Why is this the case? I think a good guess at the reason might be

1) The very act of creating a system is itself a meaningful practice which improves thinking

2) People document systems which they found natural to themselves, and therefore are a better fit for themselves than others.

Until I see someone "invent" a system which has broad success that goes beyond the inventor's own success, I'm not going near any of these systems with any degree of seriousness.

You can get Leo Messi to teach me football but my first touch will still be sub-par.

Isn't that conflating practice with thinking? You would also never invent football on your own if you'd never heard of it. If you want to be good at football, letting Leo teach you is likely to be a lot faster and produce better results than not learning from anyone.

Everyone adopts thought systems from others, you do and I do. Failing to admit that is to be actually bad at thinking and fail to admit you're human. It's not possible to have only original thoughts, and even if it was, it wouldn't be practical.

Try to be honest with yourself and think about how many things you know for certain, that you weren't taught by someone else. How many facts do you know that you've verified yourself first hand? How do you know the sun is 93 million miles away, or that there are electrons in your CPU? I trust scientists who've studied it and thought about it, I haven't verified those things myself. How do we even understand words and speak languages? As children, we learned everything about the world from others, including how to think.

Isn't this is a feature, not a bug? We learn from each other over time, and we'd be nowhere without people having adopted and then built upon the thought systems of others.

"Thinking" is the practice of thought.

To be honest, I thought (eh) we were talking about "thinking" as "reasoning" (and mostly in an original sense).

Obviously if you redefine the concept as "having any thought whatsoever", then anything goes. I personally don't consider "reading a fact in a book" or "associating sounds to concepts" as "thinking" in the terms of the upthread conversation, but you clearly do.

I don't think (eh) we can agree on much in this conversation given the premises.

Oh, is that what you meant when you said "my first touch will still be sub-par."?

> I personally don't consider "reading a fact in a book" or "associating sounds to concepts" as "thinking" in the terms of the upthread conversation, but you clearly do.

I don't think you can learn philosophy without learning a language. I don't think you can learn the scientific method without first learning some scientific facts.

Please elaborate, where would you draw the line between facts+language, and "reasoning"?

I doubt anyone is silly enough to let someone else tell them "how to think." Without thinking a lot further about that.

Whether it's FOX, MSNBC, CNN or the Russians there seems to be a rather common belief that everyone is quite happy being told what to think and can think no further about it. Maybe it's true. (Except the russians, that's such obvius garbage it's embarrassing). n

5) (related) The assumption that all aspects of thinking are conscious. The eureka moment, sleeping on a problem or just taking a distracting shower suggest otherwise.

How else does one develop more complex thinking than studying patterns of thought?

If you are saying that you need to practice and find methods that work for you after being taught by Messi, you could apply the same concept to thinking. Sports, like most other things, consist of both a theoretical and practical aspect. Getting Messi to teach you the theoretical side of the sport should not be seen as a replacement for practicing the sport itself, and the same can be said for thinking.

I'm sorry, but isn't this the whole point of using mental models for your decisions? What's stupid is all up to you, but if I reasoned together some decision based on some model that I think works for me, it's hardy stupid for me.

I always saw the point of these mental models is to use them to justify my "stupid" decisions, and have some structured way of reaching that decision instead of just "because I wanted to".

Disclaimer: I don't really follow any mental models myself, except the model my organic brain comes up with on the fly, so don't let me tell you how others use these mental modals.

(especially in the framework of the comment I replied to, where they are talking about the process being internally useful. Of course it may be useful to bullshit someone else, but that's a different thing.)

Consider your question applied to math: how is a false mathematical argument for believing a theorem better than just believing it for no reason at all? It's clearly better because you can actually point out the flaw in the specific argument.

If someone accepts a mental framework and is faced with a choice they want to make, either:

1. They can find no justification for a choice they want to make, at which point they are more likely to question whether their choice is justifiable, or their mental framework is sufficient. Either outcome should be encouraged.

2. If they find a justification that's valid in the framework, then they have an explicable basis from which to convince others they made the right choice.

3. If they find a justification that's fallacious, then pointing out either how the framework is incomplete, or their argument within the framework is incorrect is far more likely to change their minds than simply claiming their choice was wrong and trying to explain why from your own framework, which they haven't accepted (and likely won't without a lot more convincing).

Ultimately, applying thought to a problem is always better than no thought.

Finally, if you're giving credence to a process, even a faulty one, then at least it's possible to erode confidence in the process or your application of it. To see its effectiveness, you need only browse the countless posts on reddit written by former Christians about how they came to question and ultimately give up their religion after a discussion with an atheist.

