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1/ A Thread on the importance of context, modernism vs. postmodernism, and how to be a genius.
2/ Two of my favorite quotes from the last few years are
3/ 1. “All thinkers are regional thinkers” via @TylerCowen
4/ 2. “All heuristics are [context] dependent” via @AriDavidPaul
5/ They both get at an idea similar to @Meaningness talks about (meaningness.com) - it is possible for their to be meaning with there being One True Meaning.
6/ Likewise, it is possible for there to be laws or heuristics without them being universal.
7/ One of the big philosophical splits of the 20th century was a dichotomy between modernist thought (there are laws which we can discover that are universal) and postmodernist thought (there are no laws and it’s all bullshit).
8/ But these two suggest a more nuanced view - there are laws, heuristics, and rules but they are context or regionally dependent.
9/ A personal example: it's become very clear to me over the past few years is the extent to which the 2008 global financial crisis is a part of my "region" of thinking.
10/ I can trace almost all of my professional interests and work back to it including an interest in Taleb’s work on uncertainty and general distrust of traditional institutions (Bitcoin).
11/ This means the way I see the world and think about it is successful in some contexts but not in others.
12/ I think this pairs nicely with @IamAdamRobinson’s line that "Geniuses have very limited toolsets -- they have a hammer, and their genius is in looking for nails.”
13/ Another way of saying this is that geniuses are only geniuses *within certain contexts* and that you need to understand the context where your genius is effective.
14/ While it’s possible to be good at many things, it’s very very rare to be great at more than one thing.
15/ Great CEOs are rarely great investors and great investors are rarely great CEOs. They operate in different contexts.
16/ Even investors tend to have a context or regime in which they thrive. Great short sellers are rarely great long-only investors and vice versa.
17/ Investors that did well in falling interest rate environments over the last few decades may not do well in a rising interest rate environment.
18/ So, I think it’s very important to be aware of the context you are operating in and contexts where you have been successful in the past.
19/ What contexts feel natural and easy to navigate to you but seem unnatural and hard to navigate to others?
