Nov 30, 2022·edited Nov 30, 2022Liked by Gurwinder
Really enjoyed this. If I can quibble with number 36, admitting one is wrong has nothing directly to do with one’s intelligence. It’s a question of humility. A smart person might be as closed off to being wrong as an idiot, but a wise person considers that he’s wrong because wisdom is intelligence wielded through virtue.
Something else to consider: according to the Dunning Kruger effect, a more intelligent person is much more likely to acknowledge the possibility of being wrong. The least competent are most apt to believe in their own genius - even when confronted with evidence to the contrary. https://psycnet.apa.org/doiLanding?doi=10.1037%2F0022-3514.77.6.1121
Thank you, Bhogal, great stuff, as always. I first saw you write things on Less Wrong (or was it Overcoming Bias?) many many years ago, always followed you since. Very happy for you to see that you're reaching a ton of people and having success with your newsletter project.
Yes. I don't use Twitter or most social media and likely never will. I am old and joined FB when it was new. Hard to back out. It's how I discovered YOU!
I love #15, The Do. Something Principle. I've been practicing something similar for years. When I am overwhelmed with work, I select 3 things and work strictly on those until they are completed. The 3 things are picked at random so they may be large, small, very important or almost trivial. The important thing is that they provide focus. I particularly love the statement: "Action creates traction..."
This was absolutely brilliant. The Gambler's Fallacy is simply too much truth to bear xD. When we extrapolate it to failures in general, it still makes a lot of sense. Just because we have failed so many times doesn't mean we are likely to succeed. If we tend to think so, we'd be finding it increasingly difficult to pull the plug on decisions that are not going to succeed, right?
P.S. Please continue posting the megathreads over here as well for those of us who aren't active over twitter.
I think a lot of your wisdom is useful for the ignorant, but debilitating for those trying to break free from their own self imposed limitations — the self doubt that hasn’t served them well in adulthood — in a moment when there’s finally hope and opportunity to do so.
Since as long as I can remember, I’ve been endlessly concerned with avoiding idiocy. As a kid, I was so proud to doodle “know what you don’t know” in the margins of my notebooks. As a parent, it’s one of the few phrases hanging on the wall in my kids’ playroom. As a strategy director, it wasn't enough to absorb the web of a subject, I'd read every press release the client spoke in and synthesize my thoughts in my client's language and float contradictory ideas in their sentence structure. People are happy to take the glory, but there are no medals for this kind of thinking.
Now that I'm trying to let go of the fear of idiocy, it’s like you’re at once training an army of detractors while at the same time, the depth of your knowledge of the forest and the trees and their relationship to each other makes you the personification of my childhood fears and convictions regarding who should and shouldn't speak out loud. This isn’t a critique so much as a reflection and a plea for the other side of the story for those who have lived a lifetime in their heads.
Thank you, Gurwinder, these megathreads are gold.
Please keep sharing them on here for those who don't use Twitter.
Really enjoyed this. If I can quibble with number 36, admitting one is wrong has nothing directly to do with one’s intelligence. It’s a question of humility. A smart person might be as closed off to being wrong as an idiot, but a wise person considers that he’s wrong because wisdom is intelligence wielded through virtue.
Something else to consider: according to the Dunning Kruger effect, a more intelligent person is much more likely to acknowledge the possibility of being wrong. The least competent are most apt to believe in their own genius - even when confronted with evidence to the contrary. https://psycnet.apa.org/doiLanding?doi=10.1037%2F0022-3514.77.6.1121
Thank you, Bhogal, great stuff, as always. I first saw you write things on Less Wrong (or was it Overcoming Bias?) many many years ago, always followed you since. Very happy for you to see that you're reaching a ton of people and having success with your newsletter project.
Cheers 💚 🥃
This is really great work,
You should reproduce the other five megathreads with references
For those who wanted to read the rest, you can read it without having twitter account, I suppose
Here's the URLs with chronological flow starting from Feb 7 2020
1. https://twitter.com/G_S_Bhogal/status/1225561131122597896
2. https://twitter.com/G_S_Bhogal/status/1438972527838117895
3. https://twitter.com/G_S_Bhogal/status/1492255231169679365
4. https://twitter.com/G_S_Bhogal/status/1527720869191114756
5. https://twitter.com/G_S_Bhogal/status/1545510413982474253
and the recent no6 megathread https://twitter.com/G_S_Bhogal/status/1596260183898050561
This was a tour de force. I knew about 10 of these already. Some of the new ones to me are mind bending.
Thanks for sharing. My father has been telling me about the Peter Principle for decades. That people are promoted to their level of incompetence.
Yes. I don't use Twitter or most social media and likely never will. I am old and joined FB when it was new. Hard to back out. It's how I discovered YOU!
Must admit, I found each of the 40 either useful or enriching. Thanks. - Carl Kruse
Just eye opening 💙
I have found my person!! Very happy I subscribed. I’m new so just now going back to your previous articles. Big wow.
I love #15, The Do. Something Principle. I've been practicing something similar for years. When I am overwhelmed with work, I select 3 things and work strictly on those until they are completed. The 3 things are picked at random so they may be large, small, very important or almost trivial. The important thing is that they provide focus. I particularly love the statement: "Action creates traction..."
This was absolutely brilliant. The Gambler's Fallacy is simply too much truth to bear xD. When we extrapolate it to failures in general, it still makes a lot of sense. Just because we have failed so many times doesn't mean we are likely to succeed. If we tend to think so, we'd be finding it increasingly difficult to pull the plug on decisions that are not going to succeed, right?
P.S. Please continue posting the megathreads over here as well for those of us who aren't active over twitter.
Sunk cost fallacy? Similar to your Gambler's fallacy, in practice, but different motive.
I think a lot of your wisdom is useful for the ignorant, but debilitating for those trying to break free from their own self imposed limitations — the self doubt that hasn’t served them well in adulthood — in a moment when there’s finally hope and opportunity to do so.
Since as long as I can remember, I’ve been endlessly concerned with avoiding idiocy. As a kid, I was so proud to doodle “know what you don’t know” in the margins of my notebooks. As a parent, it’s one of the few phrases hanging on the wall in my kids’ playroom. As a strategy director, it wasn't enough to absorb the web of a subject, I'd read every press release the client spoke in and synthesize my thoughts in my client's language and float contradictory ideas in their sentence structure. People are happy to take the glory, but there are no medals for this kind of thinking.
Now that I'm trying to let go of the fear of idiocy, it’s like you’re at once training an army of detractors while at the same time, the depth of your knowledge of the forest and the trees and their relationship to each other makes you the personification of my childhood fears and convictions regarding who should and shouldn't speak out loud. This isn’t a critique so much as a reflection and a plea for the other side of the story for those who have lived a lifetime in their heads.
Amazing stuff.
I first saw 21 in the book Parkinson's Law. I don't know if Parkinson originated it, but he deserves a credit.