>Because at least you put some thought was put into it, which again, is better than no thought at all.

That's the problem. By opting for a an argument that sounds reasonable to justify your pre-existing decision/idea, you don't "put thought into it". You use your emotions to pick a logical sounding justification.

That makes it even more dangerous than admitting "I don't really have a justification, I just like this decision/idea".

That is what we call "rationalization", and it's the worst thing one can do. It's how abuse victims remain with their abuser, how racists find supporting arguments for their beliefs, etc.

>Consider your question applied to math: how is a false mathematical argument for believing a theorem better than just believing it for no reason at all? It's clearly better because you can actually point out the flaw in the specific argument.

That's a false equivalent, because in actual life arguments about personal beliefs (about decisions/ideas/relationships/etc) can not always be shown to be faulty as they are not axiomatic but casual.

The fault in such arguments often depends on qualitative judgements, guestimations, subjective opinions about people and situations, and so on.

So taking the time to read or consider an argument that might justify something you instinctively believe, is putting zero thought into it? Come on, the amount of thought is quite literally not zero, and it is zero when letting your emotions drive your decisions. Therefore, yes, a rationalization is putting some thought into it.

> That makes it even more dangerous than admitting "I don't really have a justification, I just like this decision/idea". That is what we call "rationalization", and it's the worst thing one can do.

Is it? What evidence do you have that people who rationalize make worse or "more dangerous" decisions in any or most contexts than those who apply no thought at all to their decisions?

> It's how abuse victims remain with their abuser, how racists find supporting arguments for their beliefs, etc.

And by relying on emotions to make decisions, you think victims of domestic abuse and racists are going to suddenly change those behaviours? The rationalization is a complete red herring here.

Domestic abuse victims stay in abusive relationships for emotional reasons. At least deconstructing their rationalizations could drive them to seek help. What argument do you think could contravene an emotional decision that was given no rationalization?

Similarly, you think racists who don't rationalize are somehow "more rational", or more open to changing their views than those who don't? Do you have evidence of this?

> That's a false equivalent, because in actual life arguments about personal beliefs (about decisions/ideas/relationships/etc) can not always be shown to be faulty as they are not axiomatic but casual.

Which is exactly the case for emotional decisions with no rationalization. Decisions which have been subjected to some thought actually have some justification that can be challenged.

The other person may assert they're right regardless, in which case you're no better off than if they had made decision without a rationalization. Or they may acknowledge their mistake or switch to another rationalization, either of which is a victory for truth. In the latter case, it's a retreat to an ever-narrowing gap of fallacious reasoning.

Like I said, you can see exactly this progession in hundreds of testimonials in the atheism subreddit. Former Christians admit that when challenged, they fell back on progressively more absurd rationalizations for Christian dogma until they could no longer accept it, and then they eventually became agnostics or atheists.

So I have plenty of evidence suggesting the progression I describe actually works. I've seen zero evidence that emotional decisions can be changed in any way other than some oppressive action (like jail time, social shunning, etc., all of which are dehumanizing).

In order to accept your framing that rationalization is "more dangerous", I require a comparable amount of evidence that people who don't rationalize are more rational on average, or are more easily convinced of the truth when challenged, or something along those lines. Can you provide that?

Parent assumes there's an objective reality, and that, (even judging by one's own purposes and goals, and not the other person's), one can make stupid BS decisions that work against themselves and their goals...

Indeed you can thank Dennett's 'Intuition Pumps' for providing a source of legitimacy to those people who want to take the mental model stuff Very Seriously.

The same stuff can be mis-leading or well-leading. People will be people. Give it a few years and I half-expect a Mental-Models-cum-pseudo-Magickal Qabbalistic cottage industry to appear. Or at least a handy reference system, such as [Yudkowsky 24:10]...

I don’t read FS cos I feel like I need to spend proper time behind it to read and learn what is has to share. It’s like studying read it and then perhaps take some notes and keep them handy to reference later. Then on top of this it has so many articles I feel I have no strategy to keep up. And then there is the whole when will I really use it if I need to go look it up / reference it In order to use it. This whole approach sounds twisted to me. And as someone on this thread said it’s essentially me learning how to think Which may be subconsciously tells me I am bad at thinking. I can say thst for the last decade i feel like I am on a quest to improve myself so that then I can be “smart”. In a way this had lead for me for the last decade or so to pursue reading / finding content on the web (largely through ask hn and the likes) that is about optimizing or making myself better. And I find that I have consumed a lot but may have not really realized it’s gains from a career or other tangible perspective.

