Just Don’t Ruin Everything
The goal, OF COURSE, is progress BY DEFINITION progress is superior, progress is progress What is NOT a goal is REGRESS Obviously That would be the opposite of progress How do we regress? We can go back to status quo ante (assuming that status quo ante was regressive relatively to modernity) …
How’d You RATE Your Expertise?
“How’d you RATE your EXPERTISE?” I think this is an EXCELLENT question to ask oneself, or to ask someone, when you’re trying to determine the REALITY, make DECISIONS, decide what is TRUE and what is not, decide what is PLAUSIBLE and HOW PLAUSIBLE How’d you rate your EXPERTISE, 1 to 10? Now …
The Dreaded Societal Expectations
Societal expectations are great Societal expectations are underrated Let’s bifurcate societal expectations into a 2×2 grid of categories: –positive, desirable values, qualities –negative, stifling dogmas -clear, explicit, known, indisputable –tacit, hidden, Chesterton’s fence In a thriving society — you can expect it’s MOSTLY positive That’s why it outperforms other societies And that’s why …
AI is Intelligent AND Makes Us Super-Intelligent
AI is of course intelligence — “artificial” intelligence It’s not human intelligence yet, of course It exceeds us at some domains — and is utterly helpless in others (it exceeds either when: -there are clear rules — it can then “play with itself” and figure out optimal strategy (e.g. chess) -or when there’s mountains …
You’re Not Courageous
Being stubborn is not courage Having strong opinions about something is not courage Having contrarian opinions, saying “what you believe”, is definitely not yet courage Believing is not courage NOT fearing something is not courage Courage is plain and simple, ACCEPTING the risk What is the risk? It’s the risk …
Why Some Super-Successful Go Conspiratorial
Genius is indeed madness When you’re super brilliant — you risk sometimes being super crazy. That’s the price of trying new, crazy things. But if you pull it off — you’re a genius. Not everyone can be a genius. And likely the genius knew EVERYTHING there was to know — BEFORE he transcended it, pushed …