Knowing what you want is extremely complicated Because most things you don’t have — you don’t have for a reason That reason is the cost And that cost itself often comprises multiple variables And of course the very value, the reward — often comprises multiple variables too It is useful then to reason from …
Tag: Risk
Getting an Opportunity vs Taking Advantage of an Opportunity
There are opportunities You get more of them or less of them And then you succeed at taking advantage of them, or fail to take advantage of them We often fail to take advantage of our opportunities That’s because we don’t view them as opportunities We don’t view them as opportunities because we don’t …
Contrarianism Is Downstream From Being Right
Are you a contrarian? Or just a fool? The question to ask is: Are you MORE OFTEN RIGHT than others? If not — then you’re just a fool, aren’t you? Of course there’s the question of payoff Maybe your scepticism makes you unduly reject prevailing wisdom sometimes, And maybe it makes you susceptible …
Broad, then Depth, then OPPORTUNISM
-Let’s define broad as “the whole” -Let’s define narrow as the smallest division -Let’s consider “normal” breadth as the kind of breadth of subject matters that most people engage -Let’s consider “normal” narrow as the kind of focus that most people achieve in their single career First let’s acknowledge that those two are not …
UNLUCKY Overstate The Role Of Luck — LUCKY Understate The Role Of Luck
The unlucky overstate the role of luck The lucky understate the role of luck It boils down to incentives, and even to epistemology (theory of knowledge) On the extreme — the extremely lucky has NO DATA invalidating the role of HIMSELF, and something SPECIAL about himself — in his exceptional outcomes He is, …
The “GRADIENT”, The FUZZY LOGIC of Various Problems
Many problems can’t be broken down to chains with finite-state nodes: -e.g. 2-3 options here, then 2 options from there, then another 4 options, etc. -with each step having an OBJECTIVE SOLUTION, for given ends Instead it’s this network of INTERCONNECTED nodes, with most things fuzzy (but NOT indeterminate) -each node falling SOMEWHERE on …
FAITH Is A Proxy For Reason to Act
FAITH is a proxy for reason — to expose yourself to UNKNOWN You rarely have all the data, all the reasons to do something Therefore you can’t perfectly REASONABLY articulate why you should DO something different, try something new I mean, of course you don’t have all the data about the unknown That …
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 …
Too Good To Be True
“It’s too good to be true” No, not necessarily There’s what you know is possible There’s what you know is not possible And there’s what you don’t know is possible That which you don’t know if it’s possible — that will elude your imagination You’ll say it’s “too good to be true”, or …