Is anybody else in a similar boat? Sometimes I feel these are all time wasters disguised as things that can be helpful. May be a better approach is to just do things and then when you are stuck on a problem then go consult there types of sites to see if they have a solution to your problem. In that is where real growth might happen. I feel like the approach I current have is the other way around - let me find all the “general solutions” and (become “smarter” ) and then apply it to whatever I do.

Am I wrong here in think thst is whole chasing after self improvement is a real discretion from doing real things thst will actually make me “smarter”?

I've grown up online, constantly consuming information and thus building up what to me seemed like a large body of useful knowledge on topics from comp. sci, data science, history, psychology, business, marketing and more.

The issue is that just constantly reading articles, books and consuming information has made me think I'm knowledgable, but in reality that knowledge is superficial, shallow, fleeting and hard to act on. Anything I think I know takes way longer to do because of unknown unknowns and a myriad of other factors you just don't get exposed to.

To use knowledge you need to internalize and create mental connections and the only way of doing so is by actually doing - not consuming. You may feel smart when you recall something you read months or years ago and share it in a relevant situation - but that's just a tiny fraction of what you've consumed. People don't learn by reading, they learn by doing.

The question: "why am I spending so much time consuming instead of acting" is an important question to ask oneself and for me the answer is that doing is boring. My brain has been hijacked by easy dopamine from games, forums (like HN and Reddit), YouTube and even Spotify. All of these easy, on-demand sources of digital dopamine have made all other activities harder to do without getting bored out of my mind. For instance I was learning Ansible 20 minute ago, but I got bored and started wasting time on HN instead.

Anyways, while I do enjoy FS, lesswrong, and a handful of other industry bloggers, blogs and aggregators I came to the realization that reading isn't furthering my goals. Only directed attention, effort and completing discrete projects will bring me to where I want to be.

More reading: Deep Work - Cal Newport. "Digital Detox" https://www.reddit.com/r/nosurf https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OqlfWDyS1Io

Ps. It's easy to waste time reading about this too. My biggest realization has been that using any forms of digital feeds in the morning wrecks my attention span most of the day.

I agree with you here.

But I also want to point out that you have to ends to the spectrum of "using information": * At one end: Pure Consuming * At the other end: Pure Doing

What I'm getting from what you wrote is that if you're not "Pure Doing" (e.g. doing discrete projects), then you might as well not do anything. Is that accurate?

Also, my post was about my own experiences and observations and was a direct response to quietthrow - he seemed distraught and the emotional angle seemed more fitting than a neutral and balanced response.

Most writers will say you need to "practice" and "apply" whatever you read while being very vague on the how. I'm interested in a habit creation system for methodologically allowing you to get good at applying say a mental model, but aside from that I think the best alternative is incremental reading/spaced repetition. (https://supermemo.guru/wiki/Incremental_reading)

tl;dr: while it can't give you procedural/neurally honed representations of the models you would get from practice, it gets close by allowing you to memorize declarative info.

I've found it at least partially functional for being able to sort of apply mental models, though there is still a large gap between knowing and applying.

https://www.perell.com/blog/what-the-hell-is-going-on

Previously discussed with 220 comments: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=19413852

The first few paragraphs are not good and may be difficult to read through. But after that, things start falling into place and the rest of the article is absolutely great. But I agree that the other articles by the author may not have the same level of quality.

Why? Because it's a mix 'n match of quotes, bits and pieces and observations cobbled together to support the thesis that digital technology will disrupt how information - and therefore our thinking about the world - is controlled.

It's not that he's factually wrong about what he's saying. Rather, it's that the article lacks any references to a foundational understanding of historical dynamics and current affairs regarding economics, politics or economics.

Everything he discusses has a historical context steeped in competing ideological, economical and political theories that have shaped the world since World War 1. And yet, he makes no mention that background whatsoever. On the contrary.

For instance.

> Like a fish in water, we’re unaware of the integration between our education system, the corporate structure, and our media environment.

Uh. No. There's very much awareness about this among those who have participated in this debate and who are extremely worried about the state of education in America. And it's a debate about investing in public infrastructure, the advantages and drawbacks of free market dynamics in education and the long term impact on future generations.

For instance, Mary Sue Coleman, president of the Association of American Universities and former president of the University of Michigan and the University of Iowa, wrote in the Washington Post back in 2016:

> Public higher education is at a tipping point in the United States. It is an essential public good that is suffering from an unprecedented erosion of public support, with potentially devastating consequences for our students and our economy.

