- We get elites wrong, because we assume we should be ruled and we just need to find the right people to rule us
- Meritocracy skews our notions of elitism
- “We rule not ‘by the people’ but ‘by the cleverest people’.”
- Unequal outcomes subvert mobility
- Bad money pushes out good money
- (Players on steroids push out those who do not)
- “Inside jokes” and alternative language is a sign of misdeeds
- “We cannot have a Just society that applies the principle of accountability to the powerless and the principle of forgiveness to the powerful. This is the America in which we currently reside.”
- We affiliate with a political party to offload policy decision burdens
- “Bipartisan” is a way to say, “everyone agrees with this”
- We are just in proximity, but being close can blind us
- “We are not in the mess in the world today because of too many [information] leaks.”
- Change through the Media is easier when there are fewer of them
- Technology has expanded the reach of the Elite… If everyone can download the top soprano [singer], why would you listen to the second best
- “Freedom of the press is for those who own one”
- Slave labor stunted the growth of the South (there is no need to innovate if you have free labor)
- Elite distribution is growing
- Focusing on merit hides the power of the network; a hidden network makes the elites feel they deserved what they have.
- Protective egotism is when we pump ourselves up as a self-defense
- Smarts are the new measure of merit
- Smarts are not enough, we need wisdom and empathy
- Feedback is critical to successful systems
- “You ignore the people in the lower decks at your own peril.”
- We need to worry about equality in opportunity, including equality to access
- (It is not just that everyone should be able to take the test, everyone should have access to the same prep tools)
Category: Reading
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“Twilight of the Elite” by Christopher Hayes
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“Conspiracy” by Ryan Holiday
- “No one transgresses me with impunity.”
- Fights break out, conspiracies stew
- Only princes can afford to send out an army
- The weaker party has to be secret
- Conspiracies must have more than one person
- Conspirators transition from ‘fighting for evil’ to ‘fighting for others, with or without their permission’
- “Choose your enemies wisely because you will become just like them.”
- (You cannot be both unconquerable and the underdog)
- “Anyone who is threatened and is forced necessarily to suffer or act is a very dangerous man to the prince.”
- We mistake a clear view for a short distance
- (Be right about the things that others are not even aware of.)
- Secrets are not forever; you need to be able to live with them coming out
- “Culture trumps strategy any day”
- “Never interrupt an event as making a mistake.”
- Trials are the performance of all that practice
- Argue law to the judge, argue fact to the jury
- “You should not only leave a line of retreat for your enemies, you should pave it.”
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“Confessions of a Recovering Engineer” by Charles L Marohn, Jr.
- Randomness is the enemy of safety
- “High speeds are a design issue but low speeds are an enforcement issue”
- Street widening should be called such instead of “street enhancements”
- (If you claim to not be making value decisions, then your words need to reflect that)
- Speed and mobility
- Pre-automobile definitions:
- Road: high-speed connection between two places
- Street: A platform for building community wealth (places people want to be)
- Cars were ruled as “ferocious beasts” and the owner’s responsibilities to manage
- Perception of risk changes as safety is improved
- Drivers drive at the speeds that feel safe and let us cruise on System 1
- (Humans want to move as fast as they can feel safe)
- High value per acre is always where people get out of their cars
- Cities are designed to favor the out-of-town commuters
- Congestion builds pent-up demand and encourages option development
- Benefits of reduced travel time does not mean boost economic growth
- Transit needs to have priority
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“Original” by Adam Grant
- Achievement can either come from conformity or originality
- Firefox and Chrome users tend to stay longer perform better, and miss less work than IE our Safari
- What made the difference is how you get the browser
- Disadvantaged groups tend to be more entrenched in the state quo
- (It is harder to let go of the familiar when you have a lot to lose relative to what you have)
- We justify the default
- Practice makes perfect but nothing original
- Achievement motivation crowds out originality
- Originality it’s not about taking big risks
- We tend to manage risk as a portfolio, so risky in one place and stable in all other places
- The difficulty with originals is in selecting winners not in generating ideas
- Great ideas are a numbers game (aim for 25)
- Peer evaluation is best
- Domain experience and intuition go together
- Passion is in the heart, not the sleeves
- The way success was achieved matters (execution) more than the idea itself
- Sometimes it is better to embrace the establishment to change it from the inside
- When presenting great ideas, remember that you are living with the ideas in your head while everyone else is hearing them for the first time
- Short, mixed presentations are best for warming people up to a new idea
- We do better at remembering open tasks than completed tasks
- Stopping mid-way through the project is the best time to discuss how to proceed with it
- Percolate the ideas!
- Settlers tend to outlast pioneers
- Pioneers tend to overextend
- Get in when the market cools
- Moving first is a tactics not a goal
- Zero to start
- Experimental approaches enable creative longevity
- Horizontal hostility is common and deadly
- Similarities are actually bad for inter group alliances
- Pull back on radicalism at first
- Frenemies and ambivalent relationships are literally more exhausting than enemies
- It is better to try to convert enemies than it is to continue to placate frenemies
- Start with novelty but add a dose of familiarity
- “The point is to push the envelope not to tear it.”
- Later-born children tend to take more risks including in creativity
- Calculation of rationality vs appropriateness
- Praise the person in moral domains but action in skill domains
- Phrase as nouns instead of verbs
- Commitment culture is good for launching but grow slower and struggle to evolve
- Shifting blueprints later is difficult
- Make dissent a core commitment
- Dissent with respect to foster better ideas
- Cohesion is not the problem in groupthink; overconfidence and reputational concerns are
- Pretend or assigned dissent is not enough, find someone who believes it
- “I am excited” is more productive than “I am scared”
- Lean into the energy of the fear
- Leaders should present the vision and have users endorse it
- Show the problems with the status quo then show what could be
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“Leonardo’s Mountain of Clams and the Diet of Worms” by Stephen Jay Gould
- Context limits but also provides insight
- “False facts are highly injurious to the progress of science, for they often endure long; but false views, if supported by some evidence, do little harm, for every one takes a salutary pleasure in proving their falseness.” Darwin
- Things, especially cave paintings, often do not progress from simple to complex
- The Theory of Evolution is not a Theory of Progression, it is a Theory of Better Adaptation
- Evolution tends towards bushiness, not singularity
- Known events do not preclude unknown events
- Heritage does not guarantee preservation like biology can, but heritage can evolve much faster
- When in doubt, go to the primary documents
- We are not willing to fully embrace evolution because we are not ready for humans to be less important
- Question simple explanations, few things are actually simple
- Wealth can help genius be exposed
- Evolution is constantly adapting to current circumstances, not to overall complexity
- Question the explanations you know best, they are often wrong
- Many creatures “simplify” as they diversify