luni, 19 septembrie 2016

Seth's Blog : Understanding taxonomy

Understanding taxonomy

If you need to add a word to the dictionary, it's pretty clear where it goes. The dictionary is a handy reminder of how taxonomies work. The words aren't sorted by length, or frequency or date of first usage. They're sorted by how they're spelled. This makes it easy to find and organize.

The alphabet is an arbitrary taxonomy, without a lot of wisdom built in (are the letters in that order because of the song?).

It's way more useful to consider taxonomies that are based on content or usage.

Almost everything we understand is sorted into some sort of taxonomy. Foods, for example: we understand intuitively that chard is close to spinach, not chicken, even though the first two letters are the same.

The taxonomy of food helps you figure out what to eat next, because you understand what might be a replacement for what's not available.

Shopify has more in common with Udemy (both tech startups) than it does with the Bank of Canada (both based in Ottawa).

Your job, if you want to explain a field, if you want to understand it, if you want to change it, is to begin with the taxonomy of how it's explained and understood.

Once you understand a taxonomy, you've got a chance to re-organize it in a way that is even more useful.

Too often, we get lazy and put unrelated bullet points next to each other, or organize in order of invention. For example, we teach high school biology before (and separate from) chemistry, even though you can't understand biology without chemistry (and you can certainly understand chemistry without biology). We do this because we started working on biology thousands of years before we got smart about chemistry, and the order stuck.

The reason an entrepreneur needs a taxonomy is that she can find the holes, and figure out how to fill them.

And a teacher needs one, because creating a mental model is the critical first step in understanding how the world works.

If you can't build a taxonomy for your area of expertise, then you're not an expert in it.

       

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duminică, 18 septembrie 2016

Seth's Blog : The opposite of the freeloader problem

The opposite of the freeloader problem

Is the freegiver advantage.

Freeloaders, of course, are people who take more than they give, drains on the system.

But the opposite, the opposite is magical. These are the people who feed the community first, who give before taking, who figure out how to always give a little more than they take.

What happens to a community filled with freegivers?

Ironically, every member of that community comes out ahead. 

       

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sâmbătă, 17 septembrie 2016

Seth's Blog : The post-reality paradox

The post-reality paradox

Reality and rational thought have paid more dividends in the last century than ever before.

Science-based medicine has dramatically increased the lifespan and health of people around the world. Vaccines have prevented millions of children from lifelong suffering and even death. Evidence-based trials have transformed the output of farms, the way organizations function and yes, even the yield of websites.

It's possible to imagine a world of 6 billion people without the advances we've enjoyed, but you wouldn't want to live there.

It's not just the obvious outcomes of engineering and scientific success. It's also the science of decision making and the reliance on a civil society, both of which require the patience to see the long term.

For someone willing to engage in a discussion based on data, there is no doubt that this approach is working. It works so well, it's easy to take it for granted, to assume that miracles will keep coming, that the systems will keep working, that the bridges and the water systems won't fail and the missiles won't be launched. It's easy to lose interest in spreading these benefits to those that don't have them yet.

At the very same time that engineering put us on the moon, post-reality thinking invented a conspiracy that it didn't happen. When we get close to eradicating an illness, we hesitate and focus on rumor and innuendo instead.

While reality-based medicine has ameliorated some of the worst diseases humans have ever experienced, quack medicines have been on the upswing for the ones that remain.

The most famous doctor in the country, Mehmet Oz, is primarily known for blurring the lines. His gifted medical talents have saved lives in the operating room, but he's just as likely to talk about a quack diet based on coffee beans. There's been huge forward progress in the science of medicine, but all the money and attention on placebos hasn't improved their outcome much.

When Hillary Clinton lies, her standing decreases. But when Donald Trump lies, it actually helps his standing among his followers. That's because he's not selling reality, he's selling something else. It's confusing to outsiders, because he's not working on the same axis as traditional candidates.

The hallmark of post-reality thinking is that it watches the speech with the sound turned off. The words don't matter nearly as much as the intent, the emotion, the subtext. When we engage in this more primeval, emotional encounter, we are more concerned with how it looks and feels than we are in whether or not the words actually make sense.

The irony, then, is that people who have been cut off from clean water, from things that actually work, from the fruits of a reality-based system that changed everything—these people are hungering for it, want it for their children. But for those that have taken it for granted, who have the luxury of using it without understanding it, the pendulum swings in the other direction, seeking an emotional response to economic and technical disconnects.

The more that reality-based thinking has created a comfortable existence, the more tempting it is to ignore it and embrace a nonsensical, skeptical viewpoint instead.

We used to be able to talk about science and belief, about what's real and what we dream of. The and was the key part of the sentence, it wasn't one against the other.

If they are seen as or, though, if it's belief (anger or fear) against/vs./or the reality of what's here and what's working, we do ourselves, and our children, a tragic disservice. 

"Don't confuse me with facts" is no way to move forward. It's a risky scheme.

Joni Mitchell famously warned, "you don't know what've got till it's gone." I'd rather not find out.

 

[PS a lot of wisdom in many ways, some direct and some metaphorical, in Albert Adler's principles. And somewhat related, this post on victims, critics and mistakes.]

       

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