> If our country continues to disinvest, we will be abandoning an essential feature of American democracy. This is what is at risk: the means to educate the broadest possible swath of our society, for the betterment of society, with full public support. Public institutions, especially, educate large numbers of students from all walks of life — particularly low-income, first-generation and underrepresented students. We cannot lose sight of that, particularly as our society grows more diverse.

> We need to remind ourselves as a nation of higher education’s true value and its return on investment, not only to the individual but to society. Our collective progress and prosperity hinge on quality higher education. It is the strongest argument we have for lifting up our public support of this critical public good.

Robert Reich, former Secretary of Labor, has voice his concerns at various times about the impact of education economics on higher education:

For instance, in 2010 - https://robertreich.org/post/2420649887 - and in 2012 -https://robertreich.org/post/18496069594.

Even John Oliver pointed out in 2015 how nefarious standardized testing is on the quality of public education, how it is driven by market economics. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=J6lyURyVz7k

And then there's the policies of current Secretary of Education Betsy DeVos which haven't done anything but accelerate the overall decrease of quality in education and contributed to the overall widening of the equality gap in american society. As evidenced in this scathing article from The Guardian: https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2019/dec/27/betsy-devos-...

Those are just a few examples. Education is a huge topic in it's own right with very heated debates in their own right. Buried below those highly visible examples are large groups of lobbyists, experts, unions, companies, non-profits, activists, academic researchers,... who have produced entire libraries filled with theories, frameworks, models, opinions,... that describe this field.

Simply referring then to "digital technology is going to disrupt the monopoly on information" is quite a reductionist view of that complexity.

And that's just the part of his essay that touches on education.

The fact that the article lacks a clear understanding of the historical complexity that underpins the construction of his theory about the current state of American society, is of less concern to me.

When I read this, it stood out to me as written by someone who has a background in media. On LinkedIn, he mentions that his education is a BA in Media & Arts. Now, there's aboslutely nothing wrong with that. But his background clearly define his writing. Someone who has a degree in education studies or social studies will arrive at a very different take on american society.

However, what truly concerns me is that instead of going deeper and doing the research, looking for context and these debates, interviewing people and looking for insights, he chose to write in isolation and conjure his own theory on american society and the role of media, education and politics.

I led my life with that approach until I had an epiphany about 10 years ago. It was inspired by my exposure to 2 people[0].

Between 2009 and 2012, I encountered several people who were very smart, but expressed their intelligence in a different way than I was familiar with. One I met personally, the other through media (YouTube, etc.) I realized at one point that what they had in common was this: their explanations and reasoning were precisely sufficient. They expressed themselves with exactly the right amount of evidence, logical flow and correct reasoning such that virtually everything they claimed was unassailable. I found myself strongly attracted to this type of thinking and in a short time, started second guessing all of my analysis and decision making and discarding any points that were not clear thought. It wasn't just emotional wants that were discarded, but in many cases, incorrectness as well.

One area that benefited quite a bit from this was in my investments. The best performing investments I've made were executed since that epiphany.

[0] (I prefer not to name them, lest I be disregarded as a fanboy, but the clues are in the comment)

> [0] (I prefer not to name them, lest I be disregarded as a fanboy, but the clues are in the comment)

Cite your sources mate. If they had such a profound affect on you, surely you can link to something they've said or written as an example.

But I'll bite: is it Eliezer Yudkowsky and Warren Buffett? Elon Musk and Steve Jobs? I want to get progressively more psychotic and unhinged as my guesses progress. Is it Slavoj Žižek and Donald Trump?

Paul Graham and Richard Stallman?

I don't believe in personalities. Wisdom is perishable.

Buffett qualifies, not Jobs.

It's not about personalities, take them or leave them. It's the way they convey their thinking when solving problems. YMMV.

Are you now also going to point us to some examples of why you think these two are good candidates?

https://www.cnbc.com/2018/04/18/why-elon-musk-wants-his-empl...

What's interesting, and I didn't know this until I scanned this article, is that Reed Hastings also uses a First Principles approach. I mentioned my stock picks got better. I bought TSLA in 2012 and NFLX in 2013.

For Paul Graham, his body of essays is a great source for how he thinks through problem solving in general, and he takes on more than just science or tech related topics:

http://www.paulgraham.com/articles.html

Since you mentioned Warren Buffet, any of his annual shareholder letters is a good source:

https://www.berkshirehathaway.com/letters/letters.html

He's a sample from 2009:

"From the start, Charlie and I have believed in having a rational and unbending standard for measuring what we have – or have not – accomplished. That keeps us from the temptation of seeing where the arrow of performance lands and then painting the bull’s eye around it."

