Often, the best approach is not A or B, but an alternation of A and B.
For example, action and reflection. Or study and application.
It’s not about balance, but about making hypotheses and verifying them.
Thread (1/N)
For example, the human cortex 🧠 is based on the principle of *alternating* two operations: expansion and compression of information.
Only one operation would not be able to achieve any meaningful result.
Instead,
3/ Instead, the cortex alternates these two steps:
- It expands information across all possible hypotheses, relevant or irrelevant.
- It compresses information, by eliminating the hypotheses that are proved wrong by sensorial stimuli and/or experience.
This “brainstorm” is 💯
4/ In appearance, it is a very inefficient process.
It zigs & zags instead of taking a straight route.
It creates data points that that have a high chance of being discarded.
And yet, the human brain is the most efficient computing device we know of.
All thanks to alternation.
5/ (More details on the process in my paper “Techniques for the emergence of meaning in ML” on Luca-Dellanna.com
6/ In general, I’m under the impression that people and companies plateau in their development when they stop alternating.
7/ This is not only about action and reflection, but often about many alternative processes of similar effectiveness.
Alternation is a great way to create tentative data points and validate or invalidate them.
Short-term inefficient, long-term effective.
8/ As another example issued out of neurology, our cortex is not divided in one big area for thought and one big area for action.
Rather, every point in its surface performs both operations related to thought and action (In referring to L2/3 & L5, for those who know).
This…
9/ …This is another form of alternation: it provides a much faster feedback from thought to action back to though (fast feedback loops are effectively alternation)
10/ In sum:
- development is limited by feedback loops.
- alternation is a great way to get fast feedback loops.
11/ Learning is iteration.
• • •
Missing some Tweet in this thread? You can try to
force a refresh
Nothing about graduation rates (literacy rates, yes).
Instead:
– Knowing what matters for society to work well
– Being able to find a value-adding role in society
– Having learned that personal improvement is achievable
Things such as:
– What brings prosperity?
– What did countries that were wealthy and democratic do (or didn't do) that caused them to become poor or totalitarian
Seems banal, but…
2/6
…we only discuss how good it's to be prosperous or democratic without discussing how to get there or how not to fall back to the default state (poverty / absence of rights)
3/6
A problem of many organizations is that they are aware of the needs of employees (impact, recognition, growth, fair salary, etc) but fulfill them as they would with a checklist: let's do this superficially, checked, done.
Some examples (& solutions) ↓
1/8
Example #1: recognition.
Many companies and managers know that employees want recognition.
But they fulfill this need in a very superficial way. With a small internal award, a certificate, etc. Top red flag: it's HR-driven and/or feels cringe.
2/8
The alternative:
– make it personal: it should come from the boss or the boss' boss.
– make it congruent: a moment of recognition followed by a year of no recognition feels (and likely is) fake.
3/8
Whenever we desire an outcome but not the actions that would make us achieve it, we end up with inaction, busywork, shortcuts, excuses, and, ultimately, frustration.
(a thread of highlights from the first chapter of my book "The Control Heuristic")
1/14
You probably do not have a decision-making problem, but an action-taking one
2/14
Decision-making is not the same as action-taking.
The cortex is mostly responsible for taking decisions, and the ~basal ganglia determines whether we act on our decisions.
The recent wealth tax increase in Norway was expected to bring an additional $146M in yearly tax revenue
Instead, an estimated $54B-worth of ultra-rich left the country, leading to a lost $594M in yearly wealth tax revenue
A net decrease of $448M+
(sources and calculations ↓)
The Guardian estimates the wealth of the relocated millionaires at 600B NOK, or $54B. That would have been taxed at 1.1%, which means $594M in wealth tax lost
Norway raised NOK 16.1B = $1.46B in wealth taxes in 2019 (page 3 of the PDF below); increasing the wealth tax from 1% to… twitter.com/i/web/status/1…
Plenty of replies who seem to think that leaving the country to keep one’s money is greed, but implementing a wealth tax to get someone else’s money isn’t