The more I think about this the more I feel is thst we have it wrong. I think what they have is focus. I think what we have is distractions by virtue of seeking things thst improves us and on the internet there are so many of them that one may be all over the place. He who chases two rabbits catches none.

A Musk quote that stuck with me came in the midst of one of his Twitter escapades wherein he was regularly attacked for seemingly erratic, likely sleep-deprived statements. He came across as very defensive to a reporter who asked him if he felt he could accept criticism. He responded, "How do you think rockets get into space?" He may not be so concerned about how Wall Street perceives his character, but when it comes to SpaceX, and likely all of his serious endeavors, he's relentlessly critical of solutions.

Hacker News is just one source to get ideas, learn new things and practice rational thinking. Folks around here are more than happy to help hone your skills. If you can carry that into daily life, you'll catch a rabbit or two.

Combine that with the genetic lotto—born in the right place at the right time in to the right family—and a fairly random dose of luck—right idea at the right time.

And there’s a statistical side to it too: only about one in one hundred people can be in to top 1%, and the Musks / Buffets / Grahams of the day world are more rare still.

They did what they had to do for the realities of their time.

One could write numerous contentless blog posts about how they did or didn’t contribute to their success.

These materials also put a lot of emphasis on the weird, the counterintuitive, the quirky, the paradoxical. But what you actually need to know first is the solid default normal way the world works. This can be learned from "boring" old textbooks, not from shiny new strange theories. Whenever you read something new about a surprising new discovery about the brain or physics or AI or whatever, think about whether you even know what the straightforward, non-counterintuitive result would have been. Do you even know the basics, the foundations or just have a large collection of curious bits and pieces of nice cocktail party did-you-know material?

Depends. There's stuff you learn by experience, and there's stuff that you learn by studying.

Thinking how to think is somewhere in between - you learn a lot of it by experience (e.g. when you get duped in a certain way, you learn to recognize the pattern and avoid it), but you miss a lot too. And even the things you learn, you might merely apply subconsciously or practically, without really understanding them.

So having some kind of teacher / book / course into it makes sense, as much and in the same way it makes sense for math or chemistry or driving.

Generally any subject in which someone can be much better at it than you, and the principles of which can be communicated, makes sense to be taught...

That said, there are all kind of crap teachers online, people who make those mental models into some rigid dogma (either teachers or students), people who discovered/came up with some thinking models / mental guidelines and think they're the next Aristotle, and so on. If they make money off of ads or selling courses, I'ld stay well away...

One particular pet peeve is how people discover the "logical fallacies" and force them upon any conversation, when part of mastering conversing with humans is to know when and how to apply or break strict logical consistency - and understand context and applicability.

When someone a friend tells you not to go with X's proposition because they're not trustworthy, they're a criminal, etc, their talk might be an "ad hominen" and the proposition might be great in itself.

But the result of trusting X might still be bad (e.g. they might use what's a great proposition to their advantage to dupe you), and that's the point your friend tries to convey.

If I look beyond blog posts about how to think, your sentence seems like an accurate description of human behavior. Isn't this what has always happened, haven't people always used mental models they've collected to justify stupid decisions?

I'd be curious to hear more about the alternatives, or how and where to find balance. And I mean this seriously and expect it's a hard-to-possibly-unanswerable question. We have a limited ability and time to construct our own mental models about everything, and we are exposed to other's mental models at all times through communication. It's not possible to be completely independent about ideas. It's only possible to build on, practice, and prove out maybe a few ideas that came from others during a lifetime.

"Does it really work?" I think is a great and essential question, and for many of these items in the list, the answer has to be yes for someone in some context. Maybe the question is when do they work, and will they work for me?

“So convenient a thing to be a reasonable creature, since it enables one to find or make a reason for every thing one has a mind to do.” - Ben Franklin

Similarly, people have been writing about thinking for a looong time, so rather than jumping from framework to framework it’s good to read a few old books and see what the authors agree on.

I’m not an expert on what those agreements are, but off the top of my head:

-be more prepared than your competitor -master principles and you can select your methods -don’t have rigid tactics, things always change so adapt accordingly. -chain is as strong as its weakest link - etc

I think it is fair to accept the fact that we do _not_ have the full privileges of the system, and sometimes what we want to do gets overridden by other primal behaviors.

https://www.ted.com/talks/dan_ariely_how_to_change_your_beha...

I don't read too deeply into stuff like this..maybe that is talked about in one of these ideas that I haven't finished reading.

Except, maybe, that people change mental models more frequently than they change